Saturday 28 September 2013

Neutral week #21 this is me?

I thought that it would be fun to use a paper full of photos of people with a drawing of me. Nancy made this portrait of me for Mothers' Day. I photographed it and now it's my profile picture on Facebook. She has drawn me with tears rolling down my face but she assures me it is because I am happy.
Oh and this is the last of my neutrals. Get ready for something else next week.

Friday 27 September 2013

Neutral week #20 big brothers





I started looking through some old photos and came across this one of my three looking like tiny little dots in comparison to their size now. They look so cute all squeezed together in the chair.


Thursday 26 September 2013

Neutral week #19 getting better

The photo is clearly of an empty plate, the story behind it is that while we were on holiday this May, nancy started clearing her plate of food, almost unheard of in normal circumstances. We were shocked as she was eating more than the boys. Worth documenting.

Wednesday 25 September 2013

Neutral week #18 relax

The photo on this LO is Nancy laying on the garden path playing the harmonica in her sheds, just chilling.
This houndstooth paper is the perfect fit for the pink colours of Nancy's dress and shades.

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Neutral week #17 last night

This photo was from our very last night in the Netherlands before we moved back to the UK. It's not a great photo, I was trying to take a picture of us gathered round the lights in the pavement but at least Nancy looks cute.

Monday 23 September 2013

Neutral week #16 hot Summer

This is a really old paper from October Afternoon. I love that you can layer lots of bright colours on it  because it is black and white.
The photo is from last years summer holiday, the weather was scorching 37degrees. Unbearable for me but fine if you went in the pool.

Sunday 22 September 2013

Neutral week #15 pyjama cricket



During the Februaury half term holiday the boys took to playing cricket in the conservatory in the morning before they got dressed, hence the title of the LO. Don't worry they were using a tennis ball and no windows were broken.

Saturday 21 September 2013

neutral week # 14 School

I absolutely adore map papers.  They are very versatile and perfect as background papers. This is a new one from the October Afternoon Travel Girl Line. I love that it is black and white so lots of bright colours can go with it.

The photos are of the children's school in Hilversum. I took some pictures at they end of our stay to remind them of where they went to school. These pictures show the school building itself and the bike park with the hundreds of students bikes.

I also used some stickers that came from the Dutch supermarket. They often had freebies and these stickers came with the football stickers that you collect in an album.

Friday 20 September 2013

neutral week #13 Lords


Music paper is always a good background paper and I love epwhen there are loads of options around to buy.
Stanley is a big cricket fan so he was super thrilled to go on a tour of the home of cricket, Lords, in London. This is him with the pavillion and Long Room in the background




Thursday 19 September 2013

mr cute

this LO is for White With One's latest challenge- white and Pistachio. I recently reprint a few of my favourite old photos and I adore this picture of Arthur as a toddler with his little kissy face on.

Neutral week # 12 brotherly love

And still I go on. This paper is really bold print but I think it works well as a background paper. This photo is of Nancy and her big brother. He is very protective of her and I think it shows in this picture.

Wednesday 18 September 2013

Neutral week #11 10 Roompot Lunchtime Essentials

So my fourth kind of neutral background is ledger paper. This is an old one from the Cosmo Cricket Joy Ride collection.

The LO is about our favourite lunch when we go on holiday to a Roompot  in the Netherlands. We used to quite often for weekends way when we lived on Holland and we recently went back for a week.  Our favourite lunch then is a snack packet. This involves
1. A bucket of chips
2. Frikandels
3. Krokkets
4. Soft rolls
5. Mad Sauce
6. Ketchup
7. Mustard
8. Appelmousse
9. Mayonnaise
10. Curry sauce

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Neutral week #10 Cousins

And today's neutral is a tiny repeated pattern. I love the soft colours of this one.

The photo is from a trip to the Zuiderzee Museum where you can dress up in traditional Dutch costumes. When the children's cousins came to visit we had to take them there. The photo is Nancy and her cousin. Poppy in particular loved the attention of being photographed by the Japanes tourists.

Being a LO about the Netherlands I had to get a bike in there so I stamped an image and cut it out.

Monday 16 September 2013

Neutral week #9 Pose

So this neutral is a tiny pattern of flowers.

I used a couple of photos of Nancy posing in the garden. I made the doily into a base for some layerd embellishment at the bottom and at the top of the pictures I've tucked some Project Life cards and lots of stamped images that I then cut out- there's a bike, a camera, a bee, a clock and the Good Golly.

I really like the project life cards but I haven't got round to actual proper project life-ing yet. My life is not interesting enough so at the moment I'm just using the cards on my LOs.

Sunday 15 September 2013

Neutral week #8 Dutch Pancakes

Well you may have noticed we are into week two of neutrals week but I have found loads of different papers that I consider neutral backgrounds.

So my latest neutral background is stripes.  I'm not a great fan of stripes - much happier with spots.

This LO is from our Dutch Holiday. We love pancakes. This was our visit to the pancake restaurant. The children always choose sweet pancakes. I always choose savoury and then regret it when I see the children's. Stanley chose fruit with ice cream and Nancy had ice cream with chocolate sauce.

castle


this LO is for the sketch challenge at Sarahs Cards
I love this photo of Arthur on our summer holiday in Northumberland walking to the castle- if Arthur is in a good mood he always walks way ahead of everyone else even me and I always walk fast- so Arthur must have been in a good mood that day- if he's in a grump he drags along behind.
this is the sketch


orbit

this LO is for Show Us your Stuff's latest challenge- red and white
I love their challenges but I find it hard to incorporate the handmade items onto the LOs. This month I think I have just about scraped into the criteria.
see those ring shaped embellishments- they are stickers kind of made by meby cutting round the extra bits on a non scrappy sticker sheet. I also made a frame with some bakers twine wrapped round the raised dots. i also stamped my title and the bike which kind of makes it a home made embellishment. I guess I'm clutching at straws here but I really wanted to try and join in this month.

the LO is from our trip to the Olympic Park last summer- the Orbit was the massive sculptural piece outside the Stadium that you could climb up into. its red colour fitted with the challenge.

Fabulous finds in Ikea

 
I don't very often blog about thing I buy but I got very excited in Ikea today. They had some lovely paper clips in boxes. 40 numbers from 0-9 in four colours.



speech bubble paper clips




And numbered tags 0-9 in black and white.

question mark paper clips

and my favourites ( but upside down) number paper clips



Saturday 14 September 2013

Neutral week #7 flowers


Sometimes a big pattern is good as a neutral too. I love the colours of this big chevron paper.

These photos came from a walk we took to the pub across the fields. Nancy spent the walk picking a small bunch of flowers / weeds from the edge of the fields. She presented them to me when we got to the pub and I was expected to carry them all the way home to put them in a vase.

Friday 13 September 2013

Neutral week #6 draff

So another day another different neutral background. This time text paper. I liked the children's book style of this paper to go with the photo. I love Nancy's drawings but its hard to store everything or stick it all on the fridge. So quite often I take pictures of what she's done. I really adored this picture that Nancy did of a giraffe with her hilarious spelling and the rather short neck.

Thursday 12 September 2013

neutral week #5 Brick in the Wall

Still on my theme of neutral backgrounds today used a mini chevron paper. This LO is also for the challenge at Scrap it with a Song. The theme for September is school based and the first song I'd Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd.

I took the words "hey teacher" from the lyrics and used it with a photo of my mark book. A while ago I was marking and I decided to take a picture of what was in front of me. Marking is my least favourite part of the job, preparing and planning lessons I enjoy but making is a pain in the neck.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

Neutral week #4 Blues CLues

Combining neutrals week with my design team activities again today. This one is for Child's Play challenges and the inspiration is Blues Clues. We have Blues Clues in the UK but with a different presenter. I've never been a big fan of the show and nor have my children so I struggled with this as inspiration.

I decided to go for blue colours and I thought the cloud paper ( another neutral in my book) was quite cartoony which fitted with Blue and the backgrounds in the show. The LO is about when the circus came to town in Hilversum. We drove down our street one day to find elephants and camels standing by the side of the road. We had to stop and take photos.

Tuesday 10 September 2013

Neutral week#3 @ the cricket

Polka dots are perhaps my favourite neutral kind of background paper. I just can't resist a polka dot paper. The photo is from our trip to the T20 cricket at Rugby school on July.  It was a boiling hot day so we spent a happy few hours sitting in the shade watching the match while Nancy and the boys collected autographs.

Monday 9 September 2013

neutral week #2 these are the days

My second neutral background is a grid paper. I used some bakers twine in yellow, red and orange to sew the sunburst effect onto the paper.

The LO is from one of our trips to the park this summer, Arthur loves the massive swings so I took a few pictures of him relaxing in the swing. In the photo Arthur was pulling his no teeth face.

Sunday 8 September 2013

neutrals weeks #1 castle

This week ( or more) I'm onto a new theme. Unless its white or Kraft I rarely use card as a background for my LOs. Instead I love paper that acts as a neutral background to the photos and embellishments. By neutral I mean small patterns that don't distract the eye too much or large patterns    That again don't distract the eye too much. My first is an old paper with a sewing pattern on it.

This LO has a picture of Nancy at Warwick Castle. 







Saturday 7 September 2013

Woodgrain week bonus back row

And still I have more woodgrain paper so here is another bonus LO to finish off the week. This one is a Studio Calico paper.  The photo is us at Wembley Stadium for the Olympic football competition. We had cheap seats but this meant we were right at the back and I mean there was nowhere else to go. It was a rather dizzying height for me I have to say.


Wood grain week #7 precious moment

I dug deep into my old stash for this paper from the Cosmo Cricket Nutmeg collection (cinnamon).

I loved the cartoony feel of the paper and the pink colour. I also used the Maggie Holmes text paper With the words little single moments for this photo of Nancy sitting on my husband's lap at the Festival of History. Please ignore my wobbly stamping for the title .

Friday 6 September 2013

Wood grain week #6 100%

So onto the next woodgrain again from October Afternoon , the Farm Girl collection and the paper is called Wooden Crate.

LO is about Nancy's attendance at school. This year for the second year in a row Nancy has 100% attendance. Now I know the photos look a bit odd for the subject of the LO but in the pictures Nancy is wearing the gold badge that she was awarded for her achievement.

Thursday 5 September 2013

woodgrain week #5 Stopid

Today's woodgrain paper is from American Crafts Amy Tangerine Yes Please Collection. It's called Perfect.

Tis LO is called Stopid. I know I spelt it wrong, I did it on purpose. One day when I got home from work I only had Nancy with me. I was singing a song that involved changing the words to a song to make it about  Nancy ( Caro Emerald if I remember)  Nancy made me a sign to go round my neck which read " I'm Stopid and I cant stop singing this song"

Wednesday 4 September 2013

woodgrain week #4 London Eye

I love this woodgrain paper from Pebbles . its from the Lakeside collection and called trail map.i love the fact that its like a cut through section of a log. It's a lovely colour for using bright colours on.

This is a LO from one of our many trips on the London Eye. The photos show the vies from the eye, the bridges over the river Thames and the shadow of the eye on the river.

Tuesday 3 September 2013

Woodgrain week #3 too big

Today the woodgrain LO is brought to you by October Afternoon again. This dark paper is one of my favourites. It's from the 9 to 5 collection and its called Boardroom. I like the fact you can use it to offset a mix of bright colours.

This LO is called Too Big. When we visited Gibraltar this year we went to the Botanical Gardens. There was a lovely playground but Stanley insisted on making a fool of himself on the bit meant for toddlers. I of course had to step in with the camera.

Monday 2 September 2013

Woodgrain Week#2 Stand and Deliver

Continuing with my mission to use up some of the woodgrain paper in my stash i bring you this LO. Today's woodgrain paper is Main Gate from the October Afternoon Midway collection.

The LO is called Stand and Deliver. Nancy got her hands on some free plastic pirate pistols at the Festival of History so with a a pair of pistols and a scarf round her head she looked a lot like a highway robber of the 18th century.

You may notice the issues with deliver. I have run out of i's and so I have used a j. When I get my hands on an orange felt tip from my daughter I shall cover the bottom of the j properly.

Sunday 1 September 2013

Woodgrain week #1 Victorian Photo

I LOVE wood grain paper. I love wood grain paper of all kinds. In fact I realised recently I had rather a large number of sheets of the stuff. So I decided to get using them. Each day this week I am posting a LO with a different kind of wood grain paper.  Today I have the wood grain paper from the Maggie Holmes collection at Crate Paper.

The LO is about a photo we had taken at the Festival of History. There was a Victorian photographer who was taking pictures for free. We got in there early and had this taken. A seven second exposure, man with his head under a black cloth to focus and then the picture developed straight onto a metal plate - no negative and actually a mirror image of us.