It's almost Christmas

First I must apologise for the absence but I hope you will understand.

It has been a difficult few months and some more sad news last week has rather taken the shine off the lovely Christmassy feelings that were starting to creep in.

But there is nothing like a bit of snow to pick up your spirits.

The longest week of my life

Today is the end of the longest and one of the most painful weeks of my life.

A month ago I was busy packing to go on a holiday to Turkey, a week in a tradition boat called a Gullet. It was a surprise for my Mums 60th birthday and organised by my step-father, Nigel.

We had the best time, relaxed, swam, ate and just watched life go by.

Life was good... We came back and resumed everyday life with that post holiday glow and slowing fading tan.

Then last Sunday, the phone call. You know when someone rings that something is wrong but the words are so unreal. Nigel died in a motorcycle accident on Sunday 9th September.

I have spent the week with my mum, organising things, putting the kettle on again and again and cooking meals at regular intervals. I'm not sure it's real still... It just shouldn't happen.

Nigel was a wonderful, kind man (deaf and diabetic) but good humoured and great company and I will always miss him.

If this week has taught me anything it is- to live each day as if it could be your last and tell everyone you love just how much they mean to you.

Thanks for visiting x

Project life- 1 year on

I started Becky Higgins Project life on the 19th Jun 2011.  Not because this was a special date (although it  WAS Father's day) rather that is was the Sunday of the week of a special event... A big box arriving from Amazon.

Now I had long lusted over Project Life, well for at least 6 months, but there was no way I could justify the postage costs from the US.  Once I heard Amazon UK was going to stock project life in 2011, I knew I would HAVE to buy it.  So the stalking of Amazon commenced and on the 22 June 2011 my Turquoise Project Life arrived.  Oh the excitement!!

So I have been quietly getting on with Project Life for a year now and I have to say I LOVE it.  I have been scrapbooking for 4 years and this project has really changed the way I scrapbook and most importantly it has changed the photos I take.

I feel like doing this project has made me more observant  of my life and the things around me.  I love looking back through it and remembering all the events that I probably would never devote a whole scrapbook page to but the have still made up an important part of my year.

Before project life I used to feel 'behind' in my scrapbooking... I still am behind but I now feel OK with that because that trip to Amsterdam, the holiday in Vegas and everything else that has happened in the last year has little space in this album and won't be forgotten.

I have bought the Clementine kit for the next 12 months and although mine is not the prettiest or unique of Project Life out there... I still LOVE it because it is MY Project Life.

Thanks for visiting x

Albums

I am taking Cover to Cover class by Shimelle Laine. I have been getting prompts for this class for a few weeks now but struggle to read documents on computer screens and I have SO much paper clutter I couldn't bear to print the prompts out.

Luckily my Kindle has come to the rescue, by emailing the PDFs to the device I can read them in comfort wherever I am!

So on to prompt 1... Shimelle has asked us to think about our current system for organising our pages within our albums and to SHARE.

Now I'm usually very bad at sharing, I love reading blogs and wait eagerly for my favourite ones to be updated. I spend lots of time on 2 peas, UKS and pinterest  but I rarely comment on these sites. I'm not sure why but I feel a little naked putting my thoughts and feelings out there for the world to see.

So I hope you'll excuse me as I take a deep breath and return to the point of this post... I'm going to share with you what I currently do...

Photos

I get my photos printed online and pick them up at a local supermarket. I print 4x6 photos with the odd enlargement or 4x3 thrown in. I TRY and put orders in regularly and doing project life  has helped with this but I am currently behind with this project.

Scrapbook albums

I started scrapping in 2008. My first project was an 8x8 album for my cousins wedding, I loved making it and loved giving it to the happy couple even more.

After that I moved on to 12x12 pages. I put pages in albums, mainly American Crafts D ring cloth covered albums in chronocological order. I scrap out of sync with which ever photos I have at the time. I have 12 albums on the go at the moment:

My childhood album
My wedding album
My honeymoon album
Me the abridged version (MTAV)
Project life 2011-2012
One little word 2011 (OLW)
One little word 2012
And 5 albums of pages made up of everyday life and events between 2007 and now. I also need to add an additional album for Florida 2011.

None of these albums are finished as such. I have got further with some than others and only 4 of these albums will have a distinct finish point (MTAV, OLW and project life).

So thanks for struggling through all that writing as a reward, here is a snapshot of the current state of play!


Thanks for visiting!

Wizbit

Hello and welcome!

Hello and welcome to this little corner of the internet which I am claiming as mine.

First off, my name is Liz and I live in the North East of England with my wonderful hubby of almost 2 years. I work in a local hospital to earn my keep and I spend my spare time (and cash) doing crafty things.

I am a scrapbooker, meaning I put photos, words and pretty things on to scrapbook pages or layouts (LO) and keep them in albums... a sort of super duper photo album. I would describe my scrapbooking style as quite simple and I love the work of Ali Edwards, Cathy Zielski and Shimelle Laine. Even though I like simple I am quiet messy, a bit disorganised and have WAY too much scrapbooking stuff stuff. It's all so pretty though!

I suppose everything else you need to know about me will become apparent as I continue this blog.

Thanks for visiting!

Wizbit x