DARCY'S 52 WORDS - LISTEN

Now this one didn't turn out quite how I intended, you know the one when you see it in your head but by the time it hits the page it's sort of morphed and despite fighting with it it still doesn't want to change.  Well that's this page, but I find in these that it's best to let the page do the talking, so I included the journaling inside the title letters and just let the page come together on it's own accord.  

We're on Wednesday already people, just got to get to Friday and then a whole week off, still no further forward on the present buying for people but thank you for your ideas - off for a look at a couple of them. 

Hope you're all having a great Wednesday! 

DARCY'S 52 WORDS - SPARK

Oh this one was fun, sometimes you have an image that you've wanted to use forever and get to a point when you never think it will happen and then suddenly - like a spark you know it does exactly what you want it to do.  I thoroughly enjoyed the word, the journaling and the spark it created - simply fantastic!  

Well here I am blogging on a Monday night - what on earth is that all about?  We've got in, eaten, tidied, the ironing pile is screaming at me but I screamed back and now it's sulking.  Strange day at work but home at a reasonable hour, so I've got the evening stretching out in front of me now, so scrapbook layouts here I come. I seem to have done absolutely shed loads of pages recently which I'm loving, will have to have another photographing session of them so I can start getting them on my blog.  Feeling in the need to do some sort of mini/maxi book but not sure what at the moment. 

Hubbies birthday next week and it's a big one which has led me to walk the path of what on earth to buy him, his usual list is mountains of DVD's as he's addicted to films at the moment, occasionally a book will crop up that I know he'll love but he doesn't get the time that he used to, to read these days so he's slower at going through books etc. 

But what do I buy him - honestly?  

Then it's my Mum's birthday and my brother's girlfriends 21st - any ideas for these would be great, my Mum's crafty but better at buying stuff than using it and she's currently in pot until the 22 February.  Fi likes all things creative and she's a great artist, she got Zombie Felties for Christmas and she's loved making things from that since she got it, I'd thought about Steampunk Softies but not sure.  Are there any other great crafty books out there that you know of?  Need to get any online orders done pronto mind!  

Hope you're all having a great start to the week.

DARCY'S 52 WORDS - FIRST

This is one of my favourites from my 52 word journal, using a picture of a ruined Abbey as the backdrop to the words.  The journalled words have been done between the title, which I've discovered is one of my favourite ways to add the journaling to these pages.  The title was drawn free hand in paint straight onto the page.  The bit you cannot tell from the picture is all the glittery pens I've used to create the page.  

Strangely enough we've woken to a similar wintry landscape this morning but without the ruined abbey!!

Having a laid back and leisurely day up to now (well if you ignor the snow clearing we did first thing).  Six nations on again this afternoon so more scrapbooking, I've actually spent an hour clearing my table - I've now got some space to work in.  How's everyone else's Sunday? 

A BIG THANK YOU TO MICHELLE AND HER COLOUR WHEEL

A few weeks ago I was reading Michelle's blog and she was talking about a colour wheel.  I giggled at the post because I too didn't have particularly fond memories of using one and I certainly don't have one in my possession now, however a few days after reading her post I was faced with a set of photos that I couldn't scrap.  Not because I didn't want to but because every time I thought I'd found 'the' paper I'd place the photos on top for overall effect and pull faces.  The photos had been taken on a harsh wintry day, with a harsh colour back drop and a wintry sky.  I tried everything paper wise and just couldn't get a 'feel' for the page at all.

Then I remembered Michelle mentioning a colour wheel, so a quick google search and I found lots of image examples.  The photos had a washed out blue in them and therefore the contrasting colour was orange, but I'd tried every orange paper I'd got and I didn't like what I saw, so my next option was to try the colours either side of blue (because I'd tried blue and that didn't work either), one side of blue sits the colour green and the other side sits purple.  Purple?  I thought - I never scrapbook purple because on the whole I don't have a whole heap of purple papers but then I thought what if purple is the colour.  So after a little rummaging I came back with some basic grey papers and was relieved - no delighted to find that the purple worked really well - who'd have thought!

So here is the pages in question a double page layout using predominantly purple!

Isn't it amazing how a colour choice really is needed to make a page work!   this is the right hand page up close.

 this is the left hand page up close.

 Up close the hand stamped journalling and the hand stitching.

 I hand cut the paper for these tags and was quite happy with the effect once completed.

The pages in question cover a day at The Coldstones Cut, which is an art installation next to a working quarry, it's mighty odd but strangely works with it's surrounding landscape in a way that other art installations probably wouldn't and we went because it was quirky and I can vouch it was definitely quirky!!!!

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY

Ooh I'm going to try and manage a rocking your world post as I go again this week, it's so much easier to clock the moments as they happen as it were.

Here I sit on Friday evening (that be Friday last week) feeling really rather grateful to Asda, the joys of online shopping.  I hate food shopping with an absolute passion, I find it such a bind wandering up and down aisles looking for food, so this week, with the inspiration of my sister I decided to do an online order and at quarter to seven tonight it arrived at the door, within 15 minutes tea was on and shopping was put away - now that's my kind of shopping love it!  I'm also grateful that the Asda delivery van didn't hit my car as it reversed down our road and the handbrake saw fit not to work!

Saturday brought the first blue skies day in a while and although cold outside it was lovely to be able to go and blow off the cobwebs.  Said 11 year old was feeling somewhat better so we put the hiking boots in the back of the car and set off for a quick jaunt up the M1 to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, unfortunately they are between main exhibits with the Jaume Plensa exhibition now ended and the new one not yet started, but we weren't there for the sculptures but for the fresh air.  We enjoyed walking down to the lake and along the new lakeside path (a first for us).   This is a photo of a sculpture that we've seen before but I never noticed the shoes sticking out from it!

We did manage to find a couple of new pieces we'd not seen before these strange chairs all lined up looked pretty good in the winter sun.

And this cave like piece made from polyurethane resin had a translucent quality that meant the light could shine through it's surface lighting it up in a dark lavender colour.

We walked for quite a while and thoroughly enjoyed the water falls, the nature around us and the time to spend some quality time together, bliss.  We were also treated to this view as we walked back up the main hillside

We ventured back up to the main building and grabbed a drink and something to eat and sat outside, there's something magical about that place I tell you.  It just makes you feel so alive and so very positive.

Then we found a great little exhibition by a Scottish artist called Donna Wilson called Endangered Species, our favourites were the knitted characters that we found although there were also 3 dimensional pictures and watercolour prints.

and then the final highlight of the day - playing with light - you forget what fun you can have sometimes.  This silhouette of said 11 year old after he'd taken his woollen hat off LOL!

Sunday arrived and said 11 year old was still not a hundred percent so we avoided the gym and went for another walk around Elsecar where I got this shot - perfect for a scrapbook page don't you think?  So big grateful for photo opportunities - now that I can cope with! 

Monday arrived and an early start ready for our Spa day, this was a red letter day bought by hubby last year for our wedding anniversary and we hadn't got around to booking it, when we realised it was restricted on time we flew into action, compared diaries and saw fit to have a day together on our own.  We had to drop said 11 year old at my Mum's to take him to school as our rasul appointment was for nine am and we had to be there 15 minutes before the appointment, gulp quarter to nine?  Really?  Bearing in mind it's a 45 minute journey at any normal time let alone a Monday morning.  So massive grateful to my Mum doing this as a favour to us because she's currently in pot and bandage - the result of having her thumb joint removed (ouch) and replaced with a piece that they fused between two bones (double ouch) and the shortening of the ligament in the arm as a result (triple ouch)!

We arrived in good time to find the car park heaving, we hadn't realised but Thoresby Hall is a Warner hotel which is exclusive to adults, we found our way to the reception who then pointed us in the direction of the Spa reception and that's where our day began.  We were greeted by the staff, provided with complementary drink vouchers for a cuppa when we were ready and off we toddled to get changed into swimwear, luxurious bath robes, and towel, a new pair of slippers so we could enjoy the day.

Alison showed us to the relaxation lounge whilst the rasul spa warmed through and then she showed us through.  We were to shower, then use salt on our skin to exfoliate, shower again and then apply mud to each other, three different types for different parts of the body and then the rasul filled with steam and we sat in there chatting and giggling at applying the mud, after a while the shower heads started and rained down water to clear off the mud and then we needed another shower to get rid of any left over mud.  We had sole use of the rasul throughout and it was bliss.  We felt thoroughly relaxed and chilled afterwards and then had the use of the spa facilities for the rest of the day.  Iced water was on tap in the relaxation lounge together with fresh fruit, there was a pool, a steam room, a couple of dry saunas, foot spas, a hammam (our favourite) and an ice cave (another favourite - straight from the hammam into the ice cave - crazy stuff).  Alison was concerned that we'd not got any lunch booked so she asked if we would like her to book us a table, which we said yes to and she said we were OK to go down in our robes (which is what everyone else did, sat there in a restaurant, wet hair, not a stitch of make up in a bathrobe has to be one of the most surreal of experiences).

We had a great day, chatted, laughed, giggled, talked, had quiet time just the two of us and the best part of it all, I came away relaxed from the delights of the day - and completely shattered, how can doing nothing be so damn tiring?  

Would we do it again - absolutely when can we go?

So there we have my positives for the week, Tuesday and Thursday were both hellishly long days at work so nothing much to comment on there.  

I hope you've had a great week and that you've managed to find some positives amongst your week, if you join in don't forget to come back and link to Mr Linky, believe me having a list of gratefuls on a Friday is always a positive start to the weekend! 

A bit of crafting for you before I go, I'm not great at 'white space' as this layout proves, but there is some glossy accents going on this very simplistic but quite effective layout! 

 Up close you can just about make out the glossy accents.

ONE OF A KIND AND A THANK YOU TO SUSIE!

One of my favourite pages that I've done in quite some time 

This one was using a template from January's edition of Scrap 365 the original artist being Wendy McKee.  It was a really fun layout to do because it meant I could use a favourite paper of Once Upon a Time fame but in a slightly different way to show off it's true gorgeousness - I find splitting pages like this into smaller fragments really brings the eye to appreciate the detail.  

Now this isn't a normal style layout for me, but just before Christmas Susie sent me a gift that contained lots of little goodies - all sorts of gorgeousness.  Within the parcel was a tag she had filled with lace and ribbons which on the evening I was making this page I decided to put in my ribbons and lace bag and so the tag sat there waving at me, the next minute, I'm cutting out some matching tags (matching in size) then I dry embossed the tag Susie sent, added a little bit of the Once Upon a Time paper to the top and it became an accent for the page!  I added to it lots of little metal tags that I've had forever (I'm still stash busting where I can even if I do keep buying more LOL), some buttons, some statements from a scrapbook paper and before I knew it it had all come together.  

 A close up on the dry embossed tag sent by Susie!  So it just goes to show that from a gifted item can come great layouts - thank you Susie!

Hope you're all having a great Thursday! 

PICTURE FRAME WITH A DIFFERENCE

Before Christmas I motivated my sister into doing something with her staircase, and through some interesting conversations and a little bit of Pinteresting we came up with a master plan.  Part of the master plan was for some black and white pictures that she wanted to adorn the same - something she's aspired to for quite some years.  She already had some frames in hand to use but hadn't made much progress so I took them from her in the hope that inspiration would strike.  On the whole I used photos and just altered some charity shop frames with black paint to meet the criteria, however, this one was one I worked on before it became a production line and unlike the other frames which I gave to her before Christmas this one actually became a full blown Christmas present with wrapping paper and bows!

The photo is of my brother at the front of the photo and my sister at the back, enjoying the snow when they were young, we all remember the snow day that we had, enjoying the weather, drinking hot chocolate, the picture of me is not quite so flattering I was in my teens, wearing a donkey jacket (the coat I got from the social because my Dad was unemployed at the time), a woollen headband thing and some white furry earmuffs - like I said not so flattering!

The frame was a box frame and a particularly good quality (I found that a lot of box frames aren't good quality and the 'box' effect is often achieved with things like polystyrene! - this wasn't one of them, the boxing achieved with proper wood). 

 I used some simple scrapbook papers at the back, double matted the photo, used a velum quotation, added a bit of bling and some embellishments and was extremely pleased with how it turned out and I can confirm that it is now hanging pride of place on her stairwell!

 It's easy to forget sometimes that the simplest of ideas can create the most powerful of pieces, hope you're having a good day!  Happy 1st February (where did January go - only another 10 more months and we can put the decorations up again LMAO).