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!

May photo challenge to myself

Apart from May 1st when we were in Paris, I have decided to challenge myself throughout May to taking photos of nature - a wide topic of course but living in the city as I do, I thought this would apply just about the right amount of pressure to keep my eyes open. I think that one month this year will have to be dedicated to people because I just do not take enough photos of people (added to the fact that I do not have so many willing subjects) but maybe later in the year, I can build up to it.

In the meantime, here are the first of my nature photos for May.

Wednesday 2nd May


Thursday 3rd May


Friday 4th May

End of April photos

And so to the end of the month of April where I found myself moving away from the Her Space : My Space prompts and missing days or moving around the prompts etc. Of course we spent the end of the month in Paris and I felt that I just had to use a few favourites from that trip for 27th April to 1st May.

Wednesday 25th April
Purse

Thursday 26th April
Scissors

Friday 27th April
Paris Day 1

Saturday 28th April
Paris Day 2

Sunday 29th April
Paris Day 3

Monday 30th April
Paris Day 4

Tuesday 1st May
Paris Day 5

All will be revealed for the next "theme" for May in my next blog.

And a few photos of the day

Saturday 21st April

Texture
Sunday 22nd April

Eggs

Monday 23rd April

Silver

Tuesday 24th April

Garland

.. And I'm Feeling Good ...

Another day, another warm spring morning and I am feeling really good. It is 8.30 am and I have the whole day ahead of me.

I need to do some housework - cleaning, vacuuming, washing, ironing etc - but I hope to get that finished pretty quickly and then the day is mine. No plans, maybe go for a walk and take some photos or maybe finish up another page.

I completed my "Hands" page yesterday and while it is not perfect and there are a couple of tiny errors and even a couple of things that I wish I had done differently, I am happy with the overall result. The idea came to me as soon as I read Kirsty Wiseman's blog and she announced a competition about using your hand prints to make a layout - something personal to you. I immediately heard the Otis Redding song, "These Arms of Mine" in my head and knew that that was what I wanted to do - just needed to change the words. Ralph was away on business and although I was not lonely, I really missed him already and the words just seemed poignant. And so the layout was formed in my head. It has just taken me a while to get around to it. Rather than painting my hands, I used embossing ink and then red/gold embossing powder, added some swirly lines for my journaling and a few bits of bling. Simple but effective and I like it!