Story Telling Sunday - The One About The Cow(s)

My precious for this month's Story Telling Sunday is not an object, unless you count the photograph, but a memory.  Sian suggested something with a bit of mystery, so here you are... what's going on here?

Did you spot the calf making its first appearance there?  I can tell you that the head and hooves were out for about half an hour before the cow finally managed to birth him and we were all a little bit worried that he had got stuck!  Out of the 7 of us watching, 3 of us were mummies and we winced every time she had a strong contraction.  The cow kept sitting down but never sat on the calf at all and ended up actually birthed him to the side of her while laying down.  He didn't move at all for a while and she didn't seem interested but eventually started the licking process and before too long we heard his first little moo!  We kept checking on them both while the light was okay but we didn't seem him up and about until the next morning.  It was wonderful to see him make his way up the hill on his wobbly little legs, looking all white and dark brown like a proper Fresian calf.  

Obviously this wasn't in our back garden... We spent a rather lovely weekend at a Featherdown Farm in Dorset called Knaveswell for a stew pot weekend.  It was cheaper than a normal weekend price and included two wonderful stews with local ingredients and I can tell you that they were absolutely delicious.  It was rather strange to be in one of the tents that we know so well now but at a different time of year.  At the beginning of June, the days were so long and light that the children thought it was time to get up at 5.30!  This weekend though, the shorter days and the canopy of trees at Knaveswell meant that it still felt pitch black at 8am and that us adults were in bed, asleep at 9.30pm!  Considering it is October, we were actually quite warm in our beds too which was a relief.  The children always have such a wonderful time on these trips and never want to go home and I hope that when they look back in years to come, they will realise what a fantastic experience they had and what amazing things they saw.

Bye for now

xx

Adventures in Exmoor

Warning - photo heavy post!

It seems like months ago since we came back from Lower Roduish Farm in Exmoor.  Of course its only been a week but the sun that shone for us all the time we were there has been sadly lacking since we came back and it feels more like Autumn than summer.

So, our adventures at this years Featherdown Farm location were just as wonderful as last year's in South Devon.  The tents were closer together but there was not such a hike between the showers and the tents and the children could play quite happily in the fields with the sheep right in front of us.

There was a bigger mix of animals here too.  Obviously there was the sheep, and let me tell you that sheep with lambs are incredibly noisy!  We ended up having little conversations with them because we listened to them for so long that we thought we could identify words!

They have a few cows there and this wonderful beast - Marcus the Bull.  He "works" for one month of the year having fun with his girls.  Its a tough life... ;-)

They have 3 larger pigs and then a little brood of piglets turned up in the afternoon.  The children absolutely loved throwing in all our food scraps for them.

It was Louis's 7th birthday while we were away so he had a few presents in our tent.

We were able to eat breakfast outside every morning.  Bella and I certainly enjoyed our fresh eggs from the 2 chickens we looked after for the week.  We are both big fans of "tappy eggs"!

The birthday boy chose to spend some change in the amusements at Minehead.

He ate LOADS the whole time we were away.  No more children's portions for this growing lad - yikes!

We walked up on the moors and looked for deer and The Beast.

The children were taught to groom ponies.

We had a delicious stew cooked in a cauldron.

Louis's birthday treat was to go pony trekking.  Can you believe they just let us walk off with two children and two ponies!  We expected someone to come with us but they told us the route and off we went.  They absolutely loved it and can't wait to go again.

We looked after 2 guinea pigs for the week.  This little one is Eilish.

I'm not a fan of these animals but I really fell in love with them and probably held them as much as the children!  One of the other children on the farm wanted to have a pet show so we all got our guinea pigs out and paraded them around and he judged a winner!  It was hysterical!

We were able to have camp fires and toast marshmallows on long sticks.  The close proximity of the tents meant that the adults could put the little ones down and then chat around the fire with a bottle or two of local cider.  Perfect.

We visited several beaches.  This one is Porlock and the stones were all huge and very rounded which made walking on them pretty fun!

Its a pretty little area with some really quaint houses and a tiny harbour.

Basically we had a ball just being together without work / school / coursework / housework etc.

Even though the tide was pretty much out, the children managed to catch 21 crabs in about 25 minutes!

 We hunted for fossils on Doniford beach.  There were quite a few set into large rocks on the beach.

You literally can't go more than a few feet without finding one.

 

We brought a few home for our bathroom collection but had to leave behind some truly beautiful and large ones too.

The kids had a great time on the farm with the huge walnut tree and the rope and tyre swing.  They played for ages with the friends they met, just romping around the field but where we could still see them.

Our other guinea pig was called Podge and she was the winner in the parade!  She got a carrot for her prize from the little boy - bless!  I have to admit that I rather fell for this soft little bundle.

I think our favourite thing was the little stream that ran through the field that they played in.  It was shallow enough that they could paddle happily with their wellies or crocs but flowing enough that they could race daisies and dried sheep poo along it!

It was wonderful.  All of it.  The relative peace (other than the wildlife!), the fresh air, the sun, the s-l-o-w way of life, the cream teas, the campfires, the Pimms, and generally just being together without the normal every day stresses.  Coming soon to a scrapbook near you ;-)

Happy days!

Bye for now

xx

Devon, this year and last.

We are back from our wonderful holiday in North Devon!  This was the view from our amazing semi-permanent tent on Lower Roduish Farm.  You can just about see Louis and Bella heading off up the pretty stream holding hands.  All the children spent a LOT of time playing in that field and paddling in the water and floating random things in it.  

I'm still sorting through the pictures so expect to see more of them very soon but suffice to say that we were very jammy with the weather again and we had a wonderful time, slowing time (as much as we can with 2 lively children) and just being together as a family after a very busy few months.  Sadly tomorrow Management goes back to work and Louis goes back to school, Bella on Tuesday, and I have a tonne of work in the pipeline so its back to crazy busy again.  At least I have my crop on Saturday to look forward to and I can do some more work on my album from our holiday last year with Featherdown Farms!

This is the title page of my Aller Farm album.  I wonder if I will ever catch up!

*sigh*  I love holidays but I don't like coming home to mountains of washing and we miss our friends on the farm already.  Is it possible to get jet lag travelling North Devon to Southampton?  I think it is.

Bye for now
xx

WOYWW 208

Happy Anniversary to all of you WOYWW participants!  (Just a quick note that I don't have any ATCs to swap, sorry!)

My desk is ALMOST in use this week!  I am putting the final touches on my last assignment and then I can play!  We go on holibobs to Featherdown Farm very shortly and the children and I are making our own Smash style books to take with us.  Its a good way to use up the papers that come free with certain magazines that you don't particularly want to use yourself :-)

I've got my Bind It All out but I've never actually had chance to use it as yet so we have to change our plans rather!

This little lot here is from the lovely Kirsty for a Sian's "Very Big Swap of Very Small Things".  I am absolutely in love with the big buttons and the teeny red ones too.  Thank you Kirsty!  My parcel is on its way to Deb in the States.

We've been busy with birthdays here too including a bowling party for Louis's best friend.

I hope everyone enjoys their swapping and the crop if they are able to attend that too.  In the meantime, don't forget to link up with Julia to see the rest of the desks.  Happy crafting.

Bye for now
xx

Last few for NSD!

I promise this is it for NSD a few days!  I will go back to being a struggling writer and SAHM for the next few days until I go to a crop on Saturday.  I'm really pleased to have put more layouts in my album over this last week, especially those that were half finished or almost there.  It looks like I have done loads but obviously a fair number of them were completed with thanks to the challenge and not started from scratch - I DO have a life that tends to get in the way of my craft you know ;-)

This page is for the challenge to "scraplift yourself".  Its a design that I use a fair amount because it is quick but can look very different depending on colours and how much above and below the photos etc.  I probably lifted it from Shimelle at some point in the past though.  

This is the right page (yet to start the left) about arriving at Aller Farm and having to use wheelbarrows to carry all our stuff to the tent because we are not allowed to have cars on site.  Any time we had to collect stuff from the shop or take back ice-packs and rubbish etc then we had to use the barrows.  The children loved pushing them almost as much as riding in them!

All of the papers are from October Afternoon but from various collections.  I love how you can mix and match with then like that.  The turquoise paper is from Ducks In A Row which a collection I would never have bought for myself.  Its a really old collection and the bits I have from it came in a Santa Sack where you get random bits and pieces from over the years at a big reduction.  Its really great to be able to use up some of these papers by putting them together with ones that I love like the stripe and the yellow floral.

Back to something a little more current with the papers but much older with the photos.  I have no idea why Louis was wearing a red nose because I don't think they ever did foam ones for Red Nose Day did they?  Anyway, he seemed to like it!  

The papers here are Echo Park's About A Boy with matching chipboard and this layout was for the challenge to scrap using square photos.  They were originally 4x6 but I cropped them to square to get rid of extraneous details.  

Phew!  Right time to visit a few blogs and then it is back to my assignment before I get into trouble.  Only 2 pieces of writing to do and then I am done till September, woop woop!

Bye for now
xx

And more NSD

I would love to not have to go to sleep for a few days, just so I can get some stuff done that I WANT to do right now, rather than HAVE to do, know what I mean?!

This page was for Shimelle's challenge to do some fancy cutting.  I cut this polaroid frame on my silhouette but kept the picture almost at the original size so that I could use the grass in the photo to fill the negative space.  

I've been looking forward to using these October Afternoon Campfire Trails papers for literally years!  The vast majority of papers in our Devon album for Featherdown Farm are OA.

I'm also using the same range of punches throughout the album.

This next page is for the challenge to use divided page protectors and will be the only set in the album that don't use OA.  These are Echo Park Birthday Wishes like the other couple of layouts about the pizza night at Aller Farm which was fab!  We actually had two pizza nights and on the second one Management had to do all the cooking because we had done it before so they left us to it!

I lent farmer Nigel my fleece because he was trying to put his bare arm too far in the oven and it ended up getting holes in it from the embers!  He was so embarrassed but I didn't mind at all, its old anyway and now it has another story to add to its memories.

Last one for today.  Another one from the pile of "had photos and some papers but nothing else" and when I saw the challenge for adding a letter, it sounded the perfect way to round up this layout.  The picture is of Louis dashing about with his camera at a castle in Pembrokeshire and it sums him up perfectly.  

The letter inside the scrap-a-lope is written to Louis explaining what he was like at that age and how he loved this castle and everything that was going on there.  He took loads of pictures of random things but all the time with this huge smile on his face, appreciating the scale of the building and the different way they lived there.  He has such a zest for life and one day in the future when he is flicking through this album, I want him to know that I love that so much about him.

Its definitely a technique I will use again and in fact I might just do that very soon and again write about what he is like now because he turns 7 in just 3 weeks time.  My little baby is growing up fast - sob!

Bye for now
xx

Lots more challenges for NSD

Happy Saturday!  Good luck to everyone doing a Race For Life or the Moonwalk tonight!  I hope the weather stays perfect for you.

Its only 3 weeks until we go on holiday and we are going back to Featherdown Farm but this time in Exmoor.  The children are beyond excited and one of their most overriding memories of Aller Farm was keeping our 2 little chickens.

Each morning we would race over to let them out and see if they had laid anything.  We got 2 eggs each day and sometimes they would still be warm from the chicken!  They were delicious!

This layout doesn't have a title because it is part of a linked page that I haven't completed yet.  I wasn't sure how to finish it off until I saw Shimelle's challenge to use fabric on your layout.  I love using denim and its been a while since I've done it so this was the perfect opportunity.

I painted on Mod Podge to make it stiff and used the same stuff to glue on a chipboard piece.  When it was dry I was able to go around with scissors and a craft knife because it dries a bit like card.

The other bits and pieces are from an October Afternoon ephemera pack from their Boarding Pass collection.  I'm using OC throughout the Devon album.

I also made a facing page for my Balls layout to make it into a double for this challenge.   I'm definitely not in love with this one now that I have tinkered with it to make them match but it's another set of photos out of the drawer and into the albums and Bella enjoyed helping to sort the buttons.

There's more to come today and tomorrow so its a busy time for blog with all the challenges and hopping!  Did you join in with the blog hop yesterday?  There's a lot of inspiration around right now huh?!

Time to get busy glueing and cutting with the children now.  They keep taking the micky out of me for leaving the top off my glue stick and ruining it because its something I am always reminding me about - cheeky poppets!  Its hard when you are on a roll... ;-)

Bye for now
xx

S J Crafts Sketch Challenge #1

Are you ready for National Scrapbooking day tomorrow?  

How about a fun sketch challenge to get you started?  S J Crafts are hosting the first of hopefully many sketch challenges and as a special prize for NSD you will be in with a chance of winning £10 to spend in the shop.  The challenge is open until the end of May so pop on over to the blog for more details and to see the sketch and what the rest of the design team have done.

Here's my take on it.  Its a layout for our Aller Farm album from Devon using papers from the Echo Park Birthday Wishes collection.

I just need to add the journalling to the blue box about amazing pizza night at Aller Farm in Devon.  I've added some washi tape, ribbon, wood veneer flowers and pearls.

This page using the sketch will be left hand page and the following project will be the one facing it.  This collection is ideal for the partitioned page protectors that I have used throughout my Aller album.

These pages are ideal for using up smaller pieces and I've tried to ensure some continuity across the page by using the same supplies on both sides.

I'm loving the trend for wood veneers which work really well as a point of continuity throughout an album because they work with any colour scheme or style.  This one was actually broken but it was ideal for using at the top of the page.  I would never have been able to get a clean break like that myself!

Be sure to come by again tomorrow for more NSD celebrations!  What fun things will you be doing?  I hope you have a wonderful weekend, whatever you have planned.

Bye for now
xx