Good Neighbours

Isn't it great to have good neighbours?
Yesterday morning Eric and Janet from across the road came over and helped me clear the front garden, it was full of weeds and the buddleia had taken over the window and made it so dark in my lounge. Granted I could cut it back and had started to do so but how do I get rid of the debris? It would take so long to cut it all up into small enough bits to bag it for the garden waste collection and besides the green bags are just not strong enough to avoid being split.
I had just started snipping it when Tony my immediate neighbour came out with his chomper I didn't even know he had one. What a difference it made and didn't I have fun putting all the branches through it.

Well being a avid scrapbooker I took photos of course and I had to produce a layout the same day not one but two in fact.

both of these pages doubled up as entries for the weekly challenge on UK Scrappers. The Indecisive team set it this week and as their name suggest they can never make up their mind so always go for more than one idea.
The criteria for this one is:-

Symmetrical Design

Make your own embellishments

Must include any style of sewing, fake, machine or hand

Use a font you have not used before for the title

Criteria for this one is:-

Monochrome theme

style: Montage (minimum 3 photos)

Technique: Must include a stamped image on the

Journalling: Either around the edge of the LO or around the montage

there is a third challenge and I may still do that one as well but it is not so easily done and I have to think about it.

Well it is nearly 8 O'clock and I am still sitting her not wash and dressed and not even had any breakfast think I had better get off the computer and go do something useful instead

Two Layouts different styles

On Friday I did a layout with paper and elements woo hoo not a very usual occurrence and even when I do the odd one I am not usually very pleased with it, but this one I do like

this was done for a class at a crop so not my own design but I am pleased with the way it came together.

And today I have gone back to my digital scrapping, using part of the kit from the last post.

Freebie

Hi Folks
It seems quite a time since I posted a freebie here so I thought I would share this one that I have made to use for Learn Something New Every Day. As this class is run over the whole of September I have called the kit Autumn

FAVOURITES

Good morning, I thought I would start my blog today with my favourite breakfast, not the usual full English or American type breakfast, not even cereal or a boiled egg; no for me, my favourite is Crumpets, one with mushrooms cooked in butter the other with a sharp marmalade, yummy, and all this washed down with a strong cup of coffee.

I always have a dictionary near to hand, for even though the computer will tell me when I have spelt a word wrong it doesn't give me the definition and I love to find out where words come from and their true meaning

Isn't our English language crazy and very amusing at times.

This morning I am thankful for food I love
and a good book to read, well the dictionary is a great book with lots of things to amuse

Learn Something New

I have found a Paperchase black page album that I hadn't used so have decided that will be perfect for this project. So now that I know the size I have done the cover page, so I will be all set ready to start on Wednesday.


Think I may well make up a kit to use but I will see how it goes when we start.

Learn Something New Every Day

Woo Hoo I won a prize from the Summer CC of Shimelle's and the prize was a place on this month long class for myself and a friend, and the friend that is joining me in this is Jemma aka JimJams.
Last year I did one of Shimelle's classes Journal your Christmas and had a separate blog for it, which I will probably use again this December but I have decided to go with my ordinary blog for this one and to do a digital page each day to print out and put in an album. Still to work out how I want to do it and what size but that can wait for another day. just wanted to get the heading on here so that I don't have to go searching for it each time.

Perfect Scrapping Weather

It is cold wet and windy outside but perfect scrapping weather. Brought my laptop back into the lounge so I can scrap in comfort, and watch TV at the same time if I want to.
I have had some photos sitting on a page for a couple of months and just could not make them work right until I saw a digital layout that really inspired me. Isn't it great that we can be inspired by others works and it is perfectly acceptable to scraplift, in fact it is an honour if someone does scraplift your work so I say thank you to Linda for the inspiration her layout gave me.



On Monday I was at our local crop and for the first time in months I have done a page with paper and elements that I am really pleased with. This is one for my daughter's wedding album which will eventually go to her but at the moment I am keeping it



I am so fortunate in the haberdashery shop I frequent as they have some really beautiful wide lace and just a small amount is perfect for my pages.

Scrapping Challenge

I can't resist a scrapping challenge especially when it seems almost impossible to do it digitally. This challenge was to take two of your worst papers that you really don't know what to do with and what's more they clash. Not so easy when I make all my own papers but I found two that I made in 2008 when I was throwing paint onto a plain white background and then pushing them around to mix them up a bit, all done on PaintShopPro, so yes still digital.

Here are the two papers

and this is what I made of it, I used the papers sparingly cutting petals and borders from both of them.

Another Cyber Crop

Woo hoo this weekend see another Summer Cyber Crop over at The Studio so of course I have to have a go.
Yesterday we had a precrop challenge, which I have just completed. This was to use a frame for the title. Having taken photos of both my cats, to see what reaction they would have to the mirror, last weekend thought this would be perfect for this challenge.


here is my interpretation of the Becky Fleck sketch challenge

Last day of the Summer Cyber Crop.

SUNDAY 15TH AUGUST 2010

I could so easily have stayed in and scrapped this morning but I made the decision to go to church as usual. I am so glad I did, I have felt God's blessing all day long, and enjoyed worshipping Him in the midst of my brothers and sister in the Lord.

This afternoon I have been scrapping again and managed to do three more layouts today.
first one here is done for today's sketch challenge and I used two of the photographs taken yesterday.


this next one is a quadrant challenge. for this I used a photograph that really I should have discarded as it was such poor quality; taken into the light so that Andy and Ben were not very visible, but with a little photo manipulation, making it sepia, altering the brightness and cropping out the clutter of the room, I have a photo I really like and a layout I am pleased with.


The last one I did today was the first challenge of the day that of stamping. Well for me digi stamping means roughening the image up a bit by putting a patterned transparency over it. For this I googled a cartoon sheep, and removing all barring the outline. I thought he was a cute little feller

More Scrapping With Shimelle

SATURDAY 14TH AUGUST 2010

What a lovely lazy scrappy day, dress all casual, not quite in pjs but the next best thing, sloppy track suit, and scrapped and scrapped and scrapped.

first layout I put up was from last night. The challenge was to journal around


first challenge of the day was to scrap in squares


next one was to scrap using at least some pink. I have been having fun with architecture, taking photos of different buildings, structures, etc that I can turn into alphas so here is my name in architecture.


Sketch challenge next, I love working with sketches.


this last one that I have done is working with letters and numbers this one, for some reason, was so difficult for me to get right, still not too sure I am happy with it but it will have to suffice for now.


in between each scrapping challenge was a photographic one
I'm a great fan of LOLcats as are many of us, so I was pleased to see that the first photo challenge was to find one of our photos and put a caption on it in the style of the cheezburger ones. I found this photo of one of my cats from years ago pre digi Figaro as a kitteh


another challenge to photograph the sky, well we had wall to wall greyness so didn't thing that was going to be possible, but when I went outside to photograph something for the nature challenge the sky was beginning to break up and I got this shot which I rather like


Nature, so much to snap, but I eventually went with this one, taken in my neighbour's garden using zoom lens, the sky looks blue but in reality it was rather grey


next one made me smile, Shimelle says "I have a special fondness of below-the-knee photographs"
my below the knee photo is

Rudi

A summer CC on a bleak wet weekend

FRIDAY 13TH AUGUST 2010

What better way to spend a very wet weekend that doing an Online Crop
I have had plenty of inspiration from the challenges and have also managed to dodge the rain and get some photos
Friday I managed to do these layouts

First challenge was a colour combo one to use Red Aqua and white I wanted to use this photo in its original state ie tattered and torn, so I took a photo of the photo, erasing the background and giving it a shadow to lift it from the page.


Next a simple sketch challenge. I did this with a couple of photos, taken in the rain, of the invasive bindweed


I am now really inspired and enjoying this so much. I don't get any interruptions as there is no one else here. All I have to do is make sure I get up from the computer occasionally and get myself something to eat and drink

Next we have a circle challenge

I haven't done many of Ben so this was my opportunity to rectify that.

The final one for Friday for me was a very simple one using black and white photos, this fitted in perfectly for the first page of a minibook I am doing for my second grandson's 1st year book.


In between each scrapbook challenge there is a photography challenge these must be taken during this weekend
here are a few of my efforts
Close up

Man Made
I thought this was fascinating but I am sure that passers by thought I was crazy