Butterfly Mini Book - warning photo heavy

Anyone that knows me knows that I LOVE BUTTERFLIES and can spend hours photographing them, as my poor computer knows, I have 100's of photos, and I have been wanting to do a layout on some of them for ages!!! I just couldn't pick out one or even 5, if I wanted to make layouts of them, even 8 x 8's I was going to be doing them for ever. I had a light bulb moment while in Running With Scissors looking around, Tracey had some Pink Pig Books for altering and I got this 6 x 4 one, I thought I can do lots of little mini layouts to show my photos! The layouts themselves are very simple as I wanted the photos to be the prominent feature!

So what I have done is picked a photo from every time I took shots of butterflies. I looked up a butterfly recognition site, so the names are hopefully correct!!! Some of the more common butterflies feature a few times.

I will be adding to this book as time goes on!

All supplies were bought at Tracey's shop Running with Scissors!

Cover


Inside cover, have yet to think of something to write


Page 1


Page 2


Page 3


Page 4


Page 5


Page 6


Page 7


Page 8 (some of these photos were taken in Ireland)


Page 9


Page 10


Page 11


Page 12


Page 13


Page 14


Page 15


Page 16


Inside back cover


Back cover, I have left it undecorated for now, might add a few butterfly stamps to it!


TFL
xxxx

Loving Edwin .....

this is the name of the Magnolia stamp, yes I loved colouring him in, but hated trying to fit him on a card, don't like doing male cards, awwwh well!






The card was made for my nephews birthday in a couple of days

Very simple card of matting and layering, using corner punches, inking and drawing! Seeing as I use the 6x6 pads for my cards, I usually don't have any scraps left over, so for the inside I stamped, matted, punched and used some rick rack and a flower as I had done on the outside! I also used my trusty white pen to do some fake stitching around the image, which I thinks brings out the image more.

The image is stamped on this watercolour paper



I have being using Tesco £3.00 watercolour paper pad, but Tracey got these pads into the shop for a trial, she very kindly gave me one to try out on Saturday, and yes Tracey I do love using it! It is a lot easier to blend the inks! The pad costs £3.50 and if you want good quality colouring I would definitely suggest you get the pad! The Tesco brand is A4 and you do get a lot more for less money. The images seem a bit flat on the Tesco pad, so if you want good quality colouring I would get the Cotman Water Colour Pad.

While I was in Ireland Tracey also got in these cute stamps



Just perfect for boy cards and only cost £2.99



And isn't this one the cutest and look at all you get for £5.99, some sentiments and a cute bird, dragonfly, flower vine, hearts and ladybird!

These two are definitely a bargain at the price! There are a couple of different themes!

Tracey also has the Forever Friends card kits, and they are sooo cute, her dad worked out that you can make roughly 10 cards per kit!
These are defiantly worth a look at!!!

Shopping list

Paper - K&Co 6x6 Hopscotch - Hobbyhouse
White Pen - Inkssentials - Hobby House
Blue Flowers - Papermania - Boyles
Button - Papermania - Boyles
Blue Fiber - Papermania - Boyles

From Running with Scissors
Card stock - Stucco, Brown Bazzill
Image Card stock - Cotman Water Colour Pad
Stamp - Magnolia - Loving Edwin
Inks - Tim Holtz Distress inks
Flower - Prima
Crystals - Mark Richards
Rick Rack
Chain and Charm
Punches - Woodware
Sentiment and Heart - Daisy & Dandelion - Candyfloss & Marshmallow

TFL
xxxx

A Love Story .......

Imagine the scene, A boy and girl who have been together for 10 years to the day. They are walking down the beach, he is acting very strange, a little bit nervous maybe??? She is wondering why they are on their favourite beach when they should be at her brother's house for a get together.



He then calls her, she stops, he gets down on one knee and takes out a beautiful ring and asks her to marry him ... she of course said ....

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just after coming up from the beach .....





The next day, they spent the night in their favourite hotel, enough said about that, not for sisters to know .....



Showing her beautiful ring.

I "borrowed" the above photos from their camera, I think I have them in the right order! I never knew how rosemantic my brother is!!! He arranged all this by himself, no one and I mean no one knew what was happening. He got the ring the week before telling Mairead that he had to work and couldn't spend the day with her. Booked the hotel and meal. Told Mairead that they were going to her brother's house for a little get together and she should bring some nice clothes. Then whisked her away to their favourite spot Dingle in Kerry (does anyone know about Fungi the dolphin, he stays in the bay of Dingle, go here to find out about more if you want, years ago Steve, Chloe and myself went to see him which we did, so exciting, I do have photos somewhere, but God knows where), he got down on one knee and proposed to her!!!!!!!!! Then they rang everyone, I was at the carnival so I didn't here my phone go off!!!! When Steve finally got hold of me and told me I couldn't of been happier!!!!!!

They were going out for a meal at a very posh restaurant on the Saturday we were in Ireland so they got all dressed up, I thought perfect chance for a photo op!!!! They went to Darina Allen's restaurant, she is an Irish chef, TV personality and founder of Ballymaloe Cookery School. This was Mairead's engagment present to John! They said it was fantastic and the food was beautiful and they got lots, even came around and asked them if they wanted seconds.

I took the following photos in my mum and dads front garden/yard! Beautiful isn't it!

Don't they look happy!

Doesn't he have good taste, he picked this ring out himself, beautiful!!!

Congratulations to both of them, and I really do hope they will have a very happy future!
Helena
xxxx

The one about the rough sea and a little girl not feeling too good .....

This is the first time Aimee understands about going to Ireland and she has being so excited for the last week, constantly asking when are we going, and we have to count out the days. We marked the day on her calendar so she could mark them off herself, so then I got "5 more days, four more days, etc. I didn't think she would sleep Sunday night but she did! On Monday morning at 1:00 am we set out for Holyhead to take the 3hour ferry to Ireland. The girls slept all the way, I slept some of the way. We arrived at the Ferry port at about 5:00 am. The girls woke to go to the toilet and then went to sleep until we were due to board. We found some seats, Chloe went straight back to sleep, but Steve, Aimee and I were hungry, so we went to have breakfast. We went back to our seats, Steve went to sleep, I read some of my book (I am re-reading the Twilight series, getting ready for the next movie, lol) and Aimee played on her DS. All was well until the sea got rough and Aimee piped up "Mummy I'm not feeling so good", I told her to try and get some sleep, she laid down but then said it was worse. So I said do you want to go out on deck, she immediately agreed. So we stayed out on deck and she enjoyed it.

Rough sea and crazy hair!

We headed back inside to go to the toilet, and discovered that a magic show was about to begin. So we decided to stay and watch, luckily this also took Aimee's mind off her not feeling too good.

About 15 mins into the show, he wanted a volunteer, so of course Aimee wanted to do it. She crossed her legs (we were sitting on the floor, to stop us from falling, lol the rest of the audience decided to join us), put a big smile on her face and held up her hand. He picked her ....

This is the trick of the magic wand going all floppy, he passed the wand to Aimee and asked to hold it straight, whatever way Aimee held the wand it stayed upright, the magician looked at me and I just shrugged my shoulders.

He fixed the wand so now it flopped!

In this one he said he had a magic hat like Harry Potter's ......

Once Aimee discovered what was on her head she was not impressed, lol

This is the one where he had lots of different scarfs, every time he pulled one out of his pocket he asked Aimee to hold it and not let it drop, Aimee let the first two drop and then caught all the rest, he even tried to move the red one around but she still managed to catch it.

Voila la, all the scarfs into one, Aimee was quite impressed when she saw this!
He then thanked Aimee and asked her type of balloon animal she would like, she answered a rabbit, so he set to and started making one, as he went on he said, the thing about this rabbit is he is going to a fancy dress party and he is dressed as a dog!!!!!

He took his friend Squawk out and preceded to have some fun with the kids.

At the end of the show I asked if he would pose for a photo, and he very kindly did, I am sorry to say I never got his name! One the way back to England on the ferry they had a children's room instead of a magician, ah well!

I brought Aimee back out on deck when I noticed we were nearing Ireland, and these are photos of her with Ireland in the background!

BTW the beautiful frames that I have around my photos (decided to update these too) can be found on Kristine's blog Lost in Creativity. She designed the frames herself and calls them Grunge Frames, so if you are lazy like me and didn't want to design your own, pop over to Kristine's place, she gives fantastic tutorials on how to use the frames. She also gives tutorials on doing different things in photo shop, so her blog is definitely worth a look, she is also a fantastic crafter!

TFL
xxxx

A change long overdue .....

I have been in Ireland for the last week and a half, ... had a fantastic time, loved every minute, sad to be coming back to England to be honest, but unfortunately the price of living is still very high!

Arrived home at 4:00 am on Wednesday morning, did absolutely nothing Thursday and have spent Friday washing, washing and more washing (mums machine went on the blink, bleeding typical)

I just brought my fav stamps, water brush, distress inks and watercolour pad! I just stamped and coloured, so nothing to share on the crafting front! But I will have lots to share on the photo side in the next few days!

So tonight I have done what I have being meaning to do for weeks, update my blog!!! I am not too sure as yet, and would appreciate any comments any one has to share, bad or good!!!

Watch this space, some of my first photos will be of my (nearly) SIL engagement ring!!!!

OOH had a quick look at some blogs tonight as things were loading up on my blog and I noticed that Bev is giving away the most fantasic candy (she has reached over 400, 000 hits and 1274 followers, wow) you will be silly if you don't go and look!

Go here to be in with a chance!

TFL
xxxx