A Day in Photos.

See more days here.

April kit - Working with children and animals!

This LO shows my children playing with my brother and his (extremely large) dog. They are not the best pictures, technically, but I think they show they movement and excitement. G adopted Journey as a tiny abandoned puppy while he was living in Venezuala with E, this wife-to-be. By the time they brought him back to England he was a huge hound, although to G's credit he is superbly well-trained. R and M love making Journey 'do his tricks'.

The materials were mostly those I had picked out for this month's Counterfeit Challenge. The design of the layout is based on Shimelle's 4x6 Photo Love sketch for March, which uses 3 photos. I rotated it to accomodate landscape photos and replaced one of the borders with the wider star-patterned paper. Then I used the groups of 3 stars instead of the sketch's row of 3 embellishments.

Scrapping about Blogging

I've been Blogging about Scrapbooking for 15 months, and as I worked through Shimelle's Blogging For Scrapbookers again (I've just joined in with the sequel Beyond Blogging For Scrapbookers, Hello if you came here from there!) I realised that I hadn't yet Scrapped about Blogging!
So that is what I did.

 I took my April Counterfeit Kit to France with me last week and used to scrap my new Blog photo. Tucked into the pocket at the bottom is a print out of my Blogger profile and stats. I included small copies of the blinkies on my sidebar too.
I know I will enjoy looking at this in the future. Blogging will probably be the equivalent of the Amstrad in a decade or less. And even if it is still going, I'm sure it will change.
Have you scrapped about your Blog? What elements did you decide to record for posterity?

My Top Five Must-Go Destinations

Take a virtual journey with me to some of the places I dream of visiting - and have promised myself that I will visit at some point, when finance, children and time allow.

1. Japan. It has been my #1 for 20 years and it would feel disloyal to change that now. But I wanted to go when it was like this, not this. I am grieving not only for the Japanese people, but for lost opportunities.

2. Egypt. The Nile, the Pyramids, the Valley of the Kings. I have terrible travel-envy as several family members have visited Egypt in recent years.

3. Las Vegas and The Grand Canyon. Just because I can't imagine never seeing them in real life.

4. The Amazon - rainforest and river. Pink dolphins and incredible natural beauty.. It is a great regret that my brother and his Venezualan wife split before I could visit her home with her.

5. Mauritius. Who wouldn't want a bit of this?

Please share yours. Let's dream a bit.

Sweet memories of a perfect day

Almost exactly 13 years ago - hard to believe - and on a gloriously sunny day very much like today, P and I tied the knot.
The sun at the end of March was warm enough for us to drive down the A3 with the roof off the wedding car.
The female vicar (who had given us such a hard time at pre-wedding preparation meetings) was lovely, but she had to chase us down the church path after the service, robes blowing in the breeze, to sign a section of the register we had forgotten.
I felt blessed to have 3 grandparents at my wedding, all if who can be seen here in the photo.
The photographer was grumpy about the (too) bright sunlight outside and the deliberately dim candlelight inside, and he bullied our 120 guests.
The floating candles and gerbera heads made the indoor marquee magical - no-one would have known it was a school hall.
We ate duck a l'orange followed by Death by Chocolate.
P sang Bette Midler's 'The Rose' to me instead of a first dance, although I did get a dance later in the evening.

A fabulous day, but a complicated guest list. Families are never simple!
 Those people taking part in the re-run of Shimelle's 'Blogging For Scrapbookers' will know there is more to the story which I can't share here, but I'll share the layout with public and hidden journallng when I have time to make it

Blogging for Scrapbookers

I started my blog 15 months using the archived materials of Shimelle Laine's Blogging for Scrapbookers class, but I didn't do it live. Now she is running it again so I am planning to join in and, hopefully, improve the quality of my posts and the quantity of my readership.

I have just realised that in 5 months I have never scrapped about my blog - so that is one job I will definitely be doing in the next 3 weeks. This is, after all, a crafting blog.

Check out the link above if you fancy playing along too. I am looking forward to making some new blog friends on the way.