WOYWW time

Wednesday already and time for another WOYWW.  Mine is busier and more chaotic than normal as I am part way through a scrapbook page.  I think so far I have only really shown a tidy desk, but when I am scrapbooking it becomes chaos as I try and chose papers from my enormous stash of scraps etc.  You can see the page in progress on the top of a pile of papers, cardstock and scraps of papers that all match in colour pallettes.  I have used acrylic paint on this page so you can see the paint and brush (which badly needs cleaning), papers from the basic grey archaic range, scissors, glue ink etc.

This is a close up of the left side of my desk where you can see the Penny Black stamps and ink pads I used for my most recent card and haven't put away.

Talking about recent cards, here they are!  This first one is a very simple and elegant card made by brayering Adirondack butterscotch and cranberrry onto the card to make the graded background, then stamping the Penny Black flower in black on top.  To me with the colour scheme and the shape of the flower, this card looks somewhat oriental so I am entering it into Crafty Cardmakers 'Oriental' challenge. As I have only used plain white card and ink this also fits with the Pollycraft 'no designer paper' challenge.

I liked the effect so much that I made another card, this time with shades of blue and an iris stamp from Penny Black which I am entering into the Practical Scappers 'stamping' and Creative Card Crew 'flowers' challenges.

Finally I made this card for a work colleague who turns 50 this week, like beer and keeps a flock of sheep (hence the cartoon!). For this card I followed the Friday sketchers sketch. As there are spots around the frame of the image and stripes in the stip across the middle of this card I feel that it fits with the theme this week for A spoon full of sugar.  I look forward to your comments. Have a great day everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

Relaxing weekend

After being away for the last three weekends we decided to have a gently relaxing weekend at home not doing a great deal.  It has been lovely as I have had time to craft and to play with Alex, both of which I love...perfect.  Alex has also been having fun playing with my old camera...he has actually got quite good at pointing the camera at the things he wants to photograph, although the framing is sometimes not so great.  This is one of his photographs - pretty good for a 3 year old!

We did the usual round of shopping and cleaning yesterday before heading over to the park where Alex spent much of the time scooting or entertaining a little girl in a wheel chair. As he has a stinking cold at the moment he wore his new knitted hat (thanks Gran!) to help keep his head warm.

Today we went to a different park where he got so hot bouncing on the bouncy castle and slide that he took his hat off (note the smart hair cut - Tim cut it for him in the morning).

Crafting wise I made this scrapbook page as my DT entry for Quirky crafts.  It is a recipe challenge this week (lace, stitching, buttons and turquoise or teal).  This page is of my 11th Birthday party and uses a basic grey paper across the main strip.  It also follows the sketch from this weeks Sketches {by Tamara} and fits with the Crazy4Challenges 'bling' challenge. 

The next scrapbook page follows this weeks sketch from Practical scrappers and fits with the coffee and cream colour scheme from Paperplay. The papers are Bo Bunny and the journalling reads 'We had a lovely family trip to Blue Anchor Beach where Juno had fun chasing her ring & Alex and Daniel had a wonderful time filling buckets with sand and emptying them int the 'motorboat' they were making'.

I also made a quick Autumnal card for a friend and as such it fits with lots of Autumn colour challenges this week (Creative card crew, Meljen's, Crafty creations, stamp something), OLL 'sentiment' challenge as well as the Creative Inspirations challenge of two or more stamped images (I stamped the background using 4 different leaf stamps as well as the sentiment). Have a great week everyone and I will be back on Wednesday with more crafting projects.
Love,
Caro
x

Parents evening!

Alex had his first ever parents evening yesterday.  I can't believe, aged 3, that he is old enough for a parents evening...where did those years go?  Apparently he is doing very well at nursery (he goes full-time and loves it).  I was pleasantly surprised to hear that he will sit still and listen to stories or any teaching as he is usually all over the place at home.  It is nice to hear that your child is doing well so I was very pleased. What was even nicer was being told that he is considered to be very clever!

Crafting wise I have made this scrapbook page based on this weeks Sketchy Thursday sketch.  The page also fits with the kids playing theme from MTTC and with the 'little wonders' song from Scrap it with a song.  The page is titled 'The wonder of childhood' and the journalling reads 'Alex and Daniel had a wonderful time playing in this rock pool on blue anchor beach, gradually taking off more and more clothes until they were running in and out of the pool completely naked.  Their favourite game was to run into the pool with lots of splashing and then deliberately fall over.  What fun!'.  The page uses Bo Bunny paper and Crafty Individual stamps.  I would love to know what you think.  Have a great weekend everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

WOYWW again

Well it is Wednesday again and I am back into the swing of normal life; work, family and crafting and as a result it is time to show you my desk as part of the WOYWW phenomenon!  The photo was actually taken late last night (just before bed), hence the dark window, as I will be at work when this needs to be posted (trying the timer!).  On my desk you can see my craft sheet, whisper pen sets, versamark ink pad, tanda stamps, some hero arts stamps (half hidden) and the Egyptian ATCs I am working on. Half hidden in the background is my holiday minibook that is still a work in progress.

Here is a close up of the ATCs work in progress and the wonderful tanda stamp set - I don't use it often, but it is fantastic!

Here are the ATCs, which are for a swap on the CM&PC forum and also fit with the theme of 'around the world' for crafty cardmakers.

I have also continued to work on my minibook so this is the second page of Scarborough, featuring the castle on the left and the marina on the right.  It also has a tag which will have journalling on the back. This page will be entered for the Spoon Full of Sugar 'anything goes' challenge.

The next page features 'Elizabeth' the steam bus on the left hand side and so fits with the CCC 'transport challenge. The righthand side is decorated with images of Whitby and another tag for the journalling, which features a bus as well

Finally here are the two tags for the different pages. As these each have two ribbons tied to them they fit with the Practical scrappers 'ribbons' challenge. Have a great rest of the week everyone and enjoy WOYWW those of you who are joining in!
Love,
Caro
x

Holiday part 3!

Our holiday was really fantastic. I didn't get a chance to do my usual Friday update, but we are now safely back in Sheffield so I can share the adventures of the last few days of our holiday with you.  On Thursday we decided to go to Flamingoland for the mixture of animals and rides that it offered.  Alex is a real speed demon and loved going on the rollercoaster train with Tim (look at that grin!).

The gentle monorail round the gibbon enclosure was just as successful with the whole troup moving round beneath us.

As poor Tim was pretty exhausted we used this little train to get us round the park

And Alex and I went down the slide together - great fun, although I wasn't so keen on the tipping tug ride as I started to feel queazy - Alex and Tim enjoyed it though.

Tim and Alex also had a gentle car ride round

before Alex and I got totally soaked on one of the water rides...sadly the really big water ride wasn't working so we couldn't go on that.  Despite that one disappointment we had a good day.

On Friday we went back to Whitby, this time to go and see the Abbey as it was dry, although it was pretty windy.

It really is a spectacular building in the most amazing location

and Alex had a great time running round it and exploring it.

I am not sure that swords are really appropriate for a church building, but at least it kept him happy and amused!

We then drove down into the town in the hopes of finding a boat ride, however, the wind was so strong and the sea so rough that no boats were going out to sea, so Alex was given a brief tour of the new life boat where he was allowed to sit at the controls

before we went on the old life boat for an up-river trip.

We had wonderful views of the abbey on the way back down and even saw a seal in the marina.

While Tim had his much needed afternoon nap Alex and I went back down to see the waves on Filey beach and to do a little shopping. All in all it was a lovely last day to our holiday.

We got back to Sheffield yesterday in time for Alex and Tim to have an afternoon nap and today was spent unpacking, washing, shopping, cooking etc. ready for going back to work tomorrow. Before I go I wanted to leave you with a couple of photos of my holiday mini book that I am making with the leaflets I picked up from each day.  This is the first page which has images of our holiday cottage in the frames.  The background was made with distress inks and stamping and as it has birds flying in the sky it fits with CCT 'tweat and flutter challenge' and DCM 'flying things' challenge as well as the Simon Says stamp 'move it' challenge (the birds and boats are moving).  I hope you all have a great week.
Love,
Caro
x

Holiday part 2!

Despite the weather we are having at the moment, we are having a good time.  On Monday we went to Whitby in the pouring rain and visited the Whitby Wizard which is a small science museum that Alex loved. Various of the exhibits had him giggling and laughing outloud.  However, for me the main part of the day was our trip on Elizabeth the steam bus. 

I love steam in all shapes so thoroughly enjoyed our trip around town on her...the views of the abbey through the rain were lovely

and after the tour Alex was allowed to come into the cab for this photo with Vernon her driver, who also happened to have driven the Hogwarts express in the first three movies!

On Tuesday we went to the SeaLife Centre in Scarborough where we had a great time watching the various fish. I particularly liked the turtle

and the extremely cute otters.

Alex was very fond of the seals

and especially liked watching them swim under water

as well as panning for gold (well it was messing with water wasn't it!)

We then went on the North Bay railway for a little ride

and generally had a great time.

In the afternoon we went rock pooling and found loads of mussels, limpets, a crab and a shrimp.  Alex enjoyed it despite the long walk, but he hated the wind which was blowing very hard so we didn't stay for long.

Despite rests every afternoon poor Tim is exhausted so we decided that today we would go to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and ride on the trains. We were lucky enough to go from Goathland (Ainsfield in Heartbeat and Hogsmead station in Harry Potter) to Grosmont on a little diesel

And Alex got to have a sit in the cab at the controls.

On the way back we were on the steam train and decided to sit in first class

…travelling in style! As a complete steam freak I loved it!

There is something wonderful about the sounds and smells of steam railway that I love and the advantage of going to Goathland is that it is where the trains pass so we got to see lots of trains!

As it is Wednesday it is time for WOYWW, well in my case it is actually WOYHCKT (What's on your holiday cottage kitchen table!). I did bring some crafting things with me, although I haven't had time to do much, but here it is spread out with me mid crafting session. You can see the mini book that I am working on at the moment as part of my holiday diary, my distress inks and pads, some stamps and an empty mug of tea.

This is the righthand side of the table, where you can see the cutting mat, inkadinkado stamps, card, stickers etc in folders and box and in the distance the maps and guide books. Have a great rest of the week everyone.
Love,
Caro
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