Blog Hopping! (or in my case 'Blog Hop-eless!!!)

Well this is new to me!

Karen over at memycameraeye has nominated me to take part in a Blog Hop!  I am not sure I can do it justice, but here goes!  The idea is that I answer four questions and then nominate three more bloggers to carry on next week!  I think ideally it is about people who craft but since my scrapbooking and crafting is on a sabbatical at the moment I will try and let you know where I am now and how things were just as I left them!

In case you are coming to me afresh then this is me:  mum of five grown up children (yes Kate, 17 is meant to be grown up!)  Three live at home full-time and one is away working 8 months a year, whilst the last one is married with three gorgeous girls and lives not too far away.
We run a small but busy manufacturing works from behind our house and life is busy, working in our office 5 or sometimes 6 days a week and juggling the wants and desires of family life as well.

I was an avid scrapbooker, especially with the Just Scrapbooking crew over at Newlyn for five years.  I started this just as my Mum went into residential care; she had dementia and was losing a lot of memories and as a response scrapbooking helped me put down on paper some of my own thoughts and memories of my childhood.

About a year ago, life got a little easier, for a number of reasons, our children getting older and more independent mainly, and my husband and I have managed to get out and about for weekends a lot more. The house had a kitchen extension put on (long awaited) and the house was in turmoil most of last year. Also a new baby joined her two sisters to make three grand children under 5 years of age so our free time.. and space to scrapbook was hard to find.. though to be fair the photographic opportunities still pile up! ;-).

Maybe, just maybe , I also am feeling a little less bereft after several years of our whole family really feeling the gap in our lives our Mums left when they died 5 and 6 years ago. Life goes on, memories get easier and you feel less need to be 'in touch' with the old times. Children become adults, children have children, and make new memories of their own and you all move on in the cycle of life.. and it's true, you have to live for now.

Anyway, suffice to say.. life is good, busy but good..  

What am I working on now?

My scrap desk / mess!

Life is so busy with our family, our house and our business that my scrapbooking in 2014 means an untidy pile of things in a specially allocated room.. which also houses the baby's travel cot for when she comes to stay!

I still take pictures with an idea of using them in a layout.. sometime.. later.. when I am not so busy..

I have several projects in limbo with my scrapbooking. An 18th birthday album for Jordan (who turned 19 last December) and an ongoing project to plot Zac's course through his Navigation Officer training with Princess Cruises.  
I also need to organise the albums I have. I used to do annual ones so I could see the progression of my ability and style but then I started an album for Lisa's girls and lost the flow.

How does my work differ from others of it's kind?
I think I have a kind of busy but 'organised' style, even if I try to get away from it. I tend to labour over a technique on one page and then compliment it with a speed scrapped page to lay beside it as a double page layout.. which I love.. did I say that? ;-)

You can see it on this beach layout...we were working with Monopoly pieces and I used the Monopoly Cornwall edition, the place 'Porthcurno'  Lots of layering and I love the sealife stamps.

This is the more formal second page which I use to allow me to include the loads of extra pictures I want.. because making the memory is what it's all about for me.

Why do I create what I do?
So that when I am older and greyer I can pore over the albums and show my kids and grandkids the days we had. I already enjoyed sharing an 18 year album I did for Lisa with her girls..even for me it was hard to look at the little girl doing crazy things and remember that it is the Mum and not one of the children I am looking at....

How does my writing / creative process work?...
I usually get a technique from our class leader and then try and match with my photos.. or develop an  idea from that.rarely I use sketches but when I do I think I should so it more often as I like the effect!
I think when I get back into it I shall look back and find layouts I really liked and use the formats again.

Here are three people you should enjoy reading about ..(so far I am not sure if I can get them to join in as it seems several have already taken part in this BlogHopping)

here are links to my favourite reads anyway:

Jen.. who I met through 365+1 blog

Janice .. who I met at a JustScrapbooking course way back in 2008

Linda.. my original scrapbook Inspiration..

Where do I begin...a month of days!

So I think I have a bunch of photos to tell the story of the past month! I will make a few notes but let the pics speak for themselves.. I have sadly lost momentum with the challenges so I will include the view pictures I have tried to take , my saving grace I think!

Since my last note we have spent seven nights in America visiting with Col's Uncle Bill and Deborah and seeing two of Col's first cousins who he only gets to see every ten or fifteen years.

Add caption

 We had a lovely afternoon sailing on the Potomac (the river where that plane crashed in icey water about 30 yrs ago) We loved seeing planes landing at National airport right over our heads..

It was great weather and we got in the pool a few times, absolutely just what we needed, except we know now that summer is gone for good!  

The last few days we spent with friends about an hour from Col's Uncle so it worked out well..we ate and drank so often I felt quite full for a week when we got home!  The hospitality was fab and it was amazing to spend time with Michele who is an encyclopaedia of food and I think all things Italy! Their family came by too so we got to meet all the new additions to the family.

Cake!

Our Zac arrived at Heathrow about an hour after we did on 22nd September, it was just great to see him ad worked out just right for travelling home together.  He goes away again this Friday, that month has really flown by; no big parties as weather and house / building works have not leant themselves to a proper 'do' but he has seen family and friends, chilled and had nights out and we have just enjoyed having him about..

Found this little video.. Zac loves technology!

Boating with Pops and pal Liam

And here are a few of my October views..the window view has Col& Zac sitting just here the window use to be!

October .. where the window view was!

Not forgetting Lyla.. so funny x

Porthcurno Oct view

A different sofa view, the other one, this time Lilly and Annabelle!

365/309 Paper and A dark & stormy night...

..for Story Telling Sunday over at Sian's place! here!

My Mum used to tell us stories about a fictional character called Jan Stone, I am sure there was one in everyone's village folklore, but as a kid I was sure that someone really knew him.  

He wasn't blessed with being at the front of the queue when they were handing out the intelligence and poeple loved to tell stories about him.... the one I remember best was when Jan was round at his girlfriend's house, probably somewhere St. Buryan I believed, and in came some real bad weather.  

'Jan,' said his girlfriend's mother, 'the weather has come in bad and it won't be very good walking the three miles home on a night like this, so you had better stay here, we can make up a bed in the living room.'

'Proper job' said Jan  and settled down for the evening.  After supper about ten o'clock Jan got up and went and put on his coat.  'Where you off to Jan?' asked his girlfriend's mother...

'Well if I aren't goin' home I'd best nip and let Mother know as she will be expecting me'

It's kind of a nice story not so easily understood in today's age of mobile phones and the internet..

Paper: altered paper and added paper to be fair.. some images of the part finished altered book I worked on yesterday.  I plan to add images of underwater with the kids on holiday..but the plates and drawings are lovely themselves!

This first one has a backing paper from a Tim Holtz stamp and my favourite core papers added!
Yes, even the packaging of his stuff is good and the whole project would be dead but for Distressed Ink!

This right hand page was some layering I did but didn't like enough for the front cover.. thanks to Margaret for the hessian, Pat for the ribbon.. oh and my knicker drawer for the lace!

.. and I have caught up, two blogs below, but not very newsy.. promise to 'do better'!! xxxx

PS Looking forward to our challenge next year my bloggers!  xxxx

365/267 on my desk

Oops almost forgot to post!
Not sure of the quality of this as it was done from my phone last eve (it is now Monday, but I will date this Sunday..;-$)

I have grouped some of the more funny things together.. my new Crop-a-Dile, two calendars I use for layouts, Betty Boop and Meerkats, my original first tool: a Stamping-Up tag maker and a note from when Lyla was born .. the midwife left this in the car so they wouldn't get towed away!!.. note that the curtains are shut Lynne.. oh for some opaque blinds! xx

365/246 Ribbons

Quiet Sunday, we went out to buy a new oven, replaced a wall mounted one with another the same size, just newer and nicer.. the old one is close to croaking, the fan is very laboured and so we bought one to avoid a major crisis one day in the middle of a meal!  

It does commit us to a wall mounted one in the next kitchen but that's a while yet!  Colin teased me that we will get the extension done, but he knows to talk about it with me a bit every now & then so I am kept happy!  But we also looked at kitchens and tiles, so that was more than a pacifier...wasn't it?

These are some of my ribbons.. I have a couple of boxes of them, one is a Sanctuary Spa gift box and I love the box too!!  The featured ribbon is from a pair of Next jeans, waiting for the right layout to use those words!!

365/245 Basket.

Well I have several baskets I could photograph but they are not that photogenic, mainly storage baskets in bedroom and bathroom, not quite the presentation of the Body Shop really! At Christmas I have several with Pot Pourri and if I am honest a couple of those still hang about but Lilly likes to play with it, it's her 'Pirate Treasure 'Me Hearties!!'

Anyway I had a great day! Up early as I can be when it's for scrapbooking.. funny, any other day, weekday or weekend I am moaning and groaning, staying there too long and getting a headache for my sins.. but when it's scrapbooking I'm up and out!!

It was a revisit to embossing world today and I travelled light and took along a few pictures but lots of tags to play with!  Anyways,there is always so much else to chat about and catch up on, you can't expect to do that much do you!  These are a few of the bits I made..all I need now is to get scrapping and use them!

I also bought these little gems! I liked them when I saw the box, let alone when I opened them and saw how big and comfortable to use they were!  I am what you may call an alpha-queen (well a worse word entered my head but I said it quietly to myself and settled for queen!... there, I told you I was growing up, surely does it!) , I love all kinds of alphabets and even stretch to writing journals and printing on the computer when I can be arsed, but these suit me perfect.. they allow you to be not quite perfect at which point they look just right! 

(did you see the tenuous link just there...?)

Here's a snippet of a layout I did today using them for the first time, look at all that inking and embossed stuff in the background!

365/241 Textured.

I like textured things for my scrapbook pages. I am going to Newlyn for Just Scrapbooking on Saturday and we are revisiting different embossing techniques, all that lovely melted metal effect and everything.  For this picture I only had to nip upstairs and look in a few little boxes for 'some of my favourite things!'

...embossed Ten Second Studio metal, glitter cardstock (I try to sneak it into every layout!). Cuttlebugged cored'ination papers, feathers, enamelled dominos and some weathered acrylic painted letters.. oh and a snippet of glittery acetate which I never seem to use but always want to!

365/218 Happiness.

....is looking back several times today on the scrapbooking day I had yesterday.  Linda made a spectacular pop-up layout but I was a little short on a project which is heavy on the photos, so I went for catch up and just enjoyed playing with papers and catching up on the chat.


Funny really, the layout is of some pictures taken by JB with her super fast camera at Ross' birthday last year.. except he's not in them!  I loved the series with Lilly telling some convoluted story or other (mmm, wonder where she gets that from..I even noticed my brother does the same.. and my auntie used to as well..!) and her Mum looking on so proud, then big cuddles.  And just to prove Lyla existed too, at that point very much in awe of and in the shadow of her big sis, a lovely shot with Auntie Kate.  Amazing how they all grow in personality and style in a year!

I found some fairytale themed adhesive ribbon at Crafty Corner in Penzance and it suited lovely.
I felt I was being a little lazy so I stamped my Queen of Hearts e-bay buy (I thought it was going to be huge.. Read the blurb Kathi!!), added some music, nice Tim Holtz paper cuttings and some Prima flowers I had stowed away. I showed Lilly and she was dead set on having the blingy bits for herself last night but I won!

PS. and as for today.. lunch out with my man no tea to cook, some blogging, a doze on the sofa and Andy Murray's triumph.. what more could we ask for?

365/122 Grunge

..mmm, this word caused some discussion in my circles. The guys in the office thought it was dirt, grime, the kind of dirt in a rigged lid which has never been cleaned.. lovely!

My first thought was scrapbooker's 'grunge' as in distressed vintage beaten-up kind of look, but on delving deeper I discovered the official definitons relating to music types and ultimately the 'look' which accompanies it... one of the kids suggested I photograph JB in her arty torn jeans mode, but that is way too 'clean', so  Kate suggested I take a shot of Ross vegged out on the sofa, but again maybe not!

My photo is an example of a grunged up clock mask, texture pasted and then inked. Alongside some nice grungey buttons I chopped off my old grungey linen trousers from a couple of years back, so plenty to choose from!

365/118 Art

Not sure my scrap pages count as art but it's probably the closest thing you'll get.. it may not be painting as such, but I like  the glimmermist on otherwise plain cardstock in the first page and the 10 second studio metalwork on the second.

'

The Grower'

Layout inspired by a choc cake box from Tesco!

Jordan is the artist in our family and has done some lovely original stuff..she's hoping to do a year at Falmouth after 'A's so she can see if there's something she doesn't yet know she is good at or loves! (hoping she won't ask me to take this off when she gets in!)..Major OOOppps there.. it isn't her pic!!

but this is..

365/78 Hobby.

I never really had a hobby til the children were grown up and I guess until after Mum moved from here to the home before she died. Never 'Sporty Spice' and a dalliance or two with knitting, crochet and the odd intention to make a felt parrot, interspaced with a bit of card making and taking the usual family photos but never a full on 'hobby' which I think is something you do regularly and take time out to do..

I guess having the children and justgetting through 20 years of family life was pretty hectic in itself and I always did that 'guilt' thing if I took time out for myself.. amazingly it was always a self inflicted guilt, I think some of the family even wished I'd go out and do something... give them all a break!



Recent layout with Ten Sec Studio

Then for Lisa's 18th I decided to make a scrapbook of her travels through life and knocked up a scrapbook from a complete 'kit' in about four days.. you know, no matted pictures, no inks, no special effects or journalling to speak of.. but it went down well and I planned my next project , an album for Col's folks Golden Wedding. Well it was almost biting off more than I could chew, but I did it and it is still my pride and joy, I was a pretty smug puppy seeing the interest and effect it had on the family and friends and that it was for all our family's history made it even more special.  

I went to some classes with Linda at Just Scrapbooking and I was /am hooked. The group are lovely and I am so happy to have them as friends, in fact if they weren't friends I'm not sure who would be!       Then I started blogging to complement the layouts and once again to write down the mundane stuff, just in case, one day, when the kids are all grown up, I start to forget and need to look up a time and a place..and oh, a whole new bunch of 'friends' I have not met yet!

Yesterday I bought some stock of scrap stuff (I have way too much stuff for the amount of layouts I do, but I understand that makes me true to type?) including an alpha set (my mild addiction) and amazingly JB had ordered and bought the same set online for my pressie today.. but as I say, you can never have too many alphas, there's always that extra 'E' you need! 

So, scrapbooker, blogger... and they say in the office that my Mastermind subject would be.. Zac...!..who by the way is doing good, been on excursions in Mexico (snorkelling and horse riding) and Hawaii (volcanos with snow at 14,000 feet!)

Lovely Mother's Day, time with all five and smiles all round.. though some of my lovliest blogger friends are not having such an easy time of things and it doesn't hurt to be reminded on a good day that we must enjoy and appreciate the comfort as with family there is always another rollercoaster ride somewhere lurking..! xxx

365/53 Ordinary....not!

Well the day couldn't end in a less ordinary way and that's fine by me! All the men in the house are away, Zac in Mexico somewhere this week,(well to be fair, he's at sea off the Mexico coast, with glimpses of cruise ports as a bonus!?)  Ross has gone out on his first trip with Colin, visiting customers and getting to know the M4! His dad is out at bowls and Kate out for tea, leaving me and JB at home.


Not wanting much tea and having some homework to do Jordan suggested I do some scrapbooking... now my kit is still in the kitchen hidden under the table after Saturday and my scrap room is a pit, (really needing an OCD son to come sort it again) but I was persuaded.. and got to do about three hours.. I used some of the great bits I bought on Saturday, fell head over heels in love with the Charcoal Inka Gold and did some crackled letters in prep for an album I have in mind...all very satisfying... tea never got made, we made do with bread and cheese and cups of tea, the fire never got lit and the TV not turned on...couldn't have been 'less ordinary' .... but hey, if our plan works it won't be the last time..

PS the charcoal silver is less shiny than it looks.. not too chavvy at all!

.. and as I wrote this two more interesting less than ordinary things have been discovered this very evening..... I have one of my pink orchids flowering (first as a gift a year ago when our 2nd g'daughter was born, it flowered til November).. and Richard Armitage (aka Guy of Gisborn and aka Luca in Spooks...swoon) is in the Hobbit.. sadly with a nose and beard, but the thought was good!..ahhh, and so to bed!

365/37 Packaging.

Easy one this, I love collecting nice pieces of packaging, trouble is you have to eat the chocolates or use the smelly goodies first... oh what a shame!

Years ago we did a scrap challenge with packaging as inspiration and I used a Tesco chocolate cake box, perfect frame!


These are a few examples, inner of a GU dessert box, SuperDry bag, several boxes of chocs and my favourite Sanctuary Spa .. can you tell which is which?


Okay, I can't put it off any longer.. bureau to tidy so I can bring back in the two plastic boxes of pre-Christmas junk! x

Devil is in the detail..

..or so they say.. and it's a devil of a job getting the tablet equivalent of the right click to come easy!  But hey, whatever..the manual is a pdf so you have to read it, then exit it to see what it means in practice..I know, maybe you should get the manual up on your pc so you can read it whilst playing with the tablet... yeah, right!

Oh, where was I? Ah, yes, detail...I used up some of the clothes labels I have had stashed away and they worked into this surf layout perfectly. I have been promising Ross his album now for a while, but the more I scrap the longer each page takes...
and don't you just love the cloud stamp..x

One day in summer..

 This is a layout I just realised I hadn't blogged. I always liked this batch of photos and they eventually gave me an idea for a layout using the CosnmoCricket waves papers. .  I cut waves out of two sheets and then swapped a piece to mix the blue waves with the coloured ones and give it a double layout which kind of matched.

The Shore card was a bingo card I had from Linda, not sure what Bingo cards are all about really as scrapbooking goes, so I covered the numbers with the photo. 

Lisa laughed when she saw the pictures.. 'look at Dad's shoes, he hasn't done much beaching in those'.... and look at how he's attacking the sandcastle making.. not much relaxing on the beach for this construction engineeer! Yes, we never did go beaching much and it was always off season and pretty much us on a mission when we did!

Nice little spot for my beach stamp, coloured with my ProMarkers.  And hey, who'd have thought it then that Ross would become such an avid bodyboarder..

  

The passing of time.

When the family's new baby entered the world on her Auntie Kate's 14th birthday it was only a matter of time before the comparisons began..well for me anyway. And then there was the photographs, I found two sets of great photos, both taken on 7th March, only 14 years apart:

A few evenings with 'easy tea' and from 8pm playing with my new Fiskars embossing sheets, my so far rather under-used Cuttlebug and some of my favourite Core d'Inations core papers and new favourite Distressed Inks has resulted in these pages...

and here's some detail from the 1997 page..ooops, just some ribbon to add  on the tags xx