Have you heard my news ?

I have a new gig.

Shimelle's Scrapbooking Weekend

I managed to dip in and out of the challenges Shimelle set at the weekend.

The Stickery Challenge, you saw earlier.

The Add to the Story Challenge features a LO from my "minimal" days so plenty of space to add some journalling.

Half Page Challenge is a LO about my trip to NY Botanical Garden.

Chop Your Paper challenge gave me "permission" to cut and use a lot of patterned papers.

Cape Cod Adventure

After New York, A decided to take a couple of days off work so we can have a long weekend together (aaahh). We looked at a number of options before he had the inspired idea of going whale watching off Cape Cod.

We picked up a car and headed north. We made Woodbury Common our first stop. I picked up a new handbag from Coach...my summer handbag because it is white. And couldn't resist a 7 jeans, in petite fit...made just for me! Woodbury Common is fantastic but not as good as Sawgrass Mills near Miami.

We stayed at this Victorian B&B in Sandwich. Very cute, with rickety floorboards and wonky walls.

Our whale watch was with Dolphin Fleet who operates out of Provincetown...right at the end of that tip of Cape Cod. Didn't realise this but it is still 60 or so miles from Sandwich so we set off early.

I handed the camera to A because his height enabled him to shoot over everyone up front. And we were so fortunate to see over ten whales. This whale was waving her fins about

and a tail...

from which I made this layout.

I have used Truprint collage again, copied the whale and flags from Dolphin Fleet's leaflet, drew the lighthouse based on one on a crisp packet that I saved and used a lot of broad nib markers to colour in.

This layout is inspired by Shimelle's Stickery Challenge.

Newmarket Race Night

This is the layout from the Newmarket Nights we went to a couple of weeks ago. I found a Crate paper label, labelled "Field Notes" which prompted me to go with the field notes style.

This layout was done for a challenge at Creative Craft World.
Besides the 2 photos positioning, I departed a good deal from this page map. I have used a lot of stamping, my fingers are truly Distressed.

My field notes are titled Horse Racing (beautiful beast), Tote Betting(lost all races), Fish & Chips(oily, argh), Dressing Up(we were not) and The Wanted (should have gone to see Tom Jones instead).

The photos were printed collage style by Truprint. Have you tried this option ? It does not cost any more that regular prints so when I last ordered my prints, I made a collage for each event. I am not sure I will use them all but they were cheap.

10 for the Tenth

Today,

one..I had a lie in.
two...the sun is shining but not too much.
three...the boys are playing, together, with good humour.
four...my fingers are truly distressed from doing a lot of stamping.
five...my David Austin's William Shakespeare roses are unashamedly beautiful
six...the spring bulbs are arriving in shops
seven...J is cooking Chicken Pie and Chocolate Mousse for dinner.
eight...I wondered if I will survive the 3 hours kayaking tour in Copenhagen.
nine...I am reflecting on how things have gone the last few weeks and yet,
ten...I still have school shoes to buy and my MOT to arrange

H Cooked Dinner

Last night H cooked dinner. He shopped at Tesco and the local green grocer for ingredients. He made Salmon bake with some salad and Banoffee pie from Jamie's 30 minutes meal. Asparagus is out of season so he used an orange pepper instead. I think this meal came in under £10. We used a tray of value Salmon from Tesco and the veg man donated some tomatoes and chili. We also used some home grown salad.
They were both delicious. The boys talked dreamily of having a second round of Banoffee pie at lunch time.
H reckoned Jamie had his book very well laid out and the instructions were easy to follow but how did Jamie Oliver make chocolate curls for the Banoffee ? In 30 minutes ?
We made the pastry case ourselves so we ended spending an hour on this menu. And because the pastry is hot out of the oven, the fillings ended up being too runny but we live and learn.
It is J's turn tonight. Is it dinner time yet ?

Walking the West Highland Way

Early in the holidays, J went on an expedition with school. They walked 96 miles from Milngavie to Fort William on the West Highland Way, over a period of 10 days.

His journey started at Cambridge train station where a group of 25 boys caught a train to Glasgow via Birmingham, I think, taking something like 6 hours. I sent him off, making him promise to take some photos for me.

He survived but got bitten by midges all over ( should have used the Avon's skin-so-soft I sent him with). Despite this, he seemed to have enjoyed himself. But, there is a but, he did state, "I am never going on an expedition again!".

He also took a lot of photos for me so Yay, here are a couple of LOs. In the first one, he is just setting off from home, so I grabbed him for a couple of photos.

These are some photos he took and the information he divulged. He doesn't talk much so to call this LO Snippets from Camp, is very appropriate.

Amongst the things he told us was how his patrol served up pot noodles for cooking competition night which was rejected in disgust by the leader, the waves in Scotland were THIS (hands above his head) high though we are unconvinced, the camp sites were positively luxorious with hot showers and how they would spend time in the adjoining hotels' toilet to warm up.

I drew and made the tent out of BG Out of Print papers though my ropes and ties are woefully inadequate for Scottish wind, I am sure.