Dreadful weather

What dreadful weather we are having in the UK right now! Did you have flooding in your area ? If so, my thoughts are with you. We are fortunate that our house is on higher grounds here but our village has been known to be completely cut out due to flood water. Here's hoping there won't be a repeat this year.
My little boy has just started doing rugby at school. I guess at the mention of rugby in school, I need to qualify that with "contact". He has played tag rugby before now but in Year 5, the school starts the boys on the real rugby. Last week lessons concentrated on falling safely to the ground and included rolling in the mud. He had rugby on Wed, Thur and Fri and we didn't have enough time to clean the games kit every day. So what do you do ? I sent him to school covered in muddy jersey! This week he starts rugby after school club on Monday as well. EEEK!
I am going to leave you with some layouts from the summer. I guess these photos might seem like long-gone memories but we were fortunate to have some good weeks.

First of September, first of many things.

Did you remember to do the "first day of school" photos this morning ? That is if your kids went back this morning. If not, then this acts as a reminder for later on in the week. My boys went back this morning and now the house feels empty ( and very quiet! ). I managed to get them to stand in this very same spot for their photos this morning. They didn't grumble too much either.

I try to get the photos done at the same spot because the bricks also act as a marker as to how tall they are getting. In the one above from the last school year, the photo on the left was first day and on the right, last day. See how the over-large uniform has grown on him! I had to send him to school in the same blazer this morning as the 2-sizes-larger blazer that I ordered is still in transit with Royal Mail somewhere.

So what have you got planned now the kids are back at school ? I have many projects planned in my head and so many photos to scrap. I am also planning on pulling out an "old" quilting project that has been work in progress for more than 13 years. Maybe this year I will finish it! But more achievable will be going back on Wii Fit. I have had a long break since our Wii had to go back to Nintendo for a spot of cleaning(of the laser head ). The cleaning didn't take long but school holidays followed...

Today is also my first day on the http://www.scrap-n-crop.com/ Design Team. I am really excited about making new scrapping friends in Malaysia and South East Asia. This will also provide me with the perfect opportunity to scrap old photos from back home.

It is also the first of Ramadhan, so happy fasting if you are. I really miss being able to go to the "warong"s to buy food for "buka puasa". I will be blog-stalking some Asian friends to see what food they are serving up.


And lastly, not quite from today but yesterday, we hid our first geocache...yay!

Layouts overload

A few layouts to share with you.

Another round of CJs

Sorry for the short absence. We've been on holiday and now I am frantically trying to make sure all the back to school supply are in order. Finally bought the school shoes yesterday...hate queueing in Clarks!
In the mean time, I am going to leave you with the posting below. I wrote this before going on holiday and have completely forgotten to publish. I'll be back with a few LOs I've been working on once I have downloaded from the camera. See you later.

The first is for my team CJ. This entry is in Sonja's book, the Birth year CJ. Oopss...now my dob is open knowledge. I took this rare opportunity to use pink papers by October Afternoon. And that photo is of me when I was about six months old. I am pleased to say that photo studio is still in existence in my hometown. ( they thoughtfully stamped their address and date on the back of the original ).

This is for a Fabric Journal that has been going on for a while. I believe we are one or two short of completion. This on is for Eleanor who challenged us to fill our pages with treasures. Mine is destined to be filled with flowers ( and a bit of bling ).
They are both in the post, hope their owners will love them.

As requested, the Chelsea book

This post is for Joanne and Haberdawoman. I finally got around to photographing a few more pages from my Chelsea book. To be honest, this book is quite simple and sparsely embellished. The judges don't usually like messy inky look.
The pages are made by tracing around some scallop circle Bazzill. I then cut the circle into 2 and then cut one of the halves into two again. I have five sections in the book, each one started with the "Memorable" stamp and the title of the show garden I am focussing one. Each section is made up using 1 semi-circle and 1 quarter-circle in the middle. They are all sewn together using modified book binding stitches ( I say modified because I can't remember the correct way to do them! ). The cover was made using Prima's embossed chipboard. My scallop hand-cutting skill unfortunately did not stretch to chipboard.

Naturally I started with the "Best in Show".
On the 1/4 circle pages, I stamped journalling blocks ( embellished with stickle ).

But this last one is from the "A garden for George" show garden. I love that this garden is slightly whimsical, with a lot of colours containing a giant photo of George Harrison and even a temple.

Produce Show

We had a village produce show last Sunday. This is actually in the next village because our own village is too small to host an event such as this.


I am not green fingered enough to tend lovingly to vegetables so I didn't enter the veg section and my garden is not big enough to grow enough flowers for cutting so I didn't enter the flower section and I can't bake too many things at the same time so I didn't enter the cookery section either. Was that enough excuse ? Which left the craft section. Now, I can't not enter the craft section, can I ?

Luckily I did, I came second in the craft section. My photographs didn't do as well as I thought, I think the judges preferred "snaps". Only one photograph won out of the six I entered and on top of that, one of my card came second and my minibook about Chelsea Flower Show came third.
My card was hand-drawn and painted with watercolour. When dry, I added stickle to the umbrella. Unfortunately the stickle just looks messy in the photo above.

The children produced some excellent work. H came second in the U16 section.

But the star of the show is my dear husband, the expert baker! His fairy cakes came first and his chocolate cake came second. I am encouraging him to enter all the cookery classes because I am sure he will triumph!

Thornham weekend

Last weekend I was in Thornham with the Wyverstone girls for a weekend crop. I had a very productive weekend. I am actually very bad at producing a layout at a crop unless I have thoroughly prepare beforehand. So as not to waste a whole weekend, I prepared 10 page kits ( with sketches ) and delighted to say, I managed to complete 8 of them. I can't share them all yet but here are some.

The first layout is based on Eileen's sketch for our Friday night challenge. I have omitted the swirls that Eileen used in the middle of the layout as my photos are too busy to take more embellishments.

The second layout features the soldiers at Kelmarsh Hall. Remember those Romans ? I love the bright colours of their uniforms which are in stark contrast to modern camouflage combat gear. Caz donated the big arrow journalling block which she got from Etsy. We had a great time exchanging our little Etsy purchases at the crop.

Last is my little boy looking really dramatic. The photo was taken at a different time from the story but it suited the story. My boys have "pet names" they call each other. Most of the times, they will answer to these names but if they are not in a good mood, it can cause bickering and that popular song title, "That's not my name" will crop up. However, this one time H was delighted when J told him he is being promoted from "Didum" to "Count von Didum".