7.26

and this one used Shimelle's other starting point. Every morning i drop the children off at before school care- usually we are there at the dot of 7.30- straight out of the car and I'm shoving them through the door so I can get going- one morning last week we were there early so I took a picture of Nancy in the orange car light in her little hat

rear view

A Lo using the starting point from Shimelle shown below- I used a sheet of flowered paper even though its a LO about Arthur- its just the paper went with the colours of the photo- its Arthur reflected in the wing mirror of the hire car during our last week in Holland

I got you

A page for Scrapping the Music- a great song this week- James Brown - I feel good

I changed a photo of Nancy on James' shoulders to a sepia tone and then layered up some Chap paper and dictionary pages with some various bits and bobs.

new adventurous shoes

Arthur's new shoes with dinosaur bones on the bottom- made this for a DT call- gave up on the idea still love the LO

6 o'clock

This one is the other Scrapping the MUsic LO- a line from REM- its the End of the World as we know it- sorry about the flash- can't wait for light evenings for taking photos in!  the photo is Nancy watching a recording of Dancing on Ice while I was cooking dinner

January- sick and tired

How hopeless am I? I made this LO in a rush for Scrapping the MUsic and then failed miserably to post it! I've also realised I haven't posted the other LO I made for the next challenge either- I'll get that ready for later in the week.

The New Year challenge was to scrap any kind of New Year/ January song. I chose the 70s song January by Pilot with the LIne "sick and tired"- mainly because I'm sick and tired of my January birthday- Its never worth the bother of going out for dinner as restaurants are always empty and I always remember a lot of snow clearing for my parties- in this photo I must be about 8- I had to go outside for a photo as my Nan had no flash on the camera- you can see my birthday balloons hanging in the window

rewind

This one is for White with one- the challenge this month is white with lime and buttons- Its called Rewind because it would be nice to rewind back to last summer- a warm day swimming in the lake- especially on a day like yesterday when I was sitting shivering in my study with the wind howling round outside the windows

you and me

Punky Scraps has a pick and mix challenge at the moment with a long list of possible things to add to your LO. I chose the following things from the list- masking- some gold (flair/ brad) and something  booky- i have a page from a dictionary in the top corner

the photo is Nancy and my shadows on the beach on holiday- I scrap lifted this from a talented scrapper called Nina- her blog is here

thanks grandma

This is for SHimelle's 20 steps challenge- Mine is VERY similar to hers as I had been wondering how to use this paper from October Afternoon for some time

The Lo is about Arthur's bad new hair cut- Grandma took him to the hairdressers for the very first time- she'd promised just a trim- the hairdresser got carried away and put in layers all over the place which are now sticking themsleves up in random directions all over the place

masterpiece and number one boy

This one is for the January challenge at Kraft it Up- it was a colour scheme challenge- red, green, yellow and blue. I started with the patterned American Crafts kraft card with the blue raindrops- and then layered on bits and bobs that were on my desk in the right colours- I love a LO where you can use up some of  your scraps  the title is Masterpiece and number one boy- Arthur's badge says Masterpice- we'll ignore the badge that says I am Square!

quit stressin

Here's my LO based on the song Care by Kid Rock for Scrapping the Music- I chose the line "quit Stressin"

Arthur is a sweetie but he quite often gets himself in a grump and a stress- he likes to stomp off or squeeze himself between the sofa and the table- so this is a call to him to quit stressin'  and be more joyful

Room 429

The latest challenge over at Twisted sketches is out- the twist this time is sparkle- I used a few sparkly embellishments to fill the requirements, letters, ribbon and gems.

The photo which has a horrible flash glare on it -sorry- shows the London Eye by the river Thames and the lighted window you can see was our hotel room for the night- My birthday treat was a night in London and a trip to the theatre- so lucky- just wished we could have stayed longer

If you want to see the Twisted sketch and the other fabulous inspiration- follow the link at the side of the page

F is for difficult

The Scrapbookers Anonymous F challenge is live- and OH my goodness did I find this one tricky! I realise I have no products that begin with an f - apart from two Fiskars punches- the cloud and the border so that's what i based my LO around- once I decided that then the best photos I had for the cloud punch was a series of photos I took of the sky on holiday a couple of years ago- I took one a day to record the weather on our holiday

I used blues and cream to reflect the cloud colours and a border down the side to offset the photos- and to finish it off with another F some grey felt alphas

Why not nip over to the Scrapbookers Anonymous blog to see the other inspiration

squeezing in

I am so busy at the moment- I am sitting on the sofa with a pile of essays to mark on each side of me- and I feel that the only scrapping I manage to squeeze in is stuff for my design teams..../ however today I took half an hour to do a super simple version of the Sketchy Thursday sketch for this week- unfortunately it was dark by the time I was ready to photograph

this was the sketch

I missed it!

I seemed to have managed to miss the 15th in my JYC posts so here it is just for completion! I wrote about our visitors and visits and ended up using a download from the Internet of the local church- the children had a concert there- Stanley was playing his guitar- but I couldn't go so I had to resort to this to tell the story of the day

a sigh of relief

And it's done- I managed to finish my JYC before the middle of January- a minor miracle considering I was finishing off last year's in November!

I think it was easier for a number of reasons- i won the class pass last year but not until the first of DEcember so I didn't have chance to prepare early

this year I had my album and my paper cut to size and dates made ready to go

I liked the fact that I kept it very simple but because I used a mix of 12x6 pages and a strip of three 4x6 I had some freedom to do my own thing

on the 12x6 page I followed Shimelle's prompt and on the 4x6 I journalled about the events of the day and added a picture however mundane of what was going on.

so here are the last few pages finished today

the 2nd of JAn

the prompt was about Innocence

I chose to write about NAncy at the Pantomime- she spent the whole performance petrified that Snow White really was in mortal peril from the Wicked Queen

she only relaxed at the end when Snow White was woken with a kiss

 

the 3rd of Jan

the prompt was to record a favourite memories

I wrote a list of the tiny moments that I wanted to remember

like

Nancy and Arthur playing Cinderella

and laying a pretend Christmas dinner

finding Stanley's secret letter to Santa

the 4th of Jan

I took down the tree today

the only thing on my list of what to remember for next year

do not ask my husband to buy his Father's present unless I want to go last minute shopping again

the 5th of JAn

a page about taking the tree down

the 6th of Jan

a page about the fact that I wish I'd been able to see the Christmas decorations at Covent Garden in all their glory instead of seeing them in daylight on the 7th of January

the other photo is about the trip to London to see Hamlet for my birthday

the light in the building is our hotel room directly next to the London Eye

the end

More photos from 12th night in London

and then a final signing of page to commemorate that I completed the album at 2.25 pm on the 8th

and finally

in the back I tucked the bits and bobs I wanted to keep like programmes from the children's concerts

and in case you missed the rest you can find the links to the posts below

1st Dec- 4th are HERE
5th and 6th are here
7th is here
8th- 14th December is HERE
15th  is here
16th-19th December is HERE
20th Dec- 1st Jan is HERE

Birthday weekend

Just a few photos of my birthday weekend ( well 24 hours in LOndon is not quite a weekend)

they're not in the right order but here you go

an early morning walk before we checked out of the hotel took us past Big Ben, down Whitehall, past Downing Street, a quick view of Trafalgar Square and the banquet House, back across the river and to the London Eye

then it was off to my favourite Museum- the British Museum- a whole Roman temple inside

and they had the London 2012 Olympic Gold medals on show- this is as close as I'm ever going to get

this was the London Eye when we arrived at our hotel on Friday night

and again with the houses of Parliament in the background

and the Eye with our hotel next to it- that lighted window was our room

one of my favourite things at the British Museum has to be the Lewis chess men- they just make me smile

and this is the view from our room- wave at the people in the LOndon Eye- the reflection is me in the window of our room

new baby

the January challenge at Scrap OUr Stash is live and this is my version- the challenge for the new month and the new year is NEW- any way you want

 This challenge was an easy one for me- my sister had a baby in October so this was the perfect opportunity to scrap another photo of the little one

Recently we went on a family visit to see my sister and the baby and my three were just so excited and desperate to give her a cuddle- at the end of the day I got this photo of Stanley and Arthur almost fighting to get her on their lap and Nancy reaching in for good measure- poor little one was none to pleased as you can see

miracle on the E40

Shazza's challenge at From Screen to Scrap this month comes from the movie poster- Miracle on 34th Street-

Shazza has added the following criteria

a brown and yellow colour scheme

a santa on the page

and a title- Miracle on ...... street- using your house number or some such

I have the colour scheme and I hand cut a tiny little Santa flying in the corner. I ahve to admit I changed the title a tiny bit- I've called it miracle on the E40- that is not my street or my house number but last Christmas was almost a disaster-

 we had a massive snow fall a few days before we were due to drive back to the UK. it was so bad that huge lorries were skidding along my street _- a major trunk road- and if the stopped they just couldn't get going again. 

it was touch and go whether we were going to leave or not. In the end we decided to go for it and make an overnight stop in Calais on the way. we had to dig the car out and push it to get it out of the snow but once we were out of our town we were on the way and absolutely fine! So this is called Miracle on the E40 because for me it was a miracle we got to Calais- this photo was taken in our overnight hotel- a bit spartan but it was a real relief to get there! the E40 is the european motorway going past Calais in case you were wondering

almost done

I am so pleased with myself- its the first of JAnuary and I am still up to date with my JYC album- I intend to go through until the 6th as I have exciting plans for the day that it will be great to document in the album. 

the 20th

Tiny surprises- I photographed all the Christmas postcards I received via Postcrossing

and Arthur and NAncy setting up their own Christmas dinner in the bedroom with hand made crakers

the 21st

home made mince pies

and the mess of my scrap room which is the main hiding place for packets and parcels before they are wrapped

extra photos from the mince pie making session

the 22nd

a photo of Stanley's note for Santa 

and the front cover of the radio Times- one of the things still to do was to go through it and decide what to record

the 23rd

the stockings- hand made by Grandma and wiating to take up their position by the fireplace

and the children posing with their gingerbread house

the 24th

posing in Santa hats

and today we watched "its a Wonderful Life" for the first time

25th

Arhtur literally just running around in circles because he was so excited

the 26th

our traditional Boxing day trip to the Pantomime- this time Snow White

the 27th

Our morning walk in the sunshine

and journalling about how good the children have been about sleeping

the 28th

A car picninc from McDonlads after our trip to see Tin Tin at the cinema

and the almost empty box of Elizabeth Shaw mint thins- something my Nan always bought me and now my sister does

the 29th

another trip to the cinema- Puss in Boots

and one tiny moment captured as Nancy and arthur fell asleep on their nests

the 30th

a visit from a friend from Holland

and a summary of my photos for the year

5875

and over 500 of them are photos of LOs

the 31st

10.45 the time I went to bed

and |Nancy colour co-ordinated the tin of Quality Street

more random pictures from the 31st

including the premeirship league table

the 1st

about my plan to take part in project 365 ( or 366 this leap year)

my first photo

and if you want to look there is a link to my project 365 blog at the top