National Trust Passports - documented :)

A couple of pages to share that I made a couple of weeks ago.  The first one is from a pile of square photos I got printed at Sticky 9 which I am slowly making my way through.

 

Using my 1st Like For Ever kit I came up with this.  I enjoyed the stitching and need to some more of that.  Also used up some old brads and stars on this one.  This captures the moment Alex got her last stamp in her NT passport meaning she had visited 30 different properties!

Josh was a few stamps behind as he was a late starter lol!  But eventually on my birthday last year he visited his 30th property too.  So after I'd scrapped Alex I felt it only fair to do one for him although I had no pic of him holding his passport.  I did however have a series of photos I'd taken trying to get just one good one of the two of them (it's so hard these days!!).  I used a sketch from the Sketchy Scrappers challenge group...

And a Like For Ever kit...

And if you're not sure what the hell I'm talking about here are the passports - old and new...

And several stamps inside...

I think the next 30 are going to be more challenging to find as we have exhausted most of the ones within an hour of here and my parents!

Hello... Is anyone still there?

IOh my poor little blog how I've neglected you but life has been full on thee past few weeks.

Week days have been full of work which has been very challenging with every member on my team bar one giving me some sort of issue. The evenings have been full of commitments - some fun and some rewarding - and I'm desperately trying to fit regular excercising into both my week and weekend which has had some success. (I'm loving Map my walk and enjoying a new form of excercising with Barre Tone). 

In between all that there is the usual running around after offspring for lifts, revision reminders, testing on aforementioned revision and shopping for new clothes and shoes (when is it they stop growing?) plus a little downtime with TV viewing (Gogglebox is a new family favourite round here) and game playing (we rediscovered Yahtzee last week!). Tony and I have been busy in the garden which is looking very green and lush and I even managed a bit of scrapping (actually quite a lot for my rate on NSD). So let me share some of those pages now completed for the Like For Ever challenges...

Using up multiples of one item in your stash - those butterflies have been on my desk for a few years now!

A bingo challenge.  My line was stamping, yellow and staples,  This one is based on a Stuck! sketch...

This last one was inspired by script lettering and is a scraplift from one of Inkie Quill's layouts where she used the left over packaging from her hearts.  It was nice to scrap 6 x 12 for a change and I think I'll do a few more...

Back later this week (I hope!) with a few more.

February Project Life

 I woke up early this morning and realised Inkie Quill was doing a scrap stream so logged and watched while I ate breakfast and then felt inspired to catch up on my February pocket pages (seeing as everyone else was still asleep!)

Feb was quite a quiet month and I didn't take too  many photos so it's just a two side spread.  Again I've used my Gossamer Blue kit which came with some really lovely Fancy pants puffy dots, hearts and stars plus I printed and cut up the free printables to add...

So now I've lost my morning to crafting (not a bad thing obviously!) I need to crack on with the main plan for the day to sort and clear Josh's room ready for decorating and move him into the spare room. Wish me luck!

Spike

The Smitten Kit from Like For Ever included a pack of die cuts with a cute little hedgehog.  I looked at him for ages and then realised I could scrap the story of Spike - Alex's cuddly, furry friend.

I picked a sketch from Page Maps...

Added a tiny gold word sticker and some enamel dots from my stash and came up with this...

The journalling has been added to a tag which is in a pocket on the back of the page.  It tells the story of how Spike was a hand me down toy from Alex's cousin but is now a very well travelled hedgehog, having been on nearly every holiday with her since she got him in about 2004 (she drew the line at India - to be honest she couldn't fit anything else in the rucksack!)

Project Life - and we're off!

This year I decided to do a pocket page album.  It's not quote traditional project life as I knew I wouldn't keep up with a spread for every week but I thought I could do a few pages for each month - no specific amount, just however many I could fill up.  Sometimes life is busy & all go and other times not a lot is happening.  I also wanted to capture some of the smaller details as well as the things I'm doing to celebrate my 50th birthday as I knew I couldn't make a 12x12 page for every single thing!

So with this in mind I watched videos. read blogs and subscribed to the Gossamer Blue Life Pages Kit.  These things combined have given me a system I think will work for me...

When I've done pocket pages before I have printed and made the cards as I've gone along.  I now realise this is not an efficient method and explains why it's taken me so long to complete pages in the past!

This time I've done it in stages.  First I printed off all the photos I wanted to use and chose the style of page protector.  This was made easy using my Canon Selphy that I got for Christmas and I can now print straight from my iPhone...

The next evening I picked out all the cards to go in the pockets either as a base for the photo or on their own.

This side I left fairly minimal when it came to adding embellishments as the photos speak for themselves...

The final stage was the fun bit - adding the journalling and the embellishments.  This again was easier as I stuck mostly to the kit only adding a few wood veneers and enamel dots from my stash.  By sticking to a limited number of alphas and embellies I put the cards together really quickly.  Watching Inkie Quill's Grab 5 videos gave me this inspiration :)

The end result is four pages for January that I am really pleased with.  Now it's time to crack on with February!

Memorandum Monday

A Good morning all you Memorandum Mondayers... how was your weekend?

It's been a busy and a quiet week all at the same time here as I was off on holiday.  Some days we packed lots in and I ticked loads of jobs off my list.  Other days were spent in the slow lane, chilling out and catching my breath.  So what about the weekend?

On Sunday Alex and I made an apricot tart for the first time.  It was a combined effort with me on pastry and Alex on frangipan...

And yes, it tasted delicious!

I also learnt that we can fit a skip and my car on the drive! (It's only a small one mind)  We have a mini-project to keep Tony occupied this week to clear away the bark from the area where we used to have the kids trampoline along with a couple of feet of clay too!  Then we can decide what to do with it.  Any garden designers out there with some ideas?

I'm linking up with Sian today along with lots of other Memorandum Monday people so head on over and take a look.

I'm also featured on the Like For Ever blog this Monday with a little insight into what makes me tick and why I love scrapbooking so if you'd like to read about that then click here.

Have a good week all!

Like for ever kit pages

Time to quickly share a couple of pages I made with the Like For Ever January kit - Twenty sixteen...

I actually made both of these without a sketch which is unusual for me! I added kraft card stock to this one to pick up the Kraft in the tags that came in the kit plus I used the tissue paper again ( which the kit came in) for layering. I love this snapshot of my Dad and I on his 85th birthday...

 

This next one is a favourite photo of Josh when we went on a boat ride in Greece. I added a little camera and the small numbers from my stats hand got the idea for sewing around the triangles on my machine from Mercy Tiara...

I have a couple more pages to share so back soon!

Memorandum Monday

The Well it feels like Monday here due to the bank holiday so forgive me for posting on a Tuesday!

This weekend I ticked another thing off my sixteen things to do in 2016 and took my parents and Alex to "Downton Abbey". We had a good look round, got soaking wet in the typical English bank holiday weather and enjoyed a champagne afternoon tea. Definitely a first!

At this point we'd left my mum and dad in the warm and got soaking wet walking around the grounds. We realised we were walking up the same path as Lord Grantham and his dog in the credits so to cheer us up in the rain I got the theme music up on YouTube and Alex and I recreated the scene to music! The couple nearby thought we were slightly mad!!!

The rest of the weekend was full of family, relaxing, good food and playing Rummikub. 

And I learnt a few things about how to approach my PL album this year (having spent a lot of the weekend watching you tube!!) so I'm going to try a new approach of printing photos first and sorting them into pockets rather than work it out as I go along. I've already got January sorted!  Updates to follow...

What have you learnt or done for the first time this weekend? Do tell!

Memorandum Monday

I'm 

Joining in with Sian's meme to share my weekend.

So on Friday I went to my first Rugby League match to watch our local team Warrington Wolves v. Castleford Tigers.  The atmosphere was great and it was made even more enjoyable by the fact we smashed it winning 56-12!

Wolfie was very entertaining.  He kept copying the player who was attempting the conversion kick  including all the little idiosyncrasies of the preparation!

We took Alex and her friend who have been a few times before and Josh for his first time.  He wasn't very impressed though!

And I also learnt this weekend that lightening can strike twice as Tony is back in the land of the unemployed.  Having only been in the role 5 months he doesn't get a redundancy package so it's back to job searching again.  At least I'll get a few jobs done around the house while he's off!

Last few retreat pages...

Here are the rest of the pages I made on my weekend away.  First up a double page using some old Basic Grey which documents our "Beatles" day last summer holidays...

The next few were made with my Like For Ever kits.  First up was a blatant scrap lift of one of the other kit subscribers, Wendy Maffan, but it was late on Sunday by this point and I had no creative brain cells left!

This was a Pagemaps sketch and the photos are Alex's last day at high school.  They started a tradition a few years back of all dressing up on the last day to discourage all the egg and flour fights! It seems to have worked and everyone congregates in the sports hall for photos after assembly.  I love these pictures of her and her close friends...

The final one is from February's kit and the paper was a perfect match for my Mum's dress!  I used another Page Maps sketch for this one added a doily from my stash plus some washi tape from Lesley and some die cuts from Gemma which were both presents at the retreat...

I've been busy scrapping again this weekend so more to share soon!  Thanks for stopping by and leaving me a comment - I do love to read them :)

More pages from my retreat...

Whilst away on my retreat at Dukes Farm I caught up on a couple of Sketchy Scrappers challenges using these sketches...

Firstly "Prom Prep" using the Twenty Sixteen Like For Ever kit.  I'd been saving my kits up and had a great time breaking into each one to make my pages!  I added a few embellies from my stash (including the banner which hangs much better in real life!) and some lovely die cuts from Gemma that were a gift that weekend plus a PL card she gave me :)

Next up was this sketch which I found a bit daunting at first but then found a couple of photos in my (ever growing) pile that I wanted to put together and the rest was easy...

I used the same kit, even the tissue paper that wrapped it to mat the photos, and added a flair badge and another crate paper banner from my stash. I also tried the Inkie Quill packaging technique for the first time on this page which came out quite well.  If you're not sure what that is then you can check out this video for the details...

 

The journaling reads... So proud; of your dedication to Scouting & Girlguiding; of you both being young volunteers; of the awards you have achieved...

Still a couple of pages left to share from the weekend and plenty more kit to use up yet!

Dukes Farm and Shimelle's Online Scrapbooking Weekend challenge layouts

Last weekend I went on my annual jaunt to meet up with some other ladies (and a few husbands) to scrap away all weekend in Hereford.

We stayed in a new place, the gorgeous Dukes Farm, which was beautifully equipped and had the most amazing views of the Black Mountains - snow optional!

Whilst I was there Shimelle had her online scrapping weekend so I took inspiration from a couple of the challenges to get some layouts completed.

The first challenge was to take inspiration from one of the recent weekly challenges on the blog so I went with hearts.  Using my February Like For Ever kit I came up with this...

Another challenge was to dust off the colour blocking technique and out a page together.  I used some of the LFE kit and even added in a bit of Basic Grey (for old times sake)...

Sadly the weekend was over all too quick and a busy week has meant no more time to play along with any more of the challenges.  I'll be back soon to share the rest of my pages from the weekend with you.

Memorandum Monday

Well I seem to have neglected my little blog so here is a quick post. For a quick post is better than no post at all!  

Something I did for the first time at the weekend was play Fluxx. An interesting card game...one with constantly changing rules and goal posts... One that the kids loved and the hubby didn't... One that I will definitely play again!

And something new I learnt was that my daughter does not know how to change a lightbulb!  We then realised it's less than 18 months until she heads off to University and so we cobbled a short (but ever growing) list of things to teach her before she heads off. And then we joked about a blog series...or a blog in its own right... About this whole uni journey.  The course selection, the personal statement, the open day research.... We are currently debating if it would be worth writing it. I think it would. What do you think?

I'm joining in to share my memorandum Monday with Sian. Do stop by!

My reading habits

A while back I read a post on Sian's blog about her reading habits and I've had it in my mind for a while to answer the same questions.  I have always been a big reader but the last year I think I managed a disappointing total of two books!  That is shocking and I so want to get back into it and enjoy getting lost in the fantasy world between the covers or delve into someone else's life via a good biography. We've recently set up a book club too so I've got a commitment to read a book by a certain date which has made me pull my socks up!

So here are the same set of questions with my own thoughts...

Do you have a certain place at home to read?
Generally I read in bed of an evening.  It's time to wind down, no interruptions and my pile of books are piled right next to my bed.  I have also been known to read in the garden on a summers day and sit in the conservatory in the spring-time with the doors open at the weekend if I have a quiet moment (ha! what's one of those?).  

A bookmark or a random piece of paper?
Always a bookmark! I used to have one from Austria that my Grandma gave me but I had to retire it as it started to fall apart.  It's now stored away safely for sentimental reasons.  I have a lace one from Brugge, given to me by my mum, a bead and elastic one from a craft market in Belfast and a Mr Bump magnet "borrowed" from Josh.  I generally have a few books on the go (see further down) so they all get used!

Can you stop reading or do you have to stop after a chapter or number of pages?
Without fail I HAVE to stop at the end of a chapter every time.  I get a bit twitchy if I'm reading while waiting for an appointment or to pick up A or J and find I have to stop part way through.  As soon as I'm home I have to get to the end of the chapter so I can put the book to one side.  Maybe it's because I think the author has spent a lot of time planning the book so that the chapter ends are perfectly placed or maybe it's the OCD in me!

Do you eat or drink while reading?
I usually have a cup of tea while in bed reading.  In the garden I've been known to have a glass of wine or a nice cold beer!  Generally I don't eat a meal while I'm reading but I might snack on something sweet or savoury.

Do you watch TV or listen to music while reading?
I couldn't concentrate if I did that!  I like relative quiet while reading although a little background music while in the garden, filtering out from the kitchen window has been known!  

One book at a time or several at once?
I used to be a one book at a time girl.  But in recent years my reading habits have broadened to read more educational books and so I will usually ave one of those on the go.  Plus I have also recently started subscribing to "audible" in order to listen to a book in my car when I do a long drive or if I want to listen late at night when hubby has gone to bed early (he works away and gets up at some ungodly hour when he has to set off for work!).  The two I have listened to so far have both been read by excellent actors and really brought the books to life.  Currently I am listening to "Head over Heel", reading Danny Baker's "Going to sea in a sieve" and re- reading "The five love languages of teenagers".  So that's a fiction, fact and self-help book on the go all at once.

Reading at home or everywhere?
I always have a book in my bag.  Usually the educational one so I can dip in and out of it but sometimes a good story.  I also have the audible app on my phone so can listen in my car anytime.  I love to read on holiday; around the pool, on the beach and on the balcony and especially on the plane to make the flight go quick.

Reading aloud or silently in your head?
In my head!  I think people would lock me up if I started reading out loud!

Do you ever read ahead or skip pages?
No!  If I'm inclined to skip pages then that tells me the book is not for me and it's time to call it a day.  That's only happened a couple of times.  And I don't read ahead - that would just spoil a good story.

Do you ever write in books?
Puzzle books maybe but never a reading book.  I do have the Scribble Diary that I write in every so often and capture a random day. But writing in a book? That would be so wrong.  The only time that has been allowed in this house is when annotations have been added to GCSE Literature books!  

So what are your reading habits?  I'd love to know and read about them.  Just tag me in your post and I'll come and have a look :)
  

The Angel of the North

This is the final page for my Northumbria album.  I came across this old Sarah's Cards page kit (now Hey Little Magpie) from the days when I used to go to their monthly crops.  I was having a good sort out of my stash over Christmas while I was off and re-organised my papers.

I decided to use this kit up, even thought the style is not really me anymore and is a little dated.  The colours went with my photo of the Angel and it was great to just follow a set of instructions and get this scrapped.

    

I added my own prima flower as one of my furry friends ran off with the small cream one I had left on my desk!  But at least that's more old stash used up :)

It feels so good to finally have one album completed.  I don't have many albums for one event or holiday but we packed a lot in this week so it just evolved that way.  Most of my albums are just the year and I file my pages chronologically (but I definitely don't scrap that way!).  I just need to crack on with the other 15 or so I have on the go now!!!

16 memories to make in 2016

I've followed Becky's blog for a while now and the other day she happened to share a list of 15 things she is going to do to celebrate her 50th birthday this year.

After a quick exchange of comments we found out that our birthdays are only a few days apart as I too am celebrating my 50th in June.  I already had a few things rattling around my brain of how to mark the occasion but Becky's post has inspired me to get them into print and make them happen!

So without further ado, here are my plans...

1. A family meal down south with my parents, brother, neice and nephews (not easy to organise when I live up north!)
2. Afternoon tea with friends at the Richmond Tea Rooms, Manchester
3. A weekend in Krakow with the girls
4. Climb at least two more Wainwrights (A cottage in the Lakes is already booked for May half term)
5. A meal out with "the gang" at the Rope and Anchor in the beautiful outdoor barn

6. Outdoor concert and picnic at Delamere Forest (Already booked for the Sunday after my birthday, Kaiser Chiefs here we come!)
7. Afternoon tea at "Downton Abbey" with Alex and my parents (booked for Easter)
8. A gorge walk
9. Climb Rivington Pike

10. A weekend away with Tony at The Manor Haus, Llangollen

11. Celebrate with my crafty friends at our retreat in March

12. Go to the classical concert at Tatton Park

13. Complete the Duke of Edinburgh Diamond Challenge

14. Visit the Shard with Tony, Alex and Josh

15. Go to a drumming workshop

16. Visit Oxford Universty

The last one is a long time desire of mine.  I have been a Morse, Lewis and now an Endeavour fan since watching it as a young girl with my mum.  I was born about 30 miles from Oxford so know it well but the colleges seen in the TV series are not open to the public...except for University open days.  Cue one 17 year old looking to study Chemistry at Uni, an open day the week of my birthday and free b&b accommodation just up the road at my parents' house and it would be rude not to go and take a look!  Alex also loves to watch Lewis and Endeavour with me now so we can indulge ourselves for the day and you never know, she might even get a place - it's worth a shot!

I should add that this list is not exhaustive!  I am in the frame of mind these days to say yes to the opening of an envelope so there may yet be some more things to add to the list.  This year is all about making memories and one things for sure a lot of them will be made with these gorgeous girls...we've been through so much together and have become so close.

My  plan is to do more pocket pages this year to capture the fun and I will include them in one album along with my 12x12 pages.  My Gossamer Blue Life Pages kit is just the thing to help with that!

I am actually really looking forward to turning 50; I have so much to be grateful for and growing old is a privilege denied to many so I'm making the most of it.  I'll update you on my list through the year but for now I say bring it on!

Thanks again to Becky for the encouragement to share this post.  Go and take a look at her blog - it's full of lovely scrapbook pages and inspiration.