Photo a day

WOW!  I am so pleased to have finished this year long project.  Before I have done scrapbooking projects that last a year, but they are not everyday, and it is possible to ‘catch-up’ when you have the time.  With this one it is important to take a photo each day.  I have to admit to missing quite a few days over the winter, especially when I have been working.  And there have been a few days when I have cheated and taken the photo the day after!

So how do I feel about the photos now?  I went back through them and found quite a few that I consider ‘good’.  But a lot of the time I was simply taking a photo to get one taken.  I don’t think it has improved my photography technically (although I did get to grips with my macro lens a bit quicker than I would have done).  but it maybe has improved the variety of photos I have taken, and now I have loads more photos of everyday things.

I decided not to print them all out and scrap them all.  They are recorded on this blog.  But I wnated to do something with them, so I printed out about 30 of the best as 2” squares and made this DLO:

March 24th

Well, this is it – the last of my 365 photos, my photo per day for the year I was 50!  Tomorrow is my 51st birthday.  So a bit of a celebration going on, not least because I have completed this project!  I have missed several days, but am pleased to have finished.  I made these cup cakes to take into work and to my sewing class tomorrow:

I’ll be back in a few days time to review my photo a day project, but suffice to say, I am very pleased not to have to post tomorrow!!!

Tuesday March 23rd

Another foggy day!  We have had lots of foggy days recently.  Must be the change in temperature.

Monday March 22nd

Bit of a cheat here, cos I have just taken the photo now!  Long story, but last night I took the dog for a walk, just round the block – 30 mins at the most – just as Maurice was going to play squash and Lucy going to work (her new job as a barmaid over on the other side of town).  But when I got back home (7.20pm) I realised that I had picked up the wrong keys!  I had the car key in my pocket not the front door key!  What to do?  I didn’t have my phone on me, but that might not have been any help as Maurice probably didn’t have his phone with him either (he didn’t).  I decided to walk to Lucy’s pub, and get her keys, but when I got to the end of the road, I decided it was too far and then I would have to walk back!  So I thought I would walk to my brother’s house.  It takes about 40 minutes.  As I drew close to his house I chickened out of knocking on his door, I was a bit embarrassed, and me and Merlin were very wet!  And anyway there was nothing else he could do!  I decided to walk back home by which time Maurice should be home soon.  So I arrived back home at 9pm and had to wait about 10 mins for Maurice!  I walked for over 2 hours…… I reckon I deserved my glass of wine!

Sunday 21st March

Hmmm, it’s supposed to be the first day of spring!  Well, I guess it is quite nice and sunny out there today!  None of the trees up the road are in flower yet, but I did notice the buds this morning.  I think they will be out soon.

 

Continuing  things I love in my house, we have plate racks in the hall and dining room.  Here’s a view of some of the plates in the hall:

I love that big plate, that’s the plate we always use at Christmas for the turkey!  Next to that is a portmerion plate, then a couple of plates that MIL has given me. The blue one has fishes on it and was bought from a market in Portugal, next to that is a plate we bought back from Poland.  The last one is another one from MIL.

Saturday 20th March

I really am on the home straight with this 365 POTD project now!  Can you tell how much I am dying to finish now!!!

Anyway, I spent a good long time doing LOM stuff yesterday afternoon, then was inspired to scrap these photos from 1997.  I did it for Shimelle’s challenge for Friday on her ‘Something from Nothing’ class.  I used old paper scraps, cardstock scraps, ribbon scraps, metal (eyelets and brads).  It took me ages to die cut the title and the tags and flowers!  But I am so happy with how it all came together!

The funny thing is – these photos were taken in the back garden, and all those daffodils have disappeared now!  I wonder where they all went? 

Friday 19th March

I am loving Shimelle’s new class!  Here’s some LOs I have done in my ‘Celebrate Life’ minibook:

Photos of Nicholas and Lucy from the early 1990s!

I love how these pages have turned out!  I found the pictures while sorting for my LOM class!

Thursday 18th March

Continuing the theme of things I love, here’s my dolls house.  Dad made it for DD Lucy when she was about 3 (he made 2 more for my brother’s 2 DDs too!)  Since Lucy was about 11 we have furnished it in a more ‘grown-up’ way.

It’s been several different colours over the years but is blue and green at the moment!  It has an ‘extension’, to the right of the front door and a ‘basement’!

The best thing in it is this chest of drawers that Dad made:

and he painted this miniature ‘Laughing Cavalier’ for me!

It only measures a couple of inches!  Fab!!

March 17th

My Scrap Weekly page for this week.  These pics were taken in 1989!  That’s Nicholas when he was about 8 month old with my 2 grandmothers, who are sadly not alive any longer.  I love these photos!  Nicholas was on fabulous form, and all smiley and lovely with them!  On the left is Elizabeth Vanstone (little Nanny) who is Mum’s mother, and on the right is Alice Fumagalli (big nanny) who is Dad’s mother.  Both were very formidable women in their own ways – big Nanny had a big personality to match her size!  It was very sad when she had a massive stroke which left her without speech.  Little Nanny nursed her sick husband for years, without complaining.

March 16th

There are a lot of changes going on at work.  We are to become a ‘Surestart’ Children and Family Centre on 1st April, run by the charity ‘Spurgeons’.  As we are employed by the charity ‘Family Action’ at the moment, we had our TUPE meeting today.  It was the first time we had met the Spurgeons people properly, and I have to say I am impressed.  We will be OK!  I am going to be an information assistant in the new Ch+FC, working 2 days per week.  (Although some funding may come up in the next couple of weeks that will enable me to run training for volunteers across all the Worthing C+FCs!  So still a bit of uncertainty)  I am happy about that.  Just can’t wait to get going now, but we have loads of building work to be done, so will be moving out for the summer.  Don’t suppose it will really get going until September….

Monday March 15th

OMG!  Half way through March already – and only 10 days to go on my POTD!!!!

Early morning dog walks.  I have a hate/love relationship with them!  I hate getting up early, but I have to get up before 7am to walk the dog before I have to go to work by 9am.  But I LOVE being out so early – this morning down the beach!  It is a lovely Spring day here, and actually feels a bit warmer at last.

 

Saturday and Sunday

I have managed to complete my mini goal for the week, and make a page a day!  Here are some of them:

 

First of all some stuff from Shimelle’s new class, ‘Something from almost Nothing’.  Here’s my ‘Celebrate Life’ album.  It is 6 x 6 bia album with black cardstock pages.   See the 3 book plates on the cover?

 

 

And here’s the first page with a border made from paper scraps.  The photo is an old one of us both at one of our favourite places, Highcliffe Beach.

Here’s a page I made with old photos of Nicholas (found while sorting photos for LOM – I have a nice pile of cute photos to scrap now!)  It’s a scraplift from a page done by Jennifer Gallacher in Shimelle’s lesson.

I got out my old hammer and eyelet setter for these eyelets!

I finished off my January pages for Document 2010:

 

I love these divided page protectors!

 

Finally, here’s a Mother’s day card – Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

Friday March 12th

I love new towels!  Maurice says I buy far too many!!  I like to buy 4 little handtowels – 1 for each of us – so they look nice on the towel rail in the bathroom.  Here’s 3 of them just out of the fryer, all lovely and thick and fluffy!  (the 4th one was still in the washing machine as it is dark blue!)

March 11th

These crocuses sit on my kitchen windowsill.  My friend Claire gave them to me for Christmas.  There are 3 and they sit in little bottles (like hyacinth jars) with just water for nourishment.  How amazing that this gorgeous glower grows from a little nondescript bulb, with just added water!  Truly one of natures miracles!  To see them on my windowsill everyday lifts my spirits!

 

March 10th

I have signed up for Shimelle’s new class, and thought I ought to take some photos of my stash!  My room is not very tidy at the moment, because I have boxes all over the place, and I really need to consolidate my latest kits in with the other stash instead of having them all over the floor LOL!

Here’s my little trolley, which when I bought it was going to house all my stash!!!!  EEEEEKKKK!  Now it houses paper and cardstock on the top, and projects below.  I don’t really have enough paper and cardstock.  Tonight I was looking for some red cardstock to do a LO and couldn’t find the right one!  I do have other paper and card lying about from recent kits – have to say they are my ‘go-to’ supplies rather than these boxes!

Next to the trolley are my photos.  The black albums have holiday photos in all sorted into divided page protectors with the idea that I do a couple of LOs per holiday.  The red albums house photos from the 60s right up to present.  They are my LOM storage binders!  My category drawers are in a CM powersort box which is usually in front of them, but I moved it for the photo!

 

These shelves above the albums mostly hold magazines and tools, but ther is a big box of flowers, a box of tape, and a box of die cuts (all hardly ever used!)

Since I put all my ‘big’ brads in one jar (on the right) I have used them much more!  Funny that, because I used to have them sorted by type/colour and never looked at them.  I love to use the big brads with the big flowers in these kilner jars.

I hope Shimelle has some ideas for chipboard.  Here’s a drawer full (plus the one below) that I hardly ever look in!

 

Here’s my drawer of fibres, which again I never use.  It’s a shame they have gone out of fashion.

Finally here’s my ribbon drawer.  It is fairly well sorted by colour and all the ribbon is in little plastic bags.

March 9th

ooooo I have had a lovely day today!  I went to Brighton for the day and hit my credit card HARD!  Here’s a pic of the new clothes I bought:

In that pile are 2 dresses, a pair of jeans, 2 tops and a cardigan!

 

And here’s my new spring like kitchen table, what a joy!  I have put a small white vase with daffodils in the middle today and it looks fabulous!  Not sure what I am going to do with the tins yet! 

Monday 8th March

My page for the scrap weekly challenge.  This week is was to do the journaling first!  What a fab idea!  It really gets you to think about the story before sticking it all down and then running out of room!

This is not a great photo of my LO, but here it is.  It is all about getting my degree at the grand old age of 42!  A dream I had for a long time.

Sunday 7th March

We went for a really lovely walk along the undercliff walk between Brighton and Rottingdean this morning.  Afraid my photos were not very good :(, but here’s one that’s not too bad:

See my other blog for more photos.

Saturday 6th March

Brighton crop day YAY!

Our challenge today was to use a little pack of papers that Janet provided, in beige blue and yellow.  (We akways have a vote for the ‘page of the day’ )  Today there were 3 winners, which included me!!  Here’s Lerryn, Jenny and me showing off our pages!

I was working on a minibook for my nieces 18th birthday next week.  Here’s a sneaky peek – can you see it amongst the mess?!

Friday 5th March

 

I got the inspiration for this photo from this post.  The blog author is one of the ‘trainers’ on the LOM class.  I didn’t like to have photos around the house until we had children of our own!  Now we have several places for photos, including on this chest of drawers in our bedroom.  From l-r, that’s Merlin in a doggy frame that Lucy bought me for my birthday about 5 years ago, next to that is a picture of Maurice, Nicholas and me taken in 1991 when I was expecting Lucy.  (We used to organise a professional photographer when I belonged to the NCT, and he used to come to our house and set himself up in our dining room.  Other members of the NCT had appointments with him all through the day).  Next to that is a picture of Maurice and me at an NCT summer ball!  Another professional photograph.  Out in front is a picture of Maurice and Nicholas when we were on holidya in Spain in 1999.

Thursday 4th March

I have been to the garden centre today ofr lunch with Mum.  We couldn’t resist the little ‘plug’ plants!  These are a mixture of red and orange geraniums.

Wednesday 3rd March

This is my entry for this week’s scrap weekly challenge.  This week it was to use more than 1 photo!  That’s something I love to do!

I have been looking at lots of old photos with my LOM, and wondering how best I can adapt LOM for my own use.  Anyway, I so want to scrpa ll these old photos so here’s one!

Tuesday 2nd March

2 photos today!  I have been thinking about my goals that I set myself back in january.  I have not done so well with my weight loss or fitness goals in the last couple of weeks.  I went back to www.simplify101.com, and have some fresh enthusiasm!  So much so that I have just done 30minutes of salsa dancing to my Rosemary Conley DVD!

 

And then as I was sitting down afterwards getting my breath back, I had a little photoshoot with Merlin!  Here’s the best one: