Nuts About Sketches #158 - 3 2 1 Go

Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend! Back to normal for us today, kids are back in school after their extended weekend, although they have another short week this week. They are out of school again Thursday until Tuesday, due to the extra bank holiday here in the UK for the Royal Wedding, and then it's May Day holiday on Monday. Throw in an extra days holiday decided by the school, and it's another short week and long weekend...

Anyways, Mondays mean time for a new sketch by Shawn over at Nuts About Sketches, and this week it is a beauty!! I get all excited when I see circles on a sketch, so I loved this sketch right from the start!

And here is my layout...

For a long time I have wanted to start scrapping photos of Mark that relate to his Military career. I always have trouble with this, and also trouble with then sharing them on my blog.  I always have the "national security" thing in the back of my mind - if I told you I'd have to shoot you type of thing LOL. But I do know that I need to get these types of photo scrapped, and get him to give me some stories for them. It is a shame that for the majority of his career, he has never really taken photos of where he has been. Cameras were not encouraged. Maybe it's just a bloke thing, as when they had a girl join the crew, she always took a camera. So I do have shots of him on detachment, and I even have a few of him in a warzone. But not alot really to show for his 20 year career. He's said it himself that its a shame. We've had conversations with friends that have left who lament the lack of photographs they have. Maybe it's a British thing. Or maybe it's just the Nimrod Aircrew mentality. But I am heading off on a tangent here....

These photographs were taken while Mark was on an Exchange trip to New Zealand - called Longlook. This is where member of the RNZAF and the RAAF swap places with people from the RAF for 4 months. Mark swapped places with a young guy called Marmite (actually his name was Simon) who was based on 5 Sqn at Whenuapai airbase just outside of Auckland. During his trip, he did lots of sightseeing, and the occasion flight with work... There were a group of Longlookers staying in the mess, so they used to organise trips out. This was one of thier excursions - a trip to the Agrodome in Rotorua. Home of some of the most bizarre adventure rides you could imagine. And I know, cos I went there too on our trip out there and rolled down a hill in a large inflatable ball...  But this ride was called Swoop. You get strapped into sleeping bags, hoisted up 40 metres into the air, and then it is up to you to pull the rip cord to set the thing in motion.  Someone on the ground took these photos of Mark and one of his companions as Mark pulled the ripcord.

I pulled out one of my few remaining sheets of Scenic Route paper for this layout, one which had strips of different patterns on the one sheet. I used Spellbinders nestabilities to cut out my circles, and then painted some raw BasicGrey chipboard numbers for the title.

Hop on over to the blog to see what the other girls have been creating this week, they are such a talented bunch, that you cannot help to be inspired by them - I know I am!
We are all working hard on the birthday week sketches too, and Shawn posted a sneaky peek of the kit that she has up for grabs if you join in and play along with us that week. It looks amazing!! I hope you will join us for the week of fun and sketches...

TTFN


xxxx