Catch Up Time

Hi all...the prodigal returns!! I bet you thought I was on the missing persons list, it's been a week and no postings. Life has kept me jumping the last 7 days with never a dull moment. So first I'll fill you in a little on my week..and then a gift!!,

The Theme Park trip on Friday went well but I am still struggling to get the photos off my old camera..it's holding on to them and won't let me download them!! I need to have an other wrestling match with it tomorrow and see if it will finally relinquish it's hold.

It was Lilly's first time at a park like this and she loved the kiddie rides..too much so...she didn't want to get off. I was of course overprotective and made a wonderful sight on the children's rides in the backseat...Lilly naturally was driving, lol. My children thought it was hilarious...an 19month old in the front and grandma in the back. I have to admit it was a tight squeeze and it raised a few eyebrows...but I did it!! Mind you I don't think I need have bothered as the little lady in question was squealing with glee. It was definitely her kind of thing.

Lilly and her parents stayed until Monday evening, so the weekend was full to overflowing with events, but it was all great fun. On Saturday we went to the street market in Lymington and browsed. There were eight of us and we kept loosing each other, but eventually we reunited in time to eat. I love markets they have such a wide variety of goodies on sale and the atmosphere is brilliant.

I told you that I was putting together some bookcases with doors...well here they are. This was taken last Thursday before the company arrived. Tuesday I finished filling them with books and they look so much better, but I thought I'd let you have a peek. I still need to get the mirrors and pictures up in the rest of the room and find the accent touches, like changing the lamp shades, cushions, new curtains...need I go on? But it gives you an idea of what I've been up to. I'll post some more photos as it progresses.

 

 

The sun shone on Sunday and the lovely Lilly threw her clothes away and so we spent the day covering her in sun cream. Good job it was water proof for every time we put it on...she headed for the paddling pool!! Typical! But we all enjoy the day and the sun was beautiful, warmth...how I love it.

However, when Tuesday dawned, it was work as usual for me, time to pay the price and catchup on the backlog. But I can honestly say it was worth it. It's taken me three days of hard slog but I'm back to the point that by the weekend ....I'll be ready for the next round of chaos!!! Lol!

Now, my gift for you. I hope there is something for everyone, designers, scrappers, Photoshop lovers, whatever ....or that's my hope. It's just some simple folded or curled papers, but they can be used in so many different ways. Each piece is quite large, that way it expands the range of things you can use them for. They're large enough to use as mats in you work, or scaled down they can be used for embellishments...your choice.

If you design there's a grayscale pack to download...if not then there is a separate pack of coloured examples to add to your pages. Or grab them both!!! I hope you have fun playing with them and adding your own personal touches to make them your own.

You can download the grayscale pack here

You can download the sample papers here

Well, time for me to go. Take care and have a great evening/day!!

Technorati Tags: folded and curled papers,photoshop,scrapbooking,graphic design,free download,catch up

 

All Stuck Up

The past two days I have busy stripping. Yes, you heard me stripping!! I have been giving it all I've got and stripped to the bare bones....my sitting room that is. It's decorating for me I'm afraid and it's a LONG job!! The sitting room has wallpaper on as the walls are old and not in such great shape (a bit like me). It is a truly hideous job. The wallpaper needs to be wet before it will relinquish it's grip on the wall..but...when it's wet it's sticky and gunky and sticks to everything else....me included!!

I worked really hard to get one clear, taking great care with the plastic sheeting to keep all the wet soggy paper bits together...but I hadn't banked on a visit from a whirlwind.. Charlie!! He got loose and shot into the sitting room and yes of course, he was so pleased to see me. I mean I had been missing for all of 2 hours. He flew over and spun around before retreating quickly at my yells. I could see that look that said "Okay...what did I do this time?" on his face. He looked indignantly at me and turned tail!

As he shot back out and into the dinning room he took wet bits of paper stuck to his paws, tail and anything else it could stick to. He really spread it around the room on his way out. Grrrr!!! He didn't stop there either, I could follow his trail down the hall and back to his bed.

But, I was soon back at work and collecting more of the yucky paper on my plastic sheet. Things were not going to badly...until the phone rang. I decided I would ignore it and call whoever it was back....but..yes, Charlie again!! He decided that he should bark and howl to let me know that I was needed on the phone. Not only that but the caller hung up and then redialed!!!! So, second time I thought it was just easier to answer it. I rushed out and into the next room and grabbed the phone only to turn around and see that someone had covered the hall again with lots of the wet nasty paper!!!

Who could have done that? "Hold on a moment can you?" I asked the caller and I filled my lungs and yelled "CHARLIE!". I was more than a little surprised when he jumped innocently out of his bed. It couldn't have been him...mmm.....so who was it? Being totally stupid it took me a minute to workout the culprit......me. Okay, I should have thought that my Crocs would have paper stuck to them and I really should have noticed that I was walking around with about 3 inches of it stuck to the bottoms.

So, after I had finished on the phone (and apologised to Charlie) I decided to call it a day and start again tomorrow. I think the paste fumes must have addled my brain and enough is enough for today!!

Before I started decorating I posted quite a lot of photographs of Lilly in an album on Facebook and I've started to make some layouts using them for an other album. Lilly is great to follow around and photograph...she doesn't mind a bit. In fact she has got so used to it she must think that all Grandma's come complete with cameras!! Nature, flowers and animals this little lady loves and she can never resist a pretty flower as her pictures show.

In the layout below I used a paper from a kit I've made called By the Pond and some flowers, butterflies and ivy from an other called In the Garden. I have to admit that I made them with Lilly in mind. I had great fun splitting up, bending and warping the frame too. I just love doing these.

Have a look and see if what you think. Yet an other new style I tried out!!

Spot the little frog at the bottom right of the paper...I love him!!

 

Lilly really does have a passion for flowers...show her a bloom and the hand goes out and the nose goes down. She can't resist a sniff to see if they smell as good as they look. No flower is safe from little Miss Nosey!!

 

"mmm....quite nice"

"This one is looking at me"

"I know your there Grandma!"

 

These I took with one of her great Grandma's (my mum) hats on and plus lot of chocolate spread around her mouth!!! Charlotte loved these but would have preferred them without the chocolate, lol! But I say "au natural", so here she is "warts and all"...so to speak. Good enough for Ascot!!

 

"I can be shy"

 

"Well..who'd have thought my dear!!"

 

That's me for tonight...it's so late now, but I'll be back on Monday with a little gift for you...that is if I don't get stuck to the floor!!

Have a great weekend and stay safe.

Technorati Tags: Lilly,photos,decorating fun

Move it!!

What is it about breaks that makes you so tired afterwards? I think it must be all that relaxing..it makes it harder to shift back into top gear and start speeding up again. Anyway, to add to it, we have got some sun!! Really...sun, warm, hot, bright sun!!

It's not often that we get it hot here in UK, but it has been hot this week and I love it. But it is so tempting to just put off work and enjoy it. I know I shouldn't...but the little devil in me says "Oh go on, just for a while". I can almost feel the little horns poking out but still I sit a while or wander around the garden and check the flowers. I'm bad!! But....the solution is at hand...it is due to rain tomorrow and the temperature will drop...so it will be no more excuses and back to work. I mean who likes wandering around in the rain? Well, actually....I do!! But..I won't!!

I mentioned that I had visited Bruges again this trip and spent an other lovely day wandering around it's old streets and canals. It's not called the Venice of the North for nothing, it is full of bridges and calming water, with some superb buildings. Take a look.

The Rosary Dock (Rozenhoedkaal) and the Belfry.

The squares are full of cafes with menus in English, Flemish and French, really tourist friendly.

What more could you want than shops full of Belgian chocolates and lace?

For the romantic there is the opportunity to ride around the town in a horse drawn carriage...at a price!!

Okay, you have suffered my holiday snaps and now I have something for you. Just a small gift to add to the My Little Garden Kit, an alpha. I don't do many alphas but I made this one to use myself and so I thought I would share it with the rest of the kit. It has upper and lower case letters, plus 3 letter frames that you can use with the capital letters if you want...I did..

You can download the Alpha here

 

Have a great day/evening and I hope that the sun is shining on you where ever you are.

Technorati Tags: bruges,photographs,freedownload,alpha

Travel Trip Update

Our trip through the tunnel was a good one and on arrival in France we decided to drive just over the border and visit the Belgian coast as the base for our break. We live near the sea and so we've never normally stayed in seaside places when we go away, but this time we thought "seaside".

We opted for De Panne, just over the French border and a seaside resort. It turned out to be an interesting town, full of contradictions. The buildings along the wide white beach were mostly blocks of holiday flats..a bit like Spain..going for volume, but the streets behind it reminded me of Blackpool without the funfair!! The whole town was like that...almost like different places depending on which streets you walked...a real mix, but fun exploring. Market place, shopping boutiques, seaside stuff, you name it they seem to have it all in this one small town.

One of the interesting things about Belgium is they have two languages, French and Flemish. It just depends what area of the country you are in as to which language people speak. As De Panne is a holiday town a lot of the people speak both, plus English and a few speak German. It is lovely to just sit and listen to people around you and hear so many different languages and dialects all in the one place. You really feel like your watching the world go by...or at least listening to it!!

The beach was lovely, wide white and clean. So, after checking into our hotel we decided to take a stroll. The tide was out and a large sand bar was available as a second promenade and even although it was early evening, we walked for miles, taking in the peace and fresh air. What a beautiful sight, seeing the sun reflected on the sea and watch the light get less and less as the sun slipped silently away.

Our hotel, the Hotel Royal, is a family run hotel. The owner/manager is a lovely, friendly young lady who took over running the place on her father's death. She is the fourth generation of her family to run it...and she is doing a wonderful job. The rooms have all mode cons, but atmosphere of the place is of a gentler less frantic time. I could imagine the hotel in the 1920's, 40's and 50's, full of respectable Belgian's drinking coffee in the "tea room", or sedately eating breakfast in the dinning room.

We were on the second floor and had a balcony which I was slightly scared of...it was VERY narrow and it was a long way down....I hate heights!! I did sit on it but I preferred the ground floor terrace..coward that I am. I went out to grab a quick photo or two and then scuttled back in!! It did appeal to some though as when we came back in on Saturday afternoon, we found two young men were sitting on our balcony enjoying a drink and the sun. It seems they came through the emergency exit that leads on to it and thought they would just stay and enjoy the view. DH explained the balcony came with our room and they moved on...to find an other unoccupied balcony I expect, lol!!

The only thing I did missed was a kettle in the room, but in Belgium it seems that people prefer to promenade and visit the terraces and plentiful cafes where they can watch the world go by as they sip. I have to admit we did a fair bit of watching the world go by ourselves but we had a multitude of bottles of water for those dry moments in our room. Perhaps the Belgians are also shrewd enough to know that if you have no kettle they can sell you the coffee...or perhaps they feel that good coffee can't be made in your room...who knows.

We only ate breakfast at the hotel and then we had fun picking places to snack or eat dinner in. Being a seaside town, fish and shell fish were on the menu everywhere. Mussels were the big thing, done to various recipes....some with lots of garlic...yummy!!The sea front promenade has space for cycles and carts of all sizes not to mention the scores of people who appeared at the weekend for what turned out to be a holiday weekend locally.

As our break was short we didn't want to spend all the time driving but we did spend Friday walking around Bruges to visit some of our favourite places. The temperature was around 30 degrees in the morning and very hot for wandering around, so we sat in the shade in a park and watched the water flow by when the going got too over powering. What is it about water that is so soothing?

 

But by afternoon, when we were driving back to De Panne the rain arrived and cleared the air, leaving a newly washed feel to everything.

Saturday morning brought the sun back after a misty start and again the temperature soared to the high 20's. Saturday was a special day for the town, a Braderie, and so there was a street market, brass bands and all the shops had 30% off..a sale!! We walked and jostled in the crowds and then ate and walked some more on the sand bar. The day flew by and soon that sun was setting again and I was yawning wide!! Tired but happy I fell into my bed.

Sunday morning we ate our fill on the standard continental breakfast, fruit salad, rolls, French bread, cheese, ham, jams, croissants, jam, juice...you get the picture..I'm a pig!! Feeling a little over stuffed, we headed for the patisserie and after buying some of our favourite breads set of back into France and the tunnel under the sea. Mind you, it still takes three and a half hours to get home after we get to Dover, so it was afternoon before we rolled up at our front door.

I felt tired and refreshed at the same time...have you ever felt like that...or is it just me? Strange as usual!!

Well, I'm off now but I'll be back tomorrow with a little goodie for you all and some more pictures. Take care until then.

Technorati Tags: Belgium,De Panne,Bruges,trip,photographs

Template Freebie and a Little of Life's Magic!

I haven't done a template for ages..so I thought I'd have one as my freebie today. The download is in psd and png files, so more of you can use it.

But first...........

Today my DH was at home and so we decided (OK, I decided) to escape to the forest for a walk..far away from everyone..just a little peace for an hour or two. So we left, me armed with my trusty camera and my DH with the bottles of water and a quick snack. As you can see our priorities are slightly different...his were on the food, mine were more on the soul food, lol! OK, he's practical..I was a little more.....less practical!!

The "forest" near us is the huge New Forest, a mixture of forest enclosures and open heath land. Not that it's new, its got it's name in the 11th century! We picked the heath land today as, yes, I blinked and the sun disappeared!! It was overcast with a stiff wind, so on went the jackets and off we went.

We'd agreed that we would take our time and just wander...we me taking the odd picture. I have to tell you I normally leave DH at home when I go on my forest rambles as I love to stop and look and take my pictures. Let's just say it was walk..stop,click,.. walk...stop, click. There were just so many beautiful things to see!! The ponies who run wild, highland cattle who had been turned out, flowers, insects, butterflies....and on and on!!

My poor DH tried hard to be patient but I would try a saints patience!! I think he almost lost it when I kept lying down on my tummy in the grass or wriggling into bushes...but he was really good and only politely enquired if we would have time to get back to the car before tea!! So many times he ended up wandering along talking to his shadow..me I had found a new delight and was happily looking and clicking, totally oblivious to the fact he had walked on. For a man not renowned for being tactful...he was brilliant!! Bless! He must have felt like he was out with a five year old, lol!

We did eventually make it back to the car before the search party was launched...and yes he did get his tea!! But...I just had to share some of the wonderful sites we saw. Here's just a taste...unedited, straight from the camera. Gosh the worlds a wonderful place..even on our own doorsteps!

Look at that butterfly on the thistle..it looks like a leaf!

The busy bee on the blackberry flowers

The ragwort and heather

The highland cattle having a drink

And look at this incredible fungus!!!

I could go on..but I'd better stop there! Just take it from me it was a delight to just slowdown and spot the little things going on around us. The things we could so easily walk past and miss. It's things like those that mend our souls!

Now I'll concentrate, I promise!! For those of you who would like the Template:

You can download the layered template here

And I had a wonderful surprise from the lovely Kim from Kim's Scrappin she made two wonderful layouts of the fantastic Miss Lilly for me and they are beautiful....look at the leg popping out of the frame!! Kim you did a marvelous job on these, thank you so much!!

 

Credits...
All parts are from the 'June CT Collab' by Cen's Stuff & CT Team
Ribbons, sign, flowers (at bottom of page) by June Schutrups-(Cen's Stuff)
Background paper by me - (Kim's Scrappin')
Paper for mat by Monica Rampani - (Random Inspirations)
Flower by Debi Cooper - (Sweet Adeline Designs)
Grass by Melanie Meijer de Oliveira - (Sweet As Mel)                                                               Dragonfly by June Schutrups-(Cen's Stuff)
Background paper, frame, Paper for mat, word art by Kim's Scrappin

Template by Kat - (TragedyScrappinAnne)
Cute baby is Miss Lilly , the beautiful smiling granddaughter of June

 

And....if you'd like the Quick Pages that Kim made of these lovely layouts then drop by her blog and snag them...they are great!!

Time to go and do some work after all this slacking!! I've had a great day it's a same to spoil it with work, lol!! Take care and remember...slowdown once in a while and smell the flowers!

Technorati Tags: photos,nature,template,scrapbooking,quick pages,freebies