Once Upon A Sketch - March 2014

Once Upon A Sketch has posed an interesting inspiration this month also; You only live once but if you do it right, once is enough.

I am acknowledged as a bit of a perfectionist and I will also acknowledge I have lived most of my life trying to do the right thing by everyone; I was recently told I have high expectations of myself and do not handle criticism well. I am not sure that is a bad thing!

Don't get me wrong; I am no saint! I do struggle with many aspects of living my life well, the least of these an addiction to chocolate and Coca-Cola and very little patience with a difficult mother. I am also not great when it comes to community service and tend to leave that side of things to my husband so there is definitely room for improvement.

I would not suggest for even a moment that I am a great wife and mum either but I do everything I can to support my husband and children; we are soon to celebrate 36 years of marriage and our four beautiful boys are successful young men with wives and families of their own so I must have done something right. This photo is of my wonderful husband with our youngest grandson; I am so thankful for this life! The journaling is on the back.
Thank you for looking and any comments you may leave, best wishes

Let's Get Shabby #52

Let's Get Shabby is back and have given us a beautiful inspiration; Sabrina he movie is an all-time favourite and I have both the original and the new versions but Audrey Hepburn will always be the quintessential Sabrina.

My immediate response was heritage using as little colour as possible although I have picked up the green in the striped, punched piece and the pink ribbons in the flower centres. I also needed this to be flat for a heritage album and used only scraps from my stash.

Sabrina is about a young girl, daughter of a chauffeur who aspires to a better life. The photo below was taken when I, the one at the back with long hair was about 12 years old. We grew up in a 'broken' home in very low socio-economic area and to say money was tight would be a understatement. Mum went back to her nursing career a few years before this was taken but was never a good money manager or house keeper so our living conditions did not improve much. The one thing she did try to teach us was that we didn't need to be a product of our environment and encouraged us to strive for better; to Dare to Dream of a better life for ourselves. We might not have everything but we have enough.
Thank you for looking and any comments you may leave, best wishes.

123 Challenge Blog - December

The 123 Challenge Blog has a slightly Christmas feel to it this month so I decided to do anything but Christmas! The metallic is represented by the gold ribbon, flourish and corner accent, the word joy is in the title and because I am not a girly girl I struggled with the bow but it is tucked in there under one of the ribbon roses!
I have told the story of this wedding previously here but wanted to complete a double page for my 'weddings' album. Not all the family were able to make the trek to Sydney but those of us that were able to make it were greeted by this beautiful bride; she arrived first and was able to welcome her guests and spend a few minutes with us prior to entering the wedding venue where the groom was pacing nervously. The day was a little warmer than expected and the happy couple accepted ice cold drinks after the ceremony. I just happened to catch this moment with their drinks in hand. It is not one of the 'official photos but I think it reflects their joy.
Thank you for looking and any comments you may leave, best wishes.

Once Upon a Sketch - My Favourite Month

I really struggled with this months journaling theme from Once Upon a Sketch; choosing a favourite month is very difficult. I have children's and grandchildren's birthdays and wedding anniversaries in so many months of the year and to pick a favourite would be so wrong! Living in Australia is a little different to the northern hemisphere and our seasons are opposite. I love the cooling months of April and May, the colder months of June to August although we never get snow in my state, and the beautiful spring of September and October when the Australian wildflowers are at their best. I love Christmas in December but the heat of the Aussie summer can be a little overwhelming. I decided to choose one month in the last year. November 2012.

I have a sister and two nephews living in the USA and all of them have birthdays in November so that is often the month I choose to visit them there. In 2012 I had the pleasure of showing my husband some of the USA for the first time and, as the trip was planned around things I thought he would enjoy, we went to Colorado Springs among other places. My husband loves trains and we booked tickets to take the Cog Rail to Pikes Peak. Regular visitors may have realised by now that my favourite colour is blue and although I am not much of a bird fan, I love the elusive Blue Wren that lives in the south of our state. You can imagine my delight when we stopped at a view point and disembarked to walk in the snow and survey the surrounds to spot a Blue Jay. He was the most brilliant blue and quite close but very quick so I was not able to take a photograph of anything except the branch he had just left! I have to thank Google Images for this beautiful photograph. I have a white Christmas on my bucket list; perhaps one day!

Thank you for looking and any comments you may leave, best wishes.

 

 

ScrapFriends Palette - November

ScrapFriends has presented us with another beautiful palette this month; I absolutely love the blue/grey but the yellow has always been a bit of a struggle. The papers I have used have been used before and this page will be a companion to others of my family posted here.

Three of my four handsome boys; for some reason I have never been photographed with my young men in all the family photo shoots we have had in the past 15 years. This year I made sure this picture and one of me with each of my sons was taken. From left to right they are my third, forth and second sons. All fine young men who have rarely given me a moments concern. I am and always will be so proud of who they have become. My family is forever. 

Thank you for looking and any comments you may leave, best wishes.

 

 

 

Bird is the Word - Always

Bird is the Word has given us a wonderful word for this months challenge and I have chosen to use the sketch as well except the heart frame was replaced with a filigree oval. Making a tag is also a first for me; I have loved looking at them through other blogs and pinterest but have never bothered to do one of my own until I saw this sketch. It was a lot of fun but took nearly as long as a full sized layout!

Always; such a great word and with it comes so much potential so here are a few of the things I came up with... apologies if I am plagiarising some great quote by someone famous!

Today, Tomorrow, Always:

Be True to Yourself

Know that you are loved

Be Kind

Do Your Best

Don't Give Up

Smile, it may change someone's day

Do What is Right

Forgive Your Enemies

Forgive Yourself

Hold onto Your Dreams

I am sure there are many more you could add for yourself... feel free to add your favourites to your comments and have a wonderful day.

Thank you for looking and any comments you may leave, best wishes

 

 

Kraft it Up - November Challenge...not!

I was on a scrap retreat on the weekend and had picked up a piece of Kraft cardstock; this is not something I would use very often and I know there is a great challenge site Kraft it Up so I decided to enter their challenge; I am not sure how I did it but I found a page that said 'This month your challenge is to create a layout using a different style than you normally create, for example if you are a textured/layered scrapper try clean and simple... so off I go and I create the page below using the kraft cardstock to separate and frame each layer. Using patterned paper as a significant background is a challenge for me; many of my pages are based on a plain cardstock base and patterned papers are only used as elements. Tonight whilst preparing to upload this page I found the actual challenge is quite different so I cannot enter this page. I wonder where that challenge went?

This is a photo of our beautiful only granddaughter; I was honoured to be invited to be present at her birth. She is surrounded by seven little male cousins so will probably grow up a bit of a tomboy. This page will be the first page of her album; she is soon to be two years old so I thought it was time to get it started!

Thank you for looking and any comments you may leave, best wishes.