A good day ...

at the Paper Dolls crop. I went to a new crop (for me) in Nuneaton today and had a lovely relaxing day in the good company of fellow crafters. Here's what I did - firstly the title page for the My Freedom album that I started in the summer. I had intended to do another DLO aswell but it wasn't working right, so I'll leave that for another day.

LO from DD's 5th Birthday party back in January
And finally 3 LOs for my sister's birthday album (which I am woefully behind with - it's her birthday next month eeekkk!!!)

(Journalling to be added)
All in all a productive day I think!

Still being productive ..

Day 7, 8 & 9 (Megan now has clothes!)
Doing Learn Something New Every Day has really inspired me to get up to date with other projects I've fallen behind in. So I've done a couple of LOs fo My Freedom - Creativity and Aspiration. I'm following Shimelle's designs, they're not my usual style, but I do like how the album is coming together. I think I've got 2 more DLOs to do and opening/closing pages.

Had a couple of lovely packages in the post.
The first one is my QTea kit - this is a monthly embellishment kit that I've bought as a one off. This one is called Once Upon A Time, and I think it will be lovely for the girls LOs.
This one is from The LilyPad Lounge and is a selection of vintage paper, school and kids ephemera. Should keep me busy!

Something a bit different ....

It's the start of the UKS Summer Sultry Stash Bash - a complete surprise when I logged on this morning. Today's idea was to make a minibook, which suited me fine as I've felt over the last few days that I wanted to make something other than a LO. So here's my offering, have used MME Out & About 1 papers, which I've had for a while and really like, but wasn't sure how to use on a LO, so suited this little book perfectly.




I've still to add photos and embellies, I have a person's birthday present in mind, so I'll have to pull some photos together for it.

In other news, today's My Freedom blog prompt asked if I prefered to scrap with a single photo or a group of photos. Well, I find it easier to scrap with one photo, I think it opens up the design more, but sometimes you need more than one photo to tell the story. I often turn to a sketch to help me layout multiple photos. Here's some of my recent favourites.

It's the final week of My Freedom, that was over quickly! I'm about a week behind, but am going to my first ever all day crop on Saturday so plan to do a bit of a catch up then.

Some frivolity ...

This is the LO that contrasts with yesterday's Responsibility LO. I had fun choosing different colours, papers, doodling and embellishments to make them feel different.


I hadn't mentioned that this weeks LOs are on Personality and Creativity. Today's blog prompt is:

What do you do when don’t feel very creative or feel like you’ve hit a creative block? Share a few tips that help you get back to yourself.

• Firstly, for me if it's not happening then I don't try to force it. I leave my desk alone and come back in a couple of days.
• I scraplift - other from someone in my Inspiration list or lately I've been scraplifting from my own LOs that I really like.
• Use PageMaps or a sketch. This is particulary true if I'm scrapping more than one photo and I'm trying to arrange them on the page.
• Look through my endless pile of magazines and books.
  

And then the rain came ...

Sorry for the absence, I was camping in Wales last week, had such a lovely time with the girls, my Stepmum, sister, some other mums and daughters. The weather was perfect for camping - dry and not too hot! Since then I haven't felt like doing much, but I did allow myself some time on Saturday to do a few LOs.

Firstly, my Work LO from the My Freedom Class. The journalling is written like a script, with the characters beings Me, Them and Him. Took me a while to get into it, but then I quite enjoyed writing in that style.


The next two LOs are for my sister's album using some of my Scarlet Lime kits up. The first picture is from her 9th Birthday Party, and the second is with my Stepmum and I'm leaving her to do the journalling. The colours are more muted in real life.


Going back to My Freedom, I haven't really been keeping up with the blogging prompts, but this week's are as follows:

Monday - Tell your blog readers about someone who has been a creative influence in your life -- a crafty mum, aunt or grandparent, an influential school teacher or a friend who brought out your creative side, perhaps.

Without a doubt that would be my mum - she had the skills to be a dressmaker, but sadly didn't fulfil her dream with that. She was always sewing clothes for us, knitting, crocheting, was a great cook. She taught me how to use a sewing machine (with a few teenage arguments about it along the way), and I'm sure if she was still alive she would share my passion for scrapbooking.

Tuesday - What's your favourite reading material? Like the kind of favourite that you would take to read if you had to be cut off from the rest of the world for years and years?

Would have to be the Classics - Jane Austen, in particular, I can read and reread those sort of books over and over.

Today - Who was your personal favourite teeny-bopper pin-up? Share a story about that dreamboat or another happy teenage memory with your readers.

My first I suppose was John Taylor from Duran Duran. From there I moved onto Michael Praed, who played Robin Hood in TV in the Eighties. Hmm, I must have liked men with long hair - I don't now! I can't say that I really used to swoon over them, I think I had a couple of posters up, but that was about it!

The End of a Beginning ...

DD had her last day in Reception today, and I felt almost as emotional as I did on her first day at school. She has grown so much over the last year both in confidence and size. Here's a picture of her first day and one from today (excuse the funny face she's pulling in the one from today!)

Spent the morning doing one of this week's LO for My Freedom. I didn't do the picture taking and journalling prompts earlier this week, I just decided to jump straight in and pull it all together in one go.


I thought I'd share one of the pictures from the LO. DH took this photo of the Taj Mahal in 1997 and I think it's just awesome. We went at sunset one day but DH decided to get up at dawn the following moring to go before the crowds arrived and the light was luminous (I was a bit lazy and stayed in bed!)

India is my most favourite country I've travel to, the colours are so vibrant, the cities noisy, the countryside peaceful, the architecture amazing and the food out of this world! I hope that when the girls are old enough to appreciate it, we will take another trip.

**Happy Birthday to ME!**

Yes, today's my birthday and I luurrvvve birthdays! Although today felt a bit strange as I've spent a bit of the day on my own - DDs' were at school and nursery and DH working. Normally DH would take the day off work and we would all spend it together, but with DD1 at school now we thought we'd go out for tea instead. I've had some lovely presents including my 1st Momji dolls, aren't they cute? One of them is called 'Sister' and the other is 'Kitty'. I can definitely feel a collection coming on!

Shimelle's blog prompt for 'My Freedom' today was completely appropriate as it was to share an old and current photo and tell a little of what has changed. So here's a picture from my birthday last year and one from today.

What's changed in the last year? Well -

DD1 started school, a huge milestone for all of us

I discovered scrapbooking, which I just love

I got a small part time job (which largely funds the scrapbooking!)

I started blogging

DH started a MBA which has had quite an impact on quality family time

A few more wrinkles!!!

It'll be interesting to see how the next year goes.

Time travel anyone?

Today's blog prompt was if you could travel in time for just one day, where would you go and what would you do? My first thought was back to one of the wonderful places DH & I visited before kids - maybe Jaipur, Bangkok or the Great Barrier Reef. My second thought was to time zone shift to Australia so that I could give my little brother a big hug, he's having some personal problems and trying to comfort someone on the telephone just doesn't work. But really I would travel back to a day in the two weeks between my daughter being born and my mum passing away, so that my mum could have met and held her grandaughter (we lived in different towns) and I could have told her how much we love her. Mum, I miss you xx

On a happier note, I've been quite productive today and done 2 LOs for my little sister, I'm pleased with the progress I'm making with her album.

Time? Hmmm ....

That's the first topic for Shimelle's My Freedom class, along with 'Travel', both of which seem to rule my day, otherwise known as the School Run! Today was picture taking day, and here's my favourite - last years birthday present (only 1 week to go till my next!)

Time is something I feel very conscious of at the moment with the school holidays looming. That essentially means less 'me time' which equals less 'scrapping time'. Although one of Shimelle's mantra's is that 'there's no stress in scrapbooking', I do desperately want to keep on top of the girl's A-Z albums this year and make time for my little sister's birthday album, so I am stressing (just a little bit). Anyway have managed to do another page for each of the girl's albums, and will try and do some more tonight.

I'm back .. plus a new challenge ..

Did you miss me?! Had a lovely time in Majorca apart from the lousy journey there - our flight was delayed by 5.5 hours - as the plane taxied to the runway it HIT another plane! How is that possible???? This happened at 10pm, so it meant we didn't take off until 3.30am the following morning, not great when you are travelling with a 5 & 3 year old. The following day saw DH with a sickness bug and the rest of us with mild tummy bugs, so it took a few days before we could really enjoy ourselves, which was mainly ...


... sitting on the beach eating ice creams!

Before I went away I signed up for this. I'm a sucker for Shimelle's classes (even though I didn't finish the last one). It runs for 5 weeks and comprises of photo taking, journaling and 2 DLOs a week. Starts tomorrow - yeah!

Finally, the lovely Paige has awarded me this:
When my head is back in the land of the living I'll have a think of who to pass it on to.