zoo trip

To celebrate my birthday at the weekend we had a trip to the zoo to see the new pandas.  We was me Mum, Dad, my sister, my two nephews and one of their girlfriends.  The weather was warm and sunny which was great for us but meant that many of the animals were sleeping, or finding shade. 

Because the pandas are new you book a time slot and have a set time at each enclosure. The male was inside his sleeping area but from one spot you could see him relaxing – thank goodness for zoom lenses.  The female was outside sleeping on her highest platform so we same an arm and her side. 

Here is the page I’ve put together of the day for my Monthly album (Cathy Z template – adapted to A4)

Thank you for all the birthday wishes on my previous post – much appreciated.

March crafting projects

 

I decided to focus on my crafting projects for my details collection page in The Monthly for March.

From top left, clockwise

Knitting jumpers for a charity helping AIDS orphans in S Africa, thanks to Sian for the link to this charity.

My beading stash was one of the things I took out of storage in February, having packed it away in May 2009.  I was glad to find that I remembered all the techniques when I started using the stuff again.  Top creating a tassel on a large bead for Mother’s Day.  below making necklace and earrings for my sister after we saw one in the shop.

Applying texture to photos in PSE

The flowers are from a digi scrap page that I was playing with

The bunting I made for my Mum’s birthday – 10 meters of blue bunting for the garden.  My sewing machine is another thing that came out of the storage.

I really enjoyed doing a range of crafts in March, especially those that I haven’t done since I packed up all my stuff in 2009.

 

 

The paper, tag and the flowers in the digi page are all from the Brighter Days Ahead kit.

March self-portrait

I decided that I should include all of me in this month’s self-portrait because February is just my face and January my head and arms.  I have taken several successful self-portraits with my tripod and timer walking towards the camera so I did this on my walk beside the beach this morning. I walk most days so I like to have some photos where I am walking, and it makes it less posed. 

I have in the past taken some good self-portraits walking away from the camera – this one was in 2009 on a beach in New Zealand – I may well do this for one of the self-portraits later in the year

Have you taken any self portraits walking towards or away from the camera?

Detail page in February

Each month I’m using one page for details on one thing.  This month I decided to highlight my kitchen, seeing as it is finally all installed, functioning and unpacked.

The walls are 2 shades of orange and the floor is called cinnamon.  The flooring is the dimpled rubber flooring that is used a lot in shops and office because it is hard wearing.  I also liked the range of colours available and that the material is sustainable.

I have evolved storage system based upon having everything in boxes so that things don’t get lost at the back of the shelf (they get lost at the bottom of the box instead!). 

The two bottom left shots remind me of a fun layout I did when I was still in Wellington – ‘what’s behind the door? – i photographed several fo the doors in my house and then opened the door and took a photo.  I will find it and do a new one for this house.

The Monthly pages–February

Still loving these Cathy Z templates.  I am taking many more tall (portrait orientation) photos because the templates have shapes that size.  interesting to see how different the framing is that way.

Some real contrast in weather in February with snow on the hills at the start and spring flowers by the end.  Some fantastic low light for photos over the firth. 

Around the house dealing with lots of boxes of stuff to unpack, rubber floor down in bathroom and bookshelves up and populated. 

The ribbon of butterflies are hanging on my door – I put a hook in for the Christmas decorations so decided to use it other times of the year.

The patterns strips at the bottom are from the Brighter Days collaborative kit.

Monthly album –progress on my flat

I decided to devote a whole page in my monthly album to progress on my living room and kitchen.

The big lump on the left in the middle row is how my sofa was delivered.  Within the plastic were all the cushions and the pieces of wood that went together to create the sofa – on the right.  Very satisfying to put it all together.

These templates for The Monthly are by Cathy Zielske, including a new set of templates for filler pages.  The template comes as 8.5 x 11 so I changed it to A4 by adding the strip at the bottom – which I am really liking as a place for a caption and some digital embellishment.

The Monthly–January collection

The first page of my photo project for this year.  I’m using the template set from Cathy Z called ‘The Monthly’.  I bought the 8.5 x 11 set and resized each page to be A4 because that is the size that they use for photobooks here in UK.
My plan is to do 4 pages for each month.  One page will be a collection or themed set, for instance I will do one on details of my kitchen once all the renovation work is finished.  For this month I decided to take photos of a number of collections of things that are around my house at the moment: my mugs; scrapping supplies I’ve unpacked and have been sorting; the apples Dad brought me from his garden; the toolbox and my wardrobe to show the colours I’m wearing. 
I used the stitching brush that I found at the weekend for a small embellishment.  The font is one of my new favourites – designer notes.
Looking forward to this approach to the year.