Craven Arms again

Following the lovely walk Thelma & I had around Craven Arms a few weeks ago - I dragged Steven along today for a walk and geocache. The weather was not as glorious and we did get caught in a shower on top of the hill at one stage. We saw some beautiful autumnal foliage.I planned a circular route starting from the Discovery Centre, up to Sallow Coppice - through the woods, then up to another wood and up the hill to View Edge. The down the other side ending up at Stokesay Castle. It was a great route and the journey took about 3 hours though we did stop for lunch. We managed 7 geocaches! but I only have these few photos to show as Steven gets cross if I am forever stopping to take photos.

Boys will be boys

Here is a lovely layout I have just managed to do using the Love Elsie - Toby papers.

It shows Liam sitting on the John Lennon Superlambanana in Liverpool, when we visited earlier this year. I was not sure what to call this layout until I found some quotes "boys will be boys" & "caught red handed" -so decided to go along the route of there being signs saying do not climb on these structures - and him ignoring this instruction. He is not impressed that I have chosen to show a criminal side of him - when he does not have a rebellious bone in his body! But all the scallys in Liverpool were climbing all over them so whats good for them is good for us!

The striped backing paper is the fabric paper called Cabana, the squares cut from the Toby paper. Domed embellishment all from Love Elsie. The chipboard journalling block is from Buzz & Bloom painted with acrylic paint and the 2 quotes are DCWV clear stickers.

It is layout 86 in my 104 target for 2008.

Normal service will be resumed - shortly!

Apologies for lack of blogging lately - we are living in chaos and am finding it difficult to do anything constructive in the house. Here is the reason why:-

The kitchen has been taken apart and trying to live like this is very difficult. My dinning table has become my make do kitchen.

My craft room work top is covered in more boxes of food and crockery. However the new kitchen has still not been ordered and I can see me struggling on like this for a while. On a positive not though the ceiling and coving have been painted!

So unfortunately scrapbooking has had to take a back seat - I do not have anything to share with you at the moment.

So this blog is taking a few weeks off until we are sorted. I hope to have a fantastic new kitchen to show you at some stage!

I am so glad this layout is finished..

Well its finished but I don't like it at all!

I thought it would be a good way to use the terrible photos we took with film cameras when the children were little, as they are too bad to be used on a traditional layout.

It is made from a Buzz & Bloom chipboard frame but what hassle I have had with it - it seems to have dragged on for weeks! First I tried to emboss it - spent one morning making a mess - but it looked yuck. So painted over it with white acrylic paint - that looked ghastly as well but stupidly I left it on newspaper to dry and then it stuck to the paper which took me ages to peel off. So then I painted it with twinkling H20's. I only had 6 colours so had to use what I had, but still did not like it - but could not think what else to do with it and did not want to throw it away - so just decided to make the best of a bad job and get it finished as it was.

Its done now - just looking for a sliver no.6 which I know I have somewhere - but where? to put on the large purple box at the bottom.

No. 86 in my 104 target for the year.

First Time Lucky layout

This is the layout I started at the crop last Saturday and I have only just finished it today! Don't seem to have had much time or inclination to scrap lately, but Ross's contact finishes at PGL in 3 weeks so he will be home then for 3 months, so my craft room (his bedroom!) will be out of use - so I had better get going in the 3 weeks of scrapping freedom that I have left.

The positioning of some elements on this layout are rather random but they are to cover up the ripped paper from where I took off some letter stickers that did not work! I am a bit fed up of my straight liner style so tried to angle the photos which looked nice but that did not leave enough room for all the journalling I wanted - so I had to start again. My challenge to myself is to try something different - because they are all getting a bit samey and learn to use more elements and papers to jazz things up a bit.

Spontaneous pressie!

Steven surprised me the other day with this little present he had bought me:-He heard Idina Menzel being interviewed on the radio the other day and remembered how much I liked her from when she was the original green witch in Wicked the musical. He thought that I might like this CD so he bought it for me! He does not usually buy me gifts so this was a lovely surprise and the CD is actually very nice!

Gorgeous Rocky Road

At the crop on Saturday we were discussing recipes and I said that I really wanted a recipe for Rocky Road - as I used to be able to buy it in Lakeland but they have stopped selling it. Well Ann kindly forwarded this recipe to me - thank you Anne!

I made them yesterday and they are just gorgeous - even nicer than the shop bought one - I can see me making these again and again.

Recipe ( from a real Aussie cookbook!)

INGREDIENTS

375gm of milk chocolate

1/2 cup desiccated coconut

1 cup unsalted peanuts ( I could not find any of these so substituted Brazil nuts chopped instead)

200gm glace cherries

250gm pink & white marshmallows chopped in half.

METHOD

Line a 28 x 18 shallow oblong tin with greaseproof paper.

Place chocolate in large bowl over a pan of simmering water and stir until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

Add coconut, nuts and cherries and stir until all combined. Then add marshmallows and stir well until combined. Spread mixture into baking tray and place in fridge to set .

Cut into small squares and eat!