Second lot of freebies

I know, have I got nothing better to do …. YES I have LOTS but doing this is more enjoyable even if it is just putting off the inevitable.

I have been cruising in cyber space again, a daily hazard when you work from home and no one is checking up on you !

I found some great stuff that can be used, as intended or re purposed for scrap booking.

These great food related lables on the HP web site

Sorry no image, they are linked straight to print, worth it go check them out.

Rather tasteful place cards from Martha, great as journaling cards.

Not sure what you could use this for other than its intended purpose, which is very pretty !

I think these kiddie reward tickets would make a fun embelishment on a layout.

These are really sweet too , can you tell I have boys !

Jinjerup has lots of cute stuff, mostly note cards, labels and lists, all of which can be used on scrapbook layouts, there are too many choices to show them all, visit the site and find your favourite

I love the colours on this one

Fonts for Free

Picked up a couple of freebie fonts this morning a sans serif and a serif for good measure.

Old Standard a really modern looking old style font if that makes sense.

You can download it via font Squirrel

Winterthur is a great simple condensed font again can be found at Font Squirrel

OK that’s all I have for now, more later.

Photos

Had a busy weekend and I am still persevering with my online photog course with Cheryl

I’m afraid when I want to be certain of getting a shot a really want I will always opt for the aperture setting, but when I have got time to play and a can set up the shot I will definitely feel more confident about choosing the right settings.

I took these photos early Sunday morning, took the fur baby out for a walk before the sun got hot, then went home for pancakes and bacon with maple syrup for breakfast.

These are both SOTC (straight out of the camera) no effects or cropping.

Drive by …

Just a quick post with a freebie …

I saw this today and thought it was a great summery freebie with lots of uses…

Go take a look and download the blank patterned version here

Best and Worst Mom award goes to …

ME

I have made or contributed to eleven costumes, for my sons end of year school play, this week … P-H-E-W

I have been bragging and polishing my halo, and as they say pride comes before a fall…

At lunchtime today my youngest son came into the lunch hall at school
(I help out at lunchtimes) to inform me that I hadn’t brought his lunch in to school with me !!

major OOOPS

I had promised in the morning to bring his lunch in with me at lunchtime as we didn’t have any white bread left and he doesn’t like brown bread sandwiches.
Guess who forgot because she was too busy thinking about play costumes ….

BAD PARENT

He settled, without too much fuss, for a school dinner which he rather enjoyed, thankfully.

Image credit – http://www.scansbytari.webs.com/

Longest Day, already !!

Ok, not really been missing but have been busy, deadlines, work and creative and I have been involved in making costumes for my eldest sons end of year (end of primary school) play.

I’ve applied for a couple of jobs too and started an online photography course with Cheryl too.
Not doing to well on the photo course front though, managed to take and load the required photos for module one, but not on time, I was a day late. Mia Culpa, I thought the deadlines were on a Friday, shabby Louise, very shabby, must try harder.

This is my DOF (depth of field) photo, I am relatively pleased with it, even though the inside of my camera needs cleaning out !

Can’t quite believe that its the longest day of the year already, before you know it people will be telling you how many shopping days to “that large holiday celebration in December” We don’t mention its name in this house until December the 1st !

Going to start some planning next week for the school summer holidays, I’ve already made it clear to the boys that the “electronic baby sitter” (EBS for short) is not going to be switched on in a morning and left on until bed time.

We will be having PJ days at least once a week, there will, unfortunately, be a chores day at least once a week, this will be the day that the EBS gets most use, its a sanity thing, that’s what I am telling myself anyway.

I’m going to get dates of holidays from all the boys friends so that I know who is available to play and who is away. I’m also hoping to fit in a few days doing something special, maybe going up to London, something we don’t do often enough.

The boys and I spent a couple of hours up at “the flying field” yesterday afternoon supporting my husbands hobby, flying remote controlled model planes.

It was a tad on the breezy side but we sat on the tail gate of the car and had a great view of the flight line and all the action.

This airfield has full size planes on site too and one of the pilots flew his Pitts upto the flight line for the boys to have a look at. I had my camera and grabbed a couple of shots when he flew over.

This shot has been photoshopped, I used a couple of actions from PW, boost and old west and I LOVE the effect.

This is the Pitts flying over a collection of the remote controlled models, I was laying on the ground taking this shot.

Ground Hog Day

Monday mornings are starting to get to me a bit now, on one hand I like the peace and quite they bring, with everyone going back to school and work and I get the house to myself.
The flip side is everything starts again for the week, packed lunches, clean clothes and uniforms, play dates, after school clubs, rehearsals etc, etc .

Weekdays make me feel like I’m chasing my tail all day

I naively thought that this last half term at school would be a quiet wind down to the summer hols, but oh no its the busiest half term yet, school trips, play rehearsals before and after school, field trip (5 days away) trial days at the new school (half and full days).
Then I am helping out with costumes and face painting for the play, organising our summer break, sweet talking my parents into having the boys for a few days and fitting everything else in between my husbands flying competition weekends away, three competitions in six weeks !

I know I’m not the only one that feels like this …

STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF

Better Photographs

Ok today is the day I learn how to use my camera properly, following the crowds ….
I am taking one of Cheryl’s online photography courses. This one is all about not leaving the camera on the auto setting, getting to grips with the technical aspects of your camera.

I like to think that I’m ok at the creative side of photography, I’m not beyond laying down on the pavement to get a shot I like or in fact climbing onto the roof of a building to look down onto a shot I wanted. But a lot of the time I am severely disappointed by the end result, don’t get me wrong I think that I get some great shots but they are those one in bunch that turn out that way for lots of external reasons not necessarily because I set up the shot /camera settings right. However most of the time the shots I take are OK when I analyse them afterwards I can’t always figure out why they aren’t how I saw them through the view finder.

Here’s hoping thatyou can teach an old dog new tricks.

Printables and Free

Another blog to recommend just in case you haven’t already discovered this site Kinsey Wilson She has a few what I would call “AliE ” inspired printables on her site, lovely designs and colours, go check them out.

Fab Stationary

I have always loved stationary, a lot of that love was driven by the pen friends I had around the world when I was a teenager. they always used to send their letters on the interesting and colourful stationary, particularly those that lived in the U.S.A and Korea. Mad my boring blue basildon bond look totally naff. this is probably when I got into decorating my letters either by hand or with stickers or just writing in different colours, I always used to get lots of packs of note cards and pads of stationary as gifts for birthday’s and Christmas.

Now I very rarely write letters even though I still have a pen friend from those early days (Hello MF !!) we have been writing for 44 years now, but we mostly email and facebook each other now, how sad is that.

Anyway I came across this site yesterday and I love their cards, I love that they are just “words” and the humour is right up my street, WARNING, please don’t look if you don’t like slightly rude irreverent humour.

I want the typestaches poster it is brilliant. Go take a look at their stuff here Old Tom Foolery