Dancing in the moonlight...

One of my favourite things about Budapest were the old fashioned trams. We went on a few and always stopped to watch them pass when we were walking. I dusted off my trustee slice and got cutting. My new Martha Stewart punch provided the border at the bottom.
I made this during Shimelle's recent challenge weekend when my change to A4 combined with husband off camping, combined with moving my scrapping into the living room meant a booster session of creativity! In fact I think this was prompted by her challenge number 4 to scrap with grey, yellow and a colour of your choice. I chose turquoise as its my fav colour to scrap with - I also accented with Kraft and orange as I feel that they are all from the same colour family. I know my yellow could be perceived as orange but I felt I could use some artistic license!

It's nice and bright to counterbalance all this blasted rain we've been having! I keep forgetting to take my umbrella out with me and getting soaked through! I should know by now about these April showers!

But are they Wexford Strawberries?

So my regular followers may remember a particularly joyful October half term spent in London. We had blissful sunshine and I had a great time with my mom and sister. You can check it out here.
We were in Notting Hill on the weekend and my sister and I were in Hummingbird drooling over their cupcakes and for some reason my mom had not followed us. Now this is very unusual as she has a real sweet tooth!
But we soon discovered her as the Wafflemeister witnessing some hilarious waffle eating contests. A very drunk Irish guy was heckling all the contestants and bragging about how many waffles he would eat. He even went so far as to claim he would eat the whole table (about 30 waffles!) So when it was his turn to go we were looking forward to seeing if he could live up to these claims. His eyes were clearly bigger than his stomach and he barely managed one. He was hilarious to witness though. His face was covered in whipped cream. Prior to taking part in the contest he asked, "but are they Wexford strawberries?" How funny hey?!

I've had these photos for a while and was inspired by Shimelle's challenge of mixing two contrasting patterns. It coaxed me away from my A4 kraft - which I've been so obsessed with recently! I think A3 definately has more scope for telling a story.

Hop on hop off, horror tour!

Picture this.

You're on holiday in a new city and you've spent two days exploring.

You're feeling tired on the third day and so you decide to take a hop on/ hop off tour.

You get the tickets and then are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the bus.

A bus arrives and they say it is full and there are no spaces.

You have to wait for the next bus.

A big group of Italian tourists turn up and start trying to push in.

Perhaps it is only the Brits who form orderly queues.

So you bustle your way to the front and the next bus arrives.

There is only ONE space.

There are two of you.

You are just about to go back and demand a refund when a bright yellow replacement bus turns up.

Everybody surges on, gets seats  and headsets. 

You debate not getting off at any stops, in case you don't get another seat.

You get off.

You have to get back on a live tour one and it is open top.

It is freezing and starts to rain.

The tour guides' microphone keeps losing signal.

Then it cuts out.

So what did I do....?

Why I laughed and thought what a great layout it would make...

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Inspired by Shimelle's One Photo Twice challenge as I accidentally ordered two of the same pic!

Once you pop you can't stop...

Although this title pertains to the subject of my layout it also applies to stamps. When I uncover an old and neglected fav then I really use it a lot. I used my heart stamp as a recurring motif for the backing paper on this layout. In fact I used it to make my own cardstock - which is something I used to do years ago. I also dusted off my embosser and embossed the title. Don't you love my new shadow punch too? I couldn't find the right colour to put underneath to make it pop - but I think the gold works okay.
I have wanted to make a layout about my husband's obsession with popcorn for a while and I finally got the pic for it and then it all came together. I get annoyed with him as we go to wallet friendly Orange Wednesday and then he spends as much as we saved on a popcorn and drink. He cannot go to the cinema without popcorn. He shovels it down and its usually finished before the trailers are done. Bless!

Linking up with Shimelle's 8th challenge - just one stamp!

Mixing it up...

The funny thing about Shimelle's second challenge is that this how I always scrap. I don't get page kits and I mix old and new stash and just buy what I like.
So here is a layout using lots of Cosmo Cricket embellies, October Afternoon cardstock (I loved this range and have used it on numerous layouts)  and American Crafts.

I have a funny story about thickers.
The other day I was scrapping and getting so frustrated that I had run out of e's on all of my fav thickers. I was trying to think of new titles that did not contain e's - very tricky. So I put a post ranting about it on facebook and one of my non-scrappy male friends wrote "Do you have a lisp?" It took me a while to realise he thought I was just spelling 'stickers' wrong! So we all had a laugh about it. In fact I think he still doesn't really understand what thickers are!
Thanks for another great prompt Shim!

Shimelle's scraplift...

The weekend crop has come at the perfect time - my husband has gone off camping overnight with the boys. Also today as huge order of photos from snapfish arrived of our mini break pics. I loved Jaime Warren's page and took inspiration from the single photo, popdots, small scattered embellishments and the clusters on all four sides.
I went retro too and used my slice to make the title - you can chose the sizes and so I mixed it up, inked the edges and uses pop dots to make them pop!

A close-up of the title and mini bunting from the new Portobello Road range which is brought out for the Queen's Jubilee. I didn't want to go with the pink colour scheme as I wanted it to be a manly page and so I went for red and blue with the kraft.

Stay tuned - the next prompt is up now!

Monkeying around...

So before I give my snore inducing marking a quick go to get it over with before Shimelle's online crop - yay! I thought I would post one of my A4 layouts inspired by Shimelle's Starting points. It is another 'retro' layout of our camping trips as kids. One of our fav activities was trying to catch the monkey on the fair rides - if you caught it then you got another go! This photo shows me concentrating more on posing for the camera than on catching the monkey - perhaps why I never caught it and got my free ride. But it was fun trying.

Supplies used: washi tape, foam letter stamps, American crafts stripy cardstock, embellishments from Cosmo Cricket Salt Air - I love this range!

Now roll on the crop....

Begian waffles inspired by Pinterest...

So I pin.
But I also scrap what I pin.
So I use pinterest for pinspiration to inspire my scrapping.
I sometimes wonder would I get more done without facebook, blogging, tweeting and pinning.
Of course I would.
But its also inspired my scrapping and given me a chance to make scrappy friends.
Its also given me an audience for my scrapping and that inspires me no end.
I recently ordered a pack of kraft cardstock - I wanted A3 but got A4 (I am sure this is my mistake!)
I noticed in blogland that lots of people are scrapping A4 at the mo.
I have also been sorting out my scrapping and running out of albums and page protectors for A3.
So space saving and a change - I am going for it.
Yesterday whilst watching series 1 of 24 and skyping with my sister Gems I completed six layouts and finished off two. It's such a good way to use up your scraps.
I know 24 is old skool - we're always late for the party!
So here is a layout I was inspired by from Crate Paper's blog.

 I liked the idea of using the negative space of a punched strip and then the hearts as a border up the edge.

The layout is about my love of Belgian waffles. We always go out for a waffle when we are in Bruges. Mine had caramel icecream and sauce - delish! The title says 'What a load of waffle' as it's tricky to read.

So what do we think bloggers? Do we like A4? It's how I started scrapping so I don't know am I going full circle or am I is this an innovation?

Top ten things about Budapest...

So went on on an Easter weekend mini break to Budapest and thought I would share my top ten things about The Pest (as it is affectionately known.) I spent hours last night editing them all!

1) The trams - it was so easy to get around this city due to all the different forms of transport.

2) The Langos (a local speciality) used fried dough, sour dough and grated cheese topped by spicy pickled cucumber.

3) I liked the grimy elements with all the graffitti.

4) The Children's Railway was one of our favourite activities. A railway run by teenagers (although the driver is an adult luckily) this girl was trying to sell us a whole variety of different soveneirs.

5) Szechenyi Spa - we spend two days here. It was bliss. The biggest spa in Europe with over 30 pools, rapids, saunas, steam rooms and an icy plunge pool!

6) A Hungarian style pretzel coated in cinammon.

7) The swing bridge leading across to Buda.

8) The hop on / hop off tour bus. It was the tour from hell as they were so disorganised!

9) The funicular leading to the Children's Railway. I loved all the different forms of old skool transport.

10) The architecture was amazing - especially St.Stephen's Basillica.

Linking up with Shimelle's Ten on the Tenth

What are your guilty pleasures?

I decided it was time to make a layout about my guilty pleasures.
The journalling is all about my embarrassing habits, like:

• watching Joey and Dawson slideshows on youtube
• baking just to eat all the baked goods myself
• Facebook stalking (I think we're all guilty of this?)
• Reading old diaries
• Dying my hair copious times

The month scrapjacked are jacking Michelle Clements layout which I had just pinned a few weeks ago. I took inspiration from the idea of stacking layers under the photo - this seems to be a popular trend in scrapbooking at the moment. I also added the doilie to give it a vintage feel. The rosette took me ages to make with cutting and sticking of ribbon. I replicated the washi tape with strips of paper as I didn't have any washi to match the layout - I need to stock up on some more!
So now let me know...what are YOUR guilty pleasures?

The one about camping in Carnac...

I am linking up with Sian's storytelling Sunday - if you want to join in just link up to her post. 

We were very lucky growing up in that every summer we packed up our car and headed off to France for a week or so on holidays. One of the most exciting parts of the trip was waking up at the crack of dawn to catch the ferry - somehow as a child this made it a real adventure for me. Looking back camping couldn't have been the biggest rest for my mom but we loved it. The camp sites always had pools and adventure playgrounds and so we could have all sorts of water slide fun.

On a recent visit to my parents I was robbing my mom's photo collection as I wanted to start documenting some of these stories. In fact my mom has decided to start recording her life story - is this what happens when one if over 60? I find it a bit morbid - but I guess it's where I get my love of journalling and recording memories from! So I found a slightly blurry but very cute picture of us all on one of the most memorable trips.

The one where my granny and grandad from South Africa came. I had met my granny a few times but aged 8(ish) we got to go on holiday with my grandad and meet him for the first time.

Some memories of this trip:

• My grandad was a big Margaret Thatcher fan and would often discuss politics - which always went over our heads!
• We loved playing cards in the evening and my grandad taught me how to play rummy
• My grandparents couldn't get the hang of using 'francs' and so would just hold out a hand full of change to the shop keepers
• The tide went out one day and so we filled out buckets with cockles. My granny was most annoyed as a French lady was trying to give her a pate recipe - but she couldn't understand a word of it! I am not the biggest seafood fan, but I got carried away in the moment and was ill the next day.
• One of the funniest moments was when my grandad went down the fast water slide for kids and got stuck halfway down and these little French boys went down after him and just climbed over him and carried on leaving him lodged in.
• We travelled in our old school white Mercedes Benz - you know the one with the seats in the back? The thing that always baffles me is that on this trip there was four adults, four children and lots of luggage, tents etc and yet we travelled in just this ONE car. I do remember that one of us got to lay across the luggage in the back and this was the most coveted seat in the house. I guess it was pre-health and safety and some of us were quite little!

Now onto the layout. I am not entirely happy with it. I think I just threw everything at it and hoped for the best, but looking at the finished product I may start all over again. But since I told the story I will share it for now....

I am having some technical issues - so I will just post this for now. 

What is one of your favourite childhood memories?