As many of you know from a previous post, last year I attempted to get back into scrapbooking. Although I was really pleased with my "clever couple" layout I don't feel I achieved my goal. So, looking at my endless photos and still desiring to tell my story and to record my family events I have decided to start a Project Life album. This coincides with the start of my birthday week. I will be fifty two (how did that happen???) I thought fifty two weeks at age 52 may make a good album! so I will be working on the album on a weekly basis documenting my year 52 but also trying to add in something about me, my loves likes hates, my personality and the stuff that brings me joy. I have already looked through the Project Life merchandise and decided that I am NOT gonna be an avid collector of the cards although I will buy a few I will make my own as I don't want this to be a real expensive venture and I wanna enjoy the satisfaction of using up my stash of papers and mypapercrafting skills so watch this space as I will be blogging along to show you my progress

52 weeks @52 Project Life

Good Morning !,
It's 5 am on a rainy Saturday morning, yet again I cant sleep!!! so I thought I would do something constructive rather than sit here zombie style in front of my laptop looking into blank space. With all the chaos lately at home I have become somewhat stressed and feel quite ill, i am battling hard really trying to keep myself out of hospital so the best thing to do is be honest about it but try and find something to take my mind off how I feel! it's worked in the past!
In less than 2 weeks time I will turn 52  ***!GASP!*** how did that happen? Well I have been thinking a lot about scrapbooking again. The plan last year was to get back into traditional scrapbooking but after a couple of layouts that plan got lost and just didn't happen. I do feel that I really wanna do it BUT I chase photographs around my desktop, I search for the perfect layout, papers, embellishment etc etc that I become such an intense indecisive perfectionist that my pages never get past the idea stage. its frustrating I have lots of stash to use lots of photo's and a story to tell but my critical eye stops me all the time. So what's the answer?
I have heard of a system of pocket scrapbooking... "Project Life" I have looked into it on pinterest and google and it seems to be the answer to my problem. Obviously you never know if something is the answer or a good idea for you unless you try it out so that's what I am going to do.
I had one of those "OH YEAH" moments a few days ago where I realised that there are 52 weeks in the year and I will be 52!!! (not rocket science is it?) but what if I do this thing where I document my life for a year, spend 52 weeks sharing being my life @ 52 (gotta think of a better way to phrase that LOL) so I have asked Kev to buy me the album and the plastic pocket pages along with the die from Stampin' Up which cuts out the 4x6 and 3x4 cards some card in my favourite colours and just a few bits n bobs to start me off. I don't want to become a hoarder of Project Life cards so will just get a few and create the rest myself. I want to do this so that I can look back on this year too. It's the kind of thing I should have done two years ago as I turned 50 but most of you know how desperately ill I became in 2013 / 14 so that wasn't a possibility for me.
Now the one thing I had to get over was the worry that I would miss doing the traditional style of scrapbooking using my papers etc, I thought it was just a matter of putting photos into pockets and job done, but now i see  that it can be a bit more than that if i so desire (and I do), I can make the little cards myself adding ribbons embellishments my stash die cuts stamps etc etc but I can also intersperse the pocket pages with 12 x 12 layout pages if I want to. I can make up my own rules, or just decide not to have any rules at all! sounds good to me ;o) so now I am off to look at more pinterest boards and view more youtube videos  before I make a start next week I will start on Match 1st

I will let you know how I get on

Clever Couple!

As I have been trying to get back into scrapbooking I thought it would be a good idea to get back on the UKScrappers forum, I rejoined then I was invited to join the group entitled The Juicy Journallers who are part of the Red Ribbons house, I am getting acquainted with the members who have warmly welcomed me. I am excited about being a member of the group but hope I don't let them down.

The weekly challenge on UKScrappers this week asked us to make a page with a white background, with at least 4 bright colours and with an alliterative title . So I have managed to collect 30 points for my first 2014 layout and I am really pleased, The flowers were cut using my Silhouette Cameo.

I wanted to make a start on my holiday photo's but I also want to scrap honestly...

When I say that I mean that it would be so easy to paint such a perfect happy nothing ever goes wrong deliriously sweetly nice page, but that's not the real picture of my life or anyone else's if they are honest!     (The title was created and cut using my Silhouette Cameo)

Before we went on holiday we were both so stressed over a myriad of things. When we're stressed we really don't communicate very well and that stress along with the lack of communication really rocked our relationship. Lets just say the holiday came at exactly the right time!

I thought about the title, it nearly became Flamborough Fun but Clever Couple was what I chose in the end. I thought a lot about where we were at as a couple before the holiday and the total de-stress that the holiday brought. The journalling explains the title "Clever Couple"  it says..."Clever Couples are not those who never argue or fall out! Clever Couples know to forgive freely, to move on, to believe for the best, to smile knowing that tomorrow is another day. After all they are in love!

Just in case you haven't spotted them...the 4+ colours are orange, mid blue, pastel green, rusty red, yellow, black and white as requested. I am more of a pastel one side of the colour wheel pretty paper sort of scrapper so this is not really my style at all and far too bright, but I am pleased with this first layout in a long time. thank You UKS for the challenge!

Land of the Giants!

Destination: Withernsea Sands
our family holiday September 2014...

The first evening after unpacking and food shopping we went to check out the local beach....

and we found what looked like the front of a castle! 

Then Matt spotted the small model of the same castle front and the history of the Withernsea pier 

This was a great land of the giants style photo opportunity.

and my son Matt at the height of 6 foot 4 was a great giant LOL

This was the first holiday for Kev and myself in 3 years, redundancy, ill health, and a serious lack of funds ment holidays had been out of the question. We had never been on holiday as a family before with my son Matthew his partner Michaela and my grandson Ethan. and what a fabulous family time we all had, just what the doctor ordered! This next few posts will be about our family holiday at Withernsea and the many places we explored during our holiday!

now that I have some new photo's I have plenty of scrapbook layouts to do too so hoping to get started on them real soon!

Bringing Back The Scrapbooking

I have been thinking a lot about my love of paper crafts. I want to learn more, experience more but also mature more in what I know already. I used to love scrapbooking but kinda stopped doing it! Work and other stuff got in the way and then the crop I used to go to now n then no longer exists as the shop closed down due to retirement. I have still been interested but not actually done any layouts
I have been looking at scrapbooking a lot on Pinterest. I love Pinterest but oh boy I get so engrossed in it! Before I know it I have spent hours pinning and falling in love with layouts and pictures of babies etc etc oh yes and the awesome papers available now there's loads of techniques I have never tried but I really want to get back into the flow scrapbooking.

When Kev and I went out yesterday we bought a new camera ready for our holidays with the family. We bought a Sony Cybershot DSC H300. Wow, I love it, and it does so much more than our old camera too. I am gonna spend time this week looking at the different features of the camera and getting familiar with it so that I can get used to it and hopefully use it to it's best potential.

I'm looking forward to checking out it's panoramic 360 degree feature and later on it's close up setting for taking photo's of my cards and flowers etc. I feel I am ready now and really want get back into scrapbooking again now. I'm gonna start off with some photo's from our family holidays which is really quite soon. (so excited). This one is of Lytham Windmill, just a couple of miles away...

 The next step is to find a nice friendly crop to join, or perhaps some classes??? trouble is, I would love to join a crop during the week not on a saturday, I dont see enough of Kev already so don't wanna give up our saturdays together!

I've been looking at some of my layouts, I wish I could be less critical sometimes!

these two (above and below) are a double page spread, 

that particular challenge called for 5 question marks and some lace!

another double page spread with journalling underneath the main picture as follows...

My Creative Journey

I mentioned in my last post that I would share about my creativity...

well it's been quite a long journey and I am still not "There Yet"! My creativity has been kind of an evolving thing. My grandmother showed me how to sew and embroider when I was in junior school. My mother was an artist, she painted in oils she was also an expert at crochet. I learned to crochet myself in my mid teens, I always loved art but found it much easier to colour in than to draw so when I stumbled upon the world of rubber stamping in 1996 I was overwhelmed with the joy of being able to create handmade cards that folk wanted to buy. I started doing craft stalls and parties where folk could order exactly what they wanted in a card with personalisation. My mother bought me loads of stamps and helped with the fortnightly stall, she loved it. I learnt a lot of techniques with inks and stamping. my mother died in 1999 and my husband in 2002 and life took me into a different direction. I couldn't face doing craft fares anymore without my mother. and grief put a stop to my creativity. this psx fuschia stamp was my mothers favourite

I moved to Lytham St Annes from Dudley in the West Midlands in 2004. God had given me a brand new start in life. A new home, a new ministry and a new church which came with a lot of new friends a lot of which were fellow crafters! I worked as a manager of a Christian bookshop. I loved this ministry but as it started to decline (as with many Christian bookshops the internet had become it's downfall) and then closed. I became seriously ill with anxiety and depression. While I was in recovery which was a slow proscess I started papercrafting again, and trying out new things. I was now a grandmother to Ethan and found scrapbooking really inspired me to get creative with my grandsons photo's. I have learnt many more techniques, bought a big shot and later a Cricut and enjoyed all manner of papercrafting, I was back into my creative groove but for fun and not to raise money.  Over the years I have added to my collection of rubber stamps, inks, dies, embossing folders, I have recently bought a Silhouette Cameo which has been put to some good use to create papercrafted scripture gifts for our local outreaches and missions to Romania.
Well that brings me to today.

I still have some goals which I want to achieve....I want to teach my church friends the art of scrapbooking as many have asked for lessons I would love to start up a faithbooking group too. I have many projects swimming around in my head which are on a sort of revolving must make list! I would also love to get some experience in art journaling. and I have seen some awesome canvas creations I would like to have a go at as well as getting the most out of the stash and equipment I already have. I want to join a crop of experienced scrapbookers so that I can stretch my skills even more and get more inspiration to scrapbook again as its something I haven't done for a while. so that's some of my creative journey, I am always on the look out for new projects but more than anything I want to be in my creative groove daily. I get such a buzz such a perfect sense of one-ness with God when I am happily creating something, it just kinda makes my heart sing and the world suddenly becomes a pretty awesome and inspiring place to be. everyone has a sweet spot I believe, and creativity is mine.