Nisyros

Another one from the Greece collection for you today - this one is about the little village of Mandraki on the island of Nisyros.  This is where you dock into when you visit the volcano on the island and it is so typically Greece!  Lots of white box houses edged with blue and narrow steep paths - perfect for bimbling about.  Which we did.

This was another layout from Shimelle's Return to the Collection class and it is definitely one of my favourites from this series.  I added some cream coloured card to mat the photos and back the circles behind the gorgeous floral paper.  The card has a slight corrugation which adds to the texture a bit and the colour picks up on the cream in the background print.

I also added some Papermania travel related washi tape to the Echo Park collection that I used throughout this series.

Oh how I am yearning to bimble around sun bleached buildings right now!

Bye for now
xx

Among The Ruins

A couple of Wednesdays ago when I shared my desk for our normal weekly round up...

I was explaining how the Shimelle class had encouraged me to use more paints and stamps etc on my layouts and how it had gone wrong because I hadn't put the lines in the right place.  It might not be the way I intended it to be but I do like how it finished up.

A standard 12x12 with a facing split page protector to add to the other layouts of our Kos holiday.  I haven't done the journalling on these pages yet because I'm still trying to find out the name of the place we visited!  It was somewhere in Kos town I think and it overlooked the sea so it was in a great position.  Management and I love pottering about in ruins and old buildings and I'm glad to say that it looks like the children are taking after us with our love of dilapidated historical sites.  Of course, neither of them were born at the time of this particular holiday and indeed there is a bit of a story as to how we ended up taking this last minute trip but that's for another layout. 

Either side of the yellow strip you can see the white acrylic paint that I dragged with the edge of a stamping block.  Top left and sort of bottom right is where I stamped over the dry paint... except that you can't really see the bottom right because I stamped too far up.

These pictures are just shy of the standard 6x4 that everything is now which mean't that I had to mount them on plain cardstock to fit the pockets.  I think it helps here though because it ties the colour scheme in and helps to visually separate the photos from each other.

We have friends who live in Greece and right now they are having jolly nice weather for the time of year thank you very much.  They are ex-pats and so they are really appreciating the sun while their former home has sandbags on the door steps. *sigh*

I think that floral paper has to be my favourite of the whole Echo Park For The Record 2 and I think it really helped to use this collection all in one go too.  I would definitely recommend doing that with any collection pack, especially if you are the type to admire them in their packaging!  I've got some lovely kits coming up in my DT assignments for S J Crafts because she's just had lots of lovely goodies delivered!  I love collections!

Bye for now

xx

WOYWW 245

Its Wednesday, so its WOYWW, so let's get straight down to business - no time to shilly shally.  I have officially finished all of the layouts I can possibly get from the collection I've been working on through Shimelle's class.  The one you can see on the desk is the penultimate layout.  I just about have enough scraps left to eek out a Valentine card for Management - ssshh don't tell him, just between us 'kay?

I was enjoying a little play (hence the full cuppa) Tuesday afternoon when I took this during a brief moment of sunshine - hurrah!  I really feel for anyone experiencing floods etc right now - it is truly awful.  There can't be much more water left in the sky to fall can there?!

Last week I mentioned that I was heroically trying to log all my layouts / blogged projects / photos etc and part of that is filing this pile of layouts!  You can see the spotty tablecloth that I used to have on my desk which some of you might remember.  You can also see why I choose to use Taffy pink albums by American Crafts :-)

Its been a creative hive of activity here at Crazy Towers.  Miss Bella wanted a friend to come over to make a Facebook page!  Kinda cute that she got it mixed up but she did actually mean a scrapbook page obviously. I knew I would have to tackle the children's art room in order for this to take place - gulp!

Being by the back door means all manner of outside items get left here.  It leads through to the utility so it bugs me that it is so messy.

There was nothing else for it.  It had to be done.  I put some funky music on, grabbed another cuppa and set to it.  I'm pretty pleased with the results but I just need to keep on top of it!

The insect home you can see on the windowsill there is patiently awaiting our baby stick insects to be big enough not to be able to squeeze through the holes!  We have 6 so far of just under an inch long.

The trolley on the left is what I sort the washing into, nothing to do with crafts at all.  The basket on top is full of Slimming World magazines that I need to sort through and pull out the recipes.  The shelves there are also the place where I keep my vases etc.

Our little guest took to scrapbooking like a duck to water and was overheard to say "I love your house.. I really love doing this!"  Also Louis finished a lovely page which I promised I would show on the blog very soon and said he had forgotten how much he enjoyed scrapbooking!  This all made my heart literally sing!  I find it hard to have little friends to tea but it is part of my One Little Word progress and I have to say that it was lovely to see the three of them sat there singing along to the radio and cutting and sticking while I pottered about at the stove.

Anyway, enough about the crafting going on here, what's going on where you are?  Pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground to link up with other desks around the world.

Bye for now
xx

Hello Sailor

It's a corny title, yes?  We finally had a little bit of sun here at Crazy Towers so I finally managed to photograph the projects that I've completed so far from Shimelle's class - Return to the Collection.  This is the layout from video 2 but still using photos from Kos and Echo Park's For The Record 2.

These photos were taken on a boat trip while we were in Kos which involved fishing and a brief stop at a cute beach for lunch.

This was a great push for me to have a go at stamping and then half covering it up to add dimension with layers.  I'm definitely going to try this again.  

There are lots more to come but for now I must prepare to go to the Strictly Come Dancing live tour!!  So excited!!!

Bye for now

xx

WOYWW 243

Good morning, good yawning!  It's Wednesday again - time for a snoop around some creative spaces.

I'm scrapping my way out of another crash (depressive low) probably caused by being ill for a few weeks and all the birthday celebrations being over.  Last week I felt so bad that I couldn't even craft and Sunday was spent on the sofa.  This week however it is all change!  I made 2 layouts on Monday and I have another in the offing.  They are all  as a result of Shimelle's class "Return to the Collection" and I am using an old Echo Park collection called For The Record 2.  You can see one of the layouts on the pile in the middle and the next one on the black mat ready to go.

If you look carefully you can see a red word near the pencil case - heart, my word for the year.  I need to get someone to take a pic of me holding the word (which I die-cut on my Silhouette) and then that picture will form part of my One Little Word project.  I'm hoping to get that done before I lose the die-cut under a pile of art sediment! ;-)

This is the first of the layouts from the class.  I'm using an old set of photos from a holiday in Greece, so old in fact that they have the negatives stored with them!

I thought the blue and white colour scheme was very apt for photos of Greece with all the blue seas and the blue and white houses etc.

Nissyross is an island just off Kos in Greece that most people visit because of the volcano.  It's not dormant (I wrote the journalling before checking my facts - rookie error!) but it is not erupting (obviously) and you can walk into the caldera if you are brave enough.  It is hot and you have to wear proper shoes and be careful where you walk but it was an amazing experience.

I've just realised that there is a black gem missing from the flower on the right so I shall rectify that but that was not the only mistake.  Can you spot it?

How about with the following picture?

Yes, that's right, in my fuggy headspace I cut too much off of the ledger paper for the inside so I had to break it up and cover the joins to make it fit!  Thank goodness I have a lot of 12x12 cardstock in colours I don't use so that I can make a patchwork on it!

I think, in the trade, that is known as a partial scrapectomy ;-)

This post is brought to you by the letters WOYWW with the lovely Julia.

Bye for now
xx

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 203

Good morning to you Wednesday!  Today sees me at home again with another spotty child.  This time it is Louis and he has been properly poorly with the pox over the last few days.  He is feeling much better now but obviously has to stay home for a few days so we are enjoying some time together, just the two of us.  

Here at my table I was finishing off a couple of pages for our Devon album.  I am currently waiting for that heart in the middle of the target to dry as I went over it in Glossy Accents to give it some dimension.  This will form part of the right hand page.  The full page under the lid to the left is going to be the left hand page but it involves a new sketch challenge at S J Crafts so I can't share it just yet.  

I am really enjoying these divided page protectors but it means I have had to plan my album much more than I normally do.  I've put all my photos in the pockets in order for the majority of the album.  I just need to see how much more space I can fit in before I do the same with the seaside section.  The gorgeous papers are the new Echo Park Birthday Wishes collection even though my pages have nothing to do with birthdays.

Here's a couple of little sneaks of the page for the sketch.  I do love using sketches to get me started.  Such fun!

This post is brought to you by the power of What's On Your Workspace Wednesday hosted by Julia.  Please do stop by and have a gander around the plethora of desks, or why not share your own too?

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

Carry On Camping

If I said that we were still suffering the after effects of our weekend camping, you might have some idea of the disasters we encountered.

Management had taken Friday off so that we had a good start to our first trip in our new tent, and our first proper camping adventure with the children (recent glamping trip to Devon notwithstanding).    We had plenty of time to pack, we were only going for 2 nights, how hard could it be?  Well, factor in 2 overexcited children, a Mummy getting over a nasty tummy bug, a super large and heavy tent that takes up most of the car, and the answer is that it takes all morning.  But we learned a lot.

This was out first chance to get away this season and by some miracle, the weather was warm but not as super hot as it had been in the preceding days.  (For my non-British dwelling readers, super hot means anything over 25 degrees.)    The previous weeks and weeks of rain mean't that the ground was really boggy in places but not on our campsite, oh no.  We had forgotten over the years, just how rocky some of the New Forest Forestry Commission sites are and so Management had a fun old time bashing in rock pegs and generally taking three times as long about everything as a result.  Factor in also, 2 overexcited children, a Mummy getting over a nasty tummy bug and a heavy tent and the general mood can turn to hot and bothered and down right irritated in a jiffy.  But we learned a lot.

You can just see our tent laid out through the trees there.  I was still feeling positive when I took this photo.

I keep meaning to blog an update about my depression / PMT and let me tell you, the PMT was severe on Friday.  I was not really best placed to deal with a child who couldn't seem to avoid the guide-ropes and repeatedly fell over screaming loudly, or a child who repeatedly asked us to play football despite us wielding a mallet and spikey tent pegs, or the female one of those children believing that she could pee in the bushes like her brother by dropping her shorts and pants and holding her girly bits while weeing in her socks.

With time cracking on and our nerves in tatters, we decided to head for the pub garden instead of trying to fathom the cooker.  I very rarely drink but this was much needed.

I'm not sure what it is with children but on the way back to the tent we took them both to the loo for the last time.  Nonetheless, they still both needed to go again by the time they had put on their pyjamas.  We were regretting our out of the way pitch by this point, 5 minutes walk from the toilet block.

By the time they settled in their sleeping bags, it was 9.30pm and it was a good while after that they eventually fell quiet.  My own sleeping bag was a LOT more snug fitting than I remember and I didn't sleep at all well.  My unsettled belly gurgled all night despite me only having a salad for dinner and I was very aware of the children being okay in their sleeping bags.  I checked on them during the night and found that they had both slipped off their airbeds and were sleeping almost on top of each other.

Despite their late night, they were both awake very loudly at 6am.  I was feeling very unwell by that point so Management dealt with breakfast but it was lovely to be sitting in the cool bright sunshine watching the ponies wander around the tents.

Apart from my gurgly tummy, this is the moment that I thought about maybe going camping again.  This is it for us, sitting outside and being together and eating yummy food (well they did, I just watched).

Shortly after I took this photo, my bug came back with a vengeance and I decided I had to go home.  Management drove me back and then they all carried on without me - thank goodness we are only 25 mins from the campsite!

 
I would like to say that things improved but it turned VERY cold that evening and nobody could get warm, Louis managed to wet his sleeping bag twice inside and out meaning that Bella ended up in it too (the sleeping bags have both been washed and dried now) and then, just as the last upright was about to be removed from the tent, the heavens opened and the rain was so torrential that the tent filled up with buckets of water and the open boot of the car meant that the rain soaked the pillows and sleeping bags before they could close it up.

We haven't had a decent day's weather since then so the tent is being dried in our utility room / kids art room using a dehumidifier and we are having to keep moving it around to try and drain it because it is too big and heavy to hang up in one piece.

But we learned a lot :-)

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.

Well Hello Sun!

So yesterday morning we were strawberry picking in the rain (a VERY poor harvest this year) but by the afternoon we were feeling a tad warm.  Today the sun is properly out and I hear rumours of this lasting 4 days.  We shall see.

In celebration of the brief sunny interlude, I have a rather bright layout to share!  I used Shimelle's Starting Point and may actually get this uploaded in the same week it was offered which is a rarity at the moment.  Yet another Pembrokeshire layout featuring Louis, this time telling how he is so desperate to get in the water that he ends up going in with his clothes on for a "paddle" and before we know it he is wet through from head to toe.  How can you resist though when he clearly makes him so happy.

The papers and chipboard are Cosmo Cricket Salt Air, the ribbon is American Crafts and the Playtime rubber charm is October Afternoon Sidewalks.  The gems are Papermania and Louis has asked me to inform you that the ones used as bubbles on the fish was his idea.  Taught him well I have, as Yoda would say.

This is one of nearly 5 layouts I completed at the Artful Angels crop on Saturday so you can expect a flurry of posts in the next couple of weeks.  It was wonderful to be back scrapping, I feel I have been lacking time and motivation recently but a mad Pinning session had me eager to get back to my scissors and glue - huzzah!

Bye for now
xx

You Are So Sweet.

Do you ever have those times when your craft area is such a mess that you can't even bear to go in there?  I'm having one of those times right now.  The craziness of the last couple of weeks has led to things being piled up in my room, both craft and otherwise, and I don't actually know where to start!  I know that I won't get a chance for any real crafting time until Wednesday at least but when I can grab a moment I am doing a few minutes of sorting at a time.  The last few months have been pretty chaotic generally with holidays, operations, birthdays and illness etc, and it will be nice to get back to some sort of normality.  Having said that, normality doesn't seem to be something my family can do very well.  My dear old Dad, after months of us plaguing him, has finally been to the doctors.  As we suspected, he has been diagnosed with Parkinsons which is awful of course but hasn't come as a shock.  His answer to everything is that he is getting old anyway, which makes me laugh as not many 77 year olds still work full time on a farm!  He is at least talking about slowing down and retiring now though... one day.

Of course the other thing adding to the recent craziness was the retreat I attended with Paula (who has just set up a blog, go see her, tell her I sent you).  I still have a few layouts from that weekend that I haven't shared so I've chosen a sunny one to cheer us up after the recent rains.  It features Miss Bella on the beach at Newport, Pembrokeshire, doing what both of my children love best.

Please excuse the funny angle, I think I mush have been slightly inebriated when I took this (I wish!) but I can promise you that the waves on bottom edge are actually straight...  I used This and That Graceful by Echo Park and the gorgeous blue doilies were a perfect match for the small amounts of blue in the collection (thank you Paula!)

I made a rosette flower using some washi tape which really adds interest to these wonderful embellishments. I also used some old flowers and gems for dimension.

More dimension in the shape of chipboard stickers and these groovy buttons which I've been saving for yonks.  Sometimes when you save stuff, you finally find the perfect place for it and this was one of those times.

I could actually lick these papers, they are so wonderful.

Time to catch up on some blog hopping I think!

Bye for now
xx