Malibu! Or was that Santa Monica...?

Today in our car it was 30 degrees. It was hot enough for shorts, a drink in the pub beer garden and a walk along the river. So it is the perfect day to showcase this layout from our California road trip. We loved Malibu and hired bikes for the day to explore it even more.

Okay, okay this was how the post was going to go a few days ago....then I had a skype convo with two of my sisters. Turns out this trip we never went to Malibu. I mean Santa Monica - ooopps! We all found this very amusing - my sisters like to laugh at me.

I tried to turn it back on Mara who asked as we left Santa Monica for Santa Barbara - "are we driving through Miami today?" It would have been a very long detour methinks.

So I will amend the title on this page. But for now I thought that I would share it for the amusement factor!

Tonight we are off to a murder mystery party.. My costume is very random...I will share pics this weekend.

Lastly, congrats to Jeannie she won my imromptu giveaway with this comment:

Oh, that's got to be (Santa)Barbara Ann by the Beach Boys! - love the Beach Boys, classic summer music! Great layout BTW! 

So Jeannie send me an email on melide18@gmail.com to claim your prize. 


Happy Friday blogland!

Nectar of the God's...

Best Belgian biscuit...

 It's like Christmas in a biscuit, but also nutty with caramel overtones. All my fav flavours. So when the Belgian told me they make it in a spread I had to try some. Luckily he went home for a week in the holidays and brought me back two jars.

I was keen to get my bake on and so I scanned the net for recipes. I found this on The Tasty Retreat blog for some speculoos blondies. I am all brownied out as I often have to bake them for the kids at church and so I wanted to try something new. We were off to our friends house for family night with three other couples - yay for the new influx of young marrieds!! So I tried them. But was in such a rush I didn't take a pic so will nick the pic off the other blog...but I am crediting it to her.

I adjusted the recipe slightly and added chopped pecans. It was delicious. I overcooked it slightly and so the middle was fudgey and gooey and gorgeous and the edges were more like cake. It says 25 mins on the recipe but I would do it for 20.
So if any of you are planning a mini break (or maxi break for the American and Australian and other non-European bloggers) to Brussells or Brugges pick up a jar of this and let me know what you think.
Back later with more scrapping...

21 days of Summer...

Completed for Show us your Stuff

Some of which were spent in Balboa park in San Diego. We loved this place. (See above)
The first layout resulted in lots of red prints around the house. Looked like there had been a murder. I didn't realise how difficult it was to shift acrylic paint. Must get thinners for next time. I do like the texture of stamping with paint. The stamps are a little care worn now!
Some were spent in the less salubrious Salinas and I even scrapped with out of focus pics, but it was a story I really wanted to tell. I also had a good title in mind. The portions really were xxxxl. Just check out my expression. (See above)

Wordless Wednesday...

Missing the summer...

Summer scrappin' had me a blast....

A lot of the sixth formers I teach tease me about my scrapbooking and some even follow my blog (hi guys!!) so I have started calling it art journalling as I think scrapbooking sounds geeky and amateur. I basically scrapbook so I can moon over all of my travels and relive the trip over again when I make the layout.
I have a California layout to share with you.
So the first thing....inspired by this weeks Sketchy Thursdays sketch... pictures of my sister, Mara, and I in Santa Cruz. We LOVED it here and found a delish bakery (layout to come later) and chilled on the beach and spent the evening on the Pier where they have a huge amusement park. I love this backing paper and the colours all came together really well. I love the sunset picture too - I think Mara is responsible for this!

In other news our good friends the Bensons have moved to our town after a year in Germany - whoop! She was my housemate for a year, the year I first met Arne and we got married two weeks apart from one another - to make sure that she didn't miss my wedding! We took them to the Yorkshire Dales Ice-cream farm today and had a delish lunch, the best part of which was the thick milkshakes - mine was chocolate fudge brownie - hello!

 This is their cute daughter enjoying the milkshake too!

 Here she is on the swing loving it too!

 And we met another friend of ours from church who enjoyed pushing the baby on the swing. She is such a cutie!

So we are excited to have them around and to do lots of fun things with them!

Hello Big Sur!

So the kids were back into school today - only Year 7 and Sixth Form. I was with my new year 7 form all day and they were asking so many questions and looking a little like rabbits in the headlights - bless! I am looking forward to actually teaching soon and meeting my new classes.
I made the most of a free evening as I don't have a busy day at school tomorrow and am still with my form doing admin things most of the day so I got my scrap on.
Please excuse the rubbish pics - light wasn't great but I was keen to blog it. Also we finally got our own laptop on Saturday - yay! To end all the squabbles over my school one and let him play Champ Manager in peace whilst I can use the laptop to watch DVDs and listen to music whilst I scrap in the scrap room - bliss! However, it doesn't seem to have photoshop so I couldn't crop or enhance them.

The pic was taken along the Big Sur and is a fav of mine as we both look nice and it's a good pose I think.
This layout is loosely based around Shimelle's Sketch of the week. I misted round the mat rather than doing the spray paint line.
Hope everyone elses back to school was stress free!

Sitting on a gold mine?

This was the trickiest 4 by 6 yet, I cannot see how the next three months will go with even more pics!
I decided it was time to scrap my pics of our overnight stay at the cute little town of Julian. We were using Lonely Planet and whilst in San Deigo read about an inland detour we could take. We thought that this sounded like a good idea as we had mainly been staying on the coast. When we first arrived in Julian we thought it was a real one horse town and not worth the two hour detour , we also struggled to find accomodation for the night.
Luckily we found a cute inn called Apple Tree Inn and had al fresco stone baked pizzas across the road with a live country / blue grass band. It felt really authentic.
The next day after browsing the farmers market we found a cute little ranch that offered lots of activities. We went for gold panning and spent a few hours at it. This is what I have scrapped about.
We went to Ikea on Wednesday and I finally got me an easel for staging my layouts. I struggled to think of a colour scheme as we were all wearing different colours etc but went for green, gold and read. I stamped the title and bordered it in gold spotted ribbon. Then I matted the photo with gold acrylic paint. I rewrote my journalling three times - first on the original layout, then on a brown paper bag but it was only once it was written on white paper that it stood out enough. I was getting really bored of writing the same thing over again!

 The first inside secret section. A close-up of the panning and a medium shot of me panning for gold. I painted the chipboard embellishments gold to go with the theme.

 The inside page. I used more close-ups of the panning and cut the advert for the ranch out from a little booklet I picked up. I also journalled about the guy who taught us how to pan.

 Overall I am *quite* pleased with this layout. I think I would use this idea again if I had lots of pictures of one event.

Happy weekend! Back to school Monday - boo!

Sugar dusted passion cake...

Been doing a spot of baking.

At the weekend my sister Mara was set the task of going through all her old cooking mags and cutting out recipes she wanted to keep then getting rid of them. She still had them from Christmas 2005 and suchlike!

In Good Food Magazine I found this little gem and decided I wanted to have a go. However in this digital age I have just found it online.

I like the doilie style decoration and even cut my own heart mask out for the middle. It does start to melt though as you can see in the bottom left hand corner. So work quickly. And take a pic even quicker!

It's one of those cakes that is tastier when it has cooled down and even better the day after.

With all the fruit and veg in it, it is possibly saintly. So go try it and enjoy!

L.A Galaxy - the craziest supporters ever!

Although the supporters were few at the L.A Galaxy match we went to see the volume was high. They had a small band in the supporters stand, a conductor to regulate the chants (how American is that?!) and a laminated song card with all of their chants. I am not the biggest footie fan but had promised the H that we could go and see a game in return for all the hours he spent in scrapbook stores and cupcakeries. Also my sister Mara, who was travelling with us, is a huge fan, but I did enjoy watching the crazy supporters jump around in the stands and singing.
Of course watching Beckham run around the pitch didn't hurt.
I know the staging for this layout is a bit cheesy and doesn't even co-ordinate. But I like it.
I love this starting point sketch from Shimelle and filled the envelope with more pics, my ticket and the laminated song sheet.

Half page challenge...Monterey style

I have been an errant blogger but creative things have been happening every day. You may recall I was waiting on a bumper delivery from snapfish and was trying to scrap without the photos. It wasn't totally successful as some of the layouts didn't quite gel with the pics. One of the more successful attempts was completed (or started at least!) using Shimelle's half page challenge. I know I am too late for the prizes, she did a fab list of challenges but I was only just back from California when the challenges were due in. I may work backwards on a few more though as I am struggling to start my layouts at the mo.

Sorry the picture is a bit blurred - I think it would be better if you clicked on it. Quite a simple layout. I love map paper and got a bunch of it at Michael's in the US - my sister and I loved the scrap shops and found the funniest one where they have this section for husbands with television, car manuals and mags and big comfy chairs - Arne loved it in there!
How cute is my new lettering and mini doilies - also US purchases!

Wedding dress layout...

This layout has been a long time coming, even since I saw this gorgeous layout I have wanted to get my hands on the hambly overlay. It took me a year, a trip across the Atlantic and I chanced upon it in a cute stationary boutiqe in Santa Monica. Then Shimelle decided it was wedding week and so I couldn't resist.

Here it is...

I love it. It's every bit as lovely as I envisaged. It captures a really special moment perfectly. The final dress fitting. I wanted to stitch the tissue paper on as Sharmaine did as it fits well with the dress making theme but the sewing machine was playing up. I think I need lessons.

California slideshow part two...

Hey bloggers!

I have made some progress with my slideshow and have added my own music, pan and scan and a fade effect. It is roughly the last ten days of the trip - although some of the photos are a bit muddled.

Highlights of the second part of the trip:
* Monterey Aquarium
* San Diego zoo - such cute polar bears and pandas
* Balboa Park
* Lots of shopping
* A really tasty Italian meal at Guiseppe's on Pismo beach
* Driving along route 1 to our California soundtrack and snapping lots of pics of the gorgeous views
* Five Guys Burgers and Fries
* Seeing Beckham play for L.A Galaxy
* Eating some of Julian's famous apple pie
* Gold panning
* Eating delicious stone baked pizza outside whilst listening to a blue grass band
* Gayle's bakery in Santa Cruz

The scrapbooking stores were immense and I have been stroking my new papers all day. Lots of maps, stars and stripes and papers with California related pics and titles. I can't believe that you can even get local high schools and football teams cardstock and supplies - craziness!

It's pretty quiet on blogger - I think a lot of people must still be on holiday. I have been trying to catch up with visiting all your lovely blogs and seeing what projects you are busy with and where you've all been on holiday.

Thanks for looking!

California slideshow...

Still struggling to kick the jet lag. Can't sleep till at least 2 a.m every morning, perhaps if I wasn't still on holidays I could shake it. Oh well, I won't complain! 

So as promised I have made (and it's my first so don't laugh!) a slideshow of our first ten days in California to share some of our happy memories with you all. I have ordered a HUGE stack of pics from snapfish but am losing patience waiting for it to arrive. Think of all the scrapping I could be doing? I have made four pages ready for pics but have never worked this way before, do any of you guys scrap this way? I'm a tactile scrapper and always feel the need to see my photos on the layout and worry it won't work when they come. 

So without further ado...I present our roadtrip...California 2011...the first ten days...

Highlights of the first ten days:

* Hiring bikes and exploring Santa Monica and Venice beach

* Mexican food - yum!

* The cool food courts

* Lots of root beer - love that stuff!

* Wodelicious in Santa Barbara the cutest cupcakerie ever, it was just like wonka land

* Steinbeck museum

* Monterey - such a cute little seaside town

* San Luis Obisbo and the infamous bubblegum alley

* The wedding of course (may do a seperate slide show on that!)

* San Fran (it was just as amazing second time round)

* Jelly Belly Factory FREE tour and sample bar - yum!

So fingers crossed it will work and if those darn pics turn up tomorrow you will have some layouts to see.
The last ten days will be up soon too.

Come Dine with Me Champions

So you may remember my earlier post about our Gastro Pub night. Before that our friend Mike hosted a Greek food night and before that our friends the Flinn's hosted a tapas night where I forgot to take pics as there was so much good food distracting me!
We had soooo much fun and it was just like having a free posh restaurant meal out, I would totally recommend you guys have a go with some friends. We enjoyed it cos we're real foodies and were loving the chance to try lots of new and exciting recipes. We now make the bread used in our starter often and it's still as delicious and we have tried different variations like adding sun dried tomotoes too.
So Saturday night was the last evening and the one where we would add all the scores together. Esther and Jared put on a Thai feast and named their night - "Come Thai'n with me!" which I thought was a great name! The food was delish and they won for their starters. I didn't take any pics as we took so many on holiday and just wanted to enjoy the evening.
We were voted the overall winners with an average score of 8.7. Our dessert also won overall for that category. We were pleased, but also found it a bit awkward to have to score each other and place someone last when we had all tried so hard.

Guess whose back...?

Well we are back and the house looks like a mess now I have exploded our bags and started on the laundry. Was an amazing trip but I will tell you ALL about it soon, I am trying to beat the jet lag so must head to bed. Will leave you with a pic...

A silly pose on the Big Sur!