April Family 12 x 12 blog hop

I'm late................
so sorry everyone I have been in London for the day and forgot to write my post in advance I apologise!

Anyway, the fantastic Margie is the founder of our monthly family blog hop, which is a really fantastic way to record your own family photos....... if you remember to take them!!  I have looked through all my March pictures and there are not as many as usual, I have lots of scrapbook layouts, my mother's day presents and my daughters new trainers but very few people pics and definitely no family photos (I took several of DD's English/French exchange group but they don't count as family!)

So I have cheated!  I bring you hot of the press this photograph taken on Sunday

This is a celebration for my Mother in Law's 80th birthday, which 17 of us joined her for in Dorset and what a fun weekend it was. Yes I got everyone to pose snapped away then asked a complete stranger to take one that included me!!

I expect you have already visited all the other participants blogs (sorry again for my tardy entry!) but here is the list just in case

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog

Carol Ann http://www.scrappingthoughts.com

Louise http://www.scrapbook-me.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth http://www.chattycraftyartypig.blogspot.com

just wanted to say a special welcome to Louise as this is her first time joining in and I hope she continues to do so.  If you are interested in joining us please get in touch with Margie, it really is simple and fun to do xxx

Harry Potter Studio Tour

Back in September the family went to Leavesden home of the Harry Potter Studios.  My son and I are huge, enormous, great big Harry Potter Film Fans and this was the perfect day out for us!

Recently I have started to scrap some of the 400 plus photos hubby and I took (I haven't actually seen any of the ones that DD took yet).  I have taken the opportunity to use some in conjunction with the challenges over at UKS.  Last week we were asked to use a primary colour, 3 clusters of embellishments and some washi tape.

I love a sketch as a starting point for scrapping and found this one......

over at the Creative Craft World Challenge blog.  I immediately fell in love with the layout and knew exactly how to use it with a photograph of the Gryffindor Common Room............

and entered into the first non UKS challenge I have done for ages....... who knows I might even join in again!

Keep on scrapping.......

I have been loving scrapbooking recently.  I think becoming part of a team on UK Scrappers and joining in more of the challenges /crops and fun activities on the site have really helped.  Also the Bloggers Weekend was so inspiring seeing first hand so many skilled and talented scrappers working on their pages.

I rarely seem to share my pages on here, seldom blog them for the world to see so after sharing my simple Christmas pages and having a good response to them I am going to make a concerted effort to share more of my scrapping adventure starting now!!

These are 2 of the weekly challenges and one house challenge from UKS, sometimes taking me out of my comfort zone but always stimulating and inspiring.

So are you part of UKS???  What scrapping have you been up to and what or who inspired you???

Christmas is complete!!

Ok I know Christmas was really over in December but I needed to finish my Christmas Journal.

I actually started in 2010 the year I joined Journal Your Christmas run by Shimelle, all I managed that year was the 1st page!  In 2011 I tried again, I updated the first page and actually made several others, but got behind, Dad got admitted to hospital and I really lost the Christmas spirit.

So we come to Christmas 2012 and  I have kept all the original pages made in the previous years but I made all the others and finished on December 27th.  Here is a quick look..........

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What I have learned........I have really enjoyed making these pages and preserving some of my memories from Christmas.  I will definitely do this again and won't worry about completing it after Christmas. I managed to make the LO's without needing a sketch I just made them as I went and used the materials I had to hand so keeping it simple, this can be adapted for 12x12 pages that I usually make.  So overall a really worthwhile project and so glad I persevered.

bloggers weekend

WOW it was a blast!

It was wonderful to meet some of my blogging buddies for the very first time, see others that I met on the Bloggers weekend in 2011 and of course see my dear chum K again who I have 'known' for years though have only met about 5 times!

I was so happy spending time with like minded people, everyone was there to create, make and do, it was a pleasure, it was heaven, this could be my utopia!!

I expect many of you have seen this photograph or a similar one taken by the talented Melsh.....

 what no-one else seems to have shared is what happened behind the camera.......

 lots of concentrating, focusing, testing the shot...........

trying to get us organised...........thankfully the photo leader Melsh did not need to use the 'stick' on any of us we all got in our places and the photo was taken lol!

It really was an amazing way to spend time, I particularly enjoyed

• meeting everyone (in fact I started early meeting Alexa and Alison for a coffee in the local shopping centre)
• tasty cups of tea ...I tried vanilla and earl grey and it was love at first taste thanks to Jacky 
• cake (Louise's cake was wonderful and of course the Malteser Cake) 
• Julie's London die, though it took most of Saturday morning 
• crying with laughter during the game Sandie organised though this was really due to Jemma 
• discovering Jill lives near to my childhood haunts so we hope to meet up near there sometime special thanks to Jill who met me for the first time and was stuck sitting next to me for most of the weekend!! Please get a blog so I can see all your wonderful creations and leave comments!
• learning to make yoyo flowers (Fay) and pop up embellishments (Jennifer)
• watching others work and plan pages like Miss Smith's use of pencil marks and Mrs Wookie's mini journal prep for class
• the fact that Lizzie had taken much care and time to choose a venue and arrange for us all to get together it was F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S!

Thank you all xxx

lastly a photo of the 4 of us from our end of the table, a reunion from 2011 and wonderful women who I look forward to seeing again hopefully soon

Family 12 x 12 blog hop March The 2nd Anniversary

Welcome to the 2nd Anniversary of our monthly family photo blog hop!

I can't believe that we have been sharing our photos for 2 years now.... where has the time gone??  Seriously I have loved being part of our small team, I really would encourage everyone and anyone to join us.  Margie always sends a reminder so there is time to get a last minute photo plus if you can only get some of your clan in the shot that is also fine.  Definitions of family vary from person to person and culture to culture so whatever your take is on 'family' is fine by us (yes it does/can include pets though so far my own pics have not included the furry member of our family!)  

I am pleased that I have managed to capture a picture of my husband, son, daughter and me together most months.   I don't really like having my photo taken very much (soooooo unphotogenic!!) so I am rarely in photos, let alone in a picture with all the family.

Margie made a few suggestions about how we could celebrate the anniversary and I did consider showcasing some of my favourite photographs from the last couple if years.  Instead, I have chosen to share 'family' photos from February 2013 as we celebrated my husband's special birthday with some of our nearest and dearest.

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Mersea Island  Hubby with my sister, my Dad, , DS's head and me 

photo taken by DD

Canvey Island Hubby with my parents, our children, my aunt, my uncle and me

in a cottage hubby with my cousin and her children, our children and me

Cambridge hubby with his nephews, neice, sis in-law her hubby, our children and me

at our house hubby with 2 families (4 adults 4 children) our children and me

up the Shard in London hubby and me on his actual birthday!

So as you can see we did a lot of celebrating which fits nicely with the theme of celebrating the 2nd anniversary.  (I also spent well over an hour trying to find all the Shard and actual birthday photos, I was even trying to recover them from the SD card! I eventually found them mislabeled by me as 2012 not 2013 phew! I was nearly crying as so upset thinking I had deleted them and then was jumping for joy when eventually found them!!!)

Please visit the 2 other participants this month and please consider joining us next month as it really is simple and so worthwhile  

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog

Patricia  http://patoliveira.wordpress.com/ 

Ruth http://www.chattycraftyartypig.blogspot.com

I want to thank Margie so much for the support, the co-ordination and the idea for the family photo blog hop it has been wonderful and looking back on all the photos is fantastic 

family 12 x 12 blog hop

I know I have already shared this photo with you but this is the only one of all the family taken in January so it is coming out again for todays blog hop.

Taking a monthly family photo can be a challenge, everyone is busy with work, school, friends and outside activities plus I have 2 children now that don't seem to want a photo taken!! But it is definitely worth persevering and I know in years to come we will all look back at these photos and smile. I also know that there are bigger changes coming when they will be apart from us for longer as they become more independent and at some point leave home (hopefully to go to University!)  So it is soooo worthwhile to take these monthly shots and I am grateful to Margie for organising us throughout the year.  Please feel free to join us as I think you will find it fun.

This month our group is:-

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog

Patricia  http://patoliveira.wordpress.com/

Carol Ann http://www.scrappingthoughts.com

Ruth http://www.chattycraftyartypig.blogspot.com

please hop round to visit everyone and forgive us if our timings are a little out as we are an international group in different time zones and I am always getting it wrong!!