3 layouts and a cake!

I am trying (very hard) to maintain my current weight, which it has taken me a while to get down to! But, I am happy with where I am now and I have quite a few new clothes to take on holiday with me which if I put on any weight I won't be able to fit into! However, when I read this post on Deb's blog, for Irish Cream cupcakes, I just couldn't resist! Or should I say, that I persuaded Penny to bake for me :) She decided to make a cake rather than cupcakes and oh boy, it was wonderful.

 I was very good though and took it into work to share with my colleagues, who all love Irish cream as much as I do!

Penny covered the cake in white chocolate buttons and it was just indescribably yummy!

So, what about some layouts. Well I have done a few over the past couple of weekends, but not got around to blogging about them. This past weekend was a Bank Holiday for us in the UK and Hugh, Penny and I went down to Cornwall to visit with Hugh's parents and to take them out for a meal to celebrate our anniversary (early) as they are not able to join us for our party at the end of the month. More about that visit at a later date!

This layout is about the chocolates Penny bought me for Mother's Day (and yes, I did say that I was trying not to put on weight! I know, I know!). I used Challenge 4 from Shimelle's scrapbooking weekend, the challenge being to scrap with grey, yellow and one other colour. I also scraplifted her layout and used the gem swirl that I had been keeping for a special occasion!

This shows photos from Mother's Day too. I love to go out for a walk on Mother's Day to Norsey Woods where we have been going for about 18 years, almost since we moved here. This layout was based on Shimelle's Sketch of the Week for the 23rd March.

And my last layout, which I think is my favourite, although it is fighting with the first one, is from Challenge 10, to scrap two photos on a bold background. The photo of me skipping was taken by Penny - we were having a funny half hour whilst walking!

Sketch of the week

I haven't had a play with Shimelle's sketch of the week for a while, but liked the look of this week's and had the time to play! You can see the sketch here and below you can see my take on it.

Please excuse the quality of the photo - I have decided that if I don't photograph my layouts in artificial light then I won't be blogging any layouts until about March next year! I used a Sarah's Cards kit to do this layout - I've nearly used them all up! I've cancelled my subscription purely because I wasn't using one kit before the next came out, although I do love the kits. Once I've used a bit more stash up I may rejoin.

Please come back on Wednesday as I will be sharing what I have completed so far of my JYC. Thanks for looking!

Sketch of the week

So, after another hectic week at work, a birthday and a fantastic weekend with all my family around me, I still managed to get a page done using Shimelle's sketch of the week! I am still working my way through my Cyprus photos, although I am very close to the end of the ones I want to use. I have actually got quite a few more layouts to share which I made last weekend, but never got around to uploading, and will hopefully share those this week.

The papers are all Bo Bunny again. I have loved this range for this holiday. The sun accent is American Crafts and the camera is the digital stamp from SJ. The words are from Authentique and I am loving, loving, loving them! I think you will see them appearing on quite a lot of my layouts in the near future as  I bought several pages of them at Ally Pally.

We have had a really lovely weekend. Penny worked yesterday and Hugh and I spent the day with Ben just chilling, which was nice. In the evening Ben took us all out for a meal, including his girlfriend, Rachel. We had wonderful food and a good laugh. Today my parents came over for a Sunday roast, with all the trimmings, followed by an apple crumble. Penny then had made a coffee walnut cake for us to have with a cup of coffee/tea before my parents and Ben had to leave at about 4pm.

Some sunny layouts

Here are a couple of layouts I did last weekend, using some more photos from our Cyprus holiday.

This layout is based on Shimelle's Sketch of the Week which you can see here. Her sketch just used one photo, but I wanted to incorporate three, so stacked them up and was pleased with the result.

The embellishment was made using the 'Life's a Beach' Cricut cartridge. I cut it out using some thick card and then using yellow card. I painted round the edge using a blue Smooch ink and then used a yellow Stickles as a highlight.

This layout is based on Shimelle's Starting Points of last weekend. The idea was to start with four different coloured blocks of paper - patterned or plain. I found some American Crafts and mixed it with some of the Bo Bunny I had been using.

The big orange and yellow flower has been in my stash for years! I was glad to finally use it! The other bits are from AC and came in one of the album kit sets that Ben gave me for Christmas last year - finally getting around to using them!

Off to have a play and do some more scrapping now! Have just been to watch the Wickford Carnival go past the end of our road. An annual event which we love to watch, but which we have found out that unfortunately, after 93 years will be the last one as there is no one to run it and no volunteers have come forward - what a shame. I will share some photos of it later in the week.

At last!

A page to share with you!

I was really struggling with this photo as the colours in it were mad! The sofa was purple and black (Ben's sofa, which is now in his flat), he was wearing a white shirt, Hugh had aon a blue shirt and I had on a pale blue t-shirt with pink and lilac flowers! I just couldn't find any papers to go with it and then I had the bright idea to print the photo out in black and white! I used Shimelle's sketch of the week from 12th August - I am really behind with these! I have not managed to get any other layouts done this weekend, but I did manage to get the bare bones done of my LSNED book, so I am pleased about that.

We had a lovely time in Cornwall - it was great to see the family down there and to see how well they all looked, especially Hugh's Mum who had a bad fall about three weeks ago. She has recovered well and was full of life and thoroughly enjoyed our visit! The weather was not that kind to us, but Hugh, Penny and I did manage to get a walk to the beach at Lansallos with our niece Lucy (she is the oldest of our nieces - won't say how old, let's just say she is an adult!) and her dog, Ruby.

Penny, Lucy and Ruby

We then returned home via Hemel to attend Emily's 5th birthday party. She was so happy to see us as she was convinced that we wouldn't be able to make it as we were on holiday! We had bought her two Disney princess dolls and she was delighted with them.

 So, that is the end of the Bank Holiday weekend. Back to work tomorrow, although it will only be a short week, especially as I finish at midday on a Friday! I am looking forward to 1st September to starting LSNED and to spending the evenings this week doing some layouts - hopefully!

'Keep' smiling!

A pun on the word 'keep' (for castle) gave me the title for this page! Actually I couldn't think of a title at all, and Hugh came up with it! This layout is based on Shimelle's sketch of the week for this week, which can be seen here.

I raided my stash of stickers and journalling spots and also used some glimmer mist that I had - I don't use it very often and I'm not sure if I like the result very much! It was ok until I decided to do some big spots and then I felt as if it looked messy.

I also used my Sew Easy to make the inner frame. I love the sparkly thread I have used. In Shimelle's layout she painted this frame, but as soon as I saw what she had done I knew that I wanted to sew it rather than paint it.

I'll be back tomorrow for a story in conjunction with Sian's storytelling Sunday. See you then!

County Show

We were lucky to be in Northumberland at the time of the Northumberland County Show, and even more lucky that it was on our doorstep - only a ten minute drive away! OK, so it actually took us about 40 minutes to get to the car park (a farmer's field) as there was so much traffic, but oh well!

I had been to County shows before, as had Hugh, but we had never been to one together and Penny had never ever been to one, so it was a first for her. We were a little concerned as to how she would be with the crowds, but she coped really well. We are all suckers for farm animals and so thoroughly enjoyed seeing the cows, sheep, horses and especially the alpacas!

Although it wasn't very warm, it didn't rain, so we were able to enjoy our picnic before visiting all the craft tents. It was actually our wedding anniversary the day we went and when I saw a beautiful necklace and earring set Hugh was kind enough to buy it for me as an anniversary present! After spending most of the day there we made our weary way back to the car - unfortunately up a very steep hill!

The layout for our day at the County Show was inspired by Shimelle's sketch of the week for the 6th July.

Ruined!

Well, not really! We visited the Roman ruins at Corbridge whilst we were in Northumberland and they were pretty spectacular. We really like our ruins, castles, churches and so on. It is not something I really used to do with my parents, but Hugh and I have spent a lot of our holidays visiting sites like these over the years, with and without the children. Penny enjoyed it here as much as we did! They had an audio tour, where you had a 'phone' which you listened to as you walked around. It prompted you where to walk to and you had boards to read as well. It really made the site come to life and it was our favourite of the Roman ruins that we visited.

This layout was done using Shimelle's sketch of the week from last week, 29th June.

I have had this crystal swirl in my stash for a long time and had intended to cut it up to make it last! However, I bit the bullet and used the whole thing and I love how it looks! It just seemed so extravagant!

Holiday Home

I haven't shared many photos of our lovely holiday in Northumberland, so will start so today with a layout I made last night using Shimelle's sketch of the week from 22nd June.

I used one of my many kits from Sarah's Cards and cut up the lovely flower ribbon to make individual accents. I thought the key and lock were pretty apt as the photo is of the beautiful cottage we stayed in. Yes, the sky was really that blue! We were so lucky with the weather - it didn't rain and we had many sunny days like this even though it wasn't that warm!

I also stamped straight onto my piece of background card - something I don't usually do, but I was pleased with the result. I used Vintage Photo distress ink, which gave me the look I wanted.

Thanks for looking - I'll have another layout to share on Friday as I was a busy bee last night and got two layouts completed - not usual for a work night!

A busy weekend

Last weekend was fairly busy - with jobs and with scrapbooking! I also made another birthday card although I forgot to take a photo of that.

So, what did I do? Well, I am still trying to catch up with Shimelle's sketch of the week and managed to do the one for the 1st June with this layout:

I used an American Crafts kit which came with an album which Ben bought me for Christmas. I love these photos of him with Emily - his youngest cousin. There is a huge age gap, but they love each other very much and have great fun together.

The last layout I completed this weekend is from Ben and Rachel's holiday to Tunisia. I used a sketch from Becky Fleck's Page Maps Book 1.

The sewing around the edge and across the middle was done using my Sew Easy. When I mentioned this on my blog a little while ago a couple of people remarked that they hadn't heard of it before. Well, it is a handle with heads that connect to it. Each head rolls and has little spokes on it which punch through the paper in a certain pattern. These can then be sewn through to create different effects. You can see one here. There is also a video on YouTube, here. I love it and have been using it quite a bit on my layouts recently. It still takes a time to do, but I find that quite therapeutic!

Sitting Pretty

Another layout using Shimelle's sketch of the week - this time from 25th May.

I used some papers that came in an album kit I purchased when we went to Orlando two years ago! They have been sitting in my stash every since. This has only made a tiny weeny dent in the papers, so I think I need to do a little more with them! The flowers are chipboard and I have embossed them with some embossing powder that Ben bought me for Mother's Day last year and I hadn't used that before either!

I decided to dig into my stash of pearls too, an used a fair few of them up. I really like the end result. The photos were taken on my Mum's birthday in March and show her and Emily - the youngest granddaughter.

Thanks for looking!

At last ... some layouts to share!

I have managed to do a couple of layouts over the past few weekends, but haven't had time to photograph them. This afternoon, as I now finish work at 12.15pm on a Friday (yay!), I took some photos of my most recent layouts and also managed to complete 3 more!

I won't share all of them on this post - you may get bored lol!

So, to start, here is a layout based on Shimelle's sketch of the week for this week.

I know I have scrapped one of these photos before, but I just love the family photo and couldn't resist using it again - along with the 'getting ready' photo!

A close up of the ribbon and some of the embellishments. I used my Sarah's Card Kit for May to produce this layout.

My other layout to share with you today is from another Shimelle sketch, this time from her 6x4 photo love sketch for May. This month we have to use 5 photos, so this is a double page layout, again using a Sarah's Cards kit.

A closer look at each side of the layout.

Thank you for looking and I will be back to share some more with you soon. Don't forget to come and have a look at my Miniature Monday post on, surprise surprise, Monday!!