My Month in Numbers - December.

It's been another mad crazy month in the Rowlands household & to be honest thats just the way I like it. There are times when I'd like things to slow down but I think there is plenty of time for that when I'm old!!

Here is our December using this fabulous system, MMIN devised by Julie Kirk x

December.

19 Our eldest had a birthday.

8 blog posts! we have been so busy that I got out of the habit!

23rd Scout Jamboree to be held in Japan in 2015 & I have 2 yes 2 children selected to go x we are beyond thrilled x

2006 - I attended the Class of 2006 graduation with Dan to collect his A level certificates.

3 new recipes tried. Brandy & Apricot cake, chocolate roulade & melting snowman biscuits.All really yummy & consumed over Christmas.

12 hour Moxley Crop with 2 surprise visitors xxx

2 Christmas dinners cooked, one with family & another with great friends.

4 becomes 5. I'd just got used to Dan being at Uni & then he was back for the hols. I do love it when we are all together x

Many thanks for sticking with this post & for coming over to my little corner of the world. I really appreciate your comments & hope to see you again next year x
Happy new Year.

Love
Sheena x

Merry Christmas x

Wishing all my family & friends a very merry christmas xxx

Hope you have a fun & laughter filled holidays unlike these poor snowman Harriet made for consumption tonight!!

Sheena x

Handmade for Christmas.

Over the past year with the help of my friend Kirsty, I have really enjoyed rediscovering my love of sewing( like I need another hobby!!!). In years gone by I've made simple clothes for me & the boys, blinds, curtains, cushion covers, fancy dress & nativity costumes...

Now I'm trying my hand at quilting & after some success with one for Harriets room, I planned two more with Christmas in mind.

This one is for our lounge. For snuggling with my girl over the holidays & watching Xmas movies...It's the biggest I've attempted & I've learnt a lot during it's construction.

This is a Christmas gift for my Mum -in-law with a fleecy back to keep her extra cosy in the cold weather.

The fabric used is Moda Joy.

I have sewn quite a few more Christmas gifts this year but will have to wait to share them when they have been opened;)

Sheena x

Last minute cards to make.

For our card challenge on the Scrapology blog this month we just had to have Christmas cards, as it's still not too late to make a few for your nearest & dearest x

This is mine :)

The background was embossed using a folder then highlighted with some Buff-it from Pinflair to enhance the wording.

The bauble was made by cutting 2 decoration shapes using a Sizzix die from music paper. Then sewing them together & lightly stuffing the centre with toy filler to give it dimension.

Hope you like it. Hop on over to our blog to see loads of other Christmas card examples x

Sheena x 

Let him eat cake!

Today we would like to wish our eldest Son Daniel a very happy 19th birthday xxx

The years have just flown by & in that time we have both changed!

The best way to celebrate is with homemade cake & Dan chose this design of pigs in mud for me to make :) It's real tasty too x

So have a great day Son full of laughter & surprises x love you lots xxx

Sheena x

Last Case File...

...for me as a Special Investigator for the CSI challenge blog. I loved this chance to provide examples & inspiration for recent files.

This is file 100 - Perfect Moments.

The photo was a selfie taken at a recent Ladies Night. The background was made using paint plus a stencil & the chandelier was cut using my Silhouette cameo.

Scheme- all colours used.

Evidence- numbers,stars,glossy accents,frame,  wood, bricks, chandelier.

Testimony- inspiration words - picture.

All my journalling is on a tag behind the photo starting with "a picture says a thousand words..."

Hop on over to CSI to see the many pages of inspiration on offer x

This page also qualifies for the Merly Impressions december challenge - to use a mask.

Happy Scrapping.

Sheena x

Splice of life!

Over on the Scrapology blog the December sketch challenge is up & this month the challenge is to splice your photo.

This is my version & I kept pretty close to the design of the sketch.

Hide & Seek.

My son Matt took this photo of a lion cub peeking through the undergrowth whilst we were on a game reserve in the summer.

To keep the focus on the photo I kept embellishments to a minimum. The leafy photo mat was cut using my Silhouette cameo.

Fancy having a go ? Hop on over to the blog to see more inspiring pages & the original sketch. 

Happy Scrapping x

Sheena x

Story Telling Sunday- My Festive Favourites.

Welcome to this, the last Story Telling Sunday, Pick Your Precious of the year. Many thanks to Sian for devising & hosting this fabulous story sharing concept which has had me visiting blogs all over the globe, reading the most amazing stories causing me to laugh, cry, giggle, gasp....

Today I wanted to end with something I just love to do at this time of year which involves me seeing our "precious" & reliving & retelling moments from our lives.

What am I talking about ??

Decorating our Christmas trees :)

As we open the boxes of decorations the story of our life as a couple & a family see the light of day after 50 weeks carefully wrapped & stored away.

Here are just a few...

...we bought this bell for our first ever Christmas tree when we were first living together in 1990 I believe. 

...Paul inherited this delicate birdie from his Nan & she always goes high up on the tree to keep her from harms way & little fingers!

 ... memories of visits to Florida with the children & friends.

...a souvenir from Birmingham's German Christmas Market which we visit every year.

... special decorations made for us by the children x

...24 of these were made for us by my Mum before we were married & although they didn't all survive the fire the ones that did have been loving restored by her for us xxx

 ...meeting the man in red in Lapland.

I could easily go on & on recounting the memories stored delicately in the layers of tissue paper. Maybe another time.

Thank you for coming over here & reading my stories, it's much appreciated. If you hop over to Sian's blog you will find many more, so I recommend you make a cuppa & spend a few minutes enjoying the stories shared xxx

Sheena x

My Month in Numbers - November.

As we head at an alarming pace towards the end of 2013 I thought I would share with you our past month using this wonderful system MMIN, devised by Julie Kirk.

November.

5 christmas gifts plus several stocking fillers at present in production.

13 blog posts written.

455 - I've finished all the levels of Candy Crush!!

1938 - Paul has been asked to be the next Master of this Mark Master Masons Lodge.

6 - attended a 6th form meeting with our second Son looking at all his options.

99/64 my blood pressure at my GP check up this week.

1 new recipe tried. Spinach and cheese pie from Jaimie's 30 minute meals. We loved it & I can see it becoming a firm favourite.

3 The number of teeth Harriet is missing this month. 2 removed by the dentist & 1 fell out.

Communal Count.

0 We have not received any Christmas cards as yet!

Many thanks for stopping by. Hop on over to Julie's to see what others have been up to this month x

Sheena x

Busy Busy Busy

As we head towards the end of the year what little time I had seems to have disappeared so I thought I'd share with you my Project Life pages from September.

Our month was full of...

...walking with the Mums, a sewing lesson with Kirsty, a beautiful wedding, cropping...

...back to school for 2, preparing for Uni for Dan, lunching out with the Solihull Ladies, cinema trip, physio for me...

...A fabulous Ladies Night with old friends, & a lovely hotel brekky too...

...a trip to Bristol with Jackie to try & see the Gromits altogether but the queues were huge:( but great day meeting up with IG girls ...

...both children receiving prizes at Prize Giving & Harriet giving a talk there, celebrating Jilly's 60th birthday,family meal with Dan, sewing lesson...

...taking Dan & all his stuff to Uni, Paul's best golf win to date, hearing Retreat had been cancelled...

Thanks for looking x

Sheena x

The cold makes me hooky!

Now that the weather has turned colder I find that I am less likely to go out unless I have to as once I get cold I stay cold!

So the huge advantage of this is I've been picking up my crochet of an evening. We all have WIP's (work in progress) but I've set my mind to try & finish 1 WIP before I start another new project...

I started making this scarf last autumn & TBH it was really close to being finished but it got bundled away when getting sorted for Xmas & got forgotten. The pattern was in a Simply Crochet magazine.

I'm thrilled with how it looks & have had many compliments whilst wearing it.

To spread the Crochet word I went to the Toft Alpaca Farm for a workshop with 3 lovely friends this week.

We learnt to crochet a snowflake which was quite a hard project for a novice but we revived ourselves with a lovely pub lunch afterwards.

Hope you are all keeping warm & snug x

Sheena x

What a coincidence ...

On the week that the Oxford Dictionary named SELFIE as it's word of the year, I'd used it as the title for a page I designed in advance as a Special Investigator for the challenge blog CSI for this weeks case file 98!

Collecting Summer Selfies!

When we got home from our summer holiday I found this & lots more similar on my camera which I didn't realise my daughter had taken. They really make me smile, gone are the days when we didn't appear in our own photos as now we can just take our own. I love the idea & have certainly embraced it.

I've used a real mix of product on this page. Some papers are basic grey & the fabric frame is Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper.

Scheme - I used all the colours.

Evidence - stripes, polka dots, book page, ribbon, frame, wood & spiral note book punch all used.

Testimony - Inspiration words - Collect...

Have you embraced the art of Selfie taking ? I'd love to hear your views on them.

Many thanks for looking x

Sheena x

Extra pages...

When I work on my Project Life pages it depends how busy our month has been to how many pages I end up with. This makes total sense but sometimes I give special events/ times their own insert if there is lots to show & remember & then I tend to use different styles of page protecters to add more interest to the album as a whole. These are 2 said inserts from August.

My birthday.

I had a fabulous day being spoilt by family & friends and also a surprise visit to Stoneleigh Abbey which Jane Austin visited ( I'm a huge fan) & possibly used as the basis for her Mansfield Park novel.

This month we went to Bristol twice hunting Gromits. Initially I didn't intend to include them all in my PL but with the help of Picassa I managed to showcase them all.

I used parts of the map as background & for the titles.

Thanks for looking x

Sheena x

November Card Challenge

Over on the Scrapology Blog it's time for our November card challenge & this month we have been joined by the talented Paula Pascual who designed a lovely card for us to use as our inspiration.

This is my take on her card.

As it's never too early to be making Christmas cards I used a sizzix strip die to cut the fairy lights which I pop dotted & tied with twine.

Hop on over & take a look at all the fabulous DT examples & I hope you get chance to join in x

Sheena x 

Project Life catch up part 1

It's not that I've got too far behind in finishing each month, I've just forgotten to photograph them & share them here. So we'll start with August...

Being the summer holidays we had lots of visitors,got coke bottles with our name on, spent a day at an Alpaca farm...

We spent a few days in London,seeing the sights, a show, Platform 93/4 & our first Gromit...

We also spent a day visiting Buckingham Palace, The Royal Mews & Queens Gallery...

 I attended a craft show, a wedding & & a cake decorating course whilst Dan was off exploring...

Matt spent a week in Wales with the Explorers,Dan went to London & got in to his first choice Uni... 

We gardened, BBQ'd, baked & got ready for the return to school...

All in all a fabulous month :)

I'll share the insert pages in the coming days x

Sheena x