Dolly's Dreamings

I wonder why?

In an effort to take my mind off the ridiculous state our parliament - not just the government the entire parliament - is in I have been trying to sort out things and e bay them.

I do wonder why I have 9 new pairs of very expensive jeans and trousers still with tahs on that I have nevr worn and will never be able to wear (unless I can shed a serious amount of weight! I think, when I was working and earning good money, I frittered it away and spent ont hings I didn't need, didn't really want etc. And I am ashamed of that. Since I retired I have a far different view of life and actually spend very little. I don't think I have bought more than a dozen new things in three years of retirement and most of the things I have bought have been things like new underwear (it does wear out you know) and a new swimming costume. I have bought almost no new scrapping stuff (I do have enough to scrap every day for the rest of my life already!!!) and apart from renovations we have spent no money on new stuff for the house. This retirment thing is good.

 

However the brand new clothes are on e bay (and I know they wont sell so I am not sure why I bothered and didn't just take then to the charity shop witht he other 20 or so bags we took) and I have sold some of the unwanted craft stuff and RAKed other stuff. I am in full declutter mode. And it feels good.

 

I did make a page today for a challenge on UKS and made a few yesterday

 

This was a fun one to make and I quite liked the splashes of orange for no reason other than they were something I fancied.

 

 

This was a digital page for a challenge - the prompt was BEAR. Yup - that was certainly a bear - we so hoped we would see one in Canada and this was on our last day.

 

This was the mystery box mojo challenge at PBP and includes a free kit - check it out here

 

 

and this was another challenge on UKS and features St George's church on Portland which we never knew was there and was utterly fascinating. You can read about it here - and here  and if you are near do go visit it - it is lovely.

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• more decluttering
• more sense in my old age
• thriftiness

And those of you who know me well know my favourite sort of jokes are puns.

 

I LOVE these

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A home town day

Some days are days of chores - outside the home chores - but when our home town is as pretty as it is, that is a pleasure too.

We had a few things to do today like buy a new tray (Nigel dropped it the other day and it shattered), buy some grains from the health food store and pay money into the bank (which happens to be right across from a Starbucks) so we headed off to town and then to the quay for a little walk on my newly released ankle!

I had the MRI results from the physio yesterday (though I still have a consultant appointment to come) and she said I could start to wean off the boot! YEY! I can walk a little every day and build up, alongside the exercises I have to do to build strength. So all good there then.

 

Poole quay was lovely and I snapped another couple of pictures for the snap challenge including this one

 

 

We came home and did another chore we have been dreading. A job for very very spoilt cats. A while ago we bought a new brand of cat food - a healthy option, allergy free as usual for Kira - and stupidly - oh so stupidly - we mixed it with the brand we usually use to wean them in gradually. Huge mistake. There was no way either of them were eating the new food. They would carefully sift out the new from the bowl, spit it out around their bowls, or anywhere really, and eat the stuff they knew and liked. We tried it day after day after day and nope - no way were they eating it. So we bought more of the old and used that, leaving a huge - and I mean HUGE container full of the mixed food. Today was the day. We put the old broken tray to use and we sorted the food out! Piece by blinking piece. Nine full tray fulls. We took out the dark brown circles they didn't like and kept the little flakes and barrels and hearts that ARE acceptable to the most spoilt cats in the world. It took forever. Even now I can't believe we did it.

 

 

I also managed new scrapping this afternoon - another for the Shimelle Challenge - this time Beautiful View. I scrapped two very old pictures of one of the most beautiful views we have ever seen in the world - Moraine Lake.

 

Today I am thankful for

• a lovely home town
• a horrid job completed
• chores done
• scrapping time

 

And just because I saw them and they were cute - Lego cats ... I need these in my life

 

 

 

Multi Photo pages

I promised that to celebrate my retirement and the fact I am a lady of leisure I would 'give back' with some classes this month.

 

Here is another . Yes an old class - those back up files again - but hopefully of some use to some of you.

 

I don't know about you but I am not very good at multi photo pages. I tend to like pages with one main photo on, but there are times when you need to include a lot of not very good photos too.

 

The following is a class I did years ago - 2007 to be precise - when I joined with 11 other scrappers and we formed the Design Collective. It was such a brave venture and we were proud of what we did for a whole year.

 

This page project, using minimal supplies, enables you to showcase one special photograph whilst giving you the space to share snippets of other pictures and a place for hidden journaling. It is also a great way to use up some of those photos that don’t stand up to such close scrutiny and benefit from radical cropping. 

Supplies

• I sheet of cardstock
• I sheet of coordinating paper (I used the Basic Grey Periphery range)
• Letter stickers, stamps, rub ons or die cuts for title (I used Basic Grey letter stickers)
• Stamps, phrase stickers, rub ons or computer journaling
• Journaling pens
• Inks and sponges
• Assorted blossoms and brads
• Circle cutter, compass or different size plates
• 1 large photo (I used 7” x 7” as a starting point) and up to 7 photos suitable for cropping to 1 ¼” squares.

 

 

Instructions

 

Please note that a second example, adapting this class to a different format, is given at the end, but these main instructions refer to the 12” x 12” page shown in the main image.

How many times do you photograph an event – maybe a birthday celebration, a special day out, a family gathering - only to find you have one stunning picture and a load of photos which are cute, but would benefit from being cropped heavily or considerably reduced in size? I bet it happens as often as it does here.

This page allows you to max out on one picture, but still showcase other smaller pictures which give a more complete story. There is also a space for hidden journaling to complete the memory storage.

• First select the photograph you want to showcase as the main image. I printed my picture myself, but if you want to have it printed professionally you need to have an enlargement made which will enable you to cut a 6” circle out of the picture. Don’t cut the circle yet though!

• Next select up to 7 other pictures that you can either print out yourself at a dramatically reduced size (they are 1 ¼” square) or that you can crop to this size.  Cut your smaller pictures to size. I find this works best with a square punch so that I know they are all identical and even. I think a selection of different sized square punches are essential scrapbook tools for all sorts of projects.

• Using your cardstock, not the patterned paper, you need to cut the circle mount for the main picture. There are two ways to do this, depending on your tools and what you are most comfortable with.

• If you have a compass style circle cutter or a circle cutter that makes it easy to do concentric circles, then cut the frame as a genuine frame i.e. cut a large circle and then cut the inside out of it so you are left with a hollow circular frame. Using this method it means you can ink both the inside and outside edges of the circle.

• If you don’t have a fancy cutting system then the simple way is to draw a circle with a compass and cut it out or use the method I always used to use, a dining room plate!  Using this method you need only cut a circle mount, not a hollow circular frame.

• Whichever method you use, you need to make the cardstock circle approximately 7” in diameter.

• Now is the time to cut your enlargement to fit the circle frame or mount. The size you cut will depend on how you cut the cardstock circle so read carefully BEFORE you cut. The photograph visible in my page is 6”, giving me a ½ “ rim of cardstock all around. NB If you are using the hollow frame method cut the photograph to 7” so you are able to stick the frame on top of the photograph. If you are using the solid circular mount method cut the picture to 6” diameter so you can stick it in the top of the solid circle mount.

• You need to decorate your circle frame or mount before going any further. I used small leaf and word stamps on mine and also inked the edges. You could stamp words round the edge, you could doodle designs, you could run the mount through the printer, you could use an embossing plate and emboss the mount, you could add flowers or stitching, rub on lettering or designs. The possibilities are endless. You could even, of course, leave it totally plain.

• The next step is to cut strips to act as tags for your pictures and title letters. You may need to play around with this a little according to how many letters in your chosen word. I think that the most you could fit would be a 7 letter word, but it would work with a 5 or 6 letter word equally as well. If you used a 6 letter word you may want to make all the letters the same and not have one letter stand out like the letter ‘I’ as this really only works with an odd number.

• The strips I cut were 4 ¼” long and 1 ¾” wide. I inked the edge of each strip and also drew faux stitching along all edges as well.

• Once you have cut and inked your strips, mount the pictures and then play around with the arrangement until it looks balanced on the page.

• TIP – a little repositionable adhesive on the back of each strip lets you play around with them but holds them lightly in place whilst you move things around.

• Once you are happy with the arrangement stick the strips down and stick the circle and large picture over the top of them to cover the joins. NB leave a portion of the circle unstuck for the journaling.

• Add letter stickers, die cuts, rub ons etc for your title. I cut a small square for my central letter to give a bit of variety and mounted it on foam pads.

• Cut a piece of card  approximately 3 ½” x 5 ½” for the journaling. I cut a curve (using the circle I had already cut as the template) to shape the top.

• Stamp, rub on or print a title for your journaling and then record whatever details you want about the pictures and the event. Slip the journaling tag under the main picture as shown.

• I finished off the page with coordinating flowers and brads but you could use whatever embellishments went with your page.

 

This is an 8.5" x 11" version I did too

 

 

 

Have fun and please, if you make a page, do post a comment to let me know where I can see it.

 

 

 

 

And breathe ...

Wow - what a day

 

Long long meetings, but very productive, a big issue to deal with and a car that was broken ... and has magically healed itself!

 

My car has central locking and it locked this morning and then 30 seconds later unlocked itself and refused to ever lock again! I tried everything. Nada. Not having it.

It wouldn't have been a problem at school as it would be perfectly safe unlocked but it would, of course, be a day I had to go soemthere else after school and leave the car in a public car park.

Solution - Nigel would swing by school and swap cars so I had his lockable vehicle. Sensible huh! 

He was delayed and there was no time so I resigned myself to the fact I would just have to risk it.

 

Mmmmm

It seems a day to think about its naughtiness cured it!!!

Result - fixed car.

 

I don't get it. Cars are so electric now there is so much to go wrong. When I had my first car my Dad made the 17 year old me do car maintenance and I could fix most things. Now you lift a bonnet and you need a degree in electricity to do anything!

 

However, the day is done and it has been so full on I am actually going to treat myself to a night off. I have earned it.

 

I have new scrapping to share - this time a page made for a mojo challenge on PBP to use a big photo.

I love big photo pages.

This one is of Lake Louise in Canada

 

Today I am thankful for

• an apparently self-healing car
• my husband who I am immensely proud of. He has a new job managing the Darcy Ward Foundation and last night he hosted an evening at the stadium where he interviewed riders and managers and had a live hook up with Darcy too. I was so proud to see the footage and hear Neil Middleditch praise Nigel so much for not only the great announcer he is but also for all the work he does behind the scenes with management and visas and support. I am very lucky to be married to such an incredible guy who is so loved by so many.  I love this picture of Nigel with Neil and Davy Watt and Chris Holder.

 

 

Where did the sun go?

The weekend was lovely and sunny but the sun seems to have given up and gone away.

Mind you - I would rather it was sunny at weekends and not on a work day if it can only manage a limited time to be honest. It's actually a miracle I noticed what the weather was like ... it is silly season at work at the moment. The summer term always has so much in it and so little time to do it.

 

Needless to say no scrapping at the moment other than at weekends ... and even then not a lot to be honest.

 

This was a page I made at the weekend using Created by Jill Quiet Moments.

The photos are of Emerald Lake in Canada when we visited the Canadian Rockies back in 2007. I cannot believe that was 8 years ago. Where on earth do the years go!

Today I am thankful

• the toothache eased. I now just need it to go away completely
• hayfever less bad - just stinging eyes today
• my printer working  on thin card ... tried to print something at work and it wouldn't do it - worked at home phew!

Titanic Exhibition

It has been a bit Bank Holidayish weather here today, well at least this morning. It was grim and grey and wet and so we opted for an indoor activity.

We started off with breakfast out. We had seen that georgie Porgies did breakfast for £5.99 and whilst I wouldn't eat there again for dinner I figured breakfast would be ok. And it was. I don't really do cooked breakfast and it was the lack of hot food that put me off. Nij had cooked and said it was OK but not terribly hot. I did have an omelet which they make whilst you wait and that was good and hot.

All in all it was good value for £5.99 and made a special treat as a one off.

We then headed to the Sea City Museum in Southampton as we wanted to see the Titanic exhibition. It was incredibly quiet on the roads and the museum was quiet when we arrived It was bombed when we left with queues very long and the traffic getting in and out of the city was incredibly heavy. But by the time we were on the way home it was a bit more like May - warm and sunny.

The museum is very good and the exhibits well laid out, varied and informative. Not a free museum, it needed to be good to warrant the cost.

We both enjoyed it and learnt a great deal. I have always been fascinated by the Titanic as it sank on my dad's birthday (though well before he was born) and when my Dad was in the navy he worked for the White Star Line too.

My photo of the day is of some books I bought for the school library as one year group do a project all about Titanic. (Plus I was not allowed to take photos inside)

 
I have a page to share today made with Dee Bee Designs goodies from PBP as part of my CT commitment this month.

Credits

Who You Are collage rubs and clusters set by Dee Bee Designs at Pickleberrypop

Character Counts kit by Dee Bee Designs at Pickleberrypop

The flower clusters and rub ons are totally awesome - expect to see them A LOT

The photo is of Emerald Lake in the Canadian Rockies - a trip we will never forget.

Today I am thankful for

• a day out
• interesting things to see and learn
• a great scrapping opportunity that came my way today

I know people loved the video I shared yesterday so I can't resist another one today - this baby Jaguar called Bella is one of the cats we are going to visit this summer at Panther Ridge and we are so excited. (Bella isn't a baby like this anymore though)

 

and finally my one minute devotional page today from my calendar

Driving to work yesterday, I stopped at a red light. As I absently looked at my hand on the steering wheel, I noticed the long scar on my wrist. Suddenly I drifted back 36 years to the summer following my high school graduation. I was living in my hometown of Fort Valley, Georgia, and working on the assembly line at the Blue Bird school bus factory. Eighteen years old, I was making school buses in order to save money for college.

Bus-body assembly lines are dangerous places. Amid powerful machinery, hydraulic presses, hot metal, and a vast assortment of high-powered tools, it’s easy to get injured. One day, as I cut through a steel beam with a blowtorch, my wrist grazed the sharp, molten edge of the beam. Suddenly I was cut to the bone with a wound that would scar my wrist for life.

For a while the scar was prominent and jagged. Sometimes it would swell, becoming inflamed and painful. But I noticed yesterday that now the jagged scar is smooth, faded, almost unnoticeable. Time has worked its healing wonder.

Sometimes events in our lives wound us so deeply that an emotional scar is left for a lifetime. The death of my father when I was 14 years old cut much more deeply than that steel beam. Yet, over time, I have learned that God has a way of making emotional scars grow smaller, too. A grief that we feared would consume us; a disappointment so intense that it maimed us; a shameful mistake that seared our self-image—all of these things can be healed by time and the loving grace of God.

Father, I am thankful that in You I have found a balm in Gilead that can make the wounded whole.

—SCOTT WALKER

Hysterical laughter

I have a new page to share made with dawn's new One Fine day kit.

 
It's a fab kit and I have loved using it.

I am now off to eat, take a chill pill in the form of some serious R and R and will hopefully feel way more sociable tomorrow after a decent night's sleep.

Today I am thankful for

• support - from many directions actually
• laughter, which eases the worst of tensions.

 
 

Be thankful - take time

Sometimes things happen that put life into perspective. You plod on through your life, moaning about minor irritations at times, forgetting to be truly grateful for the good things in life, the little things that happen around you that actually are incredibly special in their own small way. You rush through life without taking time to stop and smell the flowers. And then something happens that makes you appreciate all that is and all that you have.

Today is one f those days. I have a blessed life. I have no real problems to deal with. I am healthy and happy, safe and warm, fed and watered, loved and cherished. I have had troubles and grief but have worked through them and been supported through them, and I have so much to be grateful for.

I heard terribly sad news today. News of someone who sure as heck isn't as lucky and who isn't going to have much time left to enjoy the wonders of life. And as well as saddening me greatly it does make you appreciate what is for what it is whilst it is. A salutory lesson for us all.

 

I have another page with dawn's new kit to share - the happiness of a young girl taking her first steps into adult life and the happiness, and apprehension, that comes with that. The photo is my best friends daughter when we were blessed to share her 21st birthday celebrations with her. Isn't she beautiful?

 

 

Today I am thankful

• simply to be

Finally I made this for another Chicken soup challenge last night and almost forgot it.

  

5210, Death valley, Furnace Creek and stuff!

I have had a lovely day today. I have a lush new kit from Charmed Crafts and Cards and have been scrapping with pretty pretty papers all day (apart from a little walk about half an hour ago)

It is a joy to be paper scrapping. I love my digi but love the 'real feel' as well.

Obviously I can't share what I have made but I am really quite pleased with what I have done so far.

What I can share is my page for the prompt yesterday.

I am incredibly inspired by nature and especially mountains and lakes. We don't have any mountains here - just a few hills - and I LOVE mountains. Add a crystal clear icy cold lake fringed with pines and my happiness is complete.

It's always been mountains and lakes that move me most of all. So Canada was such a perfect holiday as the Rockies were full of scenic view after scenic view.

There weren't lakes (though there were mountains) on our Death Valley trip and what water there was, at Badwater, was certainly not crystal clear or icy cold.

We had always said we wanted to stay in Death Valley and choices are pretty limited really so we ofted for Furnace Creek ranch and it was really very nice.

Our room was very spacious with a patio outside to sit on (why would you when it was 128 and inside it was air conditioned!!!) There was a restuarant there (just as well as there was nowhere else to eat within an hours drive) a bar and also a museum giving the history of the Borax mining in the area which was fascinating.

 We were amazed that people lived there - out of choice. Not only was it incredibly hot and not a lot to do, but going shopping for even the bare essentials must be such a chore as there really is nowhere near. I guess the world is made up of people who really do enjoy very different things.

Anyway, we had a good evening and night and se off in the morning to see the rest of the valley.

One of the reasons we wanted the 4 x 4 was because there were a lot of unpaved roads we wanted to explore. And we did. It was great  funand this is to prove I drove on them too!!

We went up to Zabriske Point which was just a short walk and beautiful. It was also a teeny bit cooler beacuse it was higher up.

We then headed to our final place in the park, Dante's Peak, the highest part you can drive to. It was cooler and the views were great but heck ... what were all the wasps about. I kid you not when I say there were dozens and dozens of them all round the car. It was horrible trying to run the gauntlet of them and get in and even then we had one who hitch-hiked a ride that we had to encourage back out.

 

You can see the white salt deposits down int he valley at badwater, you can just about see the tiny badwater road and off in the distance you can see Furnace Creek.

So that was our experience of Death Valley. We headed out of the park and towards Vegas, stopping for a very pleasant couple of hours at Red Rock canyon - but that's a post for tomorrow!

My quote of the day today is

Today I am thankful for

• lush goodies to scrap with
• brown soda bread

 
 
  

5210 prompt 31 and It's Vegas Baby

Morning everyone. Still groggy as my body clock hasn't reset itself yet and I can't quite come to terms with sleeping till 9! I am a 6 am girl. I hate the way jet lag resets your body clock for you.

Anyway i digress. I have - at last - new work - proper paper work - to share.

I couldn't wait to do soemthing quick about the holiday. As it happened it didn't turn out as quick as I hoped, but I have finished my Vegas mini book. Well not so mini actually The pages are 6" x 8.5" so big enough to count as pages really. They are shaped chipboard - one of my many many purchases on holiday. They were selling these chipboard pages for 40c each and smaller ones for 25 c so I bought a whole mess of them. Some of thee shapes were interesting to cover with cardstock to make the ase, but heck, that was part of the fun.

Anyway, my first real project from the holiday .... my Viva Las Vegas book. We have been to Vegas many times - it is like nowhere else in the world, so it needed its very own book.

and this is the inside

 

I am posting single pages as you stand a chance of seeing what they say but that double just shows how it goes together.

 

 

I took a photo of the Las vegas sign for scrapping purposes and used it on that page to make my own printed paper.

The picture of the Strip was taken from the Eiffel Tower last trip. The Strip looks different now - much messier, as the empty lot and the Boardwalk have gone and there are rather ugly tower blocks there now. Not nearly so nice.

  We love Ceasars and have stayed there several times. It is a real traditional Strip hotel and beautiful. The first time we stayed there we thing they made a mistake and thought we were gamblers as we had a suite and it had a circular bedroom complete with circular bed and mirrored ceiling!

Their pool complex, the Garden of the Gods, is utterly beautiful. I could do a mini book just on that. (It's OK - relax. I won't!)

 

The Venetian is our favourite hotel on the Strip and where we choose to stay now. The rooms are all suites and you can see a photo of ours this time. we have stayed there three times and enjoyed every visit.

We have seen some great - and some not so great - shows in Vegas. This trip we saw Donny and Marie (and met them .... watch for that post later in the week) and they were brilliant. By far the best show was Siegfried and Roy at the Mirage and we were so glad we saw them. Not long after they stopped performing after Roy's dreadful accident with one of the tigers. It is probably the best show we have seen anywhere in the world.

The most disappointing show we have ever seen anywhere in the world was O at Bellagio. It was very expensive and a Cirque du Soleil and left us both cold.

 

We do tend to use Vegas as a launch pad (and an end of tour chill zone) for our exploration trips. From Vegas we have been on trips to the canyons (Zion, Bryce, Arches, Capitol Reef), the Grand canyon and Hoover Dam, Yosemite and Sequoia, Valley of Fire, Salt Lake City, the Tetons and Yellowstone and our full blown Wild West Tour. The final page documents that too.

It has been a fun book to complete and now I feel I can make a start on some DT work I need to do.

 

So onto project 5210 (which is seriously behind for me - I have no pages left after this week so do need to try and get moving on this or there won't be a post next Sunday. I apologise in advance if there is a week or two lapse. bear with me folks. If I miss a Sunday i will try and make it up at another point so there still end up being 52)

We have been thinking of outside space so this week we go large!

 

 

This is outside on a grand scale. I hope you like it and do let me know what you think. As ever, I  hate asking, but please do comment to let me know. It does motivate me to get my act together and I really need that right now as I have not been behind with this until now. Judging by the number of downloads there are less than half of the people who download who comment, which I still think is a shame.

Have fun and have a great Sunday.