A Perfect 10

I squeezed in with a late layout from my April Counterfeit Kit, so it seems only fair to be really early with my first page from May's kit!  Especially as it was an example page for my UKScrappers Team Challenge which went live this morning!  We are scrapping a treasure, with journalling to tell the story (10+ lines or 30+ words) and some bling!

I recently completed my 10th blood donation and the NHSBT sent me a badge to commemorate it!  Ten donations isn't that big a deal (there was a man giving for the 108th time at my 10th session), but it's progress.  You see, I thought that my blood was only useful for research purposes following jaundice in my early childhood.  However, that certainly is no longer the case, as I discovered when keeping Child No.3 company for her first donation.  To make up for lost time, I've been donating as quickly as possible ever since!

I've used the May Sketch from the FB Sketchy Scrappers Group to make this special page for my Book Of Me using my May Counterfeit Kit (including home-made enamel dots - see the upcoming CKCB Forgeries On The Fourth for details).

October's Moving Along

Welcome to the final post of the October CKCB Members' Blog Hop; if you didn't reach me from  Julene then you might want to start at the beginning with Lisa (the full hop list is here but there's only Tina in-between)

This month we had a choice of three challenges to use for the hop (#1 Your Next Move , #2 3D Challenge, #3 Just One Thing Challenge).

I had a go with #3 but found it surprisingly difficult to only add one thing other than paper and photos to a page - extras kept creeping on.  So today, I'm sharing a page for #1 about a move I've actually made, but which moved on again this very month!  Using my October Counterfeit Kit to scrap a page for my Book Of Me, I've documented my lovely new job, in which I've just completed my probabtionary period and had my contract confirmed!

It suits me very well and I really look forward to Monday mornings now.  In fact I recently visited Genoa as part of my duties - what a hard life :-)

Thanks for hopping around with the CKCB Members this month - it was quite short and sweet this month, so why not join in yourself in November - EVERYone is welcome!

Ouch!

Hopefully my current trip to Durham to visit No.1 Son and his lovely girlfriend won't involve a trip to A&E like the last one did!

Many thanks for all the sympathetic comments and well wishes.

Thankfully the bruising has gone and the wound has healed well: I won't be needing the sunglasses unless it's sunny!

Of course the photos had to be scrapped for my Book Of Me and perhaps I might remember to duck next time!

I've used my June Counterfeit kit and adapted the current sketch over at Purple Pumpkin to fit the 11x8½ album that houses my BOM pages (and fitted in with a UKScrappers weekly challenge).

Do you scrap the good the bad *and* the ugly sides of life or are your albums filled with purely happy memories?

Going Dutch

Welcome to the final post of the October CKCB Members' Blog Hop; if you didn't reach me from Bridget then you might want to start at the beginning here.

This month Challenge #1 asked us to take inspiration from  jewellery in some way.  I've never really scrapped about my jewellery.  I don't have a lot.  A burglary back in the early 90s cleared us out and made me reluctant to invest too much emotion in valuables.  One thing that the "bar stewards" didn't steal (because it was ON my person) was my gold wedding band.  Hubby has a matching one and it was safe on his finger too :-D

It's about time I scrapped the story behind them:

We adopted the Dutch custom of wearing matching wedding bands on the "wrong" ring fingers during our engagement and tranferring the rings across to the "correct" hand on our wedding day.  I'd totally forgotten, but Hubby still remembered that the design we chose was called "sneeuwklokje" (snowdrop).  What a great memory for useless information he has!  Strange name for the pattern though, as to me it looks like a cicle of xxxxx around the edge.

Supplies are from my October Counterfeit Kit with the addition of some blue cardstock, brads and a little orange & gold organza ribbon. The page is 8.5"x11" to fit into my Book Of Me album and it started life as October's sketch over at Purple Pumpkin - thanks Samantha & Sandra - great inspiration as always! (Still time to join in - deadline October 31st)

If you've missed anyone on the CKCBMBH you can find the full list over on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog - why not join in yourself next month?!

Number Loving

The first challenge is up over on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog and it's certainly challenging: a project explaining why you love <fill in the blank> but with no photo ... just journalling!

Hmmmm!
It is February, which means Valentine's ... but I don't do lovey dovey!
Hmmmm indeed!!

Luckily I remembered that last November (on 10.11.12) I listed 10 reasons why I love numbers and I thought it would make a fun addition to my Book Of Me:

The page is (loosely) based on the January sketch from The Sampler Kit Club but I wanted to try out a fun technique with modelling paste and a stencil and this resulted in my background containing somewhat less white space than the sketch.  I've added some Making Memories heart brads (coloured with red and black Sharpies) to my January Counterfeit Kit supplies.  The 10 reasons why I think numbers are great are listed in full here if you are curious.

This challenge will be the theme of the CKCB's Member Blog Hop later in the month - if you want to join in please let them know by the 15th - it would be great to see what you come up with.

I Was A Mummy ...

As children we don't always think about our parents as real people - they provide & protect, comfort & cajole. Their lives surely revolve around us: we are the centre of their world :o)

Eventually as we get older, realisation dawns that our parents were alive. Just like us, they studied, travelled and partied; they were not always so staid, so stay-at-home; they might even have a tale or two to tell.

Those two paragraphs are written on one side of a tag on this page in my Book Of Me - an 11.5"x8" album that contains pages about me and my past.  On the other side of the tag is one such tale, about my fancy dress exploits in Sweden, prompted by the photos which recently surfaced on Facebook!

Drinking in Swedish pubs was shockingly expensive so it was perfectly normal to have a few liquor-store-bought drinks at home with friends before hitting the town. The prices encouraged us to host and attend parties most weekends and these were often themed to spice them up. Here we are, a mix of Brits and Swedes in the lads' house in Bjurhovda in 1982. I can remember thinking that Karin's carrot outfit (an orange sheet and a plastic fern) was simply inspired, whereas my bandages kept slipping and gradually revealed more and more as the night progressed!
Fun times :o)

The photos and story were committed to paper (made with the remains of my October Counterfeit Kit) thanks to inspiration from the UKScrappers Cybercrop - just about finished now - though there are some "use your left-overs" classes to come today.  And this post is part of  Siân's Storytelling Sundays - there will be lots more Sunday stories here (all comers welcome)!

A Story Scrapped

Do you enjoy the Sunday Stories that you read here and via Siân's Blog?  I do - but one of my 2012 goals was to get more of my stories down on paper i.e. into my scrapbooks!  So here is a page from last August's Sunday Storytelling with the memories hidden away on those two pull-out tabs:

The flowers were in my Christmas embellishment swap - thanks Susanne! - and I was inspired to try colouring a doily by this page by Kirsty.  The tiny alpha stickers are by Adornit and come in a mix of colour combinations dominated by black, red and white.  Unfortunately the printing (on my sheet?) isn't quite true so some of the letters end up with a black or grey (or white) strip along one edge which is annoying once the stickers are off the sheet.  I guess that's the trouble with buying my supplies on-line - I have no idea if it's a one-off or a general problem with this range! 

My layout is based on my Just One Sketch sketch - rotated as per prompt 2 of the class - yes I am a little very behind as we just had prompt 11 yesterday!  It's also not square as the page is for my BOM which is 8½"x11" and I've changed the shape behind the photos to a circle and there's no border!  In fact, as usual, I have deviated quite a lot from the sketch - but then I always see sketches as a starting point rather than something to stick to rigidly!  Do you like sketches?  Are they recognisable by the time your page is done?

Tiddly-om-pom-pom

The Basic Grey Felt Pompoms in this month's kit-to-copy from Scrapbook Circle's Note To Self kit are beautiful but, not having any in my stash, I set out to find a way of counterfeiting them.

This tutorial from Sara at Craft Snob was the nearest I could find but wasn't that close to the BG original.  However with a couple of minor adaptations I have come up with what I think is a pretty close approximation for the pompoms in the kit.

For a 1½" (38mm) wide pompom you need a strip of felt measuring 3½" (9cm) long by ... well that depends!!

{I'm too lazy to get out my glue gun or my needle and thread, so I used sticky tape!  Ideally it should be nice and thin (⅛"/3mm), but if you don't have any, you can use "standard" (½"/1cm) tape instead, though it is more wasteful of the felt!}
The width of your strip of felt needs to be twice the width of your roll of double-sided tape plus 1" (2.5cm).  So with a narrow tape (⅛") the strip measures 1¼" and with a wider one (½") it measures 2".

1. Stick the tape along one long edge of the felt.  Fold it in half lengthways so that the long edges meet and a tube of sorts is formed.  Stick another strip of tape along the long edge (but don't remove the backing paper yet).

2. Make lots of  ½" (13mm) cuts into the folded side of the strip (stopping at the edge of the tape) - these will form the loopy bits of the pompom.  Mine are about ⅛" (3mm) wide.

3. For the coloured string I used the spare string from a parcel tag and coloured it with one of Child No.3 's Promarkers.  Embroidery thread would work too ... or thin yarn ...  My parcel tag string was 10" (26cm) long.

4. If you've used wider tape you can now trim your felt strip along the taped edge so that the tape strip is about ⅛" (3mm) deep.  This will help to reduce the height of the finished pom pom.

5. Stick the coloured string to the exposed tape in loops about 1" (2.5cm) in from one end of the felt strip.

6. Roll the felt strip up tightly, starting at the end with most string stuck to it.

7. Using some fast-drying liquid glue (Superglue, Diamond Glaze, Glossy Accents) stick the whole shebang to a small scrap of card and you're done!

These are super-quick to make - I decided I needed a smaller pompom than my kit samples for a page I was making at my crop on Saturday and it took maybe 2 minutes to make one with a 2" (5cm) strip of felt (though I didn't add the contrasting threads).

Some memories from my days as Girl Guide in the Swallow patrol
as told here.

Of course, I've used papers and card from my February Counterfeit Kit (with the addition of a MS deep lattice punch, a QK texture folder, Man Oh Man Sizzlit dies and some punched butterflies) and have based this on a vertically challenged version of my Just One Sketch sketch.  It also fits rather nicely with this week's UKScrappers' challenge and Julie Kirk's Month of Sunrays too :o)

Why Not?

Over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog we were challenged to scrap our hopes, dreams or aims for the new year.  Hmmmm - I'm not a great one for resolutions as I am even worse at keeping them so I thought I'd give this one a miss.
However, reading some of the blogs of my crafty friends, awash with posts of their good intentions, I began to feel a little left out.  Then the CKCB supplied a lovely sketch by Creative Scrappers and then I saw Ruth post her 12 goals for 2012 - most of which were spookily perfect for me - so I thought "Why not?" and decided to join in after all.

In the end it was quite tricky to narrow it down to just 12 goals - but I've picked a mix of personal & creative, small scale & life-changing, fun & functional.

I wonder if this public statement will actually help me achieve more ...  I hope so!

P.S. This one page ticks both the "BOM" and the "join in" boxes: it fits the CKCB challenge, the UKS Weekly challenge (with something old - my January Counterfeit Kit, something new - borders created with my Xmas gift from Child No.3: a Threading Water punch, and bling - clear gems coloured brown with my Sharpie pen) and the monthly challenge over at Sarah's Cards - result!!!  I've even put it straight into my Book Of Me album.

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!

8-Trax

Here's my final page made with my February Counterfeit Kit for their mini-challenge - Putting Pen to Paper and scrapping without a photo: an entry for my Book Of Me which is added to very intermittently.  I used a sketch from ATDML:

Not necessarily my top 8 tracks, and certainly not in order of merit, but they are (in my opinion at least) 8 top tracks.

Twisted

A challenge over on UKS asked for us to scrap our superstitions, or failing that, our quirky habits.  Now I'm not particularly superstitious, apart from the not walking under ladders thing, which is just plain common sense really, oh and the old throwing salt over the left shoulder thing, and did I mention the magpie counting thing?  No, not superstitious at all!  So I started thinking about quirky habits ... and decided that most of those were NOT to be shared publicly if I wished to step outside of the house ever again!  Then one day in the kitchen, I realised that I was doing something that nobody else in my family can see the sense in, but which I love doing, even though it takes a while and there are probably Lakeland or Betterware gadgets that can do it in half the time.  Namely, preparing a fresh pineapple.  Nearly 30 years ago my sister in law Zen showed me the Phillippino way to cut away the skin (peel?) and remove the eye spots and I was hooked!  I love the way Nature hides mathematical curiosities away and I find it really relaxing to reveal the spiral hidden away inside a pineapple.  Twisted I know!

I love the way a pleasing spiral appears as I remove the eye spots from a fresh pineapple.  
It's a shame to cut it into chunks!

The other part of the challenge was to scrap in a different way to your usual style.  Now I'm not sure I have a style, so I chose to try a couple of new techniques: spritzing as that seems to be in vogue, and keeping the whole thing fairly minimal with a hint of stash creeping into (or off) the page the way that the fashionable scrappers on DTs do at the moment.  I've used a sketch from Sketchy Thursdays' November guest DT call.

While I had a few spray bottles to hand I didn't actually have any commercial mists, so I had to make my own.  They didn't turn out too badly actually: some dilute acrylic paint for the lime green, and some dilute ink with a spoonful of face bronzing powder for the orangy brown! The bottles did clog occasionally and needed a shake or two, releasing a few large drops onto the page - totally on purpose of course! 

I'd stuck my title letters down lightly so that they would act as a mask and reveal a clear outline once removed.  My orginal intention had been to paint all the title letters with acrylics afterwards, but the two white GinX coaster letters were rather pretty after the spritzing, so I decided to keep them as they were.
A little layering with some strips from a Hambly screen print, some sewing and a few clear pebbles later and I was done!  Note to self - punching through acetate is not necessarily that great for the punch - I may have broken my 1" circle punch :o(
Hubby is applying WD40 as I type!

Now if only somebody would invent a sewing machine that tied off its own ends I would be a happy bunny, because I don't find that relaxing at all!

A celebration

As a special celebration treat, M left me to scrap in peace this afternoon, so I'm sat here doing just that, listening to the local community radio This Is The Cat on my laptop - bliss!

Thank you Wordle for allowing me to journal what I love about my hobby in a creative way :o)

Internet Inspiration and Sharing

I'm always amazed at just how much scrapbooking goodness there is available on the internet - and how willing people are to share ideas, techniques, their own LOs and also PRIZES!!!! I've been the lucky recipient on a few occasions (not necessarily on merit - sometimes the random number generator is kind to me) and as I'm unable to afford much new stash at present, I'm having a try for a few freebies this weekend. Shimelle has a CC packed with interesting challenges and also Tracie Hudson has been giving stuff away too. I've had visitors this weekend, so have only just got my scrapping time ... watch this space!

Here's the only LO I managed - but a useful addition to my BOM nonetheless: