SIPIDI

Belatedly joining with FIONA's monthly meme.

A few weekends ago, SHIMMELLE hosted a weekend of online scrapbooking. I didn't have time to take part, but I DID pin a few sketches.

This was was I particularly liked:

And this is the layout I managed to put together:

On putting the layout away in it's album, I discovered that I had actually already scrapped a smaller version of this photograph, but on double page layout:

Taken at the BLOGGER's WEEKEND  last year...I don't know if it's because we're thinking about another one, but this was the photograph I was drawn to use!

Thanks for dropping by!
Take care of you
Alison xx

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WOULD YOU BELIEVE.......

......that I actually scrapped this weekend! In between making cups of tea for my Man Friday.....my name for our 'odd job man'...and he literally does all the little and not-so-little jobs around here which I either can't do (think pool cleaning, chopping down trees and fixing TVs) or won't do (think cleaning the outside windows!). This weekend it was lopping the top off one of these blessed Carob trees I spoke about it the last post.

Anyway, I digress...between making the obligatory cups of tea, doing a bit of gardening myself, enough housework to appease my conscience and a little bit of sitting in the sun listening to a book....I managed to start (and finish!) this layout......

.......based (loosely, I admit) on this 'Sketch to Scrapbook' page of SHIMELLE'S

I have heard rumours that Spring may be arriving in the UK.....I'm hopeful that this is true, as I'm heading back there on Wednesday! Hoping you have all had a good weekend

Thanks for dropping by!

Take care of you

Alison xx

Thanks for dropping by!
Take care of you
Alison xx

STILL REMIXING!

You will be not be surprised to know that I have already fallen behind with SHIMELLE'S latest class- SCRAPBOOK REMIX. Fortunately Shimelle herself does not dole out punishment exercises for failing to keep up, but I like to at least TRY to do so. 

In saying that, I'm still on Prompt 1...and haven't even READ Prompt 4! Maybe this week I'll do better, but I'm not really holding my breath for that!

You may remember this little peek from Friday.....

...well, here is the finished layout, using three colours...blue, yellow and brown...as per the aforementioned Prompt 1.

Dad with his brother, at my sister's Silver Wedding party a couple of weeks ago..just after his bout of pneumonia

.....inspired by a challenge over at SCRAP FRIENDZY, and using this sketch from PageMaps

Just a reminder that if you want to be put in the draw for this book....

...please leave a comment saying so , at the end of THIS POST by midnight (GMT) tonight.

Hope the weather has been kind to you this weekend, and not kept you from having a bit of fun!

Thanks for dropping by!

Take care of you

Alison xx

HELLO MONDAY

This week I'm saying

HELLO to my first full week at home for almost a month

HELLO to being back at both Keep Fit and Line Dancing...the toe is still a bit swollen but not causing me pain..YAY!

HELLO to changing my 'twig tree' from Summer to autumn/ Fall /Halloween

HELLO to getting some work done in the garden....a few of my pots need changed and there's some pruning needing done too.

HELLO to SHIMELLE's new class which will hopefully get me back into the swing of scrapping again!

HELLO to 'Passing The Book' later this week


HELLO to sending out some HAPPY MAIL

HELLO to helping to organise three charity events coming up in November

Hoping you have some good things to be saying 'Hello' to this week

Thanks for dropping by!
Take care of you
Alison xx

TEN THINGS I'M SAYING 'HELLO' TO

This Monday being the 10th of September, I am joining in with SHIMELLE'S TEN THINGS and saying:

HELLO to all my friends out there, after having been MIA for a week..having used the visit from 'the girls' as a little holiday for myself!

HELLO to getting used to the quiet again as the girls head home today

HELLO to Craig arriving on Friday

HELLO to catching up with lots of blog-reading

HELLO to hobbling around for a few days...I managed to break the little toe on my left foot on Saturday....painful, but a nuisance more than anything!

HELLO to missing the first day back at Keep Fit tomorrow...due to said toe!

HELLO to getting back to eating properly, after having eaten (and drunk) far too much over the last week

HELLO to trying to catch up with LSNED

HELLO to getting some scrapping done

HELLO to starting to think about Christmas...maybe not actually DOING anything about it yet, but  certainly to start making a few tentative plans. 

I hope you have some good things to say 'hello' to this week


Thanks for dropping by!
Take care of you
Alison xx

IN GOOD COMPANY WITH GLITTER GIRL ...AT CAMP AND THEN A SOIREE!

Before I did the 'Great Scrap Area Tidy', in honour of my friend Elaine's arrival ...and she KNOWS how honoured she is ;) I managed to squeeze in one more Layout, 

The inspiration for the paper choices came from SUSANNE'S IN GOOD COMPANY challenge,  for which this month, she is looking for PINK PAISLEE products. My background paper and the striped one are both from the 'VINTAGE VOGUE' collection..everything else is from my stash.

The sketch itself is the one used by GLITTER GIRL HERE....and I did use both Washi Tape and ribbon!

The CAMP FRIENDZY challenge was:

 to use the colors of the rainbow as your inspiration and use at least 5 of those colors. And yes, to make it easy, the colors can be any shade you want. Just make sure you have at least 5 of the 7 main colors found in the rainbow on your LOs or cards

...and finally, I'm linking up to JENNIFER'S SCRAPBOOKING SOIREE!

Have a great week my friends!

Thanks for dropping by!

Take care of you

Alison xx

BACK AT CAMP!

You may remember that I mentioned in THIS POST that I was attending (a virtual) Summer Camp over at SCRAP FRIENDZY.....then proceeded to go AWOL, due to my visitors. This week I got back to camp, and got these two layouts done.


For the first one I used was SHIMELLE'S  most recent STARTING POINT

The Camp Friendzy challenge was for the 'Nature' Badge:

To meet this challenge, complete a LO with SOME KIND of NATURE! It can be flowers, leaves, butterflies, birds, etc.

There are flowers and a butterfly on the LO

This beautiful metallic embellishment was handmade...and sent to me by the very talented MITRA

....I have been waiting for just the right LO to use it on!

For the second LO, I used this sketch from PAGE DRAFTS (which I rotated to fit my picture).....

and the 'GONE FISHING' challenge from Camp Friendzy:

For this challenge you will have to have 3 elements on your LO. First there needs to be some twine or string to use to fish with, second something needs to be tied (it's up to you if you want to actually tie a worm on or not ), third you need to have some blue on there for the water.

There is twine inside the scalloped circles, a tied bow on the button and lots of blue!

I am also linking up to THE SCRAPBOOKING SOIREE over at Jennifer's blog.

Hope you're having a good weekend...come rain or shine!

Thanks for dropping by!

Take care of you

Alison xx

10 ON THE 10TH

Ten Things on the 10th: Started by SHIMELLE , it's time to share ten things... some people will share ten photos, ten crafty ideas, ten sources of inspiration, ten recipes, ten things in a collection... always ten things and always on the tenth of the month. If you'd like to see more Ten Things on the 10th posts, click here to visit SHIMELLE'S BLOG (and find out how you can join in).


As for me, I'm sharing ten photographs of the flowers that are blooming in my garden today.

Hibiscus rose..thought I'd lost this one this year, due to over-zealous pruning!

I've obviously chosen a good spot  for this petunia this year..it just keeps flowering!

The Lantana is a typically Spanish plant and comes in a variety of colour combinations..I'm particularly fond of this one

Alstromeria...I have a few of these, but love the soft colours on this one

Cheery Gazanias

Good old Dianthus (Pinks)

Hopefully this PLUMBAGO will one day cover the trellis!

Am not sure about this one, but I think it may be a Surfinia Petunia?

Geraniums grow well here, as long as you deadhead them regularly

This pretty little Gerbera has been producing a single flower for months now...as soon as one dies, another flower follows, but never more than one at a time!

I'm now off to see what ten things my fellow bloggers have posted ..hope you've enjoyed seeing what's surviving the heat here in my little corner of Spain!

Thanks for dropping by!

Take care of you

Alison xx 

TRIPLE WHAMMY!

Today I resisted playing with my yummy new papers...though I have had a few occasions just to go look lovingly at them.....as I wanted to get my page done for SUSANNE'S IN GOOD COMPANY challenge. Each month she has been challenging us to create a layout, using papers and/or embellishments primarily from one company (she chooses a different Company every month). 

This month, the chosen Company is OCTOBER AFTERNOON...if you have any in your stash why not come and join us?

Being that it's too  hot here for my brain to do any serious work, I decided to take the easy route and use SHIMELLE'S most recent STARTING POINT

So I had a rake through my stash and found some October Afternoon 'CAMPFIRE' papers and some '5&DIME'...and here's the result. There's a mix of other stuff from  my stash in there too...funny how it doesn't seem to matter how much I dip into my stash, it never seems to decrease very much (if at all!)

The layout also works for one of the Bonus Challenges over at CAMP FRIENDZY

I only have a few more pages left to do for my niece's album, and then I'll get back to scrapping some of my own pics!

Hope you've all seen even a LITTLE bit of sunshine this weekend!

Thanks for dropping by!

Take care of you

Alison xx

THE BABY LAYOUTS....

......for my niece's album, that is. You may remember I mentioned that mum and dad had brought my niece's baby pics with them, so I have been scanning and printing in my spare moments..and even got a few LOs completed over the weekend.


I used this 'Starting Point' from SHIMELLE

 

and came up with this

and then, using this sketch from SKETCHABILITIES

came up with this one

I have left the journalling blank once again, but will be able to fill it in soon, as the Birthday Girl is having a pre-birthday, post-exam break here in just a couple of weeks time....beds are going to be in short supply here by the end of the month!

Thank you all for your supportive messages after STORYTELLING SUNDAY... as SIAN commented, 'what a wonderful bunch of people scrapbookers are'...to that I add bloggers too!

Thanks for dropping by!

take care of you

Alison xx

10 on the 10th

On the tenth of every month, a group of bloggers post a list of ten things...there are no rules-just a list, or pictures of ten random things which interest us; the idea was yet another brainchild of SHIMELLE'S.


I mentioned in THIS POST that I was going on a 5KM sponsored walk on Sunday past. Not only did I survive, but I actually enjoyed it. We walked through the orange and olive groves and I have ten photographs I took on the walk, of some of the views and sights round about our valley.

We set off through the orange groves, looking back  on one of the local urbanisations...although the orange blossom is out, there are still last season's oranges on the trees. There has been such a glut, and the farmers haven't been able to afford to pay people to help pick them.....the oranges will just rot now; a sign of the economic situation here in Spain.

Looking back towards our village

Members of the Spanish 'Red Cross' (CRUZ ROJA) accompanied us

Approaching the village next to ours.

This beautiful Afghan Hound walked with us....he behaved impeccably...if it had been Boo we would have had to stop at every plant and tree for a 'sniff'!!

This was the Chicken Factory in days gone by...seemingly the noise from it was dreadful!

Our small villages don't have Fire Stations...this is where the one that serves our local villages 'lives'

Heading back through the olive groves

Heading back to Alcalali

A welcome sight...HOME!

If you would like to see some more random '10 on the 10ths' head over to SHIMELLE'S BLOG, where a list of contributors should appear sometime today.

Hope you're having a good week

Thanks for dropping by!

Take care of you

Alison xx

COVER TO COVER...Prompt 1

Yes, SHIMELLE has a new scrapbooking class (it started yesterday)...and after much humming and hawing I decided I would sign up for it.

The first Prompt asked us to:

Take a photo that helps describe your current status with scrapbooking. You might have dozens and dozens of albums. You might have two. You might be completely happy with your albums. You might have a big stack and no books or ideas on where things should go. Share your photo (and more details if you would like) with us either by posting on the forum or writing a blog post.

I do actually keep my scrapbooks in chronological order...much easier since I started using D ring albums...I changed from postbound to these, about a year and a half ago. I don't scrap chronologically....I sometimes scrap recent pictures, but I often go through my photo archives- which I keep on my hard drive- to see what catches my imagination.

These are my albums from New Year's Day  2007 till the present time..one day I shall date the spines! I hasten to add that there are lots of pre-2007 albums in various places around the house.

At the moment, this is acting as a 'Holding Album'....the LOs for my niece's album, LOs for Stuart's eventual album and LOs for a 'My Life' album (about me) are all in here.... until I send for more.

I print my own photographs, as I like to use different sizes on my pages...I know it probably costs me more in the long run, but I never know what sizes I'll use before I actually start a layout!

I am in awe of some of the bloggers I know who are VERY much more organised than me.....but my 'system' works for me, so I'll stick with it...unless of course Shimelle is about to enlighten us with something that 'fits' me better! 

Thanks for dropping by!

Take care of you

Alison xx

THE FINAL TWO FOR SHIMELLE

I believe we have till tonight to get any layouts uploaded, for the Online Crop hosted by SHIMELLE last weekend.


I managed another two yesterday, but didn't get them photographed till this morning.


CHALLENGE #12


The challenge was to use one photo twice......I used this sketch from PAGE DRAFTS

and came up with this

This photograph of Stuart and DH is one I've been waiting to scrap for a while now, and I thought the repetitive picture idea would be ideal for it, as (as the journalling says) 'THE BIG PANCAKE' was read constantly for months! Stuart absolutely loved this story, and it was always the one he brought to us, and asked anyone who visited to read to him.

CHALLENGE#10

Something bold- use two pics on a bold background.

I used an old ice cream print from DCWV, which I've had for years ...I have to say I have used lots of older stash for these challenges, which I'm rather pleased about!

I used GLITTER GIRL'S layout for my inspiration for this one!

Although Kirsty looks as though she might be saying how delicious the ice-cream was, she was  actually telling me to stop taking photos of her with her mouth full! 

I reckon that's me completed as many challenges from the crop as I'm going to...time to tidy up a bit!

If you missed THIS POST, there's a bit of a giveaway at the end of it...you have till tomorrow night to leave a comment  to be in the draw.

Thanks for dropping by!

take care of you

Alison xx