LSNED - Week One

*~*~  Where did September go..?  ~*~*

{perhaps that can be my lesson for today - September is almost finished and I have no idea how that happened!}

I am finally catching up on creating (and now blogging) my lessons for Shimelle's Learn Something New Every Day class.  I have been carrying a little notebook round with me everywhere and I have been recording my thoughts and making notes of what I want to include on my page and am slowly getting pages started and photos printed. 
I decided not to go with a colour scheme or anything that requires me to have the earlier pages with me to co-ordinate and am managing to take a mini scrapping bag to work with me and get pages started during my lunch break at work :)

So... Week One
Cover and title / intro page

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

6th

7th

 (my little stroppy page..I was feeling a bit cross and upset when I wrote down my lesson - it turned out ok in the end but I thought I would preserve my feeling at the time anyway!)

I am part way through getting week two scrapped so hopefully back soon with some more!

C x

September is here... are you ready to Learn?

* Accountability Post! :-) *

Hi All,

This is just a quick post about a new class I am taking which starts today.. Shimelle's Learn Something New Every Day.  I am hoping that by posting early on that I am joining the class then hopefully I will be more likely to remember to come back every couple of days and post my progress! 
I had such fun with the online crop hosted by Shimelle last month and got loads of layouts done during the week so I have high hopes that I will be able to complete a daily lesson page (although I am on hols for a long weekend next week so it may be a case of "Have Notebook, Will Travel" for a few lessons until I can get back home to scrap!)

I had already decided that if I intended to complete a page each day it would need to be manageable and so I chose 4x6 as I thought it would be relatively simple to prepare the page or use a journalling card (I seem to have acquired most of the range of Pebbles Share and Tell cards over the last few months!) I intend to attach a 4x6 photo to the back if I need a bigger photo than would fit into my "page" but I was starting to worry that it would be too small. 
However, having read Shimelle's Getting Ready prompt I was pleased to realise she would also be preparing a 4x6 page each day so I won't be alone and am feeling much happier about my start now.  I also like the idea of envelopes so I may mix and match my pages, or even use the journalling card and photo back-to-back and make envelopes when I have something extra to include... I am hoping to just let this mini-album "flow" and just bind it all up with ribbons at the end when I see what I have managed to achieve!

Thank you for stopping by and if you are also playing along, hopefully see you in class!

Carrie x

More Challenge Layouts!

Wow... three posts in a week for various challenges!
I have had a great week and am feeling really inspired by the challenges from Shimelle! I'm also enjoying seeing what so many others have done for these challenges as well - it always amazes me how the same suggestion is taken in so many directions by different people!

This layout again meets two challenges - I can't seem to help combining these though.. it is the Half Page challenge - where Shimelle encouraged us to leave at least half of the paper blank(!) and also the "Signature" challenge - butterflies seem to be a permanent fixture on my layouts recently, regardless of the topic of the page!!  I can't seem to leave them alone... made worse by the fact that my Uncle has just come over for a visit fromTexas and brought the gorgeous Martha Stewart Punch All Over The Page Butterfly punch with him - I have been waiting (im)patiently for weeks for this so I see a lot of butterflies in my future!

The half page challenge was difficult for me to get started as I feel the urge to add more things if I see white space and I truly admire the brave people using plain white cardstock for this one - I just can't do it though - so I used this gorgeous patterned paper that I have had for several months instead! 

I think that I will be using this half page idea a lot now too as I love seeing so much of the pretty paper and I may actually get through some of my older stash this way as I have lots of papers that I can't bring myself to use as backing papers as it covers too much of it and I can't decide how to cut them up!

C x

Scrapping Old(er) Photos!

Another challenge from Shimelle's Proud to be a Scrapbooker online crop... this one was to scrap an old photo and was just the nudge I needed to make a page that has been sitting in my To Scrap box for a long time... my graduation pictures!

Again, please excuse the poor quality picture - I will find some natural light soon!

I bought the paper a couple of years ago and had been trying to work out how to use it as I didn't want to cover up all the lovely phrases and I couldn't bring myself to hack it up either so I have just left it.  However, I have been learning new styles over the last couple of years, including hidden journalling and learning that a simple page is also acceptable, so when I was flicking through my box looking for an older picture I decided that it was time this paper had its day! 

The hidden journalling also let me tell the full story of the day, where I have previously struggled to scrap this sort of photo as I do not like my handwriting when I write more than a couple of (visible) lines, so overall I am really pleased with this layout, despite it being very simple.

C x

A Productive Weekend...

I have had great fun following along with Shimelle's online crop this weekend and I am really pleased that I managed to carve a bit of time out of a busy weekend to sit down and complete a couple of pages and get the bits together for at least a couple more... hopefully I will get to complete (and blog) those too before next Sunday!


My first page started as my entry for the Sarah's Cards August challenge to use at least 5 different patterned papers on a layout..I had the five but the page just felt like something was missing... and none of my current stash of journalling cards seemed to fit so the first challenge this weekend was perfectly timed... a set of free printables from Mary Anne Walters which had the perfect size and colours to fit my stalled page!!  So here it is...

(please excuse the poor lighting for the photos.. I am currently scrapping in a corner of hubby's office in the loft with no natural light!)


With the happy feeling of getting this page off of my pile of "needs something more" I decided that I will use this weekend crop as a chance to catch up on some pages for my 2010 holiday album.


With that in mind, my second completed page is a bit of a cheat, as it covers two of Shimelle's challenges - it is the intro page for my album and I started preparing it for the stickery challenge of using two sets of stickers... I have used some Making Memories Passport stickers and a few layered chipboard stickers from the Just Chillin range and then I threw in some American Craft Princess range as well to add a bit of colour, but was really struggling for a title... until another challenge popped up.. to cover something I Love - and there it is - a perfect title to sum up how I was feeling - I Love Holidays in Cornwall! 

I Love heading down to Cornwall - I think this trip was our 7th visit in 8 years!  I love it so much that I cornered hubby when I finished this page and got him to tentatively agree to some dates for us to disappear for a long weekend there next month (babysitters permitting!) :-) Yay!


C x

Long time, no blog!

Hi all, remember me?
You do...I am impressed...I'm not sure I even remember how to use blogger it has been so long so please bear with me - I have already failed (twice!) to post this from my phone and have now snuck off to a quiet corner with a laptop to write this as I am determined to post it now!

Who knew that one extra day off in the week made such a difference!  I am now back at work full time (instead of 4 day weeks) and suddenly there just aren't enough hours in the day and weekends pass in the blink of an eye!  I have managed to keep up with reading blogs and following some tutorials but as I have been doing so from my phone it is fairly difficult (and massively time-consuming) to attempt to comment on anyone's posts so I am afraid I have let this lapse - sorry everyone - I am trying to keep up with you all though and I am hugely impressed with how regularly some of you post!

I was really excited to see that Shimelle has organised an online crop this weekend, Proud to be a Scrapbooker, and I have managed to squeeze some time into this weekend to retreat to my craft area and play along as a...


VJ, Rachel and I have continued to have our monthly crops (on a Sunday now that I work Mondays) so I am getting some pages done and am (mostly) keeping up with my Document 2011 but scrapping time between crops is basically non-existent right now! I am determined to have some "me" time in the next few evenings to join in the fun with this crop and I have already completed a page for one of the challenges so I will be back later tonight or tomorrow to post this up!!

C x

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Picture of the Week x 2

Ok,  turns out I never got round to actually posting last weeks picture! 
Mad weekend here - I was in the middle of writing my apologies Friday night for not posting last week's Picture when my little girl woke up, struggling to breathe and very upset.. long story short they loaded us up in an ambulance and sent us off to our local hospital, put her on a nebuliser (twice) and admitted her overnight.  By the time they moved us to the children's ward she had calmed down enough to be checked over.. turns out she is suffering from croup, which thankfully is responding very well to the steroids they gave her - but needless to say we were terrified and very stressed out!
Unfortunately having declared her fine to be discharged at 11am, we then had to wait round, stuck on a ward with a much better {and bored!} 1 year old, until gone 4pm for the paperwork, missing a friend's wedding in the process :-(  Although my lovely friend was very understanding and was texting me right up to an hour before she was due to walk up the aisle to check on Hannah - bless her! 
And another friend who, although not a scrapbooker, understands my hobby quite well, saved me all our placecards and some of the table decorations etc, so I can still create a page for my wedding album!  :-)  I am blessed to have some very lovely friends!

So, despite all that, I am determined to post on time for this one...so here is this week's Picture(s) of the Week...
A Jaffa Cake inspired birthday cake!

I am quite proud of this one.. Hubby really doesn't like icing as he says it is too sweet (no such thing in my book) and so usually resists having a birthday cake but this year I insisted that he had to have *something* for his 30th and I cannot abide a bare sponge cake - they just look a bit boring, so we compromised and I put together this beauty - plain sponge, thick orange jelly and lovely dark chocolate.  I think it went down very well but I have been told by hubby that I need to make a few tweaks - which he will happily taste-test - apparently it will take several tries to make the orange more tangy and he accepts that the chocolate may also need altering (I used 85% so really dark which suits him but not necessaily anyone else!)

~~~~~

And... here is the original post for last week!
My picture this week is a bit late as I have been caught up in birthday celebrations - my own and hubby's too!  Hubby turned 30 this week although he is strongly denying it - mutterings of "I only just turned 21, I cannot possibly be 30 already"!  I had a lovely birthday, the morning spent having fun with the family, the afternoon at Miss Emily's first birthday party and then back round Mum's for dinner in the evening.  Then later in the week we went shopping at Hobbycraft and I have been thoroughly spoilt with lots of lovely new stash :)  Can't wait to play with it all!

The photo shows the start of one of my family's "mad moments"!  After opening all my birthday cards and working our way through monstrous sized slices of cake - VJ made me a birthday cake and she can't do anything "normal" sized - we wandered out to the garden.  Miss Hannah demanded we play ball and before we knew it we'd gone from throwing around a soft baby ball, to a full on game of football and then an impromptu 'volleyball' ending when Mum decided to drop the washing line down in the middle of the game!  Loads of fun!!

C x