Thursday 19 September 2013

Cake Rota

 
I made this layout last autumn. I have only just had it back from Scrap365 last week, I had forgotten all about it.
 
Now that a new school year has started, the cake rota is a favourite discussion in our house.  J said, "We are trying to get a cake rota started in all our classes". "How many cake rotas is that ?". Well, they have 2 teachers for each subjects so that's six in total. Not all the teachers are popular, so maybe he will end up with three.
 
"The trick is to be placed at the end of the rota", he said. "Then usually the rota petered out". "We had a really nice rainbow muffin today", he added. 
 
"I need to bring in some cakes next Tuesday", said H.  Not a rota, but a birthday cake for everyone in Greek, all six of them!
 
I have joint the cake rota at work too.  Someone brings in cakes or chocolate on Tuesday for our departmental meeting.  I have been sampling the cakes so I felt obliged to join in.  Not sure yet when I am up but these brownies might be making an appearance. Another option is raspberry slices. We will see.
 
ps: I cut out those chevrons by hand.

Monday 9 September 2013

Right Here...Summer Style with Layers



Hello Gorgeous.  How are you enjoying the UKS Blog Hop so far ?  You should have come from Cal but if you are lost, you can find all the links back on UKS.

Welcome to my blog. I am going to show you how I created a very layered layout. I hope it will inspire you to get creating now that the kids are back at school.

I don't usually have a lot of layers under my photos but on discovering a lot of journaling cards, I thought I had better put some of them to work.  Rather than haphazardly pushing cards and embellishments under, I decided to work at the layers methodically.  A bit too prescriptive ? Maybe!  For me, it helped to think of the layers like this.
 
I started by preparing my base cardstock. I removed approximately 1" from the white cardstock to end up with 11"x11".  I didn't cut it too straight before I framed it with 2 patterned papers. I am intending to machine sew around the edge but I won't do this till the end.
 
 
I added four journaling cards plus the red tag to lift a very neutral card a little.


Next I added two Fancy Pants stencil cards.  The cut out on the card provided me an opportunity to add another layer so underneath them went a piece of patterned paper and some stamps. Later on, you'll see why I used the stamps.

 
I added two photos to the mix.


This is followed by a framed photo in the middle.  The chipboard and a little bit of twine adds another layer.

 
Next I added three clusters of labels in a triangle formation - top right, bottom right and middle left. You probably already know about how a triangle is used in designing a LO so I will not bother you with a lecture today. 

 
I added a wood veneer shape on top of each cluster of labels and that's pretty much my photo area done.

 
I added a title at the bottom of the page. I seem to be doing a lot of titles at the bottom of the page right now. You are probably bored with that.   For this layout, moving to the bottom provided some clear space between two areas of clutter.  I went over the top with some stamps from October Afternoon.
 
 
That space in between provided the perfect area for my journaling. I also sew around the edges at this point.

 
There you go. The photos are from when we visited Mudeford, Dorset  This layout is called Right Here because you don't have to get on a plane to find some lovely place. Do those postage stamps make sense now ?
 

I hope you are inspired to try this yourself.  If you do, please post me a link.  I would love to see.

That's all from me.  Your next stop is Kathy on http://kathyisshopping.blogspot.co.uk/.

Thursday 5 September 2013

Second Day of School Photos

Is first day of school photo a ritual in your household ?  It is in mine but I forgot yesterday morning. I don't even have the excuse of work because I didn't work yesterday.   So these are our Second Day of School photos.

J is in the Upper Sixth.  How did that happen ?


He came downstairs yesterday in a crumpled shirt.  When asked why he was not wearing one of the ironed shirts, his reply was, "This is more stylish".  LOL.  Stylish ?  It is just school uniform for heaven sake!

H joins Year 10 and starts on the thread mill of GCSE.  I guess Year 13 won't be too far off for him either. He was practising, "How much scowling can I get away with ?" in this photo.  He is usually a very cheerful person.

 
We usually have photos by the house number as it provides a height chart of some sort. ps; I think I can fit under it.