Linda's photo blog

10 on the 10th

2012-02-10T10:03:00.001-08:00

Mindful of my ECONOMICAL word this year, I am going to try and not sign up for any more online scrapbooking classes!

So.. I would like to revisit some of those I have ~~half~~ not done over the next few months:

from www.shimelle.com:

Something from almost nothing

Pretty Paper party

Love your Pictures, Love your Pages

True Stories

from www.bigpictureclasses.com

Picture Inspiration (Tracey Clark)

28 days of sketches (Lisa Day)

One Little Word (Ali Edwards)

Write Now! (Amy Sorensen)

Telling Stories Deeply (Karen Grunberg)

from www.aliedwards.com

Storyology

I’ll report back how I get on!

Friendship Quilt

2012-02-09T05:41:00.001-08:00

I meet once a month with my cabin friends, Burnice and Tash. We meet in Burnice’s craft cabin in her garden, and have lately concentrated on quilting, although we do the odd papercrafting too, drink the odd mug of tea, and eat cake! We decided to make each other blocks for a friendship quilt as a Christmas present.

We gave each other 1 fat quarter, which had to be incorporated in the block.

Burnice’s block. I gave her the house fabric in the border. isn’t this lovely? I love the yo-yo flowers and there are little charms dangling from the ribbon, a sewing machine, a cup and a clock.

Tash’s block. I gave her the green house fabric. These 4 blocks come from the book ‘Hobo Quilts’. The book tells of the secret language of hobos ‘riding the rails’ from the 1880s to 1940s America. These blocks represent (clockwise) good water – because I live near the sea, work available –because of the spades, and I like gardening, housewife feeds for chores – because I am a housewife, and well guarded house – because of my dog(more likely he will lick an intruder to death). tash really put a lot of thought into this!

My block, using up some of my gorgeous batiks! This is a pinwheel block.

We all made the same for our 4th block, this wonky house represents the cabin, and the ribbon says, ‘laugh often, sit long, talk much’, which is just what we do!

And here’s what they look like all stitched together. I would like to do more borders and make it a bit bigger. What do you think?

You can see Tash’s quilt here

Resourceful–No 1

2012-02-08T08:57:00.001-08:00

I cleared out a card-making scraps drawer at the weekend and made these:

I made this one for my brother-in-law, whose birthday was this week. The wellingtons are peel-offs, coloured with pencil crayon. All the papers and card are from my scraps drawer – and I had forgotten I had the little round Birthday greetings!

The girl was already stamped, so I coloured her in with my Promarker pens (I really should use them more often!), and the pink background was some practise with the brayer some time ago. The big butterfly is another peel-off already coloured in with pencil crayon.

And the scraps drawer? It is all nice and tidy again now, and I knwo what is in there!

My word for the year is RESOURCEFUl, and this is number 1 in an occasional series for 2012.

Queen Elizabeth II

2012-02-06T07:51:00.001-08:00

I am feeling unashamedly royalist today! Our wonderful Queen has been on the throne for 60 years. What an achievement! Here she is today doing a ‘walk-about’ in King’s Lynn Norfolk.

www.bbc.co.uk

She became Queen on the death of her father, King George VI, on 6th February 1952. She herself was in Kenya when her father died, as she and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh were visiting on the King’s behalf as he was too ill. How sad that she wasn’t with him! What a mixture of emotions she must have had! Have a look here for some pictures of those moments.

Queen Elizabeth has an unerring dedication and sense of duty to our country and the Commonwealth. Here’s an extract of her message for today.

"In this special year, as I dedicate myself anew to your service, I hope we will all be reminded of the power of togetherness and the convening strength of family, friendship and good neighbourliness, examples of which I have been fortunate to see throughout my reign and which my family and I look forward to seeing in many forms as we travel throughout the United Kingdom and the wider Commonwealth."

www.bbc.co.uk

Queen Elizabeth II and her consort, Prince Phillip

I think we have a brilliant year ahead with double celebration, the Queen’s diamond jubilee, and the Olympics in London! Bring it on!

Storytelling Sunday–Venice 2008

2012-02-05T08:11:00.001-08:00

I’ve been scrapping photos from a mini break in Venice we took to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary in 2008. Such fun to re-live the holiday!

But, here’s the story:

We were due to fly out on the Sunday, our anniversary being on the Tuesday. On the Friday evening we were walking the dog and chatting about what we would do when we were in Venice, when I suddenly said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if my passport was out of date?”

Gulp! Guess what? Yes, as soon as we got home, we checked it and found it several months out of date!

This set us off into major panic mode! It soon became evident that we would have to go to London on Monday to get a passport quickly. Maurice managed to change our flights and hotel reservations to the Tuesday. So.. an unexpected trip to London! It was incredibly nerve-wracking as I was sure we’d forget something necessary for identification. But no need to worry, it all went very smoothly.

And our mini-break? It was truly wonderful! We absolutely loved Venice, no better place to spend our anniversary.

I’m linking up with Sian’s Storytelling Sunday.

Finally, here’s my page for yesterday’s crop. Our theme was ‘soft’, and I couldn’t resist these photos of Nicholas way back in 1991 jumping on our bed! I’m happy to say this LO was voted everyone’s favourite, woohoo!

One Little Word 2012

2012-02-01T11:02:00.001-08:00

I signed up for this class by Ali Edwards last year, but didn’t do any of the prompts! However, I did keep my word BALANCE in mind all year, and used it to inspire my monthly goals. Read more here.

This year, in tune with my words, RESOURCEFUL and ECONOMICAL, I am going back to all the old classes I haven’t completed. So here’s my take on the first months prompt, letting my word in:

I love the 9 section page protector, and Ali’s designed cards! You can see that I have left 2 cards blank and these are for quotes. I couldn’t find any that were meaningful to me when I trawled the internet. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I haven’t done too well with my words so far, as I have been ill for much of January and away in Spain for the rest! But watch this space! I am focussing in on cheap meals to cook for February. If it carries on being this cold, the slow cooker will definately come into it’s own!

If you’d like to see more, take a look at Margie’s fabulous blog hop!

Catalonia, Spain

2012-01-26T10:55:00.001-08:00

We spent a few days visiting Maurice’s nephew and partner who live in Spain. They live about 1.5 hour drive north from Barcelona, in the Catalan region of Spain. It was really lovely to spend some time with them in their new home! Did you know that they don’t speak Spanish here, but Catalan, which is completely different to Spanish! Catalonia is an autonomous region of Spain, and the people guard their Catalan identity with pride.

We spent the first afternoon in Barcelona walking down La Rambla, and around the old quarter. We ate in a traditional Catalan restaurant, which included snails! We visited a market, where we marvelled at the brightly coloured displays of fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and sweets.

They took us on a lovely drive over the twisty mountain roads to Cadaques, a gorgeous little seaside village north of Barcelona on the Costa Brava. It has survived modernisation, partly because of it’s most famous inhabitant, Dali, and partly because it is so difficult to get to! It is a very pretty village with lots of white buildings and small alleyways. The weather was perfect, bright and sunny, but cold. (The sun is Spain is so much brighter than the sun in the UK!) We spent most of the day there, exploring the alleyways, and ate paella at a seafront restaurant.

Here’s a view of the town Olot, from one of the volcanoes in the area:

And one of the beautiful buildings in the centre, and the bullring reflected in a modern office block.

We borrowed their car and took ourselves off to another lovely ancient village called Besalu. We wandered around more little streets until the sun went down.

On our final day we weren’t flying home until later, so we caught the train back to Barcelona and the metro to La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona’s wondrous cathedral. It is still under construction as it was interrupted by the Spanish civil war in the 1930s. Here’s a picture of the older side, which depicts Christ’s birth:

And the new side, depicting Christ’s death:

What a lovely trip! I am sure we will be visiting this region of Spain again.

some sewing!

2012-01-20T09:49:00.001-08:00

Here’s a few items I’ve finished lately:

First up, a Union Jack cushion for My friend Burnice’s birthday! I decided to do this in all blue to go in Burnice’s lounge. The little owl fabric is just gorgeous – it’s a Cosmo Textile fabric (oops I got the owls on their sides!), The cream is a Basic Grey Basics fabric from Moda, and is printed like ledger paper – love it! I can’t tell you what the lighter blue fabric is as I don’t have any left, I made the back of the cushion with it. Anyway, I gave it to Burnice on Monday and she loved it! Now I am going to make another one i blues and beiges for another friend and a colourful one for DD Lucy.

Secondly, here’s 2 cushions I have made for Mum to go with her quilt I made her for Christmas. I had made the ‘Dresden Plate’ block before, but it my first time for ‘Trip Around the World’. I machine quilted them both, Dreden Plate I simply machined around the edge and the inner circle, TATW, I machined diagonal lines… but I rather wish I had done diamond shapes to follow the fabric colours. But I am really chuffed with them, they look very fresh and pretty!

Finally, I was unwell last week with a dreadful cold and sat and crotcheted more of my blanket while watching daytime tv! I have to admit to quite liking ‘Homes under the Hammer’ where they follow the renovation of houses bought at auction.

My blanket is made totally randomly from acrylic DK wool. I was inspired by Lucy at http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/ to crotchet these bright colours. I actually finished it this morning. It is a huge circular blanket, and brightens up my lounge perfectly! Plus it’s nice and warm too!

My favourite bit is the few rows in the bottom right hand corner of the photo above, from dark red, through pink, cream, yellow, light green and lilac.

10 on the 10th

2012-01-10T09:25:00.001-08:00

10 photos and 10 facts about my dog!

He is 8.5 year old

He is a flat-coated retriever

His name is Merlin (because he is a magic dog)

He is VERY handsome and quite regal (flat-coats are used in shooting parties to retrieve the wild fowl from the water)

He was bred locally by a couple who wanted their bitch to have puppies just once

His mother is called Jena and his father is called Noah

He is very independent – loves to run free and runs a long way away from us

He loves to go in the water but is not so keen on swimming unless we throw in an object for him to retrieve

He is obsessive about sniffing!

He brings us all such JOY!

I’m linking in with www.shimelle.com for 10 on the 10th

One Little Word 2012

2012-01-08T06:01:00.001-08:00

I’m being greedy and having 2 words this year (even though the word GREED is in exact opposition to my words)! I wanted a word that meant ‘not to waste things’ so I came up with ECONOMICAL.

(picture from www.diagonalprogress.com)

Since then I’ve also thought of RESOURCEFUL.

The Resourceful Birds and the recycled garden twine

(picture from www.5dollardinners.com)

I want to take care of all my resources, and use them economically and efficiently, including:

Time

Money

Energy and Effort

Home, including energy efficiency and water resources

Food

Transport (cycle more and use the car less!)

Material things I use such as clothes, household items

Material things to do with my hobbies, eg scrapbook stash, fabric stash, gardening.

I am hoping that this will lead to living a more ecological lifestyle, as well as using up my own resources more efficiently.

12 days of Christmas

2012-01-04T09:35:00.001-08:00

Remember the photography class I did this Christmas? It was run by Cheryl Johnson (www.feelgoodphotos.co.uk) and this is the final submission:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/linda321/6635762583/

I have to admit to be a teeny bit thrilled with this little slide show!

Please do go and have a look at Cheryl’s site if you want to imporve your photography. She has some brilliant classes, and I have learned loads!

2011–BALANCE

2012-01-02T08:46:00.001-08:00

My word for 2011 was BALANCE. I wanted to get more of a balance in my life between career (which was non-existent in 2010), relationships, health, home and hobbies.

My major goal to achieve this was to do some voluntary work. As you know, I now work at Citizens Advice Bureau for 2 half days per week.

Other achievements this year:

More exercise – longer dog walks and swim once per week

Eating more healthily – trying new recipes

Drinking more water

Active listening to improve relationships with family and friends

Meeting new internet friends

Catching up with old friends

Decluttering my home and able to keep it clean and tidy with minimum effort

Making the most of online classes in scrapbooking, blogging, and photography

Participating in LOAD (Layout a day) twice

Christmas Highlights

2011-12-31T09:49:00.001-08:00

Christmas photography

2011-12-19T04:44:00.001-08:00

Thanks to Cheryl Johnson at www.feelgoodphotos.co.uk, I have been experimenting with indoor photography. I am taking her ‘12 days of Christmas’ workshop, which I thoroughly recommend. She has sent out 12 photo prompts, one each for the first 12 days of Christmas, and then we have to put together a collage by the end of December. You’re too late for this year, but take a look at her site for other classes through the year, especially ‘Painting with Light’, and maybe think about signing up for next year

So with some hints and tips, I tried to capture my family at lunch yesterday, possibly the best photo ever of them! All I need to do now is ‘stage’ it a bit better and have a better foreground and background.

And here’s the dining room fireplace:

I have to tell you that it took me all morning to clear the table from craft stuff! The room looks fabulous once it’s tidy

Christmas album

2011-12-17T03:02:00.001-08:00

I have a pile of Christmas photos from years gone by, that I wanted to scrap in their own album. I thought I would probably use Shimelle’s Journal Your Christmas prompts, or maybe Ali Edwards December daily, but in the end, I have just done my own thing!

I have a few empty 8.5in x 11in American Craft albums, so I picked a red one for my Christmases past album. I also had some divided page protectors that I bought for Ali’s One Little Word class that I didn’t do.

So here’s a peek at what I have been doing:

This first one is from a JYC prompt, a title page. This is my ‘word’ for this season. I want to feel Peace this year. The photo is from 1982! I am always amazed at how good some of our older photos are. We had Pentax ME Super camera bodies and various lenses. Maurice thinks he used a filter on this photo, to get the ‘misty’ effect.

But we did take some really awful photos too! These taken at our first Christmas together, look how badly they’ve faded, and the shape of the Christmas tree, UGH!!!

More 1982, and there are lots of photos for 1984! It’s difficult to remember exactly what we did at these Christmases, so I am going to do a bit of research on the internet and see if I can find out what was on telly, what was the most coveted gadget etc! What fun! How we love reminiscing! Happy times

Here’s what the divided page protectors look like. I love this! Lots of work though to make each individual little page!!

A very grown-up tree

2011-12-14T12:12:00.001-08:00

We have a very ‘grown up’ Christmas tree these days. DD decided we should go ‘colour-coordinated’ several years ago, so we bought gold and bronze ornaments, and ditched the old mis-matched ‘childish’ ornaments. I have to say it does look fabulous, especially with the lights all twinkling and reflecting in the shiny baubles!

But… this year DD didn’t want to dress the tree with me, so I had to do it all by myself! Probably for the first time in 20 odd years!!! All these years we had decorated the tree together and while our Disney CD ‘Mickey Mouse’s Christmas’ played loudly from the stereo. How I missed that this year!

And now it’s done… well, it looks beautiful, but in a shop window sort of way, not in the handmade red, white and green that I would prefer. Oh well – maybe if I make enough ornaments during the year, I can decorate it my way next Christmas!

10 Christmas crafty things on 10th

2011-12-11T04:46:00.001-08:00

Ooops! A day late… but here’s 10 crafty things I have made over the years.

One of the very first things I made was a stocking for Nicholas for his second Christmas. Being born just after Christmas he was nearly 2 when he got his presents in this. I made an identical one for Lucy when she was born, and they still have their presents in them over 20 years later! (sorry about the blurry picture, I think it’s time to take better photos of these stockings!)

This banner might precede the stockings, I can’t remember exactly when I made it! It was from a pattern in Country Living magazine, and gets put up on my pine dresser every year. I love it!

More recently I have done paper crafting, and made most if not all of my Christmas cards. Here’s some I made using a photograph I took of the beach huts in snow. These are from last year, but I made a few more this year for some overseas friends:

Here’s a sample of a background sheet I made with my friend Burnice a couple of years ago. It was from the magazine Craft Stamper. I still have little bits of it left and they will go in this year’s Christmas album

One year I joined in with the advent swap over on www.ukscrappers.co.uk, and loved it so much, I made advent parcels up for Nicholas and Lucy too!

Talking of ukscrappers, here’s a Christmas mini book I made for a swap, and a page from a Christmas themed circle journal

Another sewing project, this time table mats and runner to match. I went to class at www.sleepingbear.co.uk for this. They look fabulous on our new Ikea kitchen table! And these Basic Grey fabrics are just gorgeous

Another Christmas banner, this time made from paper. I made this one last year, and it had pride of place in the dining room. This year it is in the lounge.

One year I sewed loads of these little Christmas angels, and gave them to everyone! I sewed everywhere, including on a train trip to London. Of course, I spilt all my pins on the train, all over the floor! Luckily the train was quite empty and there was no one to watch me scrabbling about picking them all up!

And finally there is my Christmas journal! I am on my 5th this Christmas!! Last year I used a wonderful kit from www.cocadaisy.com, using JYC (www.shimelle.com) and December Daily (www.aliedwards.com) prompts. This year, well, I’m way behind, but will let you see it in a day or two. The whole process of making crafty things at Christmas, especially the journal has helped me recapture some of the magic of Christmas now that the kids have grown up. Reading through the last 4 journals the other evening made me thankful that I had made the effort to do them (and it is a supreme effort at this busy time of year!)

Check out Shimelle’s blog for more 10 on the 10th!

It’s beginning to look a look a lot like…..

2011-12-07T00:27:00.001-08:00

Christmas! Here’s our town just as it was getting dark yesterday:

The Nothingness is astonishing!

2011-12-05T07:22:00.001-08:00

exclaimed husband when he came home to find our big cedar tree felled! It was fairly close to the house and seriously blocked out the light, in fact, the dark green evergreen needles seemed to suck in the light! The weirdest thing is when you turn to enter the kitchen from the hall and glance up the stairs to the huge landing window. That’s where the ‘nothingness’ hits you! Our eyes are used to focussing on the branches of the tree, and now….nothing, except grey sky.

Our tree surgeons Mr Tree, did a fantastic job! They are just so professional, and very exciting to watch! Here’s Ross up the tree, roping and chain sawing huge big branches so they didn’t drop onto the summer house roof.

After the branches were cut off, the top of the tree was felled in 1 go down to about 7 foot. Brendon the furniture maker wanted the bottom bit of the trunk, all 1 ton of it! Here they are rolling it out to the front to get it onto his trailer.

We are left with a huge pile of logs…anyone got an open fire?

And here’s what it looked like last week, taken from the same place as the top picture:

What’s on your Worktop Wednesday?

2011-11-30T10:41:00.001-08:00

Actually what I am going to show you is ‘what was on my worktop’! Here’s a few Christmas cards I’ve made this year:

This is a lovely tri-folded card with the middle section folded the other way, and a little dangly snowflake. It’s from a Stamping Up class by Zoe. I’ve made several of these for my scrapbooking mates (don’t think they look at my blog, so I’m able to show you!) The snowflake on the front of this one is taken from one of last year’s cards I received.

These are tiny little cards from papermania, only 3” square! I loved amking these, and have used my Promarkers (which don’t see the light of day very often) to colour in my stamps, plus a liberal sprinkling of glitter.

Garden Party Quilt

2011-11-29T07:33:00.001-08:00

Woohoo! I finished this quilt! It’s a bit of a story – I bought the fabric in June 2010 at the Sandown Quilt show. I fancied sewing something pretty so purchased these fat quarters:

And then at the sewing class I used to go to, they ran a class based on this quilt using the gorgeous garden party by Moda

http://fatquartershop.blogspot.com/2010/02/garden-party-moda-quilt-kit-flower.html

Here’s a picture of the original:

My background is a little cream pattern on cream, and I have used 3 different patterns.

The buds of the flowers are a clever little foldy thing:

I decided to use green for my sashing, here it is without the final cream border:

I rather like the green sashing, makes it look like trellis don’t you think?

I am a hand quilter not a machine quilter (though it’s on my list of things to learn to do in 2012!), so I decided to quilt flowers around the edge, and then more in the final border. I did machine quilt ‘in the ditch’ around the sashing. It looks fabulous on the back!

Some green binding and I’ve called it done!

Here’s the final quilt:

I’m giving it to my Mum for Christmas, shhh don’t tell her!

Feeling Christmassy!

2011-11-28T04:41:00.001-08:00

Nothing like a day out to Bath for the Christmas Market to make us feel Christmassy! We drive along the A27 past Southampton – then up to Salisbury, where we like to stop at the ‘Bacon Bus’ for breakfast. (it’s an old bus converted to cook bacon and eggs that sits in a lay-by just the other side of Salisbury.) It’s quite a feature of our trips to Bath now!

A slightly blurry picture of Nicholas with Maurice, in front of some of the Christmas market stalls.

All the little huts are beautifully decorated by the stall holders. You can buy all sorts of gifts, jewellery, sweets, gifts, decorations, cheese, specialist wines and ports, toys and clothes.

There is lots of street music.

and a huge carousel in the main shopping street:

We went in the abbey for a ‘shoppers Christmas carol concert’ which was well attended and great fun to belt out those well known carols!

A well earned rest for a mulled wine!

And all too soon the day was over and we were driving back past Southampton on our way home!

Thankful

2011-11-25T05:38:00.001-08:00

www.peanuts.com

I really love the idea of the celebration of Thanksgiving that they have in USA. I wish we had something similar in the UK. One of my American friends made the point that it is so good to have a moment to reflect on gratitude just before the greed of Christmas. I love the big family gatherings, and giving thanks for the harvest!

One year I wrote a gratitude diary every day in November. Right now I am thinking yet again how grateful I am to be able to lead the life I do!Here’s 10 things I am grateful for right now (in no particular order)

My husband, best friend and soul mate
My kids, I am so proud of them both!
Friday morning coffee with friends
That I have a wide variety of friends
That I have time and space to create
My dog who brings me such joy every single day
Good Health of close family
The internet to help me feel connected all around the world!
Good food and warmth
living by the sea, it changes and looks different every day.

What are you grateful for right now?

Shimelle’s Christmas challenges

2011-11-15T10:53:00.001-08:00

Over at www.shimelle.com, there has been a whole weekend of Christmas challenges. Here are some that I had a go at:

Weaving with strips of paper. Thanks to Melissa Mann, I was inspired to make 2 cards and a page for my Christmas Journal.

Cute tags from Mindy Millar. Think I’ll be making a whole batch of these!

A Merry Christmas banner, inspired by this post by Corrie Jones. I used up a few old Basic Grey tags I had and made some more!

Final challenges on Pretty paper Party included ‘show us your favourite scrapbook project’. Thought you might like to see this. I made it quite a few years ago now, when I first started scrapbooking and was researching my Grandad’s world war 1 record. This LO tells his story. I love it because of the story it tells, but also because of all the ephemera on it. I scanned and distressed his attestation paper and a map of Mespotamia (today’s Iraq) where he served his time, as part of the Royal Leicestershire Regiment. Looking at it now, I overdid it a bit on the distressing! I think I used tea and coffee!!! The photos were taken at his training camp at Rugeley in the West Midlands before they sailed to Mespotamia.

And now my thoughts are with my Christmas Journal for 2011. Last year I made this 7 x 5 album with a kit from Cocoa Daisy. This year I am going for a 8.5 x 11 album. More about it later….

Surf’s Up!

2011-11-14T02:38:00.001-08:00

It was a brilliant sunny day yesterday, so we walked down to the beach. The tide was high and the waves were crashing on the breakwaters:

Lyme Regis

2011-11-06T07:53:00.001-08:00

We’ve just had a few days holiday down in Dorset, Lyme Regis to be exact. What a lovely place, even in November! It is our dream to retire here, we love the coast here and the little towns and the space!

We stayed in a cottage towards the back of the town and followed a lovely walk down the river to the seafront

Looking east from the Cobb:

The beach to the west is where you might find fossils if you are lucky, it’s called the Jurassic Coast.

And here’s what the harbour or Cobb looks like from above:

The book ‘The French Lieutenants Woman’ by John Fowles is set here and I believe was filmed here. This road leading down to the cobb is named after him.

We visited my friend Cynthia in Bridport and she took us up to Golden Cap, the highest place along the South Coast of England

Here’s Cynthia with her mad dog Millie, who is just adorable at 10 months! Merlin seemed a little bemused by her bounciness!

Another thing we did was to follow the South Coast path west of Lyme Regis towards Seaton. It was quite an arduous walk, with small higgledy piggledy paths, lots of ups and downs, tree roots everywhere and steep steps! Luckily the walk was under trees and we were sheltered from the strong winds.

And finally here’s the sun setting over Charmouth beach. It was unbelievably early! Fancy going on holiday after the clocks have gone back! But we had quite good weather for November really, it wasn’t cold and we saw a fair bit of sunshine. And I still love Lyme Regis even in November, so it must be the right place for us to retire to!

Diving in with Shimelle!

2011-10-24T04:22:00.001-07:00

Over at www.shimelle.com there is a pretty paper party going on! And I wanted to dive right in. Shimelle let us view a video she had created for True Scrap, in which she scared us all to death by gathering a supply of patterned papers and immediately cutting them all up in a random fashion! Well, I was definitely going to give this a go – here’s my selection of papers:

These are from completely different manufacturers, and are all different ages! They were in my ‘colour-coded’ cropper hopper along with others that got left behind while finishing off kits and such.

Then, on Friday, I cut them up!

On Sunday I started scrapping – ending up with 10 single pages and 2 double pages! This is all I have left:

I did cheat a little tiny bit, because I knew I wanted to scrap photos from my holiday in France this year – hence the predominant greens, dark reds and browns. Here are the DLOs:

I rarely do DLOs these days so that was fun! I didn’t start the ‘Rouen’ one with the intention of making it a DLO and did the left hand side first. This ‘Vascoueil’ one is based on a sketch from Shimelle’s class

Here’s some of my favourites of the rest:

There’s a bit of journaling missing. The ‘En Route’ page I want to write about the bike, the mileage and using the satnav. On the ‘Omaha Beach’ page, I want to do a bit of research and write some historical facts. Incidentally, this page was the final one, that yellow paper is the other side of the red, yellow, blue diamond paper in the first page (it’s from Basic Grey). I had to be very economical here, so the stripes don’t run under the photos just in between!

I really love this way of scrapping and will be doing it again. I have done something similar in the past, for example, for my Week In the Life album, I used 1 collection of papers, but didn’t cut them up before I started, but by about half way through I was scrapping from strips and squares that were left from cutting up paper for the first few photos.

Pumpkins!

2011-10-19T08:24:00.001-07:00

Mum and I made our annual visit to the pumpkin farm at Slindon:

And finally, here’s a corner of Mum’s lovely garden. This cornus is looking fabulous and golden. Luckily she has given me a little cutting!

Pretty Paper Stash

2011-10-17T09:59:00.001-07:00

Today is the first day of Shimelle’s new class, Pretty paper party. In her first prompt, she urged us to think about what sort of paper collectors we are. Well – right now I am a scrap collector! I used to be a kit collector, subscribing to several kits and many a month was tempted with sumptuos add-ons. The brown pizza boxes they arrived in mounted up in an untidy pile, which just got bigger and bigger! So about 1 year ago, I unsubscribed to kits and decided to make a determined effort to use up all that pretty paper. But, even though I have scrapped a lot this year (I did LOAD twice), the pile reduced awfully slowly. Eventually, I took all the kits out of the boxes and sorted them into my existing stash, all pretty paper now just about fits in 1 cropper hopper paper holder and is sorted by colour.

At that point I was overrun with scraps! I have long since used these drawers for scraps and sorted into hot and cold colours. Excuse the child like painting, the drawers are made of cardboard, and I like to doodle on them whenever I get paint out!

Here’s a sneak peek in the ‘hot colours’ drawer. I went through both drawers recently and just kept the larger rectangular pieces. Most of the paper on the top is left over from the retreat I went on recently. It’s from Glitz Design and is just gorgeous!

The rest I tossed into a drawer at the bottom of my drawer stack. I hope I will use these for punching out shapes etc.

I try not to worry about whether the paper is old fashioned, in fact, I often find a small piece of an older paper that I love!

How do you store/use up your scraps?

10 on the 10th - Photo Walk round Brighton

2011-10-10T02:26:00.001-07:00

We went into Brighton yesterday afternoon for a photo walk – looking specifically for reflections:

We parked by Brighton Dome, which is the old stables of Brighton Pavilion, hence this Indian style doorway.

We made for the library as we knew there was a lot of glass around there!

We had lunch in one of the many little cafes in the North Lanes, this is right by the Komedia, spot the reflection! Can you tell which is reflection and which is real in this photo?

Walking down towards the seafront.

We were going to go on the pier, but guess what? There was a bike show along Marine Parade! Luckily for me, the majority of the bikes were custom and incredibly shiny! Some great reflections!!! It was a bit difficult to focus though as most of the shiny bits were rounded!

Brighton’s latest tourist attraction is a big wheel! It looks fantastic, and will be open shortly. It’s right by the pier so will have fabulous views out to sea and inland. Think I might have to have ago even though I am a bit scared of heights!

Finally we walked up to Edward Street to look at the progress of the new American Express building. This is a reflection of a nearby block of flats in the new building. Just in case you can’t read backwards it says ‘Amex makes our lives hell’ a reference to the dust and noise I should think!

Finishing off

2011-09-29T09:47:00.001-07:00

The quilt I am making is awaiting wadding to be purchased before I can go any further with it, so I decided to finish off some UFOs:

The union jack was started well before the Royal Wedding, but only just now made into a cushion! The middle cushion with the red border was a project taught by Lynette from The Stitch Witch at a recent Worthing Patchworkers meeting. It is a technique called shadow quilting, organza overlays the middle, and we all designed our own ‘Baltimore’ pattern.

Behanid the cushions is a blanket I am crotceting, using up all the random bits of wool Mum has given me. Unfortunately it looks very random! I now want to buy some wool colours that go together better!

Another recent project that has been on our to-do list for ages, was to print and frame some holiday photos for our lounge. These photos are of Venice, Rome and Prague.

Finally, here’s a winter wallhanging, started ages ago! It was almost complete, just waiting to be framed. But in the end I decided to bind it and I will use it as a table runner perhaps? I might sew some beads on it – or I might just put it away in the cupboard!

Thanks to my friend Sue, I found a new website with online craft courses! It’s My Creative Classroom, and I decided to take the Bind-it-all class. Here’s a peek at what I have made so far:

First off, a little BIA instruction book. Lots of practice with punching and binding! It’s a great course with lots of tips along the way.

Secondly, here’s a little 4” x 4” book with some ingenious pocket and fold out pages.

Morning skies

2011-09-23T06:11:00.001-07:00

It’s a long time since I took my camera with me on my dog walk. The sky was interesting this morning, with lots of jet trails streaming across in all directions. So I took my camera….

I’m taking another photography course with Cheryl Johnson at FeelGoodPhotos. Here’s some of my practice photos for module 1, ‘Leading Lines’

Cardinal Colours Retreat Part 2

2011-09-21T09:19:00.001-07:00

Ok, now to the classes and projects:

I did 2 scrapbook layout classes with SJ, (she blogs at Little Musings)

The background is glazed bazzill, spritzed with chalk ink spray and then wiped off, sort of like a resist method. Fabby!

The second one is a paper patchwork. I just love the papers!! And that heart punch, what a lovely fat heart! Both of these Los, but especially this second one were interpreted very differently by each and everyone of us. I like that the best, that we can all have the same inspiration and papers, but still come up with vastly different pages. I have loads of paper left, and have already made another ‘paper patchwork’ page.

I learnt how to use promarkers! Linda and Lyn (blogging at Scrapology) taught a brilliant class using these adorable Faye Whittaker stamps. I actually bought this stamp as my brother and SIL have this painting in their house!

This fabulous pop up book is one of Karen Burniston’s paper engineering creations. Thanks to a brilliant teacher (Angie) mine has turned out very well, and I am thrilled with it! I’ll use it to put photos from this weekend in I think.

There were plenty of wonderful make and takes too. Here’s my felt Christmas stocking (thanks Perdita), beaded pins (thanks Anita) and owl key ring (thanks Zoe). So much inspiration, I’ll be trying out more of these!

Thanks so much to Gill and all her team for organising yet another superb weekend!

Cardinal Colours Retreat

2011-09-21T05:59:00.001-07:00

Phew! Back online! Nicholas has been upgrading our server and I have not been able to get online for a couple of days, EEK! On the one hand, I love it as I am able to get so much done (sewing and housework this week), but hate it because I miss chatting to all my online friends!

Anyway, I’ve been dying to blog about my fabulous weekend at the Cardinal Colours Retreat in Eastbourne.

I love the seaside town of Eastbourne! I took the opportunity late on Saturday afternoon to take a little walk with my camera, and just look at these starlings taking off to roost for the night!

This year, Lorna and I persuaded Janet and Sara from our Brighton crop to come along too (not that they needed much persuasion!)

It was lovely to meet with old and new friends:

That’s Sue and Jan, Chris and Debbie, another Debbie and Juliette, and new friends, Ann and Linda.

Come back for part 2 later, where I’ll show you some of the things we made.

Mama’s taking me to the zoo…..

2011-09-15T12:27:00.001-07:00

What a beautiful early autumn day it has been! Sunny, warm, but clear and not a breath of wind or humidity! So I went to the zoo with Mum. Marwell Zoo near Southampton to be exact. I hadn’t been there for years! last time we went my children were small. It was nice to go round and focus on the animals and try to take some good pictures!

But the best story of the day was about this little joey and his mother:

We noticed him (or her?) poking out of his mother’s pouch

Look here he comes for some fresh air!

Here he is finding his feet! He seemed a little wobbly. Then the keeper arrived round the back of their pen, and made a crashing noise. All the kangaroos looked startled, we watched as the little joey disappeared back into the pouch! Completely out of sight. So sweet!

Stormy Weather

2011-09-12T04:22:00.001-07:00

Here’s what it looks like today here on the South Coast of England:

The remains of Hurricane Katia have hit our shores. It’s not too bad here on the South Coast, worse up north and in Scotland! But thank goodness it waited until this morning and didn’t disrupt the fantastic concert we went to on Hyde Park yesterday afternoon and evening! It was organised by BBC Radio 2, a ‘Festival in a Day’. WOW! What an amazing experience!

We arrived in Hyde Park about 4.45pm, and sadly missed the first 2 acts but managed to see most of Beverly Knight's set (UK's greatest soul singer) Wow!

Next up was Caro Emerald who had never played to such a big audience but did really well.

Will Young had a bit of a sore throat so did a shorter set, but still wowed us! He is such a nice bloke!

Jonathan Jeramiah played over our side of the stage, and he looks so cool with long floppy hair! Love his laid back almost surf dude style.

Next up was Lenny Kravitz, and boy! Did he blow us away!!! I am ashamed to admit that I didn't really know who he was before, but of course knew his big hits. He was fantastic, and really got the audience going.

Imelda May was brilliant, full of energy!

James Blunt was awesome! I don't really like his voice, bit squeaky for me, but his show was absolutely brilliant, very impressive live act.

I love the Pierces! They are from Alabama, USA, and a bit hippy, country, and very beautiful. I already have their CD. They too had not performed to such a big audience (about 40,00).

The headline act was due to be Lionel Ritchie, and to be honest it was because of him that I booked the tickets. So imagine my disappointment when he pulled out due to ill health! So instead we were treated to Chic, who absolutely blew us away with 'Everybody Dance', 'Le Freak', 'We are Family' and 'Good Times', such great dance numbers! They were on the other side of the stage, so no pics from me I am afraid. But DH took some fabulous photos with his much longer zoom, so I’ll post some more later.

Finally Gary Barlow wowed us with singing Lionel Ritchie's 'Hello' plus lots of Take That songs.
So although I still feel disappointed that we didn't see Lionel Ritchie, we had a fabulous time!

Each act was introduced by a different DJ from my favourite radio station (I listen throughout the day). So it was great to see them too! As you can tell from these pictures, we were pretty close to the stage, only about 6 people back, but over to one side. Nevertheless it was a good position and as DH said, it was nice to actually ‘see’ the real people!

Mostly people were having a great time, the atmosphere was brilliant! But 2 small things that irritated: The number of really drunk people! This was a Radio 2 concert not Glastonbury! And the amount of litter people left behind!

The concert finished on the dot at 10pm, with an encore from Gary Barlow. Unfortunately our train wasn’t leaving until 11.17pm, so we had a bit of a wait, and we didn’t get home until 1.30am!! EEK! That’s very late for us! This morning my legs and feet ache from 7 hours dancing, and my voice is croaky from singing! Woohoo!

10 photos of Internet Friends

2011-09-10T12:21:00.001-07:00

This summer I have had the privilege to meet in person 2 friends I have made on the internet. This got me thinking, how many friends have I met via the internet?

Top Row are my 2 latest friends, Lau and Nancy, met this summer through www.simplify101.com

Second Row:

The last Scrapettes team over on www.ukscrappers.co.uk. Sadly we seemed to run out of steam earlier this year. This photo taken at The Craft barn, where we met for a crafty outing in September 2009. That’s Karen, Sara, Pat, Geraldine and me

I was lucky to go to a real life class run by Shimelle! It was ‘Everyone has a Story’ in Portsmouth in November 2009. Actually, I have only recently finished this album!

Third Row:

www.tandastamps.co.uk forum used to be my ‘go-to’ place everyday! Burnice, Tash and I went down to Exeter to stay with Lesley in January 2008. We met the people who run Tanda stamps at the Exeter craft show.

More Scrapettes! This is me with Jan and her neice at Jan’s 60th birthday party in June 2007. Sadly Jan passed away nearly 4 years ago.

Fourth Row:

Both pictures are Scrapettes, the first one is at MJ’s crop near Newbury, in May 2006! Gosh, was it that loing ago! I used to drive 2 hours to get to this crop! But it was worth it. Maria, Geraldine, and Dawn in the back row, with MJ and me sitting down. The second one was taken when we met at a craft sale down in the New Forest in April 2006. Alys, me, Jan, MJ and Maria.

Fifth Row:

First photo was taken at a Scrappers Paradise weekend retreat in Guildford in October 2007. I got to know these girls when I went to the Crawley Crop. It was Monday nights, once a month. Burnice started to come with me after a while.

Second photo is the first time I met Burnice and Tash, at the Brighton Centre craft show in February 2007. We are now really good friends and meet once a month in Burnice’s craft cabin. Nowadays we sew rather than paper craft.

These photos make me feel even more excited for my scrapbooking retreat coming up this weekend! I’m off to Eastbourne for the Cardinal Colours Annual Retreat! Woohoo!

Move like Jagger

2011-09-02T02:20:00.001-07:00

Is a song I’m listening to at the moment by Maroon 5 feat Christine Alguilera, but here’s the real thing:

Little signs….

2011-09-01T01:56:00.001-07:00

that summer is drawing to a close. Pictures taken Sunday morning on our dog walk along the river Rife in Ferring.

I feel quite sad about that. I have enjoyed the summer and have endeavoured to live an ‘outdoor life’, being outside as much as possible. Sadly the weather has been indifferent during August, so I’ve not been outside as much as I was in July. I even swam in the sea several times this summer!

So September rolls in, and the sun is shining! The grey overcast weather has gone, at least for today. Of course, we always say that the weather turns good once the schools go back, which is next week some time, right? (Now I have grown up children I don’t know what date school begins!) But September still brings that ‘back to school’ feeling, new pencil cases, new stationery, new school uniforms, all bringing a sense of starting again, another chance to do well. Good luck especially to all those starting a new school.

Reflecting on this reminds me how hard it has been to start something new in August. This August I began training to be an assessor for Citizens Advice Bureau. What has surprised me most, is how hard it is to study in August, when I am still in holiday mode! However, the training is going well, there’s lots to learn, but it is all incredibly interesting. I have completed the first stage of my training, now it’s observing assessments in a bureau and doing supervised assessments myself.

These shoes are made for walking!

2011-08-29T12:16:00.001-07:00

It’s time for some new walking shoes! I have had these walking shoes since Summer 2005, just about 6 years, and I have worn them most days during that time. They have been on the beach, and got wet and sandy, up on the downs, and got wet and muddy, and have very worn down soles.

For a bit of fun, we tried to estimate how many miles I have walked in them:

6 years

40 weeks per year(I don’t usually wear them in the summer)

7 days per week (dog walks)

1.5 hours per day @ 2mph

= approx 5,000 miles!!!

Au Revoir, old friends! See you in the garden.

We visited Peglars, in my new favourite town, Arundel. It’s a specialist ‘expedition’ shop (actually 3 shops) and is worth a visit just because the shop assistants really know their stuff and always have an anecdote about walking in the Lake District or Snowdonia! These were the first pair I put on, and I was bowled over by the comfort and fit! They feel like they are giving my feet a hug! I’ve already road tested them, a walk up the downs yesterday morning, and into Worthing town centre last night. Wonder if these will last 5,000 miles?

Radcliffe and Maconie

2011-08-27T06:08:00.001-07:00

As you know I am an avid Radio 2 fan. I listen on and off all day, but my particular favourite time has been the mid evening slot, which was taken by Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie for 4 years.

www.guardian.co.uk

I loved their intellectual blokish style. I loved the music they played and their northern accents! They are both incredibly knowledgeable about music, so I loved all their anecdotes. I used to listen to them between 8 and 9pm while in my craft room, usually scrapbooking. Sadly they have relocated to an afternoon slot at BBC 6 Music, which is a digital station and not so easy for me to listen to as I only have a cheap old digital radio and I can’t seem to tune it in. I tried to listen to their programme on the iplayer on my computer, but they have gone a little less mainstream and I don’t know any of the music they play now.

Anyway, I heard an interview with Stuart Maconie recently about a book he had written called ‘Hope and Glory’. It sounded really good so I ordered it straight away. And I can confirm that it is a really good read. Stuart takes each decade of the last century and picks a UK event to base that chapter on. He then writes around the subject, the history behind the event, the culture of the time, and he visits the place where the event took place, and the book becomes a travelogue. In his own words: “ it’s a travel book with a historical dimension, or maybe a history book with a travel element. Or maybe something different, a social and cultural wander through a century of British history and its town and cities. “

I loved his travel writing. Often his thoughts and opinions would ring true! At one point he visits a small village (one of the thankful villages – so called after WW1 because all their soldiers came home, not one was killed) and picks up the village newsletter. That’s just what I like to do!

I found it a really interesting read, with some great insights into British culture and history. His writing is brilliant, oh how I wish I could write like that! I have one of his other books in my pile to read next.

During the interview it was mentioned that his radio partner, Mark Radcliffe had written a similar book called ‘Reelin’ in the years’. Well of course I had to read this one too! Mark chooses a song for each year of his life and writes a chapter – sometimes about the music, sometimes more about what he was doing in that year, sometimes what was happening generally. So another book about culture, autobiography and music all rolled into one. I recognised many of the early songs, but the more recent ones not so much. I’m not really into all the different genres of popular music, like indie rock, garage etc. I love the northern-ness of Mark Radcliffe. I love his chatty style, and how much he knows about the music he writes about.

2 great reads that I highly recommend.

One thing I have realised – partly through reading these books, partly through listening to their radio shows is that the music I like is pretty mainstream! I always liked to think that I preferred something with a bit more to it than mainstream. OK so I’m not really into Kylie, Rhianna and boy bands particularly. But I don’t know much about the different genres. Maybe it’s time to experiment a bit more!

Week in the Life–The Album

2011-08-21T04:56:00.001-07:00

This is the first time I have joined in with Ali Edwards project, Week in the Life. I’m happy to say it’s all complete now

I am not a digital scrapper! I have far too much love of paper, scissors and glue! So of course, my Week in the Life album is all paper scrapbooked. I decided to go with a 12 x 12 American Craft 3 ring album. This is my album of choice now, and I love to do a 12 x 12 page followed by a divided page protector. I always print my photos at 4 x 6, so this makes it simple. No cropping or printing out at different sizes. Another way to keep it simple was to use just 1 pack of paper. In my stash I found a complete pack of Echo Park ‘Life is Good’, which was perfect in it’s bright zingy colours, ‘life is good logo’ and house motifs (as my week was very home based).

So last week, I took every spare moment to scrap and got this project finished! I simplified it even more by using sketches from Shimelle and Page maps. I tried not to be too fussy about my pages and considered them ‘finished’ rather than mess about with too many embellishments.

Here’s some of my favourite pages:

For the journaling I used 4 x 6 Kraft cardstock. I had completed Ali’s project sheet each day. (Luckily the timing was great, as this coincided with the first week of ‘It’s about Time’, a time management class I was taking on Simplify101, so the logging of time could be used for 2 purposes!) I tried to record certain facts each day, such as weather, my weight, mileage of the car, tide times. Also a few news headlines for each day. So for each day in my album I wrote 2 journalling cards, one called ‘facts’ and one called ‘gossip’.

I have started a list of top 3’s for the week, such as the pop charts, top selling cars etc. I have also recorded prices of petrol, bread and milk. I have 1 spare journaling card that I think I’ll put some facts about this town. Finally as I am avid BBC Radio 2 listener I am including this week’s playlist.

So the mudane facts of my everyday life have been captured for posterity! What a great project! Thanks so much to Ali Edwards for the inspiration

Transported back…..

2011-08-17T07:04:00.001-07:00

Listening to radio 2 this morning through headphones as I walked the dog, I was transported right back to 1976 with this song:

I met Maurice in 1976, it was a really hot summer and we really did ‘put our blue jeans on’ and ‘go motorbike riding’!

Not much has changed, except the bike!:

Shimelle’s weekend online challenges

2011-08-16T09:20:00.001-07:00

Here’s a couple of scrapbook pages I have done for my Week in the Life album (more on that later) inspired by Shimelle’s online challenges

Sketch of the week here

I’, afraid my photos on this one are a bit weird, but that’s Week in the Life for you!

3 is a magic number challenge here

I’ve included 3 light blue word stickers, magical, silly and unique, all great words to describe Merlin!

Start here….

2011-08-15T08:17:00.001-07:00

This is one of the challenges on www.shimelle.com weekend scrapbook fun! I needed to make several birthday cards so decided to use the sketch from the start here…. challenge and see how different I could make them

Which one do you like best? My favourite is the 3rd one with the vintage lady in her swimwear with the parasol. That’s a stamp from Oxford Impressions.

10 on the 10th–10 photos from the British Superbikes at Brands Hatch

2011-08-10T07:54:00.001-07:00

We woke up to a rainy morning, but still decided to set off on the bike to Brands hatch Motor Racing Circuit in Kent to watch the British Superbikes racing. We parked next to just a few other bikes! (In fact, there were far less bikes than there used to be 25 or 30 years ago)

First stop was the motorbike BMX! Team Bolddog do fantastic BMX style tricks on motorbikes! Very exciting to watch! But… unfortunately, one of them crashed, which was very unlucky for 2 members of the crowd who happened to be standing in the wrong place! Hope they are OK

Paddock Hill Bend is a great place to watch the bikes! It’s the first bend after the start line.

Which leads into Hailwood Hill after which is the hairpin Druid’s Bend. This is a 125cc race, some of the competitors are only 14 or 15!

Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne won the first BSB race, and here he is on the podium. Sorry about the chain fence!

The start of the British Supersport race. Sadly this was restarted after a nasty crash, and then there was another serious crash in the restarted race. (Secretly we all like to see them crash! Best if they are not hurt badly though!)

All around the track are stalls selling all sorts of motorbike accoutrements, all with very loud logos of course!

And then it started raining!

This is the final bend Clark Curve, right after Clearways.

A great view looking back towards the start of the last BSB race.

Sunshine!

2011-08-08T05:56:00.001-07:00

At my local crop the ‘page of the day’ was ‘SUN’. Here’s my 2 pages:

First a really simple page, just sticking the photos onto a piece of patterned paper, a title and a few buttons! Photos of Lucy were taken just a couple of weeks ago.

Second page, a holiday from way back in 2002. We went to Finland to see a friend who lives in Helsinki, then drove up north and stayed in a ‘proper’ log cabin by this lake. Although there were other cabins around, we were far enough away from them to not notice them. It was so peaceful. The boat came with the cabin and the kids loved it! I stayed up one night to see the stars, but it never got truly dark!

Week in the life–Sunday Dragon Boats!

2011-07-31T12:27:00.001-07:00

Lucky I took my camera with me on my early morning dog walk! As part of the seafront fayre, they hold a coach rally on the seafront just down from us. Look at this gorgeous coach! That’s real ‘go-faster’ livery don’t you think? (Actually tonight it’s parked in a road just round the corner and we’ve just walked past it on our evening dog walk) Not sure how old it is, 1930s/40s perhaps?

There is a certain sort of man that likes coaches! It’s a real ‘anorak’ event, even on a sunny warm day like today! This is one of the many stalls along the prom selling memorabelia and models of coaches.

Maurice was participating in this dragon boat race in aid of a local animal charity. Mum and I walked down from her house and sat eating our lunch on a picnic rug. There were 2 teams from American Express, Maurice’s team were the Centurions, and I am sad to report they were one of the slowest boats! But the other Amex team was the overall winner!

As you can see in the background the event was very well attended!

Here’s Mum and me in the American Express ‘Hospitality’ tent! Well we were offered a cocktail and a sandwich!

Just along from the lake is this lovely wildflower planting. It is so colourful!

I felt really tired when I got home, so I sat drinking a cup of tea and reading for a while under the shade of the tree

before watering my pots!

Sadly that’s the end of my Week in the Life. I have really enjoyed taking these pictures and giving you a glimpse into my everyday life. Now I have to decide how to record it all! Should I just leave this here on the blog, or do an album? Lots of ideas whizzing around at the moment, watch this space!

Week in the Life–weekend fun!

2011-07-30T13:07:00.001-07:00

Sunshine at last! It’s been very dull this week, not so good for all this photography. Nicholas was home for 1 night between holidays (don’t ask!), so we cycled into town for a coffee and a bit of shopping:

The floral displays are just gorgeous at the moment, wish I had more time (and sun) to get better photos! Sorry this one is a bit blurry.

Time for lunch and a catch up on my notes and computer forums

Sweeping the patio. We have a large cedar tree which drops it’s needles all over the patio and then they get trodden in to the house!

A lovely hour spent gardening. I tidied up this phormium, cutting out the dead stuff – it looks much better now! Don’t forget Merlin’s tea!

It’s the seafront fayre in our town today. There are fun fair rides and market stalls all along the prom:

We walked into town along the seafront so we could have dinner in our favourite Italian restaurant ‘Pomodoro e Mozzarella’, which is run by an Italian family and has a lovely, lively atmosphere.

Walking back through Marine Gardens, these lavender bushes smell fabulous and I just love this planting of the yellow yarrow with the white agapanthus!

Here’s something I’ve been meaning to capture all week. The gas board are putting in new pipework just round the corner and we walk past it nearly every night on our dog walks!

Week in the Life–Household chores

2011-07-29T13:18:00.001-07:00

Friday has been all about household chores:

Laundry

Playing with Merlin:

Vacuuming and dusting

Changing the bed linen:

Grocery shopping:

Time for a quick cuppa:

A 4.30pm hairdressers appointment. That looks better!

cook dinner (baked salmon with limes):

Greet husband home from work!

He saw my cameras out and couldn’t resist having a play himself!

Lucy decided to give Merlin a brush while she was waiting for her friend to pick her up:

And finally – a well earned glass of red!

Week in the Life–Exercise and flowers

2011-07-28T13:04:00.001-07:00

Today was all about exercise (well this morning was!) and flowers. I have bee trying to get up a bit earlier this week to get out for my dog walk before it gets busy. I have been waiting for a nice sunny morning to take some pictures, but it just hasn’t happened this week!

This morning we walked along the beach at high tide. (I have written down the tide times for my album)

Then I decided to go for my weekly swim early - again to avoid the crowds (it’s school holidays here in the UK), and I swam my usual 30 lengths. I found it quite gruelling today, but persevered as I wanted to report here that I had done my 30! It’s a 33.3m pool, so that’s a whole kilometre that I swim!

After swimming I bought a coffee and went to sit in Beach House Gardens to drink it and look at the lovely floral displays, and memorial to the war pigeons! Carrier pigeons were used to send messages behind enemy lines and this little memorial remembers the bravest of them!

Then I sorted my sewing projects, quite flowery! Here’s my ‘Tuscan Village Scene’ and a close up of the window box:

Watering the pots:

We had a bit of fun taking photos at dinner time:

Week in the Life day 3

2011-07-27T12:37:00.001-07:00

I had a couple of phone calls to make this morning. I have a difficult relationship with the phone, for some unfathomable reason, I hate it! I’d much rather email! I don’t use my mobile phone much as a phone, more as a portable radio!

I decided to wear these brown linen trousers today. I love this top – I have had it for ages, it really needs throwing away now.

I had a friend round for coffee and I completely forgot to get a photo! But we sat in the conservatory and as she is a keen gardener too, we wandered round my garden.

Then I drove over to Mum’s to take her shopping. We went to a big out of town Marks and Spencers and Tescos

My favourite photo of the day:

That;s my garden shoe he has! He loves to take a shoe down the garden and have us chase him. What joy!

Week in the Life–concentrating on the everyday…

2011-07-26T12:47:00.001-07:00

Early morning routine, my windowsill is my makeup counter!

By my bed side, Lynda Bellingham’s autobiography (she is definately not as you would think!), and a pile of books waiting to be read.

On top of the pile of books is my CD player and radio usually tuned in to radio 2, and my messy bedside table.

The weather was awful today, very grey and dark! Hence this dark photo of the main Post Office where I queued for ages waiting to post a parcel.

My new ‘Cath Kidston’ lookalike bag, purchased from the market! And my beloved birkenstock shoes, which are unfortunately looking very scruffy now. Time for a new pair I think.

Self portraits while cooking dinner! I put the camera on my little compost container on the self timer. What fun!

While the dog sleeps…..

Week in the Life

2011-07-25T13:16:00.001-07:00

I have decided to participate in Ali Edwards project this time. I am also taking part in another simplify101 course, this time it’s time management! So for the first week I have to log my time – how neat that this coincides with Week in the Life!

Here’s a sneak peek at my Monday:

Trying to look smart for my first training session at CAB. (I am training to be a gateway assessor for Citizen’s Advice Bureau)

A healthy lunch in front of a not-so-healthy computer!

My afternoon job was to put weedkiller down on the drive

Coffee time!

I know I am going to find that I spend far too much time doing this:

A lovely evening for a walk along to the yacht club.

Vacances en France part3

2011-07-24T01:33:00.001-07:00

Riding back to Normandy was very wet – again! So we just stopped for a photo at Mont St Michel. It was absolutely heaving with tourists despite the weather. We will have to put it on our list to come back.

Luckily the rain stopped as we approached the town of Arromanches. One problem with this weather is the faffing and messing about we have to do when we get off the bike! Off come the overboots, the leggings, the helmets, some of it goes in the top box, some of it we carry! Several times Maurice mentioned that next time we’ll come in the little sports car he has promised himself!

We visited the D-Day museum at Arromanches, where the ‘Mulberry Harbour’ was built for the troops landing on D-Day. It was fascinating and we were amazed at the scale! Here’s Maurice sitting on the sea wall, and way in the distance you can see the remains of that harbour. It was massive!

We rode along the coast to Omaha beach where the Americans landed, and visited the American Cemetary. Again, it is the scale that hits you!

We stayed at a wonderful French B&B, where we shared another evening meal (table d’hote) with 4 other guests and the hosts. It was a fantastic meal – very much based on cider and apples, a local speciality, and of course the meal took all evening! With the help of copious wine, we managed to have quite a conversation with their little English and our little French!

On our final morning we visited the Bayeux Tapestry. Wow! How awesome! It is 70 metres of sheer delight! It tells the story of William the Conqueror and Harold King of England. 1066 and all that. We loved it!

Our final stop was at Honfleur for lunch, and a few last photos. There was a vintage Citroen rally – very atmospheric! Honfleur is one of the prettiest harbours along the north coast, and is full of lovely little restaurants and cafes.

And then we rode off into the sunset back to Dieppe for our ferry home! All in all a great week, some 1,200 miles, and what a lot we did!

Vacances en France Part 2

2011-07-23T15:40:00.001-07:00

We arrived in South Brittany after about 7 hours travelling! Mostly in the wet, and my trousers had leaked!

A word or two about the satnav! Maurice spent an inordinate amount of time fiddling with routes and via points! But, it did invariably get us to the correct place without too much bother. It just had a weird sense of which was the quickest way sometimes, sending us down tiny country lanes or straight through the middle of towns instead of a lovely smooth bypass!

We stayed with another English couple at Le Petite Charrue. It would be easy to say that we were boring and not very adventurous staying with English people in France! But in our defence, we don’t speak much French (I have schoolgirl c1975 French, Maurice has none!), and it turned out to be really interesting talking to these English people who have made their lives in France.

The next day was the reason we had come all the way to Brittany. We started the morning looking around La Roche Bernard:

And then we had lunch and spent the rest of the day with my old school friend Rachel, and her delightful husband Herve. Rachel and I were best friends when we were about 12, but then her family moved away. We have kept in touch for 40 years! We haven’t seen each other very much during that time, I think the last time we met was about 20 years ago! Herve is holding their gorgeous little grandson Gabriel here. Rachel and Herve are professional folk musicians, you can see their website here.

We spent the rest of our time in Brittany riding round the Golfe de Morbihan, a vast inlet with hundreds of little coves and inlets, and some beautiful little fishing villages. We visited Carnac where there are hundreds of neolithic stones all lined up in some formation depicting the movement of the sun and moon.

We also visited the main town of the region – Vannes, with it’s lovely medieval centre

Now we were on our way home, so we rode back towards Dieppe stopping for 1 more night near Bayeux (Part 3)

Vacances en France! Part 1

2011-07-23T09:17:00.001-07:00

We’ve just back from 1 week in France on the motorbike. We caught the ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe, and stayed in Normandy for the first few days.

We stayed with a lovely couple at Le Chat Chocolat near the small town of Forges-Les-Eaux. We visited a lovely chateau at Vascoueil, which had a lovely sculpture garden:

The highlight of our time in Normandy was our visit to Lau, my friend from www.simplify101.com! We have been on several online classes together, so it was lovely to meet for real! Here she is with her lovely family (and me!)

After a gorgeous lunch she took us around her city of Rouen for a tour. It is a very beautiful place!

Here is a splendid view of Rouen cathedral and the city from one of the surrounding hills.

That day was a beautiful warm sunny day. Alas! The rest of our holiday was not! It rained and was cold! Not the best weather for biking. Never mind, we carried on, and the next day visited Monet’s Garden at Giverny. We really loved it! It was quite a thrill to actually be there in such an iconic place.

We had heard that there was a World War II site nearby. It was a German V1 bomb launching site, so we made our way there. It was a small clearing in a forest, this actual site had been bombed and was never operational, but had been kept in it’s original state. The fact that the weather was so miserable and wet, and all the tall trees about, gave the site a really eerie feel. Here’s a V1 bomb on it’s launch pad pointing directly at London!

The next day we set off for Brittany (Part 2), in the pouring rain! We hadn’t realised quite how big France is, and suddenly realised that it was like going down to Cornwall from here – a very long way! Luckily the roads in France are much better than ours and not so busy, so no traffic jams or hold ups!

10 things on 10th

2011-07-11T09:56:00.001-07:00

A day late! But yesterday was my DH’s birthday, so here’s 10 photos of him!

Happy Birthday Maurice!

Goodwood Festival of Speed

2011-07-05T11:34:00.001-07:00

What a truly fabulous day out we had on Sunday! Goodwood Festival of Speed is arguably the best ‘petrolhead’ event in Great Britain, maybe even in the world. Where else can you see world champions in Forumla 1, rallying, touring car, motorcycle racing and extreme motorcycling all in one place?

The event takes place in the grounds of Goodwood House, ancestral home to the Earl of March. He has been organising this fabulous event since 1993, which centres on a hill climb race, the road snaking up the hill to the top of the South Downs with a lovely view towards the sea!

We always start by walking around the paddock. The paddock is open to the public, enabling you can get close up to the cars and bikes and very often spot the racing drivers there and then! This year we glimpsed Lewis Hamilton (that’s him in the sitting in the car with the yellow helmet on!)

John Surtees on an old Honda racing bike:

and 2 heroes from the recent Isle of Man TT motorcycle races, John McGuinness, and Guy Martin

As I said you can get really close to the cars and bikes, and there are often historic racing cars and bikes which champions have driven

You can watch the cars being prepped for the hill climb:

There is so much more to see though! In recent years there has been a statue with a motoring theme erected in front of Goodwood House, this year an e-type Jaguar made of steel pipes, to commemorate it’s 50th anniversary.

It is a very popular event, but there is plenty of room for everyone!

We always marvel at the organisation, for example, I only had to queue behind 2 ladies for the toilet, as there are plenty of facilities all around the site. There are lots of eating places, sadly we didn’t eat or drink at this one! We took our own picnic, but bought coffee, again very little queueing.

There are plenty of other shows to see too! Like the Cartier et Luxe show for classic cars, on the lawn by the stables. There’s usually a jazz band playing there to add to the atmosphere!

On the lawn this year were Chris Evan’s ‘Magnificent 7’. Chris is a national DJ (currently doing the breakfast show on BBC radio2). Each year he organises a drive in each of these magnificent Ferraris down to the New Forest, which is auctioned off for charity. This year the winners had to pay in excess of £60,000 to get to drive these most beautiful of cars! This black one used to belong to Beatle George Harrison!

Two of the best looking super cars are this carbon fibre Buggatti Veyron (Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear’s favourite car and will set you back only a cool £1million!) and this gorgeous red Alfa Romeo Spyder.

We walked right to the top of the hill climb this year, where they hold a rally car competition. It was a great photo opportunity! Here’s my best 2 photos!

This Land Rover experience was quite mind boggling! The ramp that this car has driven onto is about to lean drastically over the right, and the car is then driven round a champfered bend, then up and over a lorry! It is quite scary to watch!

But not quite as scary as the extreme motorcyling! These guys are crazy!! They were riding up a ramp, leaping into the air, performing acrobatic tricks, even in some cases letting go completely of the bike, then jumping back on it still in mid air and landing again!

Finally feast your eyes on this gorgeous beauty, a 1935 Mercedes Benz!

We spent about 7 hours wandering around looking at everything and it was the most gorgeous sunny warm summers day! I can’t think of a better day out – and it is only 30 minutes ride on Maurice’s motorbike to get there!

What’s on your worktop Wednesday?

2011-06-29T11:23:00.001-07:00

Not exactly on my worktop, but was yesterday! These are the final pages for my ‘Home’ album. This particular page I had actually made a good while ago. It is based on a page from Shimelle’s ‘No place like Home’ class, which was what inspired me to do this album. I hadn’t done any journaling on this DLO until yesterday. I had a sudden burst of inspiration and decided to journal about the Quirks of this House!

we have 2 front doors (can be seen in this photo of DH and the dog). They lead into a shallow porch from which there is just 1 door into the hall. We often get junk mail delivered through both letterboxes, delivery people think we are flats.
Our doorbell goes off in thunderstorms! I guess it must be something to do with static electricity as it is battery operated. It’s a musical doorbell that plays several tunes. Merlin (the dog) loves to ‘sing’ along to the tunes!
There is a crack in the bathroom wall that won’t go away! As soon as DH fills it – it reappears. It doesn’t appear to get any worse though, maybe just a little expand and contract with the weather.
The weird shape of all the rooms. Who designed this house? It’s an L shape with the hall across the inner corner. When I tried to draw out the floor plan for this album I really couldn’t do it without standing in each room. But… that’s what gives it so much character!
The lamp on the newel post on the stairs. Funnily enough it was exactly the same as on DH’s Dad had! It’s all wired in to the light switch. Who thought of that?
Whenever I am cooking something with a strong smell, you can smell it hours later upstairs! There must be a waft of air up the stairs. I wonder what drives that?

And here’s the final page of the album. I pulled out all the photos in #cold storage’ that I hadn’t used and used my square punch on them! I love pages like this, they look stunning and come together really quickly.

Don’t forget to check out other people’s WOYWW? at Julia’s blog.

Top tips for photographing the garden

2011-06-19T14:09:00.001-07:00

I have been trawling through the thousands of digital photos I have on my computer, purging, tagging, and rating them, all because of Stacey Julian’s new class Finding Photo Freedom. I have come across nearly 2,000 of the garden! Looking through them all in one go is a really good way of seeing what works and what doesn’t!

So here’s my top tips:

Wait until the sun comes out.

Photos really do look better with sunlight! This yellow iris was just catching a few rays of sunshine when I noticed it – it was like a spotlight on it!

Get close in.

I am lucky enough to have a macro lens, and love nothing better than to get really close up to my flowers! Here’s a perennial geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’.

Get the focus right.

Sometimes when I try to take a macro shot I get the wrong bit in focus! I like to have a narrow depth of field, but sometimes it can be too narrow! Many flowers are actually quite deep, for example I always have trouble photographing daffodils.

This problem can be alleviated by using a smaller aperture (larger f no) thus creating a larger depth of field. You can see here how the middle daisy flower is in focus but the 2 flowers nearer the camera are blurry. I love this photo like this but it would have worked perfectly well with any of the individual flowers in focus. But arguably not as stunning with all three flowers in focus!

Don’t forget to look up:

And down:

Look for patterns:

Here’s my garden bench taken from an unusual angle!

It’s not just flowers that make stunning shots

Try seed heads too, especially in the winter:

Black and white can work well with architectural plants, like this palm:

Look for different textures:

Finally, break the rules and have fun!

Beach huts

2011-06-12T08:26:00.001-07:00

I’ve been asked a question about beach huts. What are they used for? It’s an English obsession! I guess beach huts do exist in other parts of the world, but I bet they started out here! The beach hut started out as a ‘bathing machine’, a kind of beach hut on wheels, in which the bather would change into a swimming costume and then a horse would draw the machine delivering the bather straight into the sea! Have a look at this page for more information.

Since WW2, the humble beach hut has become very popular. They exist all round the UK’s beaches. The hut is used for storing all the accoutrements one might require for a day on the beach. On bright summer days you can see occupants sitting outside their huts, doors flung open, sitting on deck chairs at collapsible tables, partaking in a cup of tea brewed on a little stove, maybe cooking on a portable barbeque. Some beach huts are quite works of art inside, in fact, there are some artists who exhibit in some stone built huts over in east Worthing. They are locked up at night so people leave their things in them permanently. You can either buy one or rent one, these days for the price we paid for our first house!

Here’s my friends Pam and Lorraine sitting outside Pam’s beach hut last summer. Pam cooked us a lovely lunch of soup and bread bought along to the beach and heated through on her portable stove. As you can see it was a bit breezy this particular day! We tried to put up an umbrella but it kept blowing over. A great illustration of another British obsession, sitting on the beach pretending the weather is sunny when in reality it is wet and windy!

Our local council stipulates that the beach huts have to be white, although I have noticed that owners are beginning to paint the gables with colour. But in other parts of the UK the huts themselves are colourful.

Here’s some favourite photos of beach huts that we have visited in other parts of the UK:

10 Scrapbook pages I want to create

2011-06-09T23:57:00.001-07:00

BIL John’s Ferrari (360 Modena 3.5l, 0-62mph 4.5s) drive yesterday at Goodwood motor racing circuit. He drove this rather gorgeous Ferrari for 3 laps round the circuit. Great fun being petrolheads for the day!
Meeting up with old friends. We were on the same NCT antenatal class 23 years ago! Although we’ve kept in touch we haven’t ALL met up for quite a few years. This was coffee at my house.
Aunty Margaret and Uncle David’s 50th wedding anniversary. Stupidly we didn’t get a photo of them together at the party, so here’s one of me on the day they got married!
Long lost relations! Aunty Ann (in the middle) and cousins Joanne and Alison (both in red) I hadn’t seen for 20 years!
Maurice reading his Motorcycle News paper with these awful glasses on! He has bought some new ones now after much nagging!
Fun with self portraits and a very mad dog!
Staycation back in April/May. Here’s Maurice at the Weald and Downland Open air museum at Singleton, West Sussex
Our recent weekend in Shropshire – visiting Ironbridge
Garden at the moment
Beach huts! I just love them!

And these are just the current pages I want to do!

Right now….

2011-06-07T23:42:00.001-07:00

I am sitting at the breakfast table on the lap top

I am about to go for a walk with the dog to the beach

I am writing 3 pages every day!

Then I am going to do my volunteering at Citizen’s Advice Bureau

The garden is looking really lovely!

I am sewing every day in June.

I am sorting, purging and star rating my digital photos! Here’s a selection of some of the best (I have started with the BEACH tag, it’s shocking how many photos I have of the little bit of beach near here!):

Photo Freedom by Stacey Julian

2011-05-29T05:14:00.001-07:00

I first read this book about 3 years ago, and immediately knew this was the system that would work for me! I had 3 decades of old ‘sticky’ photo albums, the photos quite nicely presented, but very little journaling! Right from when I started scrapbooking I knew I wanted to go back and redo these albums. I especially love Stacey’s Library of Memories, and have set this up for myself for the older photos.

This year, Stacey has tweaked her Library of Memories class and changed it’s name to Finding Photo Freedom. I think she will concentrate more on keeping tabs on those thousands of digital photos we take nowadays! My Nikon has recently taken it’s 10,000th photo! I am in the happy state of having most of my old film photos well sorted. They are either in storage binders or my category box (a 12 x 12 Creative Memories power sorter).

So my pre class preparation has been to spend time with my digital photos! I use Windows Live Photo gallery to organise my photos. This enables me to tag and rate my photos. The vast majority have been tagged correctly, but I have not rated very many. So I have been going through them, by tag at first, and deleting the rubbish, and giving 1 star to any decent photos. My thoughts were then to go through these and give the best 2 stars, then 3 stars and so on. But I might skip straight to 5 stars, we’ll see!

Regarding albums, I have albums called Us, People we love, Places and Things. So as I scrap the kids when they were little (which is something I have been doing lately in LOAD), they can go into 'Us'. As the albums fill up, I think I will split them into Nicholas and Lucy and then into decades.

The other scrapbook I like to keep is a yearly album, as per Shimelle's 'Document 2010' class last year. I do 2 12 x 12 pages plus a divided page protector for each month. So I do print out photos each month for this album. I don't know if I will print any other older photos out - maybe for projects from time to time.

Other than that I have projects, such as Home, 52 walks, an album about me. These 3 are nearly finished, but have taken a very long time! My next ongoing project will be holidays. None of our holiday photos are within my LOM system, They are all in divided page protectors in 12 x 12 albums. One day () I plan to scrap a couple of pages per holiday leaving most of the photos in their divided page protectors and incorporate the diaries I have kept and memorabelia into these albums.
Other arty things such as stamping, painting, embossing etc, I find I do not do very often. I would rather be scrapbooking and memory keeping!

What I really need to do is seriously pare down on my stash, and be ruthless. It is so hard though isn't it? I might need that 1" square bit of paper - it might be just the thing to embellish my current page! Yesterday I put all my scraps back into their drawers. It doesn't seem so bad when they are out of sight. I feel like I might be nearly ready to give up stamping too! Maybe just keep a few little stamps for scrapbooking, I so rarely use all my stamps now.

What’s on your Worktop Wednesday?

2011-05-25T12:17:00.001-07:00

Here’s my ~~workspace~~ dining room table today. The LO is my LOAD for today. I found this old picture of Maurice’s brothers and families c 1982 and just had to scrap it! It is scraplifted from one of my favourite scrappy books, The Busy Scrapbooker by Courtney Walsh. I have already used this sketch and will use it again. The book is actually open at the page on top of a RUB, which is full of scraps! I also have drawers full of scraps, both of patterned paper and cardstock! What to do with it all? I am so tempted to throw it all away now and start all over again. I was determined to finish up all my old kits, but although I still have 20 or so sheets of pp left, I can never find the right one for my photos. I have started to cut out shapes with my cricut (flowers on this page for example), and may go through the scraps and toss anything smaller than say 3” x3”. What have you done with your scraps?

The stickers are all ‘family’ quotes that I was hunting through for embellishment. I have a similar problem with stickers, loads of half used pages (especially alphabets), but they don’t go with the papers or I haven’t got the right letters! That’s where the cricut machine comes in to it’s own – I can cut as many letter ‘e’ as I want! I just need some more cartridges so I have a bit more choice as to font and shapes.

Maybe it’s time to be really ruthless!