Monday

for a long time now I haven't worked on a monday - and you know what I love the special me time. Just having a quiet house and lots of me time is lovely. Sometimes I think we all need that time. Course Alan would wish that I did more housework or cook the tea (and yes I do sometimes) but often I get engrossed in other things - scrapping, sewing or just playing on the computer and today is going to be one of those days!!!

Yesterday we had a lovely day (after a stint of the dreaded house work) we had Alan's brother, John, and his wife Ann over along with our niece Sarah and her hubby JP and their son Zack and of course Doms is still home As Zack is 2 and totally into trains it was a great excuse to get out Beth's train set and cover the floor and all the gents had a great time playing. Wthen had a lovely meal cooked my adorable hubby and spent the evening chatting and catching up.

september 11th

Today is definately a day of memories.

Leading up the the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Twin Towers and the thousands that died there has been a large number of different programs with lots of different aspects it has been eye opening that's for sure. And then the day itself arrives.

I think that losing Harley-David has made me more conscious of the pain that families of lost ones feel. And so day has been full of thoughts of my son. I still feel the pain of loss as much today and I did the day he went - so much for all the people who said it will get better - sorry folks it doesn't.

So while I remember those lost - my thoughts are with those left behind and I wish I could give them all a hug.

Since I am back into blogging thought it might just be good to make a post that is not just page orientated - although it is scrapping.

Early on this year made the decision that we would finally take down the desk that held the computer in the conservatory and make it over into a craft room so that we could tidy up the dining part of our L shaped living room. Boy it took some time to de-clutter both the desk (so we could take it apart) and then to work through all the scrapping items I had, keep what I knew I would use and pass the items I decided I didn't want onto other scrapping buddies. I also needed to free up some space on the bookshelves we had in there so was ruthless. That process is still not quite done but one day I will be brave enough to finish it.

So now we have the space cleared up but with the soon to be closed Scrapbook Shop and the loss of our cropping meets once a month I wanted to make the space user friendly for 5 people - 1 more than fit round the dining room table. I desperately needed tables and chairs (I couldn't be moving the table and chairs from the dining room) defeats the object and more storage shelves if possible. There was one problem and not just a little one - there is no money in the budget for renovations. First I raided my garage and came up with bookshelves and the 6 foot *2 foot wide unit that had previously been in our living room which were great for storage. The sort of match what is in there. I also located our old kitchen and an even older dining table of mums - but they were narrow and a pain to set up each time we met. PS are you getting the picture here that I hate to throw things - our garage hasn't fit our car in for about 5 years!!

The need for a table led to my very first exploration of Freecycle.org which resulted in me being GIVEN 4 lovely pine chairs and a circular table. The table was not big enough so it was relegated to the garage but the chairs are great and 4 of us managed round the 2 tables. So back to freecycle and a few goes later YUP it came up trumps = a table that will be the right size! It was battered and bruised and would have been no good as your 'best table' but idea for a scrap table. It came with 5 chairs which again were worn and damaged but I didn't need those so we took them straight to the dump. At this point I really should shout a HUGE thanks to my brother Nathan. Yes you get given the furniture BUT it is up to you to collect it. Nat stepped into the breach and helped out - yeah for kid brothers. Anyways while the table fits - to be able to move we need it a little shorter - so Alan and Doms attack it with the saw - we tidy it a little with the electric plane and we are good to go. Not having a oval end now it fits up against the wall better too.

So the point of the tale was that today was the 1st time that the 5 of us got together - and WE FIT! yup we all got in and there was room at the table. Course it did mean that I had to be really really good - I am such a spreader - about the space I take up - but the room is workable and we basically had a wonderful day.

Another day and another lesson learned. Alan had a pretty crappy time at work today - some news that he didn't really want to hear so to cheer himself up he spent time with Doms on the evening and they had a lovely time.

learn something new every day.

yup this is me doing a new Shimelle class and loving it. This is the 2nd year of the class and I love that i record every day of Sept. Doing it in 6*6 means its not too much hard work, preparing a few 'spare' pages ahead of the month and using a limited kit means that i have a chance of preparing one page each day.

We were away on holiday for the 1st 4 days which meant that I had lots of lovely photos to use. We had 2 weeks staying at our nieces caravan in Saltfleet - near Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire. The 1st we spent just Alan and I, then our daughter Sassy came for the weekend with her partner Rob. A few more days alone and then our wonderful granddaughter Beth and her Mum Claire came to stay for the last 4 days. It lead to 3 different holidays in one and it was great we had a lovely time - so much so we are looking to go back in October for a week.

My plan is to blog more often so you too will get to love September with me :O)

final Shimelle Challenge

the holiday packing is done and the car ready to go so I had a little time to spare - what would I do? well make another page and complete one more challenge of course. Its quite a scrap lift from Shimelle's page. The challenge was to start with a 7*7 square - I suppose I failed out the outset as mine is 6.6 * 7 it was the piece that I gutted from the Daintree river page. As they were on the same topic and will go opposite each other I thought it worked well

two more challenges from www.shimelle.com two more pages done for the album. The one on the right is Stanley in Hong Kong. I moved away from getting the Cairns done as I need two picture. It was working from a sketch. I adore that Shimelle is also providing example pages and a video to show how she does it. Love it!

The 2nd example was to use one of her pages with a bingo card/butterfly/yellow as inspiration. I finally used my Jim Holtz butterfly on a page (as opposed to using it to cut material and stitching it to t-shirts. I made it with scraps from a page I made in a class with Debbie

http://countryheartandhome.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-debbie-met-kirstie.html and it will eventually sit side by side with it. This is at least Cairns :) its some of the beautiful flowers that we spotted on our travels.

I am loving using all of Shimelle's challenges and its sure helping the final stages.

In between manic days at work and coming home to housework in preparation for heading out for 2 weeks (the weather has finally, well sort of, let me peg laundry out and get it dried I have managed to do two more pages for the shimelle challenge weekend. It sure is helping the pages get done in the album. You never know I might get to my year book sometime.

This challenge is all about using half a page and not over whelming the eyes with too much. A great opportunity to use the night shot of Cairns beach. I think that this will become the page header for this section.

This is a Retro challenge - any photo other than a 2011 one - not difficult when I am working on a 2010 trip and I even added the date to the top.

I am busy trying out new techniques on my scrapping - learning as I go to try to ensure that all the pages don't look the same all the way through - don't forget we are talking in the region of 250 (might be an underestimation actually we shall see) pages in 4 albums for one three week trip of a lifetime.

Only 4 sleeps now till the holiday!

more challenges done

although no where near as I meant to. And yes Jennifer this it 3 blogs in less than three days and the way I go it could be the last for a while!

This was the grid pattern and worked well with the 4 photos I had printed off about our cruise. I wonder a little if (a) by the time I worked through the other photos that I just lost track when it came to Cairns or (b) after the 100's that I had taken in Sydney I had a li

ttle camera fatigue. I didn't even seem to have a photo of the boat LOL

The challenge here was to use red, white and aqua. The light to take the picture was bad believe me that is Aqua. This, despite what I said yesterday is the last photo from Sydney and the link to the Cairns set as it is my plane boarding pass. through my album I have (will be) adding a page about the flight I just have Sydney to HongKong to do.

I got no where near as much as I intended to do - a later than planned get up and as usual I underestimated the time it would take to make the dresses for the bears. Hoping I will have chance to do at least a couple more this week but with only 6 sleeps till our holiday I have a lot to do in packing sorting etc.

This page I made as a way of expanding an earlier one. I needed a way to add the tour brochure into the album and am getting fed up of pockets so I found a A4 pocket - made a scrapbook page to the front with the tour details cut from one pamphlet and stuck on there and the brochure behind and then this will pocket will be sewn to the page protector behind it.

This was made using Shimelle's sketch. I had to amend it slightly so that I could use the New South Wales paper I had bought (if I didn't there was not other opportunity to use this paper LOL) added a couple things from our Hotel and yes we have a page. Simple you think soooooo why did this take me 2 hours?? too much chatting me thinks!

This page is my adaptation of the first challenge which was to print of some digital circles that Mary-Ann had provided - couple of problems here (1) we don't have a PC I can load it onto and more importantly and a bit of a disaster where this was concerned (2) we don't have a printer. SO using one of those punches I can no longer live without I punched my own circles and made a page. It was great fun.

I have had a very mixed day today. I was there at 9.30 for the opening of the scrapbook shop on its very last official day. It was very sad to see it so empty and the noise echoing. I did manage to pick up 3 more punches for my collection which has grown massively this week and suddenly I can't make a page without them ... just what did i do before LOL. Sue, Amanda and Rosamond joined me as we wandered and then Alan took our picture outside the store so that we can scrap the occasion in our year books. Not only will I miss having a local store to browse and pick up lovely goodies but I will totally miss the social occasions that came with it. Saturday crops with the girls, the occasional midnight friday one with all the 'famous' girls whose blogs I read religiously or just popping in and chatting with Ellen, Pat or Gill behind the counter they will all be a HUGE miss.

The nice part of the day was that Sue, Amanda and Rosamond came over for the afternoon and we scrapped and chatted. I tried to keep up with the prompts on www.shimelle.com but due to the chat I fell woefully behind. Hopefully I can find a little time tomorrow, while making Build a Bear outfits for Beth and her buddy Andrea to do some more scrapping.

The pages I did also have some significance = they mark the end of scrapping the Sydney part of my the other side of the world trip with my parents last year. So now Bangkok and Sydney done - only Cairns and Hong Kong to do. This (ok these!) scrapbooks have taken me the best part of 10 months so far and I envisage it could take up to a couple more for me to be finally satisfied.

I have been playing nice along with Shimelle's weekend crop and as I would like to be entered into the drawings its necessary to add them here. The first page was to work with one of her sketches. I love doing this and when I combined it with the colours from my yahoogroup challenge it all worked out very well. The page is from above the Hong Kong streets on our visit last year.

The second page was all about using stickers and from 2 different packs. Now me I am not really a sticker girl (unless you count Disney ones) so it took some searching and believe me there are 2 different ones on there. The butterfly is a wonderful Martha Stewart one - the blue came from goodness knows where and is heavily disguised with extra ribbons and buttons. This one is all ready for next month when I will be completing Shimelles learns something new every day. I adore this class- I tend not to follow the prompts too much but make a record of what we did that day. Its so nice to look back on.