Weekend Scrapbook Layouts

Hello Everyone

I spent the weekend participating in the cyber crop ran on Facebook by Mind The Scrap. I didn't make as many pages as hoped but enjoyed the process and the banter. Here's what I did manage to make.

2.20 From Grosmont

These photos were taken on our recent holiday in Yorkshire when we took a lovely trip on the steam train from Pickering to Grosmont.

Family

It was fairly rare to get my grandchildren to sit still long enough for a photo shoot but this was one such occasion. This one was taken when the oldest four were very young.

Art at the Clutha

The photo on this page  is an example of the wall art that can be found around Glasgow. This one is of the mural, created by three Glasgow street artists, as a tribute to the disaster of 2013 when a helicopter crashed into the roof of The Clutha pub killing the crew and seven patrons.

Keeping Secrets

This page was just a bit of hark back to my young days in the Women's Royal Army Corps. Back then I was attached to the Signals Corps and so had to sign the Official Secrets Act.

Happy Together

I love this photo of my grandson, Josh, with the EM. It's of just an ordinary day, a shopping trip together, but it sums up perfectly how much they enjoy the company of each other.










Five pages altogether - an improvement of one on last time! Five more pages to file away in the albums.

Luckily, as the EM says, it's been persisting down all weekend - perfect weather for scrapping. Today isn't any drier so I think I may just continue while I'm in the mood. There's still the album I'm putting together for my son to work on.

Have a great day and stay safe.

Friday Smiles

Hello Everyone,

Hope you have all had a great week, and for everyone in the UK I hope you are staying cool in the heat wave. Even up here in Scotland it's all a been a bit too much but happily it's a bit cooler -  a good reason to smile!

We've had a few good reasons to smile this week. Saturday was our wedding anniversary - the 23rd. To celebrate we took a trip down the coast and overland through Dumfries and Galloway. It was lovely. On the way down we popped in to see Alfie the Donkey and discovered he has some company - several very curious young rams.  We discovered sheep like carrots too.

We also stopped to look at the ruined Casluith Castle.

It's not very big as castles go. It must have been quite cosy back in the sixteenth century.

Those tiny windows wouldn't have been too draughty.

We stopped in a lay-by on the way home to admire the wildflowers - rosebay willow herb or, as we always knew them, fireweed.

All-in-all it was a lovely long drive. The views were lovely, some even stunning, and the weather was good, making it a memorable day.

If you've had good reason to smile this week I hope you will join me over at Annie's A Stitch in Time for her cheery meme.

What's On Your Workdesk - Week 529

Morning All,

This post is coming from a very overcast but hot Ayr today. We're just waiting for the weather to break and, hopefully, cool things down a bit. In the meantime,  it's still, as ever, Wednesday and desk reveal time over at Julia's Stamping Ground so here's mine.

As messy as ever. I'm participating in Mind The Scrap's Summer Scrap Challenge on Facebook. We're only on warm-up week and this is the result already. It's going to look a lot worse by the fourth week, I'm sure. Anyways, I've managed to make two pages already - here they are.

Flying High

 Celebrate Good Times

I'm taking this opportunity to concentrate on scrapping photos of my son, Alun, through the years for an album I'm making for his upcoming fiftieth birthday. That's him flying high and celebrating the good times. The photos were taken a few years apart but he's hardly changed at all - that cheeky grin doesn't change.

I also found time to make a few cards - in advance! Miracle of miracles!!!

This was my UKPC swap card for this month. The background is one of the many Gelli plate prints I made earlier and which I'm now trying to use up in as many projects as possible. The stamps are from a new set - bragged about in an earlier WOYWW post - Woodware's 'Going to Seed'. They are stamped using Versamark and heat embossed with a rarely-used-but-I-can't-think-why WOW! powder, 'Burgundy Red Regular' from the Sheena range.  The little bows were made with a punch bought cheaply at The Range.

As there was some of the background print left, I made another. This one has a Kraft base but otherwise the supplies were much the same.

I'm skipping the book bit this week. It's too hot! So hot my sweaty fingers are starting to stick to the keys as I type - yuck!

Have a wonderful day, despite the heat, and have a great week ahead.

In A Vase On Monday - To The Rescue

Hello Everyone

It's blowing a hoolie here today and because of that I couldn't take my usual gentle ramble round the garden looking for suitable materials for today's In A Vase. Instead, it was a mad dash to the rescue for anything tall that was taking a battering. So here, especially for Cathy's meme over on Rambling In The Garden, is this week's arrangement..

The hollyhocks, Alcea 'Halo' and Buddleja davidii were most in need of rescuing. Left to the gale I feel sure they would, by the end of the day, be completely horizontal.

It's not too obvious but the flowers of this hollyhock has a central halo of darker colour, hence it's name. We did have several other plants with different coloured flowers but they haven't made it this year. I suspect over-enthusiastic hoeing is at the root of the problem. The buddleja began life as a self-seeded rogue plant. I dug it up and moved it to under a fir tree where the conditions are so dry very little will grow. Of course, the buddleja is flourishing - these plants take root in the most unlikely places. The parent plant could be the one that is growing under the rowan tree in a quiet corner of the front garden.

It is so windy here, and the arrangement is so tall, there was no hope of photographing the arrangement outside on the wall as usual, which is why today's setting is our dining room.

Linking this post to Cathy's meme In A Vase On Monday on Rambling in the Garden and joining with many others who share whatever they have found to put in a vase this week. If you have filled a vase today I'm sure you would be very welcome to join in too.

Christmas Card Club - Card 15/2019 - Trees

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend and that the sun is smiling for you.

It's time for another Christmas Card Club Challenge and today's theme, chosen by Christine, is 'Trees'. The following cards were made using stuff out of a box of bits and bobs, most of which are the results of trying out new goodies in a moment of enthusiasm and then doing nothing more with them. Result - I'm feeling quite virtuous today.

For this card, it's the background that was found in the box. It's just a piece of white cardstock spattered with Heidi Swapp's Gold Color Shine - lovely stuff. I've over stamped, and embossed with gold powder, trees from the Winter Wonderland stamp set that was magazine gift - I've forgotten which and when. Before I added the topper to the card front I created an embossed gold edging all the way around the front - I didn't have any gold cardstock so had to think of another way to give the topper a gold background. 

These two cards used up two embossed panels found in the box.

Pale amber gems decorate the tree - sadly the camera had difficulty picking them up against the gold. 

The two shades of pink gems show up better on this topper. The embossing folder used was another magazine gift - a years old Creativity magazine. I don't believe it's still in existence. The papers used on both cards, some of which were just scraps, are from Docrafts Papermania 'A Silent Night' paper pack, c 2009.  I'd like to say that I've now used up the entire paper pack but it's not so. But then, sadly, that is true of the my stash of paper packs once so enthusiastically collected - so much paper, so little time!

I'm submitting the last card to Pixie's Snippets Playground Challenge #357 - Di's challenge is always for any subject as long as snippets are used. 

That's it for CCC today but I hope you will pop over to see what my teammates have created for Kate's challenge today - you'll find a list of their names and links on my right sidebar - they are always so much more creative than mine.

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 528

Hello Everyone,

Wednesday again - amazing how it turns up earlier every week! - so, of course, I'm joining in with WOYWW over at Julia's Stamping Ground again. It's a weekly treat I really don't like to miss.

And, as usual, it's a bit of a mess. I joined Tilly Rose for her 'Secret Stitch-a-Long yesterday evening and everything is still where I left it at nine o'clock when I went of to watch the drama on television. That pile of fabric scraps, laces and ribbons are all vintage - all strokably pretty stuff. The sewing interrupted another project and that explains the stuff shoved to the back - stamps, embossing powder, etc. It's just as well I have a lovely big desk - it's probably the EM's best bargain find ever!

The lavender bag not quite finished. It's all sewn by hand, including the embroidered lavender flowers. The fabric is vintage Laura Ashley - from 1988. I'm thinking I'll add a few tiny pearls and maybe a bit of lace before I call it done.

Some new goodies that I need to find time to play with. It's a glue stamp pad, a star shaped stamp and some extra fine pink glitter. Seems the glue pad can be used with the stamp to add glitter, chalk, foil or embossing powder to a project - very versatile. I'll share the results when I get around to trying it out.

I did finally finish the layout that I was working on last Wednesday. The photo is of me and my late brother, Douglas, in full highland dress which he wore to every important occasion. With his unruly mop of curly hair and equally shaggy beard he was guaranteed to be a talking point and I got used to being asked who's the amazing highlander. I always enjoyed telling them that he was my brother. Can't think why that surprised so many - we were so alike!

And now the book bit. This week it's the complete Cormoran Strike crime series - you can tell I've been spending a lot of time in the garden.

All published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith but written by J K Rowling, she of Harry Potter fame, the series is about Cormoran Strike, private detective, and his able assistant, Robin. I have to admit to enjoying binging on the series - I love a good whodunnit with plenty of clues to work on. Strike, though gruff and a bit tetchy, is a likable character, as is his very competent assistant, Robin, and the two together make an effective crime solving team. The scrapes they get  into, both in their personal life and whilst sleuthing, kept me entertained right to the end of the fourth book. Only four novels in the series have so far been published but the author plans at least another ten. Three have been adapted as a television series for BBC One. I can't wait to read the fifth as soon as it's made available as an audiobook.


It's just started to rain here - that's nature having a laugh of me for spending two hours watering the whole garden yesterday - so looks like I'll have to stay in and check out what's on your workdesks. Isn't it kind of the the weather to be so obliging! :)

Have a great day and a fabulous week ahead.

In A Vase On Monday - Not One But Two

Hello Everyone,

One of the garden tasks I most enjoy is deadheading. I can wander around sniffing, patting and admiring whilst snipping away at anything that's gone over. And as I go I can't resist rescuing any flower that's been broken off, knocked over (by visiting cats?) or nibbled at by appreciative bugs. End result - two little vasefuls.

I suppose I could have put everything into one vase and it would look perfectly lovely but I decided to split them into two - pinks in one vase and yellows into the other. Both padded out with the whites - daisies', sweet peas, pinks and cosmos.

The deep pink nameless roses are the last blooms from a badly rain damaged climber - we've had torrential downpours throughout the last couple of weeks. The potentilla nepalensis 'Miss Willmott'  is proving itself to be a star in the round bed - well, it would be if 'Happy Retirement' - the very floriferous floribunda rose wasn't stealing the show there at the moment. 

Rose 'Happy Retirement' & Eryngium 'Big Blue'

There's one of my husband's deep pink sweet peas tucked behind the rose - it's a beautifully scented Spencer - the only variety he likes to grow. He's tried others but thinks there's nothing to beat the Spencer for cutting. Two pinks made the cut - the deep pink is dianthus tenelke garden pink and the white one with the maroon eye is dianthus 'Silver Star'. For foliage I've added a few sprigs of the young pink-tinged grey leaves of Eucalyptus gunnii.

I've also popped leucanthemum x superbum 'Crazy Daisy' in both vases - these double white flowers, a unique strain of Shasta daisy with fringed petals surrounding a golden centre, make great vase fillers.

The yellows in this vase consist of deep yellow rosebuds, another of our nameless roses, a couple of cosmos 'Lemonade' - successfully grown from seed - and a few fluffy sprays of thalictrum flavum glaucum. I couldn't resist tucking three prickly heads of the wonderfully electric-blue Eryngium 'Big Blue' in the thistle shaped vase - so appropriate.

The whites are made up of the daisies, sweet peas and these nibbled cosmos 'Cupcakes White'. Like the 'Lemonade' I grew these from seed. They are just coming into flower, at last!

Linking this post to Cathy's meme In A Vase On Monday on Rambling in the Garden and joining with many others who share whatever they have found to put in a vase this week. If you have filled a vase today I'm sure you would be very welcome to join in too.

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 527

Hello Everyone,

Whizzday again, time to join Julia, over at the Stamping Ground, by revealing what's on my desk today. Though, truth to tell, it's not much.

There's a part done layout, started on Sunday when I attended a crop held locally. I should have finished it by now but I couldn't think of a title or indeed what, if anything, it needed to finish it off.

I have had quite a bit of happy mail this week. (Well, what else is there to do when you're getting over a cold but to indulge in a bit of retail therapy!)

More Oxide ink pads - I've finally got the bug - and a few new stamps sets. Like I really needed more stamps!

Stencils. I'm a great fan of the work of Godelieve Tijskens, Stamping Matilda, especially her projects made with Dark Room Door stamps and stencils. So you can imagine how delighted I was to win one of her recent giveaways - the two stencils on the left. If you are reading this, many thanks Godelieve. The Dusty Attic stencil was purchased at the crop on Sunday.

The book bit is different this week - you might have noticed the little pile of real printed books at the back of my desk today. No fiction, not even memoir, but craft related.

As mentioned earlier, I've been struggling to think of an appropriate title for the unfinished layout. When that happens I often refer to these two books, Linda LaTourelle's 'The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect Word' and Judith Wibberley's 'Words for Every Occasion'. They both contain words, verses, titles, poems and sentiments covering all sorts of occasions and all aimed at scrappers and cardmakers. Both very useful.

I have a great fondness for the Observer's books but they are not only becoming somewhat rarer to find but they have increased in value too. Which is why I was so happy to discover 'Sewing' by Meriel Tilling in Pickering's indoor market. It's delightfully old fashioned but is still a perfect handbook of basic stitches and techniques, all still relevant and useful today.

That's all from me today. I'm off to enjoy a latte while I catch up with what you have on your desk today.

Have a lovely day and a great week ahead.

Christmas Card Club - Card 14/2019 - Christmas Baubles

Hello Everyone,

Finally, back after our holiday in North Yorkshire - memorable in many ways, not least for the cold I caught from the EM who'd become poorly just before we hit the road south. Unfortunately. because I have asthma, a cold is never just a cold for me and so it takes me a bit longer to recover too. Happily, I am better now so can catch up with this fortnight's Christmas Card Club challenge - the theme of Christmas Baubles was my choice.

I've taken the opportunity to try out a lovely new stencil, The Dusty Attic's Starry Night, and using black ink decorated both the inside and outside of this card. To make the baubles I used a couple of very old Memory Box dies (2013). First, I cut the coloured part of the bauble from a piece of card that was one of my early experiments with alcohol inks, making sure to place only the 'bauble' part of the die on the card before passing it through the die-cutting machine. Second, I cut only the 'bow ribbon' part out of snippets of gold card - it takes only tiny amounts of card for this. The pieces were then glued together before placing them on both the front flaps and inside. The greeting, Tonic's Modern Merry Christmas, was also cut from a snippet of gold card.

This card is bit different from those I usually make but I did enjoy working on a different base and with such a lovely stencil too. It was a bit fiddly putting the baubles together but, I think, well worth the effort.

That's it for CCC today but I hope you will pop over to see what my teammates have created this week - you'll find a list of their names and links on my right sidebar - they are, as always, so much more creative than me.

I'm also submitting the card to Pixie's Snippet Playground Challenge #356. It's been a while - too long in fact - but nice to be back and using up some of the many snippets I've been hoarding.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

Dog Themed Card for a Four-Year Old

Hello Everyone

I hope your week is going well. I have the card I made for my great-grandson's 4th birthday to share today.

Callum loves dogs so I thought I'd make him a card featuring four dogs - he'll enjoy counting them. And, again, I've used one of the Gelli plate prints I have in stock for the background.

Supplies used:

- white scalloped edge base card
- dark green cardstock for matting, brown cardstock for the dog dies, gold card for the sun & green glitter card for the number 4
- the Gelli plate print trimmed to create the band
- dies - Dovecraft dog & paw print; X-cut dinky Dachshund dog & Sun dies; number 4 die from Creative Dies

Inside is stamped with the greeting from the Creative Dies set and I've added a paw print in one corner.

I hope you are still enjoying these scheduled posts. I'll be back soon but I'm still enjoying my wee break for now.

Gelli Plate Print card - Sweet Sixteen

Hello Everyone

I'm enjoying using up the Gelli plate prints as much as I enjoyed making them - playing with paints and inks might be messy but it's also fun.

This card was made for my granddaughter's 16th birthday. When I spotted the stamp set being given away with a copy of Making Cards & Papercraft magazine I just had to have it. The stamps reminded me so much of Shari.

Supplies used:

Front:
- base - white card
- layering & butterfly die-cuts - hot pink glitter card from American Craft's Dear Lizzy New Day Mixed Media pad
- background - piece of gelli plate print left over
- topper - smooth white card; Sweet Samantha stamp set - described as a motivational stamp set - from Making Cards & Papercraft February 2019 issue; ProMarkers - Blossom, Burnt Sienna, Cinnamon, Cool Grey 1, Ice Grey 1, Rose Pink, Satin
- Dies - Rectangle die set, butterflies from a set from a magazine
pink gems

Inside:
- Creative Dies - Number dies and Special Celebrations stamp set

Because the Gelli plate print had already been created some time ago, this was a quick and easy card to make.

This is another scheduled post while I take a break from the craft desk. I'll be back soon but in the meantime I hope you are having a great week.