Goodbye my friends

Firstly a hello and to let you know issue 2 of www.freecraftmag.com is available to download. The two competitions on the website mentioned on page 75 will be on the website soon too. Look out for my contribution to the magazine on page 87. If you sign up, you could win £100 of crafting goodies and when they contact you, don't forget it was me who told you about the magazine as I can win the same prize.


This is another pencillines.com sketch using a photo given to Matthew and his classmates at their leavers assembly. The focus of the leavers' assembly was "Goodbye my friends", hence the title.

I really need to print out and organise some photos to scrap so I can be more effective. So today I'll print out:
* Elizabeth's birthday party
* Miscellaneous end of term photos
* Bathtub challenge pirates
I also need to get out the Florida photos from 1980s

Later in the week I must go through the scans I've done of Mum's green photo album to see what I haven't scrapped yet.

The sky is blue at the moment, but it's not due to be nice today?

Go otters

We are now officially on school holidays, the end of year party for the boys has happened and the decorators have finished. Oh yes, I've also finished the last Harry Potter book. So it was time to finish this layout from Elizabeth's sports day which has been sat on my table for about 5 days. I had tried orange squares of patterned paper for the three blocks but they were too dominating, so printed off some sayings onto the turquoise vellum which I like. It adds something and you can still see the patterned paper below. This is a rouge de garance paper which I thought was the only time I would use a paper with an outline of a sneaker??? Either that or cover it up.


The sketch I used for this layout is from
pencillines.com


Tried to book a trip to Egypt for myself and the children yesterday but there are no flights available in the band that the holiday includes which is with British Airways and they want a £90 supplement for flying Egypt Air. I'd want a discount for flying with them not a supplement!! Hopefully BA will release more cheaper flights in the coming weeks and months.

End of term - almost

and where is the sun?? Here is a layout of a family picnic in the garden on a rare sunny evening earlier this month. I used one of the class kits I bought from Scenic Route and which Elizabeth helped me to put together over the weekend.

It is a frenzy of end of term assemblies and concerts at the moment, particularly for Matthew as he leaves the junior school. The boys were each presented with a photo of everyone in his year and the two teachers last night for which I am most grateful. Especially as I had to redo the teachers' cards last night as the person who offered to get the cards signed asked one of the boys to do it and didn't tell him only those listed on the envelopes were to sign. Only one day to go!! and one more concert tonight.

Rouge de Garance

Yesterday I received a lovely parcel of papers from Rouge de Garance which was a prize from their National Scrapbooking Day activities in May. They sent me two of everything so I've split the parcel with Joanne.

Sue

A photo

Not a scrapbooking photo, but something I've been working on for the last week. Just need to slipstitch the inside cover around the zip.

Provisional dates for autumn crops. Saturday 22 September and Saturday 20 October - subject to booking the Eastern good Companions. We have asked Dee to show us how she made her lovely crocheted flowers at the September crop.

Big photos

Aother layout using a big photo and fun serif. This was the first liberation day celebration I've ever been to and I was surprised how close to the action you could get.

Need to go to quilting this morning and get a quilt ready for quilting.

Another layout from the crop

Which contains no journalling so actually finished at the crop. these are pictures of Fiona's 7th birthday.

Exactly a month after Fiona's birthday is Elizabeth's birthday. There'll be a definite cupcake theme to her birthday layout as the invites and party ware which we bought in England are as cute as cupcakes. I've seen some china with cupcakes on them at M&S so I might have to buy some.

Some journalling to do at the crop this evening and two more Paris layouts. If I finish the journalling that would be an achievement.

Grid lock

The access road to the harbour was gridlocked this morning with parents from at least 6 schools dropping off children for the Condor sailing to France. This chaos will probably be repeated on Friday too.



Another layout using Creative Imagination scalloped paper and Lorraine's scalloped circle punches. Funs serif with chipboard again!! I organised my Paris photos to scrap them at the crop on Saturday but worked slower than I'd hoped so I will get them out today and make a start on Versailles.

Glorious day

Both yesterday and today. I completely finished two layouts at the crop yesterday and here is the first one. Inspired by a layout by Shimelle, I'm loving those scalloped punches with the journalling stamp or circle stamp. Thanks Lorraine for loaning them to me.



This photo was from my Snapfish order. I liked the matt finish and the photos looked good blown up.

A minor heart in mouth moment at the crop when my troll beads hit the floor, but I spent an hour this morning listing my purchases and none were missing. It was lovely looking at each individual bead again.

Matthew is off to France with the school tomorrow. His suitcase and rucksack are packed. It'll be an early start with a 6.45am drop at the harbour. Matthew has two disposable cameras to use. He kindly asked what I'd like him to bring back from France and my reply of course was loads of good photos. I will no doubt embarass him by taking photos as he departs, but what's new!!

Grateful

I have been sewing up a storm over the last week, and have finished a quilt top which is now ready for quilting, once I have found a backing :( Inspired by this online workshop by Anita http://www.scrapbookingthesecret.blogspot.com/ and using a Scrapping Angels kit with the addition of the Heidi Swapp days of the week journalling spots and the date stamp and scalloped paper.



I uploaded some digital photos to Snapfish last night. I chose matt photos for a change and i hope that they arrive before Saturday for the crop as I plan to do them all. They include paris and Versailles, Fiona's birthday and the Thai Shack. I have ordered a couple of enlargements which will be interesting to try instead of my regular 6 by 4s or smaller.

See you on Saturday, 9 June at 10am.

Red red red

I haven't scrapped much this month. The Lipstick scrapbooking retreat is having monthly challenges on UKscrappers. I of course left it until the last day to do something on the subject of your favourite cosmetic. I chose red nail varnish and used one of my May Scrap-room kits. thanks again Lorraine for the use of your fun serif to cut the chipboard.

Stalking that postie

I entered a number of competitions and participated in several websites' National Scrapbooking Day celebrations. Yesterday I visited http://garanceblog.canalblog.com/ to find out I was a winner of some Rouge de garance stuff for this layout I posted for one of their challenges. It was a layout I created for a challenge set by Shimelle as part of the ukscrappers cybercrop earlier last month.




My prize from Mangobeads also arrived today.

Amazing

Not a big thing but on Tuesday I managed to start and finish a layout, including journalling in one sitting. And here it is.



I'll say au revoir until next Thursday when I may have a few Paris photos to scrap at Maureen & Beverley's crop at Georgetown Methodist Church.

Boomerang finished

Yes, the layout I started about a month ago is finished. I added some clear Foofala buttons to the flowers having stamped with a flourish on the reverse with Stazon and threaded through some tiny pink ric rac. This was a class from designcollective.com


Another sketch from nycscraps, which we did for the Scrapsupply challenges. This was stitching. I loved the effect of the stitching on Joanne's Jersey Jam layout and had a go myself. It didn't take too long to do.


I'm putting away my scrapping stuff this morning and doing some patchwork. I think this evening I'll break out my albums to put away some of the layouts I've done this month.

Texture plates

One of the challenges at Scrapsupply today has made us break out the new ellison texture plates. They are fab. I used the dotty floral on the pink. I chickened out of using the metallic rubons though as it was such a large piece.

Still cropping

After the National Scrapbooking crop yesterday, we are following the Scrapsupply.com NSD online crop - there are some great prizes to win including a Bind It All.
Apologies to Veronica who couldn't get into the hall yesterday as the doors were all locked, which we didn't realise until Judy left and we'd also closed the internal door so keep the cat out. Next date, subject to booking the hall is 9th June.
Here is my layout for the 5 patterned papers challenge from five manufacturers, using sketch #13 from NYCscraps April / May class.

Cybercrop Friday

Well I managed one of the classes last night and completed another of the Friday classes this morning. I found a layout yesterday which required photos and i managed to tweak it to fit one of the challenges. Off to the book sale in half an hour.

Still tidying

It's sunny but cool today. Nick hasn't yet left for work but I've been to the Post Office and returned some dies to Lorraine. A good start to the day.



I still need to unpack my bags from last weekend's crop. Here are two layouts I did at the crop. The first I added a title to yesterday (thanks Lorraine for your fun serif) and the playing cards (thanks Jenny). I'm loving the lowercase fun serif as much as the uppercase.

This layout was completed on Saturday, but the chipboard letters had come off. SO much for being self adhesive.

I think I've done a layout with all four Scrap Room kits this month, so will enter the "Get more pages done" challenge and unpack my bag from the crop.

Don't forget it's cybercrop weekend. I think I feel a trip to M&S coming on tomorrow.

A load of bullocks

I've called this layout (nycscraps sketch #6) boy meets cow, but of course I don't know my cow from my bullocks and they aren't cows. Never mind.

I keep looking at the Scrap Camp website for the confirmed details for October to be put up. It seems like the same message has been there for two months, so I'm not sure what their definition of "soon" is. I'd really like to get it booked and also the flights booked whilst they're still a good price.

Cool day

Perfect for staying in and crafting. I've done this La Baule layout from scratch today. The photos were all taken by Matthew and came out beautifully for a £10 camera including film and batteries. This is sketch #8 from nycscraps.

I've been having a look at Club Scrap http://www.clubscrap.com/pgdrv1.cfm?c=content/aline which we used to subscribe to. They have now started a process they call Assembly Line Scrapbooking (ie making pages without photos to use the whole kit). I'm thinking of trying something similar with my next Scrap Room kits to get value for money from them. We'll see how that develops once the next month's kits are available for viewing.