More Layouts…

A few more of my scrapbook layouts from the past few months. I’m trying to resurrect my blog which lost it’s way when I lost my way on the Blogging For Scrapbookers class so hopefully I can set it going once again.

Some Scrapbook Layouts

These are some pages from a while ago that I’ve never uploaded to here before. These were made using the Brenda Pinnick Mega Kit from QVC. I still have most of it!!!

My distressing journey

Ok so it’s not as bad as you’re thinking.  I’ve been buying again…blame the weather! It’s just too manky to go out anywhere lol.  Hence the new cuttlebug, nestabilites and now this…

I’ve invested in the Today’s Special Value from yesterday on QVC. I’m not that into the grungy look but I love the new distress ink colours and would love to be able to do more than cut and stick once in a while so I thought the kit would be perfect.

So now I can be messy!!!!!!

I had a very quick attempt using an ink pad I already have and a make up sponge (not really the best thing)… this is what I ended up with. It’s nowhere near perfect but for a first attempt it’s not too bad.

More to follow when my kit arrives!!!! I may even manage to update this blog more often!

It’s Only November 13th

And I’ve just wrapped my first Christmas present. Admittedly it’s the cat’s christmas present but still this is the earliest I’ve started wrapping!

I think I’ve been infected by all the early Christmas adverts on TV!

Another thing is, why when you’ve ordered things you really want do they not turn up (via Royal Mail) but the things you don’t want like free magazines from the Pet Insurance company do?

*grumbles* because I really want my pretty Cosmo Cricket stuff!!

Armistice Day – 11/11

I’m a day late posting this but live writer was playing up last night.  This is just my little photo post about the war heroes from my family (including the newly discovered relatives). They may not have been decorated other than the medals issued to everyone but they’re my heroes.

 

My great-grandfathers, Wilfred and William Percy. Wilfred or Farvy served in home waters during WW1 while William Percy or Pop-Pop served we believe in Gallipoli and the Middle East.

 

My grandfathers, Thomas and Reg. Grandad (on the left) joined up in 1943 and apparently went over to France a couple of weeks after D-Day. He was shot and sent back home where he was found to have shrapnel in his arm and lungs something which he suffered with for the rest of his life. Granna (on the right) was out in the Far East and was captured by the Japanese. I don’t know much about what happened to him as he never spoke of it but I know the experience haunted him.

There are so many men and women like these who aren’t the well known names from the wars but they deserve just as much recognition, so this is my way of doing that for the members of my family.

Writing…

Since I’ve been to school and through the Open University system I’ve come to detest writing. When I was a little girl I would spend hours writing little stories, admittedly all following the same basic template lol but throughout school and university you’re told how to structure everything, almost told what to write etc etc. Now when it comes to blogging or journaling I find I do the same. I can’t just write any other way.

I didn’t follow the prompt exactly today as I just couldn’t think of anything to write about but I did produce a layout about my problems with writing. The journaling is hidden behind the patterned paper and says the same as above.

This and the next layout also use part of today’s prompt whereby I did something I hadn’t done before and that used my new alphabet stamps and the mini stamps which are part of a Maya Road set, which I now love. The chipboard pieces come from the same set.

I know it’s a well known joke that it always rains in Wales but when we went to Snowdonia earlier this year it rained for 6 out of 7 days. The picture was taken on the Sunday when we had just come over the Llanberis Pass which had sent my Mum into fits because she hates windy roads with drops to one side. The scenery was worth it even if she did make us promise never to take her across it again!

Goals…

No I’m not talking about football. Today’s prompt was about our goals and it got me thinking that right now I don’t really have any…not big life changing ones anyway.

I’ve just finished my final Open University course and hopefully will achieve my Honours degree in December when the results arrive. That’s been a big part of my life for the last 6 years and now it’s over and I don’t know what to do.

I decided when it was finished that I would spend more time scrapping because I had firmly shut the door on my muse while studying because the two just don’t mix, so now it’s free to play! It’s partly because of that, that I decided to sign up for the Blogging for Scrapbookers course and also Jessica Sprague's Holidays In Hand which starts soon. I also want to once again attempt to finish Shimelle’s Journal Your Christmas as I failed to do so last year.  I have no idea if I will manage to complete everything but I want to try.

No layout for today’s prompt…as yet but here’s one for Day 5 (kind of). I took the photo as normal of my mp3 player but played about with it in Picasa which was new for me…

It’s just the first 10 songs that played this morning while I was using the computer and I thought why not scrap them.

Family History

Following on from the comments left on an earlier post I wanted to post more about researching our family history.

It was prompted by inheriting all of my Nan’s photos and papers. When we asked her we got some names for them all but some are still unidentified.

Mum and I started out by searching back from my great-grandparents using the free sites such as http://www.freebmd.org.uk and its partner sites as well as the pay as you go sites such as http://www.findmypast.com .  Earlier this year having found as much as we could with those we signed up with ancestry.

The family tree software I use is limited but it suits me. This is our tree as far as it will allow us to upload.

Family Tree

The most interesting finds have been on my Mum’s side. Her great-grandfather is the illegitimate son of a local farmer and his mistress.  While her great-grandmother is descended from a man who fled from France during the Revolution and settled in a small village in Norfolk.

We’ve not gone so far as ordering certificates yet so we may find we have some of the links wrong but we have contacted long lost relatives who have found the same connections so we’re pretty sure they’re right especially in the two cases above.

Remember

I’ve always been interested in the history of the Second World War. It probably stems from my Dad watching any war film going when I was little…all of them ‘classics’, but the first memory I have of knowing that it affected my family was when I found out somehow that my beloved Granna could speak some Japanese. When I asked my Dad if he would tell me, I was told not to ask him because he’d been a Japanese POW during WWII.

Since then I know a lot more, both about what he went through and that my other Grandad and Nonnie served during the war. This year Mum and I have been researching our family history and found that three of my great-uncles were killed during the First World War and there were those that survived and like my Grandfathers possibly suffered for the rest of their lives for it.

So on Sunday I’ll watch the service on TV, and promise myself that next year I’ll go to our town memorial

None of us should ever forget what they have done for us.

Just to finish and because his life and that of his family fascinates me so much because I hardly knew any of them except for my Nan, this is my Great Grandfather “pop-pop”.

Look What I’ve Done Today…

This…about the prompt from day 3 of favourite things. My favourite author.

I’ve photographed it in a different place to try and fit in with today’s prompt of looking at surroundings differently.