Is it really November?

What a busy month October has been. I know I keep on about it but where has the year gone? The months have just flown by I can't believe that it is so near to Christmas and that I'm still not working. Although fingers crossed I have an informal interview tomorrow as a sessional worker at a local college, it will certainly help if I'm lucky enough to get it.

Anyway I have still found time to scrap and here is my latest take on sketch 35 from Inspired Blueprints. I used Natures storybook range of papers from Webster's pages. Check out their site it has some stunning projects and challenges, the papers can be bought from  Oyster Stamps Hope you like the layout all comments welcome. Thanks for looking.

I've been a bit busy

crafting. It's Esther's 30th birthday on Saturday and I've been making some birthday gifts for her. The first is my take onWhen I saw the Patchwork Grunge Bag shown in Craft Stamper Magazine I knew I just had to have a go and make it. Hope she likes it...

I've also made 2 mini books one with pictures of Esther through the years, some kindly loaned by her Mum for me to scan in, the other with pictures of Brad as Esther asked if she could have some of him as a baby, I

also made the small box to put them in.

Finally a photo frame showing a recent picture of Kaity

 Here are all the creative gifts shown together

  

Circle Layout

Here is my take on Inspired Blueprints Sketch 34. Quite a challenge as this is the first time I've completed a circular layout. I must say I'm pleased with the result.
I'd like to hear what you think. My comments box now appears to be working as I hadn't set it up correctly. Thanks for letting me know about that Kate http://www.pickleberrypapercrafts.co.uk/

Where is the time going?

I can't believe that we are nearly at the end of October, where has the year gone? It certainly has been a strange one.

I have tried to keep myself  busy with scrapbooking and I have really enjoyed participating with the sketch challenges set by  Inspired Blueprints   The 2 sketches which are put up on the 1st and 15th of each month really help to get the creative juices flowing, well they do for me anyway. Why not check them out yourselves, especially as it is their birthday celebrations this month and they have put in some extra challenges.

Anyway here are my takes on sketches 31 & 32 hope you like them.

Sketch 31

Sketch 32

I'm in print

Just had a text from my friend Jan informing me that the letter and photo which I sent to http://www.craftstamper.com/ some time ago has been published. What a nice surprise.

Cant' believe its Saturday already

Where do the days go? Even though I'm not working the week just seems to fly by and I don't feel that I have achieved much, although the bungalow is sparkling with the nice clean windows, its a pity that they still seem a bit smeary when the sun shines.

My computer has had a clean out this week Brad reformatted and repartitioned the drives, it does seem to working a lot better now, although I have had to set up all my favourites and sort out passwords etc. The strange thing is I remember before I had a computer and managed very well with out, now if it crashes or has a problem it's like having  my right arm cut off, I'm devistated. Oh well I supose it's called progress.

Off to Whistable today to do a scrapbooking class then onto http://pickleberrypapercrafts.blogspot.com/ to spend the £10 voucher I won a few months ago. Tomorrow I might go to Ally Pally just for a day out, can't afford to spend much and do I really need more craft stash? I don't think so.

Here is my latest contribution to Sketch 30 from http://inspiredblueprints.ning.com/ check their site out some really great stuff there. I decided to make my layout interactive. The sketch called for 6 photos 4x4 as I didn't want to crop my pics or re-size them I decided to make them lift up. I think it's worked, Anyway I'm pleased with the result. Hope you like it too.

Not sure where the time has gone

I can't believe that its been nearly a month since I last updated. It has been a very strange time as I'm back looking for work, as the job I had, withdrew their offer of employment at the last minute apparently due to a lack of funding. The short notice was due to people being on holiday and the lack of communication, although this does not help me at all. Never mind I expect something will turn up soon here's hoping!

This week for some reason my computer decided to lose all my photos which I had stored although I had managed to retrieve some of them as 'thumbs' (which means I can't resize them for scrapbooking) it has also lost some files. The ones it did find, came through in such a mess and with strange reference numbers that I spent over 4 hours trying to sort them out. Fortunately I have a programme called Photo Recovery installed which retrieves pictures from camera cards etc (even if the pictures have been deleted) This managed to recover over 200 and this time at the correct resolution for resizing. Perhaps I need to investigate a way of backing them up any sugestions will be helpful.

Now with extra time on my hands I have managed to produce some layouts even though my heart hasn't really been in scraping mode, I have tried to force myself to keep occupied. Here are my latest layouts.

The first layout is my take on sketch 29 for Inspired Blueprints

The second layout uses some of the Jilly Bean papers from Oyster Stamps

The final layout uses papers that I bought ages ago as I wanted to work away from feminine colours with out making the layout to boyish. I think it worked.
I hope you like them.