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.