WOYWW 248

Do you know that I laughed so much at my scrapbooking retreat over the weekend that my tummy still hurts?! We had a wonderful time and I'll be sharing some pictures very soon.  

I've not been able to get into my craft room for any actual crafting since then so my desk is basically a half unpacked crop bag!  Sarah brought my order for 4 new American Crafts albums so I can file that stack of layouts that I completed even though I nearly forgot to pack any photos!  I keep a not of the layouts before I file them so I know which ones need putting on the blog so that's what I'd been doing here having just photographed them in the garden... in the dry... in the sun!!!

The layout on the right there was finished a few seconds before I left on Friday morning and so that one needed photographing too.  This one was for the S J Papercrafts challenge for March which involved us all using a set of photographs as inspiration.  If you fancy a challenge thn pop over and see what inspires you from the pictures too.  There is also another prize on offer this month from another WOYWW-er, the lovely Annie.  Personally I was inspired to use the colours and textures from the pictures to create this windy beach layout using Crate Paper's Pier collection. Louis was just over a year old in this picture from his first beach trip in Newport, Pembrokeshire. Even then we knew he'd love it more and more as he got older and he certainly has! 

It was great fun to rifle through my stash and find old bits and bobs like the sandy coloured flowers, veneer birds and green ric rac to accentuate my theme along with the woody tones of the papers.

When I saw the inspiration photos I immediately thought of this collection and once I had got the papers out I realised they were perfect for scrapping about this rainy weather we've been having here since Christmas.  I ended up using this collection a lot over the weekend for various photos of drizzly walks and windswept beaches.

I guess I really need to finish putting all the rest of the stuff away *sigh*... But first I'll grab a cuppa and have a peruse around all the other desks that link up on a Wednesday for the biggest creative gathering of the week.  Please do join in - its easy, free and very enjoyable and you're sure to receive a warm welcome from our host Julia.

Bye for now
xx

The Great Pumpkin photo

Something wiccan this way comes...

Yes I know that it should be "wicked" and not "wiccan" but I like how it sounds ;-) 

I really love Halloween products but we don't really get into the spirit (did you see what I did there...) like people do in the States.  We are embracing it more and more though, even if its just an excuse to use themed embellishments and papers! 

This photo was one of many many many that I took on this particular Halloween 3 years ago.  I was doing a Digital Photography course with the Open University (which I didn't pay attention to and need to redo) and one of the assignments was photographing dark.  Most people did pumpkins purely because of the time of year and there were some spectacular shots.  I just couldn't get mine right but this was the best of them.

I absolutely adore that orange and black polka dot ribbon and there is a story behind that too.  Last year at around this time, I was "chatting" to another blogger from the States about candy corn.  I kept seeing the motifs for it but had no idea what it was or why it was relevant to Halloween.  The lovely Deb (who many of you know) said she would send us some to try - how wonderful!  I can tell you that we all tried one small piece and it was too sweet for us to any more!  The children were bowled over by the spider rings that came with it and I was overly excited by the ribbon and twine!

The papers and the chipboard letters are from a set by WRMK and the gorgeous orange buttons are Jenni Bowlin.  I really like working with orange and I'm so pleased that we made Halloween really special this year and that we have lots of photos to scrap.

I'm thinking that I'm not alone in taking pictures of things purely for the joy of the associated scrapbooking opportunities.  At least I don't think I am... Have you ever done something deliberately because you wanted to use something specific on a layout?  Maybe dressed people in certain colours or stood people in certain areas?  I've done both of those things and a few more!

Oh, and I almost forgot the give-away!

The winner of the give-away was number 3 which corresponded to Jo!  Jo if you can PM me your address I can get your papers in the post for you this week, just in time for Christmas crafting.

Thank you to all those who commented and left good wishes for my Dad.  He had his operation yesterday and it all went fine but he is now sporting a much larger bandage for a while. Definitely something to scrap there!

Bye for now
xx