Friendship/Creative Craft World ScrapMap July

Creative Craft World have a great ScrapMap this month. I had fun putting a kit together and then scrapping this lunchtime.

New Thickers called Sprinkles and good old white cs.

My plan.

The photos and paper. August Moon from Ruby Rock-it.

The kit.

The base.

The End. From Top Left, Maria, Susi, Karen, Laura & Sue, my friends that I spent a happy week with at Dartmouth House in Olney with back in March. Happy memories.

The quote is;

“I count myself in nothing else so happy

As in a soul rememb’ring my good friends.” WS

Weekly Challenge: July Week 2/Shakespeare.

So where was I with Shakespeare?

Reading Macbeth. Enjoying it, I have watched the programme that Ethan Hawke made for the Shakespeare Season on BBC. I downloaded a support book to help me through it a bit and I have read a bit more. It has been a difficult week at home and will continue to be so, so the only chance I get to read it in the peace and quiet my dull brain needs is at break time at work as I have described before, but they have been few and far between.

I had a lovely friday evening making a layout for the weekly challenge over at UKS.

I used a Nigella recipe for Jumbleberry Jam for my first foray into jam making. I liked the recipe as there was no faffing about with a thermometer that I don’t own! It was brilliantly easy and it was good jam. I did this in early March to take to our retreat. We finished the jar at home this week so am looking forward to September and making some more.

The layout was on started on white cs, I don’t seem to use anything else very much apart from the odd Kraft. I painted on some stripes of pearly paint once I knew where my photos etc were going. I used Shimelle’s 4x6 Photo Love class for September last year. I used it for the first time to scrap a lovely break to Legoland we had that month.  I posted that layout here.

I adapted that challenge as this challenge wanted some white space. I cut down the photos to 4x5 and matted them on to pretty paper from BG Nook & Pantry.

So happy to finally use some, I loved it at the time I bought it but didn’t use much of it. Then matted them onto neutral cs, added a washi tape tab and then tucked them into the acetate pocket I made.

The acetate pocket uses the same washi tape to secure it and there is a strip of my new pp Simple Stories Summer Fresh underneath the pocket and securing the bottom of the pocket. A few embellies and the journaling and twas done

 Thanks so much for looking

Monthly Challenge: Nostalgia.

As I went through my reader a couple of weeks ago I was surprised to see Storytelling Sunday over at Sian’s From High In The Sky. I’m know it is always the first Sunday in the month but still! I was feeling nostalgic as I read Uncle Dave’s post and started thinking about what I might write about.
My mind skitted upon the Run To The Sun we did to Newquay many moons ago-when it wasn’t all about the drinking! That immediately linked to The Verve and their Bittersweet Symphony. (I am listening to it now as I write this and still finding such emotion and joy in it). The album came out the day we drove down there which is why it resonates and is so tied up with that weekend.
We worked at sea for P&O European Ferries and five of us hired a VW Sharan when we disembarked–’The Bus’ we called it immediately and shouted at every car to get out of our way “We Have A Bus, We Go First!”. We were all used to driving Renault 5’s and Fiesta’s. It even had aircon, AirCon!!!!
Such silly, such happy 22 year olds we were. We stopped everywhere to see if they had it stocked. We finally tracked it down at Exeter Services and we didn’t stop listening to it for a week. I still listen to it regularly.
I also remember hysterical laughter as we drove through a sleepy part of Devon (yeah, I know most of it is quite sleepy, and still is, I love it) and seeing a tourist attraction sign, you know the brown ones, advertising ‘Barometer World’, well as we dissolved in helpless laughter (Matt was driving and he had to pull over) someone quipped, “What’s next, ‘Thermometer Kingdom’…?” That was it-just paralysed. Those are the things that you find hilarious. It still makes me smile now, and I drive past that same sign, now and again.
So what a co-incidence when I came across Sian’s post for Saturday (in the same Google Reader catch-up!) where she discusses nostalgia and the photo is of cassettes of music. So well done Uncle Dave you managed to make me nostalgic simply from your post and you sent me down a nice memory lane this morning.
Were there ever any photos? I don’t think so. It seems strange compared to now when I never leave the house without a piece of equipment that will take a decent photo ready to document our lives.
There are photos from that year though, this post drove me to find them. They were of a cabin party on board for my 22nd birthday.
Firstly, Paul & I sharing a moment. So many things to tell you about this photo.

Firstly I must tell you that however suggestive this photo might be, the reality is much more innocent. For some reason Paul’s nickname on board was fathead…I cannot remember why. But I do remember it used to wind him up. One of the entertainment crew had made the balloon man of Paul for me (with a fat head balloon for his head) and he wasn’t particularly happy but we teased him to vaguely smile and he was brandishing it at me here.
Paul and I were very fond of each other and had some nice times, he was a really sweet person and treated me so well. We also shared a weird experience. Our maternal grannies died within 24 hours of each other, I clearly remember comforting him as we travelled to Le Havre with him knowing that he couldn’t get off until we had turned the ship around “turnaround” and returned to Portsmouth, I then got the call from shore-side on our return journey to Portsmouth that my Granny had had a stroke and so I went to pack to get going too. I am sure that as we were an item there was scepticism about it, not for us though, we went our separate ways at the train station and my Granny died a few hours before I got there. Paul’s Granny had died when he heard.

On one of our watch weeks (for those that don’t know, and I know KathiJo does because of Zac at least.) we worked a five week system, one week at sea, one week off, two weeks at sea, one week off. This meant that we didn’t spend much for 3 weeks out of 5. Brilliant. I paid off my student overdraft in about 10 weeks. I remember being so relieved that the £1000 was gone. I know it wouldn’t be that easy for anyone today.
It also meant that those of us on the same watch or on a ‘good’ overlay watch could arrange breaks away. We went to many places of which Newquay, Dublin and Skegness were highlights A few tales to be told from each!
So back to the birthday party I so wish there were straighteners in those days and my hair wasn’t so fluffy

This was just before the previous photo when Paul discovered me dancing with his ‘fun balloon’ doppelganger.

And then later on when it all got so much more drunken and crazy. How many people can you get in one tiny cabin?

I just had to make a layout of it so I used the monthly challenge sketch, a lovely one from Sue and stretched it to a double as the photos are so big. I used my fab new eclips to cut a doily big enough and cut it in half to use on both sides. I was also really happy to use up the final scraps of the Summer Days papers that I am sure you are fed-up of seeing on my layouts. What a lovely few hours I had reminiscing.
Thanks for looking it over xxx
PS I have just noticed in the post that the hexagons have slipped on the bottom left of the pic, straightened them now, wish it would be so easy to do that to my hair!

Project Life Week 26.

Woo Hoo (as my over-excited alter ego might say). I am half way through
I love the new page protectors, it made it easier that I had some pre-made journaling cards, but harder in that I am not as used to this size so much. I think on the whole they will be better.

The LHS. I used up some of the rest of the 12x12 collection from Echo Park Summer Days, that I have loved scrapping with this month. The journaling card page that comes with the collection is perfect. Echo Park have it nailed for my use
The title page, pretty pinwheel paper with a QR code linking a video of Ali running on the beach. My journaling, two snaps of my dinner and some snaps of us with closed eyes, blissed out at the beach.


The RHS.

Mum’s journaling, snaps of the sea mist, letters from the infants about Ali’s transition, a cloud cut from the eclips, space to put links to the relevant blog posts, must go back and put them in. Photo of Ali at his transition assembly, predictably mucking about with Eleanor, those two are incorrigible
So, as I always say, I love it. That is volume 1 of Project Life from Hart Towers done. New Album and New Adventures just round the corner I hope.


Thanks for having a gander. xx

“and be you blythe and bonny.”

It is my first time setting the weekly challenge over at UKS this week. With my recent interest in Shakespeare it had to include a Shakespeare themed challenge. I decided to scrap this photo of Lauren that I took on her birthday last November.

I do love the photo, but also it matched one of my favourite quotes so far from Shakespeare.
From Much Ado About Nothing:
“and be you blythe and bonny, converting all your sounds of woe into hey nonny nonny.” She has a lot of woe, and she does look on the bright side of life and I wanted to encourage her to carry that on into life.
The thing I mostly have been reflecting on is despite how powerful the writing is and I am still enjoying break-time reading with the complete works, this line was brought to life by Emma Thompson half-reading half-reciting this to music in the film version that I mentioned I loved here.

He wrote them as plays and should be performed as such, so I will carry on reading but also watching as much as possible.
I recorded The Hollow Crown on Saturday night, it was Richard II, I had already got into bed, fully intending to watch it on Sunday. However, after watching the first scene, I was up out of my bed and did some scrapping whilst I watched. It was fantastic, Ben Whishaw was brilliant as all the rest were, I, felt prickles on the back of the neck as Patrick Stewart as John Of Gaunt gave the Act Two Scene 1 Sceptered Isle speech. Can’t wait until the next one on Saturday, Henry IV Part 1.
Anyhoo, here is the layout.

I took lots of inspiration from all over the place, Two Peas, mainly for the negative title, layered bunting etc. I used the brilliant papers from Echo Park Summer Days, I have nearly used it all up now as well which makes me happy
Thanks for looking xx