Right Now

Here is a layout I completed at the weekend to fit in at the beginning of my 'summer' album, just before my birthday layout.

I used Shimelle's sketch from the final prompt we were sent in Pretty Paper Party, which was for one photo and to use a neutral background and three variants of one colour (although I injected a bit more colour with the blue strip). I like this photo of me, which Penny took. I haven't done a 'Right Now' layout for a couple of years, but enjoyed doing this one. I think I will try and do it every year on my birthday now!

A layout catch up

I've done one layout this weekend, but I've three to share with you from the past couple of weeks.

The first is from Prompt 10 where Shimelle suggests stamping onto patterned paper. I had never thought of doing that before - when I do use my stamps (which is not very often) I always stamp onto plain card. I have rather a lot of stamps which I very rarely use, so it was nice to get them out and have a play. I enjoyed stamping onto the patterned paper, I very much liked the look and it is something I will definitely be doing again.

This made another double page layout for my Cyprus album. It tells of how all the time we were away and I was taking photos with our DSLR, Hugh was snapping photos of me with the compact camera!

The next layout (please excuse the photography, the light is so bad now when I have finished scrapping, but if I don't take the photo I will never get around to blogging) is based on two prompts, Prompt 13 to cut out  a design from patterned paper and raise it on dimensional tape (the bunting in the corner) and actually just one of the sketches which I liked from Prompt 9.

The last layout for this post is based on Prompt 16 where Shimelle suggest we stack  papers cut to almost but not quite the same size! It is a good way to use up paper that has been sitting in your stash for a while that you perhaps don't really like, or don't know how to use as most of it is covered by the next piece of paper. This is the last page in my Cyprus album - yay!

I was really pleased with this page - it used up quite a few bits of red patterned paper that had been hanging around in my RUB's for ages. The title letters were white and I coloured them in with a Promarker as I didn't have any yellow letters that went with the yellow paper.

I have been a bit 'naughty' and bought Shimelle's 'Christmas in a box' kit to do JYC for this year. I was in two minds as to whether or not to do it this year. It will be my 5th year and I was thinking that I haven't got a lot more to record of past Christmas's, but then I decided that I really like doing it, that I like to do it as a daily diary or the present time and so I went for it! I will be joining in with Shimelle's weekend of preparations this weekend to get my album ready, so that in the lead up to Christmas all I have to do is stick the photos in and do the journalling as this is what works best for me. I am also visiting my Mum and Dad this weekend - Mum is cooking my favourite lunch - liver and bacon! What are you up to this weekend?

A layout and a trip to the zoo

Well, I only managed to do one layout on Thursday afternoon, based on Prompt 7 and Leah Farquharson's layout,

but it is another one for my Cyprus album which I am really pleased with (the title means 'bon voyage' which I have put in very small print at the bottom of the page!).

On Friday we went up to London to the BUPA Dental Clinic for Penny's consultation about her wisdom teeth. She is going to have to have the two top ones removed and we have another appointment on Monday afternoon with the oral surgeon to discuss sedation and when the operation will go ahead. The appointment was not too traumatic at all and once we had finished we hopped back on the tube and headed off to London Zoo.

I can't believe that we had never taken Ben and Penny there when they were little and I apologise to Ben that we still haven't taken him - next year Ben I will take you if you want to go!

Our first stop was the penguins - they were wonderful and followed your fingers along the glass!

This one kindly posed with Penny. We then walked through the butterfly house. It was extremely humid in there but filled with some of the most beautiful butterflies I have ever seen. Unfortunately the most beautiful ones closed their wings once they landed and you couldn't see how pretty they were!

 Then it was on to the Bug House. Penny has a morbid fear of bees, so it was fascinating to see her actually stand and look at them this close - of course they were behind glass! Hugh looks as if he is sneering - he is just looking closely at them!

These aardvarks were wonderful - please excuse the scratches - they were on the glass of the enclosure and unfortunately the aardvarks were fast asleep and not going to move! I love that one was asleep on the other.

This lioness was looking very serene in the autumn sunshine.

By now we were getting very tired, but we staggered around to the okapi and then on to the zebra enclosure.

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My favourite animal at the zoo has got to be the giraffe and we saw these last of all - they really are beautiful and graceful.

And here I am, looking tired!

Tomorrow we will not be going back to the zoo - just a trip back to the dentist and then home again. I have managed to do only one double layout this weekend which I will share later in the week. I have a crop to go to on Wednesday, which I am looking forward to and I will hopefully be able to do more from Shimelle's class then. I noticed that 4x6 photo love is up again today - 10 photos of course as it is October. I will have to find 10 photos that I want to scrap together first - perhaps 10 photos of London Zoo!

More Pretty Picture Layouts

Today has been rather wonderful - a day off! I still woke up hideously early and I am one who once I am awake I cannot go back to sleep or lie in bed, I have to get up, so I was downstairs feeding the cats by 7.15am and showered and dressed by 8.30am. Although this is much later than a work day, I still felt a little cheated that I hadn't slept in a bit later!

However, it did mean that I got the ironing and the accounts done nice and early and by 11am my jobs for the day were done, so I opened up my scrapping desk and played.

The first thing I did was to finish up the kit I had made at the weekend with the patterend papers and I made another three layouts.

This photo came out of an album that Penny and I were looking at over the weekend. I have moved all the albums into Ben's old room onto a new set of shelves which makes them a lot easier to get at - all the easier to scrap! Although the papers could be seen as summery I felt that they were ok with this autumny photo as the colours were right. Not what I would have chosen if I had picked the photo first, but I think it works.

This photo turned up on my computer on Monday! When my Mum last came to visit I installed Dropbox onto her computer and taught her how to use it so that we could easily pass photos to each other. This was her first go at sending me a photo and she had scanned in this photo of me when I was little in my nurses uniform. I couldn't let it go to waste, so printed it out and it went perfectly with these papers.

The last layout from my 'kit' went back to using some modern photos from the summer of me and my sister. The colours in the photos were fairly neutral, so I felt that they sat quite well on these patterns.

I then moved onto Prompt 5 - rough around the edges. I have decided to just pick and chose the prompts I like the best and work with those as I don't have time to do them all! This one really appealed to me as I love to use my border punches and I love to get inky and to roughen edges, which I did all over this layout!

Tomorrow morning I am meeting a good friend for a cup of peppermint tea and a toasted teacake in our favourite cafe and then I hope to spend the afternoon doing a bit more scrapping. I haven't decided which prompt to use yet, I will have a read through the pdf's tonight and see which ones really grab me!

Wow! Five layouts in two days!

Yes, I really have completed five layouts in two days! As I said in an earlier post, I have joined Shimelle's party and although I am working full time and don't have much free time to join in, on Friday afternoon, once I had completed all my housework, I sat down with all the pdf's I had printed off and I made a start.

I have been having so much fun digging through my stash and dragging out all the patterned paper that I didn't really know what to do with.

Some of it I had just bought because I liked the look of, some of it had come in kits. I had quite a few sheets of Cosmo Cricket Deloverly which I loved the look of in the shop, brought home and then thought was too patterned to use! However, I have now nearly used it all up!

I have three more sheets of mixed patterns on my desk ready and waiting to go - just need to find the time now to sit down with them! However, I do have some holiday coming up from Wednesday onwards, so hopefully will be able to crack on then.

We have to take Penny up to London on Friday to see a dentist about having her wisdom teeth out - poor thing! She has been really suffering and the best thing would be for her to have them removed. We have said that after the appointment we will go and do something nice and so she has asked if we could go to London Zoo. I feel really awful that at the age of 20 we have never taken her there although we live so close! So, keep your fingers crossed for us that the weather is nice!

This I have counted as patterned paper - well, it is just! I have a little story to tell about the camera on the right. It is normally on the left of the layouts. Under the windowsill on the left is the heater, which during the summer is, obviously, turned off. The other evening it was chilly in the conservatory so I had the heater turned on and didn't notice that the camera strap was dangling down! Yesterday morning when I went into the conservatory I noticed that the strap had melted onto the heater - oops! Luckily it hadn't caused a fire, and also it peeled off the heater and hasn't caused any damage. I have learned my lesson though and during the winter it shall stay on the right!

Yes, I have succumbed. I wasn't going to. I said to myself that I hadn't the time. That I really didn't need to. That I had enough to do.

But then I realised that I have an awful lot of pretty paper. An awful lot of pretty paper that I really don't know quite what to do with. That I really love Shimelle's classes. That I get such a lot of inspiration from Shimelle. That she is such a brilliant teacher. And anyway, this isn't a class, it is a party.

So, here I am. The first day of the party. Ready and waiting. In fact, I can't wait to start! I have all my pretty papers sitting and waiting. A huge stack of photos just itching to be stuck onto the papers and my party dress on its hanger waiting to be put on once I get back from work!

If you would like to join in, pop over to Shimelle's blog to find out more. Hope to see you there!