A layout share!

Last Saturday I spent the day at the EKScrappers Crop run by Karen. I love getting to spend the whole day scrapbooking and chatting with like minded ladies. Karen also puts together a ‘class kit’ which we have the option to buy. The kit comes with papers and embellishments and the step by step instructions to complete the page. Karen completes the page first so her beautiful examples are always on show for guidance too! There is no obligation to buy the kit, but I always do! This month the papers were from Stamping Up and involved some fussy cutting which I love. We made two pages .. this one..

 And this one ..

I also took along some page kits I had made up previously and completed these pages:

I had the inspiration for this layout on my Pinterest - I must make more use of all those layouts I have liked and pinned!

This was another idea I'd pinned - I love these papers which are from a Papermania pack.

This is one of my own designs! The pinwheel had been in my stash for years and I am really pleased that I used it up!

When we saw this pub in Blackpool Hugh kept reciting the poem and so I had to take a photo of him outside and scrapbook the story. I did not have enough room to write out the whole poem, but managed to fit on the relevant part! If you click on the photo below the layout will appear bigger and you can read the poem.

This weekend I am picking up a new pair of glasses, Hugh has an eye test and Penny a contact lens check up, so it’s all about the eyes this weekend! Hope you have a good one!

 

Spotlight Saturday – change of name!

 Well, I think having run Spotlight Saturday for well over a year I am going to change the name. Although I intend to still post once a week on a Saturday I am going to take away the Spotlight Saturday title then I won’t feel obliged to post on a Saturday and guilty if I don’t manage to post on time! Last weekend is a point in case – I totally forgot to write a post on Friday to go up on Saturday as it was Good Friday. When I realised on Sunday I then felt it was too late to post so ended up doing no post! So, here we are, on a Saturday but with a new post!

 

And today’s post will be called ‘Life Update’!

 

So, what has been going on in the Gotch household? Well, the build, which is the major thing in our life at the moment, is still going on although we have been held up by the weather again – this time the rain. However we have had the water board in to lay in a new supply to the house with a T junction to go off to the annexe.

This entailed at one point 5 water board vans with associated workmen being outside our house! We also had half the road blocked off – pretty impressive eh?

We had to have a complete new supply put in as the original supply, which runs under our house right to the back where the kitchen is, was made of lead and the stoptap indoors could not be turned off for fear of the tap shearing off and the utility room being flooded! And how long has the stoptap been like this? Oh, that will just be the 25 years or so since we moved in! We found out it was like that the day after we moved in when Hugh went to plumb in the washing machine and we had a bit of a flood and he could not turn the water off indoors and had to find out where to turn it off in the road! Anyway, now we have a shiny new supply with a stoptap handily under the sink in the kitchen which we can easily turn off and it is all in place ready to hook up to the annexe.

Willow was actually very brave and went outside for the first time since the build began and visited the annexe!

We have also been out visiting family. It was my Mum’s birthday a couple of weeks ago so we popped over and took some lunch. Ben and Amy also joined us so it was a lovely family get together.

 

 

I am also very happy to report that Penny has got a job! It is part time at Costa in Rayleigh. We are absolutely thrilled for her. She does not have a huge number of hours to start with but we are hoping that as she proves herself they will give her more hours but it is a really good start and we couldn’t be more proud.

 

We had a relaxing Easter break – well we couldn’t do much because of the rain! Hugh and I went and saw Pacific Rim 2 – Uprising. It was surprisingly quite good! We also went out to do some shopping in Basildon and I chose some new glasses and we had lunch out in Debenhams. Hugh did get into the garden to give one of our borders a makeover.

And Hugh, Penny and I managed a walk in the park inbetween the rain showers!

So that is where we are up to! The driveway is being dug up this week in preparation for the block paving going down and the floor is being put in this week too in the annexe. Windows and doors are being ordered and electrics and gas pipes being put in. It is all very exciting and Penny cannot wait to move in! 

 Today I am off to Karen’s crop near Colchester so will hopefully share some layouts with you next weekend. Hope you have a good weekend whatever you are doing.

Spotlight Saturday - a layout share

Good morning! Happy Saturday to you all. How are things with you? Building work is coming along well here and I will share that with you again soon. This week has been a bit of a mixed bag for me - I met up with  a good friend for a meal, at last. We had been trying to get together since December but life kept getting in the way so it was great to meet up again and catch up. Unfortunately when I got home half of a back double tooth fell out! That wasn't fun! The emergency dentist has patched it up and I am going back on Tuesday to see my own dentist to try and save the tooth.

The last few weekends have been busy but I still managed to get some layouts done.

This one was done after I watched Jen Schow's first Youtube video on her 'Use it or Lose it' series.
As you can probably tell, it focussed on using wood veneer! I've still got loads left though!

This next layout was loosely based on an old Inkie Quill Youtube video, again about using up old stash, this time odd Thickers. With this layout I was able to use all those pesky numbers that you get at the bottom of the sheets and only ever use 2 or 3 of them! 

And finally today a layout using my Glitter Girl collection for these lovely photos of Penny and a wrestler she met. I loved using a quote as the title of this one.

Oh yes, and I had a 'helper' one  Sunday too!

If you like watching scrapbookers on Youtube I can highly recommend Jen Schow and Inkie Quill - they plus Nicole Jones, Shimmelle and ScrappyNerdUK are my most watched and where I get a lot of inspiriation for my layouts. Now I'm off to watch some Inkie Quill! Have a lovely weekend!