The house is alive

With the sound of music.......
Rihanna upstairs,MTV downstairs,there are cups and bowls in the lounge,the washing looks like Mount Everest, doors are open everywhere and the fridge is busy....oh how I love half term/reading week/whatever you call it! One boy back from Uni and another back from Las Vegas telling us all about the brilliant fountains outside the hotels that go up and down and 'dance' to the music that is played loudly outside.

I must say Vegas is somewhere I've always fancied going to just to experience it.After seeing the eldest's video of it on his iPhone - I  fancy going even more now. To think he went all that way and didn't pop in and ask Donny for a photo !After seeing son's video I had a little search and found this - it's lovely.I now understand why his girlfriend said they kept going back to see the fountain!

...

I'll leave you with another layout from the ATDML retreat.This is a second one designed by  Ann Freeman

These two photos are of me and my friend Karen,one when we were teenagers in 1974 and one taken a couple of weeks back. A friendship spanning 37 years, how old do I feel!

Have a great Saturday everyone..

Looking back

It's something I do every once in a while,just have a flick back over the past couple of years blog posts.
I always seem to look back to 2009 ish and then never go any further back than that.

Today I thought I'd go right back to when I first started my blog- way back in 2007...

I was much more of a card maker then, dipping into the world of scrapbooking once in  a while.

One thing I don't do much of now - which I was totally addicted to back then is ATC's (Artist Trading Cards)..I used to make lots of them and do monthly swaps and Christmas swaps and Easter swaps. Funny how you move on isn't it?

When I look back at some of the things I did then!!!..... Well,I liked them !

The other thing that strikes me is that I always felt like I was talking to my self as a little diary - just to keep online for me- but now I feel I'm actually talking to my  friends and interacting with them-much nicer!

Another thing too is that now I am a bit wiser about bloggy posting bits like sizing photos and blinkies and things-something I only saw on those really really good blogs. I always posted and hoped in those days! More often than not if you clicked on one of my photos it would be HUGE and I could never work out how other people got theirs so neat and small!!

All in all I'm really pleased  I kept going with blogging - it's just got better and better and I wouldn't have so many lovely friends now If I hadn't !

and I wouldn't have re-inforced an already strong friendship too.

4 x 6 Photo Love

How quickly has that month gone? I sat and had a play with the new Crate papers 'Emma's Shoppe' last night after downloading Shimelle's third 4 x 6 photo love instructions.I love the

colours in these papers.These photos were some of Archie that I didn't think were really good enough to scrap- but they worked ok when I put them all together..the end one  on the right of him with his legs crossed always makes us laugh- the boys say he looks like a girl :-)

I stamped some butterflies on to red polka dot paper and cut them out for embellishments.

I had a bit of a quiet day Mother's day yesterday as the boys were not around but they all rang me and sent me cards and I had a beautiful flower arrangement delivered which was lovely.

Next weekend when the eldest is back from hols and the youngest is home from Uni - I'm hoping we can go for a nice meal together somewhere..

Has anyone else signed up for Kelly Purkey's Sketchbook 3 class? 

I followed the link from Shimelle's blog a few days ago and have signed up...looks good I think !

Saturday scrapping

Today it was the Eclectic Keepsakes monthly crop over at Marks Tey.
 We spent the morning doing our own projectses,I took along one of the pages I didn't finish at the retreat last weekend.
This was a multi photo layout designed by Mel using Fancy Pants 'It's the little things' papers..

As usual Karen had made some yummy cupcakes for us all. In the afternoon it was time for class- she had designed a beautiful bag with flowers to decorate it.These we made using  materials and ribbons and buttons and beads,and I actually did some sewing...... It must have taken her hours to organise all the various bits we needed for the flowers...

You can see how lovely they are - this is Karen's bag as I still have a way to go to finish mine!

As always,it was lovely to have the company of Deb

It went far too quickly as usual  and it was soon time to make tracks home..where I've spent a nice evening watching old Top of the Pops programmes on iplayer - Deb told me I'd missed it last night so I looked it  up - oh the nostalgia again !!

Remember this lot ??

Photo courtesy of Google inages.

Those were the days- taking the radio to school to sneak in the girls loos at lunchtime to see who was number one - anyone else remember doing that?

Retreat - take two

I woke up with a terrible headache on Friday morning-typical isn't it? Just the very time when I needed to be bright and organised and on the ball I get a headache. I was due to leave home at 11 o'clock in order to get to the hotel by 12-12.30 so I could check in,drop my stuff off in the cropping room and then get to the first class for 1.30.
After stressing because I knew I couldn't drive until it had eased off a bit-I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to be late and maybe miss a class. After I'd done that- In my head - got a freezing flannel and had a lie down for a couple of hours it started to ease off. I eventually left home at ten to 12 and made it to the hotel by 1.15 - just in time for the first class.By this time my head was feeling a tad better so all was well.

One of the classes on Friday was Jane Hewitt's gorgeous envelope book.

there were two options- either an album for photographs or a journal. I decided to make mine into a kind of journal to keep reminders of the weekend in .We made all the envelopes using Graphic45 papers and an enveloper and then bound it with the bind it all. I loved this class - I love anything Graphic45 anyway so it started the weekend off well.

I did another class too but haven't quite finished the layout yet.

Next - Saturday was Debbie Jewell's gorgeous layout using Sassafrass Sweetly Smitten papers and the new 'foldies' - dimensional flowers..

Then it was on to Mel's class which was using My Mind's Eye papers. It involved lots of stamping,embossing and inking.

I've had  two photos of my brother and have wanted to use them for a while.I've actually only got about three photos of him myself.They are very special to me as sadly he died when I was a child. I really loved the vintagey feel to this  layout and thought it would be ideal to use the photos - so I did! and I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

Next,we were given a lovely page  kit which was left on our cropping space and I decided to use a Michael Flatley photo for mine.So that was Saturday,lots of lovely company,great classes,and lovely food.

Such a nice escape for a couple of days....more tomorrow..

Back from scrappy heaven- and goals and aims

I have had the most lovely weekend at the retreat,and not only that,today's prompt from Shimelle is SO apt after a letter I received from a very special place  in the post this morning.
Some of you may know that my Dad has a vintage car and he has  for the last 30 years taken Father Christmas around the village where he lives in it  at Christmas who gives out sweeties to the children.

Without boring you all to tears and not dwelling on sad things,when my mum passed two years ago,he did the usual drive around but it was tinged with sadness and emotion on both our sides..anyway - he was told that he had been put forward for a Queen's award for this and was obviuosly very touched.

A short while ago he received a letter inviting him to 'The Palace' for tea. When he told me I was very excited for him but sad that mum wasn't here to see it- anyway the official date has now been set and the letter of confirmation has arrived for him and me to accompany him..it looks like this is the year for me and  posh teas !!

So.... my goal now is to try  (emphasis on try) to lose  some weight so I can get a nice outfit and hat. I don't do posh outings very often so it should be a day to remember. Sadly no cameras are allowed - what a shame.

Now on to retreaty things.. I haven't managed to photograph many of the class layouts yet,but I did enter the scraplift challenge and whoop whoop I won it !

 this is my lift..I decided to go a bit grungey...

with a couple of close ups..

and  this is the original layout

Here is another one I managed to finish and photograph.

It was designed by Ann Freeman and used the gorgeous new Prima papers..

This was right up my street as there was lots of cutting out of flowers. We used some really unusual rub ons that were 'flocked'- very nice they were too.

Boring and mundane ?

I've been sitting here pondering over Shimelle's prompt for today. it's about making something interesting out of something we normally consider to be boring and mundane.

Hmmmmmm- well,what on earth has happened to me today that could possibly be interesting?
Nope,nothing, zilch,no exciting arguments with the self service till in Tescos,that was yesterday..does anyone else find themselves talking to the silly recorded lady who tells you 'unexpected item in bagging area'?
No unusual car park spot,no interesting groceries.....absolutley nothing!
Got up - had toast- went to work-   aha! I AM going to be interesting but not today.

 Tonight I'll be rushing around preparing kits for myself, loading the tote, (a feat in itself! )- making sure I've got ink,adhesive,stamps,scissors,making corned beef hash ( as I am leaving himself  ALL WEEKEND) could I please make him some of his favourites. He will have the dog and middle son at home - so he won't be totally alone......then I shall be checking the route,filling up with petrol, trying to schedule a blog post ( oh the saga last time I tried !)  Give me a Sage accounts programme  or Exel and I'm okay- try to schedule a blog post and I'm useless.

This will be my view tomorrow -or one of them....

with some of this

might sneak one of these in

and there will be  lots of these

So I suppose that my normal quiet day today will soon be frantic and busy and very interesting. If only this blog prompt could have been tomorrrow's when I shall be blissfully scrapping to my heart's content with other like minded ladies - can't wait.