A QUICK WEDNESDAY POST...

Where are the weeks going too, blink and you miss the weekend, then we're at Wednesday and before you know it it'll be Rocking Your World Friday again - scary stuff.  Well I'm trudging back to work this morning, not sure how that will go but keep your fingers and toes crossed everything is OK, had a few emotional rollercoaster days which are never good so I thought I'd share a quick layout with you.  I'm still steaming along with these layouts, however, this weeks layout obsession seems to centre around orange and bright pink - mmmm Summer of Colour Challenge anyone?  Anyway I've not photographed them so it'll have to be something out of the folder.

This is another one of those 'almost done' papers that I started with the doorway in the bottom left corner had me stumped for quite a while as I had no idea of how to incorporate it into a layout, I settled eventually on using the shape as the base for the photo and then the rest came easy, I added the keys strip left and right of the photo some letter stickers for the title and strips of paper for the journalling.

I had also got some circles on my desk and some offcuts of ribbon which I used to create the embellishment on the page.  It turned out quite fun although I don't think my spacing was perfect.  Finished off with some hand cross stitch elements bottom right and top left.

If you happen by thanks for taking a look hope your weeks aren't flying by as quickly as mine (unless you want them to in which case carry on!).

SUMMER OF COLOUR - WEEK 1

Morning all, well I think I should get this in by the skin of my teeth, I was soooooooooooo excited to see this go live over on Kristin's blog - Twinkle Twinkle - click here to go see.  I enjoyed this challenge last year so much and made loads of mail art in the process.  This year the colours are members choice, which is lovely because we get to vote and the first week's colour choice is turquoise and citron green which turned out to be a fantastic colour combination.

And this is what I made layouts, gelli prints, basis for cards and some jigsaw pieces - atrocious photo but I've done some close ups

Layout, the background paper is just soooooooooo hard to use because it's so visually busy, but toned down with plain cardstock and then using a gelli print base below it means I get to use paper which quite frankly I thought I might not and I get to incorporate gelli print in my layouts!

Again using up papers I never thought I'd manage, the stripy paper behind the photos I've had forever and loved but never quite fathomed out what to do with it!

Then a double page layout, using up papers from different ranges, I was going to try and paint out the pinky coloured flower in the paper to make it true to the scheme but ran out of time!

 Up close

 and again

Then I gelli-printed some jigsaw pieces I had no idea what I'll do with them but had great fun in the process

 And some card stock

 And some potential mail art

 And then said 12 year old 'borrowed' some to make a Father's Day card

Can't wait to find the next colour scheme!  Thank you Kristin!

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY

Hello there people we are once again at Friday and time to take stock, think, appreciate and find the little silver linings and positives in our lives that have occurred over the last 7 days.  For it is ...

If you fancy joining in, pop a blog post together, head back here, link up and we'll come and visit, we are only a tiny crew of Rockettes (never had a Rocker yet but all welcome) who take stock and try and appreciate the good things in life - my list this week 

1. My sister - she's a star - fact! 
2. My hubby - he's definitely a star and rocks my world every week! 
3. Said 12 year old who had teachers singing his praises this week - always a blessing!
4. Sunny days at Brodsworth - trying to keep the head clear - amazing what a few weeks sunshine can do for a place. Note the ferns top left (the brown area) 
   
    And now look - absolutely gorgeous
   
   
   And the labernum - well enough said!
   
   
5. My boss for being very very understanding 
6. WW girls - you know who you are - these girls literally and I mean literally keep me sane! 
7. Circle journals for providing so much fun
8. Collaborative art work (even when you forget to photograph it). 
9. UK Scrappers - just because! 
10. Lovely messages from bloggers - thank you - your messages this week have meant so much
11. Blue skies
12. Green grass
13. Being able to see
14. Being able to read
15. Being able to speak my mind 
16. Being able to be myself
17. For Doctors for listening
18. For hubby for supporting 
19. For games systems which provide apparently hours of fun! 
20. For life itself 
21. Winning blog Candy - the lovely Jen at Wear Crafts pulled a name out of the hat recently and I won - gobsmacked doesn't come close, and Jen let me know it's on its way - can't wait to see it and make some lovely things from it - thank you Jen! 

Yes I truly have an awful lot to be grateful for! 

I'll leave you with a layout before popping on Mr Linky, this little guy - how cute is he? 

And the look out! 

I hope you've had a beautiful and blessed week and if it's been a tough one that you are able to find the silver linings and positives that have made life that bit more bearable!

COMING BACK ON LINE ...

Well as I slowly attempt to piece things back together I'm finding I have some thinking time, time to start making changes potentially but we'll see - I'm not pushing for now.  Yesterday was spent mainly working on a fabric CJ I have in my possession such fun but I made a huge mess which I then had to tidy up - never mind!!!!

Anyway more layouts from the blog folder this morning, it's lovely to put them up and even nicer to get comments back - so thank you lovely people for looking.

First up two layouts of my niece, this first one where she is trying on Christmas decorations (last year) which were in a garden centre - the joys of mobile phone pictures!  The purple mask was apparently something she really wanted to buy - it's funny because she's just like my sister can't help trying something on when she sees something she likes - hats were a particular specialty with my sister when she was younger, actually no scratch that she was trying hats on the other day when we went to Brodsworth!

Then the Christmas sunglasses?  - I've no idea why you would need sunglasses like these in winter - but she enjoyed trying them on!

And finally a picture of said 12 year old and niece last year when we went for a walk, (said 12 year old in wind up mode hence the look on nieces face!) the layout was from the last cyber crop with UK Scrappers and although I liked it I think it would have been better with two photos - but hey it's done now!

 Thanks for looking!

LIFE GETTING CLEARER - NOT EASIER JUST CLEARER AND HALLOWEEN LAYOUTS

I'm always amazed at how when things get tough and difficult to deal with that crafting provides that amazing outlet which lets you just 'be'.  I photographed loads of layouts recently and I can't tell you how positive and happy looking through them made me feel.  So many fantastic days out, actually that is one thing I will say for my scrapbooking, one of the reasons why I love to do it is because my scrapbooks are photographed diary entries of life - but you know that don't you, but for me scrapbooking makes me go out and enjoy life.  Day trips out, places to visit, documenting things as I go.  Enjoying walks through bluebell woods, sea side days pretty much everything.  I'm sure that our lives would not be so varied and interesting were it not for my passion to document 'what we do' and doing the same thing day in day out means it's not interesting so you have to mix it up a bit.  A visit to Harewood recently and I was thinking well we've been here before what can we do that's different and they had a play festival on and before hubby and said 12 year old knew what was happening I was signing them up for a sand sculpting class - just because it would provide something different to scrapbook - they loved it - so win win!

What do you do to keep your scrapbooking fun and different?

Anyway I digress (quite a lot of the time as you can see), todays layouts to peruse all stem back to Halloween last year, my niece decided to come dressed up as the Black Swan - she looked amazing and I got some fabulous photos of her!

I also managed a fun photo of her which I just had to scrapbook that blowing out of the cheeks made me giggle so much!   Using one of Mary-Anne's quote cards again - like I keep saying uber versatile on the scrapping front - click here if you want to see Mary-Anne's original post

And finally the two carved pumpkins done by my brother and his girlfriend that they brought on the night!

That's it from me for today so the question is cleaning or scrapping - cleaning or scrapping - mmmm scrapping i think - catch ya later

HOW MANY LAYOUTS

I decided yesterday that I needed to photograph my recent layouts ready for albums, little had I realised just how many there was.  As a result I now need more albums - grrrrrr - but hey on the plus side finally got them photographed.  However, not yet downloaded onto the PC but still plenty in my blog folder to keep me going.

First layout - said 12 year old having a driving lesson last year, using a combination of papers from a DCWV stack, I love stacks of paper but sometimes find the ones with the embellished corner (such as the heart at the bottom) hard work to deal with as the pages often feel 'almost done' - so I just threw paper at this one until it was beaten into submission - I think I won!

Shadow photos can be fun to document!

 Capturing youth capturing youth - always a giggle!

 Thanks for stopping by - hope you have a great day!

AND ANOTHER LAYOUT

Still working my way through my blog folder at the moment, due to photograph some new layouts I've been working on soon, so thought I'd pop another post on with a few more layouts.

This one is said 12 year old next to the gold post box for Jessica Ennis, he was so pleased to find it!  

Then a moody shot from when we did the Maize Maze last year, I loved the photo but went for a vibrant layout to make the photo stand out more.

Finally another shot from the Maze trying to create some 'white space' (which I'm so bad at all pages need to be busy and very very full don't they?

 Right off to sort my blog folder - thanks for looking!