Sunshine

Something very strange has happened this week! The sun has shone! Summer in the UK this year seemed to last just one week - well we only had one week of real summer weather. The rest of the time the weather was, to put it bluntly .... awful. Wet and windy! But this week the sun has honoured us with it's presence and it is so welcome. Wonder how long it will last.

Since I last blogged three more weekly challenges have been posted on Mojo Holder with another due tonight. And tonights is a cracker - a real challenge though so please go and have a look.

On August 29th we scraplifted a layout by Rita Weiss. Rita is a designer for Prima and Jenni Bowlin. I used a cute photo of Lara in the garden. She gave me such a cheeky grin that day - I had to scrap it.

September 5th (which just happened to be Wayne & my 21st Wedding Anniversary) was a scrap lift of a layout by Kelly Purkey. Kelly is a designer for American Crafts, Fiskars, as well as part of the 2008 Creating Keepsake dream team and a Two Peas Garden Girl. I scrapped a rare photo of Christopher.

And, last week September 12th we lifted Lea Lawson. Lea is a previous Creating Keepsakes Hall of Famer who has been published numerous times. I love the title of Lea's blog - Leascupcakesandsunshine - cute. I used photos of Lara on the beach at Northam Burrows, North Devon.

I have also created three more layouts - just for fun. They are all scrap lifts. The first two were lifts from my favourite ever scrapper, Kelly Goree and the third from Nic Howard.

Bad Blogger - Very Bad Blogger!

OMG! It's been over 2 months since I last updated this blog! How did that happen? Several times I've thought "I must update my blog" but something has cropped up and it never was updated. So, sorry to anyone who checks out my blog and has found me AWOL.

Sadly, apart from my weekly LOs for Mojo Holder I haven't really done a lot of scrapping. For one reason or another I had to miss two of my regular monthly crops and with me preparing my portfolio for my CiLCA qualification, the children being on school holidays, us away on our family holiday for a couple of weeks and all the usual chaos before the children actually finished school, scrapping has had to take a bit of a back seat. But the children go back to school next week and I've booked my place at next months crop and so hopefully I shall be a more active scrapper soon.

I did over the summer miss a few Mojo Holder challenges but managed more than I missed.

Challenge #69 on 20th June was a lift of a LO by Delphine Millereau. I used a photo of Lara ... no surprise there!!!

Challenge #70 on 27th June was a scrap lift of a LO by the mega talented Karen Day. I used photos from our trip to Framlingham Castle, Suffolk in May which we hope to visit again in October.

Challenge #71 on 4th July was to lift a page by Shannon Montez. I used a photo of Lara ...... again! ( I really am going to try and scrap more photos of the boys but Lara is so photogenic and far more obliging when I'm taking photos that she is often the subject of my pages)

Challenge #72 on 11th July I missed but do hop along to Mojo Holder and see what the rest of the team did when they scrap lifted a LO by Sarah-Jane Dowsett.

Challenge #73 on 18th July was to lift a LO by the multi talented Christine Middlecamp. I used photos of Lara at Wrest Park. I really enjoyed creating this LO.

Challenge #74 was also good fun. A lift of a LO by the amazing Nic Howard. I scrapped photos of Lara on the beach at Westward Ho!, North Devon.

Challenge #75 on 1st August was a LO from the amazing Stephanie Howell. It was a lift of a fabulous multi photo LO and I used photos of Lara in the pool on one of the very, very few hot sunny days we had this summer.

Unfortunately I missed Challenges #76, 77 and 78 because we were away but my LO for Challenge #79 goes live tonight. Please do have a look at Mojo Holder. My team mates are amazing and their LOs are always so stunning. Do also check out the blogs and galleries of the scrappers who allow us to lift their LOs. They are all amazingly talented scrapbookers and so inspiring.

Right gotta go finish making a chocolate cake with the children. We made the actual cake earlier and hopefully it is now cool enough to sandwich together. Yummy. Be back soon......... I promise!

Its been a busy few weeks here. Lots going on work wise and hectic social life too.

Last weekend we went to Bruntingthorpe for Wayne's Aston Martin driving experience. He got the experience voucher for a Christmas present a couple of Christmases ago but because of the trouble he's had with his back he hadn't been able to use it until now. So last Saturday we all went off to Leicestershire to watch him. He had a great time and got to drive an Aston Martin V8 Vantage and also ride as a passenger in a Lamborghini Spyder. He was in his element wizzing along at 170mph! Cars are his thing and he loved every minute of it. One of my friends asked me if after driving the Aston Martin was he thinking of getting one - I wish!!!! Gotta win the lottery first.

Sunday was Father's Day we decided to spend a leisurely afternoon at Wrest Park. despite the weatherman's forecast, it stayed quite sunny and the kids had a great time playing Frisbee and running around. They were surprisingly happy to have me take their photos too!

Mojoholder challenges #66, #67 and #68 have gone live since I last posted (bad blogger!).

Challenge #66 was a scraplift of a LO by Yvette Adams. I was really pleased with my LO - not something I have been able to say very often lately. It was outside of my comfort zone but I loved the finished effect. I used a cute photo of Wayne & Lara at Southwold last month.

Challenge #67 was a challenge with a difference. We had to scraplift a LO by another member of the Design team. I choose to lift Angie. I LOVE Angie's LOs and again I was pleased with my effort. I must be on a roll! I had scrapped this photo of Lara before - It's one of my favs.

Last weeks Challenge, #68 was to lift a LO by Alison Shearer. This was quite a challenge because although I loved Alison's LO the huge photo scared me! Anyway I did the LO - and yep, I liked it! LOL. The photo I used was of Steven in Dorset - the finished effect of the photo was a total fluke. I could have tried for ages to get such an effect but it just happened by accident.

Don't forget to check out MojoHolder tomorrow night for another great scraplift idea. We've got some new design team members whose work is awesome and truly inspiring.

Nothing much to post about at the moment so I'll just show you my latest LOs.

Mojo Holder #64 was a lift of a LO by Jolene. Jolene's original LO was amazingly beautiful and was quite pleased with mine too. I used a photo of Lara taken in the snow. I seem drawn to the pile of snowy photos lately. Don't know why - 'cos we so rarely see any snow, but just love scrapping them especially with BasicGrey papers.

Last week, Mojo Holder #65 was a lift of a LO by Heather Preckel. Not a scrapbooker I had come across before but I enjoyed lifting her LO. I used photos of Lara at Rainbows.

I promised that I would show you some of the LOs I created whilst I was on my scrapbooking weekend last month. I've been a bit slow in scanning them ........ VERY slow actually, but I'll leave you with one of them and maybe I'll get to show you the others another time.

Just realised the images are a bit small but don;t forget if you click on them you can see them bigger.

2 birthdays, 2 weekends away, Steam Engines and lots of sunshine!

I can't believe that it has been well over a month since I blogged. During that time we've had two birthdays in the family, 2 weekends away, been to the Steam and Country Fair and now we're enjoying the best weather we've had for ages - wall to wall sunshine! I love summer and can never get enough of the sunshine.

Back in April we celebrate both the boys birthdays. Steven chose to celebrate his with a sleepover for some of his friends whilst Christopher chose to take some of his friends paint balling. Both events were fun - in their own way, and the boys enjoyed themselves which is the main thing.

Towards the end of April I went away on a girly weekend with a great group of fellow scrappers. We scrapped almost solidly from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon stopping only to eat, chat, eat, laugh, eat, drink ........ oh and eat some more. It was a wonderful weekend and I'm hoping that next year we'll be able to get together and do the same. I created 9 LOs during the weekend and when I get around to scanning them I'll post them on here.

The weekend before last the whole family went to Suffolk for the weekend. Apart from holidays when I was a child and day trips since. I've not really been to Suffolk much. We stayed at Dunwich and really enjoyed it. We'd heard so many people say how nice Southwold and Aldeburgh were that we made sure we visited those places and sure enough they lived up to expectations. We also went to Framlingham Castle where a pageant was being held. There were lots of photo opportunities and inspiration for LOs.

And now, we are basking in sunshine. The weather has been so hot for the last week, the paddling pool is out and we managed our first BBQ of the summer last weekend after a day spent at the Stotfold Steam and Country Fair - yes more photos were taken. LOL

Apart from the scrapping during my weekend away, I have managed to do some LOs for Mojo Holder too although on a couple of weeks I had to pass. Challenge #58 was from the the fantastic Kim Musgrove. I was not at all happy with my LO that week though!

I was actually quite pleased with my LO for Challenge #59. A scrap lift of a LO by Lauren Rhodes.

I had to miss challenge #60 which was a lift of an awesome LO by Ngaire Bartlam but managed to join in with challenge #61 from Sande Krieger.

I missed challenge #62 which was a lift of LO by Anam Stubbington but was able to join in last week with challenge #63 from Roz James.

Please do pop along to Mojo Holder to see everyone elses work - mine may not be up to scratch sometimes but the rest of the teams Los are awesome. Also, do check out the blogs of some of the girls whose LOs we have lifted (hopefully I've provided all the links) - there is some great inspiration there.

We had snow!!!!!

Yes, we finally had our first snow of the year - yippee - on Easter Sunday! It had been trying to snow for several days and eventually on Easter Sunday we woke up to a light covering. Not enough for a snowman but plenty for a snowball fight or two. I had begun to think that I had missed all photo opportunities during the last few months . We were all ill at sometime or other over Christmas so only got a handful of photos then. We had no snow during January or February (when if we going to get snow we usually would) so no photos then. And, I didn't have my camera with me when Steven got a certificate in his school end of term assembly or when Lara did her Chinese Dragon dance at her Easter assembly So this snow at Easter was a bonus. By the time we got around to our Easter Egg hunt the snow had all but gone and I guess we won't see anymore until next Winter.

Mojo #55 went live on 14th March. We lifted a LO by Jaimie Emmerton. Jamie's original LO was such a sweet Lo of her wee dog ..... Awwwww. My LO featured Steven in a thoughtful pose.

Unfortunately I didn't manage Mojo #56 which went live on Good Friday. The power supply unit of our PC decided to call it a day with a very spectacular spark and puff of smoke which left me with a half finished LO which I needed my Craft Robo to finish and even if I had finished it I had no scanner or photo software to upload it. It was a shame because the LO we were lifting was by a scrapper called Kelli Crowe whose work is gorgeous and the rest of the team came up with lovely LOs.

With the PC all mended, i was able to complete challenge #57 last Friday evening. It was a LO by Kelly Mccaleb. Here are the two LOs.

I know I keep saying it but please do pop along to Mojo Holder. We have some great scrap lift ideas coming up in the next month or so. You really wouldn't want to miss them.

Overdue update

Gosh it's been a long time since I updated my blog! I think the reason why I've not updated it is because (a) nothing very exciting has happened for me to tell you about although (b) I've been quite busy with mundane routine stuff.

Since I last blogged there have been 4 (yes 4!) new challenges on Mojo Holder.

Challenge #51 was to lift a LO by Becky Fleck. I'm a big fan of Becky's Pagemaps (I'm eagerly waiting to get my hands on a copy of her new book!) so was looking forward to doing this scraplift, but have to admit that I really struggled with it. Anyway here is Becky's LO, and here is mine featuring a swan from the Swannery at Abbotsbury, Dorset.

Challenge #52 was a lift of a LO by UK scrapper Hebe. I loved doing this LO despite all the 'white space' which really isn't my thing. Here's the two LOs - I used a photo of Lara that I took last summer and have been itching to use.

Mojo Challenge #53 saw us lifting another ukscrapper called Nattieg. Her LO was gorgeous. I used a photo of Steven taken enjoying a chocolate egg at Easter.

And finally Mojo challenge #54 was to lift a LO by famous scrapper, Ali Edwards. Ali's LO was great but has to be the hardest LO I have had to try and scraplift so far. The LO was very simple but boy did I struggle with my version! I used photos of Lara's 5th birthday.

Please do pop along to the Mojo Holder site if you have a moment. We've had a few new girls join the team in recent months and as well as seeing everyone's LO on the site you can also see a sketch of each LO to help you if you want to have a go yourself . There are also prizes from time to time for LOs posted in our readers gallery. We love to see what you've done.