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.

Minsterley's Maidens Mystery is solved!

Well perhaps not solved but found anyway. This geocache Maidens Mystery GC10EZ0 has driven us mad for months and we at long last found it on Sunday. It is a 2 part puzzle clue and we found the first part quite easily - it was a note pinned up on the church notice board, from this we gathered it was the capital letters and phone number - but there were 8 capitals and 6 numbers and we could not fathom out how to make 8 into 6. We have tried every combination and walked around the area looking in trees (found a dead bird!) under bridges, under rocks, had to get close to cattle again. So after another failed exploration on Sunday we changed tack and set our GPS's to satellite and walked until we arrived at a cordinate that used the same numbers - low and behold we found it.

Sorry about the rubbish photo - no where really to set the tripod.

We also did another geocache - Leaves on the Line GC10V66 on Sunday, which was much easier. This took us to our 50th cache.

geocaching coins

I have bought our very first trackable geocoins. They were £6 each and it will be great to follow their progress. This one is for Thelma - a get well present. She says she will put it in a cache on the first hill she can climb after her op - she wants to climb up Rodney's Pillar!

The coin is new and was made to celebrate the opening up of even more of the Shropshire Way. This is what the bumph about the coin says:

The Shropshire coin has been designed in conjunction with Shropshire County Council and the Shropshire Way Wardens. It was commissioned to celebrate to 50th anniversary of the opening of the Shropshire Way - a wonderful walk that shows you Shropshires geolocigal roots, its historical importance as a borderland and the heart of Britain's Industrial Revolution. All of which forms the County's character to make it uniquely Shropshire. The motif on the front of the coin is the official symbol of the Shropshire Way.

This second coin is for me & Steven to place. Its to celebrate Liverpool's year as the City of Culture, as Eleanor spent her final year of her PhD here and we visited Liverpool for the first time ever. I have told him he can decide where he wants it to start its journey.

This is what the bumph about the coin says:-

The honour of European Capital of Culture awarded to Liverpool for the year 2008 confirms Liverpool's place among the true cultural giants of the continent. Liverpool is already well known around the world for its maritime heritage, architecture, music, literature, the arts and sport. The Capital of Culture title places the city firmly on the global map.
Liverpool will become the place to be in 2008 !!