I am loving the clean and simple

Do you have one of this ? The teenage boy who grunts and umphs ? But I am grateful, because he also quietly gets on with life in general. And when he speaks, he usually says something worthwhile.


What about one who is sunnier but also suffers (ok, we suffer!) stormy bout ? But then, he lights up my life. He would also gladly pose for me for some photos.


Lastly a family trip to Wembley last year. What a goal fest that was and we were right behind the goal. I have also included a ticket from this visit. I keep collecting tickets and leaflets from our outings, I really must use some of them.

I have enjoyed hunting out little contrasting embellishments for each one. For the Wembley LO, it had to all be red. The little England flag is one of those embellishment for Crocs shoes. So what do you think ? Too white ?

Back to scrapbooking

I haven't been scrapbooking since my last post. Then last week I went to Scrap-a-mia in Southampton. I had such a great time,I came away brimming with enthusiasm. I have since finished my projects from the weekend which I will share later but here are two layouts I have made since. Now I wish I didn't stay away.


First up is my little one on the first day of school. Well the photo is but the journalling is more recent. I always do the first day of school photos but aside from the good photo, handsome chaps in their new (too big) uniform sentiments, I don't really have much more to say for a layout so I tend to expand the story a bit to say what's school like for them. I am thinking, I might also do an "end of year" report for this one.


Followed by our pit stop trip to Giverny last August. We were in Paris for a long weekend and we saw for the first time, Mona Lisa ( disappointing! ) and Versailles ( far too busy ). We had a whole day to kill between checking out in Paris and taking a late afternoon shuttle from Calais so we made a detour to Giverny. There were no paintings of great value left in Giverny but they had some prints. I love the scale of Monet's waterlily paintings. And to be able to see the landscape that inspired his paintings especially that lily pond (complete with a man in a little boat tidying the planting).

I am sorry I was away. Will you forgive me ? Will you still visit ?

First day blues

My boys have gone to school and I am missing them. I am feeling the blues when I play "Jackson Street Blues" (Incidentally, that's the grade 5 piece I started at the beginning of the holiday and guess what, I had a lesson on Saturday and I've pulled it off! But let's leave that for another day ).

The house feels huge and empty without them. H starts at the Upper school today so with both boys at the same site, only one drop off point for me. There will be a few after school headache though but I am sure we will cope. The major point will be trying to motivate J to join more clubs! But we can't be too pushy, he has some IGCSE to contend with in June.

It started with this

I was asked to do a layout for Scrapbook Magazine and the brief was to try a new style. I made Angkor Wat that you can see above. It uses very little patterned paper and generally "very light". I started by stamping the 3 frame stamps to form anchors to the 3 separate areas on my layout. This gave me 3 areas around which to group "stuff".


Centenary Ball followed, in the same vein. The photo was taken when we arrived for the Ball at school to celebrate the Prep school's 100th year. I don't usually like to do B&W but we were dressed in black anyway, so. I added very little to the page. Some saving stamps, K&Co die cuts, some Prima flowers, an old Daisy D journalling spot...

And whilst I was feeling nostalgic last week, I made Anticipating Paris. The photo was taken (and printed) 20 years ago from our first trip to Paris ( aaahhh). I didn't use a lot on this layout either, just my favourite chicken wire stamp from Prima and some Cavallini & Co stickers.

So what do you call this style ? I am enjoying doing this. I have far too much little things that would go unused otherwise. But what do I do with all my patterned paper ?

3 layouts from Alton Towers

My class is on at The Studio

Check this out.

You can fly

We went to AirKix in Milton Keynes last weekend. And, H could fly.
He went in, smiling all the way and he flew like a natural. On his helmet was a monkey and if you imagine one of those "cymbal banging monkey", the monkey on H's helmet was doing the same throughout. It looked as though the monkey was clapping. So the Superman award goes to H.

I did ok, I managed to fly but I kept sinking to the bottom. Because I am very flexible, I managed to curve my whole body backwards rather than bending my legs. My, how I hurt the very next day. When I got into the wind tunnel, initially I was a bit apprehensive. I was even holding my breath. Then I thought, I can't do anaerobic respiration for a whole 1 minute 15...even sprinters can't. So I took a deep breath and I was fine, I even managed to enjoy myself. I don't think I will be taking this up though...I don't look good in a jumpsuit.

J and A didn't do very well. Their legs were all over the place. Perhaps it does not help to have endlessly long legs to do this ?

We exchanged our Tesco clubcard vouchers for a family flight ...more fun than a bag of groceries, that's for sure. And very good deal with the 4x value.

And I made this layout with the photo.