Encyclopedia Pics

Hopefully Blogger is going to play nicely and allow me to upload the cover page and one of my encyclopedia entries!

It definitely won't be earth shatteringly artistic or profoundly deep and meaningful but you know what - I don't care! I am enjoying making it :)

Anyway there's a little preview of my little distraction which makes no mess while I am trying to play at being a tidy domestic goddess!

Articles and My Little Digi Project!

Blogger and my computer have been conspiring against me, I have tried to write entries a couple of times but either the PC crashed of Blogger just wouldn't let me in!

I'm so excited, we have had a site upgrade and we have several new things in the pipeline. One of the changes is we now have an articles section which we hope to fill with lots of great resources. We have currently got a couple of articles in there written by the wonderful Karen AKA Scrapdolly. This lady never ceases to amaze me! I would never have believed that it was possible to combine quantity and quality the way she does! There are lots of wonderful scrappers but I can't believe there are many who can create such a large volume of work that is all lovely :) Not only can she do that but I put an e mail out to our design team asking them to consider the possibility of doing an article or two for us and she replies the next day with an article she had that was written but never published and promises me a "proper" article soon - that appeared in my inbox later that day! Amazing!

Anyway, I have some plans to develop the articles section into a bit more than just articles but we will have to see how it all pans out. At the moment I am just relieved to see Mum emerging from the mountain of Pizza Boxes that were filled with UKS kits, I was beginning to think she would never surface! I am really looking forward to the Scrapping Summer Holiday Event - relaxed and easy going is my kind of thing :)

We are off to a crop with the shop on Saturday, Nicki Harvey has a Saturday crop in Bury St Edmunds every couple of months and we take the shop sometimes, it is great to chat to the customers and nosey round some fabulous albums!

We are currently getting the house ready for our new lodger! (My cousin who is going to uni near here) and so I daren't get all the scrapping stuff out agin so instead I am getting on with a little digi project I have been planning a while. I LOVE Cathy Zielskes Encyclopedia Of My Ordinary Life idea .

Although I went as far as buying a portrait 8.5x11 album to do it in I have decided to modify the design a bit and go for the same size but landscape and do it digitally. Then I am going to have it printed as a photobook at photobox. The idea is that it is like an A-Z crossed with a Book of Me in the style of an encyclopedia. I have tried something similar before but I could never get past making every letter super interesting - I just am not that interesting! But thats where this idea comes in to it's own - the idea is you record the details of your ORDINARY life so therefore you include mundane and slightly weird stuff too! (Hence the entries of Electric Six and Epidural for e!)

I had a go at recreating Chatterbox Sun Roon digitally, I made my own spotty and stripey patterns using those colours as I am totally in love with them! GRRRRR Blogger won't let me upload the pictures I wanted to share of my cover page and the e entry. Ho hum, will try again later.

Change of Music

For those of you who like a quieter listening experience I have changed the music video from Monster Magnet to Athlete for a while :)

Phew!

Well my weekend of scrapping meant I completed everything I needed to in time for the deadlines. 1 double layout and 3 single layouts in a weekend is quite a lot for me - I am not particularly quick at the best of times and having not sat down and scrapped for at least a month Iw as all out of practise!! Unfortunately I can't upload my creations because the 3 singles are for a design teacm and the double is for a class - the class one will be able to go up soon though :)

The postie just rang the bell and my pre order from Anna at Bumblebee Crafts came. Man I love those CherryArte rub ons :) Thanks hun.

Mmmmm Stash!

It's nearly time for Summer CHA and the previews for new stash are tantalising! I am looking forward tot he Gypsy papers from Basic Grey, they look like they are going to be bright and funky and yummy! Their other release is Lily Kate and I am not so sure about that although it may grow on me when I see it in full. As they are retiring Sweetpea Jack and Sweetpea Alyssa I guess they are releasing this as their pastel coloured offering!

Prima have some interesting looking new releases but I am still traumatised by the Prima pre order disaster from last time so I refuse to get excited about those. When they are here, on English soil and calling me from the warehouse then I will be all excited and will get lots for stock but not until!

The Imaginations Project Manufacturers all also have new lines out and I am really iking the look of the Chloes Closet "Rise and Shine" range. The colours are just "mmmmmmmm" The paper to the left is called Tricky Kids!!!!

Also from the Imagination Project group I am liking Center City's "Little Italy" very bright and zingy for Summer!

Anyway, if I wrote about all the great things I am looking forward to I would be here all night but I am busy scrapping! Yes you read that right scrapping! I NEVER get the chance to scrap but I told Darren I NEEDED to get some done this weekend for various deadlines. It is true though, everything out no the table that I am working on is for a Design Team or another project and the deadlines are looming! Of course it doesn't hurt that I am getting the chance to scrap some of Belles pictures which is a good thing as they are still piling up faster than I can even dream of scrapping them!

World Cup

Well it is all over for another 4 years. I have really enjoyed this world cup although it is a shame it ended with penalties and Zidane having a crazy moment which will ruin the end of his career forever.

I think the Germans have done themselves a lot of favours in the way they have run the tournament, it has been well run and on the most part policed well. I also think they have tackled the problem of what to do with ticketless fans in the best way possible - being proactive, providing lots of venues and facilities for them rather than the usual host nation tactic of hoping that they won't turn up!

Shame England didn't live up to expectations, I really felt for David Beckham afterwards when he gave up the captaincy - the right thing to do but sad to watch. I do hope he goes on to get his 100 caps, it annoyed me beyond measure that straight after the press conference sky crossed over to William Hill spokesman to discuss the odds on him never playing for England again.

I have to say the BEST NEWS of the World Cup is....








The ATDML Allstars finished top of the league! Woo Hoo - after being ahead at the end of every round there were last minute bids to usurp the Allstars from Brooncastle Utd, El Diablos and Jo's Magpies but depsite the sending off of their captain Zinidine Zidane the ATDML Allstars held on to win the league by 9 points!

You've Gotta Love Photo Editing Programmes!

Another pic of Izzy Whizz! Playing in PSP turning the background which was my living room into a white studio! Thought I would post the before as well! Could do with a few more bits touching up but I like it!

Day At The Zoo

We have been to Colchester Zoo today. I know lots of people have mixed views on zoos but I love Colchester Zoo. They are well known for the high quality of animal care and the money that is spent on creating good environments, developing breeding programmes and for promoting ecological causes.

We live about 3 minutes from the zoo and have Gold Cards allowing us unlimited access. This is great with Belle as we can go and stay for the day or for an hour without feeling like you have to stay all day to justify the ticket price.

We went today so Izzy could look at the animals and so I could play with the camera! I messed about with depth of field and broke the photographic rule about not taking pictures through glass! Although the photos taken through glass are not the best I thought they came out quite well, especially the tiger!

Love This

Theres loads of things "wrong" with this pic most notably too much noise as it was very dark when I over rode the flash and playing with the curves has given the colour I wanted but with too much noise. However I just love it. Izzy has a cute expression and the delicate colours I am so pleased with. The giant swan is in fact a rocking swan given to her by her Grandad (my father in law) for her first birthday. She loves it!

My First Pics

Just thought I would share some of my photos that I took with my new baby (I mean camera!) this afternoon. They are my first attempts so nothing special and I haven't done any photo shop or PSP processing on them yet. The Alstromeria shot was me playing about with depth of field to get the fuzzy background and I am reasonably pleased with it as a first attempt. The one of Belle standing has been cropped slightly to cut out the washing line and cover! The photo isn't that great but it is my darling little girl showing off her standing up so I had to include it!

I Got It!

Woo hoo - Izzy and I went town this morning and we did all the boring chores like banking and buying stuff that Darren needed and then we scurried down the high street to JEssops to get my new camera. Armed with a print out from Jessops.co.uk where theu had a little bit of money off I got my lovely new camera. I only got the kit lens but when I read reviews it got the best reviews of the lenses bundled with various different cameras so I am looking forward to getting started. I also got a case, 2 1GB memory cards (with life time guarentees!) a UV filter and a flash gun which was on special offer!

Can't wait to get to grips and learn how to use it properly!

Look At My New Toy Which I Am About To Get!

I have been umming and ahhing for ages over the camera but I think I have finally decided after spending ages trawling the net, asking friends for opinions and recommendations and spending ages in Jessops talking to the sales dude and holding the cameras. I think I have decided on the Nikon D70S - it doesn't have the highest number of mega pixels but as I am not planning on blowing my pictures up to enormous sizes that won't be a problem it looks and feels like a great camera and it just feels divine in my hands! Can't wait to go and buy it and bring it home and love it and cherish it and take fabby pics with it!!!!!!!

Down and Out

I went away over night on Saturday night with some of my girly pals from our baby group - we had the most wonderful time having some chill out time, eating and drinking and just having a laugh. We went on Saturday afternoon but I had checked in advance that we would be able to see the match.

I Can't Believe We Are Out!

Looking at the Semi Final line up we SHOULD still be there and what's more if we had been we had the best chance in years of going all the way. Gutted. With a capital G,U,T,T,E and D!

Although I am cross that Ronaldo clearly was trying to wind Rooney up I personally think that it is his place, as a highly paid premiership footballer who has been given the honour to represent his country, to keep his head and stay on the pitch. I so hope he learns from it.

I felt so sorry for Becks, when he was sitting on the bench it was so obvious his dream was falling away in front of his eyes. I can't beleive the criticism he has got over the tournament, nobody set the world alight but at least he was well involved with most of the goals we did score. I have to confess to also having rather damp eyes during his resignation from captain press conference!

Anyway, back to the weekend. I didn't take the camera but we stayed at a Golf and Coutry Club, we ate, we drank and we laughed and laughed and laughed. Oh and we swam (in deep water instead of the baby pool!) and went in the Jacuzzi. We didn't get great sleep when we eventually went to bed as there was a wedding going on and let's just say although the bridesmaids were not in Burberry they may well have been!