milano Aqua paradise

I have scrapped at last! Jess came back from Gran Canaria this week with a loads of new photos so thought I had better do a layout with photos of her Milan holiday first! This double layout shows the fun she & Aaron had at the water park.

Its an ok layout. I am disappointed in that I wanted to make the title Italian and use Milano and Aqua paradisium. but I only had scraps of the alphas to use so did not have enough letters to make the title as I really wanted it - so it is a boring English title. I decided to follow a Becky Fleck page map for this layout- but as usual - this final work looks nothing like the page map!

Cardstock is from DCWV pastel stack, PP - urban lily: doodle daisy, alphas - making memories flocked Velvet and doodlebug designs: all mixed up white rub ons. Journalling stickers : American Crafts. Ribbon, stickles glitter glue. Flip flop brads - Lakeland.

This is the original page map I tried to follow - I always worry when my final layout looks so different from the sketch I should have been following - because the original had some design element thrown into it - whereas mine is just a mish mash of putting things were they can go without much design element to it - which is why they never look as good as the experts ones.

No longer barking up the wrong tree!

A little bit cryptic I know - but this is the name of the geocache (GCZEXP) we could not find along the Aberystwyth coastal path in the summer. Well it had actually gone missing and the owner replaced it last week, so we felt secure enough to make a return journey and today we found it!! It is only a titchy thing but it has driven us mad!

We were back in Aberystwyth because Steven could not get the idea of owning a caravan at Clarach Bay out of his head- so he wanted to go back and have another look. He is even more keen now, but there were no caravans available on the site we preferred so this purchase is on hold for a while - thank goodness as I am still waiting for some news on the kitchen front- he seems to think that I can make do with the rotten pile of junk that is our so called present one! I am not a happy bunny!

We has a good old stroll around Aberystwyth exploring new places, which all looked lovely even on a cloudy day!

This is the harbour and I would much prefer to own a flat here rather than a caravan - but I think they would be way out of our price range!

The castle was lovely - lots of old ruins. The children would have had fun here when they were little - running around them all.

The University buildings on the sea front are architecturally beautiful - but the coastal weather has not done the buildings any favours - it needs quite a lot of maintenance now.

We had a drink and a cake at the cafe on top of Constitutional Hill again. My cake was a toffee tray bake and it was gorgeous, so I am off to Google for a recipe to make one now.

Spinning around layout

This layout shows Jessica & Aaron spinning around on the famous bull mosaic in Milan in August. Apparently it is a tradition that brings good luck - so they had to do it to ensure a trouble free holiday.

papers are (yellow) fancy pants designs - Crush by Michelle Coleman - Whimsical. Plain paper ( cut by free hand) We R Memory Keepers - urban window collection - Home made strawberry preserves ( reverse side), American Crafts Remarks alphas stickers & Making Memories tiny brown alphas - brown ledger. Buttons John Lewis, Glitz it sparkles glitter glue from the blue collection.

This is No. 81 in my 104 target for the year

Google fest

I love Google and I have spent all day playing with 2 of their latest offerings :- Google Chrome and Picasa 3.



Picasa 3 is the latest version of their photo editing suite: which is so easy to use. It was really hard to find the download for this latest version, so half my day has been spent actually finding the thing, but my perseverance payed off and now it is installed on all the computers in the house. This version allows text on the photos which as a scrapbooker I have missed in the previous version. It also has an improved collage section which will be fun to play with. I was hoping that it would also allow different size photos to be printed but can't find that yet - though will keep looking. I have had to return this afternoon to PS Elements to print out some odd size photos for a layout following one of Becky Fleck's page maps.



Google Chrome is their first attempt at a web browser to compete against Internet Explorer. This is only installed on my laptop while I have a play with it. It has a simple interface - slightly similar to Opera in that it shows thumbnails on the front page of your most visited web sites.

I will keep you posted on how I get on with these 2 new items over the next couple of weeks.

creativity at last...

but in the kitchen not the craft room.
I made this gorgeous pud yesterday - Banoffe Pie - it is so delicious but I dread to think how many calories are in each slice.

It was very easy to make:-

1 small pack of digestive biscuits
4oz butter melted
1 397g tin of Carnation caramel
2 large bananas - finely chopped
tub of already thick whipped double cream
cocoa powder to dust

Turn the biscuits into fine crumbs and then add melted butter.
Press down into a deep 8" sandwich cake tin and put in fridge for 20 mins
Open tin of caramel and spread over biscuit base.
Put whipped cream in bowl and add the chopped bananas, then spread over the caramel.
dust with cocoa powder and chill for a further 30 mins and serve.
It is very filling so only small portions are needed!

Recipe obtained from the back of the tin of Carnation caramel.

Spontaneous layout.

I am not meant to be scrapping at the moment - I really do not have the time - I am meant to be cleaning up from all the visitors we have had lately. But as I was tidying the front room and taking down the birthday cards - one of Liam's caught my eye and I thought ' oh all these squares could be useful' - so I abandoned the housework and set about cutting up the card. Once I had done that thought - 'I wonder if these squares would fit onto a 12 x 12 piece of cardstock' - they did perfectly - so of course then I just had to create something with them. So Steven came home from work to find the house still a mess and no tea ready!!

Crikey how young do Steven & I look in these photos. I think Eleanor was about 2 and I remember they were taken on a trip to Ellesmere to feed the ducks.

I quite like the layout, but I don't think the colours are quite right. The squares were muted colours, so I thought I would use some outdoor countryside photos - not sure these are the right ones to use.

I used DCWV Neutrals cardstock, tree & leaves rub ons Hambly screen prints - Mod trees (these are fab rub ons - they actually work! ) Alpha rub ons - October Afternoon (also very good rub ons), journalling tag & fabric brad - Wild Saffron by K & Co. Birthday card was from Pheonix trading.
The answer to the question is CLOTH KITS, but the alpha font does not make it easy to read. The journalling under the photos tells about how most of Eleanor's clothes when she was little were from Cloth kits. The fabric came screen printed with the most beautiful designs and I just had to cut them out and sew them together. I stopped buying from them when a new computer system they installed did not work and caused the company major problems. I thought these problems had caused the company to fold - but I have just checked on the Internet and found it is still going strong - here -selling clothes kits which are still vibrant and different.

Jess & Aaron are back from Milan

They had a wonderful time and looking at all their photos it seems a beautiful place to visit.



They window shopped at the beautiful mall - for millionaires only!



Went to a water theme park and explored the city.



Jess nearly was pick pocketed - but Aaron saw the kid - who was only about 10 -just in time and scared him off - her bag had been opened but she had not been aware of it - this did make them a bit more wary.