December Scraplift Santa with ATDML

Starting on Saturday, and kicking off with yours truly, the A Trip Down Memory Lane team have a bi-weekly Scraplift Santa challenge going for the month of December.

One of the DT stand in for Santa and bring you a gift of a seasonal project for you to scraplift from the comfort of your own home. No kits, no instructions, just simple images and a whole heap of festive fun every Wednesday and Saturday throughout December.

It's going to be so much fun!!

Book Club 48/52 - Mountain Mercenaries Book 1

Just 4 more books to go after this one to reach my 52 books read in 2018 (ok so I am already at 52 and haven't blogged them all) but I will continue to share one a week as I had planned.



Love is a life-and-death risk for the Mountain Mercenaries in New York Times bestselling author Susan Stoker’s explosive series of alpha heroes, hot action, and hard passion…

Don't really need to add any more to that description do I? I mean who wouldn't want to read it....

To Christmas Journal or not...

I absolutely love the festive season there's no doubt... But do I start another scrapbooking journal of the holidays given my track record? Read on.

So in 2014 I can be forgiven for not finishing. I'd prepared the pages mostly in advance so I just needed to journal and add photos. I completed days 1-12 with Dec 13th being our Christmas crop day. I had a few non scrapping days after that and planned on catching up the following weekend so just kept notes in the meantime. Sadly I then lost my mum unexpectedly and the 2014 album has remained untouched since.

2015 I started my new album with the intention to throw in a day or two from 2014 into my monthly crafting to get the prior year album finished.  Again I completed the start of the month through to the 10th. managed to print photos for 11th-15th and then just notes for the rest of the month... Album is unfinished.

Moving on to 2016..well this was a good year. I finished my album up to the 24th so just have the 25th to complete. Go me!

Last year, 2017, I was in NYC 🗽 until the 5th celebrating my daughters 21st and have photos printed but not journalled for those days. Then I completed the 6th-10th and have photos and notes for the 11th-22nd..then nothing... Another unfinished album.

So am I kidding myself I can do 2018? Or should I try and finish last year's first... How far do you get each year? Do you stay on track mostly or play catch up? I think I'll finish 2016 first... Easy win right? Then decide what I am doing for 2018. Maybe I'll start journalling and see how I go.

Another FTLOPP challenge layout

Following my last blog post here is another challenge layout for the FTLOPP winter Olympics challenge 2 on Facebook. I started by lightly spritzing the background piece of white cardstock.   My five main rings were then inked with Distress Oxides through a cardstock template I made punching out a 2" circle. Then I lightly spritzed these with water to allow the Ink to oxidise and then reused the templates to draw on borders.

Several more stamped circles were added along with some enamel stars and star elements from Cocoa Vanilla Boys Rule bits and pieces pack.  I added my journaling inside one of the circles and mounted the 3x4 black and white photo before adding it to the page with the title from Cocoa Vanilla Midnight word pack. The final touch was the two strip of paper at the top and bottom of the page which re also from the Cocoa Vanilla Midnight collection.

For the love of pretty paper

A friend recommended to me a scrapbooking group on Facebook called "for the love of pretty paper" and they have a Winter Olympics challenge going until the new year. Each of the scrapbooking challenges are based on events from the winter Olympics and you simply upload your interpretation to the respective gallery.

One of the bonus challenges was to only scrap in the top half of the paper, feature scallops, zigzags, chevrons and the letter X multiple times.

My stripey background was by American Crafts Dear Lizxie and then I used Cocoa Vanilla Boys Rule bits and pieces along with some Kraft border strips from 2011!

This is the third challenge I have done but I need better light to photograph the others.

Book Club 47/52 - Winning Ace Series finale

Finished book 3 today - great series, a much more serious tone to this book but so, so good! Definitely worth a read (and did I mention free on Kindle Unlimited)

Grand Slam is the captivating finale to the Winning Ace Series.
After Tally’s perfect life implodes, she moves to Greece. There she finds a country overcome with refugees fleeing the crisis in the Middle East. 
She vows to help and, in the process, begins to heal herself.

Shattered by his loss, Cash commits to months of therapy, determined to win back the love of his life. His struggles, though, are far from over.

When a shocking turn of events thrusts Tally back into Cash’s life a moment of joy brings a stranger into their lives.
Who is she? What does she want?
And will her arrival signal the end of Tally and Cash's hard-fought happiness?

Festive Crafternoon

What a fun afternoon spent at Salisbury House on Saturday joining in the Adult festive crafternoon. I consider myself creative not artistic and am quite self critical when drawing so I was actually a little apprehensive taking a sharpie pen to biscuits of wood to create around 14 designs ready to form a rustic, nordic style wreath.

In the end I was pleasantly surprised and quite proud of my wreath which needs some sparkle and maybe a little white paint to brighten before I share the finished article. 

As always it was an absolute blast to share the experience and several pots of tea with this one! "

Book Club 46/52 - Winning Ace book 2

Continued on with book 2 in the series as I enjoyed the first so much. I was going to post the usual blurb to the book but a fellow Goodreads member left a review which I couldn't agree with more so instead I am sharing that today.

"I just finished the second book in the winning ace series, and could not turn my pages fast enough! The author continues her tale of tennis ace Cash and girlfriend Natalia, a journalist, with a fast-paced story that drags you along quickly as you try to keep up. The characters are wonderful, with incredible scenes that emote so much romance,fear,happiness, and terrible sadness that I was holding my breath while reading." Kathi Defranc.

My little scrum half in action

I'm a Sunday morning rugby mum with both of my sons now playing for their local club OG's. Today saw our U12s including my son face the first round of Middlesex games to determine what league we will be in next year when the progress to youth rugby from minis.

I took my Canon down to the game to grab some shots of the boys in action as I often do but this is the first time I've seen close up just how serious my youngest takes his rugby. Quite amusing to see given he's the joker of the family and almost always has a smile on his face... Not so much when the game is on!

They played two fantastic games winning both with conceding any trys so it was back to smiles all round once the game was over! Now to find scrapbook papers or design something mixed media style to go with some of these photos.

Book Club 45/52 - Winning Ace

First in a series of three books around the tennis world which I wasn't 100% sure about but given the hectic time of year and the desire to read something that wasn't a Thriller but more easy to digest I thought I would give these a go - even better that they were free to read on Kindle Unlimited.  I must say I was very pleasantly surprised, great characters which you engage with thanks to great story telling.

When the opportunity arises to meet her hero, Tally grabs it with both hands. Especially as he’s the key to advancing her career.  Cash Gallagher is ruthless on and off court. When he finds out what she’s done he won’t show her any mercy.  Except the bad-boy of tennis gets more than he bargained for—a passionate affair with a woman he should detest.

Autumn scrapping

From photo to page in under 24 hours (thanks to my Canon Selphy printer) I made this super quick layout for one of the challenges at last months A Trip Down Memory Lane retreat.

I had cut the October arrow element from my Silhouette before I went away hoping I could use it on a page from the weekend. I'm thinking these would be great slightly smaller on a project life style project to divide up months.

Book Club 44/52 - Mount Mercy

Described as perfect for fans of Greys Anatomy (and I most definitely fall into that category!!) I quickly read this one is just a few days, meaning I could squeeze in another read this week and get ahead even more on my #BookClub52 challenge. I am still blogging my choice of one a week though I am at 47 now not 43 as the blog posts suggests!! 

Doctor Dominic Corrigan. He’s tattooed, cocky and gorgeous, with bullet scars from working in war zones. I’m a geeky surgeon who hides away in the quiet of her operating theatre. We couldn’t be more different but from the second we meet, he pursues me...and when I look into those blue eyes, I’m lost. But I know his reputation and I’m determined not to be his next one-night stand. Then disaster strikes our small town...and the two of us become our patients’ only hope.  Suddenly, I’m thrown into the chaos of an ER stretched to breaking point. We need to work together but the closer we get, the harder it is to resist. We’re one look, one touch away from tearing each other’s clothes off. I start to see the pain he hides behind that cocky exterior. What happened to this man, and can I help him break free of his past? And our problems are only just beginning.