Echo Park

OK so this is a bit of a hybrid post- I thought I'd try for the Echo Park Fresh Faces design team call for this month- you all know my lack of confidence in these matters -but hey there's no harm in trying is there?

So why is it a hybrid post- well you might have seen two of them before ( but shh because Echo Park haven't seen them yet) but at least one of them is brand spanking new. Please bear with me if you've seen them before but I did put the new one first

And here they are

1, Nan's Garden ( the brand new one)

I know it's a bad photo on the LO but sometimes you go with what you got and for me scrapbooking is about preserving the memory rather than complete perfection- the thing about the photo is it brings back so many memories about my Nan's garden- see those plastic urns- they always had begonias in my nan's favourite thing to grow especially if she found a double one- and those chairs- they were broken before my Nan rescued them- you had to be careful how you sat down on then ( especially in the summer). You can also see my nan's bike in the background which she rode daily until she was into her 80s

I used some Echo Park For the record for the background paper and then layered up some elements cut from the journalling paper and that man is gutted from the middle of a paper that I used for something else

2. This is what Fear looks like

We went on a boat trip on Saturday in Alkmaar- it turned out to be a just a little eventful

first we stopped for 5 minutes to help a woman fish out two chairs from the canal which the wind had blown in

Then we got got caught up in Alkmaar's gay pride boat parade-( try explaining to a six year old why those men are dancing in the boat in pink pants and why that one is wearing a dress)

then had to sit under a bridge for 10 minutes to wait for it to stop raining

add to that the lowest bridges you can find on a boat trip- I mean so low that you have to lay on the seat or floor of the boat to avoid being crushed- one bridge was 80 centimetres above the water- I reckon the boat was 78 centimetresabove the water

there is a video here on YOu tube- not mine and this is not even the lowest bridge

http://youtu.be/CmaRI3rEm94

the boat kept on making horrible noises when it turned- Arthur thought we were about to sink hence the look of pure fear on his face- he was so excited when we got off the boat that he started saluting the cheese

I am so pleased that Echo Park have released the Spots and Stripes papers- I am absolutely addicted to polka dot paper- I love using it as a background paper for my LOs so these papers are my idea of heaven

and finally 3. Secret Slide

The zoo that we often go to has loads of slides dotted about in strange places- some hidden away at the centre of mazes some right by the animals like the one in the elephant house or the one that goes down to the giraffes- the children love it- this is Stanley on one in the "Egypt" area

This is another reason why this is a hybrid post- a hybrid LO- I used some For the Record paper and elements again but the large green flower is from the digital elements pack

Thanks for looking and wish me Luck!

this is what fear looks like

this LO is for the scrap the guys challenge at Paper Issues

We went on a boat trip on Saturday in Alkmaar- it turned out to be a just a little eventful

first we stopped for 5 minutes to help a woman fish out two chairs from the canal which the wind had blown in

Then we got got caught up in Alkmaar's gay pride boat parade-( try explaining to a six year old why those men are dancing in the boat in pink pants and why that one is wearing a dress)

then had to sit under a bridge for 10 minutes to wait for it to stop raining

add to that the lowest bridges you can find on a boat trip- I mean so low that you have to lay on the seat or floor of the boat to avoid being crushed- one bridge was 80 centimetres above the water- I reckon the boat was 78 centimetres above the water

there is a video here on YOu tube- not mine and this is not even the lowest bridge

http://youtu.be/CmaRI3rEm94

the boat kept on making horrible noises when it turned- Arthur thought we were about to sink hence the look of pure fear on his face- he was so excited when we got off the boat that he started saluting the cheese

Shimelle's offer

I made this LO for Shimelle's 4x6 paper love class at Two Peas but if you go and check her blog here she is donating all the proceeds for her classes bought today to charity- even those classes that you can join in with again year after year for no extra charge- go and look now ( i joined her Learn Something NEw every day class)

The charity is Plan UKs Because I am a girl campaign that gives girls in the poorest countries chance for an education- something we all take for granted

Anyway the |LO itself is the photo shoot I did with the kid- I love the top photo even though its blurred because Nancy and Stanley look so happy together

365/365

I thought I'd give this LO a post of its own- my aim this year was to make 365 LOs - I made it with seven months to spare- I feel a little ridiculous- I think I need to get out of the house more- or do a little more house work - but I do have to remind you I do scrap at super speed- I average 30 minutes on a LO -really I do- yesterday I made five LOs- did five loads of washing and went to the supermarket and tidied up (a bit LOL)

Anyway for LO 365 I thought I'd make a LO that wasn't a challenge- one just for me- It's called "she Loves Daddy" and I misted a little bit of an alphabet on the paper first

Packing them in

I'm going to be cheeky first off- if you are a fan of American Crafts on Facebook they have a challenge to use the barcode strips which I entered- but to win I need people to like my picture- its called Your Sunny Smile and it looks like this..... So please vote.... and thanks if you do ( i need help- I'm behind already)So onto the main reason for this post _ a few sketch challenges I've made a Lo for

For each one there is a link to the challenge blog- so go there if you want to see the sketch-go on they'd like that

This one is for THe Sudio Challenges- Daddy is a star

Yesterday James ran his second half marathon of the year- in 1 hour 54 minutes- a 20 minute reduction on his first effort. We waited at the half way point and waited for him to come round- the kids had a great time collecting high fives from the runners- these photos are of the children high fiving James and then running along with him for a few minutes! 361/365
For Sassy Lil Sketches- Caterpillar tracks

On our recent holiday there were loads of tiny caterpillars dropping down from the trees- this was one that landed on Arthur's shoulder- look closely at the length of Arthur's Eyelashes and be jealous- oh and I moved the banner down from the top of the LO to put under the title instead 363/365
For Pencil LInes- Secret Slide

The zoo that we often go to has loads of slides dotted about in strange places- some hidden away at the centre of mazes some right by the animals like the one in the elephant house or the one that goes down to the giraffes- the children love it- this is Stanley on one in the "Egypt" area 362/265
For Sketchy Thursday- super cute or slightly weird?

Sunday morning as we were rushing to gat out of the house for James' and the boys run ( the boys did 1400m) Nancy was prancing around in a Mega Mindy swimming cap, pink goggle and yesterday's clothes- needless to say I took a picture before rushing her up the stairs to get ready 360/365

Inspired by October Afternoon ( May BLog HOp)

Hello and welcome to my spot in the Counterfeit Kit blog hop- if you've jumped into the middle you might want to start here- if not keep reading

This month the challenge is playing favourites- pick your favourite Scrapbooking Manufacturer- visit their blog and find yourself some inspiration.

I spend quite a bit of time looking at manufacturers blogs and while I visit a lot of them there are some that I go back to everyday- October Afternoon is one of those- This is the LO I made using my Counterfeit kit for May

For those of you who read my blog regularly- you may notice this is made using KRAFT card stock- I have my sweaty little hands on 75 sheets of it shipped over from the UK by my Mother-in-Law and myself after weeks without any at all- and guess what I now find my LSS has started stocking it! ( Mind you the bulk option was a lot cheaper that 70c a sheet!)
THis was the LO I was trying to recreate! Find it here. It was made by Kinsey Wilson ( her blog is here)

I have not managed much with my kit this month- I've been so busy but I do intend to make more with it now I have a bit more time

Now this is where you go next- the lovely Lisa at dreaming of Creativity

One sketch two ways

Sassy Lil Sketches have a very simple three photo sketch this week- It inspired me twice- once a fairly literal copy of the sketch with three big photos but I also had three photos that I wanted to scrap but the photos were too rubbish to use on a large scale so I printed out three small photos and shrunk the sketch

This is the sketch

And this is the fairly literal translation- I misted the four circles at the side and moved the title but the elements are all in the right place- the photos are my family standing on a hunnebed posing like a rockband for an album cover 357/365

And this is the off piste version- Arthur had his sports day yesterday. I had to help with the older ones so I only managed a few photos from long distance- but the story behind this set of photos was so cute I had to scrap it. Arthur was in a team with one of the youngest in his class (aged 4) she was bouncing along in the sack race and there was Arthur bouncing along next to her (without sack) shouting Jump! Jump! Jump! and then when she fell over he pulled her up by the handles and kept her bouncing- I called the LO "little hero"
358/365

Your Sunny Smile

I only found this challenge today (and found the deadline was imminent) so I thought I'd make a quick LO. American Crafts used to do challenges on their blog but it seems they moved them to facebook- the challenge this week is to use the bar code strips as a design element- their recent lines have had a printed pattern on the back of the barcode strip- I decided to join a few together and make a patterned paper with them. I also used some punched out circles to mist a patterned paper in the corner of the LO

If you happen to be on facebook you can apparently vote for the best project in this challenge ;)

A dare

This is my latest effort for Dutch Dares challenge blog- this time its a sketch and I thought it was a great one for using the many photos I took this week. We are due to move back to the UK from the Netherlands in the summer so I am trying to document some of the ordinary things about living here. I took loads of pictures of bike seat covers this week on a day out in Amsterdam- I don't feel so embarrassed about taking the photos there- I can pretend to be a tourist but at home in Hilversum I feel a little ( make that a lot) self conscious.

there are loads of different seat covers you can buy or get free but often people use a carrier bag on their seat to keep it dry in the rain- of course I had to take a picture of that too.

This is the page that follows the sketch
but I had so many photos I made it into a double page spread instead- this is the second page
And this is how they look together

355/365

Tunnel of Fun?

Last week's sketch by Shimelle passed me by what with a trip to the UK and a visit from my in-laws so this week I was determined to get it done early.

The Lo has pictures of my husband and children just before we went into the canal tunnel at the Black Country Museum- we all needed to wear hard hats, Nancy wasn't pleased at all- they were heavy and one size fits all

A very kind old couple handed out mis-shape biscuits to cheer them all up- you can see Arthur munching on one in his picture! 354/365

and the sketch

Mother and Son

If you read the previous post you'll know I've been moaning about how busy my may has been but I have managed to squeeze in a challenge for Artastic - just before the deadline. The challenge this month is the painting Mother and Sarah admiring the Baby by Mary Cassatt.

Shazza's extra criteria were

1. a single photo of a mother and baby- this one has me and Arthur

2. something orange ( I managed a few orange bits - tape, butterfly, flower and my last bit of orange baker's twine)

3. lace- well I added crochet ribbon as it was all I had

353/365
Here's the painting

My Crate Paper Sketch

I feel a little like I've been neglecting my blog this month- May has been madly busy- a week on holiday, a trip to the UK to visit my Sister- a visit from the in-laws so the need to tidy up the spare room and three or four trips to the hospital have interrupted my scrapping. This week I've almost got back in the swing of things but I've been so behind that the four LOs I made so far have all been for DT work! So finally I have something I can post now and not save for sometime next month.

Here is is- a LO for the Crate Paper blog sketch challenge using mostly Crate Paper Emma's Shoppe and Portrait as well as a few bit and pieces I picked up very cheaply here- including the felt alphabet- so excited to find these at 1.29 euros a pack ($1.81 or £1.11) in eight different colours! I have bought a few! ( 352/365)
Here's the sketch

Stop before you hit the wall!

It's Twisted sketch time again for me- go look for the sketch here- the twist is stop. It may be a little hard to tell from this picture but Arthur is ploughing into a wall at the bottom of an artificial sledging slope. It was on his school trip and I was trying to get a picture of him in action down the slope but all I have is pictures of him about to impact into a hard wooden crash barrier!

Little Bitty revisit!

Ok so you may have seen this before but there have been a few changes over at Scrap it With A Song so I needed to repost this submission.

Unfortunately Faye has had to stand down but Mindy and Pauline have stepped in and taken over the helm- hooray!

So now there will be a song over at Scrap it with a Song every week but we have two teams so I only have to do one every other week- There are also openings for more team members- go and have a look if you're interested. The link at the side works

The song for this week was Little Bitty- I chose the line Little Bitty baby but then used a photo of Stanley when he was one- not so itty bitty but very itty bitty if you compare him the size he is now.

a couple of quickies

Just trying to catch up with the LOs I made at the weekend- the house is now looking vaguely tidy ready for the in-laws- and tomorrow I fly back to England for a quick visit to my sister's house.

The first LO is for Get Picky- the LO is about Stanley's first cricket match of the season. His match was cancelled but he ended up playing for the under 11s with a hard ball and that meant all the kit- helmet, pads, gloves and box.
An effort for Fave things as well- this time its c=scrap your favourite photo- I have scrapped this photo before but this time I made it for my album- its Arthur at the Keukenhof gardens grinning like a maniac

using my kit

Just a quick post- A LO I made with my Counterfeit kit-

the photo is Arthur laying in the grass watching Stanley's cricket match- his legs look soo skinny

and a card!

The arrival of my in laws seriously cramps my scrapbooking style- I have spent two days clearing up the scrap room/spare bedroom and not a chance to scrap- I am also off too England to visit my sister and had a few crafty projects for her that I needed to finish off first namely wedding favours and t-shirts for her son so I have not scrapped for days and I'm feeling fidgety!

The Scrapbookers Anonymous challenge blog has a new challenge for you- make a card with the leftovers of your LO- the challenge this ,month at Scrapbookers Anonymous was to make a stamped paper for your LO and stamp three embellies- you can see my LO below- and this is the card I made with my remnants- the same stamped bike and the same frame shape and a couple of the same papers. I am not a card maker so this was a hard task for me but it turned out OK I think

Where were you when?

The latest at Journaling Junkie- Where were you when? I didn't really want to do a page where I need to use upsetting images- so I decided not to use any images! After i had finished I realised I could have made a nice pretty page about all the royal weddings and what I was doing but in the end I'm quite pleased with this

I used lots of Cosmo Cricket journalling cards and wrote a little bit about some of those key events from during my lifetime

Journalling reads

1. Septemer 11 2001

I was at school that day- driving to a lesson at Dormer and the news said two planes has flown into the Twin Towers-The towers fell while I was teaching the lesson on Irish terrorism to my year 11s

2. Death of Diana- 31.8.97

I came downstairs at James' parent house to hear the news of Diana. I was due to start my first ever teaching job the very next day- I ended up spending weeks teaching lessons about her

3. November 1989 Fall of Berlin Wall

I was 15 when the Berlin Wall fell- I was jealous because our school was going a trip there the next Februaay and I had decided not to go!

4. Hillsborough Stadium Disaster 15. 4. 1989

I'd been to town with Nan and Arnie as usual and we came back to see what was going on in the FA cup football Match- Grandad told us what happened as we watched people being stretchered away

5.Death of BIn Laden May 2011

We were on holiday in Drenthe when we heard about Bin Laden- I couldn't believe how thrilled Americans were- not worried at all about revenge

6. Chernobyl 26.4.1986

I think I was staying with Nan and Grandad at the time- this was my worst nightmare come true- I was petrified about nuclear disaster at the time

7 Wedding of Kate and William 30.4.2011

I watched the Royal Wedding at home alone- I was worried Nancy would be missin out being at school but she watched it with her brothers and class on the big screen

8. Heysel Stadium 29.5.1985

I remember we were playing outside in the garden on a warm evening- I knew Dad would be watching the football- I went in to see if it had started but instead there were battles with the police

Counterfeit mess!

trying to get using my counterfeit kit today- I decided to use a technique I saw on the Studio Calico Blog last week- the Lo had a piece of patterned paper made by masking the paper with circles and and then misting over it to make a pattern.

I found a piece of paper that I thought I would never want to use and started punching circles out of it in three different sizes. As I started laying them out on the white card I suddenly realised that i liked the look of the effect I was creating and didn't really want to waste the circles by misting over them

So this LO was born ( not using my kit but hey)- the photo is from yesterday morning when my son played his first cricket match of the season. it s called freckles and fur- i think I need to work on lightening the photo a little
But back to the technique I wanted to try and my counterfeit kit- I punched out some more circles to attempt the effect I really wanted to try. I thought I'd use red mist to tie in with the papers in my kit but disaster- the mister bottle had seized up- it went everywhere apart from a few large blobs on the paper- just look at the picture of my hand below- I decided to work with it and use the cream mist I have- it couldn't get any worse and I thought it would be worth a practise- anyway you can see the result below

It worked out quite well- the red and cream mingled together nicely- I used some ( Portuguese-German ) dictionary pages from my kit along the bottom. and that gave me the idea for the title-" funny in any language"

My hand after the mini disaster

Saved! So Thank You

I'm sure we've all been frustrated one way or another today with blogger. Yesterday my whole blog disappeared see here and when it came back on today two of my posts had disappeared- I thought i could cobble something together and rewrite them but then someone came to my rescue! Julie-Ann Shahin found my posts in Goolge reader and offered to send them to me! How kind was that! I'm so greatful

You can find her blog Here

For Shimelle's latest sketch- I used some bit from a digital Echo Park For the Record kit, some washi tape and a few little embellishments- the title is Happiness is where you find it

the sketch

For Scrap the Girls

The challenge this week at Scrap the Girls was to scrap a female that was important to you _ I was planning on doing one about my MUm or my Nan but as I started layering up the bits on this LO I realised that this picture of my Great Grandmother was the perfect fit- maybe it doesn't count for the challenge anymore but I still love what I've created. She looks great in this photo really glammed up for the portrait I think!
I think I shall use this one for Shimelle's NSD challenge - to use patterned paper as a background

Going Hybrid!- originally posted 12 May

I had a bad few hours today when my blog seemed to have disappeared! I couldn't find it anywhere- my dashboard said I didn't have any blogs, it said my blog name was available, every which way I searched it had disaapeared, and when i did get access to some form of blogger it kept happily changing the language for me, it went to Dutch which I can handle but Czech- no. But it seems to have reappeared now so fingers crossed I'll still be here tomorrow.

Anyway I decided yesterday to download Echo Park's one buck Wednesday- I don't do digital, I don't think I have the capabillity on my computer, I don't know where to start, I did try and find some tutorials once but nothing was BASIC enough! LOL.

But they were one dollar each for the For the Record papers and elements and a set of recipe cards- my thoughts were that I'd at least be able to print out the recipe cards to use and maybe just maybe some time in the future- way in the future- I might be able to do something digital with them-but once I down loaded them I found lots of elements that I could print out and use

.

On here are some for the record white flowers , a red rose and the big green flower shape.

I also used my Counterfeit kit - the printed book page in the back ground -is something I made for my kit- I scanned in a 1940s French Ali Baba book and printed them out

If anyone wants the j-peg images let me kn ow I can send them to you- After what I said in the post above I don't think I can do anything more technical without help!

Extra- I imagine we've all had problems with blogger today but thanks to a lovely lady who found my missing post on Google reader I have had the two missing posts returned to me! Thanks Julie-Ann Shahin

Twisted curve

ure how I managed to post this without writing something about it! So here goes- this is for Twisted sketches with the twist this week of curve_ I hope the circles count as curve- but if not the title does- its called "learning Curve" and its a picture of Arthur just before we moved to the Netherlands- I journalled about what kind of learning curve he had been on in the two and a half years we'd been here

If you want to see the Twistesd sketch why don't you look HERE

Run!

this one is for Get Picky- their challenge this time is a colour challenge- blue, yellow and white- there is a photo as well but I just went with the colours

This has a few photos of Arthur running from the sea a couple of weekends ago- the waether was warm but the sea was so cold it hurt your feet if you left them in for more than a second- it didn't really bother Arthur- but he did do a lot of running from the sea!

This

Rain stopped play-

yet again a planned day out was scuppered- it rained today- no trip to the hospital today - that was yesterday!

here's what i got up to

1. Shimelle's 4x6 photo love

Shimelle's up to 4 pictures on a page with her year long class on Two Peas- the fourth photo is hidden under the title- i used a card from american Crafts- but I had a few issues with size- the card was not 4x6 so i had to add add a section on the bottom- the background cardstock is european size 30x30 centimetres just a little smaller than 12x12- the photos therefore were just slightly to big- little bit of trimming and hey presto
2. stamping on a LO

A Two Peas challenge- I had this little strip saved to use on a LO of Nancy holding a handful of daisies- but then I lost the strip! Arggh- It turned up stuck to the bottom of my shoe a bit crumpled and worse for wear but it wasn't going to stop me using it
3. Design Dollies element- folding

I misted through an old chipboard shape I had onto patterned kraft card- the rosette is my folded element- four strips of paper folded round and then a button in the middle- i thought it looked a little like the sun

The Lo is called- the essence of summer- although it was taken last week!

Oh and so exciting- i won the challenge from Design Dollies last month- cool
4. Q and A

I made this Lo today while Arthur was at school - i wrote down the questions already to ask him when he got home- I got five answers out of him but he's refusing to answer the last two at the moment- I may get it finished if I keep on asking!

Finally got round to it

My counterfeit kit has taken me a while this time- I have a serious lack of embellishments to go with it- it might therefore be a work in progress - went with three colours for my kit- red green and yellow- mostly they are small patterns that i find great to use as a background paper- plus there are some large pattern- including a school flashcard typefor my embellishments I have- well tags and a piece of ribbon- i also have an old German- Portuguese dictionary that I picked up at a book sale for almost nothing that will be used to make some embellishments as we go along- and I have these pages from a children's book that I shall use too

Actually they are not pages from the book- Its a reprint of a 1947 Ali Baba book in French- it was 25c at the book sale but I didn't want to tear it up so I scanned the pages in ( there are more that i haven't scanned yet) and printed them onto mat photo paper

If anyone is interested in having copies I can always e-mail you the j-pegs or if anyone has more know how than me - tell me how to organise some kind of good copy/ download!