South-Eastern Scavenging

Having scoured the local neighbourhood for some photos for Rinda's Scavenger Hunt I was hoping for big things from a weekend away in the south-east of England earlier this month.  I did manage a couple of extra items, but they certainly weren't quite what I was expecting.

The weather was kind and we did lots of walking ... along the river ... where I spied a structure leading out from the shore into the water; a platform supported on pillars or girders, used as a landing stage for boats ... in other words ...

#1 - A pier

 ... a pier (not at all what I had in mind when I first read Rinda's list of items).  After lunch I played ball in the garden, but my playmate didn't oblige by taking any photos of me.  In fact she mostly wouldn't let me have the ball either.  So I took a photo of her while she was not giving me the ball back.

#3 - A Border {Collie}
who doesn't realise that playing fetch only works if you hand the ball back when you've fetched it!

My step-mother's puppy needs lots of exercise so we also had plenty of treks through the nearby heathlands where we mostly kept to the paths and trails.

#12 - A Maze, Labyrinth or Trail

We're planning another weekend away before the end of the hunting season (September 21st), somewhere I might be able to find a few of the remaining 13 items ... Eek not even half-way there yet :o(
If you too are hunting, how are you getting along with your finds?

The { Not-Quite-So-High-As-I-Thought } Height Of Summer

Oh dear.  The whole of August has slipped by and I haven't managed to join in with Julie's Height Of Summer Series as I had intended.  Today is the last day.  So although I had ideas for pages of scrapping and posts full of amusing height related anecdotes, I will have to settle for a photo of the inside of our pantry door.  We've lived in this house a long time, ever since the boys were tiny tots, and over the years we've marked out their growing up on the paintwork.  When I say "growing up" of course I'm talking in terms of length rather than maturity which is a) difficult to measure accurately and b) even harder to plot!

Child No.3, who has lived here all her life, has been tracked since she could stand.  When I checked today, she hasn't grown in the last 8 months.  I wish we'd been sensible and measured the children on their birthdays or each Christmas or at some other regular interval.  The dates are completely random - just when it occurred to somebody that it would be good to do.  This means it's hard to compare their heights at say 14 because somebody might not have been measured during their 14th year!  What I do know is that both boys are now taller than me (and Hubby too, since I'm taller than he is), but then I didn't really need the door to tell me that now did I?!?!

The door has told me something though.  It's come as quite a shock to me too.  It appears that I have been living under a misapprehension with regard to my height.

If Julie had asked me how tall I was, which she has, I'd have said 5' 10" - possibly rounded up from 5' 9½" for ease (I round down my weight to balance things out, don't you?!).

I'm sure I was.

Once.

Just not any more!

I measured today (twice in case the first tape measure was faulty) and discovered that I am shrinking!  That mark against my name is 174cm from the floor - yup, a measly 5' 8½".

Wait though!  We had ceramic tiles laid in our kitchen a while back so the floor is higher than it was.  Hmm - that might work for the children's older marks which will be need to have a lower floor level factored in, but, unfortunately for me I was standing on those tiles today.  So yes, the weight of all my years has begun to tell.  I am not quite as tall as I used to be.  Unfortunately for Hubby he seems to be shrinking at a similar rate!!

Calendar Catch-Up

Do you blog your days?
Do you scrap your months?
I'm not great with committing to year-long projects, but I had a whale of a time with Scrapbook & Cards Today's Project 12 in 2010, producing a whole album of double page layouts (some of which I've blogged about) documenting the family activities with photos and words.

2011 however, was an utter failure and I gave up half-way through March ending up with a double-page summary for the whole year instead.

This year I've been playing along with Julie's Month In Numbers and using the blog posts to get my months onto paper.  I'm still behind (I've only just published June's MiN post, and not all the numbers have made it onto paper) so I took advantage of the third challenge from the CKCB to take inspiration from a summer garden and get July's numbers scrapped and August's page ready to go.

I combined this with the weekly challenge on UKScrappers which called for
stitching, tearing, recent journalling and non-flat ribbon!

My August Counterfeit Kit was perfect for a summer garden theme with lots of warm, sunny colours, some honeycomb and stem patterns and I adapted the die-cut rosettes to look like the sun (at least I think it does) and flowers by snipping the straight edges at an angle.

These pages cheer me up - they are so sunny - unlike our current weather - torrential rain, strong winds and no sign of the sun at all!
Hopefully your garden inspired crafting will also bring you joy - link up here and I'll come and look

String Art on Paper

Hmmm - when Clair contacted guest designers for her Stitching On Paper series she shared a list of the class techniques and let us choose what to join in with.  Today's topic brought back memories from my youth when String Art was all the rage.  I can remember hammering hundreds of pin tacks into chipboard, winding miles of embroidery thread back and forth around them and making several pieces of wall art for my teenage bedroom.  I have no idea where they are now and there are certainly no photos around so I jumped at the chance of incorporating a blast from the past into a layout.

Rather than pin tacks to my cardstock I pricked holes in it and stitched through them with metallic threads.

I used a Crafters Workshop circle template to mark out even divisions around a quarter circle on the back of my cardstock using a white gel pen.  A ruler helped me to add extra points radiating out from the centre of and I set to work with my needle to make the holes.

Once they were done I had a happy hour sitting in front of the TV sewing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth ... before matting and layering my photos and journalling.

Clair has lots more ideas for incorporating string art into your crafting - check them out here - there's even a chance of a prize for joining in before September 8th!

June In Numbers

Yes, I know it's August and July's numbers are already out there, but I've just discovered that this post was still half-written in draft!  I've been working on the scrapbook page for it so I thought I'd better hit publish!

Welcome to my June in Numbers - check out Julie's blog here if you have no idea what I'm talking about or if you do and you want to join in with your Month in Numbers then other Junes can be found here.

June has been a bit of a wash-out - both literally and in terms of activities.  There have been sunny days in between, but torrential rain, flash floods and lightening strikes are a bit extreme even for a British summer.

1 = Birthday celebrated very quietly by Hubby as it was a working day, Child No.3 was out gallivanting, I was recuperating from my surgery and the boys were still away at university.  We'll have to have a proper family meal out together once we are reunited next month.

25 = pounds spent on his birthday present - a Raspberry Pi credit-card-sized computer, developed to encourage school children to learn about computer programming proper (as opposed to using Microsoft packages or writing html).  Of course, Hubby isn't a school child but he is an old-school programmer.

60 = years on the throne for Queen Elizabeth, resulting in a 4 day weekend for much of the UK.  Rain didn't stop play (we Brits will party on through anything).  It was not much better 10 years ago - I wonder if there will be a Platinum Jubilee and whether our weather will be better?

Books read = 14 (5 reviewed here and 5 more here) and 4 more:

"The Elephant Whisperer" by Lawrence Anthony with Graham Spence is not the kind of book I normally read.  It's non fiction and it's about animals!  However after some very positive reviews I thought I'd give it a go. I'm so glad I did - it was full of accessible, humorous and touching stories about life in and around a nature reserve in South Africa.  Anthony's struggles with local politics, regulations, poachers, wild animals, domestic animals and the weather were all there along with his triumphs containing a troubled herd of elephants, rescuing rhinos and connecting with the beautiful flora and fauna on the reserve.

C J Sansom's "Winter in Madrid" was my Reading Group choice - a fascinating account of a part of
aspects of the Spanish Civil War about which I knew very little.  There were glimpses of British boarding school life, diplomatic machinations and covert operations. Beautifully written, it left me wanting to know more about the period.

"The Pilot's Wife" by Anita Shreve was one of the books I took to and from Las Vegas without opening.  Possibly just as well as it described the aftermath of a mid-air explosion that killed the pilot!  The grief and confusion of his wife was beautifully described as doubts arose about just how the bomb had got aboard.

Jo Nesbø's thrilling "Headhunters" was full of as many twists and turns as it had unlikeable characters.  Was anybody what they seemed to be? Would anyone get away with their ill deeds?  Would you want them to?

20 = CVs handed out by Child No.3 in her search for a holiday/weekend job.  Despite several positive responses during the day, not one has followed up (yet).  1 on-line application with a local supermarket has resulted in a telephone interview and the group interview is set for next month.  Fingers crossed!

10 = types of vegetables growing in our veg patch - they are all rather behind in their growing due to the lack of sun.

4 = years of study for No.1 Son resulting in a Masters of Chemistry qualification - we are so proud - the graduation ceremony is in a fortnight - watch this space to see how well a mortar board fits on top of his dreadlocks!

Well, we never did get to see him in a mortar board as he wouldn't (let us) pay the extra for an official photograph.  You can see how smart he looked in his suit and gown on my layout here though!

Two For One

Back in March I was lucky enough to visit Las Vegas with some scrapping friends.  I'm making slow but steady progress with the layouts about the trip and I've just used one of the first photos in a page prompted by the second challenge this month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog: to scrap a layout and then use the same design to make a card from the scraps. 

I often start with sketches and I thought that if a card was on the menu perhaps I'd start with a layout from a card sketch!  I grabbed one from Sketch Support (#18) and cut strips from the papers from my August counterfeit kit.

To echo the "Welcome" from the sign I backed the title letters with punched circles and mounted them on foam pads.

Our first excursion in Las Vegas was a hop-on-hop-off tour in an open-topped bus - always a great way to get a feel for a new destination.  The first stop after joining the circular tour was, appropriately, the Welcome sign and it was possible to get out to take photos and join the next tour bus afterwards.  However, we chose to stay put as our tour guide Renée was so funny {she thought we were funny (peculiar) as we were in Vegas for stash shopping in Michaels!}.   I was also scouting for geocaches in Vegas and luckily the virtual cache here just required a photo with GPS receiver in the frame - so that was my first foreign geocache sorted too!

Having cut up strips for my page it was a piece of cake to cut some of them smaller to make a card - substituting a sticker for the photo and some ric-rac instead of ribbon.  No dimensional buttons though as the UK post system charges extra if your mail is too thick!  Do you make cards from scraps?  It's a great way to use them up!

Happy Hour

August's first challenge over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog was, interestingly, to take part in some other on-line challenge!

Is that a sort of reverse advertising?  Will the fact that we'll be using our August Counterfeit Kits in all sorts of new places make people wonder "What on earth is a counterfeit kit?" and pop over to the CKCB to find out?  I hope so - I can't think of a better way to help people USE up their stash - which of course means that we can BUY more :o)


For me, this challenge was perfect as I often take inspiration from several challenges at once - a sketch here, a colour combination there, and other elements from elsewhere - and this page is no different!  It is based on the monthly sketch challenge at the blog for Sarah's Cards (my "local" on-line shop) and combined with the Weekly Challenge at UKScrappers which required you to scrap something from your wild side, include stars or flourishes and a life-affirming word or phrase.

My photo was taken around midday at the Slush Bar in the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas.  Now I don't drink a lot of alcohol (a glass of wine with a weekend meal is a treat), so enjoying an slushy cocktail instead of lunch was certainly wild for me!

The full story behind the page was my Sunday Story in April - and by strange coincidence the CKCB kit-to-copy this month is available from Scraporchard who were sponsoring the Digiscrapapalooza convention that our new friend Balinda was attending in the hotel!

The page is made from my August counterfeit kit wth the addition of some Doodlebug Sugar Coated Hopscotch alphas and shapes.  Arghhhh!  Now I remember why these were stored away in a little plastic box ... the glitter gets everywhere!  Do you have any tips for making glitter stay put?