My first ever crop!!

After the fantastic Bloggers weekend at the beginning of March I was determined to find somewhere local where I could meet up with like minded people and craft.  I had previously looked into the idea of attending a crop but to be honest I felt a bit inadequate as an inexperienced scrapper and definitely wasn't brave enough to meet up with complete strangers!!

But the time had come to get involved and seek out fellow paper crafters who would be happy to share their space (and possibly ideas and stash!) with  me.  I contacted one crop via UKS and 2 via their websites but only had one reply via UKS followed up by a reminder when the next crop was (yesterday!) so I decided to go along.

I thought I would be ok as I consider crafters to be among the nicest people I have ever met and you know what, I was right!  I met up with a wonderful bunch of girls who were really welcoming and friendly and despite the fact that they had all known each other for years, and I was the odd newbie I felt at home almost straight away (I think the bowls of mini eggs on each table definitely helped lol!)

Here is a shot of most of us minus the photographer and another scrapper who came after this pic was taken

I even managed to make a couple of scrapbooking pages from start to finish, a process that can often take me days (I am definitely a slow scrapper!)

The first is for this weeks challenge on UKS  I went for a B&W photo of the everyday with bright coloured papers and lots of journalling.  It is a lot brighter in real life as the grpah style paper in the background is a fairly bright green!

The second layout is yet another from the Harry Potter Studio Tour.  THis is for the UKS monthly challenge which was taking the third letter of your user name and searching under that letter in the members gallery to find inspiration.  I used my teamie Roxy52's page found here and took inspiration from the 2 photos, embellishment placement and large rectangle patterned papers.

DS and I are posing in a pretend fireplace to look as though we have just travelled via the Floo Network!

So for me a hugely successful first time crop and I don't think I upset anyone too much as they are letting me come back for the next one in May and I can't wait!!

Julie Kirk in collaboration with Jennie Bowlin Studios asked us to share ......  this is definitely one good thing that blogging has done for me..... allowed me to get to know some people virtually, feel confident enough to meet up with them in real life, helped me discover and feel competent in the hobby that I am now really enjoying and love and ultimately meant that I could walk into a room of complete strangers this weekend who I know share the same passion as I do (so I am definitely a braver person too!!)

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