Should I Stay or Should I Go ?

A title taken from the well known track by The Clash  . . . .   perfect for this LO of Joe that I did for the weekly challenge on UKS.  Niki set the challenge and part of the criteria was to scrap something that has happened recently, within the last month.  These pics couldn’t be any more recent  . . .  they were taken on the day the challenge was set. Joe reading over his Leaving Cert (The Irish equivalent to A Levels) results and trying to decide what his next should be. He is only 17 so quite young to be going to University although he was offered a place at NUI Galway to study Science with a specialist subject. We gave him all the support he needed to make his choice and after a few days of stress and indecisive dithering he made the choice not to take up the offer but to stay back and resit to improve some of his grades and head to university next year. It was a relief for me . . . .   Im not quite ready to have my baby move out just yet (will I ever be ?? . . . lol)  He is a bright and sensible boy and I think he has made the right choice. 

Other criteria for the challenge was to use sewing, tearing and ribbon. All of these are evident on my LO. I stitched on tags that I had made as well as round the edges of the page. The various ‘hidden’ tags hold the journaling which tells the full story behind Joe sitting the Leaving Cert at 17.

I drew round the flat alpha stickers to make them ‘pop’ and highlighted the 17 on the ruler to indict the age of Joe.

Thanks for stopping by!

3 In A Bed

Recession has hit us here in Templemoyle the same as it has everywhere and it became even more apparent the minute I saw this   . . . . .

The budget is stretched more and more each month but rest assured everyone here does have his/her own bed . . lol    I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw Mia Pinkerton had climbed up on top of mum Coco-Bean and brother Bruno . . .  definitely a photo that will be appearing on a LO soon.

A Total Lack of . . . . .

everything!  Crafting, blogging, online chatting and Pinterest browsing. Why ?  Well, I’ve been suffering from a bad bout of reoccurring migraine. I’ve been a sufferer for as long as I can remember and its something you get used to but the latest cluster of attacks I have had really threw me and zapped all my energy. 

Thankfully I’m feeling on the up and up now and the new glasses I pick up this Friday should help a little especially with my computer time (a girl needs her online quota!).

With a quiet house this morning I have managed to spend some time scrapping and produce a LO for the house challenge on UKScrappers which was a colour combo challenge. These are the colours for the challenge, which I absolutely love and could use over and over again.

My old Epson photo printer has finally given up the ghost so I am not very organised with photo’s as I usually wait and print off what I need / want for a particular LO so this time I had to sift through some older photo’s and find one I liked that I thought would work with these colours. I settle on this photo of the three kids from March 2009 (gosh that seems like forever ago doesn’t it ?). I chose it because I liked the green and grey tones in the background and also if you look up close you’ll see that both Amy and Tony have a little touch of pink on their clothes (Amy’s T-shirt peeping out from under her jumper and the lettering on Tony's Fleece) – perfect match to compliment the challenge colours.

Be Seated Little Ones

I used a mask and some ink dabbers to add some interest to the background paper and then distressed some scraps of patterned paper to create a matt for the photo. The leaves are punched from the Owl Stampin’ Up punch.

A little chipboard heart embellished with a pink gem is layered onto a heart sticker  . . . . .

To add in a little touch of the accent pink colour I printed off a sticker using my Brother Label Maker which I have had for almost a year and never used before then added a bit of stitch detail in a shade of pink underneath. I kept the alpha’s ‘naked’ and just dabbed a light touch of ink onto them through the same spotty mask I had used for the background.

To finish off I journalled round the page about our day hiking in the Glenveagh NP and how tired the kids where when we came upon these three seats in a clearing in the forest just in time for them to take a much needed rest.

This morning has been a lovely scrapping time . . . .  its good to be back x

Been There, Done This . . .

A few weeks ago I travelled to Holystone nr. Newcastle for the Frozen North Crop and as per usual I had a fab time with friends. My scrapping mojo has taken a nose dive and didn’t really surface all weekend as much as I tried. I did manage 3 LO’s and a bit of a mini book . . . .   so here’s what I achieved in between coffee cake (supplied by the lovely Karen) chatter and too many cups of tea.

This month the House Challenge on UK Scrappers came with this sketch for inspiration . .  . .

The photo is of Amy & Tony on beach. Amy was having one of her crazypants moments which was hilarious . . .   and I just love the look of amusement on Tony’s face.

The next LO I did was for the weekly challenge which was set by Michelle. Her criteria were scrap a non summer theme, use paint on your LO, use an odd number of photos and use white space. Here’s what I came up with . . .

We’re Simply Perfect Together

Karen kindly lent me her bubble wrap stamp to play with and of course I loved it so I have now bought one of my own. I stamped with acrylic paint and then painted the chipboard heart to coordinate.

And my final LO was for my Scrap-A-Sketch group. The sketch was chosen this month by Heather . .

These photo’s of Tony playing on his surf board were perfect for this LO. I had originally taken these pics to the Scrapstars Retreat to use during one of Emma Trout’s classes but once I got there I realised they didn’t fit with the theme of the papers we used.

Since I got back from Holystone I have done absolutely nothing in the line of scrapbooking or otherwise crafty . . .  a bad migraine attack has had me feeling flat for a few days now so I am only just get back online. 

Here’s hoping August is going to be a month full of creativity and a bit more sunshine!