Reasons to be Cheerful Part 3

Good morning!!!

Here I am again sharing another layout created using the latest

12 Pledges Kit - Cheer

put together by ScrappyJen, owner at Wearcrafts.

Have you seen all the fussy cutting on her creations, it sets my arthritis off just thinking about it, give me a punch or a die and a trimmer any day!!!

At only £5 for this kit it is well within most people's budget.

Budget, did I say budget?

>>>Budget Challenge>>>Scrapbook Magazine>>>Page 58>>>ME!

I was recently asked to create three layouts on a budget of £10.

I spent far less than that and so can you if you buy this fabulous kit from Jen.

Anyway, I digress, here is my latest layout using that £5 kit.

Unusually my journalling is on the front of my layout (yeah ok, it's printed but it's there)
and says...
"Every time we stopped to take a photograph we were surrounded by at least ten children asking for gifts or bon bons.
On this ocassion, we had stopped to see bricks being made when 20 children surrounded the car. As soon as they saw I had sweets they mobbed me!!! I walked away and asked them to line up (I didn’t want to miss anyone out)
They finally realised that they wouldn’t get anything unless they formed an orderly queue.
They stood patiently in line while I gave each of them a few sweets.
That is until they saw the skipping rope!!!"

Being able to give these children just a little something gave us real pleasure during our holiday...

Another reason to be cheerful!

Virginia is also creating cheer over on at CelticHouse.

Snowflakes and Music

Now I don't really "do" Christmas Cards but as my sister had asked me to make a couple of snowflake cards for her I decided that I needed a new die - any excuse for a bit of shopping!

Having seen some lovely ideas on Pinterest, I ordered the Dazzling Snowflake Memory Box die

to create quite a classy card don't you think?

The child is getting quite exceed already about Christmas and has already 

started singing Christmas songs (argh!) which brings me quite nicely to the prompt over at

Our Beautiful World...

MUSIC

This year she took her Grade 5 violin exam. 

She was devastated when she came out, thinking she had done really badly with the pieces AND the scales and apologised for failing!

Well! She didn't fail at all...

...she passed with distinction!!!

She still thinks the examiner got her mixed up with somebody else!

Reasons to be Cheerful Part 2

If you saw my post a couple of days ago, you will know that

Wearcrafts

have released their September Kit - Cheer.

All it costs is a fiver and at the time of writing, there were two kits left.

Another of my many reasons to be cheerful is that we, as a family, are very lucky in many ways.

One of those reasons is that we have had some great holidays and we enjoy travelling together

to many wonderful destinations.

Don't get me wrong, we have our disagreements and cross words

but we generally have some fabulous and truly memorable moments.

This year we travelled to Madagascar

(you will be seeing a lot of the photos being scrapped over the coming weeks/months)

and this shot was taken high up on a rock in the Isalo National Park.

The views were amazing!

I hope that she continues to travel and has fun along the way as she grows older.

More inspiration can be found with Virginia and Jen.

I will be back with another cheery layout in a couple of days...

Reasons to be Cheerful Part 1

Once again, I've had had the pleasure of playing with the
12 Pledges £5 kit from
Wearcrafts 
which, for the month of September is

CHEER - 'To be as cheerful as possible and smile at everything'

The kit is released today so if you want to get your sticky paws on it then dash over to Wearcrafts quick sharp!!!

What is there not to cheer at for a kit that only costs a fiver?

Here is my first layout...

The only extras I have added to this page is a few die cuts created with my own tools and a free
"on this day" printable that for the life of me I can't find the link to (sorry)

There are many

little things that highlight the child growing up and this is one of them so

although that part isn't "cheer" 

I am grateful and cheered that she doesn't plaster herself with the stuff!

Virginia and Jen have also been creating pages so be sure to stop by their blogs for extra inspiration.

The End!!!

Yes that's right, it's the end of this year's 

Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt

and I have one more to tick off my list.

A parade of Cheshire Fire Cadets

Did I get them all?
Take a look HERE to find out...

Smile

is this week's prompt over at

Our Beautiful World

and I wanted to share the

two things made me smile yesterday ...

I went for a regular check up and the nurse said

"Wow, how did you manage that?"

She was referring to my weight loss since last time I saw her a year ago and boy

did it make me feel good about how far I'd come.

Not 10 minutes later I was told by a fella that I hadn't seen in a while

"Lesley, you look amazing and you've lost so much weight"

I could have skipped the rest of the way through town.

As I don't have a photo to share of me smiling I thought I would share

this photo of the child 

and if you felt a bit down today, I bet you're smiling now!

Contagious!?

Tick!

One by one things are being ticked off my list of things to do.

Don't you just love that feeling of accomplishment when that happens?

Do you tick or scribble out?

I do both - far more satisfying

Blog commenting was high priority and I'm now down to just three in my Feedly.

There are certain blogs that I will always comment on and I really don't like falling behind

on those so having ticked this off my list I'm feeling a lot happier.

I still have 14 items on my to do list but with the right amount of determination

I will get there.

So, back to scrapping or should I say the recent lack of it?

I have been meaning to join in with the challenges over at 

Whimsical Musings 

for such a long time that even that made it onto my list and √

I have finally achieved it...

...joining in with WM#137 (set by Leslie) with the prompt "flavour"

this photo of me and my dearest is sweet - sickly sweet maybe - but sweet all the same.

I will hopefully be joining in with more prompts from Lisa in the coming weeks...

And while I've (hopefully) got your attention there is a free Kindle book HERE

that you may want to download before they start charging!!!

Still no Layouts...

but, in between sorting the loft, manning stalls at car boot sales and 

generally doing plenty to keep me busy, 

I've made a few more cards and created my first "book"

I have now ticked all the cards of my sister's card list 

(apart from two Christmas themed ones which I refuse to do yet!)

which makes me feel quite happy.

I wonder what

the child will think of my first attempt at book folding...

I'm quite proud of myself to be honest.

Right, back up those wooden steps to find more car boot items ready for Sunday...

Oh So Quiet

Yep, that's been me for a fair few weeks now. 

Just how rubbish have I been at doing anything...

 blogging, creating, joining in with challenges

Yep, I've been rubbish.

I've been totally c**p at "doing" for the lovely Jen at Wearcrafts.

This month also sees me taking a break from my duties at the Counterfeit Kit...

I haven't missed a month since I started joining in never mind since becoming a Master Forger.

I just about got my DT layout done in time for the Challenge Yourself blog only to realise

I hadn't followed the instructions.

I've been even worse at commenting on blogs that I follow and haven't joined in with the ones that I would normally have scheduled a month before.

Oh dear, bad, bad, bad.

So apologies to one and all from me - I'm not going into my reasons but hope to be back on track

playing BIG catch up with everything during the next few days...

While I'm here, I'm going to get two in one bits that I've missed out of the way...

1P&20W meets Sweet

A tasty Friday treat tempting my tastebuds after reaching my new Slimming World target

and achieving my two stone award.

I suppose I have been slightly creative, making a few cards...

What do you do when life gets in the way?

Do you stop creating or do you get on with it?

Well, this time, you know my answer!

Joining in with Abi at Creating Paper Dreams

and

this week's prompt, Sweet, over at Our Beautiful World

Fall into Autumn

with a failure!!!

This is mine...

I wonder if you can work out why before I hold my hands up and tell you.

The above layout is my DT work for this month's prompt "Fall"
over at the Challenge YOURself blog.

I have been desperately behind with many things this month and really wanted to try to catch up at the monthly crop yesterday. I love the crop and did manage to do the two layouts I had at the top of my list however, like I say that OMG moment came at 0437 this morning.

So, have you worked out why this does not fit?
OK so it fits with the theme BUT the Challenge YOURself blog is a blog all about scrapping yourself and unfortunately that cutie in the picture is not me but it is
my Mini Me - if I don't tell anyone, do you think I'll get away with it!??

So, when you join in with the challenge, unlike me, please remember to include a photo of YOU
and link up by the end of the month.

Have you ever woken up during the night in a panic?
What was it about?
Have you entered a challenge only to realise that you didn't get it right?
Did you own up, did anyone even notice?

My papers, The Avenues by Bo Bunny are from a selection Jen sent for me to play with
and she has the collection pad HERE.

It's a very versatile range with "time" as the main theme.
You can see another of my layouts using this collection HERE

Wearcrafts #3

So here are my last two layouts using the fabulous kit from

Wearcrafts

These kits that Jen puts together are such good value for money and very versatile

so why not try to get your hands on next month's kit before they sell out AGAIN!

I've used lots of layers for this layout so keep the focus on that gorgeous selfie of the Child

(yeah OK I'm slightly biased but hey I'm allowed to be, right?)

Here I have punched through the photo itself (yikes!) to create the starry look

to go with my self cut title.

Will you be brave enough to punch through your photos?

Don't forget to take a look at Virgina's inspiration HERE and Jen's inspiration HERE

Wearcrafts #2

Today I'm sharing one of my nautical photos which match perfectly with this kit

from Wearcrafts.

As I said a couple of days ago, this kit fits with non-nautical photos too

and I will be back in a couple of days to share my last two layouts to prove just that!

Why not take a look at Virgina's inspiration HERE and Jen's inspiration HERE