Tuesday, 31 December 2013



A change from my Christmas journal today, as I share the layout I made for the December House Challenge over at UKS. The challenge was to scraplift one of 5 pages. I chose this fabulous one by PinkSparklyScrapper.....


I started by spraying some mist on my paper, then placing some paper strips horizontally across the page. I used the same photo placement, a similar paper cluster in the top corner and a tag on the opposite side. I added moustache embellishments and a title I found on the internet.


I am not sure that I did the original LO justice, but I am really pleased with my finished creation recording DD and her friends with their moustaches!


Monday, 30 December 2013

Journal Your Christmas days 9 to 12

Day 9
Sweet treats meant I could write about so many wonderful, edible delights, I mentioned a few but chose Christmas Pudding as the epitome of all things sweet and Christmassy


Day 10
I combined our family list of Christmas requests for Santa with a photo from my work Christmas do as I sit on Santa's lap to receive my secret Santa gift


Day 11
As I hadn't shared my Christmas cards in an earlier prompt I attached one to my page and included a photograph of some other cards I made inside with the journalling.  I think I will add a couple of this years Christmas postage stamps to the page too.


Day 12
Initially I wasn't sure what to do for the prompt on Merry Mentors then I thought about the children and how they join in with all my Christmas madness (well most of the time!) and last year they even let me take a photo of them outside the house in Christmas hats (yet to try getting any similar photos of the 2 of them this year!!)


Do you journal anything special during the Christmas period?  I actually wish I had been doing this for years as I would love to have more of the past Christmastimes memories recorded as I find I get more and more forgetful every year..... I think in the future I will use some of the prompts to record memories of Christmas past and will definitely make some 12 x 12 pages of some important Christmas events or traditions from previous years.

Sunday, 29 December 2013

Journal your Christmas days 5 to 8

Day 5
I decided to go a little off topic and instead of talking about written communication in the traditional sense (ie journalling about Christmas Cards) I wrote about going to Great Ormond Street with my son (and husband) and how I felt as a mother about his illness and how amazing he has been


most of the journalling is hidden away on the inside....

 Day 6


I think one of  the coziest things we do at Christmas is giving new PJ's to the children on Christmas eve.... DD loved her onesie last year, as above (and we got another one for her this year!)

Day 7

There are so many tantalising treats for the senses during the Holiday season and I described a few I was experiencing at the time

Day 8

I used the sketch and weekly challenge from UKS for todays entry about buying our Christmas tree a couple of days before.

Saturday, 28 December 2013

Journal your Christmas days 1 to 4

I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas/ Happy Holiday.  We have had a great time and I am not looking forward to returning to work next week! Completing Journal Your Christmas certainly helps to keep the holiday feeling going whilst preserving all the details of the season.  I signed up for Shimelle's JYC several years ago but only completed an entire journal  (27 pages/days) for the first time last year..... I finished it in March!

I seem to have had a slower more relaxed pace this year, this may be due to in part to DS having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and us not making many plans to socialise which would tire him more. So, a quieter run up to the big day plus a bout of illness for me has meant less activities to document so I have used the prompts more this year.

Day 1


 this states my Christmas Manifest

Day 2


I had a fabulous Christmassy drink and asked for a spare cup that I made into a little festive flap.... 


Day 3


planning the lights (though I managed to hide the start of the title under my light bulbs!)

Day 4

.... telling the story of the best Secret Santa gift that I have ever had.  A gorgeous gingerbread house received last year and I don't know who it was from even now!

I have mainly been using Simple Stories Handmade Holiday with some odds and ends from the boxes of Christmas Stash I seem to have! The wonderful numbers were discovered via Pinterest and can be found here, perfect for printing off and punching out.

Wednesday, 18 December 2013

SJ Crafts 6 on the 6th

This has been the best idea ever for encouraging me to get on and make my Christmas cards this year.  In fact it has worked so well that I think I will end up with a few spare cards..... maybe a start for next year.

As part of the Red Ribbons Cyber Crop a few weekends ago we were asked to create a piece of mail art and send it to someone, I decided to try and make mine Christmassy themed... this was the front of the envelope ...

http://sjpapercrafts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/decembers-six-cards-on-6th.html
all very arty for me! Thought I would try something new totally inspired by someone called Lynda who I met on a recent crop.  She was using a similar technique (bubblewrap printing then lines with a credit card) I added stamped stars and a Christmas greeting with snowflakes punched from a vintage book and lightly painted white, a quick misting and I was done.  This then lead to the creation of a set of co-ordinating Christmas cards...


and another set of 6 cards had been made!

The last 2 sets I created were from ideas I had seen on pinterest here and here and adapted to make 2 sets of cards 



As you can see I used the negative and the positive snowflake shape and tried several ideas with both...... these are my favourite cards of the 5 sets I made this year.

Thank you Sarah, Louise, Jennifer and Lisa Jane for all your Christmas card inspiration over at SJ Crafts and I am keeping my fingers crossed you do this again next year!

Sunday, 1 December 2013

Story Telling Sunday my most precious

Last year I joined in each and every story telling Sunday with Sian and her following of tale tellers and I loved it.  This year, each month was about 'picking your precious'....... sadly I decided I couldn't do it........ it just felt wrong to me, to be 'picking a precious' when I knew one of the most precious people in the world was going to be taken from me.

My Dad is a survivor, after being told he had a 20% chance of surviving a year after having a heart attack over 6 years ago. My Dad is literally living on borrowed time, he was given a terrible prognosis as cancer spread from his colon to his lung and liver. I am so grateful for each and every extra minute, hour, day and month.

Life is precious, time is precious, family is precious, health is precious, having you here for another 'last Christmas' is so so precious.  



My Daddy and Me xxx

Sunday, 17 November 2013

Frosty Festivities Card Inspiration

As I have previously mentioned there was a shopping trolley full of tinsel fueled inspiration over at Jennifer Grace Creates Frosty Festivities last weekend.  Today I have taken that inspiration and finally got round to making some Christmas Cards.

Each month over at SJ Crafts Blog there has been '6 cards on the 6th' and each month I mean to get on with creating cards as they are always left to the last minute each year.  So combining the inspiration from Jennifers Frosty Festivities and the encouragement from SJ and her design team here are my cards....

These are inspired by 'add a little frosting' and feature die cut glittered trees (a freebie die from a recent papercrafting magazine) and small gemstones.


Here are all 6 and you can probably just make out the back ones which had the same shape used for the red and green paper layers using my Spellbinders nesting dies.  


Unfortunately I somehow got one die stuck in the Cuttlebug and this is how it ended up.....


(not sure what I did???!!!) .....so a little sad that I can't make anything with that die again!

I then went for some 'red and blue' inspiration and made these 3 cards


and then another 3...

So I am really chuffed to have 12 Christmas Cards  (I am entereing SJ's 6 cards on the 6th twice!!)and 2 single LO's and " DLO's all inspired by Jennifer thank you xxx

Frosty Festivities Scrapping Inspiration

I was ill last weekend and feeling sorry for myself, not leaving the comfort of the sofa and/or my bed.  There was one thing that brightened my Saturday and Sunday at home and that was reading about Frosty Festivities over at Jennifer Grace Creates. Full of fabulous ideas and packed with inspiration I thoroughly enjoyed reading all the ideas.
Although all the giveaways have now ended there are a few challenges that close this evening and you know me always up for a challenge and there are 4 over at Jennifer's blog and I have taken inspiration from each of them to come up with some new scrapbook layouts.

The first challenge was to 'be inspired' well that was easy as there was so much to be inspired by!  I took last weeks UKS challenge and summoned the energy to make a page from a sketch, with some faux stitching and die cuts/punched or fussy cut paper.  I took my ideas from Jennifer's suggestions to use 3 different paper collections, use pop dots, use lime green, use tiny stars and wrap twine round something.  I had thought she talked about scraplifting yourself somewhere but may have imagined that as I did use a similar photo (shown here on my blog)  for inspiration too as wasn't up to thinking about my page!


A challenge to 'embrace the busy' made me think of some photographs taken at the Harry Potter Studio Tour, they were taken through the glass of a cabinet packed full of numerous props used in the films.  The ones I have, show lots of the items for sale at 'Weasley's Wizard Wheezes' the twins fantastic fun shop on Diagon Alley.  I also took some pictures of the sweets sold at Honeydukes. These became a double page....


'Add a little frosting' would not naturally be up my street as I don't really like sparkly or glittery things.  This weeks challenge on UKS was the Marmite Challenge you could choose to use things you loved or hated so I went for hating the sparkling and glittery blue paper (difficult to see in the photo but the large blue sheet is very glittered), but loved the photographs of the ice sculpture from the Yule Ball and I love using punches.  I added extra frosting by punching sparkling snowflakes and inking the edges of the photo-mat and journalling block (tucked under the photos with white glittery snowflakes on the edge!) in silver.


The final challenge was to 'use red and blue' and this time I decided against using more Harry Potter photos and instead created 'the story of a Snowfall' telling the tale of my excitement when the snow arrived at 10.30 pm one night!  So I got to do more snowflake punching!


So I was busy at my crop yesterday making these fab pages inspired by the fantastic Frosty Festivities by Jennifer Grace Creates.  I am looking forward to going back and re reading so many of the creative ideas and getting more inspiration.  A huge thank you to Jennifer for a really wonderful event xxx

ps excuse the dreadful photos but it has been a very damp, dark and dull day here today!


Saturday, 26 October 2013

Joining in some challenges.......

Hullo poor abandoned blog and any blog followers who haven't removed me from their blog readers!!

I have completed 2 scrapbook layouts today......


The first double page layout was made for the weekly UKS challenge, using a colour palette, circles (the orange patterned paper is covered in circles) and buttons.  I took Inspiration from Jot Magazine's mini challenge 'the greatest View'..... how could I resist when I had these photo's?? I also used some gorgeous die cuts of London thanks to Julie.


This page if for the monthly house challenge on UKS, which is simply to use a chosen Dr Seuss quote and I used 'why fit in when you were born to stand out' as it suited my journalling.  The layout was based on the Sarah's Cards Sketch Challenge


Well you know I love a good challenge...... if you are thinking about joining a UKS team do get in touch as we still have room for more Chatty Scrappers!!

Saturday, 21 September 2013

Ooooops forgot a photo for Rinda's challenge!!

Here is it


21 A photo of me with lots of 12x12 patterned papers and my paper trimmer two of my favourite craft supplies and use in most LO's (rather blurred and taken earlier today by the 12 year old!!!)

Thank you so much Rinda for another wonderful summertime scavenger hunt as usual there were some tricky subjects and objects but I managed to get all 21 and the 2 bonus items in the end!!

I am going to try and see what everyone else has managed to find as we will all have so many different yet the same items xxx

Rinda's 2013 Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt part 2

I have been busy trying to get the last few pics for Rinda's challenge 

So without further ado here are some more photographs.....


11 An animal in a zoo, aquarium, nature reserve..... yay I got an iguana!!


 15 A fire truck or police car.... found next to where I work


 14 a stained glass or mosaic....spotted at a local school see the close up


 1 open air market..... I love these 'honesty stalls' with the pot for money



 12 a cloud in the shape of something..... top one is an alligator head and the bottom one is a rubber duck???


19 a fisherman.....had lotsa options for this but went for the 'crab' fishermen... there were a lot of crabs!


 3 civic building... this is the grand entrance to the council offices in Aberdeen, Scotland


5 a sunset..... taken last night from home!


20 a dinosaur.... discovered on Skye and there was even a dinosaur museum


 2 theatre for performing arts.....taken at 7.30am this morning...cutting it fine again!


bonus items....DS modelling the English flag (that was all he was wearing!) and a sundial from Richard Branson's garden!

Thursday, 19 September 2013

Rinda's 2013 Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt part 1

Yes I know I am really late joining in with Rinda's fab challenge.....
I have been taking photos throughout the Summer but have not managed to blog one yet!
So here I go with a random selection that, like last years, represents some of the places I have been and people I have seen this Summer.....

 17 Candles...... celebrating DD's birthday in July

 8 A tower.... the pink cooling towers of Ironbridge

 13 A fence.....my cousin lives next to a field

 4 an airplane...... we flew to Scotland on this one

 6 someone or something taking a nap..... kids dozing in the sun on a boat trip

 18 you local tea shop... this is the small and cosy teahouse in Staffin on the Isle of Skye, the best cup of tea I have had for years and all the cakes were fantastic!!

 16 a windmill... one of a scattered few on Skye

 10 A bench that is outside....hand carved and what a view!

 9   A photo with someone or something that is clearly out of place or doesn't belong..... a telephone box in the middle of nowhere almost overgrown with weeds and bushes!

7  A sign that is intentionally or unintentionally funny.... well it made me laugh!

so have you managed to join in this year?  I know I have seen a lot of interesting and original interpretations of the list around the web and I think I may be stretching the rules with some of my snaps...in fact I still have a couple to take..... nothing like leaving it to the last minute!