Many Thanks

Linda and I were trying out the Cricut's again on Sunday and I had a go with her new 'Hello Kitty' Cartridge (thanks Linda). This is what I came up with. It's great as there is something there for every season.

Chatherine's school asked me to make some 'thank you' cards for the school production of 'Children of Eden' next week. I used the 'Hello Kitty' Cartridge for the rainbows and the 'All Mixed Up' cartridge and the Design Studio for the lettering.


Catherine asked me to make some 'thank you' cards for the dance teachers. She has her tap exam this weekend and it will be the end of therm at the Performing Arts Centre. Once I had worked out how to cut the parts in all in the right colours, I pieced them together and mounted them onto snowflake scrapbook paper and blue 6x6" cards. A little glitter glue was added for sparkle!
.Then I was asked to make a banner for the Youth Group at work as they had challenged another Hospice to a Wii Bowling Challenge this weekend. This time I used 'Don Juan' cartridge. Thought I would make the 'Wii Challenge' bit removable so they can use the banner again for another event, so it is attached with a little Blu Tac.

Journal Your Christmas - Preparations

A reminder from Shimelle this morning about the Journal Your Christmas project coming up on 1st December until 6th January. I did this in 2007 and it was great fun. Last year there was too much going on here with Catherine being in a travelling Panto and all the driving , chaperoning and costume making this involved. She has been invited to take part again this year, but feels her A levels are more important and needs more time to study. She is already taking part in the school production.

Before starting work on my Journal for this Christmas, I thought I would share my journal from two years ago as a slide show. This year I plan to follow the prompts again but use my blog rather than a paper journal. I may still create some layouts and other things, but all will be recorded here on this blog.

One for the scrapbook!

Prompt 12 - As time allows.

I loved Shimelle's idea of bookmarking a blog entry, by labelling it as an event to be scrapbooked. So I have decided to name my label 'One for the Scrapbook'. This means that when I have time to scrapbook but need inspiration or a reminder of what I intended to scrap, I can just call up posts with that label.

I will start with these photos of Catherine's recent dance competition which arrived through the post this week. She took part in the Kent Dance Challenge in Maidstone, which is now a national competition. Her team dance came third in the under 18's category, and they won a best costume award as well. Unfortunately the lighting was very dim and there was a lot of smoke on stage. We asked for this to be improved before they went on stage, but it was only sorted out for the second half, and of course Catherine's team were performing in the first half. So I need to play around with these photos to improve them a bit more still. The team photo was taken off stage and so is much brighter. I love the way they manage to take a picture of each child on stage. Well done and thanks to DE photo.

And now if time allows, I will go back to some old posts and add this label where appropriate.

Film Stars at 5 Months!

Prompt 2 Public or Private.

Covington Cross - The Hero

Lights, Camera Action

For this prompt I picked a subject I have been meaning to scrap for some time and decided it needed at least a double layout. I have thought long and hard about what to share and what to hide on the layout and on the post.

Back in 1992 when my triplets were babies we were involved in some filming for television. I

wrote this account of the experience for the

TAMBA (Twins and Multiple Births Association) Magazine. Although my photographs of the event were not brilliant I have been meaning to scrap them for some time. I decided to do a double layout of us all in the dressing room, and a single layout of the babies on set. I put some details on the layouts but the actual words of the article are hidden but not secret. Here is the article itself including the pictures that were published with my write up:


Lynn with Emily - notice the row of baby bottles

“We had a phone call from Jo Humm at ‘Super Twins’ one Thursday afternoon. “Would you like to take the girls along to be filmed for television on Monday?” she needed to know quickly. I was not sure whether I wanted to get involved or how Alan would feel about the idea. I had lots of questions which Jo was unable to answer at this point, except to say that she had checked the babies would not be involved in anything horrible. She added that generally people find it an interesting and financially rewarding experience.

Alan and I decided to give it a try if they could promise to provide facilities for us to care for the babies without too much disruption. We also felt we required a reasonable fee plus travelling expenses and Alan’s loss of earnings for the day.

We had lots of questions when, later that day we were contacted by Bea from Central Castings. We wanted to get involved, it sounded exciting and interesting, and we could do with some extra cash. We were concerned it might upset the babies, or they might not live up to the television company’s expectations.

By Friday evening we had negotiated the ‘deal’! They wanted a baby for the Medieval Christening of the King’s nephew in a series called ‘Covington Cross’. You ma have seen the pilot shown on August Bank Holiday 1992 (if you did, what was it like?). Twins were required so they could swap babies if one became tired or fractious. I reminded Bea that Catherine and Emily were not identical, and was told that a bonnet would cover their different hair colouring. I also pointed out we had triplets and not twins, so I would need to bring all three babies with me. “No problem!” we were told. They agreed the fee we Jo had advised us to ask for.

It all sounded great, what could go wrong? …… We were required to be at Shepperton with three five month old babies at 8.00 a.m.! Well at this point we did not even know where it was, how long it would take or what hour we would need to get up in the morning. Bearing in mind the babies had just started sleeping through to 7.00 a.m. I hesitated for a few seconds – the next thing I knew the television company were sending a car and keeping the fee the same. We needed to be ready at 6.45 a.m. This sounded more civilised. They promised to try to keep the job to one day, but it could be a long day.

Catherine and Emily learning the script!
As you can imagine we were up until late on Sunday evening preparing for the day ahead. What should we take? What should we leave behind? We decided to take the babies in their car seats which we could use as seats fro them during the day. They could also lay down if we took some blankets. So having crawled from our bed at 5.00 a.m., and with a day’s supply of feeds, we set off in the seven seater car which arrived promptly at 6.30 a.m.

Alan and the babies in the dressing room, just to prove we took Andrew along
We were late arriving due to delays on the M25, but we were welcomed and shown to the premier dressing room with a comfortable sofa and en suite. There were facilities for making ourselves drinks and warming the feeds although this and the canteen were a distance from our dressing room. My most useful tip for anyone else who gets involved is take your own kettle. We had to time the disappearances from the room carefully, so we were not missing when a baby were wanted on set.

How do you decide which baby to use when you have three? Well poor Andrew had to be counted out; he was too big for the gown. Emily was asleep so Catherine made the first appearance and Emily had her turn later. In fact the procession enters the church with Catherine, both babies are christened from different angles and Emily leaves the font in the King’s arms!

The whole process took three days; each part had to be filmed from different angles. We spent many hours in the dressing room while rehearsals were performed with a doll. All the filming involving extras had to be carried out first. The closes up scenes of the actual ceremony were not filmed until the third day. However we enjoyed these days, playing with the babies without having to worry about housework or washing. I also did lots of knitting while the babies slept.

Emily on set
Unfortunately Alan was unable to take more than one day off work, so both my sisters-in-law accompanied me, Marion on Tuesday and Barbara on Wednesday. Help is essential in the form of another adult the babies know well, one person to stay with two babies while the other takes the star to perform! It was exciting seeing all the actors, the director and producer and all the support teams working together. We were amazed at the long process involved in producing what will probably be about five minutes television.

Thursday and Friday were spent catching up on the jobs which had fallen behind at home, and by this time I was pretty exhausted. However it was worth the effort and the babies seemed to enjoy all the attention and the colours and lights. They behaved extremely well and we were very proud. I would certainly take up the opportunity another time should we be asked.
A big bonus was that we expected the fee to cover the job, but it turned out to be the daily rate! Andrew, Catherine and Emily’s bank accounts are all much healthier as a result. – until Mum and Dad need some money for the next big expense involved in rearing triplets.

If you are a member of TAMBA and you are offered the opportunity, I hope you find it as interesting and worthwhile. Meanwhile, watch out for episode four of ‘Covington Cross’ (The Hero) to be screened on ITV in January 1993. However if you are planning to travel to America you can see it sooner. It’s now February 1994 and we have not seen it yet – although it was shown in America in 1992. The television company will not release the video until it has been shown on TV. I only wish I took some better photographs, but at least I did take some to record the experience.”We did eventually receive a copy of the episode, and the girls have enjoyed watching it from time to time and debating which baby is which! They can claim to have acted with James Nesbitt and Cherie Lunghi.

Catherine

Paving the Way

I read with interest the first prompt of Shimelle's latest class - Blogging for Scrapbookers, with all the different ideas for how to go about recording your blogging / scrapping intentions for the duration of the course. Although I got my plans down on paper I did not get my layout completed until today. I decided to make use of the header I made for my blog and extended it into a 12x12" layout. Lots of lovely Scenic Route (very precious now they have sadly ceased trading). Here is my layout with my trusty little 12" lap top.

So here goes with my plans:

Making use of my existing (and there is plenty of it!) stash.

To scrap and blog about some of the events I already have photographs for, but have not got around to scrapping.

To improve my scrapping and my blogging at the same time.

To 'meet' other scrappers who also have blogs, and share ideas, and follow each other's blogs.

To start a trend to blog about all my creations.

Box Clever

The other day I had a play with these card kits from Paper Nation. They fold flat to fit into the envelope. The only problem is they are die cut but need trimming, I would rather cut them out myself in the first place. I don't think I would make any more but they are quite good fun.

Finding a Pattern

Blogging for scrapbookers - Prompt 9

Prompt 9 of Shimelle’s Blogging for Scrap bookers is about patterns for your scrapping / blogging. I have to say I don’t really work to any pattern, I scrap or blog an event as and when it occurs, and when I have the time. I was interested to read about the mother of four whose children keep track on which of them had been scrapped the most. The children think the number of pages about each child related to the measure of their mother’s love for each of her offspring. As a result she has to work to a pattern of each of the four children to keep them all happy. I’m glad to say my three, despite all being born on the same day do not feel this sibling rivalry and appear to take delight in any page I create. They often join in with opinions and ideas of their own now they are older. My three children all do very different activities in their spare time. My son, Andrew does not really like having his photo taken and his favourite sport for much of his school life has been swimming. Sadly we are not allowed to take photographs in the public swimming pools any more, so much of his progress and achievements have gone unrecorded by the camera, or scrapbook page. (The layout shows
Andrew baking at 3 - class by Paper Maze Scenic Route papers)


My daughter Catherine does lots of dancing and performing arts, and I make a lot of her costumes. We always have a photo shoot at home and there are often opportunities to take pictures back stage. In addition there are always the official photographs to buy. Catherine also enjoys having her photo taken at every opportunity when dressed up for an evening out, fancy dress and just for fun with or without her friends. Most of these can be found on her Facebook.

My other daughter Emily was also a dancer until a few years ago, but she gave up in favour of her other time consuming activities. There are always many pictures of her to scrap, if not as many as there are of Catherine. Emily is a keen photographer herself, so I have a ready supply of her pictures to scrap too. (Layout shows Emily's obsession with Jessie from Toy Story, Cosmo Cricket papers.)

As I said the children have never really scored points on how many pages I scrap of each of them, although I do try to keep this in mind. I like to scrap an event when it is new and fresh. I am also enjoying scrapping treasured old family photos of my own childhood as I have discovered them. I am in the process of scanning all the old slides my father took backs in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. I plan to put these on discs for all the family who would remember these events as a little extra Christmas present. I’m also wading through scanning g all the colour negatives Alan and I have taken over the years (and that’s a big task!).
(Layout shows Christmas 1964 photos from slide, Basic Grey Papers)

Another source of photos, making my scrapping random, is the family history and tree building I have been involved in this last year or so. This has been very successful and I have been adding to my collection of photographs from some new found distant family members. I may have traced my family back to 1584 and my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, Grandfather William Banks. Apparently he was employed to recruit sailors for the navy at the time of the Spanish Armada. I wonder if that make him part of a press gang! I may have traced my family tree back to the 1500’s but of course the oldest photos I have are around the late 1800’s. This delightful photo is of my great grandfather Robert Ephgrave, this is an old LO I made at a Scrapaholix retreat some years ago with Scenic Route Papers.


Talking of patterns to scrapping, I did more regular scrapping when I was involved in the Mojo Holders DT. This gave me a good excuse to get scrapping weekly, and because it involved using a sketch I would scrap what was most appropriate. For example through the summer I scrapped a lot of photos from my daughter’s latest dance show. (Layout shows A dance competition and Basic Grey papers.)


I have note books full of scribbles and sketches of my own ideas. I usually use this method of planning scrapbook pages when I am away from home and the Internet. I spend time planning out what I want to scrap when I return from holiday. The example below is from a trip to Venice while staying in Lake Garda a few years ago.
(Layout shows St Marks Square and more Basic Grey.)

Reading today’s prompt I was wondering about developing a pattern to my thoughts for blog entries and scrapping. Maybe a ‘Basic Grey Thursday’ as this is by far my favourite range of papers. I could maybe invite others to scrap from a sketch derived from my LO each week, or maybe monthly would be a little less ambitious and a better place to start! I used to use follow the challenge of creating a page from the Pencil Lines sketch weekly, and more recently have used the Page Maps when I need some inspiration myself. I will check out all the useful links in Shimelle’s prompt when I get more time.

I was interested to read about the lady who blogged a message to her twin daughters weekly as
it reminded me of when my triplets were small. I have up writing my diary as I was rather busy with the babies and started photographing every event along the way – then when the prints dropped through the letterbox, I would choose the best shots and put them in an album, with written comments on who, what, when, and where. A few years later I discovered scrapbooking and the rest is history as they say! There were no digital cameras or Internet in when the triplets were born 17 years ago. We did however own a BBC computer, which had been invaluable to me in my studies and work as a nurse tutor before the children came along. It certainly helped me with my dissertations, while others were paying to have their work typed up for them I was able to do my own and make changes as I needed to.
(A layout recreating the front page of J. Wilson's Double Act with Bazzill and the Cricut.)

Drawing from all this is my undeveloped plan of having a regular feature on the blog called something along the lines of ‘Blast from the Past’. This would be a series of entries with words and layouts about the photos I am discovering from my past, as I find and scrap them. If you are still with me – congratulations! This turned into a very long blog entry indeed. Shimelle has truly succeeded in getting the thought processes going. Watch this space in 2010 for some regular features – once I have decided what they will be!

Catching up with Shimelle

Having signed up to take part in 'Blogging for Scrappers' with shimelle, I've not had much time for blogging or scrapping. So I am attempting to rectify that now as I have some time off work. Each day I have briefly looked at the daily prompts as they dropped into my email box, and I printed them off. They are well travelled as I have been carrying them around with me, thinking I would read them in any spare moments which have not happened yet. I only started blogging in May this year and have gradually added features and tried new things, mostly inspired by other bloggers and friends. The scrapbooking, well I have been doing that for a very much longer time!

This Is Autumn

I made this layout at Jill's crop yesterday, using Basic Grey's Eerie papers. I had thought I would use the Indian Summer collection with this photo, but decided these papers complimented this photograph so much better. When I say the photograph, I felt it captured the season so well. It was taken by Emily, and features her friend Gemma kicking up the leaves in Danson Park last weekend.

Linda's Birthday

Linda's birthday was on 5th November, but we celebrated again at Cardinal Colours Crop yesterday. I made cakes and Anita made her fantastic raspberryoffy pie. As always we had a lovely lunch provided by Jill. Excellent company and a good laugh, we even did some scrapping and card making.

I made the card to fit with the theme of Linda's gift - a cup cake stand, and a selection of cake decorating accessories. The stamp is by Personal Impressions - Feminine Set 1.

Thanks to all concerned for another lovely crop.

Knitting Flowers of Rememberance

I discovered this excellent book for knitting and crocheting flowers (and a few fruit, veg and insects too). Over half term I tried making a few and it is fascinating to see the flowers come to life on the needles. I couldn't resist knitting this poppy ready for a heritage, remembrance layout I want to scrap.

I also made a ladybird, daisy, lavender and a rose bud. I hope to make several stems of lavender to create a bunch. These are ideal for decorating clothing but I think most of mine will find their way onto scrapbook pages. The great thing is they can be made will all those left over scraps of wool, and don't take very long to knit.

National Elf Service!

As Linda said on her blog, we spent some time sharing the stamps we purchased at Crafts U Love. We attended a class and demo by Françoise Read last weekend see my blog entry for 31/10/09. Here are some cards I made with the images stamped from Linda's Christmas Elf set. Now to use my angels and nativity sets next!