Catching up....

.... with family, work, friends, and just life in general this week. It's amazing how much having visitors come to stay can knock your whole routine out of whack, so I've been trying to get back to normal, whatever that may be...  I have a few treats lined up for the rest of the week - a bit of pampering, some beautification, a night out with my bloke, and to round it all off, an afternoon crafting, chatting and eating cake with friends.

I also have a bit of catching up to do with regards to sharing some layouts...  Last week, there was a new sketch every day over at Nuts About Sketches, to celebrate the 3rd Birthday of the blog.

Here is my layout for sketch #4

The photos are from a canoe trip Mark and the kids took with his best friend and kids. They both had a Canadian canoe, and paddled down the River Spey from Kingussie to Loch Insh.

Next up is the layout I did for sketch #5



Mark took these photos when he went to watch the All Blacks play France at Eden Park in Auckland. I was so jealous when he told me. I was brought up watching Rugby Union, and my Dad was a referee at a local amateur leve;, and I spent many Saturday afternoons on the touch line watching him. I would have given my right arm to watch a International Test, and maybe my left arm as well to watch the All Blacks play. His seats were on the try line, and he got a great view of the game. He said the Haka was just amazing - it really is a different experience seeing a Haka in the flesh rather than on the TV.

I used a couple of stamps I purchased in New Zealand on this layout - the fern leaf looks better in real life, I stamped it with white ink and then embossed it with clear embossing powder before handcutting round it.

Then there was the layout for sketch #6

These photos have been knocking around my desk for a while - I took them while we were on holiday in North Wales in 2004. We visited a woodland adventure park, not unlike our own Landmark in Carrbridge. There were plenty of activities to do, mostly involving wood! These wooden stilts were fun, although the kids were just a little bit wee to actually use them by themselves, so Daddy helped them.

The final sketch #7. This was a 2 page sketch, but I just took the lefthand side of the sketch, and I also flipped it horizontally to make it work with my photos.



These are photos taken at the Gravelpit Pond in Culbin Forest. We like to go there to see the tadpoles, and there are usually millions of them. Later on in the year the fully formed frogs go back into the forest, and you can watch them slowly navigate across the trails. You really have to watch your step!

I cut the frog out of a scrap of BasicGrey paper, and fixed it to the layout using sticky pads. I added some handstitching to look like hopping, although it didn't really turn out the way I had hoped....

There is still time to enter a layout for the Scrapping Spot kit - the competition closes at midnight on Saturday 14th (the midnight between the 14th and 15th). All the details are on the blog :)

So now to this week. Monday was the usual reveal for the Nuts About Sketches weekly sketch, and this week was sketch #160

These are photos of Tom learning to fire a catapult at Millbuies Loch.

I finally got to use my die cut piece of Making Memories paper that I have been hanging on for what seems like an age! I handcut some stamped leaf sprigs, made some flowers, inked a canvas flower, and did lots of distressing with my CTMH distressing tool. I even managed to get a doily in there LOL. Not a very manly layout...LOL.

Check out what the rest of the Design Team did with the sketch!!

The night out with my bloke I mentioned earlier, is actually an evening wedding reception of 2 of our friends. So I made a card....

I kept it nice and simple - I hear that "less is more" is quite the fashion these days LOL. I took inspiration from my good friend and crafting buddy (who is extremely talented and an expert muffin baker to boot) Erika who was making a gorgeous white with a hint of black card at our last crop. I raked through my Cuttlebug embossing folders, and found one that looked nice and wedding-y. I added a few little jewels, a bit of black ribbon, and a sentiment. You can't beat black and white for a wedding...

TTFN

xxxx