'Twas the weekend before Christmas

And it flew by! Here we are in the final two days before Christmas and boy am I on countdown mode! I had a busy weekend dashing over to deliver the girls pressies in Kings Cliffe and then working. I had a nice surprise waiting for me when I got to Kelly's though, this

A Christmas hamper! I had brought some raffle tickets for the school Christmas fair and I won a prize for the first time ever! I'm very chuffed as it's full of wine, biscuits, chocolates, a cake, jam, etc. Apparently people were not as generous as previous years as they have been fuller but I'm not complaining lol! 

Finally to leave you with a funny sign spotted on the market! 

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!! Xx

At least I made one card for Christmas!

Can you believe it's only 10 days until Christmas! I hope everyone's preparations are going to plan, I've got a handful of presents left to wrap and then I'm ready! As I think I've said in a previous post I had intended to make my Christmas cards but the idea I had in mind did not go to plan. But all was not lost as I did manage to make at least one card, a birthday card for my sister inlaw Jojo. 

Lately I've been buying 6x6 paper pads with the intention of using them to make cards as the patterns are smaller and wouldn't over power a card too much. The spotty paper is from the Mayberry collection from American Crafts, not a collection I would have used for scrapping but when I saw the paper pad on sale I thought it great for cards. The Polaroid frame is also cut with some Mayberry paper using my MFT frame die. The cupcake and ribbon flower were readymade embellishments I'd had in my stash for ages so I was pleased to finally use them. I stamped a Stampin Up greeting to an Elle's Studio banner and that's the card! Not a Christmas card but a Christmas birthday card! 

Sketchy Scrappers: The Eye

Today is my day off. Ian is working a nightshift all week so I needed to find something quiet to do, out of his way while he slept. Hmmm that would be scrapping then! This months sketch over at Sketchy Scrappers was set by the lovely Gemma who set this sketch 

I decided rather than use one landscape & one portrait photo to have a delve and use a portrait photo with a 4x4 Instagram photo instead. I've been having my photos printed via the Fotobox app on my phone. It's easy to upload, select your size, quantity and they arrive in a couple of days, so if you have an iPhone I'd recommend them :-) Anyway back to business, this is my layout 

The photos are obviously of the London Eye. The papers are from my scraps and I just had to use a scrap of Echo Park paper with the fairground rides on as it fitted perfectly. I also pulled out my Stampin Up cloud embossing folder as I also felt this fitted with the photos perfectly. I adapted the bunting idea to a doily instead, and cut some Elle's Studio pennants and placed them to the right. 

Marmite scrapping?

This week is my last week off work before the Christmas rush, a week of relaxing and doing as much Christmasy stuff I can so I haven't got to fight the crowds nearer the time. This means I've got a bit more time to do some crafting, I've attempted to make some Christmas cards but plan A didn't work so we're onto plan B lol! I have also managed to do my first weekly challenge on UKS for AGES!!

 This weeks challenge has a Marmite twist to it, you either love it or hate it (personally I love it). The three elements of the challenge are photo: ones you love due to memories, etc or ones you hate as the quality is poor, etc; colour: colours or papers which are your favourite which you go to time again or ones you hate which have been languishing in your stash for some time; and finally technique: your favourite technique which you use time again of one which never goes to plan or is not your style. With these elements in mind I came up with this layout 

Photo: The photo was taken when I went to London in May and went to Liberty for the first time. This is obviously a memory I want to document however the photo all blurry and not sharp as the camera settings had a mind of their own. HATE

Colour: I recently went halves with my friend Gemma on some goodies from TK Maxx including half an Amy Tangerine Yes Please 12x12 paper pad, so all the papers are from that. Being an Amy Tangerine fan this is LOVE. 

Technique: I have a love/hate relationship with stamping. I love all the stamps out there and how people use them, however when it comes to stamping I'm pretty pants! My images are rarely clear, with bits missing from them! So I decided to have a go on this layout, stamping out a medallion from a Stampin Up set using a pink distress ink. I have the same relationship with distressed edges, the look good when other Scrappers distress but when I do it it just looks messy, so again I had a go and I have to say I'm still not convinced lol! HATE. 

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