A little early and also a little late

I've been out of action for a couple of weeks. It wasn't really much of a surprise, but when it happened it was a bit like Christmas. You know Christmas is 25th December. In fact, it never moves. But it still manages to creep up every year and surprise you! And then you find yourself out there scooping up last minute presents on December 23rd. 

Well, it was the same with the new addition to our family. My new, beautiful, precious niece. It's not like we didn't know she was coming. You get 9 months notice! And the due date was always going to be wrong. We all expected her earlier than the November 1st date my sister'd been given. But when everything started happening, I was totally not prepared and ended up dropping everything to rush over to the UK to be with everyone when the little bundle arrived - exactly the two weeks early that everyone had predicted.

I was in the middle of unpacking boxes, creating layouts every day through LOAD and up to my ears at work. But babies are so much more important. I'm sure you understand.

When I came back, it took me a few days to find my rhythm again and we had a manic weekend planning and ordering our new, fancy kitchen as well as fixing the old flat for handover.

So it was lovely yesterday evening to get my hands on some pretty paper and photos to create my last LOAD layout for the month. A different one to the usual but one I love all the more for that difference.

And apart from being late for everything right now, I'm really late for S's "In Good Company" challenge, which is sadly being retired. But I'm going to just give her my link to let her know how sad I am that she has decided all good things must come to an end :-(

S, I wish you would reconsider keeping IGC going... but hope that you at least come up with a new challenge for us :-) Pretty please?

Oh yes, and this is layout #7 with my Counterfeit kit, Brighter (Oct) and I know I haven't shared the others with you yet, but there's a whole lot of layouts to share so watch this space and I promise to try harder.

Sorry for the dodgy photo, but it's that time of year again and I have yet to discover the good light in the new flat...

Squeezing in a little time for me

I really wanted to find a few minutes for me this evening - amongst the chaos of packing and clearing and sorting.

And I'm happy to say I managed it!

This layout is for a Scrap Happy challenge I'm part of at the moment for which I am waaaaay late but also for my good blog friend S's "In Good Company" challenge to use some Jenni Bowlin Studio product.

I used my July Beach-house CKC kit for this and added in the crepe paper for the border, the Lucky bingo card and the date die cut which are all JBS and were lying at the bottom of my stash! So thanks S for getting me to fish it out.

All in all, a fun 30 minutes. It's not a masterpiece but my headache has gone and I'm feeling a bit calmer for this creative time.

When's the last time you were In Good Company?

As I've mentioned before, my very good blogging friend, and fellow Master Forger, S over at Snaps and Snippets, encourages us every month to re-familiarise ourselves with our precious stash and to spend a little time scrapping In Good Company.

This is a lovely challenge to join in on because we buy stash because we love it, right? So it makes sense that it we love it, then spending time with it should  be thought of as quality time. All makes sense, doesn't it?

Every month I promise to join in and often I don't manage it. But I want to. Always! And this month, S even chose one of my favourite manufacturers. I'd like to think, just for me *wink* even though I know she is just working through the wonderful companies to be found in her stash.

Anyway, October Afternoon was just too tempting to miss (even though I managed to miss BasicGrey if you can believe it, a couple of months ago!) and this evening, I pulled out my precious OA and played a little.

I haven't included any journalling or a date yet because I need to quiz my mum about the details - that's her with her mum and dad enjoying a good old fashioned day at the English seaside including deck chairs, long trousers and cardies!

This layout with pretty paper and soft colours makes me happy and reminds me to find more time to play In Good Company. Thanks S.

Determined to be in good company this time around

I've been a bad challenge blogger of late and have missed several of sweet S's "In Good Company" challenges. Mostly due to lack of good time management. We have ten days to create a page after all, but somehow, I just manage to miss it.

But this time I'm participating in LOAD at the same time which seemed like a good opportunity to get that product fished out and used up! This month's chosen manufacturer is Sassafras which I love and while I don't have much of their stuff, and what I have is several years old now, it was lovely to find it all and get some used. It was perfect for the LOAD 3-2-1 challenge to use three embellishments, two pieces of paper and one photo because their paper is double sided, has those cute borders along the bottom and often has sweet fussy-cutting possibilities. This double challenge proved easier than I thought it would be. Love that. 

I found a photo that I love. Totally adore. But there's not really much story behind it apart from the fact that I love it and that is it exactly the type of photo I try to get when I'm over in the UK. These little ones grow up all too fast while I'm away.

My three embellies were the string, the Buttons and a journalling spot (also Sassafras), then two papers from the Life Is Beautiful range and one gorgeous photo. Creating an element cluster with the cut out elements was perfect for this simple page and the borders just added a touch of something. This isn't one of my favourite layouts but it made me happy to use up some older product and find a place for this photo. It gives me a lump in my throat just looking at it.

So happy to be In Good Company once again. Won't you come along and join in too. You'll be surprised what treasures you can find in your own stash. It's worth finding them and spending some time creating happy pages with them :-)

In Good Company once more

Well, I had a whole post written and I lost it so here I am again...

I'm so happy that I made time to play along with S's In Good Company challenge again this month after a few months away.

She challenged us to reacquaint ourselves with American Crafts products in our stash and I was surprised to find quite a few products that I didn't remember having. (I think this is the whole point of the challenge actually!) A lot of the AC designs are no longer really my style but I wanted to prove that anything can be adapted to some degree or other to fit. I also used the March Scrap Happy sketch but tweaked it almost beyond recognition :-) , generally having a lot of fun in the process.

Once I had decided to use paper with buildings on it, this gave me the idea that I needed to do a general city or travel layout and then it all came together from there. Everything except the October Afternoon button is AC.

(Please excuse the pink tinge to the photo and I've since erased the pencil lines for my journalling - whoops.)

S runs the challenge from 10th to 20th each month, so why not drop by next month and see who you get to make friends with again in your stash :-)

In the best company

My very good blog friend S has brought her challenge series, In Good Company, back for the new year and I'm thrilled to have found the time to join in this time around.

Each two weeks S prompts us to reach into the depths of our forgotten stash and scrap "in good company" by challenging us to use a favourite manufacturer.

This time around, we could choose any product designed by or attributed to a girl.

Well, it just so happens that I have a HUGE amount of K&Co designed by Amy Butler - in fact, I bought every piece of the ranges I could when it came out and then hardly ever used it! So Amy it was!

And it also just happened that I wanted to do my OLW layout for the new year too and so it all came together nicely.

I went for something really simple and cut out doilies from one sheet and two very small photo mats from two other pieces - so three sheets of Amy in total! Success! Well ok, to use up all the paper I have in the three ranges I bought, I'd need to make a hundred pages but it's a start, isn't it?!?

I'm struggling with photos of myself at the moment and had to make do with yet another dodgy one - mmm, totally crappy, will have to try to do something about that but I guess it's real at least. ;-)


I included a few little items to support the theme I wanted to convey with my word and am happy to have found a couple of spots for the pretty felt flowers that Helen made for me as well as two of the metal charms she sent.


So happy to have managed to join in this fun challenge and I'm looking forward to which paper line S chooses next. Thanks S for the push to get out my pretty Amy papers!

More good company

Always up for a good challenge, I'm again joining in on a new one set by my blog friend S over at Snaps & Snippets.  

Her idea is that we should spend some time in good company with our wonderful stash and become reacquainted with the treasures we possess. I love it and was sold at once.

Week 1 was Cosmo and I posted about this 2 weeks ago. 

Week 2 was Making Memories and I missed the deadline - arghghg! I'm so busy scrapping at the moment that I've been neglecting my blogging. But not to be outclassed by mere deadlines, I'm posting it here and have every intention on linking up with this week's ;-). You don't mind, do you?

I used up some of my precious Passport collection, now severely depleted ;-( to pull together a travel layout about Salzburg. Love these papers so much that I'll be really sad when they finally give up. I may have to get some more ;-) (Yes, I know that defeats the object!)

I love MM and have quite a lot of bits and pieces of it in my stash. I don't find myself buying a lot of full collections but odd sheets and lots of embellishments. It's usually pretty, colourful and easy to use. In my top 10 for sure.


Week 3 is now almost at an end and S has challenged us to use Graphic 45. Surprising for me, I appear to have a lot of it in my stash and I have no real idea how to use it! The patterns are so "all over" and themed that I find it tricky to know how to cut, use or build with it. But I'm pleased to say that I gave it a try and surprised myself in the process.


I had a whole collection of papers and had disregarded them as too themed but when I looked through them, I found 4 or 5 sheets with simpler designs that went together beautifully. I suppose I ought to look at the papers more carefully in future!


The LOAD prompt for today was nature and I thought this photo went with the papers I'd chosen really well. 

All in all, a fabulous challenge S! Thanks for making me see my suppplies in a new way! I'd never have made this layout without your gentle persuasion :-) 


Don't forget to check out this post (here) about our new challenge blog, Whimsical Musings (very exciting!) and the chance to win a giveaway courtesy of Bite-sized Scrapbooking!

It's good to know that I'm in good company

Things are busy round here right now (just for a change) in all sorts of way including scrapping.

I'm in the middle of LOAD and hope to be able to share some of my layouts soon ( as well as some other bits and pieces). But today, I wanted to join in on my blog friend, S's new challenge series "In Good Company".

I'm all for ways of using up old stash and that's exactly what S wants us to do by choosing one manufacturer each week for us to rediscover in our neglected stash.

So today was the day, and even though I don't love this layout and my mojo has been MIA for the last couple of days, I am happy to have captured this story and finally cut in my beloved stash. I love this Dutch Girl as much now as the first day I saw it and it was the first Cosmo I used. I may not love Cosmo as much as BasicGrey, but it's there in my top 5!

Now that the collection has been started, you can be sure it's going to pop up again soon!

Looking forward to S's next choice. Watch this space.