Fantasy Rock

Child No.3 is a big fan of Emilie Autumn and was desperate to see her in concert last summer.  Not only that, but she was also willing to pay the extra to get a V.I.P. ticket for a meet and greet session before the show.  Luckily I wasn't working when the tickets went on sale and spent an hour sitting by the computer, clicking refresh, waiting for them to "go live".  That was one happy daughter after college that day!  Here's a page with the official photo and a copy of the "doodle" that Child No.3 presented to her heroine.

I'm joining in with the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog's third challenge for January: to stamp on patterned paper.  I used Banana Frog Fireworks stamps on the Basic Grey Solar Eclipse paper and the background cardstock - a fun way to tie the two together.

Talking of tying things together, this is another multi-challenge page (you know how I love them) as I've joined in with the January Simple Recipe Challenge over at UKScrappers which asked us to use a combination of rich plum, greeny blue and warm red ... not sure I managed much of the greeny blue, but I did add glitter to some alphabet stickers as required.

I also had fun doodling the striped frames, mixing up my glittery alphas and adding a couple of staples to squeeze in an entry for Punky Scraps December Challenge - phew!!

Keen readers may have spotted that these papers weren't actually in my counterfeit kit for January ... well done!  As long as I'm using stash it's all good I promise.  Plus I have another page that does use my January kit all ready for the end of the month CKCB Members' Blog Hop.

If you fancy joining in with that, please e-mail the CKCB by the 18th - everyone is welcome to join in with a project from any of our monthly challenges - the more the merrier!

P.S. I can't let you go without sharing a close-up of Child No.3's "doodle" with you - I'm so proud of this girl!

Late Night Caching In Vegas

 

Back in March 2012 I was visiting Las Vegas with some girlfriends and we certainly saw plenty of sights.  However there was sight that I did not see: the Bellagio Fountains from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

"So what?" I hear you ask.
Well, the thing was, I needed to photograph the fountains from the top of the Eiffel Tower in order to claim another of the virtual geocaches in the city.   Jacqui agreed to keep me company after our visit to see Penn & Teller (awesome show ... truly magical, highly recommended), while the rest of our group took a separate taxi back to the hotel.

Late night traffic was heavy and it was a slow drive to the Paris Hotel but there was no queue at the ticket desk to ascend the tower lift.  A cheesy souvenir photographer delayed our arrival at the base of the tower where there was a short wait for the tiny lift, guarded by a wonderfully knowledgeable pensioner in red jacket with gold epaulettes.  Only she would not let us into the lift!  No!  Some "priority" guests came up a private stair-case and were allowed to go first!  Right in front of us!

We Brits know how to queue; we delight in queueing; we don't like queue jumpers! However we Brits aren't that great at complaining, so we just stood there and rolled our eyes.  That'll teach 'em!!

We finally squashed into the lift and made our way towards the top.  We caught glimpses of the illuminated  fountains through the girders when suddenly we heard loud bangs ... gunshots? ... cannons? ... fireworks?  Our lift operator cheerfully informed us that this signalled the last fountain show of the evening, it now being midnight!  What?  How could that be?  Midnight isn't late?

We had a wonderful view of the fountains, duly photographed to claim the geocache, but they weren't actually spraying any water!!!

My page is based on this month's sketch over at Sketchbook365 and the remnants of my November Counterfeit Kit match the colours from UKScrappers' Simple Recipes challenge this month.