Meet Opal - Shimelle Challenge

I've been meaning to scrap this photo for years, literally.  It was from our Round The World trip, no prizes for guessing where!  It was actually at Steve Irwin's Zoo in Brisbane and we were really sad to have missed him by a couple of days (well that's what they said but he might not have actually been there for months!)

It was one of those magical experiences that you never forget,so soft and fluffy!  We had to hold Opal under her bottom because koalas have no rib cage so holding them under the arms like a baby to pick them up would crush their internal organs.  To pick them up from the floor you have to hold their hands and dangle them!

I was able to use some new supplies (Glitz Finnley from the S J Crafts sale) and some very old ones.  I've had those lime green Doodlebug letters since I started scrapping and the little koala button from even before that!  I threw in some new Project Life cards and some felt leaves and back gems - it feels great to use some really old stuff!

My travel album has kraft card stock on every page so as well as the background I used a couple of Tim Holtz die cuts from my ancient stash too.  

The page was inspired by this challenge from Shimelle using half page photos.  It's certainly larger than I normally scrap but not quite half a page.  

I've still got a few more to share but they will have to wait until later after I've travelled back from sunny Wales.  Yes it is sunny - it was supposed to rain hard all day here but it has been beautiful!

Bye for now
xx

Onwards and Upwards Blog Hop

It's the weekend!  A special welcome if you are hopping as part of Jennifer's Onwards and Upwards blog event. Details of the hop and the giveaway etc can be found at the bottom of this post.

Up until a week ago I had no idea what my post was going to be about for this event.  I had lots of bits of ideas and I definitely wanted it to be about sharing positive messages but I had nothing concrete.  Until Thursday morning.  It was a crazy day going from place to place but I felt the need to pop home mid morning and I'm so glad I did.  There was an e-mail from Shimelle about being a guest artist on her blog event for National Scrapooking Day on Saturday.  I leaped off of my chair and squealed.  Then I panicked.  Then I scrapped.  Then I changed my mind.  Then I scrapped again.  Then I went back to my computer and double checked and triple checked the message in case it was a fake.  Then I sent my husband a text telling him my exciting news.  But he doesn't understand creativity.  Then I picked up my 6 year old son from school and he jumped up and down and "Wow, Shimelle's blog?  Really?  Wow!" which was more the sort of reaction that I was feeling myself.  I felt really positive about my scrapping and I would love for other people to feel that too.  We just need to tell them :-)

Very few people can say that scrapbooking is their job but Shimelle can and I admire her for that.  I also admire her style and her passion for the story.  I have followed her since I met her when I started scrapbooking at Scrap-a-Mia exactly 3 years ago.  Good grief what a baptism of fire that was!  Since then I have had ups and downs with technique, style and general ability and had days where I liked my layouts and days when I wondered why I bothered to even try.  

About 18 months ago I applied for a Design Team place with S J Crafts in a moment of "why not?" and I was over the moon to be chosen.  Seizing that mad moment of thinking I might be good enough to be on a DT was one of the best decisions I have ever made.  Being selected restored my confidence in my ability as a scrapbooker.  Someone else liked what I did.  About a year ago someone asked me to make an album for a colleague as a commission, completely out of the blue.  A few weeks ago I won a competition with Echo Park papers.  This week I've been featured on a website that I would have never thought possible.  I am never going to make a living from crafting but in the words of a very wise 6 year old "Its not about the money Mummy".  So what is it about?  Its about feeling positive about something you've made.  

We need more layout love in this cold hard world that we live in.  We need to tell people when we like what they do.  Hearing from other people about things we have made makes it all worthwhile, whether it is a cup of tea, a bowl of soup, a card, a layout, a tutorial or a wedding dress.  If you've been enthused to create something, tell the person that inspired you.    If you've entered one of the many many challenges from last weekend, tell them why.   Make someone's heart swell and face beam like mine did this week.  Share the love people :-)

So... my challenge (all open until Sunday night) was to create a double layout.  In a hurry.  I scraplifted myself by choosing the first double I came to in a random album I picked up with no deliberations over "what about this one or that one".  It was this layout that was originally a quadrant design for a 6x6 paper pad and I mirrored the placement and then tweaked the embellishments to suit the larger structure.   Choosing the layout gave me a strict plan for the photos and I did the same thing again - choosing the first batch that fit the orientation, style and number.  Same with the papers.  Studio Calico Snippets was to hand (being obtained recently) and it was ideal so I didn't try and find anything possibly more ideal.  I spend far too much time trying to find something even better when actually it just makes me go around in circles!

  
The photos are from Ta Prohm in Angkor, Cambodia, about 10 years ago on our Round The World Trip.  We often wonder how much more damage has been done by the invasive roots but they can't stop them because they are all that is holding it up!  Such a tough battle of man versus nature but it does make a wonderfully atmospheric temple.

It makes me laugh when I look back and think of us shooting a whole reel of black and white film there and then a whole reel of colour, with no idea how any of them would turn out.  The children can't get their heads around the idea of waiting for film to be exposed and not seeing the photo instantly on the screen.  How things have changed since then.  Onwards and upwards eh?!

If you comment on all the blogs in the hop, finishing at Jennifer's to let her know you've been all the way around, then you'll be in with a chance to win a prize pack of cheerful Glitz Designs Color Me Happy and Simple Stories 24/7, worth over £25! 

All entries must be received by Monday the 13th of May at 10.59pm BST. 

Your next stop along the hop is Julie. Have fun!

Bye for now
xx

Jennifer - http://jennifergracecreates.com/
Rinda - http://gallorganico.blogspot.co.uk/
Meghann - http://www.meghannslittlecorner.blogspot.co.uk/
Louise - http://scrapbook-me.blogspot.co.uk/
Lisa-Jane - http://comeinsidemycrazyhead.blogspot.co.uk/
Julie - http://www.icreatepurtythangs.blogspot.co.uk/
Jo S - http://www.curlyscrapbooker.blogspot.co.uk/
Jo B - http://www.buckinghamspalace.blogspot.co.uk/
Jenny - http://dragonllew.blogspot.co.uk/
Jacky - http://scrappyjackylive.blogspot.co.uk/
Fay - http://beautifullilysramblings.blogspot.co.uk/
Daphne - http://dapfniedesign.wordpress.com/
Abi - http://creatingpaperdreams.blogspot.co.uk/
Jennifer - http://jennifergracecreates.com/

WOYWW 205 - NSD challenge

This is what happens when you try and do too many things at one time...  What a mess?!  That little gap to the right of the pink mat is only there because I just literally picked up the camera from that spot.

Last Wednesday I mentioned that I was working on an assignment for my writing course.  I'm still doing that because something exciting came up on Thursday morning to throw my plans out a bit.  You may have seen this post where I had the amazing opportunity to be a guest artist on Shimelle's blog for her National Scrapbooking Day celebrations.  We were talking about techniques for scrapping at pace and I have certainly been harnessing those techniques to get some of the challenges completed!

My course books and computer are piled in among half finished layouts and paper crafting products and this is not a good mix because things are getting lost and creased.  I'm still working on making the single from last week into a double but I DID find the off cuts from the original and there is plenty enough to make another page - huzzah!   I've got several more challenge layouts in the pipeline but there are classes to go to, family to feed, washing to do, this penultimate assignment to get completed and another blog hop with Jennifer to prepare for in amongst it all too.

One of the layouts I have completed this week actually fits 2 challenges.  This one at Shimelle's blog is to highlight your favourite papers and this one at S J Crafts which was to use just one manufacturer.  I don't think it will surprise anyone that I chose Echo Park!

I adore these papers from About A Boy and they were on my desk when I grabbed the photo and just went with it.  I flicked through my pile of Pinterest print outs and literally chose the first one that I came to that had the right number and orientation of photos, otherwise I could spend all day deliberating over this one or that one...  You can find the original from Debbie Hodges via my pin.

Those big rocks in the Northern Territory in Australia are so darn crazy right?  Just like that crazy rainbow chevron paper that I want to use on every single layout right now.

I'll be catching up with everyone's blogs in the next couple of days so make sure you put the kettle on :-)  And if you want to join in the desk sharing fun for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday then head on over to Julia's blog to find out more.

Bye for now
xx

A Guest Post for NSD with Shimelle!

May the fourth be with you!

Happy Star Wars Day and happy National Scrapbooking Day - what better way to celebrate than to be a guest artist for Shimelle?  I still can't quite believe it and I keep going back to the e-mail because it makes me smile every time I read it.  I was so happy to be asked to participate especially as the message came through a fair while after I had assumed everyone would have had their challenges.  It gave me a much needed boost!

The focus was very much on crafting with limited time and my own challenge was to create a double page spread.  Here's a little sneak peak of my layout which you can see in full on Shimelle's blog.

I really enjoy doing double pages and I even made the S J Crafts sketch in the previous post into a double by using a divided page protector as the facing page.

Here are a few more of my favourite doubles.

  

I hope you can join in with one or more of the challenges around the various blogs this weekend as many of them are open for a while.  It has all certainly got my creative juices flowing I can tell you!  If you create something this weekend then put a link in the comments box and I will come and take a look.

Happy crafting, bye for now

xx

WOYWW 199

Please don't panic.  That cup is not empty, the tea is just below the rim so all is good in the world :-)  

There is a thank you card made using some pink Papermania papers and that basket of flowers, and that's about all here really.  My study books are still there and I am mid-flow with my next assignment involving my travels, so not much time for paper creations at the moment.  I did manage to finish up 3-4 layouts from my pile of 19 almost-done's while Miss Bella and I were crafting together on Monday but the light is so poor at the moment that I daren't try and photograph them!  Will Spring ever really come or are we destined for a lifetime of Winter I wonder?

This is the finished card which looks better in real life without flash glare or dramatic colouring from tungsten lighting!

Much crafting is going on in the kitchen however, as it is the time of the Easter Bonnet Parade at school.  For the last 2 years we have taken pictures of this event in the sunshine under the blossom tree but I fear that this year it may be an inside job.  Management had offered to do the job this year but when scissors came to paper he backed out leaving with me 48 hours to create something for Louis.  We perused Pinterest and came up with a farm scene affair but the base layer wouldn't stick to the straw hat.  We ended up having to make the base hat and then sticking stuff on.  

We're getting there with me supervising and Louis doing and Bella sticking random bits to random bits.

Cotton wool sheep on the top and more daffodils to cover the dodgy bits and it should be okay.  The most important thing is that it fits his large oblong head without the need for a long length of ribbon to keep it in place!

So what fun are you having on your workdesk this week?  Let us have a look because sharing is caring and everyone is more than welcome over at our wonderful host, Julia's blog.

Bye for now

xx

Pick Your Precious

This year, Sian's Story Telling Sundays is taking the form of "Pick You Precious".  This is my first story of the year so I had to think hard about what my first "precious" would be.  These items would be the things that we might rush to save from a fire and I think that my instinct would be to grab my lap top!  It contains my photos, my coursework, my friends, my life!  I can find all those things elsewhere in the house of course but if the house went then I would definitely want my lap top to be saved.

But that's a bit naff really isn't it?

So I had another think.  Maybe I would go room by room and find something in each place that ideally I would love to save above almost everything else.  Yes, that's it, I decided.  But where to start?

Well, after all the small scale upheaval over the last few months, I thought I might as well start in the bathroom which is finished aside from my pebble pictures.   I know, I know, you are wondering what on earth I might want to save from our bathroom.  Well have a look-see here at my little display of bits and bobs.

So many little bits and so many memories attached.  The vase is filled with shiny pebbles from an old arrangement of some sort, then a layer of shells from various beaches including Newport in Pembrokeshire and Lee-On-Solent in Hampshire.  The next layer is driftwood lovingly collected by the children from Newport, then a few tiny bits of sponge from Kos, then black slate from Newport, lovely shells from all over and topped with a lobster claw from a meal in Newport.

Further along you can see an arrangement on the window ledge and this little grouping is like a potted history of our lives together.

The brown shell and the corals were from Fiji which was one of the stops on our Round The World trip.  We were young and married but otherwise free to travel and explore and talk about what the future might bring.

The large sponge is from Kos like the little bits in the vase.  That was our last foreign holiday before we had the children and it was a last minute thing as it was just after we lost our first baby.  Some Greek women helped me to perform a ritual around an allegedly sacred fountain to ensure save passage for our next babies and we visited the Asklepieion, the healing temple of Hippocrates, to feel the power of the great doctors, basically anything to help us move towards our dreams of a family - dreams which had seemed so easy and straightforward from a bar in Cambodia.

The driftwood from the beach at our family holiday home in Wales was again collected by the children.  That beach has been such a constant through most of our lives together.  We visited Wales as our first weekend away together and so we were really happy when the In-Laws bought the cottage a few years later.  It was where we decided to go backpacking, where we decided to change careers, where I did lots of my study for my first degree, where we planned for the future and where we ran to when it all collapsed and where we've taken our children every year since they were born.

The fossils came from our most recent family holiday, from a beach that was new to the 4 of us, that we explored together, the 4 of us.  We've had our ups and downs when it has come to the challenge of parenting but I'm really proud of where we are right now.

Bye for now
xx

It was a dark and stormy night...

This post is brought to you by Story Telling Sunday at High In the Sky.

This month, Sian gave us the prompt of "It was a dark and stormy night" which got me thinking about how much I love a good storm.  We're lucky that we live in a part of the world where they are not that frequent, dramatic or devastating but it does mean a lack of available material!

I wondered, should I tell you about my first big storm, the Great Storm of October 1987 that everyone remembers because of poor old Michael Fish, but actually not much happened to us.  Or the January storm 2 years later where my old moped couldn't cope and I had to push it home against the wind, but that all happened in the daytime.  How about that fabulous night 20 years ago on the balcony in Gibraltar with Management, with lightning illuminating the entire sea in front of us?  Er.. no, its not THAT sort of blog.

In the end I asked Management "Can you think of a dark and stormy night?"  His eyes glazed over and a smile twitched at his lips "Gibraltar."  "No, not that one, its for my blog."  "Ah, I see, no not that one then. Erm... the Outback?"  "YES!"

As part of our Round The World Trip, we had to coincide several parts of the world in the 'wrong' season.  One of those parts was Australia, particularly the outback and Northern Territory.  They have a wet season there which runs from December to May but it is also incredibly hot so the climate when we were travelling there was humid, so humid in fact that it melted my nail varnish off!  We travelled around Alice Springs on a tour bus visiting Uluru and Kata Juta and most of the time we slept under the stars in swag bags.  At least some people did, I don't think I slept at all.

Desperately trying to sleep on the first night of our trip to Uluru.

We headed north from Alice Springs to Darwin making stops in various sparsely populated, widely spaced places heading for Katherine Gorge so we could do some kayaking.  We saw many amazing things along the way including this termite mound.  This is the last photo we took with our old 35mm camera which finally died after a rather fun bus journey but that's another story.

That night was the first night that retreated inside the tents which were really just canvas huts with 4 racks for sleeping on.  There is such a lack of civilisation in that part of Australia that at night it really is pitch black because there is no haze of light from local towns and obviously no street lights etc.  It really is rather surreal.  There was a terrific lightning storm that night but it was far enough away that we could just sit and watch like fireworks.  One guy played guitar and another played the didgeridoo and we sat on little stools with a stubby beer watching the storm circling around us and literally feeling like it was lighting up the world.  It was one of those nights that you don't want to end yet it wasn't full of expense or crazy partying.  I often wonder if the other people on the trip think back to that night and how beautiful it was in its natural wildness.  We didn't escape the rain that night and it came down so hard that it flooded the ground within seconds and came in through the sides of the tent which was not so beautiful.

Obviously this is not my picture, see the credits below, and we were not anywhere near Uluru when we saw our storm but this fantastic shot gives you an idea of the sort of stunning show we were treated to.

http://blog.smallworldjourneys.com.au/uluru-storm/

I don't expect to ever again experience a storm like I did that night.  Now its back to my usual storms which normally involve heavy rain on the school run!

If you've got a scary or stormy story, or any story really, please do link up and share it with others, we love to read.

Bye for now
xx

Meeting the Neighbours - Story Telling Sunday

We're having a very floppy day here - Management's back is playing up (probably due to humping the large tent around), Louis is having an asthma flare which is very unusual, and I am still not firing as I would like to after my bug.  We are chilling out and watching the Olympics and loving it all and it gives me a wonderful excuse to join in with Sian's Story Telling Sunday.  

We have so many stories from our Round The World trip but this particular tale is one that I think about every week day when I watch my Aussie soaps.  I popped back to our old Travelpod blog to see what we had written but actually it was unusual that Management wrote this one.  Over to him...

OH MY GOD!

Now, when I was told I was going to a Neighbours trivia evening I thought this would be a sedate affair with a quick pickie with some semi-celebrity. Not a chance! 

We got picked up from the hostel in the most disgusting coach ever with the coach driver doing a very good impression of Les Patterson. After picking up numerous amounts of scantily dressed girlies on the way, we arrived at the Elephant and Wheelbarrow pub in St. Kilder. There was already a large queue. After about 15 minutes we eventually got in and you were seated at specific tables so that they could sqeeze in as many people as possible. Then the drinking began. After quite a lot of the drinking the mc eventually said the stars were on their way and one by one in walked Toadie, Connor and Harold. The noise was deafening as 300 plus drunk Brits screamed and chanted the star's names. The celebs were then asked questions that the crowd had put forward. Many of these were directed towards Toadie asking about rumours that he had been caught in the toilets with various female backpackers on previous evenings and had been banned. The best question though was put to Harold - "Why do you have such a jelly belly?" His answer - "Because every time I slept with your mother she gave me a biscuit!" What a star.

The quiz then started and the stars went round the tables to meet everyone and get photos with them. Harold had a bad leg so he remained on stage and you went up to see him. Most of the questions were about anything but neighbours and our team managed a creditable 7th out of 35. The quiz rounds were interspersed with a number of dodgy 18-30 type games to win trips etc. The most amazing thing about the whole evening was seeing all these young girls wearing a couple of hankerchiefs tied together throwing themselves at the stars in particular Harold! I have to say he wasn't complaining.

At this point I have to say a small word about my wife. Seeing her little face after having her picture taken with Toady was like a small child on christmas morning. She even said "this is the best day of the trip so far" - how sad is that?

Anyway after quite a bit more drinking we splashed out on a taxi back to the hostel (a whole 5 pounds).

After the excesses of the night before we decided on a quiet inexpensive day. We had to be out of the hostel for 4 hours as it was being fumigated! I tried to explain that LJ's socks always smelt but they must have suspected something even worse. In the morning we went swimming at the public swimming pool which was free via the hostel. Now, at home I consider myself not a bad swimmer but here I was put to shame with all the locals bombing up and down the lanes. There was even a man with one leg who was twice as fast as me. The pool was 30 metres and LJ managed 20 lengths!

After swimming we had lunch in chinatown - 3 dishes with rice for $6 (about 2 squid) and then went to the market and bought our tea. We splashed out and got a huge piece of rump steak for just over a quid.

This morning we did the other neighbours tour which was a bit disappointing. The tour takes you to the road that is Ramsey Street (real name Pin Oak). This is an actual street where poor people actually live. Well not so poor as it happens cos they get paid $50,000 a year to let the TV company film there. It seemed very small in real life and not at all how we remembered it from the telly. We then passed the studios and the driver pointed out the actors cars and told us what the ex stars are doing. Rik Alessi is now a tour guide for the outback so we may see him later in our travels.

Neighbours trivia - Erinsborough is made from an anagram of Neighbours. Erinsborough High is a school in real life. When Harold "disappeared" a few years back he was actually sacked and only came back when the producers changed.

Future plots - Kylie returns as a stripper and gets it on with pom newcomer (Management apparently!).

So that was our Neighbours experience as told at the time by Management.  Its really funny looking back at what we wrote about things back then and what we remember now, or the style we wrote in and how we might write it now.  It was 10 years ago now and so much has changed for us since then.  I'm looking forward to scrapping all about our strange experiences!

Bye for now
xx

Story Telling Sunday - The One About The Tigers.

I've had this story scrapped since the retreat and when I popped in to see Sian at High in The Sky, I was reminded that I had intended to share it by joining in with Story Telling Sunday.  This event happens on the first Sunday of every month and hence, I share it with you now.

I've mentioned before about Management and I taking a round the world trip about 10 years ago.  In all we spent about 7 months travelling around South East Asia and in that time we saw a LOT of temples of various  denominations.  Whilst in Thailand, we wanted to visit Kanchanaburi to see the Death Railway and the Bridge Over the River Kwai.  Unfortunately as we were pushed for time by this point it mean't we had to take an organised trip and this included, oh no, another temple.  And it wasn't even in the Lonely Planet.

During the journey though we found out a little more about Tiger Temple and discovered that it was newly opened to the visiting public and wasn't much of a temple at all.  The big draw here was the fact that the monks had taken in some orphaned tiger cubs and raised them to be calm enough to interact with humans.  They were very clear that these were not trained tigers, just calm, well fed, happy animals.

On arrival, we had to walk through the forest for a bit and we could hear the odd roar now and then.  Our pulses were racing slightly already by this time and we hadn't even come face to face with these big cats!  We were introduced to some 4 month old tigers which was an incredible experience.  The boy tiger had to stay in his cage as the males are already bigger and more boisterous but the little female cub ran around us and we could stroke and play with her. There were other random animals around too like a strange goat called Bin Laden and a gibbon who came up for a cuddle.  Gibbons are incredibly strong and the keepers in our local zoo don't even get in the cage to feed them because they can turn so easily and yet here we were with one wrapped around us.

If that felt unreal, we were going to be blown away by what happened next.

We were led to the small cages that the tigers are kept in for the vast majority of the day.  The monks calmly got 3 tigers out on leads and started walking them down the lane.  Then they handed us the leads.  These are fully grown tigers weighing up to 300kg on the end of a thin bit of leather with only a wrinkled monk for protection.  I don't know if I was more scared or excited.  After a short walk, the tigers were let off their leads to play in the quarry area.  They were about 20 metres away and so when they had a bit of a roar and a tussle over a tyre, the sound went right through your chest.  It was incredible.

These monks are not trained tiger tamers and yet they were all that stood between a handful of tourists and 3 stripy killer cats.  The phrase "Health and Safety" just had not been invented here.  Strangely we always felt safe though.  We were assured that tigers are naturally lazy animals and they will only attack if hungry or threatened, neither of which they were in danger of here.  These awesome animals really felt like giant house cats that day.

I wish I could say that that was the end of the story, well it was until I came to do this layout.

This was the layout that won me a runner up prize at the crop but I had to wait to do the journalling until I got home.

I couldn't remember the name of the area so I had to look it up on our Travelpod blog.  When I tried to search Google I saw that there were hundreds of links about Tiger Temple and so I had a little read around.

I had noticed that a few friends had recently had their photos taken sat with a lazy looking tiger while on holiday in plush resorts in Thailand.  It appears that this temple started a trend and when they appeared on Animal Planet things really took off.  Visitor numbers increased to up to 300 a day and over time the tourists had to be kept further and further away from the tigers at the temple although the resorts had caught on to this idea by then.  The temple itself and the head Buddhist there (seen in the photo) were investigated by a wildlife organisation and found to be in breach of several laws.  The tigers were sometimes abused, kept in inappropriate cages, they were illegally traded and bred.  Although no proof has ever been found, many people believed that the "tourist tigers" are drugged.  Although Buddhists are not supposed to have any money for themselves, there are "irregularities" surrounding the funding and finances for the temple.  The suspicions are that what started as an innocent way of helping a few orphaned tigers, quickly developed into a incredible cash machine. I'm glad we were there in the early days but I'm really sad that it has evolved into such a controversial tourist attraction which has led to the probability of resorts drugging tigers too.


In a way I'd like to go back and see how it has changed but for now I am happy to remember the amazing experience we had back in the times when there wasn't such controversy and when we were able to get up close and personal with one of my favourite animals.

What did we do before Ikea?

There was once a time when I wouldn't go into Ikea.  We had a Victorian house with loads of original features and the modern Ikea style and cheap flat pack furniture just wasn't us.  Then we started a family and we saw that Ikea actually did furniture that wasn't all minimalist and modern clean lines and from our very first visit we were hooked.  We also, surprisingly, liked the quality.

Then we moved house to somewhere bigger and slightly more modern and by then we had 2 young children.  And they opened an Ikea store about 20 minutes from our new home.  Its probably the only shop that the children WANT to go to.  The cafe looks out over Southampton docks and so we see the huge cruise liners when they are in port.  L loves the creche but B is still too little, at least for the next few weeks.

When I started thinking about being able to have my own craft room, I knew where I would probably end up getting all the stuff from.  I have gradually been able to get the furniture that I wanted in there and also made better use of the stuff that I was using in there in the meantime.  This weekend I bought, and put together, the final pieces, including a large desk, and it really feels like it is coming together.  I've got a few bits to put on the walls as yet and I still haven't finished the pizza boxes so most of my papers are still in RUBs but I'm getting there and I am loving the way it is starting to look.  I can't wait to get back in there and really attack some projects that have been sitting in my "unfinished" basket for far too long.  I also need to prep for a retreat at the end of March.

I won't show pictures until Wednesday but I don't like having a photo-less post so I will leave you with a layout that I started in October and finally finished a couple of weeks ago!

This is one of the layouts that I started during the stash diving project in Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party class.  I got 11 layouts to the point where they had photos and the initial paper placement sorted.  They just needed titles, journalling and embellishment.

I used the camera stamp from Amy Tangerine again and finally got to use one of my buttons from an Australian pack from Hobbycraft.

Ayers Rock and The Olgas were such fantastic spiritual places and the photos don't do the area justice, especially when you consider that our standard film camera packed up a couple of days later, full of sand and condensation.  I think I still have a gazzillion photos of our Round The World Trip to scrap though!

Bye for now
xx

4x6 photo love for September

Looking at this little box makes me very thankful that I have never tried to scrapbook chronologically!  This is the pile of photos from our Round The World Trip that DIDN'T make the albums and it only seems to include half the trip as we can't find anything pre Singapore.  Imagine if we had taken digital photos!

Oddly enough, Singapore was where my hand fell when I dived in to grab 9 photos for September's 4x6 photo love with Shimelle.  We were only there for a few days and I'd obviously already taken some out for the proper albums at the time.  Taking out the ones I would never use (but cannot bear to just throw away!) that left me with just about enough for this layout.  Yes, that's right, 9 photos on one single page layout.

We'd been travelling for nearly 6 months already by the time we reached Singapore but we had booked ourselves into Raffles for Valentine's Day before we left back in the September.  We'd tried to get in before when we were on our honeymoon several years previously but had been told about a lengthy waiting list and we really didn't want to miss out a second time.  It was fabulous!  We had a Singapore Sling despite a hatred of gin (but that's another story) and had a wonderful posh buffet in the Tiffin Room which dates back to the 1800's.  If you think the photo of Raffles looks a little odd, you would be right.  We had bought a new camera just the day before and a new wide angle lens which apparently makes things circular if you zoom too far out!  But of course we didn't know that until we had that first film developed a week or so later...

8 of the photos go back to back on 2 inserts inside a transparent pocket so there are 2 of Raffles and 4 of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations.  Talk about a riot of colour and an assault on the senses, it was phenomenal. 

The other 2 photos are of a river taxi (which we couldn't afford) and the Battle Bunker where Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in WW2.  We had already been to Chiangi prison and seen where the prisoners of war had been kept and we both agreed that we would never hesitate to take our children out of school to travel for a while because you just can't beat this sort of history lesson.

I'm enjoying dipping into this box now and then but I really would like to scrap the photos from the "proper" albums as they were the better ones of course.  But there is only so much time in the day sadly.  Oh if only time could stand once in a while eh?!

Bye for now
xx

11 challenges!

Phew!  I did it!  I finished the one from last night and completed another one.  I am really pleased with them both but the pictures are a bit dull as it is obviously later than I would have liked to photograph them! (Edited to include photos now taken in the sunlight!)

They both feature black and white pictures from our Round The World trip taken in Siem Reap, Cambodia where we toured the ruined temples.  We took LOADS of photos and patiently waited for each film to come back before we knew how we had done.  I dread to think how many we would have taken had we had our digital SLR!

This first one is for Shimelle's "Let's Go Retro" challenge where we had to use a picture from before 2011 (as many people just don't have access to old photos, myself included).  We were in Cambodia in 2003 so although not really retro, its retro enough.  I can't recall which temple it was taken at and the dappled light doesn't make it easy for you to see but its our remorque moto driver fast asleep.  The motos are just very small motorbikes with a carriage type bit on the back to carry passengers but they are great fun because you can see around you really well.  The drivers wait around at these temples all the time so they tend to sit about chatting and smoking or catching some zzzz as ours mostly did.

I'm thinking that perhaps the papers are too busy for the picture because of the shading but I still like it and I didn't follow a sketch or anything here!

This next one is probably one of my favourites from the whole weekend and the one I had no plan for at all.  It was for the "Chop Your Paper" challenge and I immediately thought of this layout.  It worked really well last time but I didn't want it to look too similar.  I did however, want to use the same papers.  I cut the flowers and leaves out of the leftovers from last time and the circle was the waste from the ring section.  I wanted to create something where you had to peer through the foliage like we did the first time we saw Angkor Wat.  Because you see it from the end of the pathway first, it is quite far back and you really don't get a sense of scale at all.  We were a bit disappointed as we oulled up as you really don't get the impact of it and we thought we would be blown away the first time it came into view.  Inside though it is amazing, huge, beautiful, intricate, etc, all the things you would expect a world famous temple complex to be

I raised up some of the cut outs on foam tape to give it more depth and dimension.  It was quite therapueatic to sit in the garden in the sun, watching the children poking spiders and bugs, while I cut out the swirls and flowers.

So that's me done for the weekend of challenges.  I completed 11 in the end plus of course the one that L entered.  Of course now my craft room is a total mess and I ended up rolling over photos in my swivel chair so no more scrapping for me until I've had a major clean up.  But I think I'll leave that for a while and go see what everyone else made.

Bye for now
xx