RIP Rolo

My brother's dog, Rolo died today. Bless him!

He was a 10 year old golden retriever, and a really lovely placid dog. Here he is 10 years a go as a little puppy-how cute!

We are all very sad, and my brother, his wife and 2 daughters are devastated. He was one of the family in every way.

He had 2 large tumours on his spine, and the kindest thing was to put him to sleep. It has come on just in the last couple of weeks, so he hasn't suffered. He just got worse very rapidly.

We're all thinking of them today.

Bank Holiday Monday

It's the last BH till Christmas (sigh!). The weather has been pretty good though. Thank goodness, cos it's been a pretty awful summer! Some really fabulous days, but interspersed with lots of rain and wind!

Yesterday we went out on the bike to a NT house - Clandon Park near Guildford. What a splendid entrance hall! They gave us a guide sheet, which was quite big and laminated, but was really good in that it just pointed out the most important points in every room. Just right for us who don't want to linger, or spend ages talking to the guides in every room! The garden was a bit disappointing, and we couldn't visit the Dutch garden becasue an ash tree needed work, and they had discovered a bat colony in it! So that area was roped off.

We had a lovely lie in this morning until 8.30, but meant we didn't get out with the dog until 9.45!! So it had to be a quick walk down the beach, but Merlin had a little swim, so he enjoyed it!

Then we went to visit MIL. I am afraid I don't go very often, as I don't find her the easiest of women to talk to or get on with. She always seems to dismiss what I say, and doesn't seem interested. She thinks I am very frivolous! Anyway, we were going to take her out for a ride in the car, but I knew that by the time we got there, she would have thought of something copmpletely different, so (difficult for me, cos I like to be in control) I tried to go with the flow! We went for a short walk along the river, which was really gorgeous. They have recently redeveloped the riverside with 'townhouses' and a nice cobbled walk. It is really lovely, especially when the tide is high. Then, we bought fish and chips at a riverside chippy, and took them home to eat in her flat. Bang goes the diet!!! And she faffs about so much warming the plates, making salad, and drinks and bread and butter, that the chips are cold by the time we eat them LOL. Here's some pics:

Here's the Littlehampton lifeboat, Blue Peter 1. remember when we used to collect foil for Blue Peter appeals? I don't think this is the original BP1, cos it must be 30 odd years ago that they got the first BP lifeboats!

Garden in late August

This year I have tried growing vegetables in pots. We have had a few meals worth of runner beans, which were very nice, because I picked them really small. DH's Dad used to give us tons of rbs, all as big as possible, cos BIG IS BEST!!!! Here's my ruby chard which looks absolutely gorgeous with it's translucent red stems, but I don't know how to cook it!!
















Arty shot of my 'tumbler' tomato in a ahnging basket. It has been very prolific, and tastes pretty good too. I tried taking a picture after watering it - not sure you can see the water droplets!
















Merlin loves to be in the garden with us, and loves chasing frogs!! Trouble is, he has no respect for my plants, and just goes head first in there if he thinks there is the slightest movement!















My helenium is looking great! Just about the only thing not totally demolished by slugs!

















This rather delapidated hut was the children's playhouse. My Dad made it! They never really played in it though, because it is right down the bottom of the garden, asnd too far away from the house - and there are spiders in it! It needs demolishing now, and something doing in that corner. What you can see in front of it really is carpet! It is our old hall carpet, supposed to supress the weeds!!!

Look at these gorgeous crab apples! Mum and Dad bought us the tree for our 25th wedding anniversary. It's Malus John Downie, I think(!). It has had apples this gorgeous before, but they have usually all dropped by now, but becasue this year has been wetter, they are still there.

I haven't really spent the time in the garden this summer, and it looks a mess! This time of year is not good in my garden, very little colour, and not much interesting structure either! Perhaps I should make it a bit of a project to find some stuff to plant for this time of year.

My patio pots look a mess too! The tomatoes and runner beans in pots are over really, and need clearing - although it seems a bit early to clear them. I haven't fed my pots becasue we haven't had a hosepipe ban! When we have a hosepipe ban, and I have to water with a watering can, I am pretty good at rmembering to feed. But when I can water with the hosepipe, I can't be bothered to get the watering can out for the feed!!!

Tanda Stamps swaps

There is an ATC swap every month on Tanda Stamps. This month's theme was 'Transport'. I make 2 and get 2 different ones back. I received these images as part of an 'image' swap on UKS. We each took 1 decade of the 20th century, and sent in enough images to split between the 10 of us. These are from the 1960s

Paper is 'Scenic Route' I thought it went so well with the images. The little arrows are cut out of a sheet of it.

Ome interesting thing about these ATCs, is that I always used to think ATCs had to be 'vintage' in style. I was reading a thread on UKS (about what you hate about scrapbooking), and people were bemoaning how quickly trends come and go, and someone said that they were 'so over vintage', and I thought 'yeh so am I!!!'. Now what am I going to do with all the 'vintage' papers etc that I have ???? Retro is obviously the new vintage!!! LOL LOL
Do I follow trends, you bet I do!!












I don't usually do the card swaps or challenges, but this one I had to join in! We had to make a card that expressed someone else! I have done this one for Burnice aka Angel on forums. She really makes us laugh, she is sooooo funny! So when I found this quote, I just had to use it!




I used 'Snow Angel' alphabet aptly!


















oops! The ink on my image smudged a bit when I added glitter.

The little angel is Burn's avatar.













Here's the whole card. I have not made a gate fold card before.

I hope you like it Burn!

Holidays Circle Journal

I decided a few weeks ago that I would really like to do another CJ. I looked on UKS, but at the time, the Shakespeare one was full (I stepped in later when someone else dropped out). So I thought I would organise my own! So here it is, Linda's Lovelies Holiday CJ. Our first post is next week! My theme is 'Beach Holidays'.

The cover was inspired by a challenge at Crawley crop, to use vellum, and a LO by Shimelle in SI. I rarely use vellum, but hink it looks great as the 'waves' here! Bit of bling and glitter add to the effect.

These letters are Paper Mania. Aren't they fun? I love the bright felt colours, and the bit of stitching. It would take ages to make them yourself.

Introduction. I decided to make it easy - no rules! Just do what you want. More vellum waves!!

Here's my entry. This photo is of one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to. The photo is hinged and I have journalled underneath.

I love these Tanda Stamps. In fact, I love beach huts atm, and have lots of photographs of them this summer too!

The 2 back beach huts are stamped on to Bazzill. The front beach hut is stamped onto white card, and coloured with watercolour crayons and water brush, as is the child. The shells and crabs are from the same Tanda Stamps set.

Really looking forward to this CJ now, I do hope it goes OK.

KITS!!!

I have subscribed to several kits lately. I saw Scrapagogo kit at a crop, and thought how great it looked, and love the idea of getting bits and pieces that all match. So I went on UKScrappers thread about which kit to have, and ended up subscribing to 3!

This first one isn't even one of those! It's a Jenny Bowlin kit I bought from Natalie at my Crawley Crop. It is gorgeous 7 gypsies papers, all brown and green and blue. Oddly, it includes a sheet of yellow cardstock which doesn't go at all! I don't think they show up very well in the pic, but there are 3 little silver crowns, some ribbon slides, a gorgeous voile flower, velvety ribbon and huge brown brads. Can't wait to use it!






This is Scrapagogo's latest kit. It's Kelly Pannacci, and I LOVE it! I want to use it to do more of my BOM, which I started last summer, and haven't done much in lately. What will be interesting is to see how my style (and the fashion generally) has moved on in 1 year. Even more reason to date LOs.













Scrapping Angels is a lovely kit, cos it is small, just enough to do 2 or 3 LOs. I did some lovely Los of Lucy as a little girl with last months. Might have to use this for those pics of her as a little girl as it looks like crayon drawings! Just right for little children!

The 3rd kit I'm subscribing to is Little Red Scrapbooking in USA. AS the $ rate is so good atm, it's working out quite cheap even with shipping. Last months was gorgeous Crate Papers.

I love receiving the pizza boxes through the post, and I'm finding it's a great way to increase my stash in a more coordinated way, try patterns and embellishments that I would probably not buy, and keep bang up to date!

Entertaining friends

OMG! I had to tidy everything away in my dining room for dinner with friends tonight! Those people who keep inviting us round invited us again already!!!! So I Had to have them round here. I made sure everyone had a little job to do, DD did the strawberries, DS laid the table, DH did my ironing (first time in nearly 30 years of marraige!!!!! - I had to show him how the iron works!) I cooked lamb Tagine, thanks to Lesley on Tanda Stamps forum for the recipe! It was really lovely, and I hated DH giving the kids huge plate fulls, because I knew they wouldn't eat it!!! Our friends kids are very fussy, so I usually have to do sausages or chicken legs or something seperate for them. They are 18 and 16 now!!!! Well, their DD only had 2 chicken legs for her dinner. I felt a bit rotten, but what can you do, I was trying not to spend all day preparing, cos I don't really like doing this entertaining lark. The funny thing is that these people are the only people we ever have round for a meal, everyone else just comes for a cup of coffee, or we go out with them.

The conversation was a bit dire last night. DD and thier DD were being silly teenagey, and my friend kept saying, ooooh what are you like? and joining in with their silliness. Call me a prude or old fashioned but I prefer grown up talk! Trouble was Mr Friend is totally obsessed with global warming etc atm, and that's all he can talk about. He is very clever and is able to talk very clearly and I used to like listening to him, BUT it is BORING NOW!!!!!! And he is always full of doom and gloom about the future! Todays lecture was that we won't have clocks anymore cos noone will make the little batteries that go in them!!!

So here are a couple of photos of said dining room, all corners have huge piles of stash in them now! I am off to IKEA in September to buy some IVAR shelving that fits 12 x 12. Trouble is we have this lovely pine furniture, but 12 x 12 is just too big for it. I have a really nice pine dresser that I haven't got a photo of that is stacked full of stash too!
















And here is the table laid before they came. It did look nice, I love the colours I have in the dining room, and once it got a bit dark (far too early considering it is still August!) we put the lamps on and it was great!

I am so pleased to be part of this CJ on www.ukscrappers.co.uk. It is a Shakespeare CJ, and we all have different themes around the Shakespeare idea. I am the only one to choose a single play, but I just hink that there is so much you can do with 'Romeo and Juliet', becasue there have been so many interpretations of it over the years.






I bought these quickutz drama dies especially for this project, and am intending to use them on all my entries! Here I have reversed the eyes, nose mouth and then covered them with sepia glossy accents.










Alpahbet is QK Eliza, just perfect for this title, and then sepia glazed with glossy accents. The pp is Anna Griffin, out of my 'heritage' box!

















The picture is downloaded from the internet. It is part of a painting of R&J by the pre-raphelite painter Sir Frank Dicksee. It has come out in with a wonderful 'aged' look, just right for this cover.

The 'frame' is from Paper Artsy.








Here I used my QK drama masks as stencils with brown ink.

















Here's my entry. I found these wonderful 'e-postcard' images on the website for Baz Luhrman's 1997 film Romeo and Juliet. www.romeoandjuliet.com. I have used them to illustrate the light and dark themes of the play (I think!!), along with a few quotes.


























Here's a detail view of my sign in page.












I am quite pleased with how this sign in page has turned out. Can you see it's supposed to be a balcony? I might just add a little R&J motif on the ballustrade.