Happy NSD

Firstly let me apologise for the quality of the following photos. I'm still coming to grips with the fact that one minute we are wallowing in bright sunshine and the next minute the light has dropped like a curtain. I did the after school pickup, some grocery shopping and basically wasted time until I realised that despite the fact that I had done lots in the crafty way today I had not recorded any of it so with dying daylight I raced outside, dropped the album on some bark chips and started photographing. Didn't have time to take the photos and cards out of the sleeves so some yucky reflections, wonky lines and strange colours but it is what it is. 

So back to NSD, l love the idea that there is a day dedicated to memory keeping, I don't scrapbook as such anymore but love the process of project life. Over the years I have tweaked my style here and there until I have come to something that I am comfortable with and can maintain, which to me is the most important thing. My PL style is quite linear (although that's hard to tell here with the wonky shots), with a few embellishments and quite a few more stamps. I've always loved stamping from the very first time I picked up a stamp and ink pad and realised that I could use these two tools to create so many different looks.  When Kellie Winnell of Kellie Stamps announced on facebook a few days ago that she would be doing a day of challenges and blog hop I was excited at the thought of joining in. Some of the challenges were to use stamps on photos-check, stamping with different coloured inks-check and creating journaling cards with stamps-check. I managed to get 5 1/2 pages done in one afternoon and would have loved to keep going but motherly duties called. 

All stamps used are by Kellie Winnell  Kelly Purkey and Ali Edwards with a bit of Studio Calico in for good measure.

 Anyone else annoyed at the 'we' being crooked like me??? I used an old set of wooden alphabet stamps and was silly enough to not get out my stamp positioner, maybe I have become too dependant on those lovely clear stamps., did I say I was linear ;-)

 A couple of really quick simple pages. I find with the method of PL I have adopted over time that the most time consuming part is choosing and printing photos. I am undecided about using the dymo printed 'except coffee' here so only lightly placed it with reposition-able glue and might stamp it with white ink with some small alphabet stamps.

 I seem to be sticking to a British drama theme lately.  Don't get me wrong I still love a little sci-fi and fantasy but a change is really nice.  I was a hopeless mess watching call the midwife as each time a baby was born, someone died or there was a wedding I cried, I almost dehydrated by the end of the second season, lol. (Yep, I've misspelled British on the card, shhh.)

 A tradition we generally celebrate as a family is the dawn service on ANZAC day, the last post never ceases to bring a tear to my eye. The journalling reads 'we grabbed a coffee at McDonald after the centenary dawn service, ever mindful that the men who fought for us then who would have never had such luxuries and how grateful we are for their sacrifice so we can enjoy the freedom and lifestyle we do today'. It is straight in real life, again, rushed photography.

 The last page still needs journaling, it will basically be about the cold wet day, friends turning up in our club jumpers still rugged up after the dawn service and how awesome it looked to see our boys all lined up heads down listening to the last post and national anthem before the game, I had an extra photo for the page so did a lift up flap.

 And also about how we don't like sitting in our cars to watch the game so end up battling the elements and our umbrellas like one of my friends did here. The whole thing ended up falling to pieces but we were laughing so much it didn't seem to matter.