MORNING WORLD

Good morning world, Thursday morning greets us with grey overcast clouds, but none shall be cast in my house today because I've got a whole day yes I said it A WHOLE DAY of crafting goodness to have!  Said 11 year old decided after yesterdays mammoth task that Thursday would be  a day of rest, for him this is probably going to mean lounging on the sofa, surfing on the net, watching films and building lego and currently sleeping in the bed.  For me it means scrapbooking and any other crafty goodness that arrives during the day.  I've just gathered up several photos and papers to commence operation layout!  I'll let you know how I get on.

But why am I posting here when I could be crafting, well because I'm off work,  I can communicate with blogland and so I thought I'd pop a quick craft related (of course) post on here.

Two layouts completed recently on the Summer of Colour challenge, these being sherbet lemonade - I think that's right - the pink and yellow one.  I thought I'd struggle with the colour combination but found it really quite fun and I definitely would not have put these two colours together, but am really pleased with the finished outcome. Lots of hand stitching, on the layouts and have you noticed something about them?  I'll see if anyone spots it.

Here is the other one, strangely enough on this layout I did the title in black hand stamping and didn't like them, too harsh, so swapped for a dark burgundy colour and re-stamped on separate paper and then went over the top, worked a treat don't you think?

Using up old stash in the buttons and photo thingies - what are they called (top left of photo) also used up some old papers I had which I didn't think I'd ever use up (the bright dotty one behind).

Had such fun making this - right where's those layouts!

A DAY OFF - SORT OF

Yes that is what stretches out in front of me a none work day, not that I'm actually doing no work I might add, because today is the day I attack the 11 year old's bedrooms and yes I think there will be photos of this mammoth task!

But whilst I'm psyching myself up 44 minutes on the countdown clock (we're starting at 10) I thought I'd share another layout, loving how well received yesterday's post was!

This layout is Craig stood on Hadrian's Wall, I asked him what the Roman's did once they'd built it and managed to catch his answer on film - tee hee!

Taken at Chesters Roman Fort whilst we were away - can't remember which holiday mind?  Think it was the Beamish holiday, ooh for my memory to return!

Hope you're all having a great day!

IT'S TUESDAY AND IT'S STILL SUNNY - HURRAY

Good morning my lovely blog readers, yes you heard me right, it's Tuesday and it's still sunny - another blue skies day - simply magical on the not so magical side of things is work which is where I'm heading to shortly.  However, on the plus side I'm off tomorrow on the downside to tomorrow I'm heading into the 11 year old's bedroom, I might have to tie a rope around my middle and fasten it off somewhere to help the search party when they come looking for me - yes it really is that bad.  I do his room out to the degree I'm planning tomorrow about once a year and boy does it need it at the moment.  Having deep cleaned our bedroom last week his became somewhere just to put his stuff, not somewhere to put things away!

Anyway that's the plan for tomorrow, just hope my back holds up, today will see me mainly dealing with numbers.

I have however, photographed some layouts recently so I thought I'd share one, this is the main statue in the formal gardens at Harewood house, we took the photo last year, but visited again on Sunday just gone so it seemed apt to share this one with you.  I loved the statue which must be a relatively recent addition as pictures of old showed something very different in its place.  Its apparently Orpheus, but I had to giggle at the view they would have from the windows - hence the title!

Hoping to share lots more crafting this week when I actually have some time for myself!

TEACHER'S GIFTS

Morning, it's Saturday and the six weeks school holidays stretch out in front of us and before we know it we'll be gathering the uniform and heading back, so I thought it would be a good time to show what gifts we managed to make in the last week, two sets made in an evening with the help of said 11 year old and hubby!

First up the breakfast club gifts, inspired by Michelle's post which is here

The pencil idea was simply genius and really made it look the part, then I wrapped some boxes of maltesers with a single sheet of 12 x 12 - said 11 year old said I needed to cross through the word handmade on these papers because I hadn't made the chocolates LOL! It was one of those serendipity moments when I needed some papers to go with the plant pots and found three sheets all exactly the same stating the word chocolate on them!

All wrapped up in cellophane with twiddly ribbon

And all three finished, so this was Monday nights activity

Then Thursday night we created this star book

Completed

 And another shot, apparently it brought a tear to the eyes of more than one member of staff when opened on Friday

 And the other book

 Opening up

 Opened out

 Then male teacher's gifts, rather than a star book I used my first attempt at Steampunk Andy Skinner styley

 The back

 Close ups

 And the other side

 And then a slightly out of focus shot - sorry it was exceptionally late!

 And the clipboard, again, not the best of photos but it was midnight!

Wrapped up the star books, with card and tolberone!  Photographed on the only clear surface in my room on Thursday night (and Saturday morning but don't get me started).  The printer!

 And there we have it, I got hugs from Mrs Williams and Mrs Powell who we made the star books for and big thanks from Mr Bratt.  It was an emotional day for said 11 year old and he held it together really well, but the hug with Mr Bratt was the point that tipped him over the edge and we sat in the car on the way home and he tried really hard not to cry, but then I told him to just have a good cry because sometimes thats what you need!  

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY

Good Morning - tis Friday and Rocking time, a moment to reflect on the week and celebrate the positives.  It's not time to dwell on the down side of life of the negatives but to celebrate the moments that have made you smile, lifted your heart and made everything just that bit better because it's

First up a big thank you to Michelle for sharing her ideas for a teacher's gift at the beginning of the week, inspired by Pinterest! Her post is here these were such great gifts and given how busy work has been and what little thought I've managed to have over these sort of things recently it was fabulous to create lovely gifts which didn't take days to achieve!

Grateful for the Mum's at school thinking about a leavers party for year 6, this included a mega limo last Friday night followed by a buffet and disco, however, we found said 11 year old looking somewhat downtrodden when we went to pick him up, I think the whole finality of the end of primary school has just started to hit him and sees five of his school friends going to a different school, one of which he has lots of time for and will miss immensely!
And then the week took over - it's been made, we had sports day on Wednesday - the only dry afternoon - and I managed to get burnt - crazy stuff!

My niece's 13th birthday (how scary is that - 13 already who stole the years is what I want to know).

Thursday evening spent making teacher and teaching assistant gifts I'll do a full post on this but just so you know it's 23:58 on thursday evening and we're shattered, we've had a glass of wine and spent the entire evening creating gifts!  Now absolutely cream crackered!

Completely shattered, a couple of lousy meetings took the edge of but in essence I had a good week, said 11 year old enjoyed his time, I managed to pull off the impossible teaching gifts, we celebrated a birthday, I had a coffee with a Mum's group from school which was strange because I'm so anti-social!

I got a letter from a friend I've not managed to catch up with but will very soon.  We pulled out all the stops for my niece's bedroom and turned it from a disorganised issue into a teenagers fully functional bedroom.

Said 11 year old and hubby helped immensely on Thursday evening so all is good!

Life is worth taking note of because if you don't you forget the good stuff!

I hope you've all had an amazing week that has been truly positive and blessed!

And I'm not going to leave you with crafting this week because this has been about positive and life and amazing people so I'll leave you with Mr Linky and hope you can find the silver linings and the positives in the week!  Please share so we can come and visit and celebrate and enjoy what makes your life tick!  I hope you have a truly beautiful and blessed week ahead.

A LITTLE BIT OF THURSDAY CRAFTING

I finally got around to photographing what I've got to put away in albums - that'll be the albums I don't currently have - but hey I photographed the layouts so I'm halfway there right?

I hadn't realised I'd done so many since I last photographed them?  But then I've managed two layouts for each of the Summer of Color/Colour challenge so that's 12 layouts in itself!  That's without what I managed before that.  The one colour that I was most apprehensive about using was the Watermelon one from week six, not from the mail art perspective that I blogged about on Monday but from a layout perspective because it was pretty much one colour, but it just shows you the most challenging of colours can lead to good layouts and these two are some of my favourites from over recent months.  So I'll share the two I did.

The first one up is of said 11 year old when we went to see 'Bang Goes the Theory Live' in Sheffield earlier in the year, being a BBC production once we were selected for tickets, it didn't cost us a penny - hence the title 'Free Fun', I used a 'Once upon a time' paper (that I've had forever) that has a Celtic knot as an accent above the photo, stamped and cut out some hand stamped hearts and filled in with a gel pen and finally managed to cut up the paper with the hearts on, I've had it forever, loved it for even longer and never managed to fathom out a page to use it on.  Added hand stitching and the journalling around the edge, some decorative scissors and a bit of glossy accents and I was really pleased with the outcome!

 Then I managed to use the other part of the once upon a time paper (middle bit with crowns on), another piece of the heart paper, a piece of scalloped cardstock, some felt poundland letters and scrapbooked the red dicentra we found when wandering around the gardens at Hutton in the Forest, I've often seen the pink variety of this particular plant, but never the red one!  More hand stitching a piece of tape and more glossy accents and I have my other layout.

I always step back to see what I think of a page the morning after, and these two really struck a chord.  So again just goes to show how a colour theme can lead to some fabulous crafting!

So where am I at this morning,  well it's Thursday and we've woken to more rain in this part of Yorkshire.  I've got work all day and then home to create some great Teacher Gift creations - wish me luck have a feeling I'm going to need it because I have no idea of what I'm going to make and with it being the last day of primary school tomorrow for said 11 year old, it really is time to pull my socks up!

I hope you are having a beautiful and blessed day with less rain than we're having (unless you're in need of it - in which case have ours, we've managed to top up our reservoirs and gardens and streams and rivers enough now and we wouldn't want to keep it all to ourselves!).

SUMMER OF COLOUR/COLOR - WATERMELON

Well here we are at the end of six weeks of fabulous challenges, I've thoroughly enjoyed this challenge the 'no rules' just go with the flow and create what you fancy challenge really works for me!  The final week finds us at a challenge to do with watermelon!  I was slightly apprehensive on this one, not for the mail art I've been creating but for the layouts I've been creating (not that I've shared any yet) mainly because the main colour was just one colour and I wondered how on earth I was going to manage to create a layout with predominantly one colour and a few chocolate chips -mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm - but of all the mail art and layouts I've created this one turned out to be the easiest.

As I've been sharing the mail art through these challenge here goes what I've created this week, however I will be sharing the layouts over the summer to see what you think!

 And finally the mail art created this week followed by the collection of the other challenges
Week 6

Week 1

 Week 2

 Week 3

 Week 4

 Week 5

So which is your favourite?  Or which set is your favourite?  Please let me know because I know the ones I enjoyed creating the most.

Now we've almost got to the end of the final school term, the six week holidays start this coming Friday - I'm wondering whether to stalk the Baskin Robbins website for six more colours - just to see me through - what do you think?

I hope everyone has enjoyed this challenge as much as I have and thank you to Kirstin for creating this great straight forward challenge!  If I don't see you before I'll see you all next year!