Apologies...

...to all my regular blog readers, I don't think I've ever been quite so poor at keeping my blog updated, but I've been away from home since last weekend and having a great christmas with my folks. I haven't got any scrapping supplies to play with so I haven't created for a while either, but the good news is that I now have so many ideas I think I will be having a creative spurt when I get back home and making a few pages.

So, what did I get for christmas then??? Lots of lovely goodies in fact, far more than I deserve but they included several CDs, the Beatles film Help! and Disney's Jungle Book on DVD, loads of slipper socks and some VERY cool slipper boots which I will have to take a picture of later because they make me look like a Yeti, some very funky makeup all from my favourite range, Benefit (including a gorgeous make up bag to keep it all in from my sis). And a new guillotine for cutting up all my scrapbook papers from Ed. So I'm very pleased.

I'm in that wierd after christmas mood now where I've still got quite a few days holiday left but noone is really sure what to do with themselves. Its not like the Summer when you go out to enjoy the weather. So I guess I may end up down the high street to spend my xmas money...

Some christmas pages...

Ok, so I've been woefully poor at updating my blog and keeping up with my christmas journal, but I plan to do some catching up over the weekend and get back on track. Its just been such a busy last week of school and I've had meals out and parties to go to, as well as feeling ill midweek too! Anyway, here are a few christmas themed pages I did for the Papermaze blog to share with you now. They all use the new Basic Grey Figgy Pudding themed paper and chipboard shapes, as well as Autumn Leaves stamps.

Apologies for the poor pictures - I had to scan these because there is never any natural light good enough to take pictures without the flash at the moment, but having only a regular scanner means its difficult to stitch the bits together without getting at least a little bit of the layout cut off! I especially love the first of the layouts, about my cat Alfie who was a christmas present one year and who only lived to be about 18 months. She had a bit of a tragic life, having cat leukaemia from a young age and being sick often, she was then run over outside our house one night. However, she was totally adored and a beautiful little girl so it was good to make a layout about my fond memories of her. The other two layouts are about me and my brother and sister when we were young - one about christmas morning, the other about a winter outing to the Thames Barrier and Greenwich Park.

Check out the Papermaze blog, Scrap Paper Scissors for lots more inspiration!

Catching up...again!

A slap on the wrist to me for not blogging more often but unfortunately life has been manic and got in the way of scrapping. Not this afternoon though, Ed was off to the football so I caught up with three pages!

The first is about Christmas past. I really do enjoy christmas, but it will never be the same as when I was little and I really did believe in Father Christmas! The season was magical then and seemed to last forever.

The second page is about the rules of opening presents in our house. This page is not overly creative but it really makes me laugh - its amazing how things change over time! My brother went from being the first up to the last out of bed in a very short space of time. Such is the way with teenage boys...

Finally the third page, which is Friday's, is about Christmas music and a real testament to my 80s childhood - I don't really go in for carols but a good christmas pop tune really gets me going and there were a lot around in the 70s and 80s!

I plan to get today's and tomorrow's pages done in the afternoon tomorrow but we shall see. At least I am nearly up to date again. I'm looking forward to tonight as me and Ed are going out for a meal together on our own for the first time in ages, I can't wait!

My Christmas Tree

So I'm a day late with my page again, but this time I have good reason - last night we put up all our christmas decorations including our tree! So the prompt was very appropriately timed but I just didn't get a chance in the evening to actually make my page about it. Instead, I put it together at my crop this evening, and I really like it. It took me ages to take a photo of the bauble - I hate using the flash but my hand isn't steady enough without so the majority of photos came out blurred - this one was ok though, and I think it looks great against the red and green background of the page.

I was thrilled to get my sub copy of Scrapbook Inspirations this week and see my Best of British layouts in there, it finally feels like I really won. And just to top it off, I got into the Reader's Gallery this month too with my layout 'A very Moving Day'. So watch out for them if you buy the magazine. I haven't read the rest yet due to being far too busy but I can't wait to sit down at the weekend and have a good look through.

Thank God for an easy page!

Christmas journalling has been proving difficult to fit in amongst all the other business in the run up to christmas, but today's easy page on gift wrap didn't require much thought and was fairly easy to put together. Unfortunately there appears to be a little bit of a bubble in the paper but hopefully this will go down as the glue dries (in the manner of wallpaper!). I had to draw over the bird stamp as he didn't come out too well on the wrapping paper - I will probably try and write over the words too if I can do it without it looking too messy. Its no great shakes in the creative stakes but I'm up to date again and that is whats important to me at the moment. A big thanks to all the lovely ladies who are leaving comments - it really helps to motivate me to get my pages done and I've 'met' some really creative people through it - your journals (and blogs!)are great too guys.

Apparently my winning pages in the Scrapbook Inspiratons Best of British competition are in this months magazine - trust me to not have received my subscription yet but I can't wait to see them - it'll be the first time my layouts are in print...

Up to date again!

Its been a bit of a messy evening, I'm covered in ink, but at least I'm up to date with my journal again! Yesterday's page was about Christmas sights. We haven't exactly gone completely festive yet (though we did go and buy some decorations today!) but there are a few signs of Christmas around the place, so I took a few photos and made them really small to include on the page. This is probably my least favourite yet unfortunately but its done anyway.

The second page is about Christmas traditions - we have loads of little ones in our family, some old, some current, which I've listed on the page, making a feature of the beautiful bird adorning one corner of the Basic Grey paper.

Its been another really busy weekend - I don't ever feel like I have enough time to recover from the week gone by before another one begins! Only two weeks to go now though...

Oh dear, I've fallen behind!

Yesterday, when I should have been getting my page done, I was joined for the evening by my sister up from London and my friend Corey down from Manchester. So admidst the reunion, scrapping kind of went out of the window, so I didn't get my page on to-do lists done till this afternoon. Its kind of timely, as me and my sister spent most of the day in Brum getting our christmas shopping done. I am now thoroughly tired and stressed, but going out for a meal this evening which should hopefully cheer me up! So here is my page, with a list of all the things I need to get done before christmas. Its just a little bit worrying...

My plan is to get today's prompt out of the way tomorrow, so that should be two in one day, then I'll be back up to date. So check in tomorrow afternoon if you fancy a look!

A memory of christmas past...

I can't quite believe I got this entry done today - I was seeing parents of my form members all day and didn't get home till after 7, and then I could hardly motivate myself to get in the shower, let alone scrap! However, I read what Shimelle said about people giving in around the 6th day and didn't want to be one of the guilty ones! Sure, my life is very busy right now but I've got a spare half hour to craft in every day and I'm going to make use of it. So here is my entry about good and bad christmas memories. I decided to use two envelopes to house my memories and kept the rest of the page fairly simple - its not exactly innovative but the best I could manage in my current state of mind!

The good memory card reads: My childhood christmases have left me with so many happy memories - the decorations, the advent calendars, the school nativity, the excitement of going to bed on christmas eve and waking to find santa had eaten his mince pie and sherry!

The bad memory reads: The worst memory I have of Christmas was when I was 21 and me and Ed broke up for a short time. I was a total misery for the whole holiday - my poor family didn't know what to do with me!

Hopefully tomorrow I will be a bit more relaxed when creating my journal page!

Advent Calendars

Today's prompt for our Christmas journals was about the tradition of advent calendars - a tradition I have solidly adhered to even as an adult! If you can't still enjoy a bit of christmas fun at 25, then its a sad state of affairs! I suppose one day I will stop having one but I do love getting to open the little door each day and of course getting a little chocolate fix first thing in the morning. They really do represent the start of the christmas season to me and once I start opening the doors, I want to get on with putting up christmas decs and writing cards too. This year I left it quite late to buy one and ended up going round the shops on the first of December trying to find advent calendars for me, my sister and Ed! I did eventually find some nativity advent calendars in Marks and Spencers, and the little pictures of my page are taken from the inner doors of the days I have already opened.

I've got a busy day tomorrow meeting the parents of all my form group - I really like the kids in my form so I think it shouldn't be a terrible day, but it will be tiring and my voice always goes after so much talking! I'll be looking forward to making my page at the end of the day, lets hope I can fit it all in...

My perfect christmas...

Here is day 4 of my christmas journal and today we had to write about our 'perfect' christmas. Now I have to admit that this one phased me a bit - I have always enjoyed christmas so much that I can't imagine bettering it! So I just came up with some of the favourite bits from my christmas day and made a little list of them on the page (apologies, the scan appears to have cut a bit off the top of the page but you get the idea!). The picture is acutally taken from the Next online catalogue, but it looks like my ideal christmas decorations so I thought I would use it!


I've got a really busy few days at work coming up but I'm hoping I will keep up with the journal - I'm not finding it a chore at the moment, I'm really enjoying it so lets hope it stays that way. I'm so amazed by some of the gorgeous artwork that is being produced at the forum - its really inspirational and I'm glad that Shimelle came up with the forum as a new way to share, I've spent a lot more time getting involved in the class because of it.

Christmas Cards

So the next page in our Christmas journals had to be about our plans for christmas cards this year. Now I admit that in the past I have tried to make christmas cards for various people, but it is so time consuming and I never feel happy with the final product (being a bit of a perfectionist). I never manage to make enough for everybody either. So this year I plan on buying my cards - far less stressful that way! I will try and make a couple of special cards but thats about it.

I didn't have any of last year's cards available, haven't yet received any and haven't bought any to send so today's page was promising to be problematic! However, I decided to use some little envelopes I had bought for storing card sorts (those who teach will know what these are!) and used them as page embellishments to try and meet Shimelle's challenge. Its not my favourite page so far but it fits fairly nicely into the overall look so I won't worry too much about it.

We have been suffering from a complete lack of internet, tv and phone this evening as Virgin Media collapsed in Coventry. I'm finally back online though, and realising how much I depend on modern technology in my evening!

I'm up to date!

I got home this afternoon after a great weekend at mum and dad's and managed to catch up on the journal prompts. And here are my offerings...

The page for the first day of December is the manifesto page - where I explain what I am doing and why I am doing it. I altered Shimelle's manifesto a bit to suit me and my page size - I don't want it to get too cluttered!

The second page is about Christmas weather - I decided to write about the British obsession with a 'white christmas' despite the fact that we only ever seem to get snow in January or February (though we did get a light dusting last week here in the Midlands!). I love this page, I'm a bit of a fan of blue but rarely use it on my pages but it worked so well with this wintery theme.

I'm looking forward to seeing what prompt Shimelle has for us tomorrow...

Withdrawal symptoms...

I am suffering badly. Its not quite got to cold sweats and the shakes or anything. But my scrapping supplies are at my house in Coventry. And I'm at my parent's house in South London. Now don't get me wrong, I'm having a fab time with my mum and dad and had a really lovely meal in an Italian restaurant this evening (which I think was actually better than the food we had in Italy this Summer!). I bought a few christmas presents. I've had a few glasses of red wine. I'm happy. But I can't get on with the first page of my Christmas journal, and I am chomping at the bit to start after seeing all the gorgeous pages over at the class forum. If you haven't started this class yet, there's still time. And you SO should get involved. Making a page a day is hard work, but its also so much fun! And you get such a unique record of a time in your life which would otherwise go by and get forgotton. So get on over to www.shimelle.com and get signed up. And I'll see you at the forum...

Creative Team Work

So these are the pages are made for Rebecca's Scrapbooking Stash recently - they've been up on the website a little while but I always like to share the background to my pages on my blog too.


Rebecca gave me this totally different paper to work with called Bella Donna and to be honest it took me straight out of my comfort zone - it wouldn't have been my first choice if browsing a shop but its amazing what you can do if you are forced to use paper you wouldn't go for yourself. The first page I made was a really long process - I just knew I would have to do something special with a sheet of paper with a huge design making up the bulk of the paper - it couldn't be cut up easily so it would have to become a feature. I decided that it looked vaguely mystical and decided to do a layout about my beliefs - I backed the design with black and white cardstock and removed the centre of the design, replacing it with a transparency printed with a close up of me. I then journalled round the edge of the page and hand wrote my title on one side - some pearl brads finished it off. Its such a totally different page for me but I think it works ok.


The other page was less hard work for me - a simple 8.5x11 for my cat album - my cat Elmo is such a little 'girl' and I wanted to record her daintiness with a pretty pink layout. The blooms are of course Rebecca's speciality and the layout is really quite simple, being finished off with a few hand drawn lines. Again, a different sort of style for me but I guess thats what this Creative Team lark is all about!

My Title Page

I knew I would have to get started on my journal before the 1st December or I would never stick to it so tonight I sat down and completed the title page. I decided to go with 8x8 as if I didn't make a decision soon I would be umming and ahhing forever! I followed a similar style to my September journal, as I knew I found it fairly easy to keep up with that, adding a chipboard element and a bit of stamping for interest. I'm not a big fan of simple and clean pages though so I decided to make it a bit inky and grungy to take the 'edge' off it. I might go back and sew through the buttons, but for tonight I am happy with it. The colours haven't come out brilliantly in the scan but you get the idea!

Its been an incredibly tiring few days at work and I feel like I haven't slept in a week - its amazing how stressed you can get for no particular reason other than being too busy - I'm glad I sat down and scrapped tonight as its an amazing stress relief!

Sneaky peeks!

I thought I would share some sneaky peeks of the work I have done for the Papermaze blog, Scrap, Paper, Scissors in December. I absolutely love both of these pages - the papers sent to me were gorgeous so putting some projects together was a pleasure!So keep an eye on the blog in the next month to see the full picture!

I have a fair bit of work to do this evening but I'm hoping to sit down and start to do a few sketches for my Christmas journal - Shimelle gave us some ideas but I need to work out how to incorporate the stash that I have bought for the project. I'm still trying to decide whether to go for a straight 8x8 journal or attempt to do a mix of pages - I'm just not sure how it will all fit together though, especially if I do a chronological journal with dates and so on. Decisions, decisions!

Some Creative Team work...

Some of my most recent creative team work for Rebecca's Scrapbooking Stash is on the shop website here - I will be uploading it to my blog in the next week but if you fancy seeing it sooner then visit the shop - and be sure to check out some of the yummy goodies there while you're at it - I'm still drooling over the Kaiser Scrapbooking papers.

Also, over on Scrap, Paper, Scissors there is a review and some scraplifts from the Autumn Leaves book Designing with Paper - I don't acutally own this one but I do have quite a lot of the other Autumn Leaves Designing With series and I LOVE them. They are full of totally inspirational pages which give me ideas for my own layouts every time I look at them. The other day I bought Ali Edwards A Designer's Eye For Scrapbooking and I don't think the pages in there are a patch on Autumn Leaves designs (though admittedly, I haven't seen Ali's latest book).

So what have I been up to? Well, getting some design team work out of the way so I can pay plenty of attention to my Christmas journal. I've been doing a page for the blog in December on this little missus - her name was Alfie (yes, she was a girl!) and she had a bit of a tragic life - diagnosed with cat leukaemia meaning she was often sick and then being run over and killed shortly after the diagnosis. However, she was a beautiful little cat with a gorgeous temperament and I wanted to record some of the special moments.

I can't wait to get started on my christmas journal now, though some of the other participants in the class put me to shame, having already got covers/pages done - I haven't even decided exactly what album I'm going to use yet! I will have to make the decision this week and then get myself prepared or else I'll never stick to it - I know from the September journal how difficult it can be to make a page a day!

The last pages

So, we've finally reached the last two pages of my September journal. The first celebrates the fun we had at my friend's house playing with the Playstation Singstar microphones - my friend Corey was very competitive and we all had a giggle watching his eye brows go up and down like a Thunderbird puppet with all the concentration, bless him! I stole the lesson for this page from one of the inspire stickers - Sing, even if you don't know the words!

The final page is about my friendship with my old uni mates - we don't get together that often, but when we do we are all so comfortable in each other's company, its like we haven't been apart for 4 or 5 years! There is something about living with people that lets you really get to know them, and I'm really glad I got to know these guys so well. I promise to make more of an effort to keep in touch with them in the future.

I didn't realise how much I would enjoy putting together this journal - it was so simple to make the pages after I had made a few key design decisions. More importantly however, I didn't realise how much I would enjoy looking back over this album, even now just two months down the line. Without it, I would have forgotton a lot of important events such as finishing decorating the first room in our house, going back to work and the way it made me feel, getting on the Papermaze DT, winning Best of British and two fab weekends spent with friends and family. I'm glad I chose to record it all now - and it will be great to look back on in a year's time.

Battlefields and Seasides...

An odd title for a post but the next two pages of my Circle Journal are about days spent away from home or work. The first documents a trip with Year 8 to Bosworth Battlefield which I will never forget! Year 8 are an 'interesting' year group to say the least but when we got all the kids lined up in reception there were only 3 girls to around 30 boys! How did we let this happen you might ask? Who knows, but that has got to be one of the most tiring days in my school career.

The boys were so hyperactive we had to ban them from going to the shop to buy more goodies. One boy bought a multipack of sweets along for his lunch - no sandwiches, no apples, just sweets - and he has got ADHD! (little wonder if that is his usual diet). Fortunately, Bosworth Battlefield is a big place and the walk down the hill to the place where Richard III was slain was useful in helping to wear them all out. They learned a lot though - I've just marked their assessments and was pleasantly surprised by how much they had taken in during the day. But the title of my page just had to be: School Trips can leave you Shell-Shocked! Because thats certainly how I felt by the end of the day...

The second page of the day has got to be one of my favourites from the whole album. That Friday evening me and my friend Corey drove down to one of our uni friends to stay at her flat. She lives in Brighton and it always fills me with such envy as its got to be one of my favourite places to be and I would love to live there too (though I've got to admit, I don't envy the house prices and the inability to get on the property ladder). This picture was taken on another day but it sums up my feelings about the place well and makes for a lovely page.

I plan on having a productive weekend - I have a few projects in the pipeline and want to get them done before I get swept up in Shimelle's Christmas journal project in December. I'm really looking forward to it now but have started to realise I'm going to need a different album - I just don't think the one I've got is going to expand enough for all my bulky pages! So the search begins...

Dreams

Today I have the next two pages of my September journal for you. The first is about my deep-rooted fear of the Coventry ring road system. A road where cars go on and off down the same slip road just seems designed for trouble. And I had always resolutely avoided it. But that day I had to go to hospital on the other side of the city. And I had to do the drive myself. And it actually wasn't as terrible as I had envisaged. And now I drive around the ring road fairly regularly. So I guess I just needed to be forced out of my comfort zone!

Next is a pretty amazing entry for me, it was the day I found out I had won Best of British New Talent. It was so completely unexpected and late in the day I was just convinced I hadn't won so I was really in shock when I took the phonecall from Rosie Waddicor to inform me of the good news. But once it sunk in I just couldn't wait to tell my family and celebrate - it means a lot to have your work valued, especially as I had never previously even submitted my work to the reader's gallery. It gave me a whole lot of confidence so I wanted to celebrate that in this page: Dreams really can come true.

Knitting for dummies...

So what have I been up to in the last few days. Well, we decided to have a bit of a marathon film watching session on Sunday and Monday night, as we still hadn't seen Spiderman 3 or (shock, horror!) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. So while we were sat watching these blockbusters, I decided to get out the hat that I started knitting MONTHS ago (those who have been reading this blog for a while may remember the photo of the half finished hat!). And now I have a gorgeous little mohair pink hat which I have adorned with an old brooch and which I really love - and lets face it, noone will have the same hat as me! Here are some pictures of the finished masterpiece, its got a few little flaws but who's counting? I may even start another item now, although the thing I liked about the hat was that it had no increase stitches which in my opinion can only be a good thing! My increases always look a bit shabby. But practice makes perfect and all that...

Apologies for the poor quality, the photos were taken last night, and not only was I not looking my best, but I had to take the shots myself - not a bad effort really!

So onto more of my journal pages tomorrow, now I think I will have to go comfort Ed as the football score is looking decidedly scarey...

Flamingos

This layout was completed ages ago now and is the companion to my layout Stylish Girls - it includes more photos of the same evening out with the girls! I made it for the Papermaze blog to show how we can use Visual Triangles to improve the look of a page and the post went up today - make sure you check it out as the other girls work is great too!


The papers used on this layout are by American Crafts and this is the first time I have used scalloped cardstock which I haven't actually cut myself as well. Apologies for the poor photo - there is never any decent light to take a picture now that its winter.


I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself today as my ears are all blocked up and I'm worried that I'm about to get the virus that practically everyone at work has had already - I could really do without being ill but at least that would get it out the way before Christmas!


Looking in the latest copy of Scrapbook Inspirations it says that my winning layouts will be in the next issue so I'm really looking forward to that - it will be the first time that I will see my own layouts in print so I can't wait!

A day to myself

Ed has been off on a band job all day taking part in an event marking the start of Christmas shopping in Gloucester so I've had a bit of a lazy day to myself today. I've been working on a bit of my DT work and then spent the last few hours watching A Hard Day's Night which is one of my favourite films - I managed to pick up the DVD for just a fiver over at http://www.play.com/ the other evening so I was dead pleased with that!

Anyway, here are the next two pages from my Learn Something New journal. September 23rd reminds me to 'take pleasure in the simple things' - we didn't do a lot when my parents came to stay that weekend, but a film and a glass of wine in their company was enough to make me happy.

On September 24th I had to do a presentation in front of senior managment to persuade them to let us set up a Politics A-level at school. Now, I'm not really the nervous type in these situations, but I did get a few butterflies before going in. However, I realised that I have the happy ability to think on my feet and was able to answer the questions posed and present our case - now we just need to persuade the kids to choose it as an option, which is arguably the more difficult task in our politically apathetic community!

This evening should be fun as we are off to visit some friends of ours who have just had a baby - it will be lovely to meet little Jack for the first time.

More lessons learned...

So onto the next two pages from my September journal. First up we have the gorgeous Ed and Elmo starring on September 21st - I took this picture of them that night and it occurred to me how lucky I am to have so many people who care for me (soppy, I know!).

And September 22nd is also a little bit sentimental - my mum and dad had come to visit that weekend and every time I see them it always reminds me how much I value time spent with them - when you don't see your folks every day you certainly realise how much they mean to you.

Apologies for the slightly blurred scans - I'm not used to scanning layouts but the dark afternoons are forcing it on me as photos just don't come out very well.

I enjoyed my crop this evening - didn't get an awful lot done but had a read through some magazines and a good chat too which is part of what its all about really. I really ought to be going off to do some marking now but I just don't think I will be bothered - very naughty!

Training Day

I've been out of school and doing some training today - a very interesting course about teaching kids the key skills they need for learning rather than focusing so much on content. The curriculum is changing over the next few years so it feels good to be prepared for what is ahead and be able to plan for it. But anyway, enough of school!

Two more pages from my Learn Something New album today - September 19th I decided to commemorate how much my hobby has meant to me as a form of stress relief. Wednesday nights are crop nights and I look forward to them as a chance to get out and chat and have some time to be creative (and also have a table to scrap at!).

September 20th was the day I was asked to be a part of the Papermaze Design Team - hence my lesson for the day: Be proud of your achievements. It felt so good to be asked on another team based on the strength of my UKS Gallery, and Papermaze is a really good British online shop which offers an excellent range of scrapbooking products so I love representing them and contributing to their blog. Which, by the way, you should check if you are interested in improving your 'night' photography as Debs has just written an informative post on that very subject...find the link to Scrap, Paper, Scissors on the right of this page.

A busy weekend...

So I thought it was about time I shared what I got up to at the weekend - it was a really busy one but I enjoyed it all.

My mum came to visit so that we could go to the Hobbycrafts show at the NEC on Saturday - I had never been before so I wanted to go and check out some of the bits and pieces I want in real life before I buy them over the internet if you know what I mean! This is my mum and me:

Unfortunately, I found the show a bit disappointing - there was very little for the scrapbooker, with most stalls tending to be geared towards the cardmaker and a lot of stalls sold the same things like the Papermania totes. I had been hoping to see some really cool paper designs as its not always easy to tell if you like them on the internet but there was very little scrapbooking paper at all! Oh well, I managed to pick up a little album and some packs of buttons which I was pleased with. We did enjoy the Crafts for Christmas show though - a totally eclectic mix of handmade items which really appealed to both me and my mum (and we might have picked up some sweeties from the handmade liquorice stall as well!).

Then on Sunday we went to see Ed play the last post and reveille at the memorial service in Coventry - he played beautifully, even though the wind was strong and kept whipping the banner on his trumpet around!

I've now managed to put together this little lot for my christmas journal for Shimelle's online class - it'll be the first time I've done this and I'm really looking forward to it. Some of the stash is the bits I managed to pick up at the NEC, but the massive pile of papers was part of my prize from the BOB competition which included LOADS of Basic Grey papers.

And finally, here are two more of my Learn Something New Everyday entries. First of all, we have September 17th. Now, I'm not known for my love of exercise as anybody who has tried to walk up a certain mountain in Wales with me will know. So when I agreed to play badminton with a couple of our mates I wasn't exactly expecting to enjoy it. But we had a wicked laugh and it turned out to be quite good fun. Although the only part of me that felt like it had had any exercise afterwards was my right arm which ached for a day!

September 18th was the day when I sat down after work to design a couple of worksheets for lessons the following day, only for the school network to crash as I was trying to upload them, meaning I had to do them all again. So the lesson for that day: Never trust that a computer will save your work!

September remembered...

Its been a really busy day and I'm totally shattered! Spent most of it with my Mum at the Crafts show at the NEC - more on that tomorrow, but for now, here are another two pages from my Learn Something New Every Day album.

The first entry was done on Saturday the 15th September, when I had spent a happy afternoon alone crafting while Ed was at the football. Sometimes you just need your own space and I am certainly a person who enjoys their own company every once in a while (not that I don't also enjoy the company of family and friends too!). So my lesson that day was: Sometimes your own company is the best.

This entry was for 16th September, and commemorates the last barbecue we managed this year (lets face it, the weather didn't allow for many at all!). It just made me laugh that while I was consigned to the kitchen, boiling new potatoes and chopping salad, all the men congregated around the barbecue, even though there is hardly enough space for one person to stand in front of it and turn the sausages! Hence my lesson learned on that day - Where there is a barbecue, men will congregate!

Now I can share!

So I made these two pages a couple of weeks ago but they have only just gone up on the Papermaze blog so its only now that I could share them on here. They are made using SEI Kitty's Place papers and various other embellies sent to me by Papermaze - I absolutely love the large booklate used on the garden layout and may have to get hold of a few more of these!

The first layout features Ernie, having fun in a box which had housed one of my kits from America - he just loves investigating - a real 'curious' cat! Its not my usual style but I thought I'd try out some of the scalloped doodling thats so hot in scrapbooking at the moment and combined it with wavy edges and a bit of stamping. I'm not really used to scrapping in this size so I'm not sure if I totally like the page - I think its a bit 'oversized' if you know what I mean. However, I do love the pictures of Ernie.

The second page is Elmo in the garden during the Summer, and these photos really do bring back lovely memories of sunny days which seem forever ago now. Its really bright and colourful which I love - at this time of year I need cheering up!

I'm off to the NEC tomorrow so I will have to see if I can get around there without bankrupting myself. Funds are tight so I will only get something if it really grabs me. I'm taking mum too so it should be a nice day out for us both - I'm determined to get her crafting too!

Cropping...or not!

I went to my weekly Wednesday crop tonight and guess what? Other than the usual class page I achieved absolutely nothing! Jacqui, our crop organiser had a bunch of Creating Keepsakes magazines however, so I read through those to grab some inspiration from the States. I'm not so much of a fan of the the style of scrapping in this magazine as I am of our British style (which tends to be more eclectic and messy, suiting me down to the ground!). But it is interesting to read a magazine which is really well put together.
I've decided to join up to the Shimelle Journal Your Christmas class. I really enjoyed the September 'Learn Something New Every Day' class (which I've just realised I didn't finish sharing with you all, so thats something I'll be doing over the next few days!) and thought it would be lovely to have a Christmas mini album which is similar. I'm initially planning on doing an 8x8 size album, although I am a little concerned that it may prove a bit daunting if I'm expected to do a prompt a day. Still, I usually use the weekends to catch up a bit, and it might be ok. Have a fair bit of Basic Grey christmas stash which I received as part of my Best of British prize, however I might find that I need to add a few pages...
Off to the NEC at the weekend hopefully, mum is coming to visit so I will be dragging her around the exhibits and introducing her to the world of crafting. I'm sure she'll love it, I mean, who doesn't enjoy stash shopping???

Dark and Gloomy

I hate this time of year, after the clocks have gone back and its already getting dark when I get home from work. Its near on impossible to take a decent picture of a scrapbook page! So anyway, I got tired of waiting for the opportunity to take a picture in natural light and decided to take photos of my latest CJ entry anyway. Its on the theme of Inspiration and Advice.

My advice was given to me by my mum many years ago when I was upset about school and fitting in (we've all been there!). She told me that in a few years time, I would never see those people again, so there was no point letting them upset me now. Of course, like all other teenagers, I didn't really believe it, and it seemed a long way off. But if only I had known then how right those words were! I do still have friends from school who I get on with, but haven't seen most of the rest of my fellow pupils for years. I don't even live in the same part of the country! Its a message I try to get across to my pupils now when they are messing around or acting the fool in order to impress others. And of course, they don't believe me either. But its worth a try!