ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY - 49TH OF 2025

 Good morning lovely people tis Friday time for

this is my moment to take stock and reflect on the last 7 days for the positive moments and silver linings that have happened. 

Last Friday we travelled to up to Sheffield for a walk around the Christmas markets.  Hubby and I travelled on the tram and when we got there is was torrential rain, my footwear turned out to be completely unsuitable but more to the point my waterproof rain jacket started to fail.  We headed to the millennium galleries as an area that was at least dry and I attempted to dry off my coat using a hand dryer which improved things a little.  We were meeting up with said 25 year old his lovely wife and our grandson, they were travelling by car and thankfully by the time they arrived the weather had backed off and we were able to browse the market without pouring rain. 

My d-in-law treated me to a hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows, it was a lovely wintery treat even if it was very naughty. 

We walked all the way to the bottom of the Moor and then wandered back up, hubby treated us to our tea from the German sausage vendor which was lovely, we all enjoyed it and were mighty full afterwards.

I managed to grab this shot of the three of them, their first proper Christmas outing.  It was a joy to spend time with them and my grandson was as good as gold, they had timed the feeds well. 

On Saturday they came over again and despite the rain we walked around to the local church for the Christmas tree festival, I have never seen so many people make a bee-line for a baby before and my d-in-law had to explain his age and adjusted age when you consider that he is premature, it made my heart sing to see so many people making such a fuss of them all.  

Here is a lovely shot of the inside of the church, each of the real trees are decorated by local groups and they are sponsored by local businesses. 

This was our favourite tree this year, decorated by a local charity. 

We had a restful day on Sunday and then I was back into work on Monday.

I did however take a break at lunchtime for a physio appointment, which fingers crossed is going to help my poorly feet. 

On Tuesday I was in the office, I asked a couple of my colleagues if they could identify a few of the things in the kitchen that needed sorting, I only wanted their verbal input but they helped me give it a good fettle and between us we had it looking spic and span, I didn't take a before photo, but let's just say the after photo is a marked improvement.  

Wednesday evening after I'd finished work we headed to Sheffield for our first Christmas theatre trip.  This time to see A Christmas Carol, it was very good and definitely gave us a little of the Christmas spirit. 

Whilst we were walking around Sheffield we came across this light installation on Graves gallery, work by Pete McKee, it was fabulous to watch, I'm hoping to see the other two in Sheffield before they finish. 

Thursday and we had a tootling sorting things in the house day, I had a lengthy to do list, hubby painted a wall in the porch, I made some very specific cards for some events coming up, I caught up with my journal, me and hubby did a tag team in the kitchen making various meals for the next few days and my sister popped over for a catch up which was lovely, she is genuinely struggling at the moment so it was good to catch up.  

She came bearing gifts, a bunch of flowers and a colour co-ordinated book which I'm very much looking forward to reading, I was so surprised and very grateful to her for such a thoughtful gift at this time of year.  She is a star. 

And that my lovely people is my lot this week, I hope you've had a grand week too. 

Hugs

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY - 51ST OF 2022

 Morning all, tis Friday time for 

Well it has been a funny old week if I'm honest and sometimes life throws a few curve balls, I find given my personal history I'm a bit naughty in catastrophizing situations (walking worst case scenario), which is a really bad habit.  I'm trying really hard to live in the here and now rather than dwelling on the past of or on making assumptions for the future.  So here I am reflecting only on the last week before I get back into my world of being in the moment. 

We got said 22 year old's digital graduation photos through recently,  which I don't think I've shared (apologies if I have).  

We've also received the last one as an actual framed photo in a lovely frame, I need to get some frames for them but they are really lovely. 

We discovered last year that hubby loves making Christmas cake but hates decorating them in any way shape or form, so we've come up with a cunning plan, hubby makes the cake, I marzipan and ice the cake and said 22 year old decorates them, so he will be on with them in the next day or so. 

We went out for our works do last week, it was a really lovely evening and a lovely meal and I think we scrub up OK don't we. 

Here is the crew

from both ends of the table, including partners

We've enjoyed sitting in front of a toasty fire a few nights this week which has been lovely. 

Now I've given these out to work colleagues I made these for a Christmas gift, a chocolate orange covered in maltesers with white chocolate on the same and some icing, I wrapped them in cellophane and handed them out.  I genuinely struggled to find things to make on my pinterest board, everything seems to be food related.  

This week has been a little mad, we've been in work for 3 days solid, working on creating 50 Christmas hampers, for families, the elderly and the disabled.  It was an epic task spending a large amount of grant money to create a hamper that will provide a Christmas meal for people and the outpouring of positivity has been quite overwhelming if I'm honest and made all the hard work (and it was definitely hard work), worthwhile.

and then I find myself on Friday, Christmas Eve Eve as my sister likes to call it.

I hope you have a beautiful and blessed Christmas if you celebrate.

Hugs

AND THE WEEKS FLY BY

Good morning, well I've been neglecting my blog by epic proportions recently, life is exceptionally busy at the moment with work if I'm honest.  But I need to ensure I make some me time as it were, which I'm trying desperately to manage, not achieving yet but I am trying.

However, thanks to the fact that I've been doing a lot of scrapping earlier in the year (not so much now), I have a few layouts in my blog folder to share.

First up a layout created after receiving a beautiful knitted scarf sent to me by Toni.  She had mentioned on her blog that she was using papers to alter an item, but hadn't got the papers in 12 x 12 so she was going to have some juggling to do to get them to fit.  I realised that I had those very same papers in a 12 x 12 so offered to send her a few sheets to help and as a surprise to say thank you I received this back in the post!

I was absolutely gobsmacked and very very grateful, the scarf is beautiful and so I wanted to make sure I'd documented it - thank you Toni!

Hope you are managing a Happy Scrapping day!

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY

Morning all Friday greets us warm and sunny and it's time for

If you want to know more - there's a bit of blurb next to the Rocking button on the right side of the screen slightly further down. 

Well it's been mighty warm hasn't it this week, due to the tablets I'm currently taking, going in the sun really is a bit of a no no I'm afraid so that meant a weekend tootling around the house.  It was actually quite fun so my first Rocking moment is just spending time relaxing and chilling out

Next up Wimbledon - the boy he did good!  So lovely to see the positives on this one, we seem to be having a bit of a sporting roll at the moment (long may it last not that I watch much of the stuff but it's always nice to know we're doing OK). 

Talking of sporting moments I'll mention said 12 year old's sporting moment this week - seeing Jessica Ennis practicing when he went for his sports day - he has a very blurry shot on his phone of her - he was most impressed.

Actually talking of said 12 year old, he has looked after a second cousin this week on her transition up to big school, checking to make sure she's OK, escorting her up to school, letting me know they are there safe and sound - very mature and grown up of him and my cousin whose daughter it is was singing said 12 year old's praises - made me smile. 

Oh next up has to be that very same cousin - she is soooooooooooooo lovely, we get on like a house on fire, even when we haven't seen each other for an age we fall into a conversation like we saw each other yesterday.  I've had the privilege of catching up with her over the last few weeks and it's been a true blessing to know that she's there, to know what an awesome and beautiful individual she is and how blessed I feel having her! 

Chats with my sister on the phone, even when life is tough and there are issues, knowing we can chat and support each other is a true blessing! 

Summer of Colour challenge - we are approaching our final week - I cannot believe that we are almost done for another year, I've loved it with a passion (still have week 5 items to post but still working on cards at the moment).  I wonder what the colour will be for Monday?

Blog visitors, always lovely to read comments!  And those lurking in the background - hello to you and hope you enjoy the read and I understand James that includes you! 

Right my lovely people I think that will have to be your lot this week - apologies for the lack of photos but like I said we hardly moved last weekend with the heat - we might venture out a bit more this weekend, but we'll see! 

I hope you've had a beautiful and blessed week, that you are able to see those silver linings and if you fancy joining in we'd love to visit, so don't forget to pop back and link up with Mr Linky at the bottom of the post. 

Right layout before I go, this was one of those that I almost (and I did say almost) gave up on, the inky splodges on the paper meant the paper buckled and it drove me nuts that I couldn't get it flat, but with a lot of perseverance I got it stuck to a backing card to bring it back in line (almost).  The photo is of a completed jigsaw we did recently.  I had a book token sent by a friend for a small gift I'd made her daughter (don't ask just know that she is very naughty), so with the book token I decided to buy a 'family' jigsaw so we could spend time together.  So by creating a lasting momento for her family, she created one for mine too!  

Mr Linky 

BLOG CANDY AND WHAT I DID WITH IT

A few weeks ago I was the lucky winner of some blog candy from Jen at the fabulous Wear Crafts, bless her she even doctored it to tailor it to what she thought would be my kind of papers and when they arrived I had this little lot to go at

I set myself the challenge of creating layouts using the papers, using minimal embellishments from my stash and only adding white and black cardstock!   So what did I create?

The main embellishment that I used was embroidery thread for hand stitching.

 I also 'gutted' a lot of the pages so I could maximise usage of the same.

I love the shaped element of the main paper in this layout so cut it from it's original background and used it as a template for other pages such as the first layout above.

 I used shaped scissors to create a mat for the title - simple and effective.

And this gorgeous paper already had machine stitching on it (turquoise) and a hand stitched element on it (yellow), so I went over the yellow with real thread, you can't tell that the turquoise is just on the paper rather than an added embellishment!

I adored this paper, so beautiful, I distressed the edges, added the additional white cardstock to create the border and some yellow embroidery thread.

This paper was definitely an 'almost' done paper - beautiful in it's own right, I matted onto white and then black, added the hand stitching on the pink band and kept the photo on the top part of the page to let the paper speak for itself.

Rectangles and squares on this one and hand stitching on the orange circles. .

This looks like another cut out shape, but is in fact the reverse side of the off cuts from the shape recreating the shape on the page!

 And finally the single sheet of double sided black and white paper was put through it's paces with some additional black and white card stock.

So a big thank you to Jen - for the fabulous gift which was great fun to use, did I use all of the papers she sent - nope I've a few left which I'm going to combine with my own stash some time in the near future!

SECRET SANTA

Good Afternoon, well I'm taking a short break from my scrapbook table to document the fantastic Secret Santa gift that I received this year.  The Secret Santa was organised once again by Carmen and is something I've looked forward to all year, the idea of someone trying to fathom out what you like and  what they can gather, create and buy and stick to a budget and send out in good time - adds to the fun factor.  Now it hasn't been a straight forward Secret Santa this year by any means and I think Carmen's had pretty much every scenario that could happen happen, so she'll be more than prepared and armed ready next year in case things go pear shaped.  However, you'll be pleased to know that all came good in the end and all the Secret Santa's sent and received parcels from unknown Santa's!

However, this post is to show what I received, I was most excited to receive a pizza box shaped parcel in early December, I asked hubby to open to make sure the contents were wrapped (and wrapped they were) and then I placed the box and it's contents under one of the Christmas trees awaiting the big day.

This is me opening the gift on Christmas morning, it was the second gift I opened and I was so excited - look how pretty they all were, all wrapped in their individual parcels, hand stamped paper, wrapped with string and tiny embellishments!  I'd show you the picture of me but I might scare you so thought I'd show the close up shot!

 Look at the pretty paper, I'm loving this as an idea for next year!

 Now a little bit of chocolate is always a good start - nom nom nom

Then some journalling cards which I love and have already used one on a layout today!

Next up home made embellishments in a gorgeous organza bag!

Some Christmas mail art

Some stickers and some scrapbook papers which I love (again I've used one of these today on a layout and most of them are double sided!)

Then the two handmade items that are utterly gorgeous (I mean utterly utterly gorgeous).  A brand new A5 journal with the most divine cover handmade by my Secret Santa, I adore the colours, the masking, the added elements the accents, the stamping - well all of it!   This is the front

And this is the back

And this is the spine!

 But I didn't get just one handmade item - I got two!   This gorgeous wrap which when unfolded...

 Looks like this

 And contains this

Utterly blown away - it's simply divine.  Now I had no idea who my Secret Santa was until I opened my pressies and now have a sneaking feeling that I recognise the beautiful artwork above, but I'll wait for Carmen's grand 'unveiling' to see if I'm right!

So thank you Secret Santa for an utterly amazing and gorgeous gift and the letter you sent, it made me smile and was an added blessing and one which will be making it's way to my Journal Your Christmas this year so that it can be kept and reflected on in years to come!

And finally a massive thank you to Carmen for keeping us in order and in check whilst we sorted this out.  I'll be back next year provided Carmen will have me for the next Secret Santa until then well I'm off to play with my new art journal!