February's Five Favourites Finished!

At last I have finally scrapped my five favourite photos from February!

Lauren used to be my team leader but we soon became good friends.  She met me for lunch and let me know that she's moving up to Liverpool, I really will miss her :(

I felt very proud of myself going in to work wearing size 14 trousers and a size 12 jumper!

Zumba with Jo the person who inspired me the most to get off of my backside and start exercising!

Maddie winning her first Goodreads giveaway :)

I was dog sitting for Bingo and a few hours after this photo was taken he was really ill, thankfully it was only a 24 hour bug!

So that's another bunch of stories ready to go in my album.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Five Favourites Finished - January

It's taken me longer to get my backside in gear and post these finished layouts than it did to actually create them!

My yearly album always starts with the very first photo of me and Maddie taken just after midnight and this year is no different.

When I first saw this paper I didn't have a clue how I was going to use it but this page came together really quickly.  I was all ready to go out out for Sarah's birthday and I was so pleased to finally be able to wear a top I'd got years ago but had always been too small!

January always includes a layout of me on my birthday and this year I definitely was feeling happy :)

It also snowed on my birthday which was nice.  Me and Sarah went walking over the golf course where the snow was quite thick in places.

These two are always having cuddles and I'll never tire of taking a photo of all of the cuddles and then getting them in an album :)

And there we have it, the 2017 album is started.

Time to start working on the February pages now!

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Five Favourites Finished

May was a lovely month for scrapping and I really enjoyed working on my five favourite photos.  Here are the layouts I came up with:

I think every month is bound to include a photo of my boy and I really love this one of him playing in the garden. The papers I used on this page were so ancient you could almost see through them, not like the papers of today that are lovely and thick :)

This is me with my walking friend Jo.  We go walking almost every Tuesday and she definitely makes pounding those miles easier!  She is so easy to talk to, I don't think there is a subject we haven't covered on our walk, and before we know it we've walked 5 miles and we're home.

I went with Sandra to the Stitch, Sewing and Hobbycraft show at Excel in London and we had a fantastic day.  As soon as I found this sheet of paper I knew which way the layout was heading :)

Maddie has never liked any of the blankets I've crocheted, she always says they feel and smell funny!  She soon changed her mind when she found out I was making one just for her and complained all the time that she was cold because I was taking too long to finish it!

I went to a quiz night in May and as soon as we walked in to the room my friend Sarah went to check out the raffle prizes.  The cut glass decanter really caught her eye and she told her mum, Jay, that if she won the raffle then she would get the decanter for her.  Well, the first ticket pulled out of the draw was Sarah's and she almost ran up to choose her prize.  Once the decanter had been wrapped she presented it to Jay.  We thought it was hilarious because Jay loves antiques and used to have her own antique shop yet here she was being given a bit of old tat :) We spent the rest of the evening telling her she had to look after her new heirloom :)

Now it's time for me to narrow down my five favourite photos from May and get them scrapped.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Five Favourites Finished

At last my five favourite photos are scrapped and in my album sitting in a pile waiting to be filed away!

Me and my Great Nephew, when this photo was taken he was called Alfie and my dog Alfie was so proud a family member had been named after him :) Next time I saw my Great Nephew he was called Reggie and that's the name on his birth certificate....I think!  My mum is very pleased because her dad's name was Reginald :)

Me and my BFF Sarah on a night out, I have photos of us together dating back over 30 years and I know there will be a lot more of us together on my pages.

My niece Alice with her brother's (clean) pants on her head, these photos make me laugh so much :)

Maddie with yet another hat on.  We love the Marvel character Agent Peggy Carter and this photo really reminds me of her, I think the polka dot paper gives it that comic feel.

And finally me and Paul on a night out.

So another five pages done and lots more of my ancient stash used!

I'll be back soon with my five favourite photos from April.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Five Favourites Finished!

The last six weeks have seen me busily scrapping away.  I was set a challenge to complete 25 layouts during Lent and I'm pleased to say I did it.  Those layouts included my five favourite photos from February and I'm here to share those pages now.

We love a walk in the park during our lunch break, especially when the sun is out and the skies are blue :)

Alfie got a new baby, it's always hard to get a photo of him with it because he just won't stay still.  Every time he gets a new teddy he won't let us go anywhere near him at first.  If we try to approach him then he'll just growl at us but after about 20 minutes he'll come and drop the baby in to our laps just like he's introducing us to them :)

Another Alfie page, almost every night he flops back in to my lap and looks up into my eyes and I love it :)

Alfie hates it when I get the camera out and usually turns his head away.  On this occassion he posed until I got a photo I was happy with, in fact he did look at Maddie a couple of times and it's as if he was saying "stop messing about and smile nicely for Mummy" :)

My niece Alice couldn't wait to show me the goodies she had hidden in her treasure box.

I loved making these pages and I've used up lots of old kits.  My self imposed stash ban is going well and it's now been over 3 months since I bought anything!

I'll be back soon to share my five favourite photos from March.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Five Favourites Finished!

I really enjoyed working on my layouts for my five favourite photos this month and for once I got them finished in plenty of time!  It's just a shame that illness means I'm only just blogging them :(

This layout has no journalling, I think the title tells the whole story :)

I love the spring colours in the photo and knew I had to use this lovely multi-coloured leaf pattern (yes I'm terrible a just cutting off the branding strips and not making a note of what the paper called!)

Every year I do a birthday selfie and scrap it, this time I didn't journal anything on it like goals for the next year. I think I'm getting a bit lazy with my journalling or maybe it's because I write so much in my Project Life albums.

The start of my couch to 5k journey....with journalling!  I've signed up for the Race For Life in June and although I've done it twice I've only ever walked it, this year I WILL run it!

My boy is always close by when there's food about and he is such a dribbler!

So another five layouts all ready for my album.  This takes my total number of layouts for my Lent challenge to 7 so only another 18 to go.....I'd better get my finger out!

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Five Favourites Finished!

Finally I have finished the layouts for my five favourite photos from December!  It's been a busy few weeks and, despite hauling my stash to and from Bournemouth, I didn't get much done and I kind of lost my mojo :(

But now it's back and it feels good :)

Here's Maddie putting the star on the tree, we have a similar photo every year in the albums so I didn't bother with journalling this time:

An amazing Christmas wedding that I went to.  I'm not sure about the background paper I've used but I love that the "five" is quite prominent because the wedding was on the 5th December.  I had been thinking of using some doilies on the page but I couldn't find a single white one in my stash!  This layout sat on my desk for a few days and I knew it needed some finishing touches but wasn't sure what until Shimelle's challenge this week was to use hearts :)

Another layouts inspired by Shimelle, well Glitter Girl really! Doing a no thought layout was a great way to find my mojo and using a black and white photo meant I didn't have to colour match with my papers :)

Now I have just realised that this one doesn't have a title! I did the layout at Paul's and didn't have the right alphabet with me, once it's added it will say "A Couple of Swells".  Paul really surprised me with his outfit for my Christmas party, he looked amazing!

And finally, the girl who can't touch anything with her hands, playing Rapidough!  I love these papers that were kindly given to me by my friend Lorna, I knew Maddie had the perfect, matching t-shirt, I just had to find the perfect photo to use them :)  The title isn't that clear in the photo but it says "Hands Off"

I really enjoyed using up some stash and getting these memories in my album.

I'll be back with my five favourite photos from January soon.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Five Favourites Finally Done!

At last my five favourite photos from November are scrapped!  December is such a busy month for everyone so am I bothered that I didn't get them done until January? Nope! :)

After having a good sort out I found a lot of old kits, this one is probably from 870BC!  The paper I used for the background made me think of fireworks so I thought it was perfect for a photo taken on 5th November.

I loved getting out my big box of Christmas stash for this one.  I only used one whole sheet of paper, the rest was scraps that I built the layout around.  I really hate waste :)

I love the paper I used for the background on this layout, that's why it wasn't used...because I loved it so much.  But what is the point of it not seeing the light of day in a box when it could be in my album?!?

This was another sheet of paper I'd been 'saving', now is the right time to use it though :)

I know that sign post is more suited to America but I loved it so much and thought it looked great tucked behind the fence on this layout showing my walk in a very foggy park :)

I spent a good part of November and all of December working with wool so it was lovely to get back to playing with paper.

Now to narrow down five favourites from December, it's gonna be tough!

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Five Favourites Finished!

At last I've finally got my five favourite photos from October scrapped and ready to share!

Now that Maddie is older I don't get many chances to use my Halloween stash so I was pleased when she grabbed this spider hat to try on :)  I'm also very please with the web I drew using glitter glue!

Although I chose one photo from this set of photos I'd taken I decided to scrap them all in the end, we always have a laugh when we're taking selfies and I wanted to show that in the layout :)

This is another one where I added an extra photo, I found it hard to pick just one so decided to do them both.  My niece Alice certainly is a crazy lady :)

I have a ton of photos of these two but I love the look on Alfie's face in this one :)

This layout I'm just not sure about, I thought the background paper was perfect to document a nice walk in the park but now I don't think it works.  I'm not going to change it though and hopefully it will grow on me once it's in the album.

So that's another nine photos scrapped meaning another five layouts in my albums. It also means that I'm almost bang up to date with scrapping 2015! Woohoo :)

I'll be back soon with my five favourite photos from November.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx 

Five Favourites Finished

I had a lot of fun scrapping my five favourite photos from September.  I decided it was time to bust some kits that had been hanging around for a while, they'd been hanging around because I didn't really like the papers in them.  Not liking the papers made it really easy to cut in to them and I love the layouts I've created!

This one documents how Alfie just couldn't wait for his birthday present so, the night before, he went to my bag and helped himself! He looked so happy there was no way I could tell him off :)

I had a really great day out at The Great Sheep Round Up with these girls.  It was great to see them all again, just a shame that Nancy couldn't make it :(

I have too many photos of me and Alfie like this but a dog's life is short and I know there will come a time when I think I just haven't got enough photos of us together.

Sandra had a coffee morning for Macmillan, she baked some really lovely cakes and made a lot of money for the charity. She took this photo of us just as I had a big mouthful of cake! :)

If Alfie goes out the garden and it's wet he comes in and throws himself on his bed with his paws in the air and won't move until they've been dried! His face looked so funny on this day I just had to grab my phone before I grabbed the towel :)

That takes my total number of layouts this year to 45!

I'll be back soon with my five favourite photos from October.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx