On this day.

Twenty years ago we met for the first time.  It almost didn't happen.  I was in my third year at college and was living in halls of residence, with a room opposite my best friend Jo.  One of the first year lads who we were friendly with was celebrating his 21st Birthday and asked us along to the pub to celebrate. Of course not ones to turn down a party invite we said yes, however all our other friends were going to a different pub and we sort of wanted to go with them.  However we had said yes so felt we should go, reasoning if we got fed up we could find the others.

So off we went for drinks at the White Lion Pub at the bottom of Putney High Street - a popular student venue at the time. Well said first year had invited along some of his friends from home and one of them was hubby!  I don't exactly think our eyes met across a crowded room but he did spill his pint of cider over me, causing us to discover a mutual love of the apple flavoured nectar. He bought me a drink, we started chatting and the rest is as they say history! 

So twenty years on, we are still together - now married with two lovely girls.  It hasn't always been easy but I could not imagine life without him and can't really remember how it was before he came along.  I'm sure at times we drive each other mad but he is always the person I turn to and I hope we spend many more years together.

PS I did try to find a picture of us together from our early days but it seems that we did not take any! 

Time to confess!

Yes my name is Lynn and I am a magazine addict!  I just love them.  The ones above are some of my recent purchases in the craft genre but they don't have to be craft related.  I love fashion, gossip, home decor even health and fitness!  In fact I could happily waste a whole morning in WH Smiths, browsing their shelves.  So why? What is the appeal?  With the craft ones, the inspiration they provide is an obvious draw but to me it is more than that.  I love their glossiness, and clever layout.  I love that you can pick them up, with a cup of tea in one hand and no matter whether you have 5 or 55 minutes you can find something to read, something to grab your interest.  If I look back I think my love affair may have started with Twinkle (remember?) when I was little and it has continued.  However it really became an addiction once I had children.  In the baby years book devouring was not possible, as the moment I started to read, tiredness usually took over and baby brain meant keeping hold of the plot was difficult.  However a magazine was just enough to feed my need for words! 

Whilst I'm seem to be an expert in buying them, I'm not much good at taking full advantage of the ideas and inspiration they provide me. When I'm them reading my head is full of potential projects but then they get forgotten almost as soon as the magazine is put down.  So this little lot are coming on holiday with me next week, along with a notebook to jot down all my ideas.  I want to return from holiday refreshed and full of future craftiness!  Well that's the idea - I'll let you know how I get on at a later date.

Celebrating Success

On Saturday my eldest daughter took part in a local interschool netball tournament and was thrilled when her team won!

Each team member got a medal and they have got a cup that will go on display at school.  It was also the first time they had worn their new sports kit.  The old school PE kit was quite dated, and did not have the school logo on it - this one does.  I think they all felt proud to wear it and of course they all decided that it was the new kit that bought them luck.  My husband went to watch and took loads of actions shots - I can't show them because of all the other children in them but I'm thinking maybe a mini book is in order!

I think you can see in her face how pleased she was and so are we!

Also don't foget to pop over to Amy's blog to see all the pages scrapped when she threw down the challenge to scrap a story from our week.

Monday Memories

There are two photos on my calendar this morning -both of the youngest, both taken at Easter last year.

The first one shows her thoroughly enjoying the chocolate fountain that Uncle Simon bought over on Easter Sunday - I think the photo speaks for itself. Yum, yum!

The other is of her in her Spanish outfit, we bought at Santa Pola market whilst in Spain last April.  She desperately wanted one, and was thrilled when hubby managed to negotiate the "right price".  It has been worn to many a party or special occasion since!

Must fly - lots to do this week as we are off on holiday next week.  I can't wait.

Scrapping the here and now!

So Amy from "Over at our place" threw down the challenge to scrap a story from this week and gave us a template to follow. Well our styles are very different, but I thought I would give it a go.


This week has been "Walk to School Week" school which aims to get children out of the car and onto the pavement. To add a bit of fun, my youngest daughters school set a theme for each day e.g Wednesday was wear your clothes back to front.  Well we walk everyday (not much choice when your Mum doesn't drive, I hear the children cry!) so the youngest participated fully.  It is also the week where I finally got round to downloading the Hispstamatic" app onto my phone, so I decided to combine both stories.

As you can see, its not quite as "simple" in style as Amy's but it is probably the least layered and least amount of patterned paper I have used on a page in a long time and I couldn't resist adding the odd sticker!


Its good to try something different once in a while, but most of all it felt good to record the moment.  Thanks for the challenge Amy, I really enjoyed it.

Five Things ... I want to try.

As I take a wonder around blogland, I am always finding things I want to try for myself.  Here are five grabbing my attention at the moment;

• these tags made by Eleanor from "its a creative world".  I think they are lovely and fancy making them as Christmas tags. 
• this ruffle cardigan that Shimelle has made - a great way to give a new lease of life a top!
• these cute tea towel aprons - one of my best friends is a reception teacher and I think these would go down well in her home corner.
• I've been looking at all sorts of flower making tutorials, but am particulary taken with this ribbon rose
• looking at the quilts at Red Pepper has me itching to get going - I want to make one for my youngest this time.

Looks like I am going to be busy with all things fabric.


Also while your here, I thought you might like to look at the rest of the pages for March to go in my 2011 album.  You may recall I made a start here.


Here are the pages made using divided page protectors.  I have never used these before, but had great fun putting them together and love how they can show the stories behind what when on in the month.

My final page for March, was about Earth Hour, which we celebrated with friends.  I kept this fairly simple for me, as I wanted to focus on the journalling and the photo.

So there you have it, I have completed one of my May goals and I have all the photos ready to go to complete Jan, Feb and April.  I think I'm on a roll!

Dressing up!

My youngest loves to dress up, especially on a school day.  Earlier in the week they had to dress as their favourite book character and she went as "Katie the Kitten" Fairy.  The character is from the "Rainbow Fairies" series of books which she is mad about and is avidly trying to collect them all.

As always, she likes to get all the details correct - the dress had to be yellow and she needed to wear a butterfly necklace and hairclips - just like the picture in the book!

All the teachers dress up too and in the afternoon, they perform a little play which they have written which incorporates all the characters - this year it included the Snowman, Cruella de Ville, Harry Potter and Cinderalla and many others!  I would have loved to have seen it, but sadly it is for the childrens eyes only.

Monday Memories (on a Tuesday!).

Yesterday ran away from me, and by the time evening arrived I could not face sitting at the computer anymore.  So instead I thought I would use the time to scrap the photo on my calendar.

This was taken last year, when we were on holiday in Spain.  My Mum and Dad have an apartment near Alicante, and we love going to stay, especially the girls.  Its not the best photo in the world, as they were looking into the sun.  It was taken at Gaurdamar beach, which is our favourite to visit.  As it was Easter, it was quiet - the Spanish think we are quite mad going on the beach at this time of year as they prefer it when it gets much hotter!  My youngest loves the sand and the sea, so we visit whatever the weather.  The three of them are making a sand castle, complete with moat which as the tide came in filled with water! 

If you walk futher along this beach you will see sand sculptures;

I love how blogging seems to be feeding my creativity.  Before I started my blog, I had all but stopped scrapping, overwhelmed by the amount of photos I had.  However writing this blog as really opened my eyes, that it is not about getting it done but about preserving the memories and telling the story.

I enjoyed putting this layout together - it is based on the Shimelle's sketch of the week.  The papers are from a Sarah's Card Kit - I used to subscribe.  They are GCD - Ava. 

Teddy Bear Teddy Bear Touch your Toes

Have you ever wondered what Teddy Bears get up to when you are not looking?

A spot of climbing on the clothes airer! 


Say hello to our collection of Build a Bears" which live with us. (For those of you not familiar with the term "Build a bear" a note of explanation - these are Teddy Bears you build yourself at the "Build a Bear" shop.  Once they are bought to life, you can buy all manner of clothes and accessories!) Anyway let me introduce them - top row left to right we have Pinky, Blush and Flo and bottom row left to right we have Lola, Dotty and Charlotte.  There is actually one more - Lily - she was upstairs having a nap when the climbing was taken place.  Believe me these bears have a bigger wardrobe than me and a shoe collection to rival Imelda Marcos!  And of course when we go on holiday, we have to pack for the bears and even have a bear tent for when we go camping. Many an hour is spent playing bears in this house, and they now feel part of the family.  


Here is a layout I did some time ago, when we only had four!  Left to right they are Dotty, Charlotte, Snuggles and Lily.  Sadly Snuggles is no longer with us as she was mislaid in Gatwick Airport last Easter - we hope she is now being looked after by another family - as despite our best efforts to track  her down she was never found. 

I've made a start!

On my 2011 album.  You may remember it was one of my April goals but I didn't quite get there and so it is now one of my May goals.  Back in January I decided that I wanted to do a year long album along the lines of Document 2010 project that ran on UK scrappers last year.  So at the time I ordered an American crafts album and divided page protectors and ...... that was as far as I got.  In my defence, my scrapping was somewhat disrupted in January and February as my office was moved to the loft, and my former office/scrap room reconfigured to become a TV room as well. 


Anyway last night I was determined to start working on my album - I cleared the kids out and pushed  moved hubby from the desk and completed this page;

I surprised myself at the speed in which this came together - normally I'm a slow scrapper and often have it on my desk for ages before I will commit to sticking anything down.  I did sketch out the design first (very roughly) which is something I have never done before.  It worked well so I may well try that out again.  The trick I find for speedy scrapping is to try and have some idea of what papers and embellishments  you want, so you don't end up with everything out on the desk. ( Easier said than done I find!)  The papers and stickers are from Echo Park - Springtime.  

Opposite this page will be a page using AC divided page protectors with photos of the months events, accompanied by journalling and then another full page, showing our earth hour celebrations. However I can't show you that as I need to get the photos sent off for printing, as the quality on my home printer is no longer very good.  Once I get them done, I will show you the results. 


Then I need to work on January, February and April!

Monday Memories

Since returning from Disneyland Paris, I feel like I'm living my life in the fast lane of the motorway and only just managing to dodge the traffic! It has been non-stop  -  with the youngest's birthday and party, our monthly messy church which both hubby and I help organise and getting back into the school/work routine.  Therefore it is quite nice to return to the calm that is "Monday Memories".  I turned over my calendar and it revealed this photo;

Here you can see my two girls with my brother-in-law's partner Frederic.  The photo was taken at his "surprise" 40th Birthday party which my brother-in-law Simon had organised.  His family travelled from France to be with him and so the girls were able to meet his nieces. Although my girls do not speak any French, and his nieces much English they still made friends and were able to play together. 


This photo has actually been scrapped - I made Fred a mini book using the photos I had taken at the party - unfortunately I did not take any photos of the actual book!  However seeing this reminds me that I must scrap some of the party photos for my albums and at the same time record about how happy we are that Simon has met Fred and that is his now part of our family.  He is simply a lovely guy, which such a kind heart and the girls love him to bits (as do we).  You may recall my Monday memory from two weeks ago was a photo taken by Fred - you can seen it here.  In a former life he was a photo journalist in Paris and he has taken some beautiful photos of the girls which he is always happy to share.  We all feel truly blessed to have him as part of our family.

Whilst I'm away working....

So we arrived home  from Disneyland Paris late on Sunday night.  We had the most amazing time and we returned full of happy memories.  Here are just a selection;



Two very excited girls on the platform at St Pancras

Flying on Dumbo - the oldest's fave ride

Meeting Minnie Mouse ( and a few other characters as well!)

Zooming in a rocket with the youngest

Watching Daddy being a pirate!

and best of all - the parade

It truly is a magical place!

So how do you scrap over 500 pictures!  Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Monday Memories

Another Monday, another bank holiday!  So today the calendar revealed;

The youngest opening her birthday presents last year, before school. Yes this week it is her birthday and she will be 7! I can hardly believe it - don't you wish you could sometimes hit the pause button on life.  

A new month

I can't believe it is May - April seemed to fly by but boy it was a packed month!  If you were here yesterday, you will know I revisited the goals I had made at the beginning of April and reviewed what I achieved.  I have decided to continue to set goals, as it did really keep me focused. However I did learn the following;

• don't be over ambitious!  
• do take into account what is going on in your life and plan accordingly!
• school holidays severely limit creative time!

Keeping all this mind, I have decided to just focus on the following this month;

 - My 2011 album - I really want to get my March pages done and also plan out my Jan/Feb and Apr pages and get the photos sent off for printing.

- Make a holiday journal - we are off to Ireland for a week at the end of the month.

So any creative plans for May?

PS - don't forget today is "Story Telling Sunday" over at Sian's blog.  If you love a good yarn, make sure you take a look.