ROCKING MY WORLD FRIDAY

OK so the first week of the holidays went sooooooooooo slowly and it was lovely, this week has gone in a blink of an eye - literally - blink and I'll miss it!   Oh it's been a mixed week, I'm not sure having time for my brain to kick in at home is necessarily a good thing at the moment!

But this post is about positives so I'm going to dig deep and come up with some

• The opening ceremony of the Olympics - simply fabulous TV watching
• Then watching the Olympics - I never thought I'd say that because we are not a sport watching family (with the exception of Rugby) but it has been fabulous!
• The BBC coverage of the Olympics, not one to blow our own trumpet but having all these specific channels to be able to get to grips with the sports has been great - even the golden snitch 100 point moment in judo - thank you Susie for explaining - I was soooooooooo confused!
• Karma Clay at Elsecar for a fabulous time painting pots last week, we're due to pick them up tomorrow, fingers crossed they are OK, my niece on with her bowl 

 and said 11 year old with his new popcorn bowl - to be honest it's not big enough LOL!

And the bowls before the glaze

• Katherine for thinking of me when it came to A Creative World, a blog I've been asked to         participate in - now what to share?
• My sister for having said 11 year old on Monday and Tuesday despite the issues - thanks Melanie you are a star!
• Painting the pool room, it looks fabulous now, a few things to go to the Charity shop and some new curtains and a canvas but apart from that it's all sorted
• Sorting the bathroom including painting the ceiling, I managed it all on my own (apart from the paint touch up once the first coat had dried) and I was mighty pleased with it! 
• Discussions with said 11 year old - just general chats recently have made me so happy and so proud, in fact let me share a photo from school a few weeks ago, as one of the house captains he was actively encouraged to help during the sports day, encouraging the younger children and helping get the equipment ready for the races - this is a photo we got of him on the day - soo proud! 

He is also quite genius when it comes to achieving things that he wants - as some of you may remember he sooooooooooooo wanted a pet, but as parents who like to venture away as many times as the bank balance will let us and no close friends and family a little bit further afield we've always been reluctant to agree to it, despite his protestations about looking after the pet, cleaning the pet etc.  

So he thought he'd sort his own

This is what we found in his room recently, this is a metal bin which has a metal mesh so therefore you can breath through it, in the garden recently he discovered a cricket, he put it in a jar but then converted his bin into a home for it, complete with lego house and has proceeded to provide fresh grass for it each day - to say genius is probably going some but it did make us smile - the term where there's a will there is a way! 

• The blokes for sorting the front door out last weekend, even if we were left £140 lighter - gulp 
• The Virgin Media man for sorting the new Tivo box out - I mean You Tube on TV all those craft videos at my disposal - oooooooooooooh if you insist! 

Then arting gifts first up my pairs journal returned home from Donna again for the next stage, my book is on the right on top and the rest of those items are pressies from Donna - honestly - amazing! 

 Spread out a bit more

 And in amongst the pile - the giddy bit - one of Donna's stamps

and if that wasn't enough a load thud on a Thursday afternoon - I glanced up to see the Postie leaving the drive, what on earth had she posted?  This beauty from Jo on a small posterboard (hence the load thud), managed absolutely fine in the postal system Jo and is utterly utterly gorgeous! THANK YOU!!!

 And my beautiful Rockettes that is all for this week, may yours have been as fruitful and positive.

And I'll leave you with a layout, said 11 year old with a favourite vegetable at the local town's show last year, in the fresh produce tent - only me could use veggies as a photo opportunity but I wanted to do an orangey layout!

THURSDAY MORNING POST, CAN'T YOU TELL ITS THE HOLIDAYS

Yes that's right you've been treated to post after post this week and why because I work less hours in the holidays!  This morning has greeted us with blue skies and sunshine - who'd have thought, the washers on and I'm planning a trip into town on the bus - why the bus because said 11 year old needs to know the route the bus goes to get to school in September and so I have to get on a bus, personally I'm not looking forward to this because it's going to take an absolute age because we live so far from town grrrrrrrrr but it has to be done, so this is the school uniform run.  My car will think we've abandoned her and she'll sit forlornly on the front of the house whilst we head off to the bus stop - wish me luck!  Last time I did this we were knee deep in snow and it was the only way to get to work, we spent 4 hours travelling there and back and only 2 hours in work, hopefully today's journey will be less painful!

Another layout, I was on a roll recently and just started churning them out (literally) so I've plenty to share!

These two layouts were the mint choc chip ones I did from the Summer of Colour challenge, you'll maybe have noticed by now, that as well as insisting on doing two layouts per colour (this was after the 6 pieces of mail art per colour) that I also decided to use exactly the same layout design on each page!  Sometimes to come up with something brand new and different every time is simply too time consuming so I decided that all the summer of colour challenge layouts could follow the same design and hopefully turn out a bit different, which I think I managed.

The felt letters were from Poundland, the stitching is real stitching using up my excessive amounts of embroidery thread and the rest is paper, the wobbly lined piece was using some old decorative scissors that I've had forever - sometimes you forget what you actually have to play with - go and rummage and challenge yourself to use something that you've not used in an age!

Both layouts refer to a day trip to Crich Tramway museum earlier in the year!

 Thanks for looking

WEDNESDAY POST

Good Afternoon, well after a productive day having a good sort out, I thought I'd pop along to do a post, now a couple of years ago I went to Art From the Heart in Harrogate for an amazing art journalling weekend.  It was fantastic, I went with my Mum and my sister and we had a fabulous time meeting lots of new friends.  Dyan is a fabulous teacher, but most of you know that anyway!

Unfortunately we didn't take a camera but Jude who we met there and have become good friends with did have her camera with her and took loads of photos, so I asked Jude permission to use the photos she'd taken of me, my Mum and Melanie my sister for a layout so I could document out weekend and  she was kind enough to oblige - so big thanks to Jude!

Now I thought which papers, well it had to be some of Dyan's gorgeous Blonde Moments papers but which one, I went a rummaging and came up with a page, but the colours didn't quite go, so I sat and painted all the spots the colour I wanted them to be - much fun!  I highly recommend it and because Dyan's papers are so thick they didn't warp from the paint - win win!

Up close!  As part of the weekend we were all awarded with a certificate in Prattology - hence the title!

So if you have papers that don't quite suit your photos but are almost there, then I suggest you get out those acrylic paints and have a play - great fun!

TUESDAY POST - GOOD MORNING WORLD

Morning all, well it's wet outside, not a short shower so of rain but the 'looks set for the day' - boo hiss, mind you more boo hiss is work, I spent 8 hours yesterday going through e-mails - soooooooooooooooooooooo not fun, but hey it's done now so I might be able to get some work done today - hurray!

The evenings are leading to some serious scrapbook layouts but I'm finding that I'm in need of some more inspirations so trawling the internet for easy to make embellishments at the moment.

You can find so much inspiration out there - the question is am I going to use it?

Well I'll see what happens later on and let you know, in the meantime another layout to share

This time real lions rather than the stone one I shared yesterday, strangely enough though I did both layouts on the same day and it was only at the end of the day I realised I'd been scrapbooking lions all day!

We went to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park last year which has lions, it was a scorching day and the lions were just layout around, the lion on the left of the photo was the oldest lion and unfortunately he passed away this year, the animals had been rescued and it was great to see that they finally had a massive space to enjoy at the Park, even if they were a little hot!

Hope you are having a great day!

MONDAY MORNING - BOO HISS

Morning all, why am I boo hissing because I'm off to work today and tomorrow - that's why and I'm kind of getting used to actually having thinking time - unreal I tell you!  The weekend has been busy and enjoyable, we got a room decorated that has needed it for sooooooooooooooo long it's untrue!

Now all I need to do is prevent said 11 year old from putting tyre marks all over the walls again and we're good.  As a result of general busy-ness on Saturday, Sunday was more laid back and leisurely with a walk around a local dam and a trip into my local craft shop for some more goodies.  Sunday afternoon and evening were spent watching 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and crafting more layouts.  Monday morning greets me with general tiredness on an extreme level - hence the boo hiss!

But I thought I'd leave a post and a layout, this one is of one of the giant stone lions at Chatsworth - in the sculpture hall near the end of the house tour.

Hope your Monday is filled with fun and laughter and not too much work!

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY

Good Morning here we are again, yet another Friday morning greets us where we get chance to look back at the last 7 days and take stock and remember those elements that have made you smile, provided a silver lining - they are there every week, no matter how hard a week you have there is always something that makes life that bit better and here is where we celebrate these very moments.

So my week looks like this

Friday saw said 11 year old leave his primary school, he held it together well right up to the bell time but when he had to say goodbye to his teacher that was when he got upset and I told him to have a good cry if that's what he wanted.  So why is this a grateful, because to be upset to leave the school and to leave the teacher and say good-bye to friends shows what a fabulous school he's been to!

This is him with the obligatory signed shirt, he still looks so subdued bless him!

Then a big thank you to hubby for being happy to trim the hedge on Saturday morning, I was beginning to struggle to see out of the window, whilst I was tidying and then being happy to help with the deep clean in our bedroom - honestly it sooooooooooo needed it!

Sunday saw a day out given the blue skies we were having we had to make the most of it.  So we headed to Harewood House, a fabulous day out - and the positives apart from the fact we were enjoying our surroundings were

• We got a 25% reduction on the entry price as we are English Heritage members
• Said 11 year old got in for free because we are English Heritage members 
• Sister got in on a concessionary rate due to her student ticket! 
• Then said 11 year old managed free chips when we had our picnic, we'd taken a packed lunch but there is a unit that sells chips and he got some for free.

Here were some of the highlights - the giant - I mean GIANT meringue that he decided he wanted to have for 'brunch'! 

 And this is apparently how you eat it!

To the tiny birds we saw which included these tiny baby moorhens - bless them, tiny stubby wings and bald heads!

 Me and sister walking and talking - always fun!  You can just about see the change in hair colour that I've got!

 And finally watching these little guys being fed - great fun!

We finished off the day in a beer garden, where said 11 year old went to get a hot dog from the barbecue and came back with a 'special' which was two hot dogs on one bread bap!  Then came home and had a great evening in good company with hubby and sister - we had a great giggle.

Then next up is my sister having said 11 year old on Monday and Tuesday, she was an angel, took him swimming both days and playing tennis on Monday.  He had a great time and got some quality Aunty Mel time which he thoroughly enjoyed! 

Wednesday saw the tidying of said 11 year old's room - and again you'll be wondering why I'm grateful - well he helped a huge amount and was relatively ruthless!  Which is always a good thing so we went from this (if you're of a nervous disposition you might prefer to look away!)

 To midway through the clean - the nerf collection!

 And finally - all is calm

 Just waiting for the bedding to go back on!

 But you get the drift

 Even the cupboard is manageable!

 Which then resulted in this - rubbish and charity shop bags!

Other gratefuls include - 

• Days off work - bliss
• Scrapbooking all day on Thursday
• Summer reading challenge at the libary! 
• Hubby cooking fajitas Thursday evening
• David Tennant in Hamlet on DVD that we finally got to watch! 
• Dry days to get washing sorted
• Blue skies to make us feel positive! 

I've had a great week, I hope you have too, if you fancy joining in then put yourself a blog post together and pop back here to link up so we can come and visit.  Not sure whether it's for you - I guarantee your outlook on your week will be significantly better as a result of doing this!

I'll leave you with a quick layout

And of course Mr Linky, I hope you have a great weekend and wonderful week ahead!

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!