A well travelled stash!

Have had this page in mind ever since we took this great pic of our Lilly one Saturday afternoon in town!

The pinks and browns gave the photo a real coffee and cream feel and Linda would be proud of all the features I have used :

• chalks,
• buttons, (well, one!)
• recycled packaging (pink bag with flower cut-out was a pressie from my pal Naomi), and labels (from Costa of course),
• ribbons (the brown is my first stash gift from Pat on my first day at Just Scrapbooking...it came all the way from a wedding in Australia)
• ... and my favourite sparkley glitter paper behind,which I have managed to use most months since Christmas !

April in Paris...

You know how men always buy you something brilliant for Christmas when all you have bought them is a(nother) new navy jumper and a book or two?

Well last Christmas I was determined to surprise Col for once, to buy him something unexpected and to say thanks for all his love and care over the past year... so I booked us flights to Paris for this weekend..the weekend of our 17th Wedding Anniversary... yes, I know it's not a special year but I decided that the best way to get a break these days is to 'book it!.. and half the enjoyment is the looking forward to it.

(I just looked it up and Modern folklore offers 'Furniture' as the 17th anniversary gift theme...well the French do have a lot of it... and bed is a piece of furniture and what better place to be in Paris on votre anniversaire!)

So after a little debate last week about whether or not we would actually be able to go, (Col's mum was not so well) off we set, early from Exeter on Thursday morning, three lovely days together.... eating, drinking, taking in the sights, boat trips and sooo much walking,...then home this morning Sunday... wow, the time went fast!

We stayed at a lovely hotel, the Garden Elysee off Rue Kleber, a stone's throw from the Champs Elysee and the Eiffel Tower. The breakfast was just great and the staff really friendly. I am soo rubbish at speaking French, I understand lot of what I read and remember quite a bit from my failed 'O' level but I am so typically English and bail out as soon as I know the person I am speaking to will understand my Franglais! And as for Col, he practiced what he preached to Kate and interspaced most smiles with a 'Bonjour' or a 'Pour Favor' to wind me up when only I was in cringing earshot!

(Loyal to the last though, he's telling everyone how great I was!)

Took some great little pics, always scrapping in mind, and thought I should add a few here in case the pages are a while in coming...

Just a quickie!

The rice pudding was legend....'just like Mummy used to make!'

I even used extra rice and it worked out just fine, had some for breakfast yesterday just to be sure! And I got the dish to eat the last of the chewy stuff last night, but it's only a matter of time before the secret is out and a fight ensues for the dish next time... little Lilly is almost 9 months now and she's a fan, so perhaps Nanny has started something!

And my other bit of news, dear Linda at Just Scrapbooking has added my blog to her website, I am so proud... have a look at her site at http://www.justscrapbooking.co.uk/

I am so glad I met Linda last year, just as she was starting her group in Newlyn. The timing was perfect, it was such a difficult year and this year is having it's moments too, so having something of my own to do, the scrapbooking, has been really important for giving me time to relax as well as the opportunity to preserve some seemingly unimportant but otherwise forever lost thoughts and memories.......

Speedblogging!

Just had to post a couple of things...had a busy evening and wanted to make a note of some moments which will go un-noticed if I don't write about them here...Quote of the day...Sooooo good.. for sooo many of us..take a minute and see if it's you, and if so, get out of the box you are in, be you, and relax a little!

'Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.'

So I made sure I relaxed a little this evening and finished my Sandbar Sunset pages from the weekend. We used Coredination papers and I had it in my head to use them to replicate the sunset in this great pic of Col and Kate.

Not so sure they are my best pages ever, probably because they are more subtle (than me) than usual! It was good though as I was able to use my new heat gun.... sad but true, my chosen gift for Mothering Sunday!

Oh, and the other bit of news.. I am turning into my Mum.. I made rice pudding this evening, it looks fab, will report on taste tomorrow.. hopefully it will set nicely and be almost slice-able!

Dad and I used to fight over who got to eat the chewy sweet and milky bit from the edge, so I wonder which one of the kids will be me? (I did make it in a pyrex dish, maybe it should have been metal??.. watch this space!)

Flower-licious!

Went to our monthly scrap session at Newlyn at the weekend, it was soooo good, after a scrapping famine for me....it's just really nice to be with other people doing the same thing, and seeing how we all end up with different end results.

The idea this week was to use all those flowers we seem to have accumulated... flowers, ah, that's good I thought cos I took some great flower pics on holiday. Then I started to wonder if it was okay to bling up with flowers even if the pic was of a flower (are you following this?)



Anyway, this is the result, I chose a distressed looking but bright yellow sunny page, chalked some hibiscus and butterfly stencils on and then added a felt border (hibiscus again) and the flowers. Linda had lots of glittery bits which I was desperate to incorporate (just because they were there.. as you do with chocolate... eat it, just because it is there!)... and I used them as a quiet base beneath the flowers, which looked just great once I'd added the Glossy Accents.

Loved it, great day, so satisfying! .. the other pages are still in progress.. but hopeful they will be complete this week.

Mr. Happy

Just in case you are following this..or not..I thought I'd add this photo of one of the inquisitive fish we encountered when we were on holiday. The channels are created to let snorkellers get out over the reef without damaging the coral, they are quite barren and have a base of sand and coral often just deep enough to drag ourselves along (thanks Col for making us wear gloves!)

Zac headed off first , followed by Jordan and me, (Col and Kate still trying to adjust her snorkel / mask / gloves / fins..whatever!) and when you get to the opening it's like arriving in the Secret Garden, deep, sunny, a blanket of corals and fish everywhere like you are swimming in a sweet shop. One particular day Jordan mentioned she had been met by this huge fish as we each reached the end of the channel...and Zac said 'Oh, so you met Mr Happy'. He later said that he gave us a really obnoxious look..good one Zac.

Later the same day we found ourselves snorkelling through an area with 9 or 10 sharks, I'm sure they were circling us (!), but I guess if they were hungry they'd have not be so relaxed looking! Maybe we were in their kitchen? I have video to prove it and will see if I can attch that later but in the meantime........................>>>

Preserve the Quote!

...today's quote which has popped up, I liked it and didn't want it to be lost tomorrow ..

The art of mothering is to teach the art of living to children.

Elain Heffner

.. and how nice to post a picture I hadn't seen before, and of the three youngest all having fun together.. at no-ones expense for once! Kids eh!

Polish wedding.

Last August Colin and I and some of our friends were lucky enough to travel to Poland for the wedding of our friend Pawel and his wife Agnes. It was a wonderful weekend (barring the RyanAir landings, both of which seemed to happen very suddenly and with an element of hand-brake turn!) and the best (and longest) wedding we can remember.

Pawel and Agnes had been together for ten years and were the last of their friends to tie the knot, so they were sure of a good send-off...one of our resounding memories is of both fathers revisiting the tables many many times to replenish the vodka stock... and not only the English were victims! Food was in great abundance and the hospitality enormous, and despite our lack of Polish words we managed to have huge laughs and feel genuinely part to the celebrations.

The next day we got up late and at lunchtime did the same again.. lucky for us that Colin and I perfected the art of drinking sparkling vodka...the hard stuff laced with mineral water...whilst Simon kept the English end up and did us all proud with toasts to Dubrovnik.. or was it Vladivostock!?, but we all stopped short of the requested rendition of Yellow Submarine, which incidentally was thought to be the most English song the Polish could think of...what would be our English song then??

Some things about weddings seem to be the same the world over and the cutting of the cake was just the same in Poland as at home....the hair on these little girls was so pretty and this picture was so perfect when later in the year I was composing a 'Through the Window' layout. Trying to get organised for next weekend I felt the page deserved to be finished and here it is...

Irresistable!

On a lovely spring Sunday afternoon, what better way to spend some time with my 3 girlies and baby Lilly than take an hour out for a little walk and a wander around the sales.. albeit quite disappointing as sales go!

Looking for a summer hat for Lilly was the perfect opportunity for some photos...and with Saturday being my next Just Scrapbooking session I am hoping to get organised and even scrap these little gems before then...only need to get the title words right now...

Feel the heat!

Having a little trouble finding the words to express the sensations and feelings you get whilst on holiday on Kuramathi..... we had two glorious weeks, even at the end I still peeked out in the morning to be surprised to see 'another sunny day in Paradise!'
It's hard now to start back to consider the weather / what to wear / what to do today now we are back in the UK with all its weather combinations!

Highlights of the trip included snorkelling trips most days, one of which we found ourselves surrounded by about 9 sharks...black tipped reef variety, and up to about 9 feet, but you know how water magnifies..?..well I thought they looked 20 feet.. and I'm sticking to it..(well all my family were fishermen.. how long did you say????)

The food was great, we all had our favourites : Col and Zac ate fish twice a day every day, sometimes more...Jordan loved the dhal curies and Kate always liked to try everything!... as for me, I fell in love with passion fruit...says it all .. hahahah!

Oh and the cocktails at the Fung Bar... the Long Island Ice Tea was my downfall one night, but Chamin's special bacardi & orange iced blend was to die for! We met such nice people, and the guys at the bar would make everyone's holiday special!

All I have to do now is get scrapping!.. watch this space for stories of Mr Happy the big fish with the Obnoxious grin (just how does a fish look at you obnoxiously Zac?), Kate's forever changing fashion page and Jordan's photo shoot at the sunset sand bar!