Embellish your World

Yesterday I successfully completed my

Yesterday I successfully completed my 2.5k, 100 length swim of my local pool as part of the UK Swimathon weekend. I ache plenty today, but I have raised almost £500 on and off line for Marie Curie Nurses. Still happy to take any donations or support and my online fundraising link is below.

http://my.artezglobal.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=366297&langPref=en-CA

Next challenge is in just 19 days time when I participate in the second local Night Hike for 15k. Then a month later I have the 5k Race for Life, all before I end the year of being 40! Now if I could only get to my target weight this side of summer....

More Shimelle weekend inspired layouts

As previously blogged I took part in the online scrapping weekend that Shimelle put on last weekend. Whilst I did some layouts during the ATDML retreat I played along with several of the others this weekend (in between some serious spring cleaning I might add!) and have a couple to share.

My completed challenge #4 (to scrap with grey/yellow and one other colour) I chose teal blue and used the scrummy MME follow your heart papers. Noticed that this challenge in particular was very popular given the number of layouts being shared at Shimelle.com, made nice and easy by the scrummy grey/yellow combo of papers that the scrapbooking industry have given us these last couple of years. I know I was rather fond on the Queen Bee range from Pink Paislee a year or so back which used this colour combo very well.

Moving on I also started to create a layout inspired by Challenge 1 and the lovely page by Jaime Warren, but I then went off on a tangent and any resemblance to the original page now seems rather lost! I did however scrap a "not so great" photo on this page which was Challenge #15 so I could claim to be killing two birds with one stone on this one! The photo was taken in 2005 by my husband of my then youngest and I on the beach. Sadly we have a buggy, a lunch box and several people in the background too, and so not the greatest photo but one of the few I have of his first trip to the seaside so it was worthy of telling the tale.  Another page using more MME!

Challenge #11 was to scrap a page using two patterned papers that took up 1/3 and 2/3 of the page each. I used Simple Stories Fabulous papers for this challenge and whilst the layout looks as if I didn't use the 1/3 of one paper and 2/3 of another it actually does. The paper representing 1/3 of the pattern at the top is from a sheet with several stripes of papers from the collection on it, so in using a 4" strip you end up seeing floral, strips and the ledger paper. I joined the two with a strip of washi tape and used the ledger paper for my journalling.

Final challenge that I have undertaken was the last of Shimelles from the weekend (#16) which was to create a page using scraps from your weekend. As mentioned before I taught a Simple Stories class last weekend which I wasn't overally happy with, not sure why, I just wasn't and so I wanted to create a second page from the kit to give those taking the class more for their buck. Turns out the second layout was more popular than my original (which people still did!) but the use of a repeated punched shape and left over papers made for a quick and easy page that pleased several delegates. So here is my original class layout (minus the journalling I have still to add)

...and here is the page using a sheet of cardstock and left overs scraps of paper and stickers from the kit.

Sorry photo is a bit blurred - I will try and replace with a better one but here is a close up.

I think that little ole postage stamp punch worked it's socks off last weekend with several people borrowing it to recreate the simple page.  So there it is, plenty scrapbooking shared and I still have more pages to share from last weekend so expect another image filled post soon!

Scrapping along with Shimelle.com

Last weekend the very lovely Shimelle had one of her on-line crops which sadly coincided with the ATDML retreat that I was away teaching at. I did however manange to log in a couple of times over the weekend on my smartphone to see what challenged were offered that I could use to inspire a layout or two. 

First challenge was to scraplift a page by Jamie Warren which I set aside for another day. The 2nd challenge was to create a page using >3 paper collections. I created this page which used Prima Almanac, Prima Songbird and Echo Park Note to Self (and also a journalling card by MME).

Next challenge, Challenge #3 was mixing styles, and thanks to the ATDML shop having the October Afternoon spray ink in store I was eager to have a go at mixing Shimelle's splatter ink technique on a page (so much so that I went back and splattered some on the challenge 2 layout above as well). This layout was created in the middle of the night at the retreat last weekend when I stayed up til gone 5am playing with ink and paint and stickles to create my Game on layout (which was also for an Olympic challenge at the retreat).

I am still working on Challenge 4 which was to scrap with Grey/Yellow and one other colour (hopefully will get this done before the challenge deadline closes!)  Over the weekend I created several other pages which I will share over the coming days along with the paper collections used.

Today I created a layout for the Challenge #10 - Something Bold based on a page by Jill Sprout. Layout using papers from the Echo Park Note to Self collection and some 7Gypsies stickers.

I also rose to challenge # 14 (four sections with Jen Gallacher) and created this page with left overs from one of the retreat classes and some more Echo Park paper, this time from the This and That boy range.

I create a page from the leftovers of my second retreat class last weekend (which I will upload later along with the class page itself) which fulfills challenge #16 to use your scraps and who knows, I may even get another page in before the day is through. Thanks for looking and be sure to pop over to SHimelle.com and see the whole range of challenges for yourself, all nicely linked in this post.

Photos from the cruise

Eventually after recovering from poorlyness, catching up with housework and the day job, and coping with no laptop (typing this on a new one) I can finally share some holiday snaps.

Just a few pictures the last one of which featured on one of the two classes I taught last weekend at the 10th ATDML scrapbooking retreat.

I still need to add my journalling to complete the page which used Simple Stories AWESOME range of papers and painting through the Prima brick mask.  There were some fab variations of the class which is one of the things I love most about teaching. My second class used MME Miss Caroline papers and I created two pages... something to see on my next blog post which won't be in weeks time!

We're home

Not quite the indulgent cruise I had imagined for us as I sadly was quite unwell for almost half the trip, but I cannot wait to cruise again! I wouldn't have considered such a holiday had it not been for my friends deciding to marry on board Ventura but I can safely say I'm hooked. I already have my beady eyes set on a Norwegian Fjords trip.next May, I just need to save pennies for it now!

The kids all had the greatest time, loving the kids club and the freedom they had, indeed we barely saw them. Truly would have been wonderful had I not have been ill and been able to fully indulge in the wonderful facilities on board and indeed disembark at all four destinations not just the first and last.

Plenty more photos to follow but here's one from the first evening when the whole trip was ahead of us.