There's more yummy Prima being given away here! Some of it may have fallen in to my basket on ebay...

Up for Anything CJ round 1

My first CJ in the 'Up for Anything CJ' that I'm hosting on UKS arrived from Lorraine and is an inspiration CJ. The sketch I chose is one from the pagemaps blog, that I was able to flip and use in the same way as I have three times already in a way that I love. And this is how I used it.

UKS Challenge January Week 3

This week's challenge was set by Sue on UKS. We had to create a layout with an old photo (you, your family, your friends, places you've lived or are meaningful to you) and tell the story of this memory. I chose a couple of photos from 1977 of my Mum and I in Holland.

Materials:

Laundry Line Collection: Dots and Wild fern paper (Indigo Mill)

Sacking

Blooms and buttons from stash

October afternoon Label stickers

Dymo junior

Another 'The Studio' challenge

No sooner had I caught up with the 1st January challenge piece on 'The Studio' than the 16th January one was posted, and boy is it a challenge! Check out the DT LOs here.

The challenge was to:
1. Take your alphas and alter them. Maybe you have a font you love but in the wrong colour – well change them! Show us what you can do!
2. Use a symmetrical page design – everything on one side should balance what’s on the other.
3. Use fabric of some kind on your page!

I used some chipboard alphas that I bought when I was in Felixstowe in the summer. All I did with them was to ink them. I had ideas about adding glitter or glossy accents but in the end I liked the mottled affect of the ink and left it at that. These two photos are when Connor put out his letter on the bird table for Robin to take to Father Christmas. To encourage Robin to come we left some bird food too. And would you believe it, Robin had whisked it off to the North Pole by the next morning AND left some food for the other birds too.

Materials:

Bo bunny 'Holiday Magic Letters'

Kaisercraft rub ons

MM glitter rub ons mini christmas combo 1

Chipboard letters

Staz on black

embroidery thread

Jenni bowlin mini alphas

October Afternoon cardstock labels and stickers 'Farm Fresh'

Green Vellum

Sacking cloth

Green ink

.

52 Walks with my camera 2/52

I forgot to post my photos on Friday but I did get out and have a walk this week. We just went to Dinton Pastures in Berkshire. I like to walk along the river Loddon there, but we couldn't get that far. I had to carry Connor and the buggy for great stretches as it was. I had a bit of a play with my macro though. Here are a few shots from the day:

Chinese Whispers CJ

And we're off. On 15th January I received two LOs for the Chinese Whispers CJ. This one is Debbie's lovely 'Happiness is...' LO. And here is my lift of it. I've tried to keep the key elements and also thought about 'Happiness is...', which this month was Connor playing in the snow.

The Studio Challenge

I found 'The Studio' some time ago but with so many other sites to visit, I kept forgetting to check the blog for the challenges each month. Now I have them as my home page and it's well worth doing that. If you've missed the 1st January challenge why not have a look?

You need to;
Make a page that includes a lot of “white space”.
The subject of your page should be something that scares you; scrap your fears
Use 3 photos in the design of your page – but don’t forget that white space
To see the original post and the DTs designs have a looksie here. You have until the 31st to upload your image for a chance to win a yummy kit from this month's sponsors.

My LO is this one:

Materials:

Sassafrass Lass patterned paper, flowers, cloud

Basic Grey red paper

Hobby craft Lace

Heidi Swapp word definitions

KI Memories Lave

Fontwerks red label

American Crafts Thickers

American Crafts 'Remarks' Script alphabet

UKS Weekly Challenge

This time last year I started Lighter Life. My mission was to lose 6 stone as quickly as possible. Soups and shakes seemed like the only way to go. I had four 'food packs', which were a soup a shake or occasionally a bar, a day for 6 months without cheating once and lost 6 stone in those 6 months. I didn't really get around to scrapping that achievement, apart from the odd photo on my monthly LO like this one from February when I'd lost 25lb.

So when this week's challenge on UKS popped up I thought it was time that I rectified the situation. The challenge was set by the Twilight Addicts. I know nothing about twilight except that I think it's about vampires and therefore I don't want to know anything. I hate vampires! But anyway their challenge was based on someone called Bella's forbidden fruits (good looking men, I think ;) ).

The points were awarded in this way:
10 points for a theme of Forbidden Fruit
10 points for using ribbon
10 points for using either blossoms or bling.

And here is my LO.

I'm so excited

At the end of last year there were lots of lots of DT calls. In the end I only applied for one, and it was 'The Studio'. If you've not looked at the website, please do. It's full of inspiration, challenges and prizes :) I'm very excited to reveal that I am going to be a part of it. Thank you to Amanda for choosing me to be part of her Design Team for the next six months. I'm very much looking forward to this.

So for those of you who've not found 'The Studio' yet, it's a challenge website with challenges every Sunday (from February). On the website Amanda says 'The philosophy behind The Studio is really to have inspiring challenges that people of all abilities will find challenging and fun, and we encourage scrappers to take an idea and push the limits.' There is also a forum where you can upload your LOs and chat to people. It's very friendly and inspirational. I look forward to seeing you over there sometime soon :)

A new year, a new CJ

Well, it's not quite a CJ actually. It was going to be and then we decided to do it unofficially. But anyway, it's a scraplift challenge called 'Chinese Whispers' so you start with a LO, lift it and email your version to the next person on the list. You get to keep your LO, and have a go at something you might not have thought of doing yourself. Genius!! I'm in two groups so I have two LOs that I started with, both being sent off today. The first is Group One and I send to Hev, the CJ organiser. My original is one from the UKS gallery by Wingus and you can see it here but only if you're not playing Chinese Whispers :) I loved this LO and the photos are wonderful. I've shared my lift of this LO before but in case you missed it it's this one;In the other group I'm sending to blah blah and I chose the Megan Klausen original (see it here!), which inspired 'my turkey lurkey layout'. I'm looking forward to seeing what the ladies do with their lifts :)

Thinking ahead

It's never too soon to get organised I always think. So when I saw these love coupon freebies at House of 3 I just couldn't resist. Fancy some for yourself? Go here :) It is only a month away after all...

Ninety Five Years Old!!

Today is my Grandad's 95th Brithday. He lives in St Albans and we went up there armed with a cake to sing Happy Birthday. I think that he enjoyed the cake! Happy Birthday Grandad :) Can feel a LO coming on...!

Snow, snow, snow!

Don't you just love this photo? I'm sure by now you all have a great collection of snow photos to use on LOs. Where do you start?!

At Indigo Mill we're having a think about where scrapping is going. There's a feeling that the true meaning of scrapbooking has gotten lost under all the celebrity and bling. Steph has some great ideas for 2010. I like to think that despite my role on DTs and publication in magazines, I still remember why I am scrapping these photos and that is to capture my memories and thoughts about certain occassions that you can't do with a photo album alone especially in the digital age when hardly any photos are actually printed out. I had a digital photo frame for Christmas and whilst I love it, there's no scribbling a couple of notes on the back of photos for prosperity anymore, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads up that there are some great things coming your way so watch this space.

New Year's Resolutions

One of my resolutions this year was to try and do the UKS weekly challenge more frequently. With that in mind I looked at this week's challenge last week. The challenge was to use Shimelle's sketch, celebration photos and ribbons.

On 15th January we'll be posting our CJs off on the start of the 'Up for Anything' CJ that I'm hosting on UKS. I'm doing a catch up/third year of Connor's journal and sending photos around with it. So my first entry in to that is based on this week's challenge. I've scrapped 'October', the month of Connor's Birthday and although it's only 8x8 I managed to get the sketch to work I think :)

Materials:
Jenni Bowlin Birthday bingo card
Ribbon from Hobbycraft
Doodlebug glitter alphas
Fontwerks label orange

Snow Days

We were well and truly snowed in in Berkshire last week. I took the opportunity on Wednesday, when my son didn't fancy going to play in the snow as it was still falling, to tidy my scrap room and to do a LO. This brought me to the conclusion that I have way too much stash, as it usually does :)

So I thought I'd do twelve competitions and give away some of my stash. On the second Friday of each month I will choose my favourite entry and send you the kit with some papers, embellishments and maybe even some alphabets in, with a monthly type theme. The next day I will publish the challenge for the new month.

The competition this month is a scraplift one. I would like you use this 'Snow Angel' layout as your basis and add a link to the comments section once you're done. Don't forget that you have until midnight (GMT) on February 12th to add your link before I choose my favourite entry. I hope that you have fun with it. I did!

Materials:
Paper Co. cardstock
Adorn it 'Cold weather collection- falling snow'
American Crafts 'Chit chat' white and 'Black tie' white
Papermania vellum from blue pack
October Afternoon lebel stickers 'farm fresh' and 'Road map' and cardstock stickers 'weathervane'
Bobble ribbon from Ifa
Snowflake buttons from stash (papermania I think)
Making Memories coloured staples
Heidi Swapp bling circles icee

And here's what I could be sending you :) Thanks for playing along x

My Turkey Lurkey Layout

At Leigh's on Monday night I successfully completed two LOs. I'm really pleased with both of them but one can't be revealed just yet. I really love this LO entitled 'My turkey lurkey layout' though :) The multiphoto LO shows the story and I've journalled around the outside to tell the story too. We decided that, since we were getting all our veg from our parents' allotment/gardens, we would order a turkey from the farm shop. So on 1st December there we were discussing turkeys with the butcher. I'm not quite sure how but we ended up with an order for a 5kg turkey that would feed 6-8 people, when it was just going to be the two of us! On Christmas Eve we duly rocked up to the farm shop to collect our turkey and found the butcher in a turkey hat (PHOTO OP-ARAMA)!!! Tony was very pleased with the whole experience and it's a lovely photo of him and the turkey in the centre of the page. On Christmas day I stuffed the turkey a la Jamie Oliver (and by that I mean with clementines and rosemary rather than actually mincin Jamie Oliver and putting him inside!!) and cooked him for the required amount of time. As I took the turkey out of the oven Tony got out the Jamie Oliver guide to carving a turkey and by the time we sat down we had one yummy, well carved turkey I can tell you. It was quite possibly the best bit of turkey I've ever tasted. In fact, there's no competition- it definitely was. And I made a thank you card for the farm shop too. The supplies for these are mostly thanks to Leigh it has to be said. Oh, and the LO is a scraplift of a LO I saw on the sassafras blog by the very talented Megan Klauer. Great inspiration!

Materials:
Prima alphas green
White clay alphas
American Crafts Thickers 'Daiquiri' vinyl green
Doodlebug hopscoth ladybug
Bazill cardstock
Sassafras brads 'b is for bug'
Kaiser scrapbook rub on stiching
Basic Grey fibers 'Colour me silly'
Adorn it 'Christmas chatter words' (pp)
Paper adventures 'Snow dotty red' (pp)
fontwerks red label
Junkitz xmas labelz

52 walks with my camera 1/52

There have been some lovely things to take photos of over the last few weeks with the snow. I really enjoy taking photos of the outdoors so the '52 walks with my camera' challenge really takes my fancy. My plan is to upload a photo on Friday every week. So here's Week 1 of 52. I decided to stay local to start off with and that was just as well seeing as how much it snowed on Tuesday night. I knew that the morning would be magical though and I couldn't wait to get wrapped up, put Connor on the sledge and plod around to my hearts content, snap, snapping away. Here is my favourite photo of the day.

And the short list :)

What's on your work desk?

Okay, so it's supposed to be 'WOYWW' with the final 'W' being for Wednesday but by the time I caught up on my blog hopping yesterday it was too late. Anyway, to see the original idea and lots of other people's WOYWW photos have a look at Julia's blog here.

So, my workspace. I actually had a tidy up yesterday morning before I sat down for an hour's play so it's not looking too untidy, but I know that it's not about that. I have my blooms and embellishments and buttons of old all nicely organised on my shelves with ribbons carefully rolled around card and stored in embroidery thread boxes with another one like that for brads etc, all colour coordinated. Underneath that are all my alphas hanging up. In front of them is my big box of embellishments from Feb last year onwards. These are the ones I use all the time and flick through almost daily :) The papers and scraps are from the LO I did yesterday called 'Snow Angel' that will be blogged on Sunday. I have double sided tape and glossy accents which are my sticky things of choice. Next to my desk on one side I have my Papermania bag that has my stickers (lots of October Afternoon, rubber stamps and rub ons in it, and on the other side are my drawers and really useful box of papers and cardstock. Phew! What a lot of stash. So, come on- what's in your workspace?

Prima giveaway!

I'm sure that like me Prima is up there in your must see sites anytime near a CHA. They've been doing lots of sneek peeks recently and boy are there some must haves in the new season's products. Today they are giving away some yummy new flowers here.I'm loving the Say it in Pearls and satin (esp the green and grey ones), the calcutta flowers and leaves and the umbrella paper range- a lot of fun and nice and bright and vibrant.


Over at the Indigo Mill Shop there is up to 65% off and EVERYTHING is reduced! Pick up a bargain or two now :)

Now then, out in to the snow I go for the first of my '52 walks with my camera'.

5th January

Today I'm sharing the last of the album LOs and the album itself. I think that they both liked it. I know that I enjoyed making it.