My first award...and a Tricky Trifecta!

As promised I'm back at the weekend. Yesterday was a busy crafting day at the crop, mum and I made just over 60 Christmas tags for the Christmas Fayre in Nov. I haven't taken pictures yet - will post some when I do.

Lastnight I had a go at making some Christmas photo albums - I'm just doing some 6" x 6" covered chipboard pages and cutting down cheap lever arch files to make slightly bigger ring binders. Once they're done I'll take pictures and post them up.

When I finally got round to my computer I was delighted that the lovely Sue had given me this blog award - I now need to choose some people to pass this award on to, so watch this space!

Today I decided to knuckle down to the Design Dollies Trifecta - a bit trickier than usual as the elements part was a recipe which included an additional colour, so the challenge was as follows...

Colours: Navy blue, Ivory and Mint green ...

Elements: Use the colour red, at least three ovals, use 2 patterned papers include a flourish and glitter

Finally...

The sketch...

I was pretty faithful to the colours and in the end decided that the red in the elements part of the challenge would have to be just a 'pop' of red in my title.

I fulfilled all the parts of the recipe and followed the sketch - though I did turn it upside down!

I'm pleased with the final result...(the blue is actually a lot darker irl)

Glitter is something I never use (except in the form of stickles!) and today I used two of the colours in my Martha Stewart 24 pack of glitter that I bought in Boston last year and haven't used yet!! Here's a close up of my glitter writing...

I'm hoping I'll get a chance to have a go at the 'Chicken Soup' recipe too this weekend, but I also have marking to do, so I may not manage it!

Back to School!

So tomorrow is back to school.

In 'celebration' I thought I'd save this picture until today...

It's my interpretation of Gothic Arches' latest challenge 'Back to School'.

It's my first 'go' at doing a Gothic Arch. The base is chipboard, then a layer of old book pages, then some bits cut from Tim Holtz papers. The number seven is to commemorate the fact that I'm about to take over as Primary 7 year group leader - yikes!

Thanks for looking!

Final creative flurry!

Well this last week of the holidays has seen a flurry of creativity, I finally wrote my play and did the artwork for the cover...

I have done all the planners for the year and prepared my display boards at school.

I spent some time with my Mum sewing things for the Christmas fayre.

I did my online class for ATDML - here's a teaser pic - don't want to show you the whole thing until after it's been on the ATDML site...

I managed to do this weeks Chicken Soup blog recipe. This was the inspiration...

And here is my LO...

Actually, Fred's crazy name has been crying out to be scrapped for ages. Don't ask me how we came up with this name, it just sort of developed - but he does suit it!!

And agian I tried my hand at the trifecta over on the Design Dollies blog. This week it was 1. Use royal blue, teal/aqua...

2. Have waves in the LO - there are waves in the pictures (well it's the sea!!) and I used the wavy design.

3. Use the following sketch...

So here's my effort...

So it's back to school on Monday, actually I'm quite looking forward to getting back to it, but I will miss having the time to be creative. I had a really good holiday and can't believe how much I got done (creatively speaking). That said I've still got trousers and a pair of curtains to make, the front door to paint, my Egypt scrapbook to prepare, my class scrapbooks to make...etc.

Anyway I will still try to spend time at the weekends doing a bit of scrapbooking - even if it's just to do the chicken soup recipe and Design dollies trifecta!

Sunny Challenge Saturday

Well it's a gorgeous hot sunny day here in Dunfermline (rare for Scotland!) and for the first time I am blogging outside while three of the cats play in the garden and two (Claudia and Skye both females in season) enjoy the great outdoors from the safety of their enclosure. Today has been a day of challenges...First of all I managed to finish off Chicken soup recipe #6, it's based on this picture...

I used the scallops, and the pink colouring and the rough placement of text and picture to create my LO - I was pleased with how the pink turned out - it's just 'Worn lipstick' distress ink smudged onto the paper using a sheet of acetate as an edge mask. The lettering is cut out with my Craft Robo

Anyway here's my LO...

Then I powered straight onto recipe #7 which was posted last night...

I liked the idea of the mattresses as stripes - a few of the DT used this idea too, anyway I also had a 'stripy' photo of Claudia sitting in a patch of sunlight so, this is my interpretation...

Finally it was 'trifecta' time for the Design Dollies, the colour challenge was to use yellow, white and kraft; the elements challenge was to be inspired by a tv theme song - I chose the 70s and early 80s show 'Three's company' - remember that one? In fact there's a UK and a US version of the show - I know them both as I used to watch repeats of the US show on TV in Hong Kong. "Come and knock on our door...we've been waiting for you...where the kisses are hers and hers and his...three's company too..."

So I decided to use photos I snapped of our 3 bengals a couple of days ago - Roxy is lying on the floor, Claudia came up and started washing her, then Skye came up and started washing Claudia.Oh and of course to make it the 'trifecta' I used the sketch, though to make it work better to my photos I shifted the photo and paper cluster to the right hand side.

I'd already used my last piece of pure white Bazzill so I decided to scrap this on a slightly bigger than A4 sized canvas. I'm pleased with the result and being yellow it will go beautifully on my kitchen wall...

I decided since it was a canvas I could afford to make it a bit more 3D than usual - here's a side view...

In the last two LOs I was also able to use a couple of the bits and pieces that Karen sent me as my blog hop prize. Thanks again, Karen!

My next challenge is to focus my mind enough to write my history lesson planner for teaching a term of 'Victorian Britain'... maybe I'll just read a couple of blogs first though...?

Trifecta fun in the 'Dollhouse'

Just a quick extra post today as I've been doing a little scrapping this afternoon...

I thought this week since I was too busy to do lots of challenges I'd give the 'trifecta' a go on the Design Dollies blog.

The first challenge was to scrap using purple, olive green and cream...

The second was to honour a best friend for friendship day on 1st August.

And finally the sketch challenge was this one by Kristy...

So I've combined all three challenges to enter the 'trifecta' this week. I hope you like my LO...

Creativity gone mad!

Tomorrow you need to head over to Let's Capture Our Memories blog to check out their card challenge as I am their guest designer for the week. My 'upcycling' card won me the honour!

I won't reveal their challenge for next week but I will show you another card I made at the same time...

I used the 'Sweet treats' cricut cartridge for the cupcake and glued on some bugle beads as 'sprinkles'.

Another 'commission' I had this week was to make a sash and medals for my brother in law. He's travelling to USA on business and one of the events he's attending when he's there is a costume party. He is meant to wear national costume so David wants to go as a Lord in his suit with a sash and Order of the Garter or Order of the British Empire. Anyway - I got the job of fabricating his dubious honours (apologies, Your Majesty!)... So several hours and an empty bottle of diamond Stickles later here's what I came up with...

If you're curious to know how close I got to the real thing try looking at Order of the Garter on Google Images! All I can say is I bet they're not made from an empty Magners can!

This week sees me working on my next class for ATDML, designing Vicki and Jay's wedding cake, making jam and marmalade for the Christmas fayre, finishing my Hiawatha play er...starting my Hiawatha play, more school work and all those jobs round the house I was going to get done during the school holidays!

Cooking up a storm!

So today was birthday experience No. 4 'Supper Suppers' at the Nick Nairn Cook School and as I type I am groaning because I am so full of delicious food! Since there was wine to be had for lunch Jonathan very kindly drove me to the school (about an hour away) and just before 10am I went in to meet my 23 fellow classmates for the day. There were refreshments including shortbread in the dining room then we were taken through to the kitchen classroom to have a familiarisation tour of each 'station'. First of all we had to choose a partner (a little worrying since everyone else seemed to be there with a spouse or friend already), but a very nice lady (and, I was soon to discover, fellow teacher) called Christine asked if I was there on my own and we agreed to partner up. I have to say that Christine was a fabulous partner but next time I would definitely want to go with Jonathan. Anyway - here is Christine at our station...

After we were shown where all the equipment was and a few kitchen safety and hygiene tips given we went to the demonstration area to start to watch chef show us how to make things. Our chef for the day was John Webber who was very entertaining if a little long winded at times and there were odd occasions where I would have liked him to stop talking so that we could get cooking. But his demonstrations were excellent - and it was great that the angled mirror above him showed us exactly what was going on in the pans on the hob in front of him.

First he made a custard based vanilla ice-cream, then he showed us how to make an amazing french toast ham and cheese sandwich. He then demonstrated how to prepare the tomatoes we would need for later dishes and how to prepare the marinade for Moroccan Charmoula chicken. We then took to our stations and prepared our tomatoes and marinaded our chicken. That done we were treated to a portion of the sandwiches chef had made plus scones with cream and jam!

Back in the classroom and we learned how to make brie baked in filo pastry with red onion marmalade...

We leaned all about knives and how to use them correctly and how to dice an onion correctly which we then had to practice...

I loved that the cooking was all quite a relaxed pace and we never felt hassled to get things done. Chef and his assistant Tristan were incredibly helpful and nobody ever criticised our technique. The other great thing was that all our dirty pots, pans, bowls, utensils etc. we simply put on a table and someone whisked them away to wash them for us!!

Anyway, to continue with the day...

Chef then demonstrated a linguine in white wine and cream sauce which we then cooked as our 'starter'...

After that we were shown how to cook our chicken and cous cous and how to make our main course of Toulouse sausage and curried puy lentils...

We had this, along with the Charmoula chicken, cous cous and baked brie for our lunch, eased down with a beautifully chilled glass of white wine.

By this stage everyone was getting very full and very hot but it was back in the kitchen to make dessert: Brioche French toast with maple syrup, cinnamon and vanilla ice-cream...

It was just before 5pm by the time we sat down to eat our dessert then there was time for a final chat with chef before we picked up our carry out bags of extra food that we'd made but not eaten, a quick look round the shop and then home!

We got our file of recipes and cooking apron to keep as souvenirs, and probably one or two additional lbs to remind us of the day!!

I thought the cook school was fantastic and would definitely go back to do another course.

The experience gets a 9/10 (losing only 1 mark for my partner not being Jonathan and the chef being a little longwinded at times).

Another great day!!

Almost too busy to scrap!

So this week I've mainly spent in my classroom, putting up displays, tidying and preparing assessment folders. Sounds dull and why would anyone go into work during their holidays? Well, in a funny kind of way I actually like it and there's great satisfaction to be had from knowing that I'll be totally ready to go when the new school year starts.

However I've been so busy I haven't had much time for scrapping - but I squeezed a quick LO in tonight - it's for this week's challenge on the chicken soup blog (here).

It's inspired by the Glee poster - well I've tweaked it quite a lot but I like that I could put so many photos of Roxy on one page. Probably not my usual standard, but then it was a 'quickie'! Also - it didn't photograph that well in artificial light.

Ok enough excuses...

Off to spend the day crafting with my mum tomorrow...plus I'm posting on the ATDML blog tomorrow and I'll be doing a lot of thinking about Vicki and Jay's wedding cake which I'm making soon!!