Scrapbook Pages

Hi Everyone,

As some of you may know I'm participating in a scrapping challenge at the moment. It's helped me to up my output of scrap pages considerably. This is not only good, but also something of a miracle because I'm the slowest scrapper ever! 

For the challenge this week we have, again, five requirements, one of which is to use black and white with just one other colour in each layout and another is to have a one word title.

Here's the pages that I've made so far.

Lovely!

The photos are of my husband's great niece's wedding in 2006. The bridesmaids were in pink so I chose that as the other colour. It was a particularly lovely and happy wedding. The toastmaster, who is the actor Mark Charnock's father (Marlon in Emmerdale) was brilliant and made everything go like a well-oiled machine.

Boston

Memories of a trip to Boston with my mother in 1996. She loved the market hall in the centre of the city. Mum had never been out of the UK until then so it was a great big adventure for her. These photos capture that memory for me.

Minnies

Much more up-to-date this time. Two photos taken a couple of years ago. Both my great-niece and great-granddaughter are fans of Minnie Mouse and take every opportunity to dress up like her. Not that I blame them - who wouldn't want to be dressed from head to toe in Minnies and polka dots! I was a huge fan too when I was a wee girl but I don't remember ever dressing up as Minnie.

The Spotty Cafe

Was unable to stick to a one-word title for this page - it just had to be The Spotty Cafe. We spotted (pardon the pun) this cafe whilst out driving on holiday in Yorkshire. It's an amazing sight and we just had to stop. it's really the Bank View Cafe in Langsett but of course it's now more commonly known as The Spotty Cafe. In 2014 the owners repainted it to celebrate the Tour de France passing it's door.

I'm sure some of you wonder why I find it so important to scrap my photos rather than just leave them in photo albums or leave them stored on my computer never to be printed. Well, I couldn't put it better than Laura Alberts has in this article here. 

Right, I better get back to scrapping - there's a challenge to be done.

Have a wonderful day.

In A Vase On Monday - Roses & Daisies

Morning Everyone.

I have a very quick In A Vase On Monday post this morning.

A lovely bunch of mixed roses and white crazy daisies. All gathered before the heavens opened on Saturday. The red roses - looking a bit blurred unfortunately - are Pride of England and the very pretty pink/yellow one beside is variety unknown - we inherited it with the garden.

We've had a lot of rain and just a few lightening storms over the last few days. The roses and daisies in the garden are looking very sad and this may be the last to be brought indoors - until next year. There's always next year.

Have a lovely day.

Friday Smiles

Hello and Happy Friday,

I've had reasons to smile aplenty this week - I hope you have too. Of course, I'm joining in with Annie at A Stitch In Time, who always has much to smile about.

Because we had to wait for the repair man to come fix our washing machine on our wedding anniversary, we waited until Saturday to take a mini road trip up along the coast to Helensburgh, Arrochar and down the side of Loch Lomond. Here are some photos from the day.

The square at Helensburgh

Looking over the square to the restaurant where we had lunch.

In the restaurant.

After lunch treat - this is melon and raspberry ice cream - delicious!

On the road to Garelochhead.

Looking down the Gare Loch from Arrochar.

Arrochar.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stop to take photos at Loch Lomond ... it was so busy there and parking was impossible. Next time we'll choose a day mid week to visit the loch. However, I did take this shot of the amazing Stoneymollan roundabout near Balloch. The geese in flight – symbol of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park – are there to mark the entrance to one of Scotland’s most spectacular areas.

It was taken through the windscreen so not perfect - you can see the reflections of our travelling companions - Flora the bear, Bandy the bandaged dog and Mumsie Bear, the World's Best Mum. We go nowhere without them.

That's a lot of photos and you've probably had enough by now but here's just two more and I'll be done.

It's cherry picking time.

We'd have had an awful lot more but they are all too high for us to reach so we've had to leave them to the birds. 

So there we are, a lot of photos and a lot of reasons to smile as well. Hopefully, next week will be just as happy for all of us.

Take care and have a wonderful weekend.

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 477

Hello Deskers, Followers and All,

I won't bore you with the usual, 'oh my goodness where has the week gone', intro and just get straight into sharing What's on my Desk today with you and our notable Head Desker Julia at the Stamping Ground.

If you think this is looking very black and white, it is. It's all to do with the challenge I'm participating in on Mind The Scrap's Facebook group. We've just been given the requirements for this, the second week, and it involves a lot of black and white. So, as you can see, I've gone through all my paper and cardstock - well, almost all - and pulled out anything that fits the bill. There's also several rolls of Washi tape and a strip of stickers that might also come in handy. The piles of photos are there because they fulfil another requirement. On top of the, now essential, really useful box of goodies is the last layout completed for last week's challenge. Here's a close-up:

The photo is very old - c.1980s - and shows my lovely step-brother, Sandy, with his Judo group. In his heyday he did incredibly well and even defeated the great Jean Paul Van Damme in one never-to-be-forgotten bout. The page really isn't as squint as it looks in the photo - I've yet to work out how to get a page exactly square on for the photos!!!

Being challenged has increased my weekly scrapping output enormously - normally I'd maybe manage one, possibly two if I drove myself! Here's another that takes the count up the six. My personal best!

Two more very old photos, 1996 this time, of my grandchildren with their colouring books - hence the crayons. Don't ask me what the toucans and butterflies are there for - I just liked them.

I'm still listening to the book I reviewed last week - ploughing through it would be a more appropriate description of how I feel about it. I should really give up and move on - life's too short!

Have a great WOYWW everyone and enjoy the week ahead.

It's Cherry Picking Time

Hello Everyone,

I usually post something in a vase on a Monday but today I have something a bit different from the garden.

A lovely bowl of cherries.

Here's himself doing the picking. Not an easy task because those trees are tall. There's many more up in the higher branches but we'll have to leave them for the magpies.

Scrappy Sunday

Hello Everyone,

I hope your weekend has been a good one so far. It's been a fun one for us - we've been celebrating our 22nd wedding anniversary, my cousin Rachel got engaged and ... it rained! Oh happy days!!!

This summer I'm participating in Mind The Scrap's Facebook Group's six week challenge and this week has been the warm-up to it. Each layout had to include as many as possible of the following five points:

1. Doodling
2. At least 3 different embellishment types
3. A photograph with 3 or more people in it
4. A movie quote or a song lyric either as the title or included somewhere on the page
5. Journaling of some sort too

So far I have created four layouts in as many days - I took yesterday off. That's something of a record for me - I am probably the slowest scrapper on the planet - so I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. Will it last ... that's to be seen!

Here, in no particular order, are the four pages:

Riding Along On A Carousel

The photo, is of my husband's great-nephew and his children on a carousel. The bright colours on the horses prompted my choice of papers and embellishments. And because the horses made me think of unicorns I had to include a couple, as well as the fabulous 'caticorns' in the pink paper - Be Meowgical from the Simple Stories Dream Big collection.

Band of Brothers

The photo on this page is of my late brother Douglas's two sons together with his 'adopted' sons taken after his funeral. It was a bittersweet occasion for them as they don't all get together too often now that Ewan lives in Australia but it was like they'd never been apart. Most of the embellishments are die-cuts made from scraps from older projects. I really enjoyed making this page - I don't make many masculine layouts.

Such A Perfect Day

I've used two photos from my graduation for this layout. They're old, 1997, but then so am I. I particularly like the one of the three of us - my husband, my late mother and me. He, on the other hand, is not keen because of the many times he has been taken to be my father in it!

Blinded by Science

And if the photos in the last page were old then these are even older - 1993. They are of a conference organised and managed by my husband for the company he worked for at the time. Q: what do you call a room full of scientists?  A: a conjecture!

As you can see all pages met the criteria but I found the doodling the most challenging. followed pretty closely by the movie quote/song lyric.

Supplies are either from Mind The Scrap kits or from stash and some of it is almost as old as the photos too.

I'm submitting the last layout entitled Band of Brothers to Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #331 - because the many die-cut embellishments were made from scraps of card. 

There's no danger of me running out of photos to scrap and the challenge is ongoing so I'll be back with more pages fairly soon.

Take care and have a good week ahead.

What's On Your Workdesk - Week 476

Hello Deskers, Followers and All,

Wednesday again! It's been said before, and will no doubt be said many more times, but where did the last seven days go?! In fact, I almost forgot what day it is ... not entirely surprising at my great age ... so here for you, and our Head Desker, Julia, at the Stamping Ground, is what's on my desk today.

There's been a bit of stamping going on and a lot of scrapping. On an impulse, and perhaps a bit rash of me, I've signed up for the summer challenge on Mind The Scrap's Facebook group. I think I forget just how busy life is!!! The warm up began last evening so that's the first layout sitting on top of a stack of paper and the really useful box that's full of supplies beneath ... this last now seems to be a permanent fixture these days. On the left is new stamps I've been testing. They are part of a mini haul from Monday's trip to The Range.

As you can see, there are more than a few unicorns. My great niece, Arihanna, loves unicorns and mermaids and I suspect flamingos too. The snowman and butterfly punch were a happy find in a charity shop. Seems that someone had handed in boxes of crafty stash and I had a fine old time riffling through it. Sadly, much of it wasn't my taste but I did like the quirky snowman and you can never have two many butterfly punches.

Only one book to share this week. I'm still listening to Grisham's 'The Litigators' - actually it's re-listening to it while I craft away - but my bedtime listening is Secrets of A Family Album by Isla Dewar.

I can't say I'm really enjoying this novel. It's not her best. The main characters, Lily and her mother Mattie, are not very likable and I find myself not caring what happens to them. Also, there's far too much emphasis on what the characters are wearing, what cosmetics they use, etc. Not to mention several paragraphs wasted listing ALL the gifts each character, that gathered at Lily's parents home for Christmas, received! Paragraphs that I'd skip if I was actually reading the book.

That's me done for this week. I'm off to check a few desks before lunch.

Take care everyone and have a great week ahead.

In A Vase - Pride of England

Hello Everyone,

I didn't have time to join in with the usual In A Vase On Monday - I was out visiting family for much of the day - so I thought I'd post it today instead.

One perfect rose. This is a hybrid tea call Pride of England. Each flower is huge, beautifully formed and perfumed too. It's so big you can't see the little bud vase it's in..

That's it - a very quick post.

Take care and have a lovely evening.

Scrappy Sunday - Little Garden Visitor

Hello Everyone,

A bit late today but I've been distracted by the tennis at Wimbledon but better late than never! I hope you've had a lovely weekend.

This layout was inspired by the course I'm following, very slowly, from Shimelle Laine, Clear the Desk.

The photo is of the little cat, one of a few, that often visits our garden. I did think it was female because it so small but it's recently been wearing a blue collar so I think I got that wrong!

I've used some very old papers. In fact the blue background paper I've had so long I no longer know who the manufacturer was. The cat patterned paper and most of the embellishments are from the Meow collection (2015) from Echo Park. The red frame with the black paw prints was left over from a two page kit I bought 20 plus years ago, again I don't remember the manufacturer but I'm almost one hundred percent sure it is no longer available. The black title letters are from Simple Stories' So Rad Expressions Sticker sheet and the turquoise ones are another mystery - all I can say is they are old too.You can tell I'm trying to use up my oldest stash ... I've been hoarding for far too long.

That's me for today. I'm off to watch Poldark now even though I've watch much too much television today.

Take care

Bookworms Birthday Card

Hello Everyone,

This is the last card made using the card I created recently when testing out the Mr Huey's spray.

This one is for my sister,Jacqui's birthday coming up - she doesn't read this blog, or any blog for that matter, so it's okay to share it with you today. She's definitely a bookworm though - it's in the genes.  There's not much to it but here's a list of supplies used:

• a 5" black square card base
• the misted white cardstock trimmed to a size to leave a small black margin once adhered to the base  
• mist - Mr Huey's Heirloom Blue 
• stamps - Darkroom Door Bookworm stamp set & Hero Arts Classic Messages 
• ink - Memento tuxedo Black

As I said, there's not much to the card but I think my sister will enjoy that Darkroom Door sentiment.

Have a very happy Saturday.

Friday Smiles

Hello Friday Smilers & All,

I hope you've had a happy week with lots to smile about and share with Annie at A Stitch In Time. I've had plenty of reasons to smile despite being a wee bit under the weather.

We've discovered a new coffee shop.

It's a Canadian import. Lovely staff, great big mugs instead of paper cups and these tiny doughnuts, called Timbits, that are morsels of yumminess. Himself opted for a traditional sized doughnut, of course!

My son, Alun, and his partner, Elaine, have been touring the States over the last couple of weeks and here they are, having cycled over the San Francisco bridge, taking a selfie with it in the background.

Here he is again with that famous street in the background. I'm not sure what it's called but it's featured in many a car chase in various movies and TV series.

They are clearly enjoying their trip which has taken them to Las Vegas, San Francisco and now New York ... the trip of a lifetime!

I can't go without sharing this lily which has just come into bloom.

Stunning, isn't it?

That's it for this week folks. Hope you will join Annie with your smiles. As she says, 'There's more than enough bad news in the world so lets do our little bit of spreading some happiness between us.'

Have a great weekend and keep smiling.