Holiday Check-In

Hi from Legoland Village in Denmark.  I haven't been able to get on the internet as I hoped to throughout our holiday but today I've managed to get a few minutes to 'check-in'.

As I said, we are at the Legoland Village, a short walk from a giant Legoland theme park, and the place where Lego bricks are made.  The weather here has been very changeable!  Lashings of rain and even massive thunderstorms, interspersed with a little sunshine.  You have to go out prepared for everything!

These are just a couple of our holiday 'snaps', taken earlier on in our holiday that I've been taking on my iPhone:

These weren't taken here though, they were taken in the Bologna area of Italy.  We went there first for 5 days before coming here.  It was roasting there, in the late 30's.  

Best check out now, internet time running out, hope you're all enjoying the last few days of your Summer holidays, see you later in the week, from home.

Thanks for stopping by today and for any comments

qwiksave

Going on Vacation

..or on holiday, as we call it here in the UK.

Here's today's journaling piece:

  Detail:

And I am, going on holiday, on Monday, so this will be my last Summer journaling post for a while.  This one is again part of the 'In the Sun' course, prompt number 11, 'Take a Vacation'.

The design element from the video that I took was the 1960's photo album vibe.  I found our old family photo album and scanned a few photos onto a piece of paper that I had previously painted with yellow and gesso.  I also used the technique that Natty of 'In the Sun' suggested, which was to rub the edge of a piece of cardboard into black paint and then print with it.  It gave an interesting vintage edge.

Here is the finished page:

I'm not sure how much internet access I will have for the next week or so, but if I can I will continue to blog (as I did last year from my holiday in Germany)

Until then, thanks for stopping by

and for any comments,

qwiksave

Summer Dating

I'm still on rapid catch-up mode for the In the Sun journaling course that I've been doing recently.  I won't be able to catch up completely though because the course is finishing very soon.   

Today's exercise, prompt #08, is about 'Summer Dates.'  The question was, 'as a couple, where do you like to 'hang out' in the summer time?'

This is a detail of the left hand side of the page:

 

My husband and I very rarely get to go out together, just us, but this week we managed it when our boys went away with their grandparents for a few days. As a couple,we both agree that it feels odd just walking down the street without our boys, because it is such a rarity. We tend to just go to a local pub or restaurant, or maybe a cafe for a meal when they are not with us but sometimes we might do the other things that I've put on my list (above) too.  

On the right hand side of the page, I've put a picture of us taken a long while ago, when we were dining out. I remember that it was somewhere exotic, like Zakynthos or Cyprus, so it was a Summer themed picture which fits in with the theme.

The bottom picture is a photo of a piece of artwork that I did on a small piece of plastic with some stamps. 

  Whilst in progress with this page I thought it was looking a bit 'teenagey' so I played around with the lettering and swirls to make it less so.

This is the finished page:

Thanks for stopping by,

and for any comments,

qwiksave

Oh, the Places I would Go!

For the next prompt in the Summer Journaling project, In the Sun, we were asked where would we go if we could go anywhere on holiday.

I used this photo that I used for my Creativity Bootcamp last year and added my wording to that:

(Photo of myself on a beach in Northern France)

I thought it would be fitting for me to be looking in the direction of the places I would like to go.  They aren't in any particular order, but they are places I would like to visit sometime in my lifetime.

I also made this digital scrapbooking page of my two boys yesterday:

They have been away all week caravaning with their grandparents so it was nice for me to have a picture of them around.

Finally, whoop, whoop, I won a blog prize this week:

A set of the BRAND NEW Promarkers with a brush tip!  Can't wait to try them out!

 (Thanks to Kirsty Wiseman)

Thank you for visiting today and for any comments,

qwiksave

We've seen it in the Movies...

I'm on a roll with these journal posts from the 'In the Sun' blog and tonight I have done another one.  This is for prompt #07, 'Summer Movie Blockbusters' (post link here)

We had the option to mention films from this year that we were looking forward to seeing this Summer or to make a list of films that remind us of Summer.

This was mine:

...With these pictures (all from our friend, Google) on the left:

 

..and this was my list:

As you can see, most of these are years old!  I do go to the cinema sometimes, but my boys tend to like action adventure films that aren't my kind of thing, so they go with their dad. 

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is very popular in our house, made even more popular when we saw the actual car driving through our town streets a few years ago.  It was on its way to a vintage car show and it was very exciting to see it.   We also saw a theatre production of Chitty in Cardiff one year, with Aled Jones (of 'The Snowman'' fame) playing the lead.  The special effects were brilliant, and the car looked magical with all its wings out 'pretending' to fly!

Thanks for visiting today and for any comments,

qwiksave

Alter Ego

Out there in  Blogland a lot of people seem to be winding down their Summer projects.  I've seen Halloween crafts and even some for Christmas!  Well, not me!  I'm still holding on to Summer until at least my children go back to school which, for most of us in this country, is in September.  I'm still eagerly awaiting our exciting train and plane trip to Italy and Denmark in a week's time, so look out Legoland here we come! 

Meanwhile, I've been continuing the Summer Scrapbook/Journal that I started recently with another prompt from the 'In the Sun' free journalling course.  Link to today's prompt here.

Today's prompt was about your Alter Ego and this was mine:

 Detail:

  (Always loved the colour combination of hot pink, black & white!)

This is what the writing says:

My regular readers may remember I wrote recently about how I would like to dress in a more creative way (see post here).  At least that is something I can do something about - unlike losing 20 years in age and growing another foot or so! ☺

Thanks for visiting my blog today and for any comments,

(they are always appreciated)

qwiksave

Creative Flourishes 'Shop'

This picture is of a shop, anyone recognise it?:

(And no, it doesn't normally have 'creativeflourishes' written on its side)

This is another shot of it:

It is in fact the Selfridges shop in Birmingham (which some of you may have recognised?)  It's an amazing structure, coloured blue and covered with loads of silver discs.  The entrances are on the ground floor and also inside the shopping centre that this is a part of, around the other side.   I've been to Birmingham several times now, but this building is so incredibly different to look at that it always makes me want to get my camera out.

I've also been doing some crafting. Some more pages of that Summer journal I started whilst at my sisters:

I'm very late but I've decided to join in with a free e-course that has been running all Summer long called 'In the Sun', which is from a blog of the same name, found here.  

At the time of writing this post, all the prompts for the course (so far) can be found on the right hand side of that blog.  This one above is prompt number 4, called 'I want my Summer to be full of..."

After collaging my pictures, I used a tippex tape dispenser (like the glue ones) to write my titles on and in case you can't see them, they are:

Sunshine, Crafting, Fun, Travel, Photography, Friends/Relatives, Strawberries, Peaches, Pineapple, Cherries, Sea and Sand, Picnics, Tennis, Ice-cream, Cycling, Strongbow Cider(!) and Lego! (That's because we are going to Legoland in Denmark soon...) 

For the 'crafting' title, I used a picture of some broken up eyeshadow because it reminded me of pastels:

I had to use a biro to write my titles as other types of pens wouldn't write on the Tippex tape.

Yesterday I did the 'Self Portrait' prompt (#02), but it contains a photo of my passport so I can't really show you that.  I can tell you however that I changed the real photo on it (it was just a copy) to one where I am smiling broadly.  The subject of my page was to do with 'false smiles' and 'true happiness' (whatever that is!)

As I am so far behind with this course, (the other participants are on prompt #44!) I 'm going to just pick and choose which prompts I do.  If I had to do all of them now, I think I would still be doing this Summer journal in December! 

Thank you for visiting today and for any comments,

qwiksave

Hotel Room Crafting

Hi, apologies (again!) for not being around in Bloggerland for a few days, I'm with my boys in Milton Keynes visiting and looking after their cousin, my 9 year old nephew.

I've called my title, 'a hotel room' but it's not really, it's my sister's spare bedroom that I'm creating in, but it's so smart it's like being in a posh hotel! I'm also posting this from my iPhone which I've never done before, so hope it works!  (note - it didn't work, I attempted to post this yesterday, but couldn't work out how to get the photos on...)

(Part of this post was done on my laptop).

The other day, before we all ventured off to a great fun adventure playground, I cut up some Summer themed magazines and advertising leaflets and over the last couple of nights, in my room, I have created these two journal/scrapbook pages on the theme of Summer:

 Some of the subjects aren't 'my kind of Summer' (me in a wetsuit?!) but they give the flavour of a nice, hot, fun-filled, Summer (I'm optimistically hoping that the rest of this years is going to be like it!)

I got myself a ring binder folder to put them in (left):

..and plan to make it into a combination of scrapbook and journal, documenting this year's family Summer Holiday.  Other pages will have photos, tickets of events, postcards, etc. and some of the pages will be exercises from journal prompts for which I'll be using additional magazine cuttings.  

 It's been quite an adventure here in Milton Keynes, they have loads of activities for the young and not so young, (photos soon), but it's back home to Warwickshire for us tomorrow.
 
Thanks for looking and for any comments,
qwiksave

Magazine Doodle

Can you tell who it is yet?

I've just been having a little fun with my black marker on the cover of this month's Elle magazine.  It tells you the name of who it is on the side. It is the actress, Kirsten Dunst, who was the 'love interest' lady in the Spiderman films.  I started colouring her lips with the bright red nail varnish that came free with the magazine and before I knew it out came the Sharpies....

I have made a journal page but its of a personal nature so won't be sharing that (sorry!) so instead you can take a look at a part of a collage I made years ago!:

I cut up very random objects out of magazines into squares and made them into a huge poster of which this is a small part. Can't imagine why I chose some of the subjects...?

Hope you are enjoying the sunshine.  Our Summer has come at last (yay!)

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

qwiksave

The World in Pieces

Our Summer Holiday has been keeping us all very busy.  Quite a lot of it has been in our back garden, both gardening and playing.  Actually we can't really call what we do 'gardening' as neither my husband or I know very much about plants or flowers, but we did know that we needed to pull out the 10 feet tall weeds!   Our boys have been asking to use the large inflatable paddling pool and it was getting a little lost in our 'jungle!'

In between our outdoor activities, my eleven year old has been enjoying constructing this world globe jigsaw:

 

Fun, but with an educational element too! ☺

*****

I  also made a photographic piece of artwork tonight using an app I recently got for my iPhone.  Its called SlowShutter and it is for taking light trail photos.  I took a series of pictures using one of my son's light up spinning toys and when I saw this one, for some reason it reminded me of teeth!:

I added some titling (using Picnik) and now it looks just like a book cover for a horror story! 

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

qwiksave