Hand Crafted Memories

Here is this weeks challenge, I had this finshed by 10PM on Sunday night, 2 hours after the release of the sketch. Does that make me a bit of a scrapbooking geek? I actually already had these pictures on my counter ready to make a page, and I knew I wanted to use this paper. An excellent example of perfect timing I think.

A quick post with a page. I mostly scrapbook from sketches or magazines, I usually jig it up a little bit and don't do an exact replica. This one came out of my own head, it just needs the journaling adding on. My problem is that my brother loves me to make the pages and shows his album to anybody that can't get out of the door quick enough, but I want him to add his own writing. Most of the pages are sitting with empty journaling areas and I can't do it for him because a lot of the time I wasn't there. Like this one, it's obviously the boys on their Guitar Heroes game but he was there and knows the conversations, scores etc. Perhaps I need to give him a training sessions on writing things down. The page looks better in real life, I must learn how to take better photos. The background is black and pink, I trawled all round the Papercraft show at Harrogate to get some 'rock' papers in boy colours and this pink pirate princess paper was all I could find that

Here's the evidence, that I have been utilising my new room to the full. I've completed this weeks challenge within a couple of days. I'm obviously still excited about everything having a place because I'm tidying up behind myself. The idea was that I would be able to leave things out and shut the door behind me. Give it a couple of weeks and normal mess will be resumed. I'm going to the fabulous Papercraft Extravaganza in Harrogate this Saturday, I intend to be good (the emphasis is on intend). I 've started to make a list, I wonder if I'll stick to it. I never do at the supermarket so I probably won't faced with all that wonderful papery, glittery temptation.

Here it is at last, my craft room is 99% finished. The door needs rehanging, the radiator fitting and the last piece of beading for the floor under my desk needs nailing in. I am so pleased with it and since Friday when it became functional I have hardly left it. I was going to do some housework today before I go back to work tomorrow and because I haven't been using the rest of the house it only took me half an hour to run the hoover round and shift the dust about. I'm going to my scrapbooking class at the Craft Box tonight but I don't want to leave my room, I always enjoy these classes as it's a good crowd.

I knew I needed a craft room, I've done another page. I've had this one in mind for a while but never got round to doing it. There's no excuse now I have the space and all my goodies are in one place. I haven't come out of the room all day except to make a cuppa, with my little TV in there and a view over the garden to keep an eye on my washing I don't need anything else.

Where did this week go? I've been really busy with my new office/craft room and the time has just flown. It looks fantastic, even better than I had imagined. Just a couple of finishing touches and I'll be able to take pictures. I bought an office chair from Argos but it looked so big and black in my lovely light room. It's a shame that there really isn't much choice in colours unless you want to pay a fortune., so I bought some fabric to match the blind and turned this: into this: I love it and it's really comfortable. It's still a bit too black but I can live with it better now. The added bonus was that it was free. I asked if I could use my nectar points that I've been collecting towards it, and I had enough to pay for it. I love free! I've completed this weeks Pencil Lines challenge Sketch 126 and this what I came up with. I had to turn it on it's side because of the photos orientation but I think it still worked. I'm so happy with my new

A new blog that looks like it's going to be interesting. I love the Stampin Up products and have done a few workshops, so this blog is offering blog candy and looks like it will be having Stampin Up challenges. I'm intrigued, go here to check it out.

I had to tell this story because I keep chuckling about it. I have spent all of my week so far running backwards and forwards between B&Q, Wickes and the Plumb Centre. I ended up buying the untis from Wickes because they were cheaper in the sale than the B&Q ones, but they looked exactly the same. Here they are.When the units for the office were delivered things were not quite right, I ordered white units and a couple of extra end panels to have some shelves fashioned for my printer. When the end panels turned up they were oak, so they went straight back on the van. I love oak it's my favourite wood, my living room furniture and floor is oak, but the office is to be white beech and apple green. I also ordered one of the wall units at 500mm and I should have ordered 600mm, so I had to take that one back. Thirdly I wanted drawers for my base units but when I went to price them up they were not in the sale and were £122 each, making them more expensive than everything else. S

I'm already having a great week, first of all I'm on holiday, a whole week to do just whatever I want. The cheque arrived from the insurance company who have paid out for the water damage. I'm a bit disappointed with them because each stage of the claim has only moved on when I contacted them to find out what was happening. Why couldn't I be told to get a list of prices for everything that needed replacing on the day that I contacted them instead of 4 weeks later when I hadn't heard anything from them. Then again two weeks after faxing them the quote I had to e-mail to fond out if they had received the quote, before I got a reply to say they had received it and had put a cheque in the post that would arrive within the next four days. Anyway it's here now. The new floor in my office/craft room was fitted by my lovely brother yesterday, it makes the room look huge. The units have arrived and the joiner is coming this evening to start fitting them. The electri

Here is my latest scrapbook page, it's all about my red hair. Why do we say red when it's actually nearer orange? I used to hate my hair being red as all the kids used to laugh and give me nicknames like ginner and duracell (copper coloured top). I never minded it too much unless I was at school. I used to ask my mum all the time if I could bleach it blonde, but all she would say was that they were only jealous and that lots of women paid a lot of money to have hair my colour. I thought they must all be mad or very rich because this is 40 years ago, how could they afford a fortune to make their hair my colour, and why? Well here I am one of those people that pay a fortune to keep it this colour just so I can keep those pesky, white ones from taking over. I'm only 5'2" so everybody seems to spot them (because the whole world is taller than me) and take huge delight in telling my I have grey hair. So now I understand why. T his is based on another pencil lines sketch

Here is my take on this weeks challenge. A lot of the pages are for my brother of his family, I prefer one photo and some 'white' space with embellishments, but he likes the pages to have as many pictures as possible on. It's not always easy to make them different or too busy but since I've discovered Google's Picasa it's been much easier because it has the collage feature on it. So all I do is tell it what photos I want to use and it makes them fit. Perfect. The daffodils opened this weekend, I'm only admiring them through my patio window though, it's too cold to go out and get up close. I planted 200 bulbs a couple of years ago and they look stunning when they all open and they smell gorgeous.

A great blog candy prize giveaway here . I didn't think I'd get much into blogging but so far so good. Let's see if I'll be celebrating a year of blogging.

Here is another pencil lines layout, number 123 this time. I've done two, if you've got two nephews you've got to do two pages.I'm not too happy with these, I feel there's something missing, but with the bright colours I'm not sure what I could add without making it too busy. I'll have to keep thinking about it. Remember I had a feeling spring was coming, well here's the evidence. The daffodils and muscari are going to be next, only a few warm days and they'll be bobbing their pretty heads in the breeze. This morning I had an early morning drive to take some photos for Shimelle Laine's online class Here,There and Everywhere . I realised that in my thousands of photos that are waiting to be scrapped I have none of where I live, so I took a drive before all the traffic started. I took 77, even though I won't use them all it made me realise that I live in a pretty place. I drive past this view twice every day on my journey to and from work. How