My Month in Numbers - November.

As we head at an alarming pace towards the end of 2013 I thought I would share with you our past month using this wonderful system MMIN, devised by Julie Kirk.

November.

5 christmas gifts plus several stocking fillers at present in production.

13 blog posts written.

455 - I've finished all the levels of Candy Crush!!

1938 - Paul has been asked to be the next Master of this Mark Master Masons Lodge.

6 - attended a 6th form meeting with our second Son looking at all his options.

99/64 my blood pressure at my GP check up this week.

1 new recipe tried. Spinach and cheese pie from Jaimie's 30 minute meals. We loved it & I can see it becoming a firm favourite.

3 The number of teeth Harriet is missing this month. 2 removed by the dentist & 1 fell out.

Communal Count.

0 We have not received any Christmas cards as yet!

Many thanks for stopping by. Hop on over to Julie's to see what others have been up to this month x

Sheena x

Busy Busy Busy

As we head towards the end of the year what little time I had seems to have disappeared so I thought I'd share with you my Project Life pages from September.

Our month was full of...

...walking with the Mums, a sewing lesson with Kirsty, a beautiful wedding, cropping...

...back to school for 2, preparing for Uni for Dan, lunching out with the Solihull Ladies, cinema trip, physio for me...

...A fabulous Ladies Night with old friends, & a lovely hotel brekky too...

...a trip to Bristol with Jackie to try & see the Gromits altogether but the queues were huge:( but great day meeting up with IG girls ...

...both children receiving prizes at Prize Giving & Harriet giving a talk there, celebrating Jilly's 60th birthday,family meal with Dan, sewing lesson...

...taking Dan & all his stuff to Uni, Paul's best golf win to date, hearing Retreat had been cancelled...

Thanks for looking x

Sheena x

The cold makes me hooky!

Now that the weather has turned colder I find that I am less likely to go out unless I have to as once I get cold I stay cold!

So the huge advantage of this is I've been picking up my crochet of an evening. We all have WIP's (work in progress) but I've set my mind to try & finish 1 WIP before I start another new project...

I started making this scarf last autumn & TBH it was really close to being finished but it got bundled away when getting sorted for Xmas & got forgotten. The pattern was in a Simply Crochet magazine.

I'm thrilled with how it looks & have had many compliments whilst wearing it.

To spread the Crochet word I went to the Toft Alpaca Farm for a workshop with 3 lovely friends this week.

We learnt to crochet a snowflake which was quite a hard project for a novice but we revived ourselves with a lovely pub lunch afterwards.

Hope you are all keeping warm & snug x

Sheena x

What a coincidence ...

On the week that the Oxford Dictionary named SELFIE as it's word of the year, I'd used it as the title for a page I designed in advance as a Special Investigator for the challenge blog CSI for this weeks case file 98!

Collecting Summer Selfies!

When we got home from our summer holiday I found this & lots more similar on my camera which I didn't realise my daughter had taken. They really make me smile, gone are the days when we didn't appear in our own photos as now we can just take our own. I love the idea & have certainly embraced it.

I've used a real mix of product on this page. Some papers are basic grey & the fabric frame is Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper.

Scheme - I used all the colours.

Evidence - stripes, polka dots, book page, ribbon, frame, wood & spiral note book punch all used.

Testimony - Inspiration words - Collect...

Have you embraced the art of Selfie taking ? I'd love to hear your views on them.

Many thanks for looking x

Sheena x

Extra pages...

When I work on my Project Life pages it depends how busy our month has been to how many pages I end up with. This makes total sense but sometimes I give special events/ times their own insert if there is lots to show & remember & then I tend to use different styles of page protecters to add more interest to the album as a whole. These are 2 said inserts from August.

My birthday.

I had a fabulous day being spoilt by family & friends and also a surprise visit to Stoneleigh Abbey which Jane Austin visited ( I'm a huge fan) & possibly used as the basis for her Mansfield Park novel.

This month we went to Bristol twice hunting Gromits. Initially I didn't intend to include them all in my PL but with the help of Picassa I managed to showcase them all.

I used parts of the map as background & for the titles.

Thanks for looking x

Sheena x

November Card Challenge

Over on the Scrapology Blog it's time for our November card challenge & this month we have been joined by the talented Paula Pascual who designed a lovely card for us to use as our inspiration.

This is my take on her card.

As it's never too early to be making Christmas cards I used a sizzix strip die to cut the fairy lights which I pop dotted & tied with twine.

Hop on over & take a look at all the fabulous DT examples & I hope you get chance to join in x

Sheena x 

Project Life catch up part 1

It's not that I've got too far behind in finishing each month, I've just forgotten to photograph them & share them here. So we'll start with August...

Being the summer holidays we had lots of visitors,got coke bottles with our name on, spent a day at an Alpaca farm...

We spent a few days in London,seeing the sights, a show, Platform 93/4 & our first Gromit...

We also spent a day visiting Buckingham Palace, The Royal Mews & Queens Gallery...

 I attended a craft show, a wedding & & a cake decorating course whilst Dan was off exploring...

Matt spent a week in Wales with the Explorers,Dan went to London & got in to his first choice Uni... 

We gardened, BBQ'd, baked & got ready for the return to school...

All in all a fabulous month :)

I'll share the insert pages in the coming days x

Sheena x

A couple more for the album...& a blog hop winner.

When I scrap I generally pick a photo to suit  what I want to create but last year I realised I hadn't scrapped any of our holiday photos so I came up with a plan.

I got as far as sorting out an album & a variety of page protecters. I even got our Singapore photos printed & popped in the protecters for when the fancy took me ...well that was the theory but the reality shall we say has been rather different & here we are at the back end of 2013 & only a couple of lo's are in there.

So I'm trying to get a few more done using inspiration& challenges to help me out plus I've restricted the paper choices to help speed up the process.

I used the Scrap365 October sketch for this page which details a coach tour we went on which could have been boring if it hadn't been for our tour guide Philip who entertained us with stories of what it's like to really live there. All the journalling is in the pocket.

This page uses a sketch set by a team mate on the Sketchy Scrapper FB group I belong to.

These are pics I took out of the taxi window when we first arrived as the views got us really excited to explore despite being shattered from the flight & time difference.

Thanks for stopping by x

Winners
I was so totally overwhelmed with the response to my snowflakes that I got my Hubby to pick 2 names for this giveaway :)

The winners of a snowflake each from the Frosty Festivities Blog Hop are Laura Turcotte & Tulpanen. Congratulations Ladies xxx
Please e mail sheena@pjrowlands.com with your address & I'll get them posted out ready to hang on your Christmas trees :)

Sheena x

Frosty Festivities Blog Hop

Welcome Welcome Welcome...you should have joined me from Sarahs blog...

I'm thrilled to be part of the "Frosty Festivities" Blog Hop and there is a fabulous hop prize that just has to be won and here's how...

If you comment on all the blogs in the hop, finishing at www.jennifergracecreates.com to let Jennifer know you've been all the way around, then you'll be in with a chance to win a jolly seasonal prize of Simple Stories December Documented and Elle’s Studio Noel items, worth over £28!

All entries must be received by Monday the  11th of November at 10.59pm GMT.

Today I want to share with you the festive decorations I've been making.

 

All hand crocheted by me using sparkly white yarn following patterns from Simply Crochet magazine, Yarnovations.com  and Attic24 Blog then pinned out & starched to hold their shape.

If you would like to win a snowflake you just need to become a blog follower & leave a comment - good luck & I'll announce the winner here, on the 12th November. 

Your next stop along the hop is the blog of Jennifer Grace.

Happy Hopping

Sheena x

Jot magazine Issue 3 & Me x

Have you seen this issue yet ?

It's really worth a read. It's a bumper issue & as always it's full of great inspiration & loads of styles of creations by designers from all over the globe including a couple talented Brits :)

I'm very honoured to have had a Project Life spread published in this issue, of a family trip to London we made over the summer x

Click on the image to go & view this edition.

You will love it :)

Sheena x 

Working as a Special Investigator...

Recently I was very honoured to be asked to be a November Special Investigator for the challenge blog CSI. This is my first week in the role using case file no. 96.

Take Note.

Featuring a school photo of my Dad.

From this file I used:

Scheme - all colours used.

Evidence - typewriter accent, typewriter font, clock, gold metal, vintage photo, paint.

Testimony - Use a typewriter font.
I really enjoy their challenges & this one was  on exception. Hop on over & have a go yourself, it's a great mojo starter :)

Sheena x

Story Telling Sunday - Is it Precious ??

Happy November to you all :)

Here we are on the first sunday of the month which makes it Story Telling Sunday over at High in the Sky.

This month I wasn't sure what Precious I was going to share but I needn't have worried as one in fact two became very clear to me this week...

Let me explain...most people know by now the issues we've had with our home but the knock on effect of the rebuild has been the state of our back garden after the fire crew, digger & demolition team & then builders all tramped & traipsed over it. We did have some work done on it initially but settling back into our home took priority.

Over the last couple of weeks we have had a new path laid & the gardener/builder man took a shine to these 2 garden ornaments which were semi hidden in a border against the fence & even hinted he would like them.

Now I wouldn't usually be a fan of Gnomes etc but these two were part of the garden when we originally bought the house way back when & we even joked about them to each other after our initial viewing of the property & although we never meant for them to stay they did. I was shocked by how protective I felt when there was a chance they would be going. We don't have many original features left so I think we need to find them a perfect spot in the new design.

Hop on over to Sians blog to read more stories this sunday x

Sheena x

Shark Bait!!

At the start of each month the Scrapology Design Team set a page challenge with a sketch for you to use over on the blog. Here is my DT example for November.

Shark Bait.

Featuring a photo I took of my mad family in the shark tank at Ushaka Marine World in Durban,SA.

I flipped the sketch  bringing the chipboard accent which I painted & misted to the bottom of my underwater page.The outer circle was created using 3 colours of paint.

Hop on over to see other great examples using the same sketch x

Sheena x