Lumps and bumps

It has to be said, I'm starting to feel decidedly large now.

This is me at 31 and a bit weeks (apologies for untidy bedroom in the background!). I have now put on over two stone, am getting decidedly breathless having to walk around at work and have forgotten what a decent night's sleep feels like. But I know it'll all be worth it in the end - just counting down the days until I can go on maternity leave and have a rest!

It's been a busy couple of weekends too. We went away two weeks ago, after my very clever husband attended his OU degree ceremony. I'm so proud of him - he completed it in less than three years while working full time, which is more than most uni students can say - I worked part time at best through my degree!

Ed had booked us a couple of nights in a hotel at Ironbridge, which is well worth visiting - very pretty and the Victorian museum is great. I have quite a few photos which will probably appear on layouts in the near future.

Then last weekend we visited my mum and dad's and I got to show off my bump which had grown a lot in the five weeks since I had last seen them.

Speaking of mum and dad, they feature in this layout which I made a week or so ago, the picture is ancient, from 2007, but I really love those beach huts! I'm not in love with this layout - the balance is a bit off - but I don't want to do anything else to it right now so it is going to stay how it is until I decide to come back to it and work out what is wrong with it. I think it might be the title.

The trouble with this layout is that after deciding to organise my albums chronologically (inspired by the Shimelle Cover to Cover class) I realised that this layout really stands out in my 2007 album because it has such a different style to the one I had back then when I scrapped a lot of my 2007 photos. I used to have such a busy, intricate style, I've really pared that back to let me have a chance of finishing the odd page since work got so much busier. I hadn't really thought about how much my style has altered over time.

Shimelle's class has got me all inspired - I have printed a lot of my 2012 photos and ordered an AC album ready to start scrapping some up to date layouts and hopefully create an album with flow. We are supposed to be looking for the things that will create continuity in our albums rather than a set of disconnected pages, and I'm struggling a bit with this. I tend to grab whatever is in the Cocoa Daisy kit I'm currently working through, but I'm wondering whether for this 2012 album I need to put more thought into it.

So here are the things that are fairly common on my pages:

- 7 gypsies quote stickers (or October afternoon sometimes)
- Stamping, usually in black ink. I particularly like my set of Autumn Leaves border stamps.
- Butterfly punches, but not on every page
- Buttons
- Ribbon or ric rac, usually to underline a title or similar
- I used to use a lot of paint, and have recently been experimenting with mists instead (a bit less messy/time consuming)
- One photo layouts (though I would actually like this to change to get more of my photos scrapped)

I'm wondering whether I need to choose a particular motif or maybe a colour scheme to create commonality. I'm not sure if I could limit myself though, so maybe just colour schemes for particular events or sets of pages instead? I do like Shimelle's use of kraft cardstock on all her pages in one album, but I would have to buy a load more kraft if I wanted to do this.

It is certainly giving me plenty to think about anyway!

For the two people waiting on their flowers, they are all now parcelled up, addressed and ready to be posted in the morning. Sorry it's taken so long!