Today I am thankful

Today I am thankful for:

Celebration and parties and the chance to catch up with friends before they head off to uni.

I am thankful for good weather and a chance to chat and laugh.

I am thankful for people willing to smile for a photo!

I am thankful for the boys family and the fun they created with a barn dance.

Thankful for lovely slow shutter speeds!

Thankful for beautiful warm bonfires and marshmallows to toast.

Thankful that the skewers for the marshmallows were left out so we could play silly games in the morning.

Thankful for cuddles by the fire and oversized jumpers to snuggle in.

Thankful for friendship

Thankful for this boy and a celebration of his birthday.

What are you doing over bank holiday weekend?

Loves xxx

Dear L and J

Dear L and J

You two falling for each other has been one of my highlights this last year.

L, you are my best friend and J, I have known you for so long that I think of you like a brother. Seeing you two getting together therefore is like having to strands of "family" unite.

It was such an honour to take photos for you two. You are so comfortable around each other that I managed to capture some lovely and genuine moments without too much hard work!

Your relationship is flourishing and it is beautiful to watch as I see you bring out the best side of each other.

It was lovely to spend a few hours in the sun with you two on that bright day. J, I have to confess that although you thought (and still do) that this was simply a picnic with a few snapshots, it was actually me and your girlfriends ploy to get your camera shy self into a "photo shoot" We know that if we told you our real intentions you would never have come in the first place! I apologise for our deception but I think we kept the secret rather well!

Thank you for both being so willing to smile for me. I pray that as this new phase in your lives comes you will stay true to one another because if these pictures are anything to go by, I want to be at the wedding!

All my love

Abi xxx

P.S. For you photography minded people I captured most of these with a fixed 50mm lens set with an aperture of f1.8 and a shutter speed adjusted accordingly. I edited them in a program called "be funky" with boosted contrast/brightness and a vintage effect.

Holiday moments

First, I want to say thank you for all your congratulations about my results. I have an amazing group of blog friends who on a wet and miserable day made me smile every few minutes as your comments came in!

Although it is tempting to fill the blog with holiday photos, I thought that for your sanity I would share just a few of my favourites.

For those of you who like the detail we visited the west side of the Island; a place called Polis which is near the city Pathos. It is quite rural and tends not to be too touristy.

We stayed in a beautiful villa with a pool in the back garden. The littlest one (who isn't really so little) is a fish in another life. He lived in it!

The Island has some lovely fishing ports; a great place to capture detailed photos.

Enjoying the sea and the sun.

There were plenty of archaeological sites including some stunning mosaics and ruins.

Beautiful and magnificent buildings. Inside these churches were the most stunning icons and paintings.

The weather was so hot so an icecream was a must have. This posh little ice cream shop had a mouth watering display. Given the chance I could have eaten most of those flavours.

Greek signs. I have no idea what this says but it looks nice!

A fun action shot of the "fish"

The villa overlooked the sea. A beautiful thing to wake up to.

Turtle nests.

We visited a waterpark. Those are slides you are looking at and incredibly both boys went on them...and enjoyed a vertical drop down a wet piece of plastic! mad.

A brief glimpse of a lovely holiday as a family.

What have you been up to?

Loves xxxx

And the results are in...

On the 18th of August I got up to a beautiful sunny, hot day feeling just a little nervous.

Unlike many of my friends though I didn't have to wake up at the crack of dawn as for the last week I have been on holiday in cyprus.

This meant that I could check my A level results sitting outside a cypriot cafe, eating breakfast at the civilised hour of eight thirty.

I am pleased to say that... I have got into my first choice; DURHAM university!

I got:

English literature: A*
Religious studies: A
History: A

I am thrilled as it means that I don't need to worry about my university place while on my gap year.

We celebrated the day with cake and a lovely family meal.

More holiday pictures to come!

Loves xxxx

God, worship and camping

Hi

Just to stop by and say I am off to Soul Survivor christian camp for the next five days so if no blog posts come, rest assured I am getting wet and cold in a field!

Have a great week.

Loves xxxx

The story of the Cat Flaps

Hi

Today I am joining in with Sian's Story Telling Sunday.

There are two parts to this story

The first takes place around fifteen years ago when the middle brother was around two years old. I hasten to add that he was a two year old with a keen sense of adventure, not scared of much and rather full of himself as only a two year old can be.

We were staying at my Grandmas house and she had, much to our delight, a cat. For a two year old this was immensely exciting for with a cat came a cat flap. The middle brother never having seen one of these before promptly saw how it worked and experimented.

You can see where this is going. The adults in the lounge heard a “help” from the backdoor where they found the two year old with one arm and head through the cat flap while the rest of his body was still inside. He looked like a slightly perverse superman. My parents went on the assumption that if he got an arm and his head through he should be able to get them back and after much pushing and pulling he was free.

It is with great regret that I don't have photographic evidence of this!



The second part of this story is based loosely on the first because it again involves a cat flap. We have just moved house and one of the jobs we had to do was install a cat flap into the back door. This presented a slight problem at first owing to the fact that the backdoor keys had been left at the locked old house.

When the keys had finally arrived my mother set to ringing around half of the yellow pages in an attempt to find as she put it a “cat flap man”. The slight issue came when she tried to ask for this on the phone. Try saying “I would like a cat flap fitted” quickly! It came out more as “I would like a fat cap flitted.”

Eventually “cat flap man” came having deciphered my mother’s request and the cats natural way of life was resumed and they could once again reach the outdoors.

That was not the end though. With a new cat flap came new friends for our furry creatures. A certain furry friend that insists on sitting outside our bedroom windows after midnight issuing his cries of greeting.

My mother has naturally taken umbrage and now stores a flower sprayer filled with water by the back door in order to try and ward this cat off. Our new neighbours, I have concluded, must now have deemed us positively crazy. For two weeks we reached the back garden by going out the front door and now at about two o clock in the morning on any given night a small lady in pyjamas runs up the road spraying a cat who has decided to exercise its vocal cords.

The cat flap in short is more trouble than it is worth.

Thanks for stopping by

Loves xxx

Album artwork inspiration

Hi

Today I thought I would introduce something a bit different. Something I hope to continue for a few months.
I sometimes find it difficult to get inspiration and sometimes need a picture or sketch in front of me to boost my mojo.

It was only the other day when listening to music did I realise that album artwork is incredible. Such time and effort has been put in to create that music sleeve.I decided therefore to try my hand at using one album cover as the soul source of inspiration for a layout.

It was such fun and really focused my creativity into one area. There are so many oppertunities to try this so i would LOVE it if you would join me once a month to play around with album artwork.

The rules are simple:

I will post an album cover and it is from there you can take inspiration into ANY crafty area you wish. It could be a layout, it could be a card it could simply be a blog post.

Use something from the album cover to inspire you. It could be the colours, the shapes, the photograph, the concept.

The crucial one. Use a song title from that particular album on your layout, craft project or blog post. This could be a really good starting point from which to bounce from.

Leave me a link to your post or project in the comments box so we can all gain inspiration from each other.

You ready to play along?

So. This month is All things bright and beautiful by Owl City.

I was really drawn by the shapes and minimalist simplicity of this album cover as well as the beautiful colours. I tried to incorporate this in my page with accents in a darker colour. It was great fun to do and really made me think outside the box.

"Dreams don't turn to dust" is a track from the album and seemed a fitting title for this happy couple.

So, how does this inspire you?

Loves xxx

P.S Album choices are made by artistic capability not by music taste. That said, Owl city are very good.

P.P.S The font for the album was found here.

I am Blessed// Layout

I don't know if this happens to anyone else but every now and again I print a photo that means a lot. It may be because of the time it was taken, the quality of it or just simply that it is of someone special. I find myself wanting desperately to scrap this photo but because it is so precious I put far too much pressure on myself to create the "right" layout. Sound familiar or is that just me?

This picture of me and the boy was just that. It records an end of my school life, the last time I celebrated with friends and the relationship the boy and I have shared at school for three years. Knowing what I could be like I told myself there were no strings attached with this photo. I therefore went into making this page hoping to have fun rather than do the photo justice.

I have NEVER done a page like this before. There aren't many elements to it, the embelishments are scattered and what is with those leaves coming from the side of the page! That has never happened before! My mind surprised me with what I came up with. It was fun to create a page with a bit of a difference.

Along with a no pressure layout I told myself it would be a no pressure journalling page too. Therefore I steered away from what the picture means and literally let my pen flow writing about

me and the boy.

I was going to call this page I am lucky but only once I had done the journalling did I realise that actually rather than be lucky I was really blessed.

The journalling reads:

Lucky to have had your for over three years, Lucky to feel a part of your family.

Lucky that you have such a sense of humour, I am lucky to have someone who excepts my quirks.

Lucky to be so loved, lucky to call you mine.

But looking at it rather than be lucky I am really blessed.

Has a layout ever surpirsed you in how it has turned out or the direction your journalling went?

Thanks for stopping by

Loves xxxx

P.S I have now framed this layout as it is a new fav. Top tip, Urban outfitters sell 12x12 black frames, two for £18. Go get! I have never found 12x12 frames before now!