& the award goes too...

Hello, hello!  Welcome to the bank holiday weekend (or as I like to call it a whole week off work for half term! yay!)

I did this layout for a UKS weekly challenge a few weeks back and realised I had not blogged it. The challenge was...

10 points to use the sketch 

10 points to scrap something you love (doesn't need to be a person) - love of my daughter's achievements and her great taste in friends!
5 points for stitching (machine, hand or faux) - machine stitched in pink yellow and aqua around the edge of the page
5 points for inking - splatters in Mr Huey's gold

And this is what I came up with using a new kit from SJ Crafts (which I loved) plus a few bits from my own stash...

My daughter was one of the few to get two awards at the school's annual awards night which was lovely but even better was that three of her closest friends also won awards and they could all celebrate together.

Loved this kit - it's just the right size for me to scrap a few pages through the month and use it all up. (I think - except this month has been a little fraught and busy).  Definitely one I will buy again :)

One photo & twenty words

Our first night in Cardiff.  Fantastic photographic opportunities outside the Millenium centre with beautiful light plus my three favourite people.

I'm linking up with Abi today from Creating Paper Dreams and joining in with her monthly meme "One photo & twenty words".  Why don't you head on over and join in the fun?

Pool Pals

A quick post today to share a page I made last week with the last full sheet from my Gossamer Blue kit from December 2012.   This was the kit...

and it was so bright and full of bits to embellish :)  Although by the end of it I was craving some pastel colours to work with!  Anyway, I threw my last lot of June photos onto the paper and added some stickers and enamel dots from my own stash plus some stickers from the kit - love the little lady and man!

This was Alex and Josh in the pool at my brother's house in Portugal.  The lucky devil has just moved out there permanently.  Am I jealous?  Of course I am!!

I made a couple of other pocket pages to finish off the month (but not photographed those) and then I thought I'd do a look back on all the pages made with this kit so here they are...

Six 12 x 12 pages, two 6 x 12 and two pocketed pages.  Pretty good going for one kit!

Today was awesome...

Following on from yesterday's post and on to the page I was scrapping at the time from June 2012.  We had such a great time at The Cheshire Show.  It was lovely to have one-on-one time with Josh and to spend a day watching him enjoy himself to the max!  The show is always midweek (Goodness knows why?!) so in 2012 it fell on my rest day and the last day of Josh's half term (Alex had already gone back to high school).

We started off with the archery, followed by a spell in the display ring as Josh was picked out to help herd the ducks, then the motorbike display,he  made a bug house, bought a horseshoe (with his pocket money) for good luck!, climbed the wall on the scout stand, played mini golf, threw sponges at a fireman to dunk him, went on the trampolines, the list was endless!!!  And all on a relatively sunny, summers day.

It was a really fun day out and one I will always remember as all too soon he was heading off to high school, teenage years and hormones!

Anyway, enough rambling.the page was for a sketch challenge from Sketchy Scrappers from the lovely Alison using this sketch;

And this is the page I put together;

Added some bit from my own stash; black sequins, wood veneer stars anda  geotag, ink splatters and flair badges.

Have you been enjoying some bank holiday scrapping?  I'll be round to take a look this week :)

The Cheshire Show

Hello to you and hope you are enjoying the long bank holiday weekend.  We have had the week off too and have had a lovely trip away to Cardiff (and The Dr Who Exhibition) and my parents.  The last two days have been glorious here in the North West so it was out into the garden for a good spring tidy up.

So that brings me to today when I felt I'd done enough to earn myself a little scrapping time!  I have made a layout which I will share soon but it reminded me that I hadn't shared this one , which will sit opposite it in my 2012 album.

This was for a UKS weekly challenge a couple of weeks ago and I used some red, white and blue papers to go with the jubilee theme that was everywhere at the Cheshire Show in 2012.  I had never visited before as it is always (bizarrely) mid-week in June.  But this year it fell on my day off and an inset day for Joshua so we had a fabulous day out!

Must dash - still some scrapping time left before our roast lamb and then we are all out to the cinema to see Spiderman!

Zip it!

Ali set a lovely challenge last week on UKS to focus on ourselves.  I had a photo on my desk waiting to be scrapped from 2012 (I'm up to June so getting there...slowly!) and it fitted the bill perfectly.

So the challenge was;

Theme - Featuring yourself or someone close to you 5 points
Using numbers, but not as a bullet point - 5 points
Using visible journalling - 10 points 
Using photographs of yourself & other events 10 points

I had such an amazing experience doing my zip wire challenge that I had to document it;

Some of the numbers I wrote about;

• 260 meter zip wire
• Travelling at up to 25 mph
• £709 raised for the BSSA
• 150 girls and leaders from Girlguiding UK too part
• 1/2 million people in UK affected by Sjogrens
• 9/10 sufferers are women

I used a Gossamer Blue kit (giving the last few Sarah's ones a rest while I use up my Gossamer ones now!) and added some random stitching.

And if you have not seen it before (please allow me to indulge myself if you have!) here is good old me on the zip wire....

Join me for a mug of something...or a glass...

Hi.  Hello.  How are you?  I feel so bad I have not seen you for so long and have not been on your blog either but things have been a bit manic round here.  But I have caught up (ish), Spring is sprung and so I am glad we can sit down, share a drink together and catch up.

If we were getting together in real life I would take you to the local farm shop where I have discovered they have added a tea room.  We could have a peruse of the yummy bottle and jars on the shelves and then sit down for a brew, a piece of cake (Bakewell tart for me please) or even a bottle of organic beer!  It gets me talking about how I have found baking again and made my own shortbread last week and have plans for a cake with Amaretti biscuits and raspberries.

I would ask you what plans you have for the coming light evening and the Easter holidays?  Are you going anywhere or visiting anyone?  We have a couple of nights booked in Cardiff as the Whovian in the family was promised a trip to the Dr Who Experience for her birthday treat.  We will then head on to my parents' for a couple of nights for home cooking and relative visiting. What's your plan for Easter you ask?  To be back home and hopefully out tidying the garden if the weather will allow.  I've only managed to plant some tubs so far.  And maybe a ramble as Alex needs to get into training for her Duke of Edinburgh expedition coming up.  I also whisper that I have joined a gym and hope to get some more exercise built into my week.  More?  I mean any!

We would no doubt move onto a discussion of crafting activities and I would share with you what a fabulous weekend I had this month in a Herefordshire barn where I scrapped, and ate, drank tea, supped wine, munched cake and laughed until I cried.  A weekend that was good for the soul. I made 7 layouts in total and have shared them all on here - thank you for your comments if you have left some.  I really love to read them.  I would tell you of my plans to decorate a journal/diary but they are only plans as the book is taking a long time to arrive!  Hopefully I will have something to show you next time.

I ask after your family and let you know that mine are all fine. Tony and I celebrated our "20 years since we got together anniversary" yesterday and as always he is my rock.  Alex is revising hard for her mock GCSEs and Josh continues to be obsessed by screens and gaming.  But he did manage a whole weekend away from them this month at Scout camp.

Tunisia - 1997

Before I know it there are just crumbs remaining on our plates and no more tea in the pot.  It's time to head off and get back to running errands, cooking tea for the family and preparing for work tomorrow.  At least it's only one day until the weekend!

I am linking up with Abi from Creating Paper Dream for her monthly meme. Please leave a comment below and let me know what you would share over a cup of tea and head on over to Abi's to share your own post.