Keep on scrapping.......

I have been loving scrapbooking recently.  I think becoming part of a team on UK Scrappers and joining in more of the challenges /crops and fun activities on the site have really helped.  Also the Bloggers Weekend was so inspiring seeing first hand so many skilled and talented scrappers working on their pages.

I rarely seem to share my pages on here, seldom blog them for the world to see so after sharing my simple Christmas pages and having a good response to them I am going to make a concerted effort to share more of my scrapping adventure starting now!!

These are 2 of the weekly challenges and one house challenge from UKS, sometimes taking me out of my comfort zone but always stimulating and inspiring.

So are you part of UKS???  What scrapping have you been up to and what or who inspired you???

Christmas is complete!!

Ok I know Christmas was really over in December but I needed to finish my Christmas Journal.

I actually started in 2010 the year I joined Journal Your Christmas run by Shimelle, all I managed that year was the 1st page!  In 2011 I tried again, I updated the first page and actually made several others, but got behind, Dad got admitted to hospital and I really lost the Christmas spirit.

So we come to Christmas 2012 and  I have kept all the original pages made in the previous years but I made all the others and finished on December 27th.  Here is a quick look..........

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What I have learned........I have really enjoyed making these pages and preserving some of my memories from Christmas.  I will definitely do this again and won't worry about completing it after Christmas. I managed to make the LO's without needing a sketch I just made them as I went and used the materials I had to hand so keeping it simple, this can be adapted for 12x12 pages that I usually make.  So overall a really worthwhile project and so glad I persevered.

bloggers weekend

WOW it was a blast!

It was wonderful to meet some of my blogging buddies for the very first time, see others that I met on the Bloggers weekend in 2011 and of course see my dear chum K again who I have 'known' for years though have only met about 5 times!

I was so happy spending time with like minded people, everyone was there to create, make and do, it was a pleasure, it was heaven, this could be my utopia!!

I expect many of you have seen this photograph or a similar one taken by the talented Melsh.....

 what no-one else seems to have shared is what happened behind the camera.......

 lots of concentrating, focusing, testing the shot...........

trying to get us organised...........thankfully the photo leader Melsh did not need to use the 'stick' on any of us we all got in our places and the photo was taken lol!

It really was an amazing way to spend time, I particularly enjoyed

• meeting everyone (in fact I started early meeting Alexa and Alison for a coffee in the local shopping centre)
• tasty cups of tea ...I tried vanilla and earl grey and it was love at first taste thanks to Jacky 
• cake (Louise's cake was wonderful and of course the Malteser Cake) 
• Julie's London die, though it took most of Saturday morning 
• crying with laughter during the game Sandie organised though this was really due to Jemma 
• discovering Jill lives near to my childhood haunts so we hope to meet up near there sometime special thanks to Jill who met me for the first time and was stuck sitting next to me for most of the weekend!! Please get a blog so I can see all your wonderful creations and leave comments!
• learning to make yoyo flowers (Fay) and pop up embellishments (Jennifer)
• watching others work and plan pages like Miss Smith's use of pencil marks and Mrs Wookie's mini journal prep for class
• the fact that Lizzie had taken much care and time to choose a venue and arrange for us all to get together it was F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S!

Thank you all xxx

lastly a photo of the 4 of us from our end of the table, a reunion from 2011 and wonderful women who I look forward to seeing again hopefully soon

Family 12 x 12 blog hop March The 2nd Anniversary

Welcome to the 2nd Anniversary of our monthly family photo blog hop!

I can't believe that we have been sharing our photos for 2 years now.... where has the time gone??  Seriously I have loved being part of our small team, I really would encourage everyone and anyone to join us.  Margie always sends a reminder so there is time to get a last minute photo plus if you can only get some of your clan in the shot that is also fine.  Definitions of family vary from person to person and culture to culture so whatever your take is on 'family' is fine by us (yes it does/can include pets though so far my own pics have not included the furry member of our family!)  

I am pleased that I have managed to capture a picture of my husband, son, daughter and me together most months.   I don't really like having my photo taken very much (soooooo unphotogenic!!) so I am rarely in photos, let alone in a picture with all the family.

Margie made a few suggestions about how we could celebrate the anniversary and I did consider showcasing some of my favourite photographs from the last couple if years.  Instead, I have chosen to share 'family' photos from February 2013 as we celebrated my husband's special birthday with some of our nearest and dearest.

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Mersea Island  Hubby with my sister, my Dad, , DS's head and me 

photo taken by DD

Canvey Island Hubby with my parents, our children, my aunt, my uncle and me

in a cottage hubby with my cousin and her children, our children and me

Cambridge hubby with his nephews, neice, sis in-law her hubby, our children and me

at our house hubby with 2 families (4 adults 4 children) our children and me

up the Shard in London hubby and me on his actual birthday!

So as you can see we did a lot of celebrating which fits nicely with the theme of celebrating the 2nd anniversary.  (I also spent well over an hour trying to find all the Shard and actual birthday photos, I was even trying to recover them from the SD card! I eventually found them mislabeled by me as 2012 not 2013 phew! I was nearly crying as so upset thinking I had deleted them and then was jumping for joy when eventually found them!!!)

Please visit the 2 other participants this month and please consider joining us next month as it really is simple and so worthwhile  

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog

Patricia  http://patoliveira.wordpress.com/ 

Ruth http://www.chattycraftyartypig.blogspot.com

I want to thank Margie so much for the support, the co-ordination and the idea for the family photo blog hop it has been wonderful and looking back on all the photos is fantastic