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Monday, 13 July 2009

Danson Festival 2009

We all went to Danson Festival on Sunday 5th July, Alan was helping on the Erith Yacht Club Stand, Emily was with her Archery Club, Andrew and Sinade were with Bexley Fencing Club and Catherine had two jobs to do.




First of all she did three dances with the Liz Burville Performance Team on the Dance Stage, then she danced one of her AS pieces with another girl, Lauren from Trinity School on the Community stage. I was still having trouble with my tooth ache but managed to stay until the dances were finished before I had to go home.


The first two photos are the Charleston dance with Liz. I missed 'We will rock you' they started early as another team didn't show up! Then Alan used the camera to take video of the 'Music' dance, but we do have a lot of photos of Catherien doing that dance as it has been used many times in over a year. The second two are Catherine and Laura in the Community Tent.

Sunday, 12 July 2009

Letting It All Hang Out!

The second Scrapaholix kit for July is My Mind's Eye Laundry Line - Letting it All Hang Out! Containing three sheets of patterned paper, four sheets of card stock, three paper blossoms and some ribbon. I have created one LO so far using only some of the kit. I used my own ribbon to lace up the holes punched to the left of the photograph as it took 45" and needed wider ribbon. I punched the leaves with a QuicKutz die and inked them with chalk inks from ColorBox. The lettering was also cut with QuicKutz and the 'Lucy' alphabet. I added stickles around the scalloped edges of the striped paper. For the flowers I layered extra smaller blossoms from my collection and self adhesive pearls. The butterfly was tinted with chalk ink.



Heather and Nicholas' Wedding September 2007, St Maws, Cornwall.

I have been in contact with the lovely Gabrielle Pollacco whose work I have admired for years and the above pinches a few of her ideas. I contacted her recently and was amazed by her lovely reply:

"Hi Lynn,
I meant to say this in the last email I sent you! I was looking at your blog spot and saw the little piece on BasicGrey and then I saw the 'secret garden' l/o......was that your l/o???!!! Oh my GOSH!! That was one of the first scraplifts I ever did when I was first learning about scrapbooking!! I saw that l/o and just had to try to make something like it! (see attachment) Your's of course is far more beautiful but how much fun is this, so many years later I'm talking to one of the scrappers who really influenced and inspired me as a scrapper!!
Thanks so much for sharing your beautiful work!
~Gabrielle Pollacco xx"

Here is my original LO followed by Gabrielle's scraplift, both using Basic Grey Urban Couture.







Friday, 10 July 2009

Tonights Mojo Holder


For challenge 117 Pearl Liu is this weeks guest at Mojoholder. Pearl has designed for Di Hickman's Sketches and Etsy store Such Sweet Tierney. You can view more of Pearls work on her blog Pearl's Paperfections.

Here is my Layout, followed by Pearl's Layout and the sketch.





The photo shows the Liz Burville Performing Arts Team, dressed for part of their We Will Rock You Dance. This is one of the dances they performed in Hollywood as part of the Dance Excellence Competition in LA. I just knew this Basic Grey June Bug paper was what the photo needed! I also used some BG Obscure and Oh Baby papers.



Wednesday, 8 July 2009

Scrapaholix July Kit

Here is what I have done with the July kit. Linda is starting a new Scrapaholix club in Crayford, and I am helping her with her new venture. I am making up my kit before the first session so people have more ideas of what can be done with the kit. Linda has already done her lay outs. The My Minds Eye papers are lovely, and the kit also contains a generous five sheets of card stock. I must admit I like to use more patterned papers and less card stock these days, and struggled with the colours of cardstock for the pictures I wanted to scrap. The cardstock supplied is Core'dinations, which is great stuff as it has a coloured core, so is great for samding and tearing. See the website for how to videos. Jill at Cardinal Colours has a great range of this cardstock, and Vanessa at Paper Maze stocks a good range of My Mind's Eye papers.


When designing the pages it was important to remember there will be mostly new scrappers attending the session, so I could not splash out adding embellishments they are unlikely to have accumulated into their stash - yet (once hooked - it's only a question of time as us scrappers all know!). For the titles I used Sizzlet alphabets which I can take along to the club, so the members can use the same if they want to and learn how to use the big shot too. I have inked everything (as Always!).

The technique was using the Pearl Ex mixing powder this month and I used it mixed with Ranger's Glossy Accents (available fro Jill and Vanessa - links as above) and painted it onto the cardstock, this achieved three things, the made the card shimmer and glossy, while also toning down the brightness of the red card. Inking and distressing with sandpaper also helped with this.

One LO is of my wedding, L to R Alan's Mum Rhoda (Sadly Alan's Dad died the year before the wedding), Alan, Me, My Dad Bob and my mum, Mary. There were three blossoms in the kit which I used by adding smaller flowers cut from the cardstock. the punches will also be available for people to use. I used a Stampinup.com, scalloped edge punch on the cut off strip of the patterned papers to edge my photo. The only thing I added from my stash was three red brads!



The other LO is an old photo from my mother's side of the family, and shows three generations of women. Susan Dunn Humm is my great grandmother (2nd from left), Winifred Humm Holder is my grandmother (1st on left), Gladys Humm Coppin is Winifred's sister and Susan's daughter, my great aunt (3rd from left). the children are Mary Holder Banks, my mother, Winifred's daughter, Susan's grand daughter, and Patricia Coppin Smith, Mary's cousin, Gladys' daughter and Susan's grand daughter - Phew!! this was inspired by a LO in the latest issue of Scrapbook Trends (August 2009), by Lynn Ghahary called Amazing Me. Here I used distressing with sand paper, and inking. Then two more Stampin' up punches for the scalloped circle and the circle.



For the card I used up scraps left over from the LO's, I always try to make a few cards with whats left from a LO, otherwise I sore the bits and they never get used, they just clutter the place up and take up valuable storage space. I used a Cuttlebug die (from Vanessa) between the Stampin' Up circle and the scalloped circle running a ribbon through the loops on the sides. The greeting is a Stampin' Up stamp.

Tuesday, 7 July 2009

Wow, it's here!


The new Basic Grey is finally in my hands! Had a great day a Jillybeans Crop (Cardinal Colours), where my collection packs were waiting for me! I think the June Bug is so much nicer than I expected. The first two pictures show the June Bug collection, as its double sided, it needed two photos to show it off!).


Love the Lemonade too, and can't wait to make a start with it all. I was still on the pain killers on Saturday so Linda kindly drove us to Jill's although it was my turn really (Thanks so much Linda x). I didn't achieve much scrapping but it was lovely to get together with my scrapping friends for a few hours. It was also great to see Ali, who I have not seen since the Scrapaholix trip to Florida in 2005.

The next picture is the lovely Lemonade Collection.
The Basic Grey newsletter dropped into my e mail box on Saturday too.

I won the raffle at Jill's and this is my prize which I am looking forward to making a start with. As soon as I feel a bit better I plan to do some scrapping.


This is a double LO I made at Jill's crop on Saturday. It shows the two Limos we used while in LA, 18 of us travelled in the first one to Santa Monica and back. The second one was able to take all 27 of us to Universal Studios on the first Saturday we were there. Then as we had time to spare on the second Saturday, so we hired it again for a round trip to Venice Beach, Beverley Hills, Hollywood and back to the hotel in time to get a coach to the airport. They were both amazing and the girls and us mums had a wonderful time.

I used Bazzill Cardstock from Jill's wonderful wide range and a selection of Sassafralass from Vanessa at Paper Maze, Serendipity 'Robotics' line. I worked from a Page Map for the LHS and then reversed the look for the RHS. The LHS has a pocket at the bottom left which holds several more photographs of our outings. The black velvet lettering is from Making Memories. I don't know where the brown letter stickers came from other than my sticker drawer!

Monday, 6 July 2009

Face Ache!

I have been having severe pain in my jaw since having a tooth removed after failed root canal treatment, seven weeks ago. The dentist said everything was healing and there was nothing wrong. He said to keep taking the pain relief. I was going to work and then to bed managing little else.

They still said there was nothing wrong at the hospital after an X-ray and consultation last week and gave me antibiotics, anti inflammatory medications and stronger pain relief.

Since seeing the doctor at the hospital last week and using the pain killers, the pain got more frequent and far worse. I have not been able to sleep and in the end Alan took me to A & E last night where I saw a doctor who said that the problem I described was 'Trigeminal Neuralga' (TN) and pain killing tablets were not going to help at all. So I have been started on some medication that would normally be used for epilepsy to stop the nerve problem, but I have to build this up slowly to find the right dose, so I am at the point now where I am pain free for about three hours three times a day!

I went back to the max fax team today and they are referring me to the specialist, who I saw years ago for my Temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ). I see him on Thursday.




I can't work as I can't drive and I'm still in a lot of pain or drowsy. I have to find the right level of this medication and then wait until I am taking it without the side effects, so in the mean time I am trying to catch up on some sleep. I also need surgery to deal with a piece of bone protruding through my gum near the socket, which is pretty sore but the least of my worries at the moment. For someone who rarely takes medication - you should see my pile of drugs! At least now I can get rid of most of them and just take the one!

Sorry this is a bit of a negative post, hopefully better news tomorrow!

Sunday, 5 July 2009

Faeries at the bottom of the garden!



On the evening of Friday 3rd July, the Mojo Holders design team published their layouts lifted from a super page by Edleen Maryam. Above is my layout using a Fancy Pants 'A Little Daydream' transparency and 'Daydreams Wish paper for the background. I used the tags and tiles sheet from the same range for the green flower and the pink heart, I cut the wings and the green heart from other sheets of PF paper using the die cut wing and heart as templates. The bracket was cut free hand from the flip side of another sheet of 'Wish' paper. Then I raised the journalling strips, bracket flower and one of the hearts with pop dots. I also used a few brads for the flower centres.

The photo is another of Emily taken by her friend Nadine at the photo
o shoot. I thought she looked like a fairy at the bottom of the garden! I took a quote from one of her favourite books by the artist Brian Froud. It reads: "Faeries are
seen not by the eyes but through the heart." Not my usual style but I did enjoy creating this one.

Here is Edleen's original layout and the sketch.