Catch up time

Friday already and I haven't posted anything for over a week.

Friday 8th
Off to Middle-on-sea for a scrapping weekend with a group of ladies who first met on January 1st 2008, we had all agreed to do a challenge journalling everyday for a year and although we no longer do that challenge we have stayed together and become real friends

We stayed in this lovely cottage  and the weather was so nice that we could eat out in the little garden

Saturday 9th
After breakfast we set off to find the pumpkin farm, unfortunately we couldn't see the farm because the pumpkins were not grown in the place we had heard about but they were displayed and sold there.

 back to the cottage for lunch and then 4 of us decided to go for a walk along the beach. a beautiful day for it too.

 More scrapping in the afternoon then down to the Beresford for a evening meal. very enjoyable

Sunday 10th
A day for scrapping in our pjs

Over the weekend I managed to do three paper layouts a minibook and a digital layout so very productive



the pumpkin in the middle of the page is/was a broach that I bought from the pumpkin place I just removed the pin.



Monday 11th Time only for a few quick photos and tidying up the cottage before we left to come home.

Specially for my Daughter

This is the layout I did at the all day crop last Saturday. I didn't realise I hadn't shared it here and as my daughter often comes on my blog to see what I have been up to, and this layout is about her eldest son Daniel it has got to be recorded.

Getting lazy with my blogging again.

Goodness gracious me, now that learn something new every day has finished I am getting lazy with my journalling again. I promised myself I wouldn't but......

Today I am going on a scrapbooking retreat with six of our team that started in 2008 with a challenge to take a photo and journal every day for a year, we had prompts which always helps. About 10/12 of us stayed in touch ever since and this will be our third retreat. It is a shame that some couldn't make this one.

I have been scrapping both with paper and glue and digitally all week and so enjoy challenges that I have completed several.
Over last weekend the Green Button house on UKScrappers had a scrapping bonanza with challenges every day.

here hopefully are the ones I haven't already shared.

Scrapdolly's challenge was a sketch one


Jimjams challenge Lean Mean Layout using just one sheet of card stock and one sheet of double sided patterned paper.


PurplyBunny's challenge is to scrap something spooky/halloween and to use material. Well as I don't do spooky or halloween I went for spiders, as so many people are spooked by them. I used to be but cured myself by watching and studying them and they are really very unspooky and very fascinating to watch.


and this one is for the monthly challenge on UKScrappers
Scrap your quirky traits, your idiosyncrasies. And this time scrap in a style that is so NOT you.
I have gone for a digital page again but really so very different from my usual no photos for a start basically journalling but done in a quirky way.


We will probably not have internet connection where we are going this weekend so will have to catch up on Monday.
Have a grand Saturday and Sunday everyone.

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Today I am thankful for a lift to the retreat so I don't have to worry about public transport
the anticipation of a grand weekend with friends
A very good neighbour who will feed my real cats and generally watch over my bungalow

A walk down the back lane

I am amazed that every time I walk down the back lane I see something different to photograph.
Today I noticed that the ground that was dug up earlier in the year, to lay new water and sewage pipes, has been taken over by the wild plants already and is full of abundant life.






And further along the lane I was amazed to see these hops growing among the hawthorn and even the dreaded stinging nettle is fascinating when view really close up


I have shared a lot of photo today and I think that is probably enough for one post but before I close I just want to say Thank you to Father God for his abundant provision in nature, and for the thrill it gives me every time.

52 in 10 and two minibooks

Good morning to each and everyone, or it may be afternoon/evening before you read my blog.
I have done something I don't think I have ever completed before a minibook, not one but two so pleased with myself. Usually I enjoy the construction but hate the decorating and filling of these little books and when I've finished them I just don't know what to do with them. I think this may well go back to remembering all the construction of boats and planes that John used to do, he would so love the actual making of them but then how to display and not get covered in dust, almost impossible to keep clean and took up so much room.
Still I digress here are the two I made both of Rufus's birthday

this first one is all made with just one sheet of double sided pattered paper and one sheet of card stock. Designed by one of my teamies on UKScrappers Jemma aka Jimjams you can find the instructions here








this one was done at a crop/class by Sandie V



My 52in10 pages are a bit erratic at the moment and I have missed quite a few, but at least I have the instructions all printed out and can come back and fill in the gaps as and when I feel so inclined.
I have done the latest page as it fitted so well with my passion for Starbucks Mocha and Cinnamon Swirl. So yesterday I went shopping at ASDA and the 1st Port of Call was of course Starbucks here is my layout for this, which also doubled up as the weekly challenge on UKS

weekly challenge criteria was to scrap in a grid, add circles and use '1' or first somewhere.

Another day of frantic scrapping

We have had another day of frantic scrapping with 6 challenges today, one of them mine I made a digi kit up for people to use and also a sketch, it was really exciting to see the results and to have my kits used
This is the pages I did with it as an example quite simple because I was trying to encourage folk who have never dabbled in digi to give it a go.

I only did one class today and that was a challenge to scrap using 8 or 10 of something to denote October and to use string for the fun of conkers at this time of the year. I chose to do it digitally

I did this one quite differently to usual as I felt the photo on its own was not that important but I wanted to journal about conkers. This is what I wrote (in case you find it difficult to read it off the layout)
Bright shiny brown spheres of tactile loveliness. The conker beckons old and young alike. Placed in a bowl to ward off spiders and make a decorative display, or hung from a string to exhibit hardness in the age old playground game of conker king.
We seldom give thought to the real purpose of reproduction, but for the Horse Chestnut’s sake, thank the Lord, we miss quite a few in our collecting of these beauties
Then as they sink beneath the shed leaves they bury themselves into the soft earth there to lay dormant until the spring when fresh shoot appear a new tree begins it’s life and in years to come will complete the cycle, and give delight to a new generation of young and old alike

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I have enjoyed this weekend of scrapping fun and have many more projects lined up from other classes not yet tackled.

I also have a layout from Saturday morning which is waiting for a title so must get that one done.

A Day of Scrapping

Phew I have had a busy day scrapping, well it started last night actually. The green button house on UKScrappers decided to do a Scrapping Bonanza I managed to do one of the classes and three quarters of the next which I finished this morning.


 

At 10.00am I was all packed up and waiting at the bus stop to catch the bus, which, as it is only 5 mins from my house and stops outside where we were having an all day crop, was the easiest way to get there.
We had two classes one a layout which I have still to find a title for and the other a minibook which I haven't yet manage to finish.
Home again by just gone 5 and immediately logged on to UKS to find what challenges were up.
I have managed to do two of those so now all scrapped out for tonight.





Not a very interesting post for anyone else but I wanted to record it for my benefit. Thank you for your patience if you have read through.

End of September - beginning of real winter weather

September has gone the last of the summer rays have vanished, rain fills the air and all is dark and damp - A good time to sit indoors and create pages of sunnier times, of holidays spent relaxing in the sun or walking where the view is worth seeing. Catching the sunlight on the flowers and listening to the birds singing in the trees.

I've had a month of learning, of observing things either for the first time or reaffirming what I already knew, will this continue? As I said at the beginning of September 'To always been learning is to be alive' yes I am sure it will continue.
  
my last pages are here
29th  I was in the right place at the right time



30th was a day of promise, the misty start, as so often at this time of year, gave way to a sunny day.



and for the back cover I thought of what the month has meant to me and decided that I have enjoyed it and I want to continue to learn new things.


 I have done this back cover very similar to the front cover found here

• Today I realised again just how kind my neighbour is, he not only took me down to ASDA as he was going anyway, but insisted that I phoned him when I had finished and he would come and get me. 

• Labels can say the strangest things.

• Sometimes some thing is too good a bargain not to buy it. I did try not to have a new coat this winter but .................

it has made me good and sort out some of my other coats and jackets and parcel them up for charity.