Don't look back!

Happy Halloween folks! Already some goodies meant for trick or treaters have jumped into my mouth, I have no idea how that happened! As not to scare too many people today I had the day off work  and shut myself away at my desk and did some scrapping before going to have my wig touched up this afternoon! This month I set myself & Gemma the challenge to use this sketch & to include some ribbon on the layout. 

After looking through my photos I decided to make a different type of layout  to my normal layouts. Usually I scrap photos from holidays, walks, of family, events, etc. But I came across a photo I took of myself shortly after getting my iPhone when I was trying to be arty playing with the camera and decided to make an inspirational type layout especially as Ian & I have reached a time where we are making plans for the future & putting the past behind us. 

I'd been hoarding the Dear Lizzy arrow paper since it came in February's Quirky Kit as I knew I wanted to use it as a background and now seemed the perfect time. The other papers are another piece of Dear Lizzy & Echo Park. I have had some Seam Binding in my ribbon box for ages but didn't know how to use it so I experimented with some mist and altered it to fit with my colour scheme. I'm impressed with how it came out and will definetly try it again maybe with more than one colour. 

I thought a white doily would be too harsh on the layout so I used a kraft diecut doily I've had in my stash for ages instead. For the title I used Poolside Thickers & October Afternoon mini market stickers. To finish I searched online for a quote to fit my "moving on" theme. 

Sketchy Scrappers: All the way up

The sky has been dull and grey, the rain has been pouring- guess Mother Nature finally got the memo that it's autumn! As it's been a day to stay in and snuggle up I managed to get some scrapping done. This months sketch over at Sketchy Scrappers was set by the lovely Karen, who chose this sketch

I don't scrap my photos in any particular order and for this sketch I rummaged through some holiday snaps from 2010 and found a series of photos we took on the Snowdon train as it made its way to the summit. I picked out three and trimmed them down as they were 7x5 to 6x4, luckily there was a fair amount of dead space which wouldn't be missed by doing this, and came up with this

As the photos had lots of earthy, green tones I chose colours to compliment this. The background card is a greeny, Kraft colour. The main patterned paper is Crate Paper with scraps of Bo Bunny double dot & Carta Bella along the top, the photos are matted onto a scrap of wood grain Alison Kreft paper. The alpha stickers are from Pebbles. For embellishments I layered a doily, a kraft envelope which contains the journaling & an Admit One diecut which I've had in my stash from a swap for ages but which ends itself to a layout about a train journey rather well I thought! 

The journey tells of our past journeys up the mountain

Story Telling Sunday: Village Postoffice

Another month has been and gone , a new one ahead of us and time for Story Telling Sunday over on Sian's blog From High In The Sky. 

When I was a child my paternal grandparents owned & lived in the Postoffice in the small village of Bulwick on the way to Corby. Every Saturday we would go over for a family tea where we'd all be squashed into the small living/dining room at the back of the cottage (the main living room was for Christmas only lol), helping ourselves to sandwiches, crisps and cake, sometimes the dreaded but loved my nan indoor fireworks would come out! Each grandchild was given £1 pocket money and was allowed to go down to the Postoffice and buy ourselves some sweets, grandad wasn't daft was he! Behind the cottage was a field known as "the park" where we would play for hours, this time of year the trees would be filled with conkers and we'd come home with 2 carrier bags full of them! 

When I was 11 my grandparents retired, sold the Postoffice and moved to Stamford to be closer to the family. They enjoyed many happy years until a series of strokes left my nan with Dementia. My grandad cared for her as much as he could but eventually nan had to go into a home. Sadly in 2009 my grandad died of heart failure and nan past away peacefully in 2011. Nan used to collect Lilyputt Lane houses and when it came to clearing their house I asked if I could take Mrs Pinkertons Post Office as it reminded me so much of the Bulwick Postoffice 

Today we stopped at Bulwick to take some flowers to my grandparents grave where their ashes were interred, in the churchyard directly opposite the Postoffice