Inset day, rainy day !!

Why are all inset days on a Monday when I have 5 lessons and never on a Friday when I only have one ! Kids have been great, despite this horrible weather outside. They have now gone for a play at some friends which gives me a few minutes to sit down and surf the web!!
We had a lovely weekend. Well, that is if we don't talk about the rugby !!. We went to the pub on Sunday for a very nice Sunday lunch and played some board games in the afternoon. I should really spend some time gardening, but the weather is far from great so I keep finding new excuses, it is far too boggy right now !
Anyway, I said I would show you the page I made for the new Sketchy Thursday sketch so here was the sketch

And here is my take on it. !!

Harry wasn't too impressed I had used one of his stickers but I think it was worth it !! Now, considering this page took me three hours to finish, I am not sure it was time constructively well spent !! As someone I know will say ! But never mind, I like the result !!

But I'd better go, I have another lesson in a few minutes and now I have just had a whole packet of Liquorice Allsorts, I feel rather sick !!

Take care

Anne

Shopping Trip !!

First of all thank you for all the team in Sketchy Thursday for choosing me, yes ME ME ME !! as one of your favorite. I feel so honoured. Some ladies on this site are really good, I mean fantastically talented so I feel very proud I have been selected, thank you !
This morning I had a chance to go to the show MAKE IT in Farnborough. I went with a friend who likes cross stitching and unfortunately there wasn't much for her there. It was mostly for people who like to make cards and decoupage. There wasn't that much for me neither, but still, I managed to find a few bits in two stores I liked.

I don't often work with pink but these ribbons are gorgeous and I can feel a bright pink and lime green page coming up. I took Amelie to the shop American Girl Place in New York and it was full of pink frilly girls and dolls in there so I am sure I will find a nice sketch somewhere to use my new purchases !

On Thursday, my anonymous friend Rachel come over to scrapbook. She came at 20.00 and left around 23.00 and in all that time, we only managed to create one page each !! We are so slow !! We kept laughing at how slow and unproductive we are, moving one button here and one paper there ! No wonder my husband thinks it is a waste of time, sometimes it is, and yet, I love it !! Rachel's page came out really beautiful and I wish I had taken a picture to show you but I am sure she will have her own blog soon !! ( wink wink !! ).
The page I did is for Sketchy Thursday's new challenge, it is nearly finished and I will try to upload it in the next few days.

Anyway, time to warm up, it is war in this household this afternoon. France is playing England at Twickenham later. May the best win, let's just hope it is France !! Kids have been busy making flags, mostly English, I will have to make my own !!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend

Anne

Busy page for a busy day !

It is a wonder how I get any time for scrap booking during the holiday, between having friends over, picking up other friends, going ice skating, going to the cinema, having friends for sleepovers and dropping kids off for sleepovers ! Still, managed to make this page last night after going to a meeting to organise a street party for the Royal Wedding ! ( getting excited yet ! ?)
I got the sketch from Sketchy Thursdays. It is a good sketch for me since I have a lot of pictures to use from our trip to New York. The page I made is very busy, but I like it that way as it reminds me what chaos that shop was, full of very excited kids, Legos and colourful stuff everywhere.

This is the sketch:

And this is my version of it !!

No stitching this time, didn't have enough time !! But lots of cute little stickers.

I hope you are enjoying you half term break.

Anne

New York, New York

Back from a great trip to New York. We decided to take the children to America for a long weekend. It was very tiring but a fantastic and memorable experience. Kids really enjoyed the whole trip and adjusted fairly well to the time change. Well, Amelie did, Harry struggled a bit more, waking up at the crack of dawn, ( or even before !! ) and falling asleep in every taxi !! Still, the weather was brilliant, the food plentiful and it was just really nice to share the adventure with the family.
I did try to go shopping but I don't think New Yorkers have got much time to do crafty things and on that point it was a bit disappointing but I have now got a whole new load of pictures to scrapbook, so hey, I can't complain.
Yesterday, we were all trying to recover from jet lag, (apart from Andrew, bless, who had to go to work ! ) so I got a chance to make a page. I was feeling rather tired and thoughtful, hence the title and the mood of the page. I decided to follow a sketch from Creative Scrappers

And since I had quite a lot of time on my hands and very quiet children, I did a fair bit of sewing. So here is the result.

I really like the paper. It is from Basic grey and it is called Olivia. I think I might have to get the whole book !

Well, I should really get going with all my washing and cleaning the fish tank ! ( who said fish were easy to look after !!)

Nice to be back at home and online !

Anne



Happy Valentine!

Happy Valentine every body. I hope you all have a nice day.

We had a lovely weekend. Again a great weekend for rugby as England and France both won their matches. I wonder who I will support in two weeks when France and England are playing against each other !! hmm, let me think !! I could say I will support the winners but really I will support France !!

On Sunday, Andrew cooked this amazing Moroccan lamb for lunch and mussels for dinner. What a treat ! Andrew cooks mussels like no one else does. Last night he added pear cider and bacon and it was scrumptious. Tonight, I am cooking, lamb again !! ( we both went shopping separately and came back with quite similar shopping bags ! ). Kids are eating early and we should have a nice evening. Although, One Born Every Minute is on, not sure this is very romantic !!

Talking about romance I made a page for Shimmelle.com. I really liked the sketch and remembered a picture we took last year in France on our 10 year Anniversary. The setting was beautiful, really one of the most beautiful places in the world, a little village in the Ardeche called Labeaume. The food was really delicious. All sounds perfect but in fact the kids were misbehaving and the service was appalling !! hey, this is France !!. Never mind it was still a great day to remember !!
The tittle is La Vie Est un long Fleuve Tranquille. Which means, life is a long calm river. I am know I am very lucky but I have always had a very happy and easy life. I remember my childhood with very fond memories of my parents and grand parents. My job has always been rewarding and stress free and I am grateful for a lovely family.
Anyway, here is the sketch:

And here is my page ...

And from a bit closer...

Well I hope you all have a very nice evening.

Anne  XXX



A bit of colour !

Just a quick one as I promised to visit a friend who has just had a baby boy.

The weather is still not great, although it did stop raining for a couple of minutes today ! So I decided to bring the sunshine in and try a challenge for the studio. You have to use only these colours.

I used a picture of Amelie and I that Andrew took in Spain. Looking at the picture makes me laugh. She is such a character, she is always pulling funny faces, she has a grin that would warm anybody's heart and when we were on holiday one year, the nannies ( that makes it sound like we go to some posh places, doesn't it !! Not really but there were nannies !!) named her "sunshine smile". So anyway, here is my page !

And a bit closer ! Note the little frog as she is half a frog after all !! The photo makes the page look a lot more orange than it is. I guess the lack of sunshine doesn't help.

The title says "je t'aime a la folie " which is what you say when you take a daisy and pull the petals one by one.

So now, time for a cuddle with a new born !!

Have a lovely weekend

Anne

Rain, rain, go away !

The weather was so nice at the beginning of the week, and spring looked so close. But today it is drizzling again, probably because I had set myself to go for  a run, oh, well, I will have to go shopping instead!!.
After a busy first half of the week, I managed to find some time last night to scrap a picture I took when we had to go to hospital with Harry a few weeks ago. I found a sketch on Creative Scrappers that I liked. I used my favorite papers of the moment from October Afternoon and decided to add a few hand made flowers !! Yes, aren't you proud I made them and sewn them myself !! ( et de toutes facons si j'avais dit que c'etait Marie, on ne m'aurait pas cru !! ). I like the page, I even managed a bit of misting !! Here is the sketch:

And here is my version.

My mum made this little teddy for Christmas for Harry and he fell in love with him. He even asked for another one, so he actually has two of them and you will often find Harry playing in his bedroom with them. They go on all kind of adventures !! I have a close up of one of the flowers.

I think I am going to invest in a sewing machine soon as I really like to add sewing on my pages but it is sometimes quite hard to go through so many layers of papers and keep going straight.
Anyway, I have a lesson in a minute so better go and prepare my props.

Anne

Allez les bleus!!

What a lovely weekend !! It started well with England winning at rugby on Friday but got even better when France won on Saturday !! We are not actually big sport fans as we would much rather be outside ourselves but we do like watching a good match of rugby ! And this inspired me to do a sketch for A Few of My Favorite Things, where you have to say what is your favorite game. I am pretty sure they meant board game, but never mind ! We got the opportunity to go to Twikenham last year with the children to watch England vs Australia and witness a great victory. We had such a nice day out, kids loved it and the atmosphere in the village was fantastic. I would love to go again to watch a 6 nations match, but it is very difficult to get tickets these days so I think we might just have to watch it on TV instead. Admittedly a lot warmer ! So anyway, here is my lay out.

I have cut a few bits and pieces from one of Andrew's magazine to make this page and had a go at using paint. I still find it hard to be messy ! (although, my friends would laugh because I am a very messy scrapper, I just don't like my pages messy !! )

On Sunday I went to visit a friend in Teddington. I hadn't seen her for three years and it was really lovely to catch up. Kids were very pleased to meet up again and we had a lovely day. My friend is very crafty too, her house is beautiful, decorated with lots of little ornaments and gorgeous pictures of her family. I know she would love scrapbooking, I will just have to convince her !!

Anyway, house work is calling me, better go !

Anne

It's Friday !!

Hey, hey, it is Friday and I am getting my hair cut. Could life get any better? !

Yesterday I received a parcel. well, I am lying, I didn't really receive a parcel, it was actually addressed to Amelie but I opened it anyway! . I knew it was a present from my very talented sister. She had made Amelie a sketch book. Amelie loves drawing wedding dresses you see, so it was the perfect present. It is so cute and lovely, I really wanted to keep it for myself. Well, except for the drawing of the lady inside, which was a bit freaky !! ( my sister will understand!! ) but Amelie loved it, and especially the lady !! She said that Gwen (that's my sister !!) should really be an artist !! That made me laugh, because as much as she is the greatest seamstress in the world ( I have to say that or she will never sew me cushions ever again !! ) and the world's fastest knitter, she has still got some progress to make until she can open a gallery of self portraits !!

Anyway, this is what the little book looks like and if you would like to see what a great knitter Gwen is, check out her blog at scrappyangelquilts.blogspot.com .

Last night a friend of mine came to do some scrapbooking. You know, the anonymous one who I call Rachel ! I keep telling her she should have a blog because she is really talented and she creates quite a lot of pages ! Anyway, I decided to make a page for Sketchy Thursdays again.I like the sketch this week but this time I have decided to think outside the box. Here is the sketch:

and here is what I made:

I like how it has turned out. I had seen a page in a French magazine where the lady had put three pictures on top of each other. I think you could probably do it on the computer but I am not that great with my PC so I had to print the picture three times and then cut and mount them on white paper. I bought the embellishments in TK Maxx and I made the tire print with some old Christmas decorations as a stencil.

This is what it looks like a bit closer.

The picture was taken in the Ardeche last summer. Harry loved going on the Kart. He was so focus and determined. He got the gist of it very quickly and gained speed and accuracy in minutes. Amelie also gave it a go and to be fair, although it took her a little longer to get the hang of it, once she got a bit more confident, the desire to beat her brother made her go a lot faster than she had probably bargained for !!

So I hope you enjoy your weekend.
Take care

Anne

Sweet oranges

I haven't got much time for scrapbooking at the moment, not sure why, may be the desire to clean my bathroom with a toothbrush and go on a bike ride in freezing cold weather might have something to do with it !
So I decided to scrap another picture I took in Spain a few weekends ago. It was taken on the same day as the picture of Amelie under the umbrella so I thought I would use the same lay out. The colours are a lot brighter in real and I only wish I could have captured the smell of these oranges when I took the picture. We were in this little square in Marbella and Fred, my father in law made it his mission to collect oranges for the kids to take to school for show and tell. I am not sure you are allowed to pick them but I am certain you were not allowed to go right in the border to get the biggest fruit! I should have called the page Orange Nicking !

Still, the kids were super proud to hand out fresh oranges to their teachers when they got back from Spain !

Anne