The sound of silence.

Silence was indeed the sound, when on Saturday we found ourselves child free!  The oldest was away with the school on an activities weekend, and the youngest was at a party.  Not one to waste an opportunity, I decided to drag out my unfinished sewing projects. 

Now I have sewn ever since I can remember - my Mum made many of my clothes and taught me.  I did my needlecraft O level in my spare time as I couldn't fit it into my timetable.  At college I made three of my ball gowns plus a few others for friends.  I was costume manger for two college productions.  Over the years I have made many furnishings for our house and since  the children have arrived I made clothes and fancy dress costumes for them.  And just recently I have found a love for quilting.

However I do not sew as much as I would like, mainly because of the time factor.  Where as I can make a card, or scrap a page in a relatively short time period, sewing takes more effort.  Hence many unfinished projects!   Therefore a whole afternoon of uninterrupted crafty time, seemed to be the perfect opportunity to get them finished.

A mobile phone case which I have given to the eldest - she loved it.

A pin cushion - because I needed one.  I have cut out some more of these to make for our Church Summer Fayre.

A cute little purse from a pattern in an old sew hip magazine - also more in the pipe line for the summer fayre.

A pretty button up bag which could be used for make up? 

A bag made from an old pair of jeans - this was an experiment.  I may make more if it meets the approval of my eldest daughter.

Another cosmetics bag - this is a cloth kits kit I got when I subscribed to sew hip.  I intend to use this to store our phone chargers etc when we travel.

It felt great to get all these done!  I now feel I can give myself permission to start some new projects!

How about you - do you have many UFOs hanging around?



Monday Memories

It is not often we have a photo of all four of us!  This was taken on our Spanish holiday in April 2010.  We had stopped for a drink and the waitress offered to take the snap.  Not the best photo in the world but worthy of a scrapbook page because we are all in it!

This is based on Shimelles sketch of the week here.

So what about you, do you have many photos that record you as a family?  I'm trying to and have definitely managed to get myself in the picture more often, but more of the four of us seems to prove difficult.

On its way.

Firstly - thank you all for the lovely comments you left about my layout on my last post.  They really mean such a lot - not many people close to me really "get" my need to play with pretty paper, so its nice to have my work appreciated!

So, in late July my hubby is off to Rwanda for two weeks.  He is part of a small team going out to do electrical work in a school and hospital.  As you can imagine such a trip has involved a lot of planning, none more so than sourcing the equipment they will need when they get there and then how to get it there.  Well this week, it all started to feel that bit closer as the shipping crate was packed up and dispatched.  And because I have trained him well, he took a photo of the crate!  Perfect for blogging and scrapping!

Lets just hope it arrives in time and in one piece!

Whilst I'm away working.....

Whilst I am away at the office for the day, I thought I'd share the other photo that was on this weeks calendar.

Still the youngest, but this time with her Daddy.  This layout is based on Shimelles sketch of the week back in April, which I flipped onto its side. I do seem to love that girls sketches!  The photo was taken in August last year on our annual camping trip - we go away each year with the same group of friends.  We had spent the day on the beach and then ended on Swannage seafront to enjoy our fish and chips.   

Lets hope we enjoy some sunshine today.

Coming to an end

Not so long ago, the youngest was experiencing many firsts - her first day at school, her first Christmas concert and her first Sports day.  Now she is in her final weeks at infant school and everything is coming to an end.  On Friday she said goodbye to her Monday/Friday teacher (who also happened to be the eldest year two teacher when she was at the infant school) as she was going on maternity leave and this week she had her Sports day.

In a few weeks time, she will have her leavers concert - I'm pretty sure tissues will be required! As I said in my post here - they days are long, but the years are short.

Monday memories

This was taken in May 2008 on a trip to Cotswold wildlife park to celebrate the youngests 4th birthday.  She is with my brother in law - "Uncle Simon".  It was a lovely day out, although a little damp at times!  It is one of the very few photos on the calender I have already scrapped.

Looking back at old layouts, its interesting to see if my style has changed?  I'm not even sure if I have a style - but one thing that does stand out is that my early layouts tend to be quite flat, whereas now I try to add more depth.  Also I seem to like putting buttons on - usuallly in a group of three.

What about you - do you have a style and do you think it has changed over time?

The Happiness Project

Whilst I was away on holiday in Ireland, I read "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin.  I had seen it mentioned on a few blogs and was intrigued by the title.  The book is an account of Gretchen Rubin's year long journey to discover happiness.  She firstly tries to identify what it is that brings her joy to her life and what doesn't.  Then she makes resolutions which she hopes will boost her happiness.  Then each month she focus's on a number of her resolutions and charts her progress.    She is clear to point out that the book is about her happiness project and what worked for her - each persons project will be different.   She also is clear from that the start that her search for happiness was not promoted by any deep unhappiness or any life changing event - simply that there were areas of her life she wanted to change, where she wanted to be more happy!

I found the book extremely readable, finishing it over three days.  Her style is light and witty - she does not preach but simply describes what worked for her.  I have taken a lot from the book and am trying to put some of her ideas into action.

One of the sentences from her book that I have carried with me is 'The days are long but the years are short'.  At first it seemed to make little sense to me but as I carried on reading I really started to appreciate what she meant.  Sometimes we are so busy in our lives, that perhaps we do not appreciate and focus on what really matters and before we know it the years are gone.  In July this year my oldest daughter finishes junior school.  Since September 2004 I have been walking her to school.  Every school day - very few missed as she is rarely ill.  Soon this will be gone and she will walk herself to school.  A new routine I will no longer be part of.  Indeed 'the days are long but the years are short'  and I need to take time to appreciate the now but also preserve the memories, write the stories down.

If you have the time watch Gretchens video here - I think it is beautiful.  She also has a blog which gives more detail about her book and 'happiness project

Here comes the sun?

As I sit and write this, we seem to be enjoying some June sunshine and I managed to eat my lunch outside.  However as this post is sheduled I'm not sure if it will be the case by the time you read it! Lets hope so.

Anyway a sunny day, deserves a summer layout.

Now I had intended to use yellows, pinks and reds but some how the bright papers I picked to start with didn't seem to work so I ending up with the greens and the browns. My starting point was this sketch of the week by Shimelle.  

These photos were taken during a trip to the park in July 2009.  The journalling reads "One night after school, it was such lovely weather that Daddy and I took you round to the park.  You went on your bikes.  It was about 6.00pm so you had the place to yourselves.  You certainely had fun on the bucket swing."  The park is just round the corner to us and is known as 'Punt Hill', however the youngest has always called it 'Punk Hill' so I made a little note at the top to remind us. 

I hope the weather is kind to you what ever you are doing today.

Monday Memories

Did you enjoy Shimelles 10 on the 10th?  I did - it tied in nicely with my already planned Ireland holiday show and tell! It was nice to get some comments from so new visitors - thank you.  I also enjoyed looking at everyone elses ideas and loved how they were all so different.  I've got some good ideas for next month, and hope I can incorporate a scrapbook page next time as well.

This weeks photo, is yet another from the Roald Dahl musuem shoot!  And I think you can see why this one was included.  Isn't it fabulous!

As so many of these photos have been coming up on the calender, I have done a photobox order of the whole shoot.  I think a mini book is in order, don't you?

10 on the 10th!

Ten highlights from our holiday in Ireland;

Going deep into the Caves at Aliwee.

Enjoying a pint of  Guinness.

Exploring the castle at Buratty.

Imagining what life would have been like years ago.

Visiting a very large telescope.

Loving spending time with my girls.

Admiring the magnificent Cliffs of Moher.

Amazed at the beauty of this pink poppy!

Making friends with Sam.

Feeling the sand and sea between our toes.

Check out more 10 on the 10th here.

To smash or not?

The hot scrapbooking topic at the moment seems to be smash books.  For those of you wondering what I'm talking about, this little video tells you all you need to know.

So - yes in short a little book to stick things in.  Mmm - seen that anywhere before? Is it something to get excited about?  It appears that lots of people are and it could turn into a "marmite" subject - either you love um or hate um. Some people have already started to make their own - check out Emy's or Susie's or Ali's or MaryAnne's.  Shimelle had an interesting take on the whole issue - is the product really aimed at a scrapbooker?  As I read her post, I thought these might be nice gifts for my girls - something to complete over the summer holidays maybe.


So do I smash?  Well sort of. For my last few holidays I have kept a travel journal, make notes on what we did each day. I make them using up old papers that I don't think I will use on my pages and decorate them with stamps.  You may remember my Disney one I posted here.  For my holiday last week, I added some plastic pockets to collect the ticket stubs, leaflets and postcards of places we had visited.  Here are a few pictures. 

Since starting blogging, I also carry a notebook around for noting down ideas when I'm not at my desk.  It is something I do need to get better at as I quite often get ideas from stuff I see in magazines but don't make a note and then can't remember where I've seen it.  I suppose I should just "smash" it into a note book!


So what do you think?  Do you get the whole smash book thing.  Will you smash?  Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Hello!

Yes - I'm back from our holiday in Ireland.  Did you miss me?  I certainly missed blogging and hopping around to see all my blog friends.  Anyway we had a lovely week away - lots of fresh air and visiting new places and so lots of photos to show and scrap.

Anyway to ease me back into the weekday routine, here is the photo on my calendar this week.

It's another one taken by Frederick at the Roald Dahl museum - I posted about it here.  As I was not present during their visit, I do not know what the oldest is drawing/writing but I just love how he has captured the moment and that look on the youngests face!