A "Clean & Simple" Experiment

I have to stop phaffing around and get more pages done so I got out my copy of Cathy Zielske's "Clean & Simple Scrapbooking" the other night. I wanted these shots in the album just because I like looking at them and it certainly got them on the page but I'm not sure...need to work on this more. Still, a good concept (hers I mean) and I did like the whole graphics tutorial on fonts, colour wheels etc.
The quote is off a sundial I think:

"The kiss of the Sun for pardon
The song of the birds for mirth
You are nearer God’s heart in the garden
Than anywhere else on earth."

Afternoons with Horace ... just for Jules!

I told you I was going to do a cat one!! Afternoons with Horace as in "Tuesdays with Morrie". (Horace always likes to come join in any conversation out on the deck!)
If I was more patient I would scan & stitch with more care but rest assured it IS actually all straight & lined up in real life!

Janes House

A bit of a "filler" for the album but it will do. And as usual my scanning is a little askew!

Jane - the other half

I only intended doing a one page LO with the pics of Jane but this next one kind of worked with the first. It's complimentary anyway if not a real 2 page LO. More of the BG Blitzen & also some of the Vagabond & Skate Shoppe. Journalling (which I stuffed up a little but have since fixed):
"We don't see eachother as frequently as we'd like now with being spread through the island, but it only takes a good meal, a bottle of wine and we're back t what we do best ... talking! And always it seems gravitating to our two favourite spots - the deck or the kitchen table!"

Jane

My favourite photos of my friend Jane. This LO is part of an album on my trips down south to the Wairarapa - although Jane lives over on the coast these were taken during a trip Jools & I made from the farm. I'm just loving the BG Blitzen papers - for a range that is supposedly a Christmas theme they have such a Pasifica feel. My other new favourite Pasifica thing are the range of stamps from Kiwi-Impressions in Nelson - this time I used Pacifica Petal & embossed it. That has really been one of the great things about being on holiday. I've been able to play with all my toys at leisure & try out things like stamping etc which I've always been a bit nervous about.
Journalling reads:
"Jane, Jools & I met over 20 years ago and have been together through some of the best & worst times of our lives. Over the years everything has changed & nothing has. Still friends. Still the same! Te Horo 2005"

Lots of finishing up & cleaning up

getting done this weekend. I finally finished another little 6x6 "Granny's Brag Book" for a friend - this time for a boy and in blues & yellow. There are 18 pages in all - here are the title page & a couple of others.

Also got the March LO done - the photo of Anne & Ken didn't download so well but still it marks the place until perhaps I can get a better copy. The quote underneath it reads:
"Be my heart's prop.
In the waste places be a shade-giving tree.
Be good to me!
The night is long, the dawn is far away.
Be a small light, be a sudden joy,
Be my daily bread." - Rachel

Right Side

Left Side

The Smocked Dress LO

This is about all the smocked dresses Les made for me when I was little. I used Basic Grey "Lucky" pp, bazzill, the amazing Technique Tuesday stamp Patty sent me (for some not too amazing stamping - must work harder), and foam stamps & prima's that were my birthday pressie from Eva. Yes, a spoilt girl indeed! I scanned mum's old dressmaking patterns & stitch books. There was a bit of a disaster when I stuffed up the journalling boxes and then discovered I had no pp left. As a quick fix I scanned in one of the pieces from the Lucky Matchbook Kit and then tinkered with it in HP Creative Scrapbook Assistant to produce the journalling boxes which I was quite pleased with.
The journalling reads:
"It’s a funny thing but I don’t actually remember Les being permanently attached to the sewing machine or her knitting needles while we were growing up and yet there are very few photos of us in the family album wearing anything that was “store bought”. At the time they were just the clothes we wore, but now looking back I can appreciate the skill and the hours she must have spent. I feel a little sad too when I look at all the girly-girl dresses she made for me in what I suspect was the hope she would create the perfect feminine woman … all to no avail. What did she end up with? A trouser wearing, no frills, borderline goth!

My best dresses were all smocked by hand. Les told me last night how she used to babysit for the Beetham’s who lived next door when she was a teenager, and along with looking after the children she would be expected to sit and pull up their smocking dots for them! (Nothing like the well-to-do squeezing every last penny out of the pittance they paid her huh!) After a while of this she decided if she was going to do all this work she may as well teach herself the next step and taught herself to smock from books like these.

I think the last things she would have smocked were little romper suits for Joe when he was a baby. (She maintained if it was good enough for Prince William & Prince Harry to wear them, they were good enough for HER little prince!) Now her eyesight cannot cope with such fine work and with my eyes heading down the same path I’m sorry that I may have left it too late for her to teach me. Just incase, I’ve kept all the patterns & booklets tucked up with the things she made for Joe in the memory box so perhaps there will be a third generation to wear a “Les Original”.