Dolly's Dreamings

Quiet days again

We have had a few quiet days whch has been nice. A lovely beach walk in the September sunshine this morning and some scrapping and housework and relaxing. Still nice enough to eat outdoors too.

I have a couple of pages to share

This was for a scrap squad sketch and also Day 17 of Scraptember where the prompt was sequins - which I almost never ever use . It's another for the Cornwall album (only one page left to do!)

 

It refers to the nightmare of parking in Mousehole. There is only one car park and it is tiny and it was gridlocked and so I went to see if there were any spaces and there was and so I stood in it to hold it but there was no phone service, i couldn't tell Nigel where I was and so I just had to wait till he found me - yey me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Day 18 of Scraptember - selfie was the prompt and this was us at Lyme Regis earlier in the week. It was also using one of Lisa's fab sketches at Scrap a Sketch

 

 

 

It was the first birthday of Scrap a Sketch this week and I am so proud to be part of Lisa's creative team.  In honour of the birthday we all scrapped the first ever sketch again and this is mine. I had such fun recording our visit to Kynance Cove where they were filming House of the Dragon and making the clapperboard and embellishments 

 

 

 

 

 

and this is a page for Bramble Fox and is also Day 26 or scraptember and is a shameless scraplift

 

 

 

This was for this week's scrap squad sketch (You can see I am determined to finish this album - our trip was a year ago today!!)

 

 

and finally this is for Scraptember Day 24 (yes I am working ahead)

 

 

 

I will not be blogging tomorrow. Like much of the rest of the country our time and energy and our hearts will be tied up watching the funeral of our Majesty and quietly reflecting on what she meant to us and to so many.

 

Today I am thankful for

• scrapping time
• a lovely beach walk
• living during the reign of such an inspirational woman

Glorious Bank Holiday weather

The weather has been glorious - unusual for a Bank Holiday. I am so pleased for all the people who only get to go out on Bank Holidays and weekends. It has been lovely for us but in fairness, we can go out any day. And we have made the most of it too, with outings and enjoying our brand new patio area in the sunshine.

yesterday we went out early and, for a change, visited the next door town of Bournemouth where we rarely venture.

We had a lovely walk through the gardens which looked utterly gorgeous

 

 

 

 

 

Not quite the London Eye - but still....

 

and the beach of course complete with view back to our home town and the Purbecks and the new beach bars - they didn't have those in our day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

and it would have been rude not to

 

 

 

As the beaches were likely to busy today we headed inland and visited Poundbury, which does have the most amazing architecture, and had a picnic in the Dorset countryside

 

 

 

 

 

Poor farmers don't get a bank holiday weekend - there were hundred of birds following him enjoying their own Easter treats

 

 

 

and finally a quick visit to Moreton walled garden

 

 

 

 

 

Two lovely days out and two lovely days out in our garden too.

 

Oh and scrapping - it is Autumn theme this week at Scrap A Sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elaine thank you for your lovely comments about Dawn. I cannot believe it is almost 3 years. I miss her so much still. She was an incredible lady and I was blessed to call her a friend. I know that she is playing with Fiki - who she loved to bits - and she was there to welcome him.

Today I am thankful for

• sunshine
• picnics
• days out
• new love of our back garden

 

 

Quiet days

The last couple of days have been quiet - little outngs for walks and scrapping and relaxing. It is what I dreamed of when I thought of retirement. Not every day needs to be exciting. Quiet and chilled is good too.

We enjoyed a lovely meal out for our anniversary and the garden is coming along nicely too. We are never going to be green fingered but we are doing OK!

And some recent scrapping

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and another for the Cornwall album which has been sadly neglected really

 

 

 

 

Today I am thankful for

lazy days

relaxing

 

 

Too many cyber crops

This weekend there were cyber crops on at four different sites I enjoy playing with and it was all a bit too much - plus I lost most of yesterday as I wasn't very well.

However I have enjoyed some scrapping and managed to make some of the pages work for several challenges

 

Here is some of my recent scrapping

 

I love this one best of all - made for a Lottie Loves Paper challenge

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is for my iconic America album

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

two for the Cornwall album

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and this of a robin

 

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• retirement - if you don't want to - don't!
• easy walks
• my home town (had a lovely walk round the old town today)
• scrap time

 

A Lovely Scrappy Day

I have had a lovely scrappy day and I can also share a couple of things I couldn't share until now. There have been challenges all round, on Facebook, UKS etc and I eventually got over my crossness that there are people who cheat. I have no idea why they feel the need to cheat when it is just meant to be fun, but to my mind, if you are not going to play fair don't bother playing. When something is meant to be newly made it should be newly made but heck.

Anyway - I have new and old pages to share.

This isn't NEW as it was made a while ago but it is NEW for me to share. I was thrilled to be asked to be a guest designer for Lisa at Scrap A Sketch and loved the sketch I was given to work with which is now live in her facebook group.

 

This was my page - it is for my Cornwall album ... and I loved being a guest designer.

 

 

It's funny that my other Guest DT spot, for Scrap Squad, was also live today for their Share the Love Cyber Crop and again I was so thrilled to be asked, and it is another for my Cornwall album which has been sadly neglected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have also played along with a couple of the Scrap Squad and other challenges

 

This one fitted the bill for Scrap Squad, a UKS challenge and the Bramble Fox challenge

 

 

 

 

and this one was for Scrap Squad, Lottie Loves Paper and Peartree Cutfiles

 

 

 

 

I am a bit of a challenge junkie but I have been scrapping for 20 years and so having challenges makes me try new things and helps kick start my mogo.

 

Today I am thankful for

• fun with challenges
• being asked to guest design.
• getting antiseptic on Koda's ear - he has scratched it inside and it scabbed and he has now scratched off the scab. Oh my goodness it's been hard.

 

It was Autumnal - not now

It was proper autumnal this morning but it's proper wintry and drey and nasty now. A perfect afternoon for staying in warm and cozy and scrapping

 

We had a little trip out this morning with a drive round Cranbourne Chase and a sneaky cake at Aunt Fanny's

 

 

 

 

 

 

and of course I have scrapping to share

 

I have a couple of digital pages to share - well three actually

 

This shows two of the Dunkirk boats anchored in Poole harbour

It uses the mystery box this month free at Pickleberrypop

 

 

 

 

and this was for the use it all challenge using a fabulous mini kit called See the Beauty by TirAmisu designs

 

 

and this was a challenge on UKS to scrap an inspirational person

 

 

 and a few paper pages too

 

From our treasure hunt Thursday

 

 

 

Planting in September

 

 

 

another for the Cornwall album - Newquay and the surfers #

 

 

 

And this one celebrates the wonder of Indy's eyes. Bengals usually have either green or amber eyes (unless they are silver bengals then they have blue) Indy's eyes change. Sometimes they are gree, sometimes bluish grey but often a gorgeous bright teal - stunning.

 

 

 

 

 

Today I am thankful for

a lovely chilled out day

inside warm and cozy

I am a scrapbooker for a reason

There are many reasons why I scrapbook. They range from an innate desire to memory keep, a love of pretty papers and embellishments and as a creative outlet but I can also add I am a scrapper because I am NOT a sewer. Today I tried to be a sewer. Today, again I failed.

 

Let's make some nice bunting for Christmas, I thought. I could see it in my mind. It was beautiful. Mmmmm. The finished result not so much because - well because I cannot sew. But I tried and from a distance (and thankfully we have a large lounge and we both have poor eyesight) it might just pass muster.  I share this not so you can say no really it's lovely but because you will then understand why I am a scrapbooker!

 

When hung over the fireplace it will say peace and joy - which is not something making the blasted thing brought me.

 

 

 

 

So onto better prettier things - some scrapping

This one shows 'my wall' at the exhibition and my certificate for getting 3 paintings with over 20 votes. I was thrilled as not that many had over 20 votes.

 

 

 

Another for the Cornwall album

 

 

 

 

 

I was pleased with this one for the Bramble fox challenge

 

 

 

 

This was a scrap squad sketch and shows off Nigel's amazing pumpkin. I think it might be his best ever though Tinkerbell and Olaf were hard acts to follow

 

 

This was another scrap squad sketch and I was really quite pleased with this one

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will stop there as I have been on a bit of a scrapping frenzy and enough is enough.

 

Today I am thankful for

• Feliway calming diffusers. The cats had a horrible night yesterday with the fireworks. They were terrified. I don't get why you are still allowed to buy explosives and let them off whenever you want. Organised displays - yes. Fireworks at all hours for days on end in your garden - nope 
• scrapping - I do love it even after 20 years

 

A day out and scrapping too

I am debating whether or not to keep the blog going as the number of visitors have fallen a great deal and I think people use facebook (I do) and Instragram (I don't) a lot more. Am going to keep it going for the next two months and then review. I will still keep it for me, but just may not publish it to the world anymore. I always said that the blog was primarily for me, my record of what we do and when we do it, and we do both look back at things. But it might be time to keep it purely for us. We will see.

 

We had a trip out to Southampton today to visit the Apple store and also visited - quite extensively - Hotel Chocolat. We watched the TV series avidly but it's the first time we have been into one of the stores - and we loved it. We were so excited and chatted to such a lovely salesman and he made us fresh hot chocolate to try. The credit cards took a bit of a hammering. It was also noticeable - and I told the young man who was so lovely - that we went into the Apple store with the potential to spend over £1000 on a new phone and the salesman could not have been less interested or any more off hand than he was. We went into a chocolate shop to spend a few pounds and other service was incredible. Although we are both apple users through and through I think the attitude today was one of utter conceit. It was 'we are the best, we know we are the best, people will queue up to buy from us so why make the effort!' Such a shame Apple.Your staff today let you down.

 

Anyway - it was a lovely trip out and we even called into Ikea too.

 

And then there had been scrapping of course.

I made this for a mojo challenge at Pickleberrypop

 

 

 

 

and I made these paper pages yesterday and today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• sunshine - again
• a lovely trip out
• chocolate - yum
• good service - and poor that acted as a stark contrast

and some internet cuteness ... street art with a difference

 

An Indian summer

we have had a glorious weather weekend - really warm and sunny. I gather it is set to change but it's been lovely whilst we have had it.

 

I have had an 'interesting' time with my eyes. After several weeks of issues I was seen at the emergency clinic and hoped they would say - yes it is all fine it is just dry eyes. Sadly they didn't. It is dry eyes and my eyes are very inflamed and I have drops and gel to use every 2 hours, but they were worried about the angle closure behind my left eye and I need to be seen again on Friday as they want an 'expert' to check it. I confess it wasn't the news I wanted and today the pain behind that eye has been worse. That might just be that it has been fiddled with because one of the tests where they attach a contact lens to a prism thing was very painful.

Anyway - I have been trying o have less screen time and do some nice scrapping and also listen to an audio book to rest my eyes.

These are some of my recent pages

Last week at the beach

Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis

 

 

 

 

 

Koda

 

 

 

 

and today's challenge

 

 

 

 

 

oh and one more

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• optometrists
• audio books
• challenges

 

 

the weather outside is - gorgeous - horrible - wet - warm - dry ... take your pick

Well goodness me. Isn't there a saying that in the UK if you don't like the weather wait an hour and it will change? So true. It's been a real mixed bag. It was cold - heating on, it was stormy, stay indoors. It was sunny - go out. It was wet - stay in. It was foggy, it was drizzly, it was bland. All in the space of a few days.

 

Yesterday was a gorgeous day and we hot footed it off early to Kingston Lacy where we had it to ourselves again

 

 

It is still a bit early for nice Autumn colours yet but it was lovely.

 

And even scrapped it already

 

How cute is that owl flair - yes it's another of Adam Westwood's from Dotty About Flair. I am so addicted. I was so thrilled to manage to get one of the advent calendars this year

I have been loving the 12 days of Autumn with Scrap Squad too

 

 

 

 

and there has been digital scrapping for new release day at PBP too and I used this lovely collection from Lorie M

 

 

Apart from that it's been pretty quiet here.

We had a lovely evening with our neighbours this week too.

 

Today I am thankful for

• the good weather - not so much the bad but it does mean I don't have to water the new plants every day
• scrapping time
• National Trust membership

 

 

Tough challenge completed

Over at Dotty about Flair they have had a monochrome scrapping challenge going on for a few weeks. I find monochrome pages difficult. There were ten colours and I struggled with some but here are my 10 pages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and this is the last one completed today with lots of copper gilding way on titles and brads and stuff

 

 

 

 

 

In other news I have been playing along with Scrap Squad's 12 days of Autumn

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spent ages making leaves - tedious but I have plenty left

 

 

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• a new coat bought yesterday and two new pair of jeans now turned up to the right length (I think I am getting shorter)
• that the rain has stopped for a while (it's been grim)
• retirement - loving it