May's Here

This year is going so quickly and I can't believe we're in May already!  Before we know it we'll be counting down to Christmas again! :)

I had a lovely weekend down with Paul where I did a little bit of craft shopping, a visit to the market and a trip round a couple of boot sales.  I did get a bargain coffee table for £1 and some grow bags which I need to get ready for the garden.  While we were at one of the boot sales I saw this and couldn't resist taking a picture:

I'm thinking they should have put the sign on the over side of the fence :)

I also had a bit of time to do some scrapping and here's a layout I did using one of my favourite photos of Maddie, taken about 9 years ago:

We were on holiday at Chesil Beach in a time when Maddie was always happy to have her photo taken.

I use October Afternoon papers, my favourite range, and one of the Sarah's Cards kits.

And I thought the sentiment on the tag was perfect.

I intend to spend the rest of the day relaxing and catching up with my blog reading before getting ready to go back to work tomorrow.  I also need to give Alfie lots of cuddles because he cracked one of his claws this morning....ouch.

I hope you're having fun in the sun.

Jo xx

Celebrations

Yesterday was such a great day.  Watching the Royal Wedding on TV took up all of my morning but it was lovely and the bride certainly looked like a Princess.

One of my sisters was fortunate enough to have a street party in her road so I popped along there to take a few pictures because her kids always make great scrapping material :)  My other sister was there with her boys too so that was a bonus.

Lots of bunting about:

Elsie with just a touch of face paint:

And Jack fully loaded with paint!:

After the quick photo opportunity I went round to my friend Sarah's where she was holding a little party in her garden.

Flags this time:

And she had a bouncy castle to entertain the younger children:

She will hate me for sharing this one:

And then she found this wig:

It really was a great day, the weather was lovely and it made me proud to be British :)

I hope you enjoyed the extra Bank Holiday
Jo xx

Another Long One

Wow I could certainly get used to these 3 day working weeks we've been having!  I actually get more done in the office by having to cram 5 days work into those 3 days and there's more time left over for fun stuff :)

My weekend started in a great way with an evening at my local crop.  We always have a fantastic time, lots of laughing and chatting and sometimes I even manage to be a bit productive!  I was productive last night and managed to get a whole layout done, very good for me :)

It's a simple layout using a picture of me and one of my sisters taken probably about 30 years ago, I thought it was perfect for the papers that came with this weeks Gotta Craft crop kit:

I only ever scrap with original photos.  If I scan and reprint them then the originals just end up sitting in a drawer hardly ever looked at.  I love the texture and print of the older photos so why not put them on a layout and show them in all their glory and exactly as they were seen when the roll of film returned from the developers.

And here's me, aged about 9:

Such short hair and I'm not really sure why because my mum liked us girls to have long locks.

Obviously here at Buckingham's Palace we are watching the Royal Wedding, a little piece of history being made.  I saw a guest arrive, Earl Spencer, and it reminded me of the time I was invited to take tea with him at Althorp.  I had an amazing day and he was absolutely down to earth and so charming and the next day I received a lovely letter from him thanking me, yes little ole me, for visiting :)

Later I think there's a mini street party going on and I, of course, shall be attending.  I'm old enough to remember the Queen's Silver Jubilee street party (the year my sister in the above picture was born) and the street party we had when Charles married Diana.......such fun times.

I hope you all have a fabby weekend and thanks for stopping by.
Jo xx

I'm Back!

I have had a really busy time lately and not much time for sitting at the computer, it has been lovely though.  I had a few days off work before the long Bank Holiday weekend and spent them with Paul before he went off to spend Easter in the Black Forrest.  I also had 2 birthdays which involved BBQs to celebrate and an Easter Party.  Yesterday was a day of rest but I did spend some time in the sunshine with Alfie:

He loves ropes and could chew on them all day, unless he should hear a snail sneeze at the bottom of the garden and then he's on high alert!

Inbetween, shopping, cutting the grass, BBQs, parties and visiting Paul I did find the time to do a layout:

I started this one at a crop I went to a couple of weeks ago but just needed to put the finishing touches on it.

Me and Maddie went to a 25th Wedding Anniversary a few years ago, well it must have been about 9 years ago but it only feels like yesterday!  We had to dress up in 70s outfits so I made myself some flares and Maddie wore an original 70s outfit that used to be my sister's (my mum is a great hoarder!).

Lynne, the hostess, loves taking pictures and when we arrived the hall wall was covered in photos of 25 years of married life, it showed family and friends and was a fantastic idea.  I walked along looking at all the pictures and planning layouts in my head!

Today I'm planning a bit of a lazy day, I'll catch up on some blog reading, spend some time in the garden with Alfie, maybe do a layout or two, hopefully have a win at bingo and get myself and Maddie ready for work and school tomorrow.

The Easter bunny didn't visit me, I guess that's good for my hips though!  I hope you have had a great Easter break.

Thanks for stopping by

Jo xx

Yesterday Was Plain Awful

Let me set the scene for how great my Sunday started: I woke up at 8:30, which is a long lie in for me, got a cup of tea and took it back to bed for a while and did a bit of surfing the net.  Decided to see if there was any bread in the freezer because I really fancied an egg sandwich for breakfast.  There was bread  in the freezer and how handy it was for me that it was already defrosted!  Yes the fridge freezer had packed up so I had to get a new one.  Ordered it, went in the garden to cut the grass and halfway through the lawn mower packs up!  Arrghh. So now I have a half cut garden (when really it's me that wants to get half cut) and a flooded kitchen where the freezer is defrosting at a rate on knots on one of the hottest days of the year!  Fridge freezer delivered today, late, and delivery men helpfully ripped the carpet!

That's the bad new and here's a little interval where I show you another layout I did at the weekend:

This is the beautiful Maddie, modelling in the beautiful car that my sister had for her wedding.  I'd been meaning to scrap it for ages and this kit from Sarah's Cards was perfect.

I love the layering and the little embellishments and it went together surprisingly quickly for me.

The good news is that I won £107 at bingo tonight so that's half of the fridge freezer paid for :)  The other good news is that I only have one more day at work and then six whole days off to do as I please.

Thank you for all the lovely comments you keep leaving, I hope your weekend was better than mine.
Jo xx

Been Cropin'

I went to a new to me crop today and had a lovely time.  Everyone was so lovely and I managed to be quite productive considering I was sitting next to Sandra! :)

I found some tucked away photos the other day that were just ripe for scrapping.  The first one I used was from Maddie's Christening in 2003 and here's the title:

I knew I had to use this title because, unusually, Maddie only has Godmothers, a real bit of girl power.  The people I picked to be Godmothers were and still are my best friends and I knew I could count on all of them to guide and help Maddie as she grew.  I used a Gotta Craft crop kit for the layout, I thought the colours were an almost perfect match to our finery:

I remember the day like it was yesterday. It was the 21st December and these lovely ladies travelled many miles, one of them over 3000!, at a busy time of year to share this special day with us.

I finished another layout which I'll share soon and I managed to start a third one which I think I'll finish tonight because I'm still in the scrapping mood :)

I hope your weekend is going well
Jo xx

Is Summer Over?

The weather has certainly cooled off now and I'm wondering if we've had our summer already :) If we have I have a little piece of my summer to share with you.

On the 19th March I was staying down with Paul and the weather was so lovely we decided to take Pippy for a walk down to the beach.  The sun was shining and there were plenty of people down there, some of them even having a BBQ.  As I snapped away with my camera I knew those beach photos would be part of my feature page for March's Document 2011 and here's the layout I've done:

The papers are from the Gotta Craft April kit, which is gorgeous and then I added some stunning embellishments:

The embellishments are a tiny part of the April Kit from The Make and Create Shop.  If you have never bought one of Anna's kits then I can't recommend them enough.  The kits are loaded with a mixture of ready made and handmade pieces and they're also a bit of a bargain :)

The beach looked great and I wish I was there now, whatever the weather!

I've been given some great tips on making up page kits so I might give that a go later if I can shake of the headache I've got.  I'm going to two crops this week and, for once, I would like to be super productive :)

Take care
Jo xx