12 on 12 with a difference

Now you know that I make a layout each 12th of the month featuring 12 photos summing up the everyday (hence the 12 on 12)? *September's 12 on 12 is another story to be explored at another time.*

But today is a 12 on 12 of a different kind.

Today is the 12th anniversary of when R & I first met. 30th September 1998 is a day that is part of our history and I like to try to mark it somehow.

So today, I decided to do 12 on 12. 12 photos of us representing the last 12 years and using my newly found 12 on 12 design.

I can't believe how much we have both changed (well, I can believe it when I get on the scales but that is also another story) and it was such a wonderful trip down memory lane for me today. We have packed a lot into our time together - little did I know what would happen in my life way back then in 1998!

Nice to use up yet more ancient stash! I love this wedding range of paper but the uses are most certainly limited. A good sprinkling of embellies and I am beginning to see a dent in that collection. 

Do you enjoy looking back as much as I do?

Create Free - Day 3 aka Day 2 for Lisa!

I know you don't expect anything less but yes, I am a day behind! There is no way I am able to do today's Create Free class even though it looks like a lot of fun - all layering and clustering and piling stuff up.

But I have managed to complete day 1's task of creating a front and back cover for my mini-book. (Yes, I am following the lessons in a peculiar way. There IS method to my madness!)

I am really enjoying all the layering and using odd bits and pieces together. It's all stuff that I LOVE to do, but am mostly a bit lazy to take the time to do it. So the "instructions" which I am following (sometimes more directly than others) are a great incentive to do the things that I LOVE.

Sounds a bit crazy I know, but it's really true.

Ok, looking at the photos now, I can see that the ribbon is wrong - badly wrong! Tomorrow I might try to glimmer mist the tone of it down a bit or I will remove it and replace it with something better. It looked ok at first but now I can see that the colour is just toooooo... well you know!

And my cluster might be a tad tooooo high. Guess I got carried away with the few minute scraps I did manage to track down - LOL! But it's done and tomorrow I can get on with the little collages for the inside pages.

Day 2 - Create Free

Well, true to form, I didn't manage to get day 1 done of Create Free yesterday. I wanted to. Honestly. And again today.

But the instructions called for fabric scraps and that just threw me. I don't have any - at all. And I used to design and make dresses for a living! The shame of it! I just couldn't believe that I didn't have anything to speak of at all. And I don't want to buy any specially. But me? No fabric? Hard to believe but true.

So I fished around and spent all my available time getting a small pile of possible items to use for the embellishment on the cover.

I aim to get to that tomorrow!

But I did manage today's assignment which was to put together the basic inside pages. Good job I had chosen and printed out the photos on Sunday or it would never have happened - LOL.

I have chosen some really old CC papers from the Gretchen and Wanted ranges. The Gretchen papers formed the basis of the very first Bellaboo kit which I helped to put together and I had bought an extra one so it was a great opportunity to use it - I still adore these papers and the Wanted papers were a good match so that I have different papers on each page. I have all the other elements from the kit to use as embellishments which will be great.

I LOVE using up old stash like this - makes me feel all warm and fuzzy...

And I even used my rather underused Cricut to cut out the shaped elements which will be used later in the book - again - good feeling to use it again.

And you don't get any prizes for guessing that I would use 7 favourite photos from our (still) incredible Yukon adventure back in 2007! It was a no brainer for me.

So, onto the cover for tomorrow then!

Unproductivity...

Is there even such a word?

Anyway, it sums me up.

Totally. Utterly. Unproductive.

Worrying... a bit.

It's not like I haven't been in here (my room) but when I am here, I just waste time in the blogosphere (not on my own mind you...), waste time shuffling papers, waste time staring at the screen. Waste. Time. Full. Stop.

I have two classes over at the newly renamed Big Picture Classes and I love them both. But I have done nothing.

A week or so ago, I fished out a lot of really old stuff and challenged myself to use it. I still like it all. No need to ditch it all. Use it up.

Most of it is still piled there on the table.

But I did dig into some rather bold Glitz stuff and came up with a very uninspired layout featuring Chance Diva Extraordinaire - Isabella.

But I can't promise not to redo the photos and make a nicer layout. Can't quite put my finger on what is wrong with it, but something is shouting, "Nooooooooooo."

But I have agreed to join in in a bit of cyber scrapping with Deb and Libby taking part in "Create Free" from Crafty Templates which looks like it could be a lot of fun.

I have signed up again for LOAD during October - 31 layouts in 31 days.

I know I can do.

I just need to find my mojo. This week...

Anyone know where I can find it?

From waaaay back when!

It's funny how one's taste and style changes, isn't it? How even in scrapbooking, there are fashions, fads and trends. How we try things on for size and then find that it doesn't suit us at all. How long it takes to find a style that fits.

If anyone had asked me a couple of years ago if I had settled into a style of scrapbooking I liked, I would have said, "Sure".  After all, I'd started at the beginning of 2006 and by the beginning of 2008, I felt like I'd been doing it forever. I was working for Libby on the Bellaboo design team, I was taking classes, I liked what I was doing.

And then Libby got me involved in The Scrapbook Magazine (UK) and I got my first commission! I was thrilled to pieces and got stuck in to everything they asked me to do. These were surely my "best ever" creations...

Off the layouts or projects go and you wait ages to see them in the mag - such a boost to see one's own creation there in print. And then you forget about them. The layouts are with the magazine and generally they wait until they have a box full until they send them back.

Fast forward to this summer when a box of said "best ever" creations came back to me. Ranging from summer 2008 to winter 2009. Yes, it was lovely to see them again and to read the journalling and look at the photos. But the designs? Not so "best ever" any more.

It's weird how I spent so much time and effort creating these commissions, and then when I look at them now, I see all sorts of design faults - trapped white space, non-common margins, too busy designs - every design sin in the book.

But I also look at them and see how not settled into my style I was. And I think that now, it's really getting there. When I showed Lib my latest mag creation she told me it was "... so absolutely you... " which I liked the sound of. Thanks Lib! And at the same time, they too are a snapshot of life - the way I saw things at the time I made them.

I am listing them here in the order I like them (least like first) and then there is one I just can't bring myself to put on (yes, THAT one Lib - the one with THAT cardstock!)

Definitely my least favourite - don't know what I was thinking with this - gorgeous papers, gorgeous photos, heartfelt journalling but the whole thing just misses! Created back in summer 2008

Summer 2009, created using some of my favourite papers of all time, and one of the best Bellaboo kits that Libby put together - still love it. (BTW I got a second kit at the time and fished it out the other day to get to use it - it's still gorgeous) But the design is somehow not quite right. But it's getting more towards what I would say is "me"!

I really like this one (summer 2008) but looking at it now I would do it completely differently! But it's one of my favourite wedding photos and I love the papers and the buttons and of course the journalling. But the flower? Mmmmm... not at all convinced!

Overall, not too bad (summer 2009) but that trapped white space?  A total no go!

Yes, one of my favourites. (late 2008) I love the clusters (I was just beginning to get to grips with those) and I like the sentiment. But today, it would look different! What is it that is "wrong"?

 Created most recently (May 2009), using great products and much more "me" than the others - multi-photo, multi-PP, journalling, small cluster and some stitching. Think some of the positioning could be better.

But when I look at them all together, it's so interesting to see the development in my style and to see how different they would be if I was making them today. I am seriously thinking of ditching the one I couldn't feature as it was so bad and also the one with the roses, but then again, maybe I should keep them, just because...

How has your style changed over the years? Do you cringe when you look back a few years?

Not much happening here

I have been busy doing not a lot.

A family wedding took up a lot of time and energy last week and last weekend and you know what? I didn't take a single photo at the wedding. It was totally liberating to just be a guest and enjoy the day rather than trying to get the perfect photo. I left it all to the professional photographer and hope to get a copy of some of the photos from the happy couple when they have climbed down from cloud nine.

So, can't show you any photos of that...

And I have managed a layout but it's for a magazine commission.

So, can't really show you any photos of that either...

Well, ok, a sneaky peek then:

And a happy, huge, "Thank You" to both Deb and Libby for sending me the Friendly Blog Award. 

I am honored to be considered their friends and it makes me very happy to realise what wonderful people I have come into contact with via Libby and her work with Bellaboo and her crop. As you have both already nominated friends I would also have chosen (Deb, Libby, Rach, Sarah), I will send out friendly blogger greetings to:

Betty

S

Cathy

Just a quickie

To prove that sometimes I really do more than just sitting around all day.

I got my August 12 on 12 finished yesterday - yes it may be simple but it is still an achievement!

This morning has been full of work stuff and now I am off to teach. So on that note... Happy Hump Day!

In between

Time to take a breath between events....

Last week saw the 4th Annual Chance Visit to Germany (4 trips in 5 years so not quite annual but near enough) which was fantastic for us - lots of tiny feet (well 6 anyway) filling my flat with plenty of jumping, skipping, bouncing and running (and sand but that is another story). 

It was exhausting just to watch them.

I won't fill this post with all the details after the last four posts which were rather heavy on travel photos but suffice to say, there will be layouts from this 4th trip featuring some of the gorgeous photos we managed to capture along the way.

Here is the only photo we managed to get with all of us together - so rare to get but I will treasure it all the more...

And the good news is that I did actually manage to produce a whole layout while they were here - Libby and I had a mini-crop, just the two of us in my room, while the boys were upstairs playing poker. It was fun. We stroke our stash, looked at recent purchases, had Twilight, New Moon and Pride & Prejudice going in the background and challenged each other to break into the new Scrapagogo August kit and work on the same Page Maps sketch.

Ta daaaaaa

And then, because we thought the guys were going to be much later than they actually were, we started another one which I managed to get finished yesterday

Again, ta daaaaaa

This weekend sees the wedding of my BIL and his sweet fiancée and then next week will bring my mum over for a few days so I am making the most of this calm to try to make another layout or two this evening.

What have you been up to?

All the Fun of the Fair (or Installment 4)

Warning! Photo heavy posts following including excessive use of the Hipstamatic (we've been having lots of fun!)

Now where were we? Ah yes, here...

Another summer tradition is Cranger Kirmes (Cranger fun fair) which is the second largest fun fair in the country - only the infamous Munich Oktoberfest is larger.

We like to go, eat some unhealthy fairground food, have a few rides, stuff ourselves with candy floss (well Ted does, anyway) and people watch. The latter being the most important part of the fair. There are some great sights with Ruhrpott life at it best on show. Those of you who know will understand! Cranger is in deepest, darkest Ruhrgebiet representing the area at its best as well as its (sometimes) worst. It grounds you. It makes you realise where you live. It reminds you of the roots of this area. It reminds you that this is Schalke land. We love it!

This year's Cranger seemed a little more quiet than usual but it was still great and we kept up the traditions like troopers even though we limited ourselves to only three rides (well, I'm not getting any younger...)

And so this concludes the Smith/Hausmann Summer Tour 2010. Thanks for looking!

What did you do this summer?

Ooo Arrr Me Hearties (or Installment 3)

Warning! Photo heavy posts following including excessive use of the Hipstamatic (we've been having lots of fun!)

And so continues the saga of the Smith/Hausmann Summer 2010 travels...

Each time Ted comes, I try to give him a trip to somewhere a bit more special (we have done Berlin, Amsterdam and Cologne previously) so on Saturday we drove north to Hamburg which is a city I have wanted to visit for a long time. 

For those of you who don't know much about it, it's Europe's third largest port and Germany's second city with 1.7 million people. It has more millionaires than anywhere else in Germany and is a very beautiful city even though it was very seriously damaged during the war.

We managed to fit in a lot into our just over 24 hours, taking in 

• a harbour tour which was very impressive with all the seemingly millions of containers, the ship building/repair docks, the newly developed symphony hall area and Speicherstadt
• the Rathaus
• the city centre including all the canals, bridges and pretty corners
• St Nikolai Chuch which is a memorial against war. It was seriously destroyed during the British bombing raids (Operation Gomorra) in 1943 and now you can go to the top of the bell tower and look down at the surviving walls of the church which have been preserved as a reminder
• St Michel's Church 
• a open double decker bus city tour covering all the main sights of the city
• the Reeperbahn which is the infamous party mile and red light area. Suffice to say, Ted's eyes were wide!

The City Hall/Council House (Rathaus) which was really stunning.

The harbour

St Michel's Church

Speicherstadt down in the dock area - these are the largest continuous dock warehouses in the world

St Nikolai Church

One of the local specialties (due to the Reeperbahn, there is a LOT of partying going on there!)

All in all, a great weekend and even though we didn't manage any of the museums, we certainly got a good idea of the top sights of the city. Somewhere to go back to sometime in the future.

One last installment to come...