Some 12x12 love

Hi all! I thought it was about time that I shared some 12 x12 love on  my pages. I have been very busy creating but this has resulted in no time left to blog it! M

My lovely scrappy friend, Suz Mannecke, sent me a scrummy box of scrappy goodies a few weeks ago with strict instructions to use it up and share the creations! The box had some much stuff it was impossible not to be inspired! 

I had a few photos laying around from J's 5th birthday and the blues and greens in them co-ordinated perfectly with some papers I had (Studio Calico I believe?) Suz had included a 12x12 sheet of Echo Park (?) stickers which just co-ordinated perfectly including a fab bunting strip that was perfect to hang off of some bakers twine inbetween two brads.

 

Not to miss out the girl child, I also scrapped a few recent pics of her as she started preschool. Boy does she look so grown up! I can't believe she'll be three next month! Again, I used some letter sticker, borders and paper from 'Suz's stash' but added some old Studio Calico 'Elemantary' papers as well as digging out my sewing machine to add some detail. Ta da!

12x12 love. Done.

Today

Today we met friends at the Park for a walk (or run) and play. I just love this city park and this time of year. I took the camera as I was hoping for some good Autumn shots whilst the daylight was ok. I did play with the camera settings a bit incl. some time in manual mode with varying amounts of success. Unfortunately, some of the better shots were close ups of my friends little boy so I can't share those here but hopefully she'll love them.

 There was a fair bit of tree climbing....

 and of course, whatever one can do, so can the other!

 My boy. So handsome. I love him so much!

 Her. Beautiful. Its so rare to get a good shot of her as she moves so much!! I'm thinking they might make good shots for the grandparents gifts at Christmas!

Then, the rain came down and spoilt our fun. The cafe was closed so no hot chocolate (boo hiss!) and we all went home slightly colder and wetter than we arrived. I think I might revisit the park at the weekend and see if I can improve on these shots and maybe try some new ideas too. If you have any links to similar shots for my inspiration then please comment and link me up!

Around Here & Project LIfe

Around here... We've been enjoying the final few days together when school isn't an issue and we can just play and relax. We've been reflecting on how life might change when you start school and how this makes me feel both happy and sad.

Around here.. We've noticed how quiet the house is when you guys aren't here and how strange that feels. I think it might take some getting used to.

Around here... We've been busy preparing for school, making sure uniform is ready; lunches are made and bags are packed. We've been talking lots about what to expect and who will be doing what. Organisation has been a huge factor in this week.

Around here...We've been taking our first days at school. Admittedly, just half days to start with but school nonetheless. You've loved it and have so far (re)learnt the phonics for S, A and T. We've had lots of singing the Jolly Phonics songs and asking questions. Curoisity is good, Jack. You need to foster that enthusiasm for learning.

Around here: We've had lots of telephone calls to Daddy. To wish you good luck. To see how you're doing. It's been good to be in touch.

Around here: Whatever one is doing, the other is not far behind copying. We'd hate you to feel left out!

Around here: We've been pottering in the garden, doing the autumn tidy up and being amazed by how much is in bloom or is blooming twice. I cut the roses back after they finished flowering in July and now they're at it again!

 

Around here: We've been projecting lifeing. We've been documenting the ups and downs of trying to juggle family and work commitments and how grateful we are for good friends who help us out when we need it. We've been grateful for long distance friends sending extremely kind gifts and reigniting my 12x12 mojo:

 Documenting a colour copy of the first piece of work Jack did for school as an insert page along with another random drawing on the reverse:

Lots of journalling to document my feelings alongside an insert with pictures of J doing his school prep and his school tray:



Superhero party!

The summer around here has been very busy. We've unpacked from the house move; worked on the garden; prepared for new starts at school and preschool as well as working hard at our jobs.

September has brought all new kinds of routines in our house to which we are still adjusting.

To start, this bundle of loveliness turned 5! I really can't believe it! Given his birthday is so early on in the month we knew that we'd need to organise and invite people early as we might not see them too much over the holidays. J kept changing his mind over his party theme choosing Ben10, Spiderman, Batman etc so we talked it over and decided to roll it all into one theme: Superheroes!

I spent ages looking at ideas on Pinterest and thinking about what we could do. I knew I really wanted it to be based outdoors; 17 children running loose in my house is not my idea of fun! Luckily, we've always been really lucky with the weather around his birthday and we chose the final really sunny weekend of the year. If anything it was probably too hot as after a while all the children had to strip off their Superhero costumes for fear of melting!

We hung decorations that K designed at work around the garden: off the trees, fences and our wooden gazebo area. I added some streamers too for the party effect.

 Kev found this red, white and blue bunting reduced to £1.50 in the ELC so he snagged up 2 packets which was easily enough to do one long side of fence and around the front of the house. Again, it really added to the party atmosphere.

 We turned the gazebo area into a superhero den with more superhero words hanging from the ceiling and paper streamers attached. Underneath and out of the way of the sun, we had a couple of tables with Superhero colouring sheets I'd printed out and a craft table with some paper Superhero masks and things to stick on them as decorations. The kids really loved this! It kept them entertained as they were arriving and meant that parents didn't need to worry about their child missing out if they weren't dressed up.

Once all the children were here we played a few games including Musical Superhero statues (Chn ran aorund like Superheroes until the music stopped and then had to stand like a Superhero) and Pass the Parcel. I'd chosen some Superhero themed prizes from places like Poundland and The Works, which were a big hit!

Once lunchtime came (we held the party from 11-1 to coincide with lunch) we had hotdogs and potato wedges which went down well and were really easy to do.

The cakes are always the bit of a birthday I tend to plan first. They're pretty much the only thing I insist on doing every year. This year we had cupcakes with Superhero cake toppers that I found on Ebay. These were easy to give away at the end of the party rather than having to worry about cutting into the main cake when I really wanted to be outside with J and his friends.

 For his main cake, he wanted a chocolate sponge, so using a pattern guide from an old family friend, I cut a circle and loaf cake into the shape of a number 5 and then iced it with blue ready roll icing before decorating with an icing pen and some Spiderman figures from the toyshop.

All his friends came dressed as Superheroes which was really cute! I was so pleased that all his friends (and their parents!) made that effort as it really added to the day. We had Spiderman, Batman, Supergirl, Buzz Lightyear, Superhero Minnie mouses... They all looked great!

As an additional surprise the REAL Spiderman also paid a visit to play with the children. My nephew, C, was SO pleased to see him! I've since heard other children are now asking for Spidey to make a visit at their parties!!

 As Spiderman came towards the end of the party, I used this point to take a group photo of all the children with Spidey so that I could print it out and attach it to J's thank you cards as a reminder of the day.

 Before the children  went home, I had again made some party bags for each child filled with Superhero themed gifts such as some Avengers Candy sticks from the local shop; Superhero Chupa Chups; Spiderman stickers etc. I personalised each bag with a Superhero character cut out using my Cricut and made to look like each child with their own inital on the front. These type of touches seemed to make the day even more special.

 



At the end of the day, J told me that he'd really enjoyed his party and tiredly said, 'I love my Spiderman cake' so I know all the effort was really worth it.

I have 2 months to recover now before I have to think about E's party!

Explore: a response

How do you scrap?
I'd be pretty happy to guess that when scrapping you have a fairly routinous process that involves selecting photos, then your papers, then embellishments etc until you've got a fairly complete LO. If you're like me, you then wonder where on Earth you can squeeze in a title and possibly, some journalling. You do the same process on most layouts, occasionally choosing papers first over the photos but the rest remains the same.

Having signed up for Shimelles latest class, Explore, she's given me a few ideas about how to change that process and possibly create layouts that are slightly different in style as a result. Watching the class videos has been inspiring; I have serious Shimelle love going on in this house at the moment! lol! I haven't always had time to follow the ideas through to completion but itchy, crafty fingers got the better of me today and whilst the girlchild slept, I made the most of it!

I decided to try and mix together two prompt ideas:
1) scrapping from the inside out i.e. starting with embellishments and finishing with paper
2)choosing colour to suit a mood.

I had these two 6x4 photos in mind. The story I wanted to tell had nothing to do with the photos, except that they both involve Jack. The story is funny and cheerful (as is he!) and it was told to me last week (summer!) so from all that I decided that I'd try scrapping in sunny, cheerful colours aka: yellow! I went through most of my accessible papers/kits and collected anything that I thought would be useful and put them into piles e.g. paper, lettering, stickers, die cuts etc. This was interesting as it brought together a range of different manufacturers and products whereas, because a lot of my stash was bought in kits, I usually scrap in the same manufacturers stash for the whole LO. Already stepping out of my comfort zone!

I then looked through the papers I might possibly use, eliminated ones that didn't 'go' and then from this found some co-ordinating cardstock that I could use to matt my 6x4 photos.

Then, rather than reaching for the pretty papers, I grabbed the pile of stickers and die cut labels and quickly choosing a few different but co-ordinating ones, layered a selection at one side of the photos. I was thinking that this would be either title or journalling space.

Using other embellishments and border stickers, I created a similar section at the bottom corner of the photos, adding an offcut of paper behind the photos to the same height as the embellishments on the other side. Once I could see the whole picture, I decided where my title and journalling etc was going to go- no leaving it til last minute! I think by this point I'd used about 5 or 6 different manufacturers products!

It seemed rather flat to me by this stage so I looked through my flower box for some flowers that might match and added those to the layout along with some black gems.

Once that was done, I was ready to start choosing a background paper which probably took the longest for me! I started with the yellows that I'd pulled out earlier as I hadn't really used those yet:

I decided most of them were too busy against the embellishments although I did rather like the chequered paper.

This stamp effect border was too much:

as was the polka dot (kinda liked it but figured you wouldn't see the journalling):

Too much lemon?

But darker yellow didn't work either:

Light grey?

Dark grey?

White?

Black?

It was really interesting to see the way that the effect the layout had, changed with the different coloured backgrounds from more lighthearted with the brighter colours to serious with the darker ones.

In the end I went with the medium grey, mainly to tie in some of the grey from the embellishments although it was a hard choice between that and the white.

Overall, I'm really pleased with this layout and it took much less time than usual because I'd already made most of the decisions before I started sticking. I might possibly paint a yellow border around it to bring it all together but only because I've seen Miss Shimelle do that quite a bit recently on the videos. See? I told you there was a lot of Shimelle love in this room! xx