Alphanumeric Blog Hop

Welcome! 
Are you here for the blog hop? From Jinnag's place?  If so, you're in just the right place.
If not, please stay a while anyway!

One of my blog buddies Mel invited a few classmates from Blogging For Scrapbookers to join in with her Alphabetic Blog Hop - quite a few more than 26 people wanted in and so it became Alphanumeric.


Each participant was assigned a letter or a number ... to make a blog post with.  I was delighted to find that I got the letter ....

As you can see from the text at the bottom of my picture, I have been having fun creating shaped word clouds over at Tagxedo.  Click on the pic for a closer look at ALL the words beginning with J that I selected!  In fact it was playing around at this site that gave me the idea for my non-photo page shared here.  I have a few more pages in the pipeline using my Tagxedo creations.

In the words of Porky Pig "That's All Folks!" - it's time to hop on over to K's Crafty Corner - have fun!

And if you weren't hopping but want to join in - you can start at the very beginning - it's a very good place to start: I Speak Melsh.

A Little Help From My Friends

I love how sharing the world of scrapbooking is.  At my crop I will regularly borrow and lend tools, swap papers and cardstock and use and donate inks and brads.  I'm also amazed by how caring the Blogosphere is - ask and I am answered!  Today I posed a question on the Blogging For Scrapbookers forum about where to find cost-free and royalty-free photos to help illustrate posts.  Within a few hours I'd had plenty of detailed help.  The photo below is from Flickr - and, while I'm not 100% sure if I've managed to link to it in quite the way I wanted, I know I'm 100% nearer to being able to use other people's photos than I was before I asked!

I've managed to include a link to the photo on Flickr in the caption - should that be the Photographer's name rather than just "Source"?  The photo also appears to have a title which is quite funky - hold your mouse over it to see!  You can also jump to the photo on Flickr by clicking on the photo - not really sure if I want that - I wonder how I switch that off?
If any of you have any hints and tips for finding and sharing photos for blog posts, please let me know.

Source

Why the pegs?  Well No.1 Son returned home from Uni today, laden with dirty washing and proceeded to strip down to his boxers in front of the machine.  I do have a photo of that by the way, but thought he might object if I used it on here.  When he came out of the shower, the washing machine was clanking a little!  Oh dear!  In his rush, he hadn't emptied out his pockets before loading the machine ... and now he has a very clean and sparkly mobile phone!!!  We decided NOT to put it in the tumble drier or hang it on the line, but will see if it still works after a night in the airing cupboard.

April Flowers

AND I've used up some Scoubis!

Sorry folks, I've been a BAD blogger!  All but one of the Blogging For Scrapbookers' prompts for week 2 are sitting here, printed out, read, but un-digested.  I have been visiting a few classmates' blogs, but sadly not the forum, nor have I been posting.

BUT I have a good reason - honest!  You see I've been playing around with my latest scrapbooking tool.  It's so clever.  Ever wanted to do lots of journalling on a page, but keep lots of white space too?  Ever got fed up with having to remove pages from an album in order to access the hidden journalling on tags and in pockets?  This clever little device is the answer!  It's a pen that writes in transparent ink!   Take a look at it in action on to top of this page:

And what's more - it comes in several different colours so that you can always have exactly the right shade.  My particular favourite is sky-blue-pink - more details can be found here.  I'm off to play some more - have a great weekend!

Five on Friday #1

Today is Day #5 of Blogging For Scrapbookers - Are you taking part?  Are you keeping up?  Well it's 4 days since I promised myself I wouldn't post every day, which must mean I'm doing really well, not having posted since then!!  I have been good and read each prompt on the day it was posted, but then there's still plenty of time for me to get behind, especially as I am working a 9½ hour shift tomorrow!

Prompt #5 was about photos - which is lucky because I was out with my camera and wanted to share my favourite photo of the day - straight from my super-duper little point and shoot Canon Powershot A700. Love the sunlight through the leaves of this Hellebore.

I used 5 different types of card and paper to make the latest instalment of my 2011 Project 12 album.  I'm not using the supplied Pagemap sketches this year, and have decided to keep the same format each month - collage on one side and journalling on the other - hopefully I won't get bored with this before December.

Coincidentally that double layout includes page #5 from my March Counterfeit Kit - my pages haven't been as prolific this month, but not bad considering I started two weeks late!

And the final 5?  Well it's the number of audition layouts you have to submit to enter the Scrap Factor Contest over on UKScrappers.  There is a category each for paper, digital and hybrid scrappers and a massive £500 first prize for the creative soul that makes it through to the end!  Good luck if you enter :D

Blogging For Scrapbookers

I never could quite understand Blogging.  Just what was the point of it?  Keep a diary by all means, create scrapbook pages with lots of journalling, preferably on hidden tags, but sharing all that personal "stuff" with (im)perfect strangers?  NOT a good idea!

That was then ...

... this is now!

I was perfectly happy spilling my available time into UKScrappers (I belong to perhaps the chattiest team on the boards!), sharing my scrapbook creations in the galleries, exchanging comment lurve, joining in with the challenges.  BUT a couple of space-saving culls decimated my on-line gallery over there and more and more challenge sites demanded link-backs to enter their competitions ... and so this blog was conceived!

After a gestation of nearly 8 months I'm still not 100% comfortable with the whole idea - a mix of self-conscious bemusement, paranoia about identity theft, and worry about the amount of time which blog surfing can consume.  BUT I have found it strangely satisfying to share stories with other bloggers, pages with other scrappers and wander around the cyber community that is Blogland!

With perfect timing, this week sees the start of Shimelle's "Blogging For Scrapbookers" which, I hope, will hone my blogging skills, both  literally and, perhaps, lyrically!

♥ I'm not intending to post every day - BUT I do promise to think hard about each prompt on the day that it arrives and join in with the forum discussions.

♥ I'm not intending to start following all my classmates' blogs - BUT I do promise to read at least dozen a day to learn from their journeys as well as my own and leave comments to say that I've visited.