Sunday 15 November 2015

Frosty Festivities Blog Hop 2015

Greetings blog hoppers!



Welcome to the fabulous Frosty Festivities blog hop...Jennifer Grace is giving away a prize pack of a Lawn Fawn stamp set and more (see below) - enter to win by commenting on all the blogs in the Frosty Festivities 2015 hop. The giveaway closes on Sunday the 6th of December at 10pm GMT, and is open internationally.... good luck.


I love Christmas!  I get excited every year and even though the children are now teenagers, we still have an elf, we still have advent calendars and stockings! I love all the colours, the sparkle and fun that the holidays bring....all of which is reflected in the Christmas Scrapbook supplies brought out each year.

Do you document the festive period in a particular way?  Do you take part in December Daily or Journal Your Christmas or just do your own thing? I haven't always managed to finish my journals in the past but I  love looking back at the completed pages. Not all of the Christmas ranges go with my colours or style and some won't even fit in the album as they need to be fairly flat. Making a few of my own embellishments definitely works well.

For the past few years, I have organised a Christmas Embellishment swop with my team on UKS.  This year 7 of us joined in with the remit to give 2 sets of themed embellishments to each person. We sent them out early as one of our members is celebrating Christmas in the USA and is leaving this month. So I have been feeling Christmassy for a couple of weeks now.  Armed with a few ideas from a French Scrapping magazine of Sheena's, some sizzix dies, my imagination and a Christmas film  to watch, I created these...



I chose this colour-way as a couple of people had stated they were using more turquoise and silver colours this year, whereas I am always a traditionalist with my red, green kraft and gold!I wrapped them up with a handmade Christmas card and some chocolate coins and sent them off around the country and these are a selection of the goodies I received (minus the chocolate treat I was sent that got eaten fairly quickly!)...



I feel really lucky to have such creative and generous teamies and these embellishments will go a long way to filling my Christmas album this year

I made a spare set of the 3 pocket page cards with 2 of the metallic tag embellishments, so I will post these off to someone chosen by random. If you would like to receive a set (maybe including some chocolate coins!) please mention it in your comment and I will pick a name at the end of the week.

Here's the Frosty Festivities 2015 blog hop list for you, it's in alphabetical order, 

Clare B - http://clarebrowndesign.com/

Hope you have enjoyed perusing my blog today, next up is the talented Scrappy Jacky found here If you get lost just head over to Jennifer Grace Creates.....have fun xxx

Saturday 26 September 2015

Pass the page Blog Hop

Shock horror I am back on my blog...for another blog hop... I do hate to miss out if I am invited!

Last weekend I was part of the 4th Bloggers  retreat organised and facilitated by the ever talented Jim Jams. We have been firm friends since the very first weekend in Shropshire when she kindly offered to collect me from the station,then sat next to me and shared a room with me and she had never met me before! Thank you!

Anyway we get up to all sorts before during and after our weekend away and one of the fun things we did was Julie's ''pass the page''. it started with a page made by Julie and was 'passed' electronically to the next person in secret so a scraplift could happen, then onto the next person etc etc.

Here is the running order

Julie: https://jsquaredscrapspot.wordpress.com
Kirsty: http://kscraftycorner.blogspot.co.uk
Jacky: http://scrappyjackylive.blogspot.co.uk
Jo: http://curlyscrapbooker.blogspot.co.uk
Mrs Wookie: http://mrswookieswanderings.blogspot.co.uk
Fay: http://www.beautifullilysramblings.blogspot.co.uk
Alexa: http://simplyalexa.typepad.com/trimmingthesails/
Alison: http://alisonslife-in-the-slow-lane.blogspot.co.uk
Lizzie: http://lizziemade.blogspot.co.uk
Ruth: http://chattycraftyartypig.blogspot.co.uk
Jemma: http://just-jimjams.blogspot.co.uk


I hope you have come to be from lovely Lizzie and after visiting please hop over to visit Jemma

Without further ado here is my layout...



As you can see I have moved the sketch around a bit to suit my style and my photo but there are definitely elements of Lizzie's page in there.

I loved looking at the creative journey the page made, the similarities and the differences, each page wonderful and unique... I am not even sure which one is my favourite.

I hope you enjoyed looking at our travelling layouts and hopping around the country with us, who knows maybe I will blog again soon!

Friday 15 May 2015

Focus your Craft and Soul .... the blog hop



Welcome to Jennifer Grace Creates Craft and Soul Blog Hop

I have dusted down my lonely blog to join in with this fantastic blog hop.
This is the fantastic prize that Jennifer Grace is giving away ...



...a WRK Insta Album Kit - enter to win by commenting on all the blogs in the Focus Your Craft & Soul blog hop! The giveaway closes on Sunday the 24th of May at 10pm BST, and is open internationally.

Jennifer asked us to ''feature some kind of creative project based on the theme of 'Focus'. This can cover a variety of ideas on how to focus your crafting, about living in the moment, making sure you appreciate the little things, or how to use focal points. You could also just feature icons like targets, frames, arrows, triangles, and cameras. Or do anything that the word 'Focus' inspires you to!'' 

Initially I had the idea to try a new technique on a layout, focussing on the word 'love', but as the time approached I changed my mind, almost at the last minute!  On Tuesday Ali Edwards inspired me to join in with 'A Day in the Life' for the first time.

I have never focused on one day before, I used my android camera to take different photographs throughout the day to capture the ordinary moments. I decided to keep my focus simple and use it as a kind of diary.

I took my final 24 photographs and made a 2 page layout...



page 1 focuses on the morning, getting up going to work and returning home



page 2 focuses on the afternoon cooking my son's fave lunch buying petrol travelling to a work meeting, back home, dinner and bed time!


This is how the 2 pages look together and I am really pleased I chose to focus on 'a day in the life', documenting simple, ordinary, everyday things.
I used one collection, Creative Agenda from Echo Park and one other Echo Park sheet of paper.  In honour of Jennifer Grace I added a bit of bling to my pages too!

I hope you are enjoying the blog hop, I hope to join in and visit all the other participants too.  Next up is one of my favourite scrappers who takes amazing photographs from her local area, often featured on her layouts.  So please head over to the talented Daphne here.

If you have missed the beginning of the blog hop or got a little lost, here is the full list of everyone taking part.


Jennifer: http://jennifergracecreates.com/

thanks for visiting xxx

Tuesday 13 January 2015

Testament of Youth




This weekend I was lucky enough to get 2 complimentary tickets from Show Film First to see Testament of Youth.

I rarely go to the cinema so this was a huge treat.

The film is based on the memoirs of Vera Brittain, a true story of her experiences during the First World War. At times I found it hard to believe it wasn't fiction as the harsh reality of life and loss during wartime was so hard hitting.

I really enjoyed this film and loved the Vera Brittain character as played by the talented Alicia Vikander.  Her perspective of life during the Great War and the difficulties and heartbreak she faced were at times very moving.....yes I did cry.

I felt the film portrayed WW1 more realistically than other dramatisations I have seen (BBC1's The Crimson Field was far too 'clean and nice' to be real in my mind, though a good series) I do appreciate wretched scenes of mud, traumatic war injuries and death and dying can be difficult to make into a film that people will want to watch, let alone enjoy.

Despite the underlying theme there were moments when we laughed out loud and the cinematography is simply stunning.  I read several novels and visited the Poppies at the Tower during the Centenary last year, this film is another way for us to remember ...lest we forget.

Sunday 11 January 2015

1P 20W January 2015



New Year, New Start, Fresh hopes and dreams. Goodbye 2014, farewell Dad, 2015 will be a better year for us.

I am trying to start again with blogging after a difficult 2014 and what better way to start then joining in with friends.  Inspired again by  Abi and one photo twenty words to share my short story. Check it out and join in.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year (though slightly late) and hope we get to see more of each other soon .....  cheers!  xxx