August, September ,October, November and December Challenges - 2013

Well it's been a long time since I blogged, but hey life often gets in the way nowadays. I have less time for crafting, in fact less time for everything. I'm not sure why, work is pretty much the same as last year although now I am classroom based.

Still onwards and upwards - here are the pictures of my 3 LO's (hopefully in the right order).

August was Holidays, the pictures for this one are a mixture of large and small circles, the reason for this is that when I planned it I had a completely different theme in mind - the size of album I chose means that I now have the opportunity to re-do this challenge in a 12x12 format later when I have more time. The background for the layouts was made using a photograph I had taken in Woolacombe this year after a day full of huge rainstorms, the evening was warm and sunny and we had an amazing time on the beach.

The journalling around the outside says when we were away and where we went.

September was Back to School, I used the same format as the tag challenge from the previous year as I loved the idea of using an 'old style' blackboard as the main base. The pictures show Harry on his first ever day at school and also his first day at secondary school, I can't believe how quickly the years have passed. The second pictures show Reece (wearing glasses) and George on their first day back with both of them in KS2. I couldn't find the pictures of their first day at school so I used pictures from their time in Nursery.

All of the boys are doing very well in school and are 3 very smart little cookies.

October was Autumn - a few years ago we went to Legoland to celebrate Reece's birthday in the middle of September. It was a lovely warm day with just a hint of autumn in the leaves, the boys had warned their auntie not to keep eating their crisps, she had her own but was teasing them by pretending to eat theirs too. So they decided to show her what would happen if she took any more of their food! The journalling on the leaves says "Don't eat our crisps!" and also " You were warned!"

I love the texture of the packing cardboard as the base, I also used some of my very limited wood effect papers and the rusty shiny paper to compliment this.

November was a choice of Winter, Fireworks or our Best Moment/Day of the Year, so I chose the last option. We had lots of amazing days throughout the year but everyone said one of the days we spent on the beach in Woolacombe was the best. We arrived early and like the day before the boys chose to make our 'camp' near the inlet which was flowing well down to the sea. After building lots of sandcastles they decided to dig trenches to join these all together with a series of moats. This worked really well until another family next to us decided to join in too and between us we flooded the area, a quick repair job was needed before other families returned to their piles of things on the beach! George decided he didn't want to spend a long time in the sea so he made himself a little island with a deep moat and sat in there happily playing for hours until a HUGE seagull came to try and share his crisps, after growling and yelling at him, which had no effect on the gull George decided to throw his spade at it and then chase it across the sand, much to the amusement of his dad and me, until he realised another gull had stolen the rest of his crisps! Our memories of the day are journalled on the back of the pages so that we can look back at them in the future.

December was Christmas and as I was so far behind with the challenges I used pictures from this year, the boys still sit on the top stair to find out if 'he' has been in their new pj's. My son always tries to find different ways to wrap their gifts and this year was no exception with Harry receiving a large cracker with a variety of socks, pants and other gifts inside.

Thank you for looking and any comments you wish to make 

June Challenge

Well finally my June challenge is finished, it's not quite how I wanted it to look but as I'm having trouble with both hands it's not so bad, I can always change or re-do it when things settle down.

The theme was Summer and I'm not a great one for taking scenery pictures, I much prefer them to be of my family. My daughter doesn't come out with us very often, she's busy with work and study and her own things, so most of my recent pictures feature my son, his sons and my lovely hubby.

Thank you for looking and any comments you may wish to make

 

Staff Birthday Cards

Over the holidays I have managed to make a few cards to start on the list of birthdays at work - I think I need about 53 this year, I try to make these as simple as possible, so that the children can take them around to be signed - that way they hopefully won't get damaged, this year I set myself the challenge of using up as many papers/embellishments from old stock as I could. So far I am doing well on this, I haven't bought anything new for these at all. Although I did buy a set of nesties to make some special cards (more of that later)

I did have a few more but my husband and daughter have had them.
Now for my special cards - my Mother-in-Law is 80 on Sunday (she doesn't blog hop so I can post her cards here). We also went to our Nephew's wedding too.

The first card is from Hubby and me, the 2nd and 3rd are for my Son to choose from and the bottom one was for the wedding.

Thanks for stopping by and any comments you wish to make 

July Challenge

Finally I am getting there with my challenges that I set each month over on Docrafts. I am way behind and still need to make June, August and then September's ... BUT I have managed 1 Layout during the school holidays.

The theme was Tea-Time and as my grandsons always seem to be munching on something I thought I'd play on the title - when they have a picnic it always looks like feeding time at the zoo as they fill their plates and sit eating and chatting. There are a few more embellishments on there now but the pictures were too blurred to use.

Thank you for stopping by and any comments you wish to make

May Challenge - Those Baby Blues!

3 posts in one week is something of a miracle for me!

Here is my page for my May challenge over on Docrafts, which Coventry Ann kindly ran for me because my youngest Grandson George was in hospital.

The theme was Monochrome using Black & White photographs - I knew exactly what I wanted to do and have spent may hours trying to solve the problem but in the end I gave up and just used photos of George. His brothers Harry and Reece also have beautiful eyes, but Reece's are almost ice blue and too pale to use for the photo effects and Harry has quite dark eyes, but they are too dark for this. Several years ago I was playing with a version of Adobe Photoshop that I had on my old computer and came across this picture of George that I played around with.

I think the effects are stunning as he has such beautiful eyes, I turned the picture into black & white and sepia, I have also used the original colour photo too. I mounted everything onto just plain rectangles of different shades of blue, added a title and just his name and the date they were taken on because I didn't want anything to detract from his eyes.

I love the look on his face and it reminds me of the mornings when he woke up in his cot at the end of my bed and just sat there looking at me with a huge grin on his cheeky face, he's nearly 7 now and is still just a cute as he was then.

Thank you for looking and any comments you wish to make 

Better Late Than Never - April Challenge

As the title says - Better late than never !

This Layout is from my challenge over on  Docrafts, The theme for April was Easter or Spring.
For us recently, Easter has been a quick break away to charge our batteries until we can get away on holiday.
I have included a few photos from when we went to Cornwall in 2010 and some from last year when we had good weather. This year it was too cold to hold onto the camera, so we only have the pictures that George takes for us, usually the inside of his nose, someone's bottom or things that are on the floor! - he'll get there in the end after all he's still only 6.

The journalling on the pages reads -  Easter is ... Hunting dragons in Cornwall in 2010 and sulking when they can't fly!
It's egg hunts in caravans and being together.
(Yes that is me in the photo, taken between rain-showers on the way there - one of very few I have of me).

The other page (sorry for the quality - I get the shakes in my right hand and I don't think they make cameras for lefties).
Easter is ... Go-Karts and play-fights in Dawlish.
It's donkey rides and Sticky Fingers (The BEST ice-cream shop ever), little monsters with cameras and it's making memories.

Thank you for looking and any comments you wish to make