My Month in Numbers - May

Last day of May? It's my Month in Numbers! I'm counting along with the excellent Julie of Notes on Paper (and you can find out more here)

Our May has felt like a month for hard work at the office. This is how the numbers stack up:

14 - When she was little, she says, 14 is the age she dreamed about. It sounded like a good age to be. Well now she has arrived and it's working out just fine. She has long legs, a wicked sense of humour and she can do things with chemical equations that I could only ever dream about.

5 - lovely invitations for guest posts and other fun stuff. I'm sorry I had to turn one down because I won't be around, but the others are in production.

4 - days I have been able to eat my lunch outside. That's momentous by weather standards round here

1- happy surprise late Christmas present from friends.

148 - slugs captured in 24 hours in the garden. (Thank you for the suggestions on Tuesday - we'll be trying all of them).

140 - stitches which still need picked up along the front band of a cardigan I've been trying to finish for months now. I hope this number won't be appearing again next month.

Plus, revision, exams, driving lessons, late nights at the office..and..

1 - new word from Little E. It's hoover-related. You have been warned. So if you have a hoover and a carpet shampooer and you keep them both in the same cupboard then you do a lot of ...shampoovering . Yes. Little E I guess I do.

Roll on June!

I used new October Afternoon this month for a work related page. Tags again as I've done before but this time with journalling card pockets so I could squeeze more in  (and even hide a thing or two). I wonder what theme next month will suggest..


 Don't forget - Storytelling Sunday this weekend! I have a Jubilee story planned how about you? Something about anniversaries maybe? or meeting the queen? whatver yu choose I'm sure it'll be - diamond.

It's Tuesday, I'm Thinking Out loud. Again..

..it's been too warm to do much else.

- Working from home doesn't go so well when someone else is doing it too. I'll be glad when this whole studying for exams thing is over.

- I can't believe I'm about to type this, but it has been too hot to iron here for  days now. I've been doing a bit of this instead:

That looks like the same blue covered book I was caught reading a couple of weeks ago. But it isn't. Seems there are fashions in book jackets, just like everything else. The book is Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander

- I've been using Crate Paper for nostalgic, long-party-dress-in-the-70's type layouts, BUT I can't help thinking that if October Afternoon had got a move on with their party collection I would have been using a lot of that too.

- We have a serious slug problem in the garden right now. A serious problem. But we don't want to put down pellets because we also have two Magpie visitors and we are very fond of them.

- Uncle Dave phoned Little E and asked him what he was up to. "I'm up to hoovering," he said. That boy knows how to take his punchline and work it.

- Teaching a teenager to drive: now there's a thing guaranteed to make you feel like a grown up. It's four lanes of traffic almost from our front door here.. 

- Bloglovin. I'm seeing more readers come from Bloglovin lately. Have you tried it? 

and finally:

 

- Here is a persuasive article about the benefits of blogging one powerful post a week. Just the one. Quality over quantity, really making it count. I think I might be a convert. What do you think? Do you have a favourite timetable to blog to? or read to, even?

In an Old House in Paris

I've been thinking about journaling recently. sundry projects and invitations have got me writing away and dreaming up new ways of putting words on the page.

So I was delighted when a tidy up in The (Not So) Small One's room ("Do you still want to keep the Madeline dolls out?" "Yes, I'm never too old for them.") reminded me about a layout we made together back before I was blogging.

It's about our Madeline collection and how we relied on ebay to buy the bits we wanted. At a bargain price, of course. If you know the books, you'll know that they are written in verse; so we gave it a go together and this is how it turned out:

And I'm glad I went back and looked at it this week becasue it has inspired me to think around the words. A poem. A quote. A slogan. A recipe or a news headline. All good. all useful. All worth a try...

..maybe for next week's Storytelling Sunday? I have a Jubilee story planned..

Stitching and rubons and paint



Mary, the Pirate and Me

My page today is kind of a prequel

I was looking out a couple of photos for June's Storytelling Sunday and I found their companion. A picture of my little brother and sister in the dressing up outfits they decided on while I was getting ready for - no, sorry, you'll have to wait for that bit.

My little sister became Mary Mary Quite Contrary in her 1970's long party dress of the prettiest blue I have ever seen. And our little brother? He was a swashbuckling pirate in a pair of very large wellingtons.

That's the first story, recorded right on the back of my page. The second story is the tree. The willow, there in the background. It had to be cut down some weeks later and our garden lost its magic for me for ever after.

I marked its passing with some branches cut with my Slice. Lots of Crate Paper Pretty Party on this one and an older sheet of Bazzill Basics as a background. I'm loving white as a starting point right now - but that little bit of added pattern feels more me!

Have a great Thursday!

It's Tuesday, I'm Thinking Out Loud

Anything new with you and yours this bright Tuesday morning? We are here:

- Last couple of posts, I've only received email notifications for half of the comments. I needed to be in Blogger to find the rest. Odd. Is this happening to anyone else? Seems quiet in blogland at the minute, too. Though a couple of lovely emails from new readers really brightened my day last week. Thank you!

- When you have dinner with old friends you haven't seen in over a year and you wonder if you'll have anything to talk about and it turns out you do - that's lovely. The Tall One has met his match here: their son is six months older and 6'5"

- The Tall One and I ended up in out local Students Union building the other day. Long story. Weird experience. "See through that door?" I said, "that's where I picked up your father many, many years ago.." "Stop!" said The Tall One. "That's Too Much Information." And it probably was.

- I bought some October Afternoon 9 to 5 (shame the 8x8 is simply loose sheets and not a paper pad this time round). The whole look immediately suggested one quick story - about the time I played Rosemary the Telephone Operator from Hong Kong Phooey. In a school play.

- I discovered a new alphabet I love the other day. This one from Dear Lizzy Neapolitan. Love that font.

Sandra has some in stock here

and the chipboard pieces too:



- There is a new sketch challenge up at Sketchbook365, with a closing date of June 14th. Plenty of time to enter!



- Teenagers do not need six weeks off school to take six exams, especially when two of the exams are on the same day. It's a huge waste of time which seems to involve watching a lot of sport on tv.

- But it's only another six weeks til the holidays. Hurray!

Happy Tuesday...

Pinata, Pinata

We like pinatas in our house. We have two teenagers who love to hit things with big sticks.

We are also pretty cheap. And so, every Easter we bash the pinata, take out the sweets and then carefully bang the dents out so we can use it again next year. This works until someone causes serious damage and we have to admit defeat and hunt out a new one. Took a while this time round - I even thought I might be in for some quick papier mache (papier mache is never quick, though, is it? That's one of the rules of crafting with small children. The more they stick it on, the faster it falls off). But Marks and Spencers produced the goods and the light fittings stayed intact and all was right in the Easter Pinata world. For another year.

For this page I used some Crate Paper Pretty Party (which Sandra is stocking at Gotta Craft) and a doily which came carefully tucked inside a card from blogging friend Jacky. Thanks Jacky, I've been saving it! Feathers cut with the Slice "Aviary" card and flower from punched circles.

Photo365+1

I'm Photo365-ing today with a catch up of my favourite pictures from the last couple of weeks,.

Here we go:

...faceless portrait

I scrapbook. I'm not very tidy. That's me.

..candid

You've caught me taking a new order of contact lenses out of the bag. I'd be useless without them

..woolly

Kind of doubling for candid, maybe? Sometimes a quick as-is shot by a teenager in a hurry is nice though.

..portrait of a woman

..although this is no woman, this is Lady Parker drawn by Holbein, printed on a postcard by The National Portrait Gallery and bought by me becasue I liked the look of her face.

..woven

Back to my collection of miniatures for this one. It's a dolls house picnic basket

..and finally ..prickly

a knitted heart pin cushion sent to me by my dear scrapbooking friend Amanda.

I'm delighted that I've managed to keep up with this project so far. Thanks Suzie!







Big Kid Stuff

"You've been writing a lot about Little E recently", they said. "Why do you love Little E so much?"

"Well," I said, "sometimes when you big kids are off doing the kind of big kid stuff you don't want me writing about, that gives me a chance to think about little kid stuff again. And, besides, Little E can't argue back."

"He CAN argue back," said The (Not So) Small One. "He argues with me all the time.."

"And," I said, "I have a debt to repay. You have to remember that Little E's Mum has been your Auntie for a long time now and a fine job she's been making of it. Note the extra pocket money she leaves for you and the perfect boots which arrived in the post for your birthday. And the lengths she went to find the most excellent hamster in the country last Christmas.."

Oh, yes. there is big kid stuff to talk about and little kid stuff to laugh about and sometimes I'm glad of one when I've run out of the other. As they get bigger their news becomes more private; and that's what my page is about today. The design isn't mine: it comes from Art of Layers by Ronda Palazzari. I opened it at the first project and it showed pull-out tags and I thought - perfect. And what will I be writing on the tags? Some of that big kid stuff. The kind they like to keep to themselves.

Happy Tuesday!

Halftone Hi-Jinks

I was flipping through a recent "treat" copy of Somerset Memories (couldn't resist, Julie has some lovely, lovely things in there!), when I spotted an article about an app I liked the look of. Halftone.

If it's a card and it features Little E - does that make it an Ecard?

Halftone turns the photos you take with your phone into comic books. And right now I'm using my phone a lot to take quick pictures I would otherwise miss. I couldn't resist. You can add frames, background effects, speech bubbles, daft captions - it's really worth a try. 

You could certainly use the results for layouts and mini albums; but I think it really comes into its own for card making. It's such a quick and easy way to replicate those personalised cards we're seeing advertised everywhere now. And it works especially well for masculine gifts. (Fathers Day is only round the corner!)



Take a photo, have a bit of fun with a caption or quote (adding a date is easy too) and there you have it. I used Kraft card cut to 4x4" and some simple strips of Washi tape for these. And now I'm thinking if I invested in some new tapes I could try out some girly versions too. I'm even thinking about Christmas..

Get Caught Reading

May feels to me like a good month to be a scrapbooker. We've got National Scrapbooking Day and better weather and more light. So much to see and do and write about!

But it's a good month to be a reader too..and I think Statesiders might know why. It's Get Caught Reading month, across the pond. Let's bring it on over! World Book Night is brilliant (though this year I discovered I had already read all the titles. They need to go quirkier) - but a month? Let's do it!

I asked the family to Catch Me Reading and this is what they found. I'm reading Adam Thorpe's new book Flight. And thinking about spending an Amazon voucher..

..maybe on:

Hilary Mantel's new Bring up the Bodies - the sequel to Wolf Hall

Susannah Conway's Instant Love - making magic with Polaroids

or Ronda Palazzari's Art of Layers - no, wait, I've already succumbed to that one and I think it's a beautiful book. I can definitely recommend it for pretty, easy to follow and do scrapbooking techniques.

So, how about you? Any chance I'll catch you reading if I come for a visit?

Totally Tagged

Wasn't that a fantastic Storytelling Sunday? 48 of you with a tale to tell! (..and there's still time to join in if you have one in mind..). Every month it feels like a privilege to be yarning along with you all. Thank you.

But today? Today I'm using up scraps

with a page inspired by a sheet of patterned paper. Have you seen Bazzill's Wayfarer collection? It includes one design with a row of labels and motifs printed  down the right hand side. That looks neat, I thought when I spotted it; and I took the look and "Sliced it".

I cut a selection of tags and labels from the remnants of April's Gotta Craft kit, added a little bit of stamping (I'm making myself learn!) and a mini clothes peg to make a quick page about my flowery peg bag. Everyone here is glad to see the pegbag appear at this time of year - I refuse to have a tumble drier and so we spend the winter with clothes hanging off radiators..

I think this is going to be one of those designs I'll come back to again and again. It even feels like the kind of layout I could make in advance - with a neutral background and lots of colours in the tags it could suit lots of different photos. Oh, yes.

Happy Tuesday! The rain has stopped here and the laundry is going outside. I hope you have sunshine today too.

Storytelling Sunday 2: The Words The Pictures

Welcome! Welcome! It's Storytelling Sunday today..are you ready for a tale or two? Then let's get started..

Cool White Jacket

A while ago now I made a page about Marie Antoinette. You might remember it. I liked it and I blogged it and I thought that was that. Until a couple of days later.

The (Not So) Small One and I were lying side by side on the bed, staring at the ceiling and talking about clothes. She wanted to know if I had "any vintage" she could borrow - you know, old stuff from when you were young. And suddenly I made one of those strange connections, when something you've just done leads you to something you didn't know you were about to do. Scrapbooking is useful in all sorts of ways.

I did have a bit of vintage, but without that Marie Antoinette page I might never have remembered. The story goes like this:

Retro writing - my notes at the time

When I was in France on that exchange trip I've told you about, one of our excursions was to Versailles. We saw the gorgeous rooms and the gardens where Marie Antoinette used to play at farming; but we also had a bit of time to wander round the town. We stared in the window of a second hand clothes shop and my friend Judith spotted a white denim jacket she desperately needed to have. Her Mum was a French teacher, and maybe that was what gave her enough swagger to march in there and buy it. The rest of us couldn't have managed it..

I loved her jacket. I wanted her jacket. Every day for about three years until I finally found one I could afford in a shop closer to home. I paid £5 for it; and, every time I put it on, I thought about the lazy, low sunshine that day in Versailles and the dusty shop window and my crazy, headstrong friend. (Who, coincidentally by this time, had moved seventy miles away to the city to board at the very school The Not So Small One goes to now.)

I still have my piece of white denim history and I told The (Not So Small) One the story and she got it and I pulled the jacket out of the wardrobe and she slipped it on and she was beautiful. So I let her keep it. She says she'll guard it with her life and I think she probably should. That jacket has stories of its own to tell. And I thought of the 80's with a smile. And she thought of the 80's and laughed. And we were both agreed that we each had it Just. Exactly. Right.

From the mists of time - a glimpse of my scrapbook from my trip

That's my story for today. If you have one to share we'd love to hear from you! A photo and a few words (or maybe the few words without the photo?) or something a bit longer. I love them all! Create your post with an introduction (so your reader knows what's going on) and a link back here and then come on over. The linky stays open all week, so if your story isn't ready for Sunday - no worries!

The small print - which I'm not making small because I would like you to read it. I firmly believe we are telling stories in the round here. One person starts and then turns to the next. You can't do it in isolation. So I'm asking everyone who adds a link to say hello to at least a couple of the other storytellers.

Scrapbooking Saturday, Storytelling Sunday

Doing anything nice for National Scrapbooking Day? I'm going to be out and about, spending time with the family, saving the sticking for later. I might collect a story or two to put in the gorgeous new notebook very sent by Ruth for that very purpose. Thanks Ruth!

And I'll certainly be thinking about a piece I found in the paper recently:

Let me take you to the British Psychological Society Conference in London. No, wait - it's completely connected to scrapbooking. Claudia Hammond, who is publishing a new book Time Warped gave a paper on what psychologists call The Holiday Paradox. I think we scrapbookers would call it - making memories last. When we look back at things, so the theory goes, our perception of time, of how long a thing lasts, is based on how many individual memories we created in that time. So, if you go on holiday and do lots of new things you enjoy and take lots of pictures and remember it all, you can make a week long break feel in your head like it lasted much much longer...isn't that what we've been saying for years?

So,  make memories, stretch time, make the most of it all..

...and, with that in mind, I'd like to remind you that it's Storytelling Sunday tomorrow. See you there?

Photo365+1

We're into May and I'm still managing to keep up with taking a photo a day, thanks to Suzie and Photo365+1. Here are my current favourites:

..handmade

Not by me this time, but by my sister some years ago now. It's a tiny felt Piglet (or "Plig-ett" as The Tall One used to say when he was little) and I've been meaning to take his picture since I bought a piece of October Afternoon paper which looks like the Hundred Acre Wood.

..art

This one is dedicated to my blogging friend Carmen whose stories of making art and drawing with her girls inspired me to say - go on then, I'll do it too when The (Not So) Small One announced her art homework. We spent a happy afternoon drawing portraits. A first for me - I'd never ever drawn a face before. I won't be handing it in to be marked: I was a D student in art at school. But I might have another go..

..tower

I know, it's a gratuitous Little E photo really. But he was building a Lego tower at the time.

..lights

The (Not So) Small One's dressing table mirror, put up for her by her Dad to illuminate a little alcove off her bedroom

..and finally flag

There are a lot of them about at the moment. I found this one in TK Maxx (along with some very nice Kilner jars and ..)

Before I finish today I want to shout some encouragement to my blogging friend Abi who has a plan. First Thursday of the month, she runs Operation Speak Out to encourage everyone who reads to leave a comment. In her own words "In one day to fill the internet with words of encouragment and happiness ". De-lurk on a few of your favourite blogs today!

My Month in Numbers - April

Month in Numbers scarcely needs an introduction anymore, does it? Thanks to Julie's cleverly cunning counting, lots of us are noting numbers throughout the month (and if you aren't, yet, you can find out more here).

My numbers for April go a little like this:

105 - Cadbury mini eggs in a bumper pack. I counted before I ate because I'd never seen a bag that big before.

5 - minutes of acceptable picnic weather before the rain attacked our annual Easter Monday outing. Which we've been enjoying for over 20 years with 9 adults and up to 11 children. The teenagers did their own thing this year.

2 pictures I've been trying to get on the walls here for about 5 years. Now they are framed, but still not up. Also 1 curtain which I've discovered needs majot surgery because it has rotted away in the sun. Another job for my list which still has 2 cardigans to mend for my Mum right at the top.

1 Band Concert. It was, as The (not So) Small One said, epic with 1 tap dancing band leader and 90 band members on stage for an audience of 600. We had 1 very moving Titanic tribute by an orchestra of 4 (it's a school with a lot of Titanic stories to tell) and a lot more besides. I think it's safe to say it was a highlight in a month which has also included many, many hours of revision, driving lessons, timetables..you get the idea..BUT it's only 2 months til we go on holiday. Already.

I mixed some new Crate Paper with some Dear Lizzy to give this month's page an Spring look; and the tags lift up so I could fit everything in.