You're invited

I have been invited by Rebekah to participate in a blog hop on occassion of her birthday ( shh, she is waaay younger than me! ). She kicks off at 7PM GMT on 19th March. I hope you can make it. I don't know who else is joining in but it should be a fun. I am putting the finishing touches to a project to share with you all. I am hoping it will be all pretty and girly (sigh, wistfully, you know, I don't get enough opportunity to do pretty. )

Wanna see ?

Wishes do come true

Ok, slightly soppy today. Actually the word that came to mind is Malaysian se -mo-nel, a word from my school days. I am not even sure this is a proper word or even if it still in used. Funny how, being bilingual, some words come unbidden in one language and not the other LOL.

Right, back to the LO. This is for A, celebrating our 19 years together. I don't have a recent photo of us together so I've used one that one of the boys took during a holiday a couple of years ago. I know it misplaced the photo somewhat but better get the story down, is my mantra.

A has always been great at making my wishes come true, from the time he baked me a black forest gateaux over 20 years ago, taking me on holiday to places I wanted to go, nearly buying me a flash car ( but I changed my mind LOL ) to buying me a sofa to do up this year.

I have always struggled with black and white...or rather I struggle with black. So this layout is trying to conquer that phobia. I have left the Prima paintables pretty much as it is and didn't even used any other patterned paper. And then I introduced loads of colours using embellishments. As you know, I love to put loads of little embellishments on my layouts so there you go...the more the merrier.

Life changing choices ?

This might the first of many! J is currently in year 9. In September this year, he will start his 2 years of GCSE courses. Admittedly, in most subjects they have already started doing this but we have now been asked to decide what subjects he wants to do for GCSE. All the boys have to do the 7 core subjects ( maths, englishx2, sciencex3 and french ) and have the option to select 3 others.

Greek and Latin were the obvious options. He has been doing Latin for 3 years and does really well at it. I am not sure where he got this from because his dad hated Latin and got through 'O' Levels by memorising text for his translation exercises.

J's Greek teacher has said that J has a real gift for Greek and should he decides to do Classics, he would sail through it. Whilst J enjoys Greek, I think, the thought of sailing through something really appeals to him. LOL. His teacher also said that she is having to brush up on the Greek to keep up with J. Well, she is not the only one, I had to brush up on my maths to do a Cayley Olympiad paper yesterday but that is a story for another day!

The third choice could have been history (he would definitely get an A* said the teacher), geography ( he needs to up his game and the course involves doing coursework and field trips...yuks! ) or religious studies ( didn't get to speak to a teacher because they all left early from this department ). And he has opted for RS. I think this is a wise choice. I love how RS is taught, how religious believes aren't necessarily gospel and it is a matter of looking at a point of view from all aspects. I think a lot of good life skills could come out of this one...arguing a point and yet showing understanding and tolerance. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we all have this ?

ps: sorry, nothing pretty to share but my sofa came. I have some woodworming treatment to do on the frame but it looks pretty much like the photo...like a bird's nest.

19th wedding anniversary

It is our wedding anniversary today and he bought me this sofa. No, we've not gone mad. I started doing upholstery in September and have now finished (well, nearly! ) our dining chairs. I'll share that soon. In the mean time, I've been looking for my next project and found this at an antique shop the other side of the country. It is being couriered over in the next couple of weeks and I can't wait to get ripping all that apart. I am very excited.

2 weeks, 2 stores, 1 layout..

That sounds cryptic. Let me explain.

Hilary asked me how I go about creating my layouts. I am not sure I came up with a convincing reply. I don't really have a set procedure, my layouts take shape as inspiration strike. Here's how one layout came about.

About 2 weeks ago, I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep (don't worry, this is not a bedroom story! ). Lucky him, he was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. My mind started wandering, I started thinking about the day's events. I usually get a comprehensive report from H as to what went on at school and today was no exception. He told me how they were researching interest rates and a home for their money for 2 years without exit penalty. Woo...I was impressed. He said they were going to do shares next. He was full of enthusiasm. Wouldn't that make a great LO ? So the next thing going through my mind is the LO. Though I didn't get very far ( I assume I was asleep very soon ), I thought about what I am going to say...something along the line of "you find maths tedious but as soon as they stuck a £ sign infront of the numbers, everything change.working on interest rates and shares really captured your imagination".

A couple of days later I was in PCWorld and saw a boxed software entitled, "I hate maths" where the word hate has been scribbled out and replaced with love. Right, perfect title for my layout too.

Last Saturday I was in the "new" Anthropologie store on Regent Street in London. They had a sign by the till saying "Please queue here". Shame I haven't got a photo to share but I will attempt to describe it. It is made of a beige card, with a sheet of grid paper in the middle and a few strips of masking tapes going across the page. On the masking tape strips, they have "stamped" the words "Please queue here". And you know what, that became the basis of my layout.

On Monday, I went to pick up from school armed with my camera. I persuaded H to let me take a photo of him.

Yesterday I set about making this layout. I have rephrased the journalling a bit so I get to mention the positive (enthusiasm) before the negative (tedious). It is called "love maths". Otherwise, it is pretty much as I had seen in the stores and planned. I stamped "hate" on a strip of masking tape, scribbled out and wrote "love" instead. I have also used a sheet of square ruled paper.

And here it is. Funny how this layout is a result of a visit to 2 very different stores. You must think I am forever shopping ! How do you make yours ? What is the best place for inspiration ?

For my Valentine

I have made this canvas. I recently "discovered" Claudine Hellmuth whilst perusing craft books on Amazon and bought Collage Discovery Workshop.

The canvas was first covered with a sheet of piano music ( a love song, of course! ) before I added gesso, acrylic paint and tissue paper. Then I added "us", with book page upper body as per instructions in Claudine's book. I added a tree cut out (that was intended for another project but didn't make it on there ), some Glitz roller stamp, the two love birds in the tree and some distressed inky edges. Lastly some stickles for sparkly shoes and diamond necklace and "all you need is love" stamped discreetly at the bottom.

It still feels a bit bare and sparse for my taste but I hope he likes it. Next project is a little card to go with it. Or maybe two cards seeing as it is our wedding anniversary the day after Valentine's day. So, what have you made for your beloved ?

A frosty morning

It usually takes us 15 minutes to arrive at school but this morning's journey took us 45 minutes. I hope J wasn't too late for first lesson. I was queueing for most of the four miles there but the scary part was the journey back. My traction control came on several times but the worse part was when an idiot on a bike decided to cut in front of me whilst I was turning down into our road. Some cyclists seems to have a death wish! Supposed I couldn't stop ? I also saw a car and several bikes stopped at one roundabout ( no serious injury that I could spot ) but I am guessing the driver couldn't stop her car ?

We had a sprinkling of snow on Saturday and the days have been sunny and frosty since then. Unfortunately, not enough to provide pretty photo opportunity! So here are some photos from last year. I made this LO for Scrapbook Magazine Issue 43.

Those poor horses provided a very pastoral scenic photo opportunity. Old house, old village ( we were fighting BT to keep that red phone box! ) and a day off school. I think everyone stayed home that day. The village felt very festive, everyone was out playing in the snow followed by lunch in the pub. I managed to use some "old" fabric tabs, I can't even recall the name of the company who made them. Are they still trading ?