January goals review

With a new job at the start of this month I decided to set myself a few goals to provide a little structure to offset the uncertainty I was feeling at moving jobs.

I wanted to restart blogging, and whilst I've not really stuck to my own schedule I have blogged on multiple times in the month.

I wanted to partake in the #bookclub52 challenge to read a book a week and with my hour commute each day to work I have achieved this, and blogged the books too. So big tick for me.

I wanted to find a spot of me time ever week to be mindful, and to pamper/care for myself more. This including relaxing baths and not rushed showers, face masks, cleanse/tone/moisturising and using my expensive eye cream!! I've walked more as well just enjoying the time to think straight which has been lacking in the last couple of years.

I tasked myself with some decluttering and successfully made several trips to the charity shop, sorted my youngest toys out and sold a few to make him a few quid (happy son!) My wardrobe is next up!

Finally I wanted to take part in more online scrapbooking challenges, and or try some of the many Pinterest ideas I have. I joined in a couple of challenges including a mood board and the journaling ones, and I've done a page based on a Pinterest sketch too.

Not a bad months I'd say :)
Come on February, I'm ready for you x

More scrapping

Sharing another page I made last weekend today featuring another Bramblefox perspective - the fab Polaroid frame.

I trimmed the green pattern paper to 11 1/2" Square and distressed the edges before adding it to my white background. I didn't mean to tear the paper as I did this but just incorporated those bits into the design by tucking a piece of contrasting paper behind one tear (top right edge) and covering v the other in the bittom right corner.

Again I've used a 4" square photo here made up of two cropped images of my eldest boy play rugby. The journaling tells his reluctance to initially join the club but how well he's done since.

The photo is mounted on an array of different coloured papers, all with distressed edges and a splash of red to tie in the photos to the page using a frame calendar which I separated and used as two pieces. 

More scrapbooking to share later this week as well. 

Focus on journaling

Had a lovely relaxing play with pretty paper last night, this layout above was one of four I ended up making. Three of them were in response to a challenge by Mind The Scrap to focus on journaling. 

I used some old papers from Scenic Route and cut them into 1/2" strips of different lengths and layered them across the page avoiding a pre-drawn by hand heart shape where I wanted to feature my journalling. 

The grid of nine photos was done on a photo editing app and is 4" Square once printed out on my selphy printer. 

I then clustered a few elements beneath the photo and to the right hand bottom corner including one of my January subscription Bramblefox perspectives. I finished the page with some hand drawn stitching. 

Love how this one turned out. 

Book Club 52 - Week 4/52

Ooh I did enjoy this one, my first book by this author and I immediately downloaded the next book in this series as soon as I had finished (which was actually last week as I am a little ahead on my book a week schedule!)

Goodreads synopsis:
In a new series from Wall Street Journal bestselling author Melinda Leigh, former prosecutor Morgan Dane faces the most personal—and deadly—case of her lifetime.

After the devastating loss of her husband in Iraq, Morgan Dane returns to Scarlet Falls, seeking the comfort of her hometown. Now, surrounded by family, she’s finally found peace and a promising career opportunity—until her babysitter is killed and her neighbor asks her to defend his son, Nick, who stands accused of the murder.

Tessa was the ultimate girl next door, and the community is outraged by her death. But Morgan has known Nick for years and can’t believe he’s guilty, despite the damning evidence stacked against him. She asks her friend Lance Kruger, an ex-cop turned private eye, for help. Taking on the town, the police, and a zealous DA, Morgan and Lance plunge into the investigation, determined to find the real killer. But as they uncover secrets that rock the community, they become targets for the madman hiding in plain sight.

Loved this book, easy enough read, good characters and great pace of story. Even better that it was free to read on my kindle unlimited subscription. Now which of my line up of books to read next....

Book Club 52 - Week 3/52

I decided on a lighter read this week and did devour this easy read in just a couple of days (commute to and from work plus evenings!)

Goodreads description:
Tabitha Brewer wakes up one morning to find her husband gone, leaving her no way to support herself and their two children, never mind their upscale Philadelphia lifestyle. She’d confess her situation to her friends—if it wasn’t for those dreadful words of warning in his goodbye note: “I’ll tell them what you did.”

Instead, she does her best to keep up appearances, even as months pass and she can barely put food on the table—much less replace a light bulb. While she looks for a job, she lives in fear that someone will see her stuffing toilet paper into her handbag or pinching basil from a neighbor’s window box.

Soon, blindsided by catastrophe, surprised by romance, and stunned by the kindness of a stranger, Tabitha realizes she can’t keep her secrets forever. Sooner or later, someone is bound to figure out that her life is far from perfect.

A nice easy read - not a particularly rapid story line, a little slow at times, but I still enjoyed the book which was only 99p on Amazon.

Back to another mystery thriller next I think - do leave a comment if you have a recommended book for me to read and add to my ever growing list!

January ATDML Design Team Gallery projects

Hello bloggers, scrapbookers and friends (or all of the above).
Sharing another sparkly snowflake page I made this time for the January gallery using those inexpensive snowflakes from the front of a discounted pack of Christmas cards.

The photograph doesn't do this stunning paper from Kaisercraft Mint Wishes collection justice, it is really really pretty and I wanted to leave plenty of it showing. As such a simple photo mat in brown offset from the photo slightly and many snowflakes was the base of my page. 

A few gems in the centre of the snowflakes, a journaling spot to the bottom left of the photo (taken of my daughter and I at the Rockefeller centre) and the skates from Simple Stories paper and I was pretty much done.

There are a couple more pages from me using these papers in the January gallery which can be found HERE and will start filling up with my fellow designers work over the remainder of the month.

Book Club 52 - Week 2/52

Having finished Unchained Beauty at the weekend I started book 2/52 for the year, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick for 2018 by Cara Hunter called Close to Home.

I do like to read Thrillers now and then and surprisingly go through phases where I only read thrillers (and I think we were blessed with a few fantastic Thriller releases in the last couple of years including Girl on the Train and Gone Girl, both of which I really enjoyed)

This book explores a missing girl and has a Detective lead who tries to figure out the missing pieces. Reviews give it 5 stars and suggest many are instantly hooked! Yes, well that was me and I devoured this book in 48HOURS!! 

I would say at about 90% of the way through the book (thanks kindle for telling me where I was)  I got a sense that the author had rather hurried the last part and that there were a few unanswered aspects. I was feeling a little disappointed but then BOOM, plot twist that had me sitting up and exclaiming WHAAAATT?!!!  So good and bad at the same time. No spoilers, but there is another book featuring the same detective that is released July this year which I'll have as one of my #bookclub52 for sure.

Now to find something more lighthearted perhaps for next week. 

December ATDML Gallery projects

I found myself scrapping way more than I usually do during December with gorgeous seasonal papers from Kaisercraft Mint Wishes and Simple Stories papers featured in my A Trip Down Memory Lane design team kit.. The full December gallery from the team can be found HERE and features no less than six layouts from me!

This was one of my favourite pages I made which actually used very little of the papers and incorporated some large glittery snowflakes taken off the front of a discounted pack of Christmas cards. The red bauble BE MERRY element was from a Simple Stories Christmas collection and went perfectly with photos of the giant red baubles sat in a water feature just down from the Rockafellar Centre in New York which my daughter and I visited at the start of December.

I then added my two 6x4 photos and clustered full and partial snowflakes around the page with some smaller snowflakes, stars and other festive elements, plus my journaling and a gem or sequin here and there!

The same papers made this easy 9-grid format layout featuring photos of my family on 25th Dec 2017. I had removed the bauble element used in the layout above first from this paper and then backed the gap with another paper and covered some of the grids with slightly trimmed 4" square black and white photos.

Adding my journaling to the centre block and some hand cut flowers from the same range to the top left square my page was easy to pull together. The Christmas Cheer saying on the middle far right grid came from Kaisercraft Mint Wishes collection but the tone of the dark green matched in well enough to these Simple Stories papers to be able to sit alongside them.

Plenty more festive pages in the gallery for last month - go take a look and get inspired to get your holiday photos onto pages and in to your Scrapbook Albums.

Recycling/Decluttering 1/12

Charity bag drop number one today, of at least twelve planned for 2018 where one of my goals is to declutter and repurpose items in our home. Today was just a small bag but its no longer sat in the hallway but out of the house.

Christmas decorations and the tree came down and I can now make a plan of each room and what needs to be sorted. I'll sell on some items and charity shop others all as part of my tidy home, tidy mind mission.

Book Club 52 - Week 1/52

In 2017 I was introduced to author CM Owens who writes an array of books, in series usually, and I was instantly hooked. They aren't deep and meaningful stories in the main but escapism with a bit of paranormal fantasy thrown in on occasion. I started with the Deadly Beauties trilogy, then read the Death Chasers trilogy and absolutely loved the Sterling Shore series (non-paranormal).

Currently I am reading the 5th book in the follow on Series to the Deadly Beauties trilogy, Unchained Beauty and am about a quarter of the way through. Should be finished by this weekend and already know I will want to read more CM Owens. It tells the story of Ella and Slade who you meet earlier on in the series and to be fair whilst you could read it as a stand alone I think you would get much more pleasure from having ready the series. Kindle price is £2.22 for this book at the moment which is the last in the series and the reviews say it does not disappoint!

If you want to join in this challenge reading 52 books in 2018 my friend Debbie is blogging her challenge on this post here

Hello 2018 - I may blog you!

So after a very long absence from blogging due to a very busy day to day life I have made a few significant changes these last few months and am back telling my tale.

After almost 16 years with the same employer where I loved my job, but not the stress that accompanied it in more recent years, I braved the employment market and found another role thanks to a good friends faith in me and started yesterday in a new job. I have to commute now and no longer work just a short way from home but this hour journey each way will give me some "down time" and allow my brain some much needed space.

I am planning on joining in a reading challenge (which I also did last year) where the aim is to read an average of a book a week, 52 over the course of the year. I will share here links to some of the books I read (and I warn you some are real trash but I love them as escapism!). Currently I am reading the latest in the Deadly Beauties Series I started reading in 2017 by Author C.M Owens.

I am also still scrapbooking and designing for A Trip Down Memory Lane so will share my creations here for them and any other crafty bits I do. This month that will include plenty of festive scrapping of the recent season and finishing my December Daily journal.

I want to cook more foods and try combining ingredients for edible treats and meals I see on Pinterest and the internet and think " oh that looks nice". Also I need to save a few pennies and stop eating out for lunch which isn't doing my bank balance or waistline any favours!

I might also share some day to day stuff about the family too, a photo or two, who knows. I just want to record in all and hopefully inspire others to share their 2018 also. Will you join me?