Introducing Belinda

In one of our Reception classes at school they have a teddy which the children take home for a week each and record his adventures in a diary. Unfortunately he was recovering from jet lag after a trip to New York with a colleague, so when I went to Paris I took one of my Kipling monkey keyrings and photographed it in different locations. 

Once home I made a photo album detailing Belinda's adventures.

So here is the first episode - continued tomorrow!

Yee haa!!

This is the last of the Disney LO for the moment!! This is the Buffalo Bill Wild West dinner show. The pictures were very orangey because of the lighting so I added a sepia effect on the PC to tone them down. The boot shape was a bit of clipart which I printed out. I then stuck the photos on the back and cut round the boot shape.  I then matted it onto cardstock and cut round it leaving a margin.

For the photos of the family on the right I also added a frame effect while I was doing the sepia thing! Stars, ribbon and journalling to finish.

(A word of advice - never fracture your elbow - it's an absolute nuisance!!!!!!!)

Pooh Two

Firstly, a huge thank you for all your kind good wishes for my fractured elbow! I'm spending a lot of my time encased in frozen peas and they are helping. The elbow itself isn't too bad it's the surrounding muscles which aren't get used which ache!!

Anyway, I thought I'd post a few pictures of the beautiful views I was looking at before I fell!!!

Oh Pooh!!!!

Yesterday started as a lovely day out with a friend in the Ashdown Forest, home of Winnie the Pooh. We started at Pooh Corner - the gift shop devoted to all things Pooh.

We had a lovely cup of coffee in Piglit's Cafe.

Yummy pub lunch which ended with pecan pie and ice cream.

Then it was off to find the Poohsticks Bridge!

A short walk took us here ...

... and we played Poohsticks and I lost twice!!!!

We then headed off to find the Enchanted Place and the North Pole. However disaster struck!! I tripped over and to cut a long story, I avoided concussion, but a trip to casualty this morning confirmed a fractured elbow!!!!! It's very painful at the moment and I'm in a sling for about six weeks!!! So crafting is going to be out of the window for the moment.

Now for those of you who know their Pooh - I blame the woozles!!!!

It's a Small World!

One of my favourite Disney rides. It's just so bright and happy!! It was the one ride which our whole family went on and enjoyed!

I used black paper to show off the photos along with a patterned paper from my latest Gogo kit - I think it's a Fancy Pants one! I added the lyrics of the song, some journalling and flowers (from this months Gogo kit) and some words!

Unfortunately the pictures are a little fuzzy - I was moving along and the figures were dancing!!!

Eiffel Tower

While we were at Disney we went on a coach trip to Paris, the highlight of which was out visit to the Eiffel Tower. The lift to the first stage was to problem, but when the boys wanted to go to the second stage the trouble began. The boys headed off up the stairs with me behind! Now I'm not too good with heights and I hate open stairs - not a good combination. While the boys raced ahead, my progress was very slow as I clung to the handrail all the way up!! By the time I'd climbed the several million flights of stairs (well it felt like it), the boys were ready to whizz around the tower - with a quick photo stop - and head back down! Now going up was bad enough but the descent was even worse!! The wind was blowing and there were lots of people coming up, so at times I had to relinquish my hold on the rail!!

For the LO I decided to go with a back and white shot of the tower along with lots of small coloured shots of the view on the left. The family shots and journalling went on the right. The stripy paper is from an unknown source and the Heidi Grace rub ons and the journalling block are from recent Gogo kits. Being an avid collector, I had kept the entry ticket to scrap! Infact I think my case was heavier when I came back, as I had kept all of the brochures, tickets and receipts we picked up on our stay!!

Off we go!

The Disney album marathon is going well! The next LO is the journey. I used blue and yellow to reflect the colours in the photos and also to pick out the Eurostar logo! 

I'd booked the cab for 7.30a.m. on the advice of the cab firm only to find that the streets of London were empty and we arrived in 40 minutes - ages before the 9.00a.m. I'd envisaged!! The wait actually went quite quickly and after a quick cup of coffee we boarded the train and set off!!

I used the alpha stickers from my August Gogo kit along with the rub on circle thingy with the date in - well it was supposed to be a circle but the rub ons were very sticky and I wrecked the circle when I tried to cut it out!! The tags were from the April Gogo kit which I have now dismantled as a kit and put into my general stash pile! Papers are DCWV neutral stack. Star brads are from Poppicrafts as is the Mickey brad. (Wow, I'm impressed that I actually knew what stash I'd used!!) 

More tomorrow!!

Birthday Bind It All

I was lucky enough to be given a Bind It All for my birthday and my first project was to make a mini book showing my presents and more importantly who they came from. I tried to collect all of the labels from my gifts but in the rush of having people to stay and going off on holiday some did get mislaid! For those I made my own labels!! I kept it very simple as I could see that with the 3/4" wires I had bought to try it out, the book would be rather fat if I added too many papers and embellishments!! I've now got some bigger wires on order so I can rebind the book so it sits better!!

Thanks friend!!

Thanks to Paige for sending this to me. We've been blog buddies for a few months and we're also team mates on UKS and on Friday we're going to meet in the flesh!! Woohoo!!!

As I've recently received this award I'm going to ignore the rules and nominate everyone who reads my blog and would like to pick up the award!!

Disney - part one of many!!

It's been just over a week since I got back from Paris, so I thought it was time to start scrapping my trip. 

I've started with a fairly traditional Disney style LO. The titles were cut on the Robo using the Walt Disney font. The text cloud was made at wordle.net . The rosette is made from a chocolate coin wrapper and red organza ribbon from Wilkinsons. The Mickey Mouse brads were from Poppicrafts. 

This was my last sheet of red cardstock so the rest of the pages will probably be less 'Disneyfied'. I'm trying not to buy new stash until I have made a hole in the vast amount of stuff I have lurking!!

Smile - It's a beautiful world

I have just completed my pages for a CJ entitled 'Smile - It's a beautiful world'. I'm one of 'Kirsty's Kolourful and Kreative Newbies' and am having great fun with the CJs. Obviously I don't want to spoil the surprise so here are a few sneakies.

Seven more CJ entries before the big reveal!!!

I love your blog too!

A big thank you to Debs (and Lil G) who gave me this award while I was on holiday. Sorry it's taken so long to get it to the blog. It's nice to know that someone appreciates my little burblings each day!!

The rules of this award are:

1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.

2. Link the person you received your award from.

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

4. Put links of those blogs on yours.

5. Leave a message on the blogs of the girls you have nominated.

I know a lot of you have already received this award so I am going to cheat slightly and offer it to anyone on my BlogList who would like to take up the challenge!! I find it hard to choose only a few from the wonderful blogs which you all produce.

In the meantime, thanks to everyone who has left me lovely comments about the new look blog. She doesn't know it, but my inspiration was Emma, who has recently given her blog a stunning make over. Cheers!!

Birthday beads

For a little while now I have been toying with the idea of buying a troll bead bracelet. I was all set to get one and went shopping, only to find that the shop which sold them was closed for a couple of weeks. I had seen them on the internet but didn't really want to get one until I had seen it in the flesh!

Fortunately some of my lovely colleagues at school had listened to my ramblings and bought me some beads (the three middle ones in the photo). As I needed the bracelet I put in an internet order. 

In the meantime, I was shopping on Monday and saw that the jewellers was now open and was displaying loads of troll beads in the window!! So, birthday money in hand, I bought the two purple beads and the silver end stoppers - these stop all the beads from sliding around the bracelet!

Yesterday my bracelet arrived and so I was able to thread my beads and am now wearing it! It's a little long at the moment but as you add more beads the slack is gradually taken up!! Now I just need to find some occasions which will require me to celebrate by buying more beads!!!

In print!

In the June edition of Scrapbook Inspirations there was a challenge to use stickers on a LO. I found these photos of little nephew looking at a toy catalogue and used loads of K&Co 'Addison' stickers along with some alphabet stickers to create this. On a whim I e-mailed it to SI and was delighted to have it accepted to go on the letters page and has been published in this  month's issue. The photos on the LO are a bit dark, so I had to photograph it several times before it was OK for publication. In print it looks a lot paler, so here is the original.

Birthday Book - Part Two

More of my birthday album.

There is another page between these but the glossy accents was still drying when I took this picture!! There is a photo hidden behind the tag.

The Italian gardens at Hever:
There are some amazing examples of topiary at Hever:
Me by the lake at Hever:
My birthday celebration meal:
I've had such fun putting this album together. The Fancy Pants Sweet Spring papers have been fab to work with.

Now I can start on the Disney album!! Woohoo!!!

Birthday Book - Part One

I have spent a lovely day filling the Birthday album I made  couple of weeks ago. I've chosen some of my favourite photos from the day. The pages of the album are from the CleoCrafts August kit and I have used all of the embellishments from the kit along with chipboard alphas (inked to get them to be the right colours!), loads of different flowers (mainly from WHSmith and Lakelands) and tons of ribbons and brads!! The quotes were from a sheet of 12x12 paper in the kit. 

The title page:
Me!
Some of the post I received on the day:
Hever Castle:
More pages tomorrow!!!

Birthday Bonanza

I've been a very lucky girl and have had some fab birthday pressies. 

My lovely friend Charlol got together with Liz, my fab colleague, and they bought me one of these - 

My Mum and sister gave me some money to buy one of these -

And I'm going to have lots of new friends when they know I had one of these!!

(A chocolate making workshop for two - designing and making your own Belgian chocolates!)

I also had lots more lovely gifts, but I won't list them all as I don't want to make you too jealous!!

So now I've just finished making 40 of these to send to people. Just need to add a little bling and write inside them!!