On the 2nd Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

A gorgeous set of Cream Alphas by Fancy Pants.

These are just perfect. At the recent retreat I realised that I just don't have enough whole alphabet sets left for layouts (well not unless my friends and relatives agree to change their names to Zyppdb). Thank you Santa Sandra xx

On the First Day of Christmas....

...my Advent Santa (Sandra) gave to me.......

 Fancty Pants labels, Elle's Studio tags and 2 very cute little pin badges.

All of the parcels are so beautifully wrapped. I am going to keep the little mittens just in case I decide to start a Project Life next year (well you never know!)
Thank You Santa Sandra xx

Advent Swap

November is a short month and that suits me just fine because.... the advent swap comes around that much faster!
Each year my friend Sandra and I exchange Christmas gifts in time for December 1st. There are actually 25 gifts - one for each day right up to and including Christmas.

It is so lovely and so exciting to receive gorgeous little craft and chocolate gifts each day - that's mainly what we choose as that's mainly what we both love.
And the build to it is great fun too - stash shopping for advent gifts, making the number tags, wrapping each gift and finding or decorating a pretty tote bag to present them all in.

It is very tempting to poke and shake each present to try to guess what is in each. Sandra has anticipated this and made me a label but, as you can see, it mysteriously dropped off. What can I say?! I shall just have to try to remember be good instead.

It is so exciting to have a gorgeously wrapped present to look forward to every single day and it really brightens up the wintery month ahead. End of term chaos is soothed by something yummy to look forward to each day. Sandra has kindly thought of that as well, making me a wall plaque to bring tranquillity and reinforce calm at this busy time of year:

 It is a wise message and one I am sure I shall hold dear throughout the festive season...

Tinseltown!

Hollywood came to Eastbourne for this year's retreat. The theme naturally brought out the glamorous nature of us scrappers!

As usual of course there was shopping. There were challenges. There was a film quiz. There was a shocking lack of any film knowledge and there was fancy dress. We even managed to scrap a few layouts. My total this year is nine complete layouts although Sandra maintains one doesn’t count since it has been a work in progress through 2 Saturday crops and one whole retreat. I have taken the art of faffing to new and giddying heights!

So my first layout is the one which took the longest but is actually an almost direct scraplift of a gorgeous layout by Ali. Thank you Ali xx

Most of my other layout use page maps from magazines long ago torn up and filed in my inspiration folder. My challenge layout – one based on a story board:

A double layout from a single layout page map:

A Challenge layout based on the Breakfast At Tiffany’s movie poster:

A Special Day:                   

The "Speed Scrap" Challenge.
Think pass the parcel meets scrapbooking - 2 minutes to add an element and pass it on:

The resulting layouts were all gorgeous - just a photo and a title to add later.


And finally, the Mystery Kit Challenge:

The papers in this year's kit were from the Simple Stories "Say Cheese" range and worked very well with some colourful birthday photos.

Some Cards...

A couple of quick ink brayer and silhouette stamp cards:

A Christmas one.....

and a First Birthday card:

In the Garden....

I am not a good gardener.
In fact if there is an opposite to green fingers, I have them.
In my defence, I suffered with awful hayfever for years and years until cured by our wonderful NHS allergy clinic. So now I have no excuse - I am officially giving gardening a go!
We mainly have a big lawn and not much else.  For some, this might present a blank canvas and a wonderful opportunity for garden design, but really I just want to fill it up a bit around the edges. As a landscaping plan - it isn't the most original I'll admit.



Last year was a bit wet and cold for new planting but we tried to coax the existing shrubs back to life with some pruning, food and watering and it seems to be working. This Magnolia (I think) that has produced lots of flowers for the first time.




This is the Red Robin that went in last Summer and seems to be one of the things that have really taken off (the Clematis less so - they are too thin to even photograph well)


Last year the shrubs in front of the Laurel were grey and diseased. We cut them right back and they've sprung up this year and flowered. I don't know what they are though. I think one might be a flowering currant??


We have lots of spaces to fill in but not a lot to spend so we're trying to buy small things which grow well. Two weeks ago this Willow was just a twig. Now it is a twig with leaves!


I have some bluebells in my front garden but they haven't flowered this year. They are still in clumps with green bobbles but no actual flowers at all. I got all excited that they might be spreading to the back garden too (I don't even know if that's possible - do they have seeds?). However, on closer inspection, it is just a weed. I have quite a few weed / seed dilemmas at the moment so am waiting for things to flower and then making a judgement call about whether they can stay or not. I don't mind weeds as long as they're pretty ones and I've noticed we're getting tons of butterflies visiting so they must like them too.

Yee Haw!

Just back from a fantastic time away at the November Retreat. It is pure bliss to spend a whole four days just scrapping and chatting. The ladies who came down for the day on Friday noted that we barely moved for the whole weekend this time - the hotel kindly set out our dinner table in the same room as our cropping tables (mind you, I am not sure that was so much for our convenience as to spare the other guests our Saturday night antics!) This year's theme was The Wild West which was as enthusiastically embraced as ever. Gaye's costume was a particular hit - not many people can say they've had Christmas dinner in November with a human cactus! I cannot comment on Debbie's costume since we promised that what happens on crop stays on crop. MA’s country playlist for the weekend was brilliant - I am converted! And here's some of what I did:

A simple Saturday night layout using lots of scraps and some 6x6 papers used too. It was loosely based on a sketch from a magazine ages ago - as were most of my layouts this time - not that it speeded me up much! I have been trying to keep a book with notes as and when I see things.

This was my LO for Gaye's scary challenge: no patterned paper, no pre-made embellishments and only one sheet of white, a sheet of kraft bazzill and some fabric to use. In fairness to Gaye, she did bring some fantastic technique samples for us to see and taught us how to make our own stamps with lace and heat blocks which was pretty impressive. That is how the blue and red patterns are created, the rest is conventional stamping, painting and border punches

This was for the Quick Draw challenge (see that Wild West theme again). My doodling is hampered by my inability to draw and reluctance to commit anything to paper until I have faffed about a lot first! The finished result is a lot busier than I'd normally go for but I think it is O.K as the photo is uncluttered.

This is my favourite LO of the weekend and is Claire's class. Claire's layouts are always so elegant and well designed but I think she has excelled herself this time - I just love it. It involved sewing and misting and inking and embossing and the finished result is just beautiful - thank you Claire.

These photos have been in my tote for ages so I am really pleased to have finally used them. The little basket was cut on the Cricut and embossed on the Big Shot (I just love having all the tools on tap) and the rest is very simple but cute with the bunny / chick papers.