Dolly's Dreamings

Pet Photography

You'd never believe it was almost July - It's grim here. A real snuggly inside and scrap sort of day. I love it.

I am off to see the opticians - AGAIN - later to see if the latest pair of glasses are any improvement. We'll see - or maybe I won't LOL

I have been looking with interest at the results of the Big Cat photo shoot trip on UKS as I am off on the September trip and can't wait. One of my passions is photographing animals - especially cats. Gary has sent some wonderful photography tips and I plan to spend time going through them carefully in the summer.

It reminded me that I did an article for a magazine on cat scrapping and photography and so have decided to include that here in case it is of any use or any interest to anyone ever anywhere LOL. It was one of my proudest moments actually as not only was it featured in a scrapping magazine (I think it may have been Creative Scrapbooking) but it was also in CatWorld magazine and I was so terribly proud of that. I used to subscribe to that magazine and to have an article in it was a dream come true.

Download pet_article_complete.doc

I am loving my All My Own Work project and am thrilled so many people are joining me in the journey. It makes it so much more fun. I am working on prompt one so be prepared for Monday folks. I hope you love it.

This is a sneak peek of one of my classes last month for the Design Collective. And no - of course I am not going to show you the whole page LOL

You do still just have time to go register for July though and there are some fab classes coming up in July. Do go and have a look and see what you think. There are some pretty awesome scrappers on the team and you generally get a class from everyone each month. So many different styles and so many techniques. It's great fun.

Friday at last

It's been quite a week, one way and another. Mad mad mad and totally busy, but it's over and it is Friday and I am going to relax.

I have had a phonecall from the opticians to say my latest pair of glasses are in. Not sure if I am excited or not. This time it is a different prescription - a combination of new and old. We'll see! The saga continues.

I have had a bit of a clear stamp fest recently with no less than 7 new sets to play with. I was never much into stamping, but I am totally addicted now. I guess there will be lots of stamping on pages. The other thing I have rediscovered is my love of cards. I bought a card making set from QVC - the TSV - and I am loving it. They are so quick and simple and rewarding and I am hooked again.

This page is a page I made for Mel and Jill at A Trip Down Memory Lane last month and uses Luxe papers again. The title is using Lettering Delights fonts - another addiction of mine - and the picture is, of course, Emily.

This is also a final reminder that, if you want to play along with the Design Collective it is subscription time again. Don't miss out on the fun. Pop along and check out what you could be a part of.

Whatever you are doing this weekend I hope it is fun and just what you want to do. Have fun x

Total Embarrassment

OK so this might not be the most technically brilliant page I have ever made - it is very simple but heck - I have been timetabling and that was HARD. Plus - I really wanted to do it just for the pictures, which are priceless.

Nij and I went out with best friend Jakki and her hubby to celebrate her birthday - a surprise for her as she didn't know we were goingt o be there.

I think she was just a LITTLE surprised and a LITTLE embarrassed when the entire restaurant sang happy birthday to her.

I love the look on her face and on Gary's and the picture in the middle at the bottom is priceless. She just wants the ground to open up and swallow her - such fun!

What's it like to be that old, Jakki? (I can get away with it as I am sooooooo much younger than you LOL)

To have and to hold

Well - my worst two days of the year are just about done. Why DO timetables have to change every year? If it were not for the senior school then life would be so much more simple. The timetable would stay the same year in year out, we teachers would stand a fighting chance of remembering what our timetable was  and I wouldn't have to spend two days trying to produce a new one! Ah well.

Needless to say no real new scrapping to share but I can now share this one that was completed for Mel and Jill at A Trip Down Memory Lane for their design team this month. The papers they sent this month were gorgeous Luxe papers and rub ons. It was great to see how, teaming them with different colours brought about so many different variations.

The picture is of my cousin Richie and his beautiful bride Angie. We were, sadly, unable to go to the wedding but the wedding photographer was amazing and bought loads of pictures. Her photography was beautiful and there was a whole slide show you could watch all set to music.

They were married in the Deep South (USA) and their rehearsal dinner was in a gorgeous barn. The wedding was in such a beautiful place and they also had loads of pictures taken outside where there were fields and lakes and bridges. It looked so magical. I loved this picture of them both gazing out over the lake but with Richie so obviously full of love for his new bride.

The monograms were cut from white and red card and mounted on black and then covered in doddles to echo the rub ons.

I also used handwriting (not a frequent item on my pages) for the journalling!

The flowers, cut out of another sheet of paper, have red bling centres. I scanned a couple of the flowers and resized them as I needed a couple of smaller flowers to balance the design.

Study in blue

I love scrapping girly pages in non girly colours and this page is a typical example. The pictures were taken of Emily a couple of years ago - actually on a very sad day. It was the day of her grandad's funeral and she looked so serious at times. I am sure she could sense the atmosphere all around her.

I don't often scrap in blue but the challenge this week at Collectively Yours was to do a  monochromatic page and I fancied a change - so blue it is.

I love the monogram best of all. It is a chipboard MME monogram and was just so easy to colour and get a great effect. There are actually 4 different patterned papers on the page - though they are very similar -  and each is stitched on. How ever would I scrap without my sewing machine!

I had a lovely surprise last night. Jakki (Oh how lucky am I to have such a wonderful best friend) came round with a little mini book she had made about our trip to Highcliff Castle.

It's really lovely and I will treasure it. And she made it using the new Bind Ir All too. I am looking forward to playing with it.

I am delighted with the response to the All my own Work challenge. It looks like quite a few of us are going to be playing along. I do hope you are not disappointed.

I have made my album now and will share it tomorrow.

Strangely disoriented

Having an odd day - no idea why really -just odd.

We watched a DVD in bed this morning as I didn't feel like scrapping - unheard of for me!

My mojo has up and left and there is no forwarding address. So to try and kick start it I did something I rarely do- I sat and scraplifted a page I loved from a magazine.

I saw the page, by Gabrielle Pollacco in this months Creating Keepsakes and I loved it - one of the nicest pages I have seen in a long time. I knew I wanted one for my album and today was the perfect day to make it - cos let's face it ... I wasn't coming up with any ideas of my own now was I!

It isn't an inspired by page.... it isn't a page a bit like her page .... it is a copy, pure and simple. The way I feel, if I had had the same papers, stamps and even photo it would have been identical.

As it is I adapted it for the monster and used green to accentuate those green moster eyes.

Has it brought back my mojo - No!

Do I like my version - No!

Am I going to lounge about in bed for the rest of the day reading - You betcha!

I started reading a Sophie Kinsella - the dreamworld of a Shopaholic I think - this morning and I am off to finish it.

Have a great Saturday whatever you are doing.... and if you see my mojo tell it it can have a holiday and I'll see it when it gets back!

Not been a great week

It hasn't been the best of weeks this week. The sad news today was concerning a friend of mine whose DH has been battling with renal cancer. He had been on interferon for the past two months and they had the news today that the interferon has not worked - though it has made him feel rotten - and the cancer has not shrunk but has now spread to his hip. I feel so helpless. All I can do is offer them prayers and words of comfort, but I cannot begin to imagine how they must feel and wonder at how they are coping with life at all. My Mom always used to say that God only send people what he knows they can deal with - but that is very hard to accept at times like this. They are such a wonderful couple, totally devoted to each other and he is only 58. I don't know how I would cope with that they are having to deal with - and please God I never have to find out. I will continue to pray for them and pray that they have to strength to face the weeks ahead.

I want to share a book I made for her a few weeks ago as a little 'pick me up' gift. I used the materials from A Trip Down Memory Lane design team kit last month and so it is also a part of their work. I just wanted to let her know how much her friendship meant and that I would always be there for her as I knew she would be facing tough times ahead. I tried to pick very generic pictures, all taken at local zoos. She was with me when quite a few of the pictures were taken which made it even more poignant.

I mixed the pictures up with various quotes and I know she loved the book.

She has many many friends and we are going to have to pull together and help to see her through the coming months.

What a Beaulieu-ful day

OK so a corny header but their advertising campaign at Beaulieu was come and have a Beaulieu-ful day LOL. I have just come back from a trip taking 150 kids for the day. The weather forecast was dreadful but the rain stayed away. We had great tours and talks, a picnic and everyone was safe and happy but boy am I tired.

If you haven't already done so, do check out the A True Friend blog. There is some gorgeous work ont here again from the design team which I hope inspires you to create for your special friends.

The theme this time was 10 things you love about your pets. Now I am occasionally a little bit biased towards the Fiki monster and he tends to get more pages scrapped about him just because.... but I needed to include all three int his one, so rather than three pages I combined them and did one page of all three.

I made a photo collage in a heart and printed it out for the page and the love x 3 title - well that was simple. I then included 10 things I love about them - some general and some specific. I love the pictures of the three of them and it shows how different they are. And my Boushka may not be a pedigree like the other two monsters, but I think she is even more beautiful than the Bengals. She is my poor little stray and is so devoted to Nigel and she has huge eyes. Fiki looks like the green eyed monster he is and Kirs - well she's just a little wild child.

Difficult Day

It hasn't been an easy day today, but easier for us than for our friends. Nigel and I went to a funeral today - an especially difficult funeral, though I am sure there is no such thing as an easy one.

Some friends of ours lost their 22 years old daughter ten days ago. She and three friends were returning from a weekend away when a car, on the wrong side of the road, hit them head on. She died instantly. One minute she had her whole life ahead of her and, as simple as that, it was snatched away in an instant. She had just finished university, had a job working with Autistic children to start in Boston USA, had her whole life ahead of her and was so cruelly and quickly taken.

As you can imagine, the funeral was very hard. There were several hundred people there. Her parents wanted it to be a celebration of her life so no black. Her 11 year old brother read a poem about her. Her uncle read a letter from her daddy (he just couldn't read it himself). And one of the things I found so hard ... her three friends were there in the front row. One only came out of hospiral yesterday and all three were still very visibly injured. How do her parents and brother and sister come to terms with losing her? How do they move on from this tragedy? How do those three girls get through seeing their friend die?

We can only all pray that God gives them the strength and the courage to carry on, to bear with fortitude the sorrows they have been dealt and brings them some measure of comfort. I pray for all of them.

Sometimes life is pooh!

Ok - I need to record this as this is, primarily, my on line diary, my chatting to myself. So feel free to click off now, especially if you are of a squamish disposition. belive me, if I wasn't writing it I wouldn't be reading it - it's nasty!

Went for a lovely walk with Nij yesterday. It was hot and humid and we walked a good few miles. We ended up coming back across the heath and as we neared home and were going through a particularly wild section I did nag Nij to make sure he looked where he was going .... ever mindful of the doggy 'treats' left when people DON'T use the dog waste bins. Yes - you can guess part if what is coming!

Having nagged him to be careful we got home and he went in first. We hadn't been through anywhere wet or muddy so I gave my feel a very cursory wipe on the mat and stepped in (fortunately onto the inside mat) And I left a huge brown print. The smell was immediately obvious - unbelievably bad.

I screamed and stepped back outside and wiped my feet vigorously on the outdoor mat and the smell got worse. I took off my shoe and looked at the bottom of it and it was caked in dog pooh. No nice way to put it I''m afraid. It was terrible. At which point I lobbed the shoe down the drive and went inside and was stunned to see an even bigger brown mess on the carpet and an even stronger smell. OMG

I had stepped in what I had wiped off on the outdoor mat and it was all over my bare feet. I went pretty much hysterical. The smell was intense, I daren't put my foot down and I was plastered in dog pooh. Nij, ever a bloke,  was shocked but killing himself laughing - which was frankly not helpful.

Screaming I hopped - literally - back outside and down the steps onto the drive screaming for him to help me. I couldn't get away from the smell and was panicing.

Eventually he opened the garage, got the hosepipe and literally hosed me down with a jet that was so hard it hurt, then used disinfectant on my foot and sent me in for a bath. Bless him he then cleaned the outdoor mat, the indoor mat, the step, the shoes and was still laughing. I sooooooo wished I hadn't nagged him to be careful. I tell you, it was horrible and even after two baths and a foot soak I still felt unclean. I know it was only in my mind, but the mind can be jolly vivid at times!

Last night, whilst watching the final of Britains got talent (and wasn't Paul Potts fantastic) I did this page for the digital Florida album - this time a page of Typhoon lagoon, one of our favourite places in WDW. Its very simple but I wanted to showcase the picture.

Now, I feel the need to go and wash my feet again .... just in case!