Nature's Calendar - Extraordinary Seed Pod

these extraordinary seed pods are hanging from one of the trees in the tree reserve at Coate Water, again no plaque to say what it is though. Such a shame as I would love to know.

A Week of Sound

Wednesday

Purr Purr

Nature's Calendar - ?

I thought I knew what this tree was, but I got it all wrong. It is such a shame that none of the trees in the tree reserve at Coate Water seem to have a name plaque. This one was laden with these blooms

A Week of Sound - Onomatopoeia

Tuesday

Schlopple popple schloople popple

When I asked for a word that water boiling in a kettle makes this is what my friend came up - I love it

btw this was such a hard photo to take as the lens just kept steaming up

Nature's Calendar - Lavendar

A Week of Sound

Monday

SIZZLE

Nature's Calendar - Honeysuckle

Just a few Layouts

Time to put the few layouts, done this month, on my blog.

This first one is using part of my Counterfeit Kit for June. The patterned paper is a double sided one and I only showed one side when I uploaded the kit.
As I like to see what the journalling says on other people's layouts I thought you might like to see what I have put, so here it is :-
While walking through Queen’s park, Rufus suddenly crouched down and started to tend to this plant. He carefully gathered earth around it and sprinkled some in the middle to make sure it had plenty to grow in. It was so sweet to see. I think he has been watching Daddy do some gardening at home and decided he would like to be a gardener too. Is this his career sorted?


this one is to go in My Little Treasures album. the bicycle was given to me as a joke because my real one broke down on me the other day and I had to walk home with it in the pouring rain


they are the only two pages done with paper and elements the others here are all digital. (I seemed to have lost my inspiration for doing 'In real life')





that's all for now folks

Nature's Calendar - Centre of a daisy

I love the way the florets seem to go in a pattern

Nature's Calendar - Blackbird singing

This blackbird was singing his heart out and didn't move at all even though I got quite close to him.

He was posing for me, well I like to think so anyway

10 on the 10th Boiled Egg for Breakfast

Here is my 10 on the 10th (well it was only 8 so I've added my cup of coffee to make up the number lol :D)
When I was a wee lass back in the dark ages, when ever I had a boiled egg there was a ritual to be performed. I don't know who started it, probably one of my grandparents.

Whatever the reason for the ritual it was such great fun smashing the shell till it was unusable, and even now 'tis still something to be done. I think I am now in my second childhood.
Now to make it up to 10 this is what accompanied my boiled egg this morning

A cup of real coffee in my nice glass coffee mug I love the shape of this one even though the handle is in such an awkward place.

If you want to see more 10s on the 10th head over to Shimelle's blog

De-cluttering continues

Good morning bloggers, my de-cluttering is coming along nicely though it is going to take a long long while to complete as I am a member of HA (hoarders Anonymous)
I started well as you remember (if you read my last de-clutter entry that is)
Since then I have done quite a bit more but it is still in the kitchen.
4th June
Oops these two cupboards were full of provisions that dated back to when Noah was a boy but I forgot to take a before photo. Still as you see they are now neat and tidy and I have left the top shelf free, saves having to use steps every time I need something from that shelf. I will put things there that I use on rare occasions

6th June
My work surfaces tend to get loaded with tins and jar of items I use very frequently, but none the less some do not need to be there and as my larder and cupboards are now clutter free these can go away leaving me a nice clear surface to work on

8th June
Baking tins. I so seldom do any baking now, being on my own it isn't worth it. so a cull of these items was very very long overdue. Again I forgot to take a before photo

Here are all the clutter/un-needed items that will go to the Jeremiah sale at church. As you can see there are quite a few baking items that came out of that small cupboard. (goodness knows how I got them all in there)

So the work continues. Hopefully by the end of this week the kitchen will be clutter free completely but for now it is a pleasure to use

Nature's Calendar - the Crow who came avisiting

He was walking around the street, don't think he could have found anything to eat though, not in the front gardens anyway

Nature's Calendar - Urtica Dioica

don't get too close it will give you a nasty sting.

Nature's Calendar - Hazel nuts

The hazel nuts are well formed and hopefully will ripen. Last year I think the squirrels had them all.

Waiting

We all do a lot of waiting I am listing five if you visit and leave a comment add 5 more see how many different things we can find between us

1) waiting for the bus to go into town
2) waiting at the check out to pay for good bought
3) waiting for the train to go up to see my daughter
4) Waiting for the postman to bring that special parcel
5) Waiting for the kettle to boil to make a cup of tea

over to you

Nature's Calendar - Pepper

I was given a tiny little pepper plant a while ago very weedy and I didn't think it would survive, it has not only survived but has had flowers on and one of them has begun to grow into a pepper. Whether the plant is strong enough to continue to grow and ripen is another matter I will just have to wait and see.

Counterfeit Kit challenge - June

It is time to make up a new kit for the Counterfeit Kit challenge, I missed doing it last month because I was not feeling very motivated, which was rather silly because making up a kit really gets me enthused about scrapping. So without further ado here goes
The kit we are copying this month is from Burlap & Buttercups

Here is my main kit

added lots more ribbon, buttons, bling etc
Oh and 4 more sheets of cardstock in neutral colours

I didn't have any chipboard shapes that were similar to the kit so I made my own using a dingbat font 09 Kutups cutting them on Robo three times and mounting them together to give the thickness and one piece for the centre

Will probably use Robo for making flowers and alphas so they will be added as and when.

Nature's Calendar - heart of a poppy

Story Telling Sunday

The year is 1945 VE day May the 8th and the street is lined with tables everyone is outside to celebrate the end of the war in Europe. There is bunting strung across the road and a party atmosphere everywhere.
I'm not sure what is going on but it looks good and all my friends in the street are out and running around, we play and enjoy the excitement.
A loud speaker has been set up and races are announced. What fun. A section of the road is cleared of people so we can run the races.
The tables are spread with jam and paste sandwiches , jellies and blancmanges. We children are invited to sit down and eat. Over the loud speaker a voice calls out we have Ice cream for the children. I've never tasted that and don't want to I tell mummy I don't like it and my baby brother who is not old enough to be part of the celebrations gets my share he loves it, I miss out. 'We have an orange for each child' came the voice over the speakers. "I don't like them" I cry to mummy so guess who gets the orange I should have. Yes my baby brother. I really wasn't an adventurous child when it came to food.

I don't have a photo of our street for the celebrations but I do have one of my husband's

John is the little match boy in the front row and his sister is the little lass on the very end (left of picture)

As I had this photo to hand and the challenge this week on UKS was to do a layout from history what better opportunity could there be. So without further ado here is my digital page


To read many more wonderful stories please drop by and visit Sian at High In The Sky

Nature's Calendar - Fluffy and Pink

I seem to be taking photos of plants that I haven't a clue what they are called. Here is another one.

De-cluttering the kitchen cupboards

I am a great one for keeping plastic containers with lids, you know the ones that cold slaw, ice cream, etc come in. But when I open the cupboard and things begin to fall out and I can't find a container with it's proper lid it really is about time I had a cull.
I didn't really intend to do this cupboard today only the larder, but I needed a container to keep some of the smaller packets neatly and of course the inevitable happened and opening the door meant finding containers strewn on the floor.

LARDER BEFORE

LARDER AFTER

PLASTIC CONTAINERS BEFORE

PLASTIC CONTAINERS AFTER

and the evidence that I have culled and not just moved from one place to another lol

btw the dustbin was emptied on Thursday this is all the way way way out of date stuff from the back of my larder.

there is also a recycle box with lots of coffee jars which I have been saving for when I make jam and pickles, but so many that I will never use them all I'm sure.

I feel as though I have done a good day's work today. Now time to relax and do the layout that has been buzzing around in my head.

Nature's Calendar - Tiny green flowers

?

I thought this was Spurge but when I looked it up it doesn't look the same. Does any one know what it is

Nature's Calendar - Late evening sunshine

I love living here, I love the fact I can open the gate at the bottom of my garden and walk out into this lane. I love to watch the season change the trees from stark bare branches to rich green luscious growth

Nature's Calendar - Female catkin - silver birch

June is de-clutter month

Thanks to my blog friend Mel I am making June de-clutter month. I have put it off for far too long. I have opened cupboards and promptly closed them again and closed my eyes and mind to all that was in them. Except of course when I can't find something.

So today is day 1 of de-clutter month. I have been through my glasses and mugs and packed up my trolley with all the ones that I'll never use and really don't need to keep. Mind you some of the mugs went back in the cupboard even though I haven't used them for years, but I like them too much to part with them
I went to my airing cupboard too and found soft things to pack around the breakables so that is a bit more de-cluttering done.

I have found a glass mug for drinking chocolate that I forgot I had. I've also found my length of white silk material that I have been looking for. It is to use in church (was bought for that purpose) and thought it was gone forever.

Isn't silk amazing so fine it will pass through a wedding ring but so strong that it can be used for parachutes, and all this is made by one of God's tiny creatures, the silk worm.

Freebie Kit - Fascination

It has been quite a while since I did a freebie kit. I have been doing such a lot more paper and glue type layouts that the digital side has been sidelined. But I did this page and thought I could expand it to make a kit to share so here goes.
This Kit is called Fascination because the layout I did had that as its title. You can download it from here

My layout is of my 21month old grandson and of course everything is fascinating to them at that age

Nature's Calendar - expectation

There's going to be an abundant crop of blackberries this year