Photo of the day

for...

Thursday 31st May
Luscious and green ... wonderful

Photo of the day

...for:

Wednesday 30th May

I need to make a decision about the theme for photos during June.... Fast approaching.

Photo of the day

Photo of the day for:

Tuesday 29th May

Sweet peas - filling my space with a wonderful scent.

Rainy days here in Recklinghausen but the trees I can see outside my work room window appear to be enjoying it.

I want to get on with my Canada album but I have reached the point where I need to sit down and write up the last few days of our holiday's journaling and I am just not motivated to do it. But I have just ordered a load of photos to keep me going on the scrapbooking front for the next few weeks so that is something positive.

Traditions

Everyone knows the story of how R & I met and how I broke his heart in those first few months. I feel terrible about that now of course, but I thought it was something I should capture before it is forgotten - though the reason for the single white rose each year is unlikely to be forgotten!

And here is the photo of the day for:

Monday 28th May

Again, played with the saturation of the photo and just love the results.

Legacy

This is a layout for my Heidi Swapp class "A Year To Remember" for May and it has been a real journey of discovery.

Starting with looking through the photos with mum and looking at the birth certificates etc and talking about the family tree that she has started, all the way through to me thinking about how to approach the whole "legacy" subject. I wanted to take the line through mum and grandad to grandma because I feel that grandad was so important to me and grandma made him the man he was so therefore, she has an impact on me. And in the process, I discovered that when I look at pictures of grandma, I see me. I would never have imagined that. And while the instructions we were given was to focus on our legacy, through the photos I decided to use, I saw that I am the result of these people and therefore, I am THEIR legacy. An interesting realisation for me and it made the page really easy to complete.

I am not really sure about the whole stencil thing that Heidi wanted us to use but I did it and it looks OK. I am just not sure if I would do it again. Overall, I am really happy with the layout and it has been one of the most interesting to create that I have done so far.

CC appreciated as ever.

Speed scrapping!

Just got it into my head that I needed to do this page.

I had the idea of the "One Little Word" word challenge (which was "GO"), for some time and then I saw this photo of me laughing it just flashed into my head. I know that I am too late for the challenge, but decided to put it together anyway. I think it only took me 30 minutes which must be a record for me. I love this new Amy Butler paper and decided to go the whole hog and use one of the brightest in the pack. Love it!

And the story? I never laugh in photos. In the past, I usually didn't even smile. R has brought out the happy side of me and I am slowly learning to let go - in all sorts of ways.

Sunday 27th - photo

Sunday 27th May

Am so enjoying these wonderful roses which I have right next to me here while I am typing. Beautiful and slightly scented.

Green

Nothing much to report here. R is working in the office - moving from one office to another - so I am here alone pottering with my blog settings, looking at photos, scrapping a bit and generally tootling along.

Currently working on my "Legacy" layout for my Heidi Swapp class and have been looking through some old photos I brought back with me from mum's last week. What is really odd is that the longer I look at photos of my great grandmother (Grandma), the more I can see something of me in them! I have always looked like my dad's side of the family and have a striking resemblance to Nanny (dad's mum) but the more I look at these photos, the more I see me. Joan and Pat have always said that but I have never seen it before. I don't know if I am just seeing what I want to see - I have always wished to be a bit more of a "Green" - but I can definitely see something. I think the photo below is too small for you to see it but this is the one that I think has something. Interesting.

Catching up with photos

I have been taking the photos on a regular basis - not quite every day but almost - but just have not got round to downloading them and uploading them here. So, in an effort to catch up, here is the last two weeks:

Sunday 13th May

Just something I picked up off the ground and thought it was kind of interesting.

Monday 14th May

I still love the view from our window.

Tuesday 15th May

Wednesday 16th May

Playing around with colour and saturation in my photo editing - really like the effect.

Thursday 17th May


Friday 18th May

Roses, it does not get much better than that.

Saturday 19th May

Sunday 20th May

Fresh life - just everywhere.

Monday 21st May

Tuesday 22nd May

Wednesday 23rd May

Thursday 24th May

Friday 25th May

I treated myself to some fresh flowers for the long weekend - makes me happy.

Saturday 26th May

Again, trying out some of the editing options - changing the warmth of the colour and the saturation - I think this is a really nice result.

Crazy days...

hectic weekend, warm sticky weather, flat full of stuff and which needs a good spring clean and time that never seems to slow down!

But I am still smiling! I bought stash last weekend in England and have enjoyed stroking it a bit today... The Mod Scraps kit should arrive within the next week if they post it out on time, I do not have to get up at 5am tomorrow as I usually do (morning lessons have cancelled) and we have a long weekend ahead of us ... Life is still good.

I am so proud of my littlest brother - he was the STAR of a musical production last week, playing Oliver and we all went to see him on Friday night. Lib and I worked our way through a few tissues. It was wonderful to see him in this other "life" of his that I have never seen before - and who knew that anyone in the Smith family could sing? And he really can. It filled me with emotion and I cannot imagine how Mum must have felt watching him on stage. The whole production was good, but I was really not interested in any of the scenes he was not in. I got a little irritated with the other actors! Isn't he lovely?

It was lovely to see everyone - the children are growing at such a pace and R enjoyed his Maddie time so much. I love watching the two of them interact - adorable.

Sunday scrap stuff

OK, now I can upload the stuff I did for Mother's day. Had a lot of fun with this and really enjoyed making the different elements - a mini album for mum, a mini matchbook album for Lib and cards. It is really quite addictive and I can't believe how much I have managed to get done over the last week. In addition to these items listed above, I also prepared the bases for another 7 cards, made a Christening card for Isabella, did a challenge layout and then started my Canada album and completed 7 pages. Phew! Not bad for a slow scrapper who never has any original ideas. CC appreciated.

All the photos are a bit vivid colour-wise - comes from taking them with a flash - they are all a bit more subtle than that in reality.

Wednesday 9th May

Rhododendron

Thursday 10th May

As it has been raining so much, I have not have so much chance to take clear photos so I found this one which I love that I took back in February.

Friday 11th May

Not good light, but I love this trees which are in the grounds of the school/church opposite our flat.

Saturday 12th May

Another rainy, stormy day. I did raindrops before but I thought they looked so good in the window.

My wonderful husband

I am trying to focus on getting my Canada album done. I have hundreds of photos, more paper and embellishments than I could ever use no matter how large the album was and pages of journalling from my blog here, but somehow my mind is wandering and it is hard to focus. I have managed to create a front page the last two back pages but I need to consider the inside structure. But I cannot keep my mind on this...

R is away this week and while I am not lonely, of course I miss him and I am finding it difficult to concentrate on anything. I have been thinking a lot about our wonderful life together and how amazing it is that he found me and fell in love with me and then waited for me to fall head over heels for him. I feel as though I must be the luckiest person alive. When he is not here, there is something missing from my day and I cannot wait for him to return to me safe and sound. I am sorry, does this sound too soft and squishy?

I guess that looking through the photos from our wonderful trip last year must have triggered this emotion today and I wish it were possible for him to be THIS relaxed every day of his life - he deserves it. I think this is almost my favourite picture ever of R (outside our wedding photos) and just looking at it brings a lump to my throat.

Photo of the Day - Sat 5th to Tue 8th

Saturday 5th May

Happy National Scrapbooking Day!

Look up and see the beauty

Sunday 6th May

Red & powerful

Monday 7th May

Clematis up close

Tuesday 8th May

After the rain

A Year To Remember April Challenge

I was really pleased with myself that I managed to finish the Heidi Swapp AYTR art challenge for April before the end of the month. And then I finally added the photos to it yesterday so I feel as though I am way ahead of schedule which is not strictly true but for my usual timetable, it is!

The challenge was to have a party and then create a layout about it. There should be some cardstock cut into geometric shapes and both the negative and positive portions should be used. Heidi also used chipboard letters painted and then embossed with UTEE but I did that technique on my March challenge page so I thought that I would make it a little easier for myself and just use some stickers which seemed to complement the paper I chose really nicely. Ok, so I did not have a party but we did celebrate Easter Sunday and thought this would make a nice occasion to scrap as there were just a few photos and hardly any journaling would be needed. Heidi made her page without photos too because her party would be at the end of the month, so even though I knew which photos I wanted to use (or pretty much anyway) I did the complete layout without taking the photos into account. This was really new for me and when I came to put on the photos yesterday, it was weird to try to work out how to get the photos I wanted to include on the page and the photo mats I had created! I tapped into my growing stash of BasicGrey Pheobe papers and matched the pink, the grey blue and the green for the basic colours with a dash of beige/brown thrown in for good measure. Overall, I am quite pleased with the result but I am not sure if I would do this again on my own, but I will keep an open mind.

That is what this whole course is about for me anyway, to try different styles and techniques to see what fits to me. And it is working. Each of the months' pages are totally different and not what I would usually do, but they were fun and I like the final result.

I also branched out to make the calendar pages a bit decorated which was new for me. Not totally successful, but a challenge all the same!