Sarahs Cards December Sketch Challenge

Life has been very hectic over the last few weeks so haven't had much time for scrapping sadly. I have done a layout for Sarahs December Sketch challenge, Vanessa designed this sketch and I just love it. There is another prize up for grabs this month, a £10 e-voucher and a chance to design an example layout for the February challenge along with the design team. Check out Sarahs blog for details.

These papers area from Bo Bunny, not a paper manufacturer that I would usually choose but these papers are just gorgeous. The photo was taken in Turkey on our honeymoon, young love!!!
TFL

Scruffy Santa

I am taking part it Cheryl Johnsons on line photography course at the moment, our first task was to take a festive self portrait. When I was Christmas shopping on Monday I found a little canine Santa Suit, I thought I could take a photo of myself with Archie dressed as Father Christmas.
When I got home and tried the suit on Archie all he wanted to do was eat it and wasn't very obliging at all!! The girls jokingly said about putting it on the cat, Scruffy (who is the most soppy feline I have ever known). I decided it was worth a try and he made a very good model!
I wanted to edit the photo to black and white except for Scruffy but our editing software trial has come to an end so I had to leave it as it was.

TFL

Using Pens.

For the latest edition of The Scrapbook Magazine I was asked to look at using American Crafts pens on scrapbook pages, I really enjoyed the challenge as pens weren't something that I would regularly use on a page unless it was for journaling or possibly a bit of doodling.
I found the pens were really good for adding that extra something, on this page I used a pen to colour around the dots on the ribbon, I also drew a border around each of the photos. Pens are great for colouring in chipboard and much less messy than paint, I have coloured in the photo corners on this page.

I really enjoyed doing this one, I chose my photo and then a mixture of about 5 co-ordinating pens. I used a crafters workshop template to create the circles and then just coloured them in. I stamped the butterfly onto a seperate piece of paper, coloured it in, cut it out and fixed it onto the page. To finish the layout I added the title and journaling block, a very simple page!

Blog Awards

Over the past few weeks my little blog has been given two awards!!

The first one came from Ann

I have to answer a series of questions with one word answers so here goes!!

1. Where is your cell phone? Here

2. Your hair? Short

3. Your mother? Lovely

4. Your father? Wise

5. Your favorite food? Chocolate

6. Your dream last night? Didn't

7. Your favorite drink? Coke

8. Your dream/goal? Travel

9. What room are you in? Lounge

10. Your hobby? Scrapping

11. Your fear? Cancer

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Here

13. Where were you last night? Here

14. Something that you aren't? Confident

15. Muffins? Yummy!!

16. Wish list item? Lens

17. Where did you grow up? Dorset

18. Last thing you did? Cooked

19. What are you wearing? Clothes

20. Your TV? Flat

21. Your Pets? Smelly!!

22. Friends? Important

23. Your life? Busy

24. Your mood? variable

25. Missing Someone? No

26. Vehicle? Toyota

27. Something you’re not wearing? Shoes

28. Your favorite store? Macrows

29. Your favorite colour? Turquoise

30. When was the last time you laughed? Today

31. Last time you cried? Today (watched The Boy in Striped PJs)

32. Your best friend? Husband

33. One place that I go to over and over? Bed

34. Facebook? Sometimes

35. Favorite place to eat? Home

That was quite hard to answer with one word answers!! I am going to pass this award onto a few scrapping friends and see what answers they come up with.

The second award came from Anna, I have to tell you five random facts about myself!! I have passed this award onto 4 of people whose blogs I love.

Rachel - Angie - Paige - Sarah

1. I am going to be 40 in 2011!!

2. I am going Christmas shopping tomorrow.

3. I am proud of my job and love it even thought I often threaten to leave and go and work in a local supermarket!!

4. I love scrapping and find it very theraputic.

5. My darling husband has just bought me a new camera, a DSLR which I don't have a clue how to use.....yet!!

Thank you for the awards girls they are lovely.

The Crafty Cuttings of Wiccababe: Super Duper Candy Time

The Crafty Cuttings of Wiccababe: Super Duper Candy Time

If you like making cards check out this fab blog candy which is up for grabs! There is a lot more to see over on the blog.

Sarahs Cards November Kit

Thought I would show you what I did with Sarahs Cards kit this month, it was full of gorgeous Crate Paper - season collection, scrummy thickers and a great 12x12 sheet of chipboard shapes plus lots of other goodies. I really enjoyed using this kit, the colours are just lovely and I especially liked the die cut paper!!

My brother and I in the summer of 1976 don't we look cute!!


I covered some of the chipboard toadstools with patterned paper and then put a layer of glossy accents on the spots.

I love this photo of Emily, it was taken in our hotel room at Saunton Sands. She looked so deep in thought.

Another photo taken at Saunton Sands, I have added some journaling onto the circle since I took this photo. We had a similar photo taken there last year so I think it is going to be an annual photo shoot!!

This photo was taken on our holiday in Hong Kong in July, on our last day there we had a wander around Kowloon and we came across this sculpture. I have no idea what it was depicting or why it was there but I really loved it.

TFL

Lets get back to scrapping!

Thought it was about time I posted some of my scrapping, after all the excitement of the retreats I haven't acutally posted any pages.
I created this layout at the Sarahs Cards weekend, we set ourselves a little challange, scrap a layout in an hour and with papers chosen by someone else. I let Lou choose my photo and papers, she picked a photo of my husband which I have been wanting to scrap for ages. I loved her choice of papers, they were just perfect. She was so generous she added a sheet of cowboy paper from her own stash that she had been saving because she loved it. Thanks Lou :) Anyway here is what I created in an hour, I was quite pleased with it especially as a page usually takes me a whole day or more!!
I fell in love with these thickers and used them alot over the weekend, they are a new range called salutations and come in green, pink, brown and black. They are seriously yummy!

The new monthly challenge has just gone up over on Sarahs Cards blog, it now has a prize attached to it! The winner will get a £10 e-voucher and be able to create an example layout for the Januray sketch challenge. This is my example of the sketch, I did it in electric light and didn't realise quite how lime the green was until the next day!

TFL
xx

Stormy Seas.

In all the years that I have lived by the sea I have never seen it like this before it was amazing!!! We went over to Weymouth this morning and on our way back across the beach road the sea was crashing over Chesil Beach, Justin wouldn't let me go up onto the beach, he said it was too dangerous (hate to admit it but he was probably right!) so we went on to Portland Bill. Lots of people had the same idea, all there with their cameras watching in awe at the power of the sea it really was something else. The wind was so powerful at times we had trouble standing up straight and had to keep well away from the edge not just for fear of the waves but from being blown over! It is hard to portray just what it was like in photos but here are two to give you a taster.

TFL

A few more photos!!

Most of my photos of the weekend seem to be of the top of the girls heads!! I guess it is good to capture them enjoying their hobby. All these photos were taken while we were doing our challange layout where we all had to just add one item onto the page.

Sarah added tape.

Vanessa added a journaling tag.

Cathy added the rest of the title.

I added the sub title.

Lou added a fab rub on.

I think Rachel added the woodgrain paper (I know she was loving it all weekend :) )
Got it wrong Sarah (gertie) added the woodgrain paper so Rachel must have added the red paper!!

Lianne added a prima embellishment.

TFL

xx

WOW What a weekend!!!

I really don't know where to begin!! I have had the most fantastic weekend at Sarahs Cards DT weekend!
My lovely parents drove me up to Derbyshire on Friday, it was such a long way I was nervous about driving on my own, it took us just under 7 hours to get there including 2 stops the traffic was horrendous for the last two hours of the journey.
I was really excited about meeting everyone but nervous as well, I needn't have worried I can honestly say all of the girls were just sooooooooooooooooooooo lovely and I feel I have come away from the weekend with 11 new friends. There were 12 of there in total and we had such a fun weekend I haven't laughed so much for years!! I never knew that you could have so much fun with a sheet of bazzill!
I didn't take many photos as nearly all of the girls had gorgeous DSLRs (one has been added onto to my Christmas list) but here are a few of what I did take all a bit mixed up I am afraid!!

Sarah and Lianne did such a fantastic job of organising the weekend and had just about brought everything to cover all eventualities, Sarahs car was full to bursting!! This is their car on the way home minus the piles and piles of food that they had brought to feed us all! Sarah is unbelievably generous, she had brought 2 big boxes of papers and a box of thickers that we could help ourselves to over the weekend!
We decided to do a few fun scrapping challanges, Tracy came up with the great idea of creating a page by all adding one item to the page and then handing it on to the next person. Quite amazingly it actually turned out really good, no shite here Sarah!! Here is Jen adding her doodling touches.

Cal and Tracy cooked a gorgeous full English for everyone on Sunday morning it was just yummy!! I think the idea was the gorgeous aroma would encourage everyone out of their beds after another rather late night/early morning!

The setting of the barn was gorgeous, there was big double doors in the dinning room area which looked our across the fields, this was the view on Sunday evening.

Cal added part of the title to our challange page.

I sat next to Nat and Vanessa on our scrapping table they are both so lovely, it was lovely to meet Vanessa we were on the DT for Scrummy Stash Cafe a while ago and now on Sarahs cards together but had never met. Nat is such a sweetie and an extremely talanted scrapper and card maker I was surrounded by such fantastic inspiration!

Sarah and Lianne catered for us as if we were at a 5 star hotel it was amazing!! We had a choice of the most yummy cakes, Sarah (AKA Pete) is tucking into some chocolate fudge cake, this girl really is a laugh a minute!!

All being keen scrappers we were all keen photographers too and so just had to go outside for a bit of a photo shoot despite the mud and it being freezing cold!! Cathy and Sarah snapping the view.

Vanessa, Jen and Rachel.

It really was such a fantastic weekend and I really didn't want it to end! Sarah and Lianne were the perfect hosts and I think anyone going on the March Sarahs Cards retreat is in for a real treat of a weekend!!
Thank you all for such a brilliant weekend xx

GoGo Getaway!!

What a weekend!!

I was so nervous about the drive I very nearly got Justin to drive me up, a good job that I didn't as it took me over 6 hours to get there! The traffic was heavy even in Weymouth but I got held up in horrendous traffic on the M3 and the M25 not much fun. I finally arrived at the hotel about 5.15. I met Angie when I got there which was lovely.

My room was really nice and I had a huge double bed all to myself! Only one problem on the Saturday morning there was a problem with the boiler so I had a cold shower and I mean cold, guess on the bright side it did wake me up a bit.

I was sat with my fellow Zircons!! Met up with Chloe again which was great we met at another retreat 2 years ago, she hasn't changed a bit. I could go on and on about all the lovely girls that I met they were all so friendly and chatty. I do have to mention Jackie, she is apparantly a fan of my scrapping and she made me feel like a celebrity, she was so lovely and really made my weekend. It was really lovely to have such positive comments, thanks Jackie :)

I did travel quite light and just took two gogo kits with me, I managed to do two of my own layouts over the weekend which for me is good! Here is one of them.

The classes were amazing, I have only managed to finish 2 of them so far. This class designed by Lisa was right up my street with lots of distressing, inking and scrunching up. Lisa was lovely too! I am definitley going to be looking out for more vintage embellishments from now on, thanks for the tips Lisa.

On saturday morning we all rotated around and the Zircons first class was with Jane Dean, her class involved lots of cutting and layering which was fab.

Before lunch on Saturday I had my photo shoot with Cheryl which I really enjoyed we managed to get outside as well which I was really pleased about, the trees looked so beautiful with their orange leaves. I did see the results but they have to be tweaked before I get the proper ones so watch this space!

Angie, Chloe, Vicki and I decided to go on a bit of an explore after lunch, we found this gorgeous staircase and window seat in the old part of the hotel, I think Angie took this photo.

This is me taking a photo of Angie taking a photo of Chloe who is taking a photo of the trees!!

Exercise classes!

Mug shot :)

This room was usually so busy it was quite strange to come back after lunch and find it almost deserted. Just look at all that yummy stash though!
I didn't take many photos, after playing with Angies camera I realised how much better hers was so she is very kindly going to send me a cd with all the photos that we took with it on. I also had a little play with Vickis camera a Cannon 450D it is now on my Christmas list...thanks Vicki!

Overall I had a really good weekend, it was really well organised and all the gogo girls were lovely. I even managed to get home in 3.5 hours!!

I am really tempted to book for October but will have to wait and see. Got to get myself ready for a weekend away with the Sarahs Cards DT now I am leaving on Friday morning....can't wait!!

TFL

Sketch Challange

Over on Sarahs Cards shop blog we have started to set a monthly sketch challange, I don't usually like followingn sketches but it was actually really enjoyable to be able to put together a page and have the basic design done for you!

I decided to use some more of the Fancy Pants Little Dancer papers and a photo of my sister and I that was taken a few years ago.

TFL xx