Surf's Up!

March's photo inspiration challenge over at S J Crafts got me scrapping with some photos that have been in my "to scrap" pile for a LONG time. No.1 Son had a wind-surfing course with his first ever girlfriend back in 2006, but as they broke up shortly afterwards it seemed inappropriate to be scrapping photos of her!  I think his heart has recovered by now, especially as he's currently house-hunting with his current squeeze.

The papers in Crate Paper's Boys Rule collection were a great match for the sails and the banner & pennant stickers were perfect for a nautical theme.  I love how the starry vellum tones down the stripes and adds extra interest.
Initially I cut the title letters (using QK Blossom dies) from one of the journalling cards that matched the stripy paper, but decided that using the coloured stripes themselves was more eye-catching against the white cardstock.

This month Annie is offering a prize for one lucky challenge joiner-inner - check the details here.

Keen readers will remember that I promised a prize for having a go with the S J Crafts' February sketch.  The winner is announced over at S J Crafts here - along with a couple of favourite sketch interpretations.

The Bridge

Holidays are always something of a compromise.  You cannot please everyone all the time.
We've always found it best to make sure each person has free choice with one activity and everyone else does their best to make sure that it's a success.
Last year's Scandinavian Road Trip holiday allowed me to attend a 30 year reunion with colleagues ... and of course, having worked there, I had plenty of ideas for what I wanted to do.  Hubby had just one request: to travel across Øresund Bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö (we are BIG fans of Scandinavian dramas on BBC4).

We discovered that it was accessible by car (very expensive toll charges), rail (affordable, but you are travelling on the suspended lower level of the bridge) and bus (cheap and we could both enjoy the view).  We chose bus!  Crossing the bridge also enabled me to claim an earth cache (GC1X4NV) which resulted in a geocaching "badge" for Denmark as well.

Having avoided hearts when counterfeiting my February Kit I'm quite surprised to see hearts on both pages made so far ...  my MS deep Garden Trellis punch makes lots of fun borders!  The title alphas are cut with Sizzlits Round-a-Bout dies and the Versamark stamping uses Banana Frog Tiny Teen stamps.

I took inspiration from the February Sketch from S J Crafts as my starting point ... which is itself based on a lovely page by fellow S J Crafts DT member (and former Master Forger at the CKCB) Jennifer.  S J Crafts have a linky on their blog if you fancy using the sketch too - it's open until February 28th - and while there may not be prizes, Sarah will be picking some projects to feature on the blog, so do please join in.
Actually, strike that!  There WILL be a prize, because I want to celebrate joining the DT at S J Crafts, and I'll donate a little something ... to a randomly chosen S J Crafts-sketch-user-and-linker-upper ... anywhere in the world! 

Winner announced ... here!!

Sofa Friends & Scrapfriends

I have a number of sketch challenge sites in Feedly and usually grab a few sketches from around the web for inspiration before a crop.

I don't actually print them out - just re-sketch them onto a scrap of paper, indicating where the photo, title and journalling will be, along with any embellishment groups.  This more or less guarantees that my page strays from the original sketch, especially if I can't refer back to it before finishing the page.

This month I popped over to Scrapfriends and grabbed their November sketch (#19), my November Counterfeit Kit and a festive photo: our three kids and their cousins have been snapped on our sofa almost every Christmas for the last 17 years ... it's getting harder to gather them all together thanks to jobs/studies/travels and it is definitely harder to squeeze them onto it. 
{It won't happen this year either as we are facing our very first Christmas without No.1 Son; my heart strings are being tugged hard each time I cut an apron string *sigh*}

I remembered that there were some feathers hanging down on the sketch and chose to interpret them as hanging baubles because we use them to display our Christmas cards from them each year - see what I mean about deviating from the sketch LOL

There's a colour challenge over at Scrapfriends in a couple of days ... I wonder how far I'll wander from that ;-)

In the meantime they also have a great blog candy giveaway at the moment ... take a look here for details.

P.S. See my title figures there ... they were plain grungeboard ... amazing what a little blue ink, a swirly stamp and some black Stazon can do - check out other ideas for changing colour over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog today!

Pass The Book - Lifted Winner

Congratulations

Missus Wookie

Your name was drawn by random.org and I will shortly be "passing "Lifted" by Michelle Miesenbach on to you.  For the curious, details of "Pass The Book Year 2" are here.

I do hope you gain some inspiration from it (and don't hang on to it quite as long as I did before "passing" it on to someone else). 

Pass The Book Two - Lifted

What better way to celebrate my 300th post than with a Giveaway?  A very late Giveaway, I'm ashamed to say ... as it's actually really just me passing on a "Pass The Book" book!  Alison in Spain kindly drew me when she was passing it on back in September? so it has been with me far too long, thanks in part to Christmas.  Apologies to Melissa in Texas who is hosting this arm of "Pass The Book", hopefully the next person in the chain won't be as big a procrastinator as me.  Anyone without a clue what "Pass The Book" is, please check it out here.  If you would like to be in with a chance of having temporary ownership of the book, please add a comment indicating that you'd like to be in the draw (and promising not to keep it as long as I did before passing it on to someone else).

The book is "Lifted" by Michelle Miesenbach and is chock full of lovely pages to scraplift.  Michelle and her team of designers have then taken various elements (colours, embellies, title, format, subject) from the example pages to produce new ones - you can see where the inspiration has been drawn, yet each finished page is totally new - my kind of scraplifting!  Six chapters deal with each aspect of partial and full scraplifting and I particularly like the chapter on title-lifting as I'm a sucker for typography as well as wanting to steal lift other people's great page headers.  The only possible proviso with this book's appeal is that the pages are perhaps slightly dated: the book was published in 2008.  However, as I'm sick to death of seeing trendy ink splatters and tiny instagrammed photos all over the web, I really loved the book's clean graphic style.  Even if you are a fan of modern trends I reckon the book will still have plenty of lift-able ideas to offer.

We all know that trends come and trends go ... and return again ... so before too long eyelets will be making a BIG comeback ... and when they do, I'll be ready, Silent Setter in hand!

I have made a page using a couple of ideas I lifted from the book: spacing a title out with dots between the letters (p93) and cutting up patterned papers into strips and putting them back together (p29).

The page design is from a sketch posted on UKScrappers' Weekly Challenge and the choice of papers is inspired by the "Ombre" challenge over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog.  I inked two of the strips to add to the range of colour graduation and used the counterfeited Flair Buttons that were in my January Counterfeit Kit.
You can't see it too well in the photos but I also added increasingly dense (over-) stitching on each row and inked the lower part of the pink photo mat more heavily than the top.

Do you like to scraplift?  Are you interested in passing this book?  Let me know and I'll make the draw next Monday (28th).

P.S. "Pass The Book" is international - happy to post world-wide!

We Have A Winner!

Congratulations to Alison - yours was the lucky name in the draw for a signed copy of "Gifts From Your Kitchen" - now just waiting for the giveaway copy to arrive here and then I'll post it out to you (I already have your address)!

For those of you who were unlucky the book is half-price on Amazon available on Amazon - and there's still time to add it to your Christmas wish lists!

December Is Different

Normally on the 6th I would be revealing my Counterfeit Kit in the monthly Master Forger blog hop.  However December is usually a bit different over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog  as people are generally busier with year-end activities, have less time to scrap or have other projects in mind.

Last year we Master Forgers all did posts on various December topics - mine were recycled gift toppers and thank you cards with bonus tutorials back on my blog here and here.  This year the Master Forgers are sharing a calendar's worth of monthly page kits and tips about the way they scrapbook!  It'll be my turn next week.

In the meantime don't forget my giveaway post here - a chance to win a signed copy of "Gifts From Your Kitchen" by Debbie Nicholls - you have until midnight Saturday 8th December ... and then I'll be back with a Pass The Book to share!

Coming Home To Something Yummy

Just over a week ago I blogged about something yummy to come home to as part of Jennifer's Frosty Festivities weekend event:  mini mincemeat muffins with a link to the Debbie Nicholas' recipe on Country Heart & Home.

Well Debbie has been in touch and is offering me a signed copy of her book "Gifts From Your Kitchen" (containing her "Christmas Muffins" and many other kitchen treats) to give away on my blog.
If you would like a chance to win, please let me know in the comments below before midnight on Saturday 8th.  I'm happy to post worldwide :o) Giveaway now closed.


While you're here you might like to see something else that my kids came home to ... back in 2004.  We were holidaying in Florida at Easter time and had a fortnight filled with theme parks, swimming and sight-seeing (with a little bit of craft shopping too).  On Easter Sunday we got up early to visit Typhoon Lagoon as we hoped a water park would be quieter than the theme parks were likely to be.  We had a lovely few hours there but eventually the crowds and the heat got too much and we decided to go back to our villa to cool off.  The children were amazed to find that the Easter Bunny had been to visit while we were out, hiding our plastic eggs (secretly brought with us from the UK) all over the house and keeping the treats inside the eggs nice and cool thanks to the air-conditioning!

The third challenge over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog was to scrap a  tradition and these plastic eggs have been making an appearance chez nous every Easter for ... about 15 years!

The children have two egg colours each to hunt for ... pink and purple for Child No.3 obviously ... and sometimes the eggs contain clues to something yummy that is just too big to fit inside!  All good fun :o)

I've used more of my November Counterfeit Kit along with one of the sketches supplied for the UKScrappers weekly challenge.  The grey chevrons have been cut from a border made with my MS Garden Trellis punch.

This month's Sunday Story theme over at High In The Sky is "Coming Home" ... pop over to see how others have interpreted it and share a story of your own on that or, indeed, any topic.

Frosting Optional!

Welcome to my little corner of Jennifer's Frosty Festivities Blog Hop.  If you've come to me from Jacky then you'll already know all about the great prize on offer, but if not, there are details at the bottom of this post.

It's getting colder and colder here in the UK and with the nights drawing in it's harder to get out for a healthy and invigorating weekend walk with the family.  But we do our best and if there's something yummy to come home to, like a steaming cup of hot chocolate or a tasty treat, there are fewer complaints as we set out!  With Christmas approaching, the next baking session is likely to include some mincemeat (the sweet kind full of raisins, sultanas, cherries and maybe a little brandy) but rather than traditional mince pies, my family is very keen on mincemeat muffins.

I discovered the recipe in January 2011 when I was looking for ways to use up left-over mincemeat after Christmas.  This festive treat is from Debbie Nicholas at Country Heart & Home and provides a welcome change from more traditional mince pies and Christmas cake.

We're not great lovers of cupcake frosting here, so our version harks back to Debbie's original from 2009: topping the muffin mixture with cinammon and chopped glace cherries and omitting the frosting.  In an effort to further cut down the calories, we make them in mini-muffin cases.  These photos were from a massive baking session for a family buffet ... 60 mouthfuls of festive heaven.

Yum!

Debbie has just produced a book full of clever recipes (including "Christmas Muffins") with lots of gift-wrapping ideas to make wonderful presents ... "Gifts From Your Kitchen" ... perfect for a crafty friend on your Xmas list, or great inspiration for yourself if you like the idea of a home-made Christmas.  It's currently half-price on Amazon too!

Click on the pic for a closer view

Do you make bake gifts at Christmas?
What's your favourite treat after a chilly winter walk?

Don't forget, if you comment on all the blogs listed in the Frosty Festivities Blog Hop, ending up with a comment to let Jennifer know you've been all the way around, then you'll be in with a chance to win a spectacular seasonal prize of Basic Grey Aspen Frost and Carta Bella Winter Fun items, worth over £25!  Comments must be made by 10.59pm GMT on Monday November 19th.

Your next hop stop is  Jenny - have fun :o)

Happy Mail #3 & A Winner

Thank you Blogger for publishing the posts I'd scheduled since May 28th - the day of my surgery.  They ran out rather quicker than I expected ... or perhaps I took longer to feel up to blogging again?

My surgery went without incident ... other than waiting 7½ hours before being wheeled into theatre ... my recovery (so far) has been pretty painless and I've been dutifully doing my physio exercises and taking things very easy (no driving, no lifting).  I'd had a trapped nerve in my elbow which was causing pins-and-needles-like numbness in some of my fingers.  Nerves take a long while to recover so it may be some time before I know whether the operation was successful ... things certainly haven't got any worse which I'm sure is a good sign!

While I'm still not up to spending much time at the computer, I couldn't let today pass without shouting out a huge

"THANK YOU!"

to Alison who really brought a smile to my face when the postman popped a lovely envelope through my letter box.  In the envelope were a gorgeous hand made card, filled with kind words, and some lovely goodies to enjoy once I get scrapping again.

You made my day week Alison ♥

And, hoping to do the same for somebody else, I remembered that I was overdue making a draw for my {Inter-}National Scrapbooking Day challenge to make something using up left over alphas ... if you linked back to my blog you doubled your chances of winning a small prize.  Random.org did the work and .... 

JJABauer was the winner - the goodies will be on their way as soon as you let me know your address.

Final (chance for a) Challenge

Yesterday at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog they announced the final challenge for the month of May - a good 'un - and today the Master Forgers show theirs starting here.  Unfortunately I haven't had time to join as I'm having surgery today and have been busy getting my house straighter than normal!  As it involves my write arm I'm not sure how much blogging or commenting I can do for a few days and have scheduled some posts in advance.  Hopefully Blogger will play nice.

It's also the last few days to take part in my {Inter-}National Scrapbooking Day challenge to be in with a chance of winning a small prize.

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling!

Last Monday I blogged about World Book Night and offered up a number of books to be shared via with my blog readers.  There were fifteen commenters by the deadline, ten of whom were willing to give a temporary home to a WBN 2012 copy of "The Time Traveller's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger.  Fortuitously, and perhaps not totally surprising for a someone who loves numbers, I own a 10 sided die!

So with a zero standing in for #10, I got rolling:

The winners have all been notified and their books are ready for posting.  So sorry if you were unlucky, perhaps one of the luckier recipients will pass their copy on via a blog giveaway - keep your eyes peeled!

Blogger It!

Dear Blogger
Why do you mess me about sometimes?
I have a give-away post here but nobody knows because for some reason you have decided to not to show it in Google Reader or people's dashboards!!!
Why?
Did I do something wrong?
Please let my blog readers know that I have a few World Book Night books to pass on right here.
Pretty please!
Best wishes,
Jemma of Just-Jimjams xxx

World Book Night 2012

Tonight it's World Book Night - the 2nd one to be held in the UK, and a slightly more world-wide affair this time around as the USA are joining in along with Germany!  In the UK & Ireland 20,000 passionate readers will give 24 copies of one of their favourite books to their friends, colleagues, neighbours, passers-by and anyone they feel would enjoy reading it.

In addition World Book Night will be giving a further 620,000 books directly to the hardest to reach readers through prisons, care homes, hospitals, sheltered housing, homeless shelters, libraries and charities.

I applied to be a WBN giver and was lucky enough to not only be selected, but be able to give away my first choice and favourite book - "The Time Traveller's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger.  For me, this book was thought-provoking, moving, stimulating, uplifting and exciting. While it is complicated with flashbacks and flashforwards through time as the hero travels to events in both his past and future, the book is worth a slow read to savour all the implications of just how much our lives are shaped by others.

I promised to keep a few copies back to give away via my blog: if you would like to be the temporary owner of a WBN copy, please add a comment below by noon (UK time) on Friday 27th April.  I say "temporary" because the idea of WBN is to spread the love of reading and these books are meant to be passed on ... and on ... and on!  Each book has a unique Book Crossing ID number and you can log its stay with you, add your thoughts (good & bad) about the book, and chart its progress in the future.

So, if you fancy reading this book and would be willing to share it with your friends, colleagues, neighbours or someone passing you by, please let me know!

Ding Dong Merrily

Sorry, sorry, sorry - I had promised to draw a winner for my festive give-away on New Year's Eve - and totally forgot!!!!  So my huge, heartfelt apologies to anyone who was in the draw with a better memory than me!

Congratulations to: DAWN

Drop me an e-mail please with your address and I'll package it up to you!

And while I'm catching up on things: massive THANKS to my Counterfeit Kit Swap Sister Suzanne for the lovely gifts and embellishments that were so beautifully packaged in our Christmas Embellishment Swap:

I've kept all the usable bits of the packaging and used some of it up on a page already ... watch this space!

Jingle Bells

Just one more sleep to go ... are you ready for the big day?

I'm nearly there with my preparations (although I'm woefully behind with Journalling my Christmas) and have just enough time to share a little something I made for a colleague at work.  She had been admiring the anti-pickpocket dangly bells on purses (apparently handed out by the local police to victims of theft) but had been unable to find where you could buy them.  She was understandably reluctant to go down the getting-your-purse-stolen-so-that-the-police-will-give-you-a-free-one route and I thought "I could make one of those" ... so I did.  A few bells and some beads attached by wire to a clasp ... and hey-presto:

Naturally, having bought a whole bag of bells and clasps, I had to make a few more!  Turns out they are the perfect size to go inside my Mum's Christmas cracker too!  My colleague was chuffed to bits (she was too curious to wait until Christmas day to open her gift)!

I'd like to offer one as a seasonal give-away to one of you lovely (anywhere in the world) readers - just leave me a comment below and I'll pick a random winner on New Year's Eve.

Merry Christmas!!!

CKCB News!

WOW - over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog they have announced some new Master Forgers to join the creative team - some seriously talented and clever counterfeiters will be playing along each month!

It's nearly time to reveal the latest kit-to-copy too, but you'll have to wait for the 5th for that.  In the meantime, I have a small announcement of my own to make .... I have been busy with Random.org again in order to draw a name from the kind people who commented on my CKCB August blog hop post (here) and this is what it produced for me:

And the number 7 commenter was the lovely Mary B       Congratulations Mary - I'll be in touch to arrange delivery of your prize!

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?

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!