I love rain!

I just love rainy days, because then I can have a guilt free scrapbooking day. 

I started this page at Craft Den last year (or the year before) but did not finish it as I did not really have any suitable photos to go with it.

The photo below is of two brothers George and Garnett Wilson.  George married Evelyn (who was his cousin and also my grandmother's sister) and they could not have any children.  Garnett was in WW2 and was killed only weeks after his marriage

This photo shows George and Garnett as boys with their parents.  Their mother was the sister of my great-grandmother.

As my uncle used to say "Our family were very inter-married, hence the insanity!"

Too Many Scraps!!

Since I retired, I have been trying to get my craft room organised, and it is looking better, but I have just got too many scraps. As I was brought up to "use every scrap up" and "waste not, want not", this is a problem to me, as I cannot just throw them away. I put all the patterned scraps in a box and today pulled out all the pinks and made the layout below and, as I work in two page layouts, a mirror image layout as well. All the scraps were cut in half and then I just played around with them. The top right hand scrap is a lustre fabric for scrapbooking (which I have had ages and cannot remember where it came from) and the plain rectangle below it was a lustre finish envelope from a birthday card. The small scrap with hearts on top of it covers where my name was written on the envelope. The other scrap with hearts on it is a piece of ribbon, again too nice to bin.

So I now have a double page layout waiting to be used.

I found three more larger scraps that went together well and made this layout. It is not obvious from the photo, but the circle paper has yellow circles on it the same colour as the background.

I just happened to have photos that went well with these layouts, so here are the finished pages.

I am determined now to carry on making layouts every time my pile of scraps gets too big.

My 15th Birthday!

I don't see why I should miss out on my birthday just because my mother waited until 29th February to have me instead of 14th February! This year has been no exception.

The first celebration was on Friday 24th when I had lunch at the local pub with six other girls from the village. Then on Saturday 25th my patchwork and quilting group presented me with a plum tree and a crafting light with a built in magnifying glass - well I am getting on a bit now and the eye sight isn't what it was!

I also retired from work on Tuesday 28th February and one of the girls made me the most fantastic cake.

On my actual birthday my grand-daughters gave me a card each that they had made. They also helped me open all my cards and presents before we went to the park at Bamford where we all had fun and a wonderful picnic, including a birthday muffin with 4 candles.

On Saturday 3rd March thirteen really good friends joined me for a meal in the local pub and we all had a wonderful time.

And the celebrations are not over yet!!!!!!!! Watch this space.

Advice on keeping warm!

Its been really freezing this week, so here is my advice for keeping nice and warm.

Curl up on a bed with your back to the radiator, and find some good friends to cuddle up to.

It works for me every time!

More Family Tree Scrapbooking

This photo shows my great-grandmother's uncle, Joseph Holme and his son, who were blacksmiths at Hope, Derbyshire. He was the third generation blacksmith at Hope.

The small photos shows Joseph's three sons.

Although this view of Hope looks much the same today as it does in the above photo, it would be virtually impossible to get a photo now without cars on this road.

The page below has a funeral card for my great-great-grandmother, Harriet Holme, who died in 1919.

The group photo was probably taken at that time, and it shows all of Harriet Holme's eight children. My great-grandmother, Anne Holme, was George and Harriet's second child. She is second from the left on the front row.

Granny Blossom's Sisters

Granny Blossom was the youngest of the Uttley sisters. This page shows Evelyn, the middle sister. She worked for MacConachies Pickles and was the only person who held the recipe for their Pan Yan pickle. She and husband never had any children.


The bottom right photo shows Evelyn, Granny Blossom, their friend Nora, and my Granny Allison.

Alice was the eldest of the sisters and stayed at home to look after their father. She would not get married until he died and when he died she and her long term boyfrient married. They were both aged 48, so like her sisters, she did not have any children.

They were all such loving, gentle women, and would have made wonderful mothers and grand-mothers.

Scrapbooking weekend

It is such a rare sight for my crafting desk to be this tidy that I thought I ought to take a photo for posterity. I spent about three hours yesterday tidying about a quarter of my crafting room, but my desk was particulary bad. A couple of months ago I bought the drawer unit that my computer screen is sitting on. Not only has it given me more storage, but when I am not using the keyboard I can put it on top of the drawers so I have room to have a 12" x 12" paper at the back of my desk, but room to work in front of it.

Although I have not had much crafting time over the last couple of months I have been concentrating on family history scrapbooking. This page shows my Granny Blossom.

I like to work in two page layouts, and this is the page before the one above. The top photo is of Granny Blossom and her two older sisters and her father. It was taken around the time the girls mother died. I assume the other photo was taken when Alice, the eldest was 21, as she is wearing a more "grown up" dress than Evelyn and Hilda. Granny Blossom's real name was Hilda, but because she always called me "her little blossom", I always called her Granny Blossom.

My actual grandmother died about 15 years before I was born. My grandfather later married Hilda, who was in fact a distant relative of his. Although she was only my step-grandma, Granny Blossom was the best grandma in the world.

I am so proud. My daughter has learned how to use a sewing machine. Here she is sewing away, totally oblivious to the fact that I have taken this photo. She had a day at my patchwork group, Quilt Time, sewing angel outfits and a rag doll each for her two girls. She is now making them Christmas stockings and draft excluders!

I have just finished my 2010 Christmas Journal and am taking photos and writing journalling for 2010, but do not think it will actually get finished until the new year, as at the moment there are so many other things to do.

This page shows me returning from the shops with a sledge full of shopping, and Emily and I sucking icicles in the garden. Actually it has been good that it has taken so long to finish the journal, as as I have been putting it together I have been able to relive the memories I have recorded. I think every Christmas I should get out all my Christmas Journals and re-read them.

Family History Scrapbooking

This is the second photo in my Furness family history scrapbook. It shows the Rivelin Hotel where my gt--gt-grandparents and gt-grandparents lived and where my grandmother lived until just after she married.

The facing page below shows photos of my great-grandparents. Unfortunately the photo of my great-grandfather is really badly worn.

This section of the page shows a bit of my great-grandmother and some of the embellishments I added to the page.

I am really enjoying this project, but as usual, there are not enough hours in the day....

Its never too early to start your Xmas Journal, or finish it!

Last Christmas was unusual as my daughter and her family moved in with us at the beginning of December, so I thought I would get my Christmas Journal and the date labels made well in advance so I could just write the journalling and stick the photos in.

I even made my own Journal with a patchwork cover and tie fastener.

I stuck Shimelle's Manifesto in the front cover, and was ready to go.

Unfortunately a lot of the photos I had taken were inaccessible, as the memory card in my camera would not allow me to download the photos, and as the house was totally disorganised due to the family moving in, I could not find the lead from the camera to the computer, so could not download them. When the family moved out at the end of April, not only was the lead missing, but also the camera!

Last month they both turned up and my son-in-law downloaded the photos for me, so, one year later, I am ready to do my 2010 Xmas Journal. I have temporarilly added the date labels, journalling and photos to check I have all the photos I need and that the journalling is the right size - which I have, so am now leaving it until a quieter time in the year to add all the embellishments etc.

After all, I have got to make my journal and date labels for 2011 in the next few days.

Anyway, it gives you some idea of what it will look like when it is finished.

Papercraft Workshop

I signed up for a Samuel Tayor workshop at the Papercraft Show in Harrogate in September. The workshop was using stamps to make an icon holder.

The wooden icon holder was dry brushed with white acrylic paint and then I used blue and purple paint to stamp the images. Finally the large design was printed with glue and flakes of glitter were added.

This was how the inside was decorated. I was not sure when I made it what I was going to use it for, but I used blue and purple as I liked those colours best. The workshop included stamping a saying in the centre of the middle panel, but I was not keen on that idea, so did not do it. I hate making things and then not using them, but could not think how I was going to use this project, but thought I might put a photo in it at some time.

Then a couple of weeks later my 3 year old grand-daughter took this photo of me with my grandson. Its fair to say I hate having my photo taken, but I really like this photo and the colour I was wearing just went perfectly with the icon holder.

It now has pride of place on my mantlepiece where I can see it every day.

Not only does Emily take a really good photo, she even manages to make me look thinner. Thanks Emily x

It's Easter

Made a start on my Easter photos. We were in America when these photos were taken, and we missed the very hot weather England had in April. Obviously the girls enjoyed it.

Isn't it lovely to play in water when it is really hot?

I am trying to sort out all my embellishments, and found a lot that went with my colour scheme for these pages. The pile does not seem to have got any smaller though.

Grandma has got her sewing mojo back

There is no stopping my grandma now the weather has turned colder and she does not have to work in her allotment so much.

A good friend gave her two pieces of curtaining which she has turned into four bags, and she used some strips of fabric left over from another project to make a bag for someone she works with who has been pestering her for one for ages.



Project Linus had had a polar bear cushion panel donated to them and she has used some other fabric with polar bears on to make it into a lap quilt.

She also cut some boat and dolphin fabrics into squares to make another Project Linus quilt. As you can see I have thoroughly inspected them and refused to get off them when she wanted to take a photo. Well it is my blog, so I should be included.

I hope she now makes a start on catching up on her scrapbooking. She has only got to the end of April with Emily and Katie's book and June with Louis book, so there is plenty for her to do. I would not mind having a long walk either!

Project Linus Quilts

Hi Everyone

Grandma was away on holiday last Sunday, that is why she did not do her weekly blog, and then old age made her forget where she had put her camera, so she could not download any photos for this Sunday. Anyway better late than never.

She has been finishing off two quilts for Project Linus. She did the piecing, quilting and binding, and I did the checking to make sure there were no loose ends.

All those trees and nowhere to do a wee! Apparently they were all blocks which were left over from the Quilt Time Project Linus Day last February, so I am glad she had finally used them all up. This cat quilt is also made from left over blocks.

I think it should be a dog quilt next time.

Tag x

Starting Point

My friend Joanne set me a challenge she had seen on www.shimelle.com. Shimelle gave us a Starting Point layout and we had to make a page using that layout. As I always work in two pages that meant twice the work, but I enjoyed it and it made me get more scrapbooking done than I expected to do this week. The photos I used are of my grand-daughters at Graves Park, and the paper was some Joanne had given me as a Christmas present and the leaf punch used was one she had loaned me.

Katie loves playing in dirt and apparently the bucket she is hugging above contained some dried dog poo (although her parents did not know that at the time). That's my girl!

I picked the black out of the background papers for the central strip and leaves, and although I would not have thought of particularly using black for a girls page, I think it works really well. Thanks Shimelle (and Joanne) for the inspiration.

Playing Pirates

I have had a couple of lovely days today and yesterday. This morning I was looking after Louis and we were playing at pirates. He's too cute to be scarey.


Yesteday I had a day to myself and managed to do some scrapbooking, hence this blog being two days early! I managed to use up lots of scraps. The left hand panel of flowers was a piece of card I had saved which had had the flowers punched out of it. I saved it because it was an unusual shade of pink, but it just happened to match a single sheet of background card I also had. It is so satisfying to use up scraps.

Terrible photos

Sorry about the quality of the photos, the flash has really taken the colour out of the pages. It doesn't help either when I do not remember to turn them around before I download them! Another senior moment.

Anyway the background paper is blue and purple and is a lot darker than it appears.

The photos below gives a better idea of the colour on the right hand side, but even that is quite a bit paler than the original. Will have to try harder with these photos.