Volunteers' Morning Tea

Back in 2011 when DH and I lived in Perth, Western Australia, we were heavily involved in the church, spending many hours each week working for them and with them. DH and I, along with other church members, were put forward to the City Council for a recognition award for our services to the church. The Volunteers' Tea was for all charities in the town and we shared a table with the WI and Toastmasters. We got a certificate and a photo of us shaking hands with the mayor, so I scrapped them both using Creative Scrappers sketch #247.

Blue CAS birthday

I'm still working on strips and scraps and snippets, as you can see. Don't you find that when you start a CAS card, you can't just make one? Not only do they come together so satisfyingly easily, but you always have a few bits left over which you can't waste....

My next church choir card is for one of the tenors. I find elderly males particularly hard to make cards for. I've spoken to some about it, and the scorn, or worse, indifference, for those vintage bicycles, classic cars, planes, golf, fishing etc. was depressingly withering. But when I asked what they WOULD like, they were all typically shoulder-shrugging. So they weren't enamoured with what they did get, but didn't care for much else either. Great, that's a LOT of help, ta very much.

So I still don't know the answer, but I don't think they mind these. I mean there's nothing much to scorn, is there? {shoulder-shrug right back atcha guys}

So Ms Pixie, are these suitably snippety?

And I hope Cute Card Thursday thinks that they are CAS enough for this week's challenge.

Blingy birthday!

I was given a card to lift. This is what I came up with, using my new Rangers craft foam to ink the edges - sooooo much better than the old washing-up sponge, haha! I used First Edition Desert Bloom papers which I love, and isn't that ribbon ruching pretty too?

Challenges:
Creative Card Crew - birthday
Simon Says Stamp - arrow (I've gone for the fletched end rather than the pointy end - is that too cheeky? It's still an arrow, haha!)
Stampavie - layers
Stampin' for the Weekend - distressing

Farewell BBQ - SW Mix it Up Challenge #131

We're almost finished with the first Scrap Whispers game of 2013! We just have the final LOs to come in, then there will be the Big Reveal and the announcement of the winning team.

While we're all waiting for that, here is the last challenge of this game, and a reminder that all entries for the challenges must be in by this Sunday.

We have given you Nora's lovely LOs one final time, and asked you to take one element from each to create your LO. I have gone with the big dots from Sassy, the labels from Shucking Peas, and the design from Christmas Day, to create this:

You have one week to show us what you can do, so hope on over to Scrap Whispers and join in with our final challenge!

Winter's day

This one is for Creative Scrappers' sketch #246, one of their last. That makes me sad, because I love their sketches and their DT's interpretations, and the way the whole blog is set out. I love the BIG, well-lit photos and all the white space and clarity. It rests my eyes and clears my mind. I will still be visiting it well after the new challenges have stopped, I know.

I seem to be on a blue and green roll at the moment. This particular one is Paula's fault, because it follows ScrapJazz Challenge of the Week (COW!) with her idea of something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.

Old = the Smooch Spritz ink, purchased in Australia at least 2 years ago. It's got a bit thick and sticky.
New = Strictly speaking the photo is the newest, but the green dotty paper was only purchased around November. For me, that's new.
Borrowed = the sketch of course.
Blue = the ribbon of course. I got it at the Perth Craft Fair in 2010 so it's pretty old too.

In the clouds

What do you think of this one then?

It's for umpteen challenges: Shakespeare quote, green and pearls from UK Scrappers, scraplift from Scrapbook.com, "A" title and theme from ScrapJazz BC, and ScrapJazz CoW of patterned paper only.

Isn't it PRETTY? Haha!

New look for the blog

I wasted almost an entire day today, just giving my blog a face-lift. I suddenly decided that I couldn't bear looking at the old one a moment longer. It last had a revamp in 2010 so it was about time.

These (ETA: I mean the new pictures at the edges of the blog, not showing in this post) are the most up-to-date photos of our woodland babies; one of last year's fawns from this morning, and I think the squirrel is a mother-to-be, because I've seen her buttons when she's been raiding the bird-feeder. We had to buy a new seed feeder for the birds on Sunday because when DH looked out of the window, the old one had gone. Not just been emptied, but physically vanished. I went and had a squelch and a slip and a slide around the swamp that is our back garden at the moment, and under the spruce tree I found a perch, and the handle, neatly bitten in two pieces. And that was all. No plastic tube, no base, or the other perch. Something or things had robbed it very efficiently.

That gave us a lovely excuse to go to our favourite big garden centre to get another one, a squirrel-proof one this time. DH said "aaah, poor squirrel" but they've been emptying their own feeder at the rate of half a bag of monkey-nuts a day - and burying them in the lawn. I'll be astonished if they can find them again.

We've had Mr and Mrs Pheasant picking their way up and down the grass as well, displaying and ignoring respectively. They are looking magnificent at this time of year. And I saw a pretty fierce robin fight in the acer yesterday, so despite the dingy weather, it's all happening out there.

Pink, black and bling

This week at Scrap Whispers, the challenge is based on Nora's lovely Sassy LO. We challenged you to create a page with the theme of pink, black and bling.

I created this one as inspiration, from photos of our niece's birthday last year. The photos, taken over about a minute plus one from an hour later, tell the story of her favourite present better than any words. Obviously her name is not LLLLL!

Anyone can join in this challenge, just hop over to the blog and have a look around. You never know, you might even win a prize!

A little love...

Of course with Valentine's Day just around the corner, half the challenges around at the moment are love-themed, and the other half can be used for Valentines. We don't "do" Valentines in the UK, not as it's done in the US. Here, people send cards only to their other halves, or guys send them to the girl they like. That's it. But my American teacher friends tell me that there, each class member has to have a Valentine so that "no kid is left behind".

I've made this one to send to the US for the class of one of my friends. I hope it arrives in time.

I'm entering it into these challenges:
Basic Grey: love is in the air (Kioshi strips)
CASology: fairytale (isn't all love?)
CAS-ual Fridays: love letters
Cute Card Thursday: corners (it's all on the bottom right corner - I hope that counts)
Stampavie: love