Back again

Ok it has been a long time since I've blogged. No big excuse, just to be honest I'm not reading my posts that often anymore and I don't think anybody else is either lol.
With Facebook, Instagram, Youtube etc I really think Blogging has had its day. That said, I don't do Youtube and my Facebook and Instagram are limited so I've decided I do want to blog every now and again, if it's once a month I'm not going to beat myself up about it, if it's twice a day, great (though probably wont be lol)
I'm not even going to try and recap everything we've done since I last blogged, cinema trips, seaside, illness' sister drama etc, and just going to jump right to this months Challenge YOUrself challenge!
This month is to take inspiration from this picture.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the beautiful blue colour, and the feel of travel. So with that in mind I picked a photo of me, Mollie and Caitlin on the ferry to France, and decided to use blue as my primary colour.

I admit it isn't my favourite layout ever. I think the blue makes it feel colder than I intended. I did use up some embellishments I've had sat in a box for a while (the tassle and the stickers) so that was a bonus!
Sadly this is my last layout for the Challenge YOUrself team :( I've loved being part of the blog but I feel it's time for someone else to take my turn :) Thank you so much to Sharon and the other girls for having me. I'll certainly still take part in challenges as a participant so don't think you've seen the last of me though! :)

Challenge YOUrself

OK hands up I'm late with this one. With Birthday maddness, national scrapbooking weekend and life craziness I just haven't got around to posting this blog.
So hopefully better late than never :) This months challenge is a mood board, a very pretty, summery one.

I struggled with this, simply because I didn't have any holiday photos left to scrap. After looking through my 'to scrap' albums I found a photo of my Mum and I on a beach last September. It was NOT summmery but I thought it would go with the colour scheme.

I love the layout I ended up with. Using a super old My Minds Eye collection, some ephemera from Hobbycraft and texture paste it came together really easily in the end.

I hope you can join in with us, sorry again for my lateness!

Favourite Technique

Hello! Welcome to my blog post for the 'For The Love Of Pretty Paper' blog hop. If you are following the hop you should have arrived here from Amanda king, but if not, no worries, just mind and pop back there and comment to see her amazing work and be in with the chance to win a prize.
To be in with a chance of winning the Blog Hop prize you will need to comment on this post (and on all the blogs in the hop) and when you have completed the hop, return to the Blog Hop thread on “For The Love Of Pretty Paper” and leave a comment to let us know. Visitors who leave the same (or seen to be the same by the Organisers) comment on all the blogs will not be eligible. The Closing date for Blog Hop entries is Monday 8th May at 10pm. Only Uk addresses are eligible for the prize due to postage costs. Good Luck!

So, after your visit here please hop on to Julia and if you lose your way or you want to start at the beginning of the hop you can find the complete list on the Facebook page or on Fiona’s Blog here.

The theme for the Blog Hop is “Favourite Technique” I thought about this for a while as while I use lots of different techniques, misting, die cutting, stencils etc, I didn't think I had a favourite.
I was going through my layouts with my husband to see if he could help, when he said 'You put stuff on top of stuff a lot' so with those inspiring words, I made a layout focusing on layering!

I love ephemera, really it's the easiest, and laziest, way to make layers on your layouts. A few pretty die cut pieces, some foam pads, and you're almost done!

To fill in gaps I add puffy stickers, enamel flowers,

a few words cut out from a patterned paper and I was finished :)

I proudly showed my layout to my daughter, who was the beautiful focus of the photo, her response 'It looks like I have no legs.'
Well at least I like my layouts. ;)

April round up

I don't know where April went! I remember March, and my retreats, but now we're in May? Theres something missing there, lol.

Books read
The donor - Helen Fitzgerald
Bone of contention - Bette Lamb
Girl unknown - Karen Perry
13 minutes - Sarah Pinbrough
The third girl - Nell Goddin
21/52

Layouts done
11, not done much scrapping this month as been more about party prep, entertaining the kids and organising.
71/183

Pokemon caught
11, so I've met my target on this one! Will need to think of something else to add to my target list :)
200/200!

London!

So an early start this morning and we were off! I'd made a goodie bag for each of the boys to keep them entertained, and to save me a ton of money at the gift shop. ;)
One thing I bought was some magnetic putty from ebay. £6 for both tubs, I think it was a highlight of their day! They played with it pretty much the whole train journey there and home.

We arrived in London and took the tube down to the science museum. It was pretty much empty so we went up to the wonderlab. The kids loved it! It was a huge room with loads of interactive experiments. Seriously there were kids climbing on things, running riot, it was all kid proof. We let the boys do their own thing for a bit while Mark recovered from the train journey.
We took the boys for ice cream for lunch, Cams birthday badge paid off as he was given 4 scoops instead of 2. Think I might wear one next time ;)

Cam was in his element. He loves anything to do with learning so watching the demonstrations was fascinating to him. I'd read a lot of reviews beforehand which warned us the museum didn't have enough to do for a whole day visit but honestly if we had more time I think Cam could have happily spent two days there lol.

But soon we had to get the tube back to catch the train. We had just enough time to pop into Piccadilly Square to grab the boys a McDonalds and some Cinnabons for Caitlin at home. Some pain in the butt also tried to help himself to my handbag but only managed to snap the strap before I grabbed hold of it and he ran off. Glad I took my old bag with me!
So home, shattered and have a very happy Cameron, 10th birthday a success I think!

Movie time

With our Limitless card we try and go cinema at least once a week. Most of the time it's the only day Mark actually leaves the house lol. We hadn't been able to go for a while because the kids had been of (well besides Boss Baby) so we were looking forward to this week :) A couple of hours to chill out with a coffee and escape into another world. Bliss :)
It's a bit like reading, except in the cinema the kids or the dog arn't constantly bugging me for things ;)

Calm before the storm here really. I've got Camerons 10th Birthday Saturday and we're going to London for the day, then Sunday the family are coming up for a mini party. Next Friday is Caitlins 9th birthday with a much less quiet sleepover with her friends. Wish me luck on that one!
Still scrapping for the 100 day project :)
Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15

Day 16

Day 17

Day 18

Day 19

Day 20

Day 21

Day 22

Managed a few 12x12 too but not photograped them yet :)

100 day project

SO at the start of April I joined in with something called the '100 day project'. The idea is that you pick a project,a blanket, a piece of artwork ect, and do a bit towards this project every day for 100 days.
Rather than plan to do a layout a day, which I know I'd end up quitting on, I've decided on a photo a day. This way on busy days I can do a pocket style layout and still finish one of the photos out of the 'to do' pile.
It's supposed to be done on instagram, and you use a unique hashtag to keep track of your progress, but as my phone is useless and has no storage I've had to remove it so decided to keep track here instead :)
This is very photo heavy so feel free to scroll on by :)
Day one

Day two

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Catch up.

Well the kids are back at school. God that was a LONG Easter break. Don't get me wrong, it was fun :)
It was a chilling out at a caravan park after a 3 and a half hour drive kind of holiday.

A paddling in the sea even though it was freezing kind of holiday.

A climbing chedder gorge, smashing my previous fitbit record kind of holiday (this ended on just under 20k steps)

A learning about rock pools, lots of laughs, 'No Scamp don't pull Mummy I'll fall!' kind of holiday.

A car boot sale bargains, £5 for heelies AND much wanted twinkle toe sketchers, OMG that codex I bought for 20p is signed! kind of holiday.

A dragging Camerons old mattress out of the garage, thank goodness we haven't been to the tip yet it makes a perfect gymnastics mat, kind of holiday.

It was perfect. :) Now to get organised for the upcoming birthdays!

Challenge YOUrself

Welcome to April! Besides December this is the most expencive month of the year for me, the perils of having babies born so close together.
Luckily I have plenty of stash to be using up, as I certainly can't afford more!
So this months challenge over at Challenge YOUrself was to use the word 'inspire'.

I took this is two ways really. First I decided scrapped my family and do hidden journaling about how they inspire me, easy enough.
Before I started the layout however I found out that the kit club I was part of, Like for ever, was shutting down :( The cost of importing products, along with shipping problems from suppliers meant that it was just not an option to continue.
I was gutted, not only were the kits beautiful but the lady who run them, Nicola, is one of the nicest people I've ever met. She had left her job as a teacher to build her own business and had also built a wonderful little community of people in the process. Seriously I've made some amazing friends though the kit, it's like a little family.
So to honor Nicola and how much she has inspired me, I decided to scrap lift one of her layouts, after much deliberation (she has done some amazing projects) I picked this one.

So this was my take. My layouts are a little less minimalist than hers ;)

Fittingly enough I used the very last Like for ever kit to do this layout too :(

100 day project

So considering how well I'm doing with my other challenges, I decided to try another one :)
I saw on facebook about the 100 day project (here) and thought it was worth a shot. I wasn't ambitious enough to do 100 layouts a day so I picked 100 photos, #100photosscrapped this way on busy days I can do a simple pocket page and still scrap a photo.
The project started on April 4th but I didn't see it until the 5th, luckily I had finished a page the day before anyway so yey that one was done. :)
Day one

Day 2 was a really busy day as I took my Gran into hospital for a minor op, so just a pocket page for yesterday.

Day 3 was crazy too lol. I had double booked on playdates so house was full of kids, poor Mark was having a bad day so super hectic! Another pl style page done and another photo in.

So I'm doing ok so far, but 3 days in is hardly far lol.

March round up

Wow March was busy! Blogging completley went out of my head but instagram, Facebook and other social media meant memories were still recorded, yey!
So this months round up:

Books read
The lure - S.W Hubbard
The devil on my doorstep - Annabelle forest
Betrayed - Rosie lewis
15/52 - Little less than usual this month but still on track.

Layouts done
27! Had 2 retreats this month and a weekend cyber crop so lots done. I have realised however that my 365 target was a little ambititious so I've decided that a layout every two days is much more reasonable.
60/183

Pokemon caught
31! We had a few days away and the area we went to had loads of new Pokemon. Scamp enjoyed LOTS of walks ;)
189/200

Been a very fun and busy month :)

Christmas pjs

I was catching up on tivo the other day and some Christmas ads came on, it honestly took me a few moments of panic before I realised they were just old ads and it wasn't Christmas!
I admit I was a little sad when the logical part of my brain remembered it was March. I miss Christmas, all the traditions and events, Spring is nowhere near as fun.
The good thing about scrapbooking though is that I can have a little bit of Christmas all year round :) Yey!
One of our biggest traditions is the Christmas eve pjs. My Mum did it before I can remember and I've done the same with my kids. Each year on Christmas eve we they get a new pair of pjs, some popcorn or sweets and a book or dvd.
Its a good way to calm things down before bed, and of course means nice new pjs on all Christmas morning photos ;)

I used an old Like for ever kit for this layout called 'Wish list'. It was one of my fave ever ones with lots of muted colours and beautiful embellishments.
It also included some lovely textured cardstock which I used as a background here. I didn't think you could make out the pattern very well leaving it which so I added mist which I don't do often but I love the affect here. :)
Added sparkled, vellum, a pretty bow, love this layout :)
Only 291 days until Christmas!

Keepin it real

OK I know it's Wednesday but lets be honest, my blogging takes ages these days.
So I had a brilliant weekend :) Every year a group of us rent a beautiful cottage on the welsh boarder and drink, eat, scrap and have a great laugh.
How pretty is this view!

Seriously hoping to rent this later on in the year for a family getaway too.

I haven't photographed any of the 9 layouts I did over the weekend but still have old ones to share lol.
This photo was taken at Disneyland paris a couple of years ago. For one of the meals we went to the New York hotel for a buffet, it was really weird lol. There were lots of meats, but nothing to go with it iykwim, meatballs, but no pasta, chicken, but no chips or rice or anything. There was nothing that Caitlin would really eat so all she had was bread rolls, doughnuts and yogurt, as you can see in the photo lol. Thank goodness for the sandwhich shop near the hotel!

Hoping this will work, never put a video on a blog before I don't think. This year my baby boy turns 10, 10! We want to make a big deal out of such a milestone so we bought him a big gift in the form on a Nintendo switch :)
Me being me and having no patience however we gave it to him 2 months early lol. It was more of a surprise that way too!

I rarely take videos but I love this one :)