More tea Vicar?

or should I say ''More tea Bishop?'' This weekend has been filled with lots of lovely events, some planned, some unplanned. So I thought I'd blog about them today as a weekend roundup.

 So yesterday dawned, not as warm as predicted but neverless sunny. It was arranged that I would meet the parents in town as dad was involved with a charitable event raising funds for Save the Children and Help for Heroes. They had openned the Bishop's Palace Gardens and private chapel for the day and there were teas and coffees provided by Inner Wheel. So me and mum went off to support these 2 excellent causes. The first person we met was the Bishop, hence the quote, who my parents know well as my dad used to be church warden, all very ladeda. Anyway he was really lovely, and welcomed everyone as they came in. The gardens were beautiful, all the daffodils and trees were in full bloom and as the palace is part ruin and part lived in is really well cared for.

 Here is The Mother modelling dutifully under the magnolia, she does it beautifully dont u think?

 This is one of a number of unique statues in the gardens, this one depicts the banishment of Adam and Eve from Eden.

 This is the cathedral from the back

 This statue is beautiful and depicts the sins we have to carry, but each sinner is a child. Each child is meant to represent something terrible affecting children eg AIDS, infant mortality etc.

As you walk around, you can see the cathedral and also the moat goes all the way to the back and the only way to see it fully is to come inside the palace grounds. As my mum knows loads of people it took a while but I got some beautiful pictures. We also had some fab cakes.

Last night I stayed up well past my bedtime to watch the last 2 episodes of ''The Killing'' which I blogged about earlier this week. It has been such a brilliant series however I felt the ending just happened too quickly with too many questions left unanswered so I felt really let down. However, there is a second series at the end of the year and I will definately watch again.

Today, I slept in oops and missed church but spent sometime sitting in the gorunds here chatting to a new neighbour. Then my friend's son came home and we did his homewor, I know I'm a fab person. We had to do literacy and also he had to design a vehicle and build it which had to transport a cream egg, I got to play with Lego for the first time in ages. It was brill.

 This is the literacy homework in progress.......................

 Of course everyone had to complete their census today and here is m ine ready for posting. I love that in 100 years someone in my family can look back and see where I lived and what I did. I have found the census so helpful in investigating family history and identifying where my ancestors lived.

 I thougt I would also share with you my minibook I started making at crop. It is a class my good friend Cleo taught. We started off with chipboard, paper, some pieces diecut and were asked to bring lots of Tim Holtz style recycled items and photos. I decided to do it about the night I went out with Luke for his 21st. We were also given three 45rpm singles which I caused gr8 consternation with as I only wanted decent ones, of the three 2 were fave bands back in the day OMD and Tears for Fears. The idea was the minibook would be grungy and made very much in our own style. Cleo had brought denim and canvas and cotton fabric plus lots of additional bits and bobs to use. It was gr8 fun. These are the pages I have completed so far.......

 I had the key in a kit and it is perfect for turning 21................

 Here is the record used as an album page.

 On this page I stuck sticky canvas on the chipboard and coloured it with distress inks.

 This is a collage of offcuts from papers and also some corrugated card from a pizza box. I used some teal paint on this page.

This page is stuck onto calico and coloured. The ties at the top are denim ripped and tied through holes in the record.

Not bad for one weekend dont you think. So off to cook and eat tea now. See you this week for more blogging for scrapbookers. And Shimelle is back in town so I'm sure we'll hear all about her mammoth trip.

Scrapamia part 1 (of several)!..........

This weekend I went on my much anticipated Scrapbooking retreat which I had been given as my Xmas/Birthday pressie last year. Not only was it an excuse to scrapbook with friends and fab teachers but also to catch up with my old friends in Southampton. Before moving to Somerset in 2008 I had lived in Southampton for 15 years so I really wanted to see my two girlfriends and their families. I stayed with Kathy and co on Thursday and Teresa and co Friday and Saturday. Plenty of time to catch up, get invited to a Royal Marine's Passing Out Parade and read How to speak Dragonese to Jonny!!!!!!
Anyway the retreat was held at New Place, photo above, which is a De Vere Hotel near Bishop's Waltham. It was a beautiful place but VERY hot. The air conditioning was not enough for lots of exciteable scrapbookers!!!!!!
Anyway there were 6 teachers, 3 per day, and on the first day we had Cleo Jarvis, Shimelle and Ifa Zainon, all of whom are well-known to Scrapbooking magazine readers and bloggers alike. I know Cleo personally as she, until recently, ran Bellaboo and she lives in Bristol.
So having booked in and been given a fab goodie bag we all sat down for the first class of the day which was Cleo's.


Here she is in her fab apron, all the teachers had made them while we had chipboard pieces to alter. She is holding the completed item we were making, which was very Cleo. We began with a plain square canvas and a bag with papers and embellishments. Firstly we had to crumple up a piece of vintage sheet music and then rip it up into small pieces. Next job was to make papier mache, by putting loads of glue onto our canvas and jigsawing and overlapping our pieces of music paper. We then left it to dry, which in the heat took very little time. While we were waiting we needed to cut out several frames from our paper and some other elements. The papers were by Webster's pages range called Your life. Beautiful. One has fromaes of varying colours and sizes and the other is quotes, frames, birdcages. Very vintage and cute.
By this time our fingers were numb from intricate cutting and the canvas was dry. We then dry brushed a small amount of white acrylic paint over the canvas and then inked it using distress inks using sequin waste and stamps, if u had them.




In the picture above you can see some of the distressing, I used Broken china. Then we added our photos onto the frames with 3D foam and began forming our wall hanging.


All that's left to do is add some flowers from my pack and the ribbon which is pinned on using drawing pins on either side. All in all I really loved this class as it uses different techniques and makes a mess!!!!
After lunch we then had our class with Shimelle. This was a minibook class. I will post this in my second post. Catch you later

Cathy Zielske freebie

................Cathy Z, awesome designer has a free download for all digital and non-digital scrapbookers accompanied by a tutorial on video. Go here for the link and video.
Also if anyone watched this last night


my friend Cleo was an extra in the werewolf transformation scene. Gives a whole new meaning to in trouble with the teacher!!!!

Hi all I have just got my first pdf workbook from shimelle laine- super scrapper and teacher for the blogging class I am gonna be doing and she has explained how to do this.....pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.} so I am very excited. Not only can I do a new fancy thing but hopefully Shimelle will get somemore friends.
I went to Cleo Jarvis's crop yesterday and did a fab LO but I haven't had time to photograph it yet Cleo's Undomesticated scrapbooking bliss is her blog although she did mention that she might be limiting herself to the one the future. Anyway we were all talking about the demise of Scrapbooking Inspirations. Suffice to say we were all gutted with a capitol G!!!!!!! Not only is it the best scrap mag around but also it's come so swiftly and so we were sad for all the talented people who work there and now have to find altenative work. Anyway, we feel bereft.

Just signed up for..........

Oooh another Shimelle class, lovely. I love working with Shimelle cos she has so many fun and fab ideas and always gets your creative juices going. The first class I did was 25th of the month and I've now done 2 online classes via 2 peas in a bucket, learn somthing new everyday twice, done a 12 hour scrapbooking workshop about myself and by the end of the year have done scrap your christmas twice!!!!!!! Does that make me a stalker do you think.
I thought even thou I have blogging for a while, you can always learn something new and more adventurous. When I look at other blogs they appear so much more sophisticated and the number of hits people get is also amazing. I'd love for more people to see what I'm about.
I really enjoyed the challenges of Pencil lines bday weekend and did loads of LOs as you can see. I have not done any online crops before so now Im going to try some more.
Im off to Cleos Bellaboo crop this w/e and am planning to take some challenges with me to do there as well as her class. I first met Cleo at 12 hour crop and she is really inspiring and original. Will be able to share my LOs once complete.