NAS - week 241 :Cheers!

You know, I really don't know where the time is just now. It feels like I blink, and another week has passed by...

 

So, I'm late in posting my layout using sketch 241 over at Nuts About Sketches. This weeks sketch was a 2 pager, but I decided to just use one side of the sketch - the right hand side.

 

This is Mark enjoying the frozen ButterBeer we bought on our visit to Harry Potter world at Universal Islands of Adventure.  I must admit, it was very tasty, but I am glad we decided to share a glass as it was very sickly after a couple of mouthfuls.

I went clean and simple with this layout, with lots of white space. But I got in the essentials - title, photos and journalling :)

This weekend we are heading back to Orlando again. We have an extra day's ticket to use up at Universal, and then we are going to Sea World on Sunday with a free Hero's pass :) So it's a freebie weekend apart from a night in a motel and food. And possibly another glass of ButterBeer.....

Monumental fun

Happy weekend!

Carrying on with my Nuts About Sketches layout catch-up...this is my layout for week 235. You can find the original sketch here along with other examples from the rest of the Design Team :)

Ugh, I'd forgotten what a pain scanning in a layout with a white background was... It looks better on the Nuts About Sketches blog, I promise ;)

Anyway, this photo is from the first weekend we stayed in the USA. We went to Arlington Cemetary on the Sunday, and then walked from their to the Marines memorial - a.k.a the Iwo Jima memorial. On our way, we stopped to look at the view over Washington, D.C, and Mark thought it would be fun to play about with perspective and the scenery. Hence Jemma appearing to be holding the Washington Memorial by it's point...

I used papers from a 6x6 PaperMania pad - Portobello Road. I bought this before we left the UK, as I knew I would want some Union Jack and British-ness type papers, and with the Jubilee and Olympics, there was British pride bursting out all over the place!!! On this layout, I used more of the subtle papers in the pack - I just wanted to pick up the colours on Jemma's t-shirt :)  I coloured the Thickers in the title with a ProMarker, and added some clear glitter glue for a bit of sparkle.
I changed my layout size to 8.5 x 11, so the photo took centre stage on the page, but there was still enough room for some white space.

Bunny Girl

Back again with another of my layouts for Nuts About Sketches. This was my layout for week 234, and you can find the original sketch here along with layouts from the other DT members.

 

 

 

For her 13th birthday, Jemma was very specific about what she wanted for presents - a purple and pink Superdry t-shirt, and a onesie...  Now the t-shirt was relatively simple to order online, but the onesie....well that was another matter. We couldn't find anything online, and being spring time, all the winter clothing in stores was being replaced by summer stuff. Even though it felt far from summery in the far north of Scotland, but that is another thing....
Mark and I took one last look, and went to Primark - or Primarni as my dear sister-in-law calls it - and *ta-daaaaaaaaa* there was a rack of onesies. And they had the right size. And it was a pink bunny. Perfect.
Jemma loved it. In fact she wore it everyday. If she could have gone to school in it, she would. So, there she is, on her birthday - a teenager in a bunny onesie...

I went monochrome on this layout, and used My Mind's Eye's papers. I fussy cut a few flowers and added them with brads, and also made some lollipop flowers for embellishments. A clean and simple layout :)

2 of a kind

 

First of all, I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! This will be our first ever Thanksgiving holiday, as we don't celebrate it in the UK. Although we have no links to the origin of the holiday, being here during the preparations and build up has made me pause to think about the whole idea of being thankful.

I am thankful for the opportunity we have been given - both us as a family, and Mark professionally - by the military, and being allowed to live in the USA for 3 years. It bears no thinking what the alternative may have been - most likely redundancy and uncertainty.

I am thankful that the family has settled into the US systems - school for the kids, and the US Navy for Mark. Things are so very different over here, and the way that the kids have transitioned has made me a very proud mama :) They have worked so very hard, and are determined to continue to do so.

I am thankful for our friends - new and old. Old friends keeping in touch. New friends welcoming us into their homes and into the community. Showing us around, helping us out in times of need.

I am thankful for so many other things - our home, our family and our health. And Skype. And Facebook. And our SatNav (especially when she pronounces things wrong..)  And technology in general.

Thankful for so much, so many blessings. Sigh. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside....

 

 

And thankful for being given the opportunity to work with amazing sketches on the Nuts About Sketches blog :) This was my layout for week 233 - you can find the original sketch and the other DT members layouts here

 

 



 

These were photos taken by the nauseatingly uber-talented Mandy Hunter at a family photo shoot we had done before we left Scotland. She took some great shots of the kiddos, and when I saw the sketch, I knew I wanted to use some of them.

 

I used up more of the BoBunny "Winter Joy" collection. I do love purple, aqua and lime together...  I used green stickles on my Thickers title to link it into the colour scheme. A few buttons, and a bit of soppy journalling, and the layout was complete...

 

So, I leave you now to experience the eat-a-thon that is Thanksgiving... Happy Turkey Day - Gobble Gobble Gobble!!!!!



Mulberry Cove

 

I thought I would do a catch up over the next fews days, with the layouts I have done recently for Nuts About Sketches. This layout is from week 231, and you can find the sketch and the rest of the DT's pages here

 

 

These are photos from an afternoon's kayaking at the Naval Air Station's marina - Mulberry Cove. On a Thursday, kayak rental is free to all service personnel and their dependants, and an opportunity too good to pass up!

I used up some scraps on this 2 pager - mainly My Mind's Eye - plus some Studio Calico thrown in. I used my "dripping goo" border punch from Martha Stewart - one of my bargain finds at TJ Maxx - as I thought it looked like dripping water.... A smattering of buttons finished it all off :)

Winter is coming...

.... even to Florida. (BTW love the Game of Thrones, although prefer the books to the TV series...)

I knew I would acclimatise to the North Florida weather, but I didn't think I would do it so quickly! The experience of living in the Mediterranean for 4 years put me in good stead for this move, as I'd done the whole living in a tropical climate thing before. I think my body has gone back into Gibraltar mode, I quickly adjusted to the heat when we arrived, and now I am starting to feel the chill of November... My Scottish buddies will scoff at me, when I say it has only been 20 degrees C today - and I am sat here in jeans and a hoodie and socks.... One of the other families who moved across with us has not brought any winter clothing with them at all, thinking they would not need it. Eh? Now, I know I can be a bit daft sometimes, but even I know that when your body gets used to 35 - 40 degree C in the summer, when it drops by 20 degrees it feels cold.... Unless you are my husband, who is determined to wear shorts all year round regardless of the temperature. And I am totally justified for buying those 3 pairs of boots in the Target summer sale back in July....

Anyhow, when we moved, I didn't pack any of my knitting stuff, thinking I wouldn't want to do any. Now, you can guess what happened, can't you. Yep, I got the urge to pick up some needles and yarn and make stuff lol. So this is what I made....

...fingerless gloves. Lovely long gloves, that come up to my elbows lol. And they have cable on them. I love, love, love doing cable.

The pattern is a free pattern that you can get here. There are lots and lots of other free patterns for both knitting and crochet, and I now have a collection printed out for future projects....

And it also helped that Michael's had a sale on all their yarn last week....

Current project - legwarmers. Yep. Kids from Fame, eat your heart out....

NAS sketch 240 - Oct '12

This is my layout using this week's sketch over at Nuts About Sketches.

We finally made it down to Orlando in October - when it started to cool down a bit. We spent the weekend at the Universal theme parks - Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. We had a blast. The kids are both tall enough to ride the big rollercoasters now, so we did the lot. Well, they did the lot. I sat a few out.... This is us beside the huge revolving globe outside Universal Studios.

I used Echo Park Everday Eclectic for this layout. I love the muted colours of it. The title is American Craft Thickers (which have once again become an obsession). I layered a couple of buttons and tied them with baker's twine as a small embellishment.

I will be back soon!!!!

Ummm, yeah.

Sorta fell off the face of the Earth again, didn't I?

How can it be November already? It was just my birthday last week, right? It is scary how fast time is going this year. And before we know it, it'll be December 2015 and time for us to return to the UK. I am trying so hard to enjoy the new experiences, but they are whizzing past me at a million miles an hour, sometimes I forget.  Now the initial excitement has worn off, and we are into the school routines and after school clubs, it feels like we have been here forever. I still have pangs of homesickness, and flashes of "OMG we live here", but I am more settled than I thought I would be. The weather has cooled down - it has dropped in temperature over 20 degrees C since we arrived. Yes, it is still in the high teens and low 20's which is positively tropical for the UK, but it feels cold to us now.  I am happy to be able to wear my jeans and jumpers again, and I have justified my "crazy" boot purchases in the summer by wearing all 3 pairs!

I started the Couch to 5K running program at the beginning of September, and can now proudly say that I can run 3 miles non stop without collapsing :) It has been hard work, but well worth it, I feel so much better for it, and the visits to IHOP are less of a guilt trip ;)

I am going to try really hard to keep up to date.  I have a few DT layouts I want to share, and a few other crafty projects that I have been working on too.  I have a nice list of Christmas crafts I want to make, starting with a wreath for the front door.... I am thinking of doing a December Daily of sorts too - my local Target has 8x8 We R Memory Keeper albums and divided page protectors... I have plenty of Christmas papers in my stash, and now with my trusty iPhone, I am never short of a photo or twenty....

Speaking of which, I'll leave you with a shot from our recent trip to Orlando.

Life is good :)