Paper chain swap

Wow, two posts in a day, it'll never last! I've been meaning for a few days now to upload pictures of the paper chains I made for a swap on UKS. I love the variety of swaps that appear, the recent message in a bottle one being a particular highlight, and loved the sound of making paper chains to swap. I joined all three group - red/gold/green; frosty; freestyle.

I'm so looking forward to receiving some back!

Assignment 3b

Well, poor Amy has not been well this morning, so she's asleep on the sofa and I got the chance to work on todays assignment. This was to write up a story from the 'self' section in full, then trim it to 2-3 paragraphs. I found this quite hard, being a scientist I tend not to waffle so I've been really working at adding details and feelings etc. Then to be told to strip it right down again! Anyway, here it is.

I'm really enjoying this course. I’m loving reading through the prompts and sparking memories. However, it’s not always easy during the day to get 10 minutes to think about them in peace. On Monday the assignment was to read through the family prompts. I knew that Amy rarely has a nap nowadays, so was resigned to working on it in the evening, when really I prefer to spend time with Peter.

In the morning we’d been at toddlers, so in the afternoon we set out to do some errands. The weather wasn’t great, and I knew it would be getting dark before we got back so we took the buggy, though Amy insisted on walking. By the time we turned into Avenue Street, Amy was getting tired. We negotiated a settlement by which she’d willingly go into the buggy, namely being allowed to keep her mu-mu (dummy), and the going was much quicker after that. After a trip to Somerfield for milk I visited the post office to post my parcels and collect one too. 

I realised that Amy had fallen asleep in Somerfield, and it’s always nice to let her get a good nap, so I made the decision to stop off at Thirst for a coffee to work on my assignment. It’s always lovely and welcoming in there, with friendly staff and good cakes. The décor is soothing, all dark brick and paintings on the wall, and there’s an interesting selection of music in the background. I ordered a latte and a cake and set to work looking through the prompts. I seemed to find this assignment a bit harder than the equivalent one for ‘roots’. I think it’s because I started scrapping after Amy was born, so I’ve covered a lot of the fun stories in LOs already. Also there are many more memories to cover from our past. Anyway, I jotted down a few notes, and just generally drank in the atmosphere. It was wonderfully relaxing. 

When I’d finished my coffee I thought about heading home, though Amy hadn’t woken up yet. Then I thought: “No, I’ll have another coffee”. I deserve the time to myself, and you have to take every opportunity to have 5 minutes ‘me time’ when you have kids. So I ordered another latte and savoured it. When I reached the end of this coffee it was getting towards 5 o’clock. I’d handily bought a small packet of fruit pieces to keep Amy occupied on the journey so she was content to stay in the buggy on the way home. We arrived home in time to prepare tea for Peter getting in, and I felt so relaxed for having chosen to spend time on myself.

Finally started christmas shopping!

Well, at least I've bought the cards and wrapping paper. Though at this rate I might just be buying vouchers for everyone. I'm soooooo looking forward to Christmas, but I think it's the sparkly 'Magic Of Christmas' side of it, not the presents. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what Amy makes of it all. 

The Stories in Hand class influenced me again today too. I'd been doing yesterday's assignment - to flip through the family prompts and note down ones that sparked. I started writing about how much Amy loves Kelvingrove. Then I realised we hadn't actually been for about 6 months, so we went today. And she still loved it. Especially the giraffe, and the hands-on areas. It's been so well renovated. There's loads for little kids to do, like looking into a bee hive to watch the bees or trying on HUGE shoes to see how they look. We only got round half the ground floor, so I'll need to arrange a return trip sometime soon.

Evening:),

Today's assignment in the Stories in Hand class was to skim through the family section of the prompts and see what sparked. I found this a bit harder, but I think that's because I'm doing layouts about Amy all the time so there's less untapped memories. I've barely done any LOs about my childhood  and of course there's so many more years to think about.

I'm loving the class though. The forums great too, we're all sparking off each other remembering toys/ programs/ games. There's some differences as the majority of the class are American, but it's surprising how many of the hand-clapping/ skipping games were similar.

The sparks are working both ways too. I made a note of how much Amy loves Kelvingrove then realised we hadn't been for a while so I'll take her tomorrow. It's a great place, with lots of hands-on exhibits for kids.

Ok, so at the moment I'm loving the Stories in Hand class run by Jessica Sprague. It's running for a fortnight and is designed to help us tell stories about our lives. So far we've made a fabby binder, a cute jotter and written lots and lots. I'm addicted to decorating little books now, hence the little notebook I decorated that's pictured in the last post. That was just covering a notebook I'd got in a pack of 6 from the pound shop.

The binder is filled with prompts to help us tell a story, e.g tell about your childhood home. 

Today's assignment was to choose one of the prompts and really write about it in depth. I chose Halloween traditions and wrote all about the Halloween parties we used to go to at my dad's work. I didn't expect to write so much, but ended up filling 3 A4 sheets with details. It was great fun to relive it, and I've been getting 'sparks' all day when I look at things and remember stories about them.

I'm hoping the class will really help with my journalling when scrapping.

That's all for now, I really should be asleep but I'm too wired from thinking:).

Just checking, I seem to be able to add photos now, yay! I'm doing the Stories in Hand class on Jessica Sprague's site. It's fab so far, will be back later to write more:).

Let's get some photos on here!

I'd love to include photos all the time on here, of my latest LOs, or my dd, but I can't seem to get it to work, probably because I use a Mac. So today I'm on a PC and will have a go at prettifying the place:)

This LO was done for a weekly challenge on UKS. The challenge was to use a given sketch, use stamping, use 9 of a kind of embellishment and use black and white. The stamped swirls were done using Autumn Leaves stamps, and I added some little Kaisercraft pearls.

This LO came about from a challenge set by my team on UKS. We were discussing the stash that each of us hoards, but which seems to precious to use. I do love stroking all the lovely ribbons I have. In this case, the ribbons I've used are actually the ones I won recently, but otherwise they'd just have sat in their glass jars looking pretty. I have had the wooden letters for ages though, and you may have spotted that the large letters used on this are from the same K & Co set as the ones on Blooms. This is deliberate as I had two sets of these letters, and am now able to store them all in the one box.

I really enjoyed using up my precious stash, and old stash in general. I'd urge everyone to have a go. Leaves more space for lovely new stash too!