Blogtober Day 31 - Memorandum Monday or Hooray I have managed to do four blog posts per week for the last month!!!

Yay today is the last day of Blogtober and I managed to meet my goal of four blog posts per week.  I still have a backlog of stuff to blog but at least the amount is not so daunting now.

Today is also Monday, so it is time to reflect on the weekend and pay a visit to Sian over at From High in the Sky.  It was a very busy, packed crafty weekend at the A Trip Down Memory Lane retreat.  They hold two per year at the beautiful Stoke by Nayland Hotel.

Wendy was my chauffeur and we took a rather loaded car with us (PS the back seat was pretty loaded too!!!!)

The rooms are beautiful but you don't spend much time in there

The crop rooms are large and there are lots of shopping opportunities

 I was very productive, did 6 classes and got 12 layouts done and a thirteenth is almost finished.

And Monday finds me with all my crop unpacking to be done - I think I travelled quite light really!!

I have a busy crafty week ahead, WI craft class, my monthly scrap class and a crop to look forward to.  Hope you all have a great week and if you get a chance go and visit Sian and give her a wave.

Blogtober Day 30 - Asilah

This was one of Anita's classes from last year.  The paper range is Bo Bunny Rose Cafe

 As soon as I saw the small tiles that Anita had cut from the paper I knew that it was going to be the perfect layout for some of my photographs from Christmas Eve 2012 when we visited Asilah in Morocco.  

The circles were made with Liquid Pearls in Rose Gold.

Thank you Anita for another great class

Blogtober Day 28 - using up kit leftovers

I had lots of bits and bobs of a magazine freebie paper pack leftover, so I started out by covering a load of card blanks with the papers.  Then I matched stamped images (all of them Penny Black) that I had coloured a while ago with the card blanks.

The sentiments are a mixture of Stampin' Up, Hero Arts and Personal Impressions

Punches used are EK Success butterfly, Stampin' Up scalloped border and small flower.

That's a few more cards to restock my for sale box.

Blogtober Day 26 - Beat the Christmas Rush - the October Edition

I need to up my production rate of cards the closer we get to December as I still have one more fundraiser to do plus I have my own cards to send.  So I made 10 cards for this month's edition.

I used a lovely doily die from Penny Black and mounted a snowman from Stampin' Up set 'Snow Place' on top of it, the little santa hat is also from that stamp and die set.

The little white peel off sentiments are from Woodware and the sequins are from my stash.

If you would like to join in with Beat the Christmas Rush please leave a link to your blog post below -

Blogtober Day 24 - Memorandum Monday

I'm dashing in with my weekend round up and waving hello to Sian over at From High in the Sky.

It was another fairly quiet weekend, the weather was very autumnal and a bit wet at times so we mainly stayed close to home.  I did go to my parents on Saturday evening to watch Strictly and as ever did a bit of multi-tasking and coloured in a load of stamped images ready to be turned into cards for my next fundraiser.

I also worked on another big batch of Christmas cards and it is a good job I started these as I have just realised that tomorrow is the 25th and I need to blog Beat the Christmas Rush - guess what I will be finishing off as soon as I have finished this blog post!!  Hopefully I will get them blogged tomorrow.

Today has been a fairly quiet day, I went over to Brighton with Mr P this afternoon to the funeral of one of his friends' Dad.  I hadn't realised that it was half term so the roads were pretty quiet and we had a very good trip there and back.  I have a busy week ahead - I am going on the ATDML retreat on Friday so I have to sort lots of photographs out ready for my chosen classes plus some spare kits for if I run out of work to do.  Luckily I keep my tote semi-packed most of the time so I just need to check that I have my favourite scissors, a trimmer and plenty of glue/adhesive packed - though there is a very good shop on site if I run out of anything - now repeat after me 'Karen you do not need any more patterned paper, Karen you do not need ......................'

I hope you all have a good week and I will hopefully have lots of retreat photographs to share next weekend - sadly the retreat does not clash with Halloween this year so there will be no dressing up.

Blogtober Day 23 - Dukes Farm Table Gifts

When we have our little crafty meet up each year in Wales we usually all exchange small gifts and this year was no exception.

I had some little packs of nail gems which are great to use for crafting so I made a little box to put them in with my WRMK gift box punch board.

I decorated the boxes using SU Perpetual Calendar stamps in Daffodil Delight and Smoky Slate.

I then added a sweet treat on the top - white chocolate coins decorated with punched scallop circles and a LOTV round sentiment stamp.

In return I was given these lovely gifts -

Decorated mugs by Jessie

Journalling prompts from Jules

Easter chocs in a basket from Fiona

 A box of embellishments from Gemma

Decorated pringle tubs from Sy (they didn't last long LOL!!)

Post it note pad from Dee

A brooch from Lisa

Mini bottle of wine from Mr P and washi tape from Lee

Quilted coaster and pot holder from Tara

Blogtober Day 22 - Gorgeous Grunge meets Papillon Potpourri

At the beginning of the year I went to the Littlegreen Crop retreat which was held at a lovely hotel on the outskirts of Arundel.  One of the make and takes was this lovely card using Stampin' Up goodies.

When I got home I decided to make some more in different colour combos.

These use Pool Party, Smoky Slate, Wisteria Wonder and Blackberry Bliss

And Tip Top Taupe, Delightful Dijon, Mint Macaron and Watermelon Wonder

And Smoky Slate, Basic Grey, Melon Mambo and Bermuda Bay

The stamps used are Gorgeous Grunge and Papillon Potpourri with a mini flower punch and the butterfly punch that co-ordinates with the stamps.  All the greetings are from Personal Impressions. These are great cards when you need a quick batch in a hurry - thank you Sarah for the inspiration.

Blogtober Day 20 - Bring on the Cake

I did this layout last year for a challenge on UKS but I have no idea now what the challenge criteria was.   The layout is about the rainbow cake that I made for Mr Ps 50th birthday complete with sparkler candles - I'm not overkeen on getting too close to sparklers so I very nervously had to carry it out to him!!

The paper used is a really old one - Sassafras Lass 'Indie Girl'

The title is done with AC Dear Lizzy foam Thickers and the doiley was coloured with a yellow promarker.   The die cut butterflies are Cheery Lynn and the little stars on the layout were done with a Derwent watercolour pencils and a Heidi Swapp stencil.

If you want to keep up with the others taking part in Blogtober then check out Sy's blog here

Blogtober Day 17 - Memorandum Monday

It is still Monday so time to link up with Sian over at From High in the Sky to share about the weekend.

It was a bitty weekend, apart from one plan we had nothing much organised so we did a bit of this and a bit of that - the weather was bitty too, one minute lashing down with rain, the next it was blue skies and sunshine - it couldn't make up it's mind what to do!!

The highlight of the weekend was going with my Mum to the cinema to see the 25th anniversary show of Miss Saigon - it was one of those one off live theatre screenings and our first time of seeing one.  I was very impressed, it did have the feel of being at the theatre, we were even given a programme on the door instead of the usual 'ugg' that you get from the teen doing the door.  There was an interval and everyone clapped and cheered at the end, just as if we were at the theatre.  The camera work was stunning, you would never see it that close up even if you were in the front row.  I saw Miss Saigon 24 years ago when it was just over a year into its West End run - it reduced me to a blubbering mess then and it still does!!

Today we went over to Rye to visit an uncle who is in respite care at the cottage hospital there.  As hospital visits go it was really good.  Uncle was very chirpy and chatty and before we knew it, four hours had flown by.  Hopefully he will be able to get home soon.  A quick pub stop for a meal on the way home and that was basically the day gone.

It was also a weekend of no photographs, so rather than leave this blog post photoless I will share a baby card that I made last week.

The bear stamp is a new one from Stampin' Up and is a three step stamp - I used Mint Macaron (stamped off once), Pool Party and Bermuda Bay.  The background was embossed with a SU embossing folder and the sentiment is from the bear stamp set.

Don't forget to go and give a wave to Sian if you have shared about your weekend.  And if you want to see what the other Blogtober peeps are up to, then check out Sy's blog

Blogtober Day 16 - Confetti Love

Another layout from last year's ATDML Disney themed cybercrop.

This challenge was called CINDERELLA and you had to use stitching on a layout.  I combined the challenge with this sketch from the Sketchy Scrappers group.

I used a photograph taken at the end of last year's Marillion UK convention.

The papers used are Fancy Pants 'Trendsetter' and Pebbles 'Seen & Noted'.

The stamps used for the embellishments are by American Crafts and Personal Impressions.