18 years later, who would have thought...

It was our 18th wedding anniversary at the weekend. We didn't do anything special besides eating the remnants of the chocolate from Valentine's day but we started on one major move in our life. We are planning on moving house and the decluterring has begun. I tidied up 2 bookcases in the living room and managed to fill up 6 boxes with books. Now the bookcases are looking really smart, I wonder why we don't have it like that all year round LOL. Next stop, that bomb site I call my scrapping area.

I did the LO to celebrate our anniversary, admittedly I did it months ago to make SBM deadline. The photos were taken in a photo booth in Glasgow coach station around the time of our wedding. We used to go up to Glasgow to see A's mum and dad and even got married there, in East Kilbride registry office. Funny that I should still have these photos, A should have the other 2 from the strip of 4.

The Who-dunnit cybercrop.

Did you do the cybercrop on UKS last weekend ? I had every intention to begin with. I needed to go to London a quick meet with some old friends from school on Saturday afternoon. But because of the terrible snow, A had to change his travel plans and didn't get back until Saturday morning. We met up in London and ended up staying the night.

I did "No Metronome" for a class at the cybercrop. Did you get a chance to do this class ? I realise it is probably not doable in 1 hour but it is difficult to achieve the balance between something to teach and something attractive within the setting of my own style. If you have any comments, please let me know.
I also did "Unusual Suspect - A Whodunnit Tale, Venetian Style" as a precrop challenge. Papers are BG Urban Prairie. The title is done by drawing around Tim Holtz Alphabet masks using white pen.

Next is "He Understands", the tale of my handbag. This is another precrop challenge, done with the Mystery Kit from Sarah's Cards. The American Crafts Teen line isn't my usual choice but so perfect for my bright bag.

I was sent this last week,

I am currently busy working on some projects for Banana Frog as their guest designer for March. I also have a Scrapbook Magazine assignment to complete, meaning, I have plenty to keep me busy for a couple of weeks.

What's the weather like where you are today ? After 2 weeks of snow, the sun is out and the sky is blue. It is starting to warm up and the snow is melting. I had to go out this morning and like most of the cars I saw on the road, went at 20 -30 mph down the country lanes. I pleased to say I survived the journey but I saw at least two minor accidents on the way back. A is working out in Colchester this week and he is reporting flooding.

Scrapbook Magazine Issue 35

The new issue of Scrapbook Magazine is out and here is one layout from the article I did, "Everyday Inspiration". This layout is inspired by Marvel comics. I found an advert for "Tang Orange" in a Spider Man comic, featuring Pele. Do you remember him ? I think he is saying if you drink Tang, even you too can turn into an amazing footballer...LOL. I cut out the image of Pele and stuck it on a panel that I water coloured to which I added my own speech bubble. I also made the journalling and title panels using watercolour.

Save the Elephants

I have a particular fascination with elephants, perhaps because of their size. I love how graceful they seem, despite their size. We saw many herds of elephants at Samburu during our last safari in Kenya. (I've just found out that safari is Swahili meaning long journey, how appropriate! ). They seem to just glide across the vast African plane. I also find that it is one animal I have scrapped the most.

Imagine my delight to find this series on BBC last week, The Secret Life of Elephants. It was on BBC1, the final and third programme is on 28th January at 9pm. If you love elephants as much as me, you can find more details on http://www.savetheelephants.com/.

Now, let me tell you about a standoff we had with an elephant. This elephant above wasn't from Samburu but we spotted him in Masai Mara. He (we assumed it was a bull elephant as he was alone ) was on a path, walking towards us. Usually the animals would walk away but he continued walking towards us. He was less than 50 metres away.

He started looking aggressive and appeared intent on staying on the path. We stopped to see if he would walk off, he stopped to see what we were doing and decided to proceed on the same path. We were getting scared at this point and our driver decided to put the car in reverse, we reversed for a bit, bearing in mind that the path is small and windy, we couldn't go very fast in reverse. He kept coming so our driver drove off the path, into the bushes. Fortunately, the elephant continued on the path and walked off.

If you have experienced aggressive drivers coming the opposite way from you, down a narrow road, you would know the feeling. Except in this case, of course the elephant had the right of way! During the 2nd programme of The Secret Life of Elephants, Saba had to get into a car to frighten off a group of elephants from her own team who was putting on a tracking device onto an elephant. We could see immediately see how much courage it took to do such a thing and was grateful that during our own encounter, the elephant was just standing his ground.

First layouts for 2009

After the Christmas break from scrapping, I was itching to get back to it. My boys went back to school on Monday and I have been busy since.
The Kenya layout was inspired by the thumbnail on Flikr. I captured the thumbnail on Flikr as a screen shot (by pressing ctrl-Printscreen). An unsual, subdued colour combination for me but I think which suited the safari photos best. The photo of my little boy with his binocolurs look as though he is having a closer look at those tiny photos.

Treehouse was a happy coincident. I was sorting through my paper scrap box and pulled out the four patterned papers ( at the top of the layout ) in one handful, the BG scarlet letters, BG Blush, WRM Whiteout and BG Periphery. I thought how they the all go so well together and went to work on this layout immediately. I didn't even cut any of them up.

Detour has been in my pile of page kits to do. It wasn't working out until I replace the background cardstock ( from Bazzill Kraft ) with K&Co Wild Saffron.

Lastly, Day Out was inspired by a layout by Maggie Holmes in CK.

Kenyan Safari

We've just got back from a week long safari in Kenya. We took in 4 national parks, Samburu, Aberdare, Nakuru and Mara in that week and boy, was that tiring. I didn't realise how long it would take to travel between each park because they looked quite close on the map ( a very small map! ). Unfortunately the roads are not very good, I got neck ache from being bounced about during the 4-5 hours drives each time.

The pain of travels were soon forgotten when we arrived at each of our lodges. Each one is a calm oasis in the wilderness. Our rooms provided a cooling welcome and have very picturesque settings. Also fortunate is the fact that they are located on higher ground where top temperature was only 26 C.

We took nearly 1000 photos. A and I filled up my 2 x 4Gb CF cards that we had to buy another one from the gift shop. You can see a selection in my Flikr gallery but here are a few of my favourites.









I am pleased to report that we saw the Big 5, the Elephants ( plentiful in Samburu ), the Leopard ( once at Samburu ), the Rhinos ( Black Rhinos at Treetops and Masai Mara ), the Lion ( mainly at Masai Mara ) and the Buffaloes. We learned from our knowledgeable ( and very fast driver ) guide, Rashid, the difference between a leopard and a cheetah, the feeding habits of the big cats, the name of all sorts of antelopes, that White Rhinos are not indigenous to Nakuru, that Black Rhinos are very shy etc.

Merry Christmas and very Happy New Year to you all

Just a quick post to wish you all have a great Christmas this year and to leave you with my last layout for this year.