One Day Winner

Well after a bit of jiggery pokery with Random.org

my World Book Night copy of "One Day", which was offered up to one of my blog readers here, will soon be on its way to:

Beverly 

who wrote:  "My son's girlfriend and I have been reading books then watching the movies adapted from them (we saw The Help today...awesome!) since our guys prefer battles and cars and action. I'd love to have this on our book and a movie list :)"

Congratulations!  Please let me know your postal address (you can e-mail via my profile) and I will take a trip to the Post Office.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Counterfeit Exclusive!

Welcome to August's Counterfeit Kit Challenge Master Forger Blog Hop - with an exclusive sketch by Allison Davis from Sketch Support - this month's CKCB sponsor!  If you've joined me from Kim's blog you are on track, if not and you want to see what the other Master Forgers have been up to then please check out the CKCB for a full list of the hop.

I'm cheating a whole lot this month ... because when I saw the sketch I knew I had the perfect photos for it along with the perfect papers .... but they weren't in this month's kit - they were in July's!!!!  So forgive me - I couldn't resist!  Here's the perfect sketch:

and here's my take on it - the photos are from the most marvellous bike tour of Barcelona in April.   It was a brilliant way to get a flavour of the city and culminated in a lovely lunch at the beach.

I had to do some careful cutting of my Basic Grey "Assembly Required" bicycle paper to make just one sheet of that and one sheet of the brown "Confession" paper stretch across the two pages.

The other papers are strips and scraps from my July kit - making 5 patterned papers in all on my page - fitting perfectly with a challenge over at Sarah's Cards - one of my favourite online shops!

As you can see No.1 Son's girlfriend struggled to eat her lunch in a ladylike manner! The tour was very entertaining and apparently there are Fat Tire Bike Tours in Paris, London and Berlin as well so hoping to try them again on future city breaks!

Now if you want to see another interpretation of that fabulous sketch please pop over to Margie, where she'll have stuck to the brief more closely than me and used this month's kit!

P.S. There's still a little time to tell me why you'd like to receive, read and pass on a World Book Night book here.

P.P.S.  Someone, somewhere on the Master Forger Hop today is giving away a little something to a commenter ... could you be the lucky recipient?

Flipping Sketches!!!

I love using sketches so this month's challenges at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog have been right up my street.  August has been sponsored by Sketch Support who have some super sketches on their blog (and two books of them for this month's prize - details here). One of the things I love about sketches is that you can twist and turn and flip them to create whole new pages - here is a double page spread I made with July's Counterfeit Kit for a challenge over on UKScrappers based on a recent Pagemaps sketch from June 2011 - the left hand side sticks fairly closely to the original and the right hand side is simply the sketch flipped upside down.  Throw on some stars and some extra shapes to tie the the pages together and the two halves make a whole!

Anyway, back to the CKCB and August's 3rd CKCB Challenge: to use one of Sketch Support's sketches but flip it in some way first!

I used this single page sketch from June to make a card for Challenge #1 and I used the same sketch to create my page for this challenge- turning it through 90 degrees first and then flipping it vertically!

My thanks go to Ally & Nic at my local crop who helped me with the title: I couldn't think of a punchy title and was explaining that my friend and I were looking deeply unattractive in our snorkelling masks when they started singing "Deeply Dippy" by Right Said Fred!

Can you see the likeness to the sketch?  Everything is from my August Counterfeit Kit and the flowers are again based on a tutorial by Dapfnie which is available on UKScrappers here.

One Day

A while back I was lucky enough to be the winner of Alison's book giveaway and be the next to read one of the 2011 World Book Night books - "One Day" by David Nicholls.

It sat here for a while before I decided it should reach the top of my to-read pile, then yesterday I realised that the film was due out any day and I always prefer to read a book before I see a film, so better get cracking!  Several hours later, I had a break to cook a meal for the family, and then returned to this completely engrossing book.  I wanted to know more, I simply could not wait to find out how it ended.  And then I was sad that I had kept going, because now I did know and the book was finished and there weren't any pages left to read (and not many tissues left either)!

So thank you Alison (and Ruth who gave the book to her (and the World Book Night Organisation for sending Ruth her books)) and especially thank you to David Nicholls for bringing Dex and Em (or should that be Em and Dex) into my life for one day. I loved the way there were snippets of life from the last 20 years told through letters, conversations, diary entries and how believable the characters were - real people, living real lives, making real choices.

And now comes your chance to read this wonderful book (a special must-pass-it-on-to-someone-else-via-your-blog-after-reading edition) - just leave me a comment below to say why you'd like to read it and check back in a week to see if you're the one!  [International enquiries most welcome]  That will give me time to re-read and savour the pages before I decide whether I can brave watching the film in public - I could always wear dark glasses for leaving the cinema!

An experiment in journalling

I love journalling on my pages - to me that's the point of scrapbooking - it's important to add the story behind a photo as well as adding the who, what, where & when.  Last year we had a lovely family break in Northumberland and visited Alnwick Gardens (the castle is famous for being Harry Potter's Hogwarts) which were spectacular!

We visited the Poison Garden - layout is in the pipeline - and loved the spectacular fountains and water sculptures everywhere, especially in the Serpent Garden.

I was experimenting with having several "stories" running across a page: labelling the photos, telling the general story of where we were, and adding some extra info about one particular photo - namely No.1 Son showing us how skinny he is by being able to fit into a gap I could barely slide sideways through! 
What do you think - do the three types of journalling work, or are they confusing?

I've used my August Counterfeit Kit, but no orange papers this time!  This page also fits in with Shimelle's recent challenge to incorporate 3 things on your page (journalling spots & large stamped butterflies, types of journalling) and also Scrapbookers Anonymous's challenges (discovered through Julie's blog) to use journalling spots and/or stash beginning with A - August's Counterfeit Kit ... or possibly American Craft cardstock as a base!

Feitercounting!

August's first challenge over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog is (naturally enough) using a sketch from this month's sponsor Sketch Support, but it comes with a devious twist: either use a page sketch to make a card or use a card sketch to make a page!!!

As you can see I chose a one page sketch (#10 from June) and took inspiration from it to make a card with my August Kit  ... another one to simply say "Hello" to a friend.  The flowers are based on a tutorial by Dapfnie (the third placed winner of the UKS Scrap Factor competition) which is available here.  I liked the sketch a lot and have also made a page where it is much more recognisable - but you'll have to wait until later in the month for that - sorry!

Shimelle has been inspiring people this weekend with 3 days of challenges (still open for prize participation until Sunday 21st) including one to use only half your page ... and I thought I'd combine this with the other half of the CKCB challenge i.e. to take a card sketch and make a page from it!  I chose Sketch Support's #8 card sketch from June as I thought it would lend itself nicely to a page with plenty of "white" space.

My photo is from last year's holiday in Egypt, showing us bare foot and happy on the last night at the shisha bar.  The photo is not the best quality, taken in poor light by a passer by, but it's the only one I have of the whole group - we were rarely all together as the divers & snorkellers had very different holiday schedules!

I did actually try the shisha pipe (very brave for an ardent NON-smoker), but failed miserably to get a tune ;o)

Ten on the Tenth: Top 10 Tools

Today I've been thinking about my 10 must-have scrapbooking tools - what would I really not like to do without?

In no particular order (well alphabetical, but not importance):

Black Foam Dots - these are less likely to show under things and, thrifty as ever, I use the foam surrounding the dots too!
Corner Rounder Punch - probably my oldest tool
Didi Glue Dots - perfect instant sticking for tiny things; this roll is crumpled because I had a 15 minute tussle to get it back out of the dog's mouth - thankfully they still work fine!
Finger Knife - paired with a metal ruler I can, and do, cut anything  
Glue Eraser - great for cleaning up little squidges of ...
Hema's Photo Glue - cheap and cheerful (apart from having to get it from Holland) this re-positionable liquid glue is wonderful!
Pentel Hybrid White Gel Pen - after trying all sorts of brands this is the one that works for me
Precision File Set - love this for filing the edges when decorating bare chipboard with paper
Sewing Machine - great for adding texture to a page (and Hubby's wedding present to me ♥ )
Sizzlits Round-a-Bout Dies (and my Sidekick I guess) - love this font

Quite interesting to realise how many "excess" tools I have - punches, trimmers, stamps, pens, dies, rulers, eyelet setters, circle cutters, shape templates, scoring board, embossing tools, decorative scissors, staplers - but although they don't make my top 10, I won't be getting rid of them!!

Check out Shimelle's Blog for more Tens on the Tenth

And the winner is ....

This time last week I reached a year of blogging and organised a Blogiversary Hop to celebrate.  Despite Blogger's best worst efforts the blogs were hopped (many thanks to the blogging buddies who helped me out), the numbers found (some more easily than others), the sequence spotted (prime numbers) and the missing number located (with/without the help of some extra clues).

I have drawn a name from the correct answers e-mailed to me and it turns out that 13 was lucky for:

*** HELEN ***

Once I get your postal address there will be a parcel winging it's way over to you!  Have fun with it.

August Stories

Did I ever tell you that I once sat down for a chat with Mickey Mouse?
"That's nothing special!" I hear you cry, after all, so many children have now seen Mickey and friends in Florida, California, Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
But I'm talking about way back in 1963 ... in Bognor Regis!  Mickey & I had a fine old time as you can see:

Despite the fact that the slide is dated July 1963, I suspect that both Mickey & I had very cold knees and the picture was more likely taken much earlier in the year.

Later I popped over to Miss Muffet's tuffet for a while, but she wasn't there ... I wonder why?

Finally I went aboard for a short cruise with the Butcher and the Baker.

Such were the attractions on offer for children back in the 60s.  No animatronics, no white-knuckle rides (the railway around Hotham Park was fun but it didn't exactly set your pulse racing); just a few fancy chickens, a couple of goats, some guinea pigs and most exotic of all: a llama or two!  I don't actually remember the animals of Pets Corner, but I do remember the excitement of meeting the characters from my bedtime nursery rhymes, including poor Humpty Dumpty, though sadly I do not have any photographic evidence of our encounter.

I visited Bognor Regis a lot as a child as it was there that my paternal grandparents ran a boarding house: plenty of spare rooms for my father, my brother & I when he came home to the UK on leave.  We children were indulged by the paying guests and occasionally given a few pennies (old ones mind) to take to the arcades on the pier.  I'm rather ashamed to recall that I often mentioned the local attractions to the residents in anticipation of their generosity!

I was fascinated by the little balls of butter and tiny pots of marmalade that my grandmother would prepare during the afternoons, ready for the next day's breakfast trays. There were service bells in each room too - my brother & I would delight in ringing them and then dash down to see the panel in the kitchen indicating which room we'd just been in.  It must have driven my grandfather mad and was utterly pointless as we knew perfectly well which bell we'd just rung.  Happy days though!

I've only just scanned these slides, and so there's no layout to share, but I did make a page a while back of  me outside the boarding house with my first proper bike: as you can see, I (or more likely my mother) really liked me dressed in red!

These innocently happy memories were brought to you in conjunction with Siân's Storytelling Sundays - pop here for more.

P.S. There's still time to hop around my Blogiversary friends and find the missing number to be in with a chance of a give-away .... I'll be back with the winner on Monday 9th!

Choice Counterfeiting

Are you counterfeiting?  I have been: over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog they've announced the latest kitS-to-copy from My Creative Scraproom (although it's not their latest [which is are lovely - check it them out here] - the CKCB went back to September 2010 for inspiration this month).

We were give the choice of four kits to counterfeit (a main one, two add-ons and a limited edition kit) - and while I was tempted to have a go at them all, the thought of my half-used July (and June) kits made me stop at just the one!

I chose the stunning Creative Add-on Kit as I love the bright colours and small patterns ... trouble was I had NO Echo Park papers at all.  So I looked through my stash to see whether I had some papers with:

• butterflies (sort of)
• trees (no chance)
• small colourful circles (plenty)
• narrow colourful stripes (plenty)
• small colourful flowers (surprisingly few)
• diagonal colourful checks (none)

 ... and came up with circles, stripes and matching alphas from Polar Bear Press and butterfly floral paper from Sei ...and these were the starting point for my kit:

You will note that they really aren't anything like the original, but this whole challenge is about using what you've already got so that's what I'm doing.  I then selected a few more papers, some butterfly stamps and a variety of embellishments (with buttons instead of flowers) to produce this kit for August:

I'm hoping the addition of teal alphas, ric-rac & buttons will help me ring the changes when it comes to using the kit, the full contents of which are listed below.


Cardstock:  AC Vanilla, 2 cream/green flecked, Bazzill green, yellow, peach & brown

Papers:
Sei Morning Meadow (plain cream reverse)
Polar Bear Press Sherbet Stripes (mottled green reverse)
Paper Loft Sanded Geometric in green
Polar Bear Press Sherbet Dots (mottled peach reverse)
Doodlebug Design Obviously Orange Dots
Dream Street Papers Forget-Me-Not Stitched With Love
Imagination Project Desperately Seeking Summer
Leopard skin print (unknown brand)
K&Co Teal Scrolls

Embellishments:
Polar Bear Press Sherbet Ice stickers
Orange, green, teal alphabet stickers (MM?)
Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type teal alpha stickers
MLS Mint mini alpha stickers
K&Co Brenda Walton Mira Words rub-ons
Daisy D’s Top 10 Random Lists cardstock die-cuts
Selection of buttons in orange, green and teal
Various ribbons
Jillibean Soup Journalling Sprouts in white/brown
Glitz Frosting flowers
Maya Road Vineyard chipboard shapes
Banana Frog Butterfly stamps

P.S. There's still time to hop around my Blogiversary friends and find the missing number to be in with a chance of a give-away .... I'll be back with the winner on Monday 9th!

Today's the Day!

... when the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog announce the latest kit-to-copy - and tomorrow I'll show you what I've been inspired to put together.

In the meantime, (yet) another reminder that my Blogiversary Hop will be lucky for someone ... as this is the give-away that one person will be receiving (and as I love international give-aways, mine is too) if they can spot the missing number from the sequence of numbers dotted around some of my blogging buddies and e-mail me before Monday morning!

Count(erfeit)ing the Days

It's nearly time for the BIG reveal over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog of August's kit-to-copy ... 2 more sleeps!  In the meantime I can share that this month we have another great sponsor - one that is right up my street - namely Allison Davis of  Sketch support fame.  The monthly blog hop winner will be receiving not one, but two sketch books as a prize - for joining in with the hop or just for commenting along the way.  I'm really looking forward to this month's challenges with our soon-to-be counterfeited kits as I'm sure there will be quite a few sketches featured and I love using sketches.

I also wanted to say that there's still plenty of time to have a go at my Blogiversary Hop - and find out which number is missing from the numerical sequence I shared with some of my blog buddies - ALL of whom have now posted their numbers (hooray!).  The draw will be late on Sunday night (or more probably, first thing Monday morning)!

And if, despite sending me the missing number, you are feeling lucky, then why not hop over to the Banana Frog Blog as they are having their latest monthly blog hop (a summery short one) and have a set of lovely Banana Frog stamps up for grabs - I have won a couple to add to my collection and thought it was about time someone else had a chance!!!

Happy Hopping and please do come back here in a few days to see how I got on with my counterfeiting!

Blogiversary Part Two

There wasn't meant to be a part two - but there were two things to note about yesterday's Blogiversary post:

1) Poor Missus Wookie's number couldn't be found because her post didn't appear.  I know that MW had holiday plans and had scheduled something for me, but I also know that Blogger was throwing a few spanners around my friends' blogs yesterday!

ETA 3/8/11 - Missus Wookie's post is there now - Hooray!

Not to worry - there was actually a big little clue to the missing number in my number.  Did you look closely at it?  The missing number is also missing from it!  And MW's number is NOT missing!  So take another look (click onto it for a closer view), and if you have managed to narrow it down to two missing numbers ... you'll be able to eliminate one of them!

2) Mary posted the most wonderful little jpg to the comments yesterday - and I thought it deserved a proper airing!

I think I'm having so much fun that I'll plump for "Remind me next year" !!!

Blogiversary

Welcome to my Blogiversary post - 1 year of clogging up the internet with my creations, thoughts, photos and the odd video!   114 posts (counting this one) over 12 months with an average of just over 9.5 comments per post (thank you).  41 followers when last I looked, and 101 Google Reader subscribers - some of whom are the same people. According to Blogger I've had over 7,000 page views and my Flag Counter gadget at the bottom of the page says that my visitors come from 43 different countries!!! (including a chatty crafty arty "pig" on holiday!)

Source

Do you get the impression I like numbers?  Well you'd be right.  I do.  Sudoku puzzles are fun.  Numerical crosswords are even better!  I love that numbers and sequences and patterns are everywhere.  Did you know that there is a spiral hidden in a pineapple?  Or that pine cones, artichokes and sunflowers are also Nature's representations of the number sequence named after Fibonacci? One of my childhood heroes was the brilliant, witty, talented Tom Lehrer who sang clever songs about science and pigeons and mathematics too:

WARNING: Don't listen to it more than once or you'll be hearing it in your head all day long!!!

Source

To help me celebrate my Blogiversary,  I nabbed an idea from Sandie, and roped in a few blog buddies to do a blog hop.  As I like numbers I have asked each of the hoppers (hoppees?) to share a number with you.

And because I like winning give-aways I thought I'd reciprocate and supply (a small) one of my own, so once you get back here, put the numbers in order, have a think, and drop me an e-mail to say which one is missing to Jimjams at dreamj dot co dot uk.
I'll draw a winner from the correct answers next Monday, August 8th.

Please start by visiting Sandie and she'll point you in the direction of the next person on the hop.
If you get lost, here is a complete list of places to visit:

Sandie @ Itchifingers
Furrypig @ Chatty Crafty Arty Pig
Siân @ From High In The Sky
Hilary @ Pictures and Paper Bits
Alexa @ Trimming The Sails
Helen @ Craft Imperfect
Missus Wookie @ Missus Wookie's Wanderings ***
Mel @ I Speak Melsh
Mary @ Mary's Musings
Mel @ Created By ATDML

*** ETA 1/8/11 - please bear with my helpers if one or two posts aren't isn't quite there (yet) as it's holiday time and Blogger doesn't always play fair ...  I'll be back with clues tomorrow if any are still missing!
ETA 3/8/11 - YAY Missus Wookie managed to get her post online -  use the clue if you're still confused!

Oops - I nearly forgot - you need a number from me to get you started .... how about: