Weeding Guestbook 2

A year ago I said that we had been to a weeding (the hotel spelled it wrong on the notice for the guests) in this post I put together a lot of pages and matted and layered the entries for the Guest Book using black cardstock as the base for each page.
I knew that the Best Woman was going to give the happy couple an album for the photographs and was kind of aware that something was going to come to me to be "finished".
WELL. two weeks ago the Best Woman contacted me and said that she had finally managed to surface through all the bad stuff that had happened in her life and she had purchased the album and had the Calfskin cover embossed with the names and date. When the embossing was completed the thing would be sent to me so that "You can do your magic with the pictures and things". She sent me a link to the album so I had a look. A shortness of breath happened when I saw the price of the album AND how many pages there are in the thing. The pages, all 70 of them (that's 140 sides) are heavy quality acid and lignin free and the most beautiful cream cardstock. the pages are 13" x 13and a quarter. I t weighs a ton! without any pictures and I was quite worried that with just a simple matt for each picture the covers would be at right-angles to each other. I mean, I dreamt one night that I was trying to get the thing onto a bookshelf! That's how worried I was.
Anyway, I asked the person who did the photographs if she could send some to me and then I learnt about Dropbox. She sent me 267 pictures. I selected a lot and tentatively began to compose pages. Making the album a chronological story of the day. I will photograph the pages, I promise, and when the album has been given to the even-happier-than-last-year couple I will share some of them with you.
It was very strange at first because I was so scared of making a mistake that I would open the album, stare at a blank and very expensive page then close it again. Today it was like a switch was turned in my head because I suddenly knew exactly what to put on each page and how to transfer the Guestbook pages that are already made to the album and to integrate the rest of the stuff into an overall theme. I am on a roll!

Cartwheel Training

We have a favourite picnic place that we often go to. We don't take sandwiches, oh no that's not the sort of picnic we like. We go out to a place called Black Rock, which is on the Welsh side of the Severn Estuary not far from the Second Severn Crossing.
The Lave Net Fishermen work that part of the estuary and there are only 15 people licensed to fish in this way. One more traditional craft that is dying before our eyes.. That's not why we go there either. What we do is this.

We decide that we cannot be bothered to cook so we text my daughter and see if she wants to come to Black Rock, and stop at Kibby's in Bulwark for fish and chips. They make the best fish and chips in the area and most times my daughter will say yes so we all pile into the car and drive twenty miles to buy fish and chips and then go down to Black Rock to sit at the picnic table and eat them. We are not alone in doing this, although I don't think most people travel twenty mile just to eat fish and chips staring at the tide.
The picnic area is grassy and great for learning to cartwheel when you are seven - even when you have never done it before. Mummy tried and decided that she is the wrong shape now. Grandma? well, I just grinned and then gave clear instruction while trying not to laugh or fall over when taking the pictures.

I used the sketch based on a design by Tiff Firth from the Scrap365 challenge to do this page and even if I say so myself I think it is quite nice

What do I need to make a page?

Mr Blue wearing his special cap

Sian asked this question over at From High in the Sky and I tried to answer in a comment but failed so I decided to think about it and write my thoughts here.
I have been scrapbooking for so long I can't remember not doing it. When I had the riding school, way back in 1961 when I was 15, I took photographs of all the ponies and put them in an album with some notes about names and riders and what the event was and the date. Of course it wasn't called scrapbooking then. It was just a photograph album. It had black pages and I had a white pencil to write what we call journalling.

the journalling reads "Some mornings it's just not worth
 chewing through the leather straps!"

It was a very cheap album, from Woolworths I think and it received a lot of attention over the years so that eventually the covers fell to bits and then the pages started to detach from one another so I had to take all the pictures out and then make a new album. I haven't photographed the pages because it seems to have lost a little of its character in the transfer.
I like my pages simple. I am not a great one for embellishments and usually just matt and layer the pictures unless a sketch catches my attention. Then I will try to follow it, although my slavish adherence to the sketch sometimes makes the page seem flat and uninteresting.
The first page here was created because of the title. Mr Blue said exactly that so I took the picture and made the page because of it.
The next page was the Journalling. I saw that somewhere and remembered that I had the perfect picture of Mr M, taken when he had driven up to Northumberland and then he had a little nap. When he woke up he was still tired and needed a cup of tea. I asked how he felt and he pulled that face so I snapped it. The journalling fitted exactly and nothing else was needed.
The third one happened when I was downloading the pictures from the camera and these two were one after the other. We have a thing about "team" photographs. Whenever the family is asked to "Stand still and let me take your picture" they always say loudly "Team Photograph!" and fold their arms across their chests like footballers. It was Mr M who started it and it always makes everyone laugh so then I can get good pictures of them individually. This time we were driving home from somewhere and saw my son and his family walking along the road near where they live. We stopped to talk and I took the first picture, then I walked around the car to try and get my daughter-in-law in the picture and that's when my son said "Team Photograph" and explained what they had to do.
Reading back over this it seems that what I need for inspiration is a title; that the words come first and I can find a picture to fit. That would explain why sometimes I put together a page for a day out and I don't have a title for it.
I seem to prefer the 12 x 12 format for my pages. I tend to go for plain backgrounds for the most part, I like words on my pages most of the time. I sometimes have a lot of journalling, especially for holiday pages, but other times the title is enough. The words usually spring to my mind when I see the picture although sometimes I know I have a picture when I hear a phrase.
But what do I need to make a page? OK, paper, pen, glue, picture and inspiration -that's it!

My Prize is here!!!

I am so excited! The postman knocked the door this morning and handed me a parcel from Amazon. My mind went into overdrive because I hadn't ordered anything for ages! Mr M watched as I dropped the mail onto the table and rushed to the kettle - it was just beginning to boil - and made him a cup of tea. He could tell by my face that I didn't know what was in the package.
I gave him his mug of tea and made myself a milky coffee - usually on a Tuesday we seem to have a fridge full of milk where there is some left over from the weekend and the Milkman delivered another two days worth in the early hours of the morning.
I sat down and turned the package over in my hands. "Open it," said Mr M, "You know what it is."
"Well, " I replied, "no I don't, I haven't ordered anything, so it must be a mistake." He gave me one of those looks, you know, the one where a small part of his brain thinks you are joking while the big part of his brain is amazed that you can forget such an important thing
"What about your Scavenger Hunt prize?" He asked.
A stunned silence as I stare at him and then at the package............. Of course!
and this is what I received

I started reading it straight away but then realised that I have Things To Do, so I shut it carefully, took a photograph of it and now I am telling you about it. Mr M is off to work at 1pm (I hate afternoon shifts) so I can take the time to read and play for a while until I collect Miss Em from school - and then I will have a willing model. It seems to be written in real language, the sort that ordinary people use and not high-falutin' photographic techie stuff so it might even sink in.
Many, many thanks to Rinda for sending this wonderful gift. I am so thrilled by it and I will read it and play I promise.

Me? a Winner?

This is my keeping cool, not excited face

I won a prize! You have all seen the entries I have done about the photo scavenger hunt and you know that it ended last Friday. Well, what I hadn't realised was that there were going to be prizes. I didn't join in for prizes, I joined in for the fun and believe me it was fun.
Anyhooo, Rinda, the lovely lady who set the challenge told us to go to her end of scavenger hunt entry and leave a comment. I really should learn to take in what I am reading because it says quite clearly that she is going to give two prizes. I simply didn't take that as real, I saw it, but ignored it! So when  I read the next entry it was a big surprise to see my name as the winner from the group that didn't get all the items.
The most difficult thing was making the choice of which book to claim as my prize - sigh - I am a Libra and while I don't read horoscopes I do seem to have a few Libran characteristics. The most important one being that I have difficulty making decisions - being balanced like the scales you see, I can't choose one side over the other.
I did what I usually do, I asked Mr M to choose. He said "It's your prize, you must choose" Then he added a few things that would help me to make a decision. Like eBook or real book? "You like to feel a book in your hands" he said. "You like to have a book where you can pick it up and take it with you" he said. "You love the smell of new books, especially those with illustrations." he said.
I chose my prize.
Now I have the excitement of waiting for it to arrive. I will tell my granddaughter and she will then ask every day if it is here yet and so I won't have to ask that question.
It is so exciting, winning a prize. My thanks to Rinda for organising the Scavenger Hunt and for giving prizes. Such a bonus! I am so pleased to have won it, and yet there were so many others who should have won. We'll have to do it again next year when I mustn't win a prize but can still join in the fun.

wouldn't you just know it?

with me ol' banjo

coolio!

The scavenger hunt ended on Friday and one of the items I needed was someone playing a musical instrument. On Saturday we went to our Nephew's 30th birthday party and what did we find there? Well apart from glo-sticks and lollipops that we sneaked into my handbag to bring home for Miss M there were these inflatable instruments. My wonderful husband is proficient in playing any inflatable instrument, as you can see from the pictures.
He also looks good in glo-sticks, although they did scare him on the drive home because he had forgotten all about his glowing bangles and as he changed gear his sleeve moved and bathed the car in an eerie yellow light. Made us both jump, I can tell you.

Oh and for the surprised amongst you who cannot believe that we went to a party. We do try to go every three or four years, just to confirm that we still hate them.

Scavenger Hunt: the end of the chase.

I didn't manage to get all the items listed. I still need four of them.
  7.   A person playing a musical instrument
14.   Someone playing with a ball
16.   A Bride
20.   A swing hanging from a tree (or a hammock)

I knew the bride was going to be difficult and as for the others, well perhaps if I was able to go out on my own I might have seen them. Who knows.

I could invoke the substitute item with this

Mr M is searching for a four-leaved clover. Well that's pretty boring I hear you mutter, a picture of a headless man that she says is searching for a four-leaved clover. What the picture cannot show is the sound of Mr M counting 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, as he searches. This made me laugh so much it's a wonder the picture isn't totally blurred by camera shake.

I would like to take this chance to say thank you to Rinda for organising the scavenger hunt. It has given us hours of fun and a good reason to go out for a little ride in the car. I made an album with my pictures and I might just see if I can't get that last for items before Christmas just to make the album complete.