Butterfly mad

The world has gone crazy with butterfly's.....or is it just us crafters? Shimelle posted recently about a Jenny Bowlin butterfly stamp and if you'd like to win some butterfly goodness then all you need to do is leave a comment on her post.

A friend of mine is due to have a baby within the next couple of weeks so I thought I'd share some butterfly love with her and make another frame for her nursery. She loved it!
Only you might notice that this butterfly looks exactly the same as the one I made here..... with the black frame.....and that could be because it is!! I'm such a "Der", it frightens me *laugh*. The photos I posted here were ones I took when I made the frame. When
I made my friends one I ended up swapping the butterflies over. I hope you agree that they look so much nicer in their correct frames.

This is how my frame now looks now..

It's ready and waiting to be hung on the wall!!

What a wash out Bank Holiday Monday has been, it has rained here all day....on the plus side we have all been huddled up on the sofa with the popcorn watching a DVD. Lets hope the rest of half term week is warm and dry!

Photo of the week

HELLOOOOO THERE.....

.....SORRY FOR THE SHOUTING BUT I'VE SPENT TODAY WITH THESE IN MY EARS.....

BECAUSE WE'VE BEEN HERE

AND IT WAS SO SO NOISY!!

but oh my was it a super day, we all loved it and even though we were extremely wind swept and the noise not only hurt our ears but at times made our whole bodies shudder....it fitted perfectly with this weeks photo subject.......Action!!

Before I share my photos though I wanted to say a huge congratulations to Karen who was the subject of her action shot this week. She raised money today by abseiling over Falmouth Maritime Museum. One very brave lady. Well done Karen.


I do like motorbike stunt drivers, last year we saw Craig Jones, today it was Zoltan Angyal, former stunt riding world champion (so I'm told!).
Look......no hands and no front wheel, that must take some doing!
Then there were the monster trucks......this was one of my favorite photos, the body of the truck is in focus and the rest is blurred.
Jason Smyth a Quad Bike stunt rider. This photo gives you an idea of the height of the jump, he was coming off a ramp onto the top of a truck. I was sitting on a high bank to get this photo.

Then onto my favorite part of the day, the drag racing.....and the most difficult to photography. these cars and bikes were ...........vroooommmmm............far to quick for me to catch even shooting on continuous. Most of the vehicles were traveling at over 200 mph in less than 7.5 seconds...........that is fast and NOISY!

I chose this photo as it has Col and Harry in it and amazingly two drag bikes. It also gives you some idea of how close to the action we were.

You and Me

Some layouts to share with you. These are two very different layouts I prepared for the crop last week, both of them use stamps for the background.

This first page is a scraplift and now I cannot find the link to share with you. Typical!
using banana frog superlicious stamps....
I love the stitched circles...
This second one uses a Hydrangea Hero Arts stamp which gives a fantastic image.

cards....

Remember this post here where I wasn't happy with the cards I made, well I'm a changed woman....for now that is *laugh*........having a bad neck wasn't so bad when it meant I had time to look for inspiration and then fath about to create something I was happy with. After I'd made the butterfly for the frame (post below) I used the same layering method, fathed about some more, it did take a while but once I'd made the first one though I was well on my way.

Can you tell, I'm a happy bunny *laugh*, they look so nice, much better in real life. I've not stamped or handwritten any sentiments on the front of the cards for fear of ruining them, but I do intend to stamp on the inside. I feel so comfortable with these that they may just find a recipient, I now need to look at my calender to see who's birthday is next.

Click on the photos if you'd like to make them bigger.

credit has to go to Wendy again who inspired me to make these.

A nice simple one
Then there is this one. Recognise the butterfly? This was the first butterfly I made (for the frame) but it looked a little on the small side so I turned this one into a card and made a bigger one for the frame. This card I love and I will definitely be making some more.

We have a long weekend to look forward to now......so I hope everyone enjoys themselves.

Butterfly frame

You know I said I was struggling to make cards, well while I was off work I set about finding some inspiration. There is so much inspiration in the world of blogging, with so many talented people making cards.......I came across cards that were far too complex for me, others that required printing or stamping images and then colouring in......

Mostly I wanted to find a card that inspired me to create using up some of my scraps. I found after shuffling lots of papers around that I really couldn't bear to cut up a pretty patterned paper for a card!! is that weird do you think?

There is a blog I have been following for a while now and she makes very pretty colourful cards and projects, I scrolled through her blog and found this photo frame.

I scrolled back further and found these butterfly's.....

......the card making was soon forgotten......

......I was on a mission now to make another frame......

...... Earlier in the year I made this one .....

.......now it has been joined by this one......

I got in a bit of a pickle trying to photograph it...sunshine and shadows not helped by the glass,
hoping you get the gist.

The girls loved it on Saturday, so hopefully there will be a few more springing up.

I want to personally thank the very talented Wendy at My Ordinary Life in a Crafty World, for keeping me inspired and giving me ideas while I was nursing my (very stupid) neck.

All day crop

It's so lovely to have all day to scrap.....not that I got much done at all.....too much chat!!

There were 14 of us, and everyone spread out and created some lovely pages. Thank you to all you lovely ladies who came along.....

some photos of you all scrapping away....

All together
and Gitte at the end of the day.... taking photos of a frame and some cards I made. You know you are now going to have to make these too Gitte?

I set two challenges for the day, not compulsory I hasten to add, just a bit of fun. One was to use the supplies provided:

• kraft cardstock

• kraft tag with a stitched heart

• cocktail stick

• twine

• butterfly

This is what you all came up with

Sally, Jacky, Tracy and TanyaRuth, Jackie, Sam and Sarah
Gitte and Doreen

The second challenge was to use stamps to stamp a background

Ruth, Gitte, Jackie and Jacky were the brave ones who took part in this challenge. Not only did Ruth stamp a background, she heat embossed her snow flakes too.

Well done to Sarah and Jacky who both won page kits for there entries in the challenge.

I really enjoyed the day so lets hope I don't leave it too long to organise another.

I will post the layouts and projects created for the day once I've found the links for all the inspiration found that contributed towards these projects. I think this is possibly where I need to look closer at Pinterest.

Thanks for stopping by.

Photo of the week & Rugby

Hello there, it's been a week since I last posted, how time flies. I'm slowly on the mend, thank you for all your kind well wishes. This week I did manage to take some photos on our subject, which was Flora. Karen has posted her beautiful photos and once again we have both taken very similar photos.......wet flowers......how funny, or is it great minds think alike *laugh*. We have been joined by Mandy and Sam this week, who will be bringing you some fantastic photos.......if anyone else would like to join in you are very welcome.

Here are my flower photos


Today we had the boys Rugby, end of session, presentation. All the boys received awards for playing this session, so I thought I'd share some photos of them. They are just snap shots, the presentation was busy, with lots of people it was hard to get decent photos.
Number one son goes up next season to the under 13's so he received his tie.

Number two son, he's my smallest and has found a love of Rugby like I would ever have thought. He received Coaches Player of the Year........very much a proud mum and dad moment.
Number three son, showing of his trophy too.

Wishing everyone a super week and I'll be back with some crafty bits, tomorrow --I hope.

Photo a week

Sadly I've not taken part in this weeks silhoutte photo challenge because of my neck. Karen has though and you can find her fabulous photos here.

Although I've been restricted in what I could do this past week (nearly two weeks), it has meant that I've had time to sit down and slowly create a few things. If only you could have seen my dinning room....oh my!!

So I've made:

• some cup cake toppers..... (thank you to my lovely friend Jackie who picked me up a fancy cup cake stand this week.)
  

• Some lovely cards (yes....I gave it my all)

• Finished off one layout and

• completed eight more....four were for Shimelle's challenges

• two picture frames

and I sorted out some of my scrap stuff.

I am also organising an all day crop for this Saturday, so I've put together some challenges, ideas and raffle prizes. I'll leave you with a sneak peek and I'll be back to share all these things with you soon......

Looking Good

Sometimes everything just goes to pot and there's nothing you can do about it. I've been nursing a bad neck for over a week now, it turns out that my stiff neck sent my neck muscle into a spasm and I have to say it is very, very painful.....although I can move it now which is an improvement. So all the things I had planned to do had to be put on the back burner.

With that said I have had a productive, if not slow, week of scraping. There wasn't much else I could do. If I sat and watched telly I feel asleep, a side effect of the medication this also meant I couldn't drive, which is just as well as I couldn't turn my head. House work was a no no!! (such a shame!) So I sat in the dinning room, soaking up the sun and made a few things.

This is Stanley, Looking Good, in his wedding best! Amazingly we were allowed to take photos in the church, so I took some of the boys sitting in the pew in front of us and of them singing the hymns.
excuse the BBQ cover in the picture. Stanley took these photos for me (and then I cropped them to make then more presentable!).....until now I hadn't realised how much pressure I put on my neck taking a photo. I must get into some funny bent positions!!!


Last week I took part in Shimelle's sketch of the week challenge and she has shown my layout on her blog (top row, number three). After feeling rather restricted all week this cheered me up no end.

I'm hoping the weather stays fine this weekend, wishing everyone a lovely weekend.

Everyone loves a wedding

My last post for today and another great challenge from Shimelle, to use a sheet of patterned paper.
Everyone really does love a wedding.....
This is the last of the challenges I managed to take part in yesterday. You can participate in all the challenges until the 15 May at Shimelle.com.

The story behind a photo

This layout makes me smile. I wondered how to scrap these photos and another of Shimelle's challenges from yesterday's National Scrapbook Day, helped me out.

The journalling reads - Don't worry you never forgot where you put Ruby's lead, but it didn't stop me wondering if you would :)You see you always forget where you put things - especially your car/house keys. You must spend more time looking for your keys than anyone else I know!
Thanks Shimelle for another great challenge.