WOYWW

It seems that, no matter what you do in life, you always get stuck with a ton of filing:



But it's fun filing and I like to save a stack of it up:



Grab a coffee and flick through my albums as I put the pages away :)

Pop over to Julia's blog to see what everyone else is up to today.

Happy Wednesday
Jo xx

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My Week's Nearly Over

Working week that is, tomorrow is my last day at work until next Monday and I'm so looking forward to having some time off.

Because of the great craft area Paul made me I've been able to come home, on a school night, and scrap!!!  I've done another layout from the sketch on Shimelle's blog, this week is was using a piece of die cut paper and I had the perfect paper and photo:

I love this picture of my mum and dad and it's the first picture I've scrapped of my dad since he died 3 years ago.  I remember exactly where it was taken, 20ish years ago and home when we were having a party. 

I've just put a title on, no journalling but I might add that later.  They look so happy and they were so happy and nobody could tell that Alzheimer's was just around the corner. 

I may change the title to If I Could Have...." and journal some of the words of the Luther Vandross song Dance With My Father.  We played it at his funeral but it wasn't all sadness, we really celebrated by ending on Rhinestone Cowboy (one of his favourite songs and one that the whole family would sing whenever it came on - just like the family Von Trapp!) and in the evening we had a firework display.

Sorry for a bit of an outpouring then!

This week has been full of work and headaches but I'm hoping the weather will improve so we can have a visit to the zoo, zoo, zoo, you can come too, too, too..... :)

Have a good evening.

Jo xx

A Scrappy Weekend

I have spent almost the whole weekend scrapping and it's been great after such a busy week at work.  I went to a crop yesterday. I love crop weeks because no matter how bad things are getting you know you're going to get together with the girls at the weekend and chat, giggle, eat, drink, be merry and maybe, just maybe, scrap a little :)

I managed 2 and a half layouts at the crop yesterday so I'm very pleased with myself.  The layouts I'm showing you today though are ones that I completed today just in the nick of time for the Weekly and House Challenges over on UKScrappers (nothing like leaving it to the very last minute!).

The Weekly Challenge was to use at least 3 patterned papers, use multiple photos and use a border punch:

I did a really simple layout using some lovely pictures of Maddie on her first holiday in La Baule when she was just over a year old.  I have been going to La Baule and Le Pouliguen with my family since I was about 3 and we all think it is the greatest place on earth.  It has such a special place in our hearts especially since our dad died because he loved it there so very much.  When Maddie was born I couldn't wait to take her there, it's such a shame because we haven't been back for about 10 years :( 

I used my lovely flower stamp for the first time, I could  sit and cut these flowers out all day and I think they look great on bright colours.

The House Challenge was to use the sketch provided and fabric or fibres: 

More holiday snaps of Maddie, this time in Weymouth.  We went away with my nan and grandad and had a fantastic time, Maddie loved playing on the beach and going in the sea, she would hate it now because her laptop or Blackberry would get wet and sandy! 

I used the gorgeous papers from this months GottaCraft Kit and, as I was cutting it fine, I used fibres to sew this pattern on the bottom of the layout.

Now I have to tidy my craft stuff and get ready for work tomorrow, Mondays come way too quickly!  At least it's half term so I get a little lie in and there's less traffic on the road.

Tonight I hope to dream of La Baule and, if you've never been, you should definitely go!

Hope you've had a great weekend

Jo xx

WOYWW

Two desks to show today, the one I love:



A bit messy because I still haven't tidied from the weekend!



I've been busy printing pictures because it's crop week this week, one tomorrow and one Saturday, good times.

The other desk is the one I'm forced to sit at Monday to Friday 9:00-5:30 so that I can feed my stash habit!



Happy halfway through the week everyone!
Jo xx

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Slow Week

I'm not wishing my life away but this week is going so slowly! Last week past through my life like a steam train but this week is dragging its heals.  I have two crops to go to this week and I think that's why I want it to go quickly, it can slow down again when I leave work on Thursday :)

Every week Shimelle has been posting a sketch on her blog and, so far, I've been able to complete a layout using the sketch every week.  At the end of the year that will be 52 layouts done, I also try to do the House Challenge on UKScrappers as well as the Weekly Challenge so that is, potentially, another 64 layouts at the end of the year.  Twisted Sketches gives me possibly another 52 layouts and Sandra at GottaCraft likes to put a sketch in the crop kit......a further 24 layouts.  At the end of the year, with these alone, I could have another 192 layouts in my albums and a lot of my stash used up (yeah right, as if I'd ever get to the point where it's nearly used up!)

Enough waffle from a would be statistician, here's the layout I did this weekend from Shimelle's sketch:

Maddie keeping cool in the paddling pool before she turned into a teenager who hates showing even a millimetre of flesh!

I rewarded myself for being such a hard worker and getting paid today by ordering myself some goodies from the GottaCraft sale, there are still a few lovely goodies left there.

I'm going to have a lovely soak in the tub now while reading the most amazing book....Sister by Rosamund Lupton, I seriously cannot put it down.

Thanks for stopping by

Jo xx

Over Already!

This weekend went far too quickly, as usual!  I had a great start to the weekend by going to the pub after work for a glass of wine with my friend Lauren, it was so nice I didn't want to come home!  Yesterday I did some scrapping and popped to the shops with Paul so that he could get some bits to fix his car and then I spent an hour in the garden with the dogs enjoying the sunshine.  Today has been very lazy but I did manage one layout.

I did the weekly challenge over on UKScrappers.  The challenge was to use the sketch, use a group photo, use some pink and do some sewing.  Here is the sketch we had to use:

And here is my LO: 

The photo of me with my friends Sarah and Debbie was taken a few years ago and I've been meaning to scrap it for ages, it's actually been on display for ages and every day when I see it I think it needs to be scrapped so this challenge was perfect. 

Here's the tiny bit of pink I managed to include.

The rest of the title.  I thought the papers fitted in really well with the title and I had been wondering how I would use them. 

And my tiny bit of hand sewing and of course I had to get a button on!

I've got 2 crops this week so a lovely scrappy week but I know it's going to be busy, busy, busy at work :(

Hope you've had a good weekend.

Jo x

Ta Da

I finished the layout that was lingering on my desk yesterday:

I used the sketch over on Shimelle's blog and some very old photos of me and Maddie in the paddling pool when she was a year old!  I thought the October Afternoon Seaside papers were perfect.

I also used some masks and mist which I've just fallen in love with.

I have had the smallest piece of string hanging about for ages, months and months actually.  I can't remember when or why it turned up but Paul kept asking me why I had it.  I told him I would use it on a layout "yeah right" he said so...........I did :)

We're getting ever closer to the weekend and I can't wait, I'm meant to be going to see Alan Carr on Sunday!

Thanks for stopping by.

Jo x

WOYWW

At last I have a workdesk and I can join in instead of just drooling over everyone elses lovely desks :)

So what's on my workdesk today:



Gorgeous October Afternoon Seaside papers all ready to do a layout using pictures of me and Maddie playing in the paddling pool when she was a baby.



I've also added a few more mists and dabbers to the shelf.

Hope you have a good day, the weekend is getting closer!
Jo xx

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sussex Pond Pudding

Yesterday I made a very naughty pudding, not the naughtiest I've ever had but it comes very close.  It's very quick and easy to make but takes about 3 - 4 hours to steam....it's worth it though.  Basically you just line a pudding basin with suet pastry, stab a lemon with a skewer....lots, put the lemon in the pastry in the pudding basin, fill the space around the lemon with butter and brown sugar, put a pastry lid on the top and steam:

Ok so it doesn't look pretty but it tastes gorgeous, all the juice of the lemon mixes with the butter and sugar and soaks into the suet pudding......delicious.

I also did some scrapping this weekend, which seems to be a regular thing now thanks to my new desk.  I'm lucky enough to have got a subscription for the GottaCraft kit, I know people hover round their computers when it's about to go on sale (which happens to be this Thursday the 10th) because it sells out so quickly!  The only reason they sell out quickly is because they are always great kits and fabulous value for money.  Anyway I thought I'd better get stuck in to last months kit before the next one arrives and here's what I did:

In my head I still feel like I'm 19 because I loved being that age and I loved that year, real good times.

I thought the papers and colours were great for the photo, which essentially looks like a floating head because I'm wearing black (to cover all the lumps and bumps!).

I painted and misted the chipboard butterflies to match the colour theme and just added a brad and some ribbon from my own stash.

All Things Pretty Sandra has kindly given me a blog award which I will collect and pass on, thank you Sandra.

Off to watch Bedlam now......from behind the sofa me thinks!

Happy Monday

Jo xx

A Very Busy Week

I have been so busy this week and the time has just flown by!  Luckily the weekend is going at a sedate pace but that's because I started it on Thursday night :)

A massive achievement for me this week was that I opened my post.  No big deal for most people but I have a huge hate/fear of post.  It took me two evenings to open it, sort it and file it and, once the things I didn't need were shredded (thanks to Paul) I filled the whole of my recycling wheelie bin!  Did I feel better for doing it?  YES.  I was getting fed up with seeing piles of post when I opened the front door and I couldn't fit any more of it in the bottom of my wardrobe but now it's all sorted and I have no intention of ever letting it get that bad again.

I managed a few layouts this week too which I'm really pleased about but here is one I did last weekend (I seem to be getting a back log of layouts to share!)

I used a sketch from Twisted Sketches for this, the twist was white so I think I got that covered!  The picture is of Maddie and my nephew Ryan and the occasion is Maddie's first time as a bridesmaid in 1996.  I found a file of photos I had sorted when I first started scrapping, I'd put all the pictures I wanted to scrap in envelopes with the date on and what we were doing and then I forgot all about them!  Finding them again has certainly made me want to scrap even more now and I so wish there was more time to do it. 

I wanted to keep the layout simple so, instead of using a patterned paper to represent the circle in the sketch I just drew a pencil circle and highlighted it with a little bit of bling.

I've managed to do another layout today because the work station Paul built me has just made it so easy, I can't thank him enough.

It was his birthday on Wednesday (and he still let me go to the crop) but we're putting on our glad rags and dancing shoes and going out on the town tonight........well to the social club really where a live band are playing music from the 60s, 70s and 80s.  Should be fun and I'm thinking that, at my age, I may have to go and take a nap now to prepare myself for dancing the night away :)

Happy weekend all

Jo xx