Pure indulgence

indulgence. cup cakes. what a lovely prompt! And excellently timed Shimelle as I had just baked a birthday cake ready for my daughter's birthday. I love this dotty paper and think I may have to buy a little more once the project is over, two sheets of white was clearly not enough ;-)

I can't believe we are now so close to the end of this project and I have definitely slowed down. I have kind of run out of photos I want to use but also I know that when it's done - it's done. But there's always the next one .....

Catch up

Seems like I have a holiday theme going on at the moment! Could it be because I am going away very soon?!
For the weather page I chose a photo of the view across the roof tops in Praia da Luz. I become somewhat obsessive about checking weather forecasts before I go away. Trouble is that the websites don't always say what I want them to say so I have to surf the net to find one that says the magical ' non stop, almost 24 hour sunshine'
For the view page I used a picture taken back in 2004 when we went to Barbados. The sunsets were amazing and this is the view from our balcony. It really was paradise. We wanted to go somewhere special that year as the kids were 17 and 14 and we knew there wouldn't be many more opportunities to all four of us go together on holiday.

Frank

Let me introduce you to the newest member of our family - Frank.
We don't see him that often, but he is partial to a stroll round the garden around 7pm in the evenings. He's so tame and quite photogenic! Not sure how the name of Frank was adopted but it seems to suit him.
So when Shimelle gave us a nature theme to use, I couldn't resist using this picture of our little super star.

not so stress free scrapbooking

I had been very dubious about running ribbons or fabric through my printer at home as the receptionist at work once brought the whole office to a standstill when a label came adrift in the printer then and gummed up the whole innards of the machine and I had visions of fabric getting caught up and ruining my machine at home.
But everyone else seemed to be coping OK so I bought some 'freezer paper' and ironed my fabric onto it. So far so good. Loaded it into the paper tray, held my breath and pressed 'print'. It almost got caught up in one corner but I eased it through and the result was pretty good. Whatever was I so scared of? ;-)
So instead of printing the 'love' printable onto old pages of books, I did it on fabric and used it on Friday's page :

Now all I need to master is the technique of holding the camera at arms length to take an impromptu self portrait!

And of course, being a lady of leisure meant that I have managed to do my 'seasons' page as well. Don't ya just love working in a school with all the holidays?! I enjoyed doing this page, the patchwork effect is a good way of filling space very easily, I can see me using this again!

Scrapbook day

Had a great day yesterday at a Scrapbook day organised by Sue at Craftystash. Tracie Hudson had designed 5 layouts for us to do and had made a mega 8 hour journey to be with us to host the day. When I saw the timing of the day - 9am to 8pm - I thought ' no way will I stay there for 11 hours' but it was such a fab day and the layouts were so good that I finally left at about 7.55!

Here's the results of my day :

Sarah's Challenge

So, here's the thing. Sarah included me in a challenge that I have to pass onto 4 other blogs so I'm sorry about this Denise, Robyn, Chloe and Cleo but you are my chosen 4!

Here's what you have to do:

Open the 4th file on the computer where you store your photos

Choose the 4th picture in that file and publish it on your blog

Explain a bit about it

Pass the challenge onto 4 other bloggers

In the words of Aleksandr the Meerkat on 'Compare the Meerkat.com' - Simples ...

I was worried about the chance of the picture being something cringeworthy but it's not too bad! For our 25th Wedding Anniversary (yes, I am THAT old!) Paul and I went to Barcelona for a few days. This is a picture of a building somewhere along Las Ramblas and has really interesting stonework. The gargoyles on the buildings were amazing, and those of an innocent disposition probably shouldn't look too closely at some of them ....

home sweet home

After reading everyone else's prompts for the ribbon page I decided that I needed to stop being a 'wuss' and have a go at printing on fabric. People seemed to suggest that there is less likelihood of disaster if you iron the fabric/ribbon onto 'freezer paper' before you put it through the printer so I have ordered some on the internet and will have a go when it arrives. In the meantime I have done this page printing onto textured card as a bit of a compromise. For the recycled part of the prompt I have added a frill made from a flattened out cup cake liner.

chocolate and coffee

Todays prompt could have been designed with me in mind ... coffee..... chocolate...
I knew I had the perfect photo to use for this - my sister has a holiday home in Portugal and about 50 yards from the front door is a little traditional old fashioned bakery which sells delicious chocolate croissants - yum! This picture shows me having breakfast in the sunshine on the terrace - diet? what diet? ;-)

lacemaking

Friday's prompt was about crafts and what we enjoy doing and why. In amongst the darker recesses of my needlework box I came across this lace edged mat that I had made back in the early 80s. My friend Linda and I used to go to lacemaking classes and we were by far the youngest in the class - by about 40 years! I really enjoyed learning, it was so difficult and yet so rewarding. I enjoyed buying the carved bobbins and then finding pretty beads to weight them down and just loved doing something so totally different.
The lacemaking pillow and bobbins were consigned to the loft when our daughter was born - I didn't have the time to do it and then once she was mobile, those pretty beads were too tempting to keep away from. So up in the loft it went and up in the loft it has stayed. I'll get it down again one day ..... probably ....
I've always enjoyed making things, even got an A level in needlework and used to make most of my own clothes. I've learnt crochet, macrame, knitting, patchwork, smocking but one of the most satisfying of all crafts has to be lacemaking. I wonder if I could remember how to do it?!

Family tree

I enjoyed doing todays prompt and am much happier with today's finished page rather than the one which I did yesterday and will not be showing up here due to me feeling very disgruntled about it. Maybe being unsatisfied with yesterday's made me more careful with this one? Who knows ...

Anyway, I wanted to use an old photo showing my mum and dad AND me and my sister but it's impossible to find a relaxed unposed one as of course back in the olden days, cameras didn't have self timers ;-) So I show up in both photos - proudly displaying my box of Smarties in one, seems like I have had a sweet tooth forever eh?! The photos were taken in the early 60s on holiday in Looe in Cornwall - happy memories.

Music

When I saw today's prompt, I knew I would have no trouble in finding an appropriate picture.

We are a 6 guitar family and only 2 of us play guitar! And no, one of them isn't me! I chose a photo of my son which was taken during rehearsals for the recording of an EP that he and his friend made at a studio last week.
I liked the idea of printing out onto stickers and then using them with slight gaps in between each part, it gives a kind of tiled effect.

Go To Press

It's begun! The first prompt arrived in my inbox this morning and this is my title page.

I thought I knew what paper I was going to use for my title page and then when the prompt came through, the colourings weren't suitable and then I came across this piece of card and it just seemed right so I went with it.

As always I thought I was happy with the layout and had put enough on it to be interesting but not too much to be fussy ... then I uploaded it to the website, looked at other people's and immediately wished I'd done something different. hey ho!