Its oh so kawaii-et

Which weak pun enables me to link to one of my favourite music videos as well as introduce my Daring Cardmaker challenge for this week. Bjork is bright, loud and bonkers which I think sums up Kawaii style too! Leo - who came up with this ingenious dare also points us to this blog for more about kawaii.

So here's my card. I was lucky to walk past a shop chock full of Chinese and Japanese bits and bobs and after hours of indecision over what to buy I plumped for a set of little owls and some spotty tapes.
I thought to myself "if only I had some sassafrass papers as that would be just right" and then remembered that in my stash of old Self Addressed kit I had some. Score! I didn't have any sunray papers so made it by chopping up some green spotty paper and adding it to green Bazzill bling. I also used Imagine That stamps, Nestability dies, Prima pearls and my trust sharpie pen.

Here are two more recent layouts
This one was heavily influenced by the awesome Louise Nelson who uses loads of paint, handmade papers and white pen. Expect to see more in this style as it is a lot of fun.
And yet another wedding layout...
This was inspired by another amazing scrapper Karen Grunberg I loved the strip of stickers or ribbons down the left hand side of her layout and thought I would give it a try. I ran the ribbons through my little xyron refill and they were super easy to attach to the layout (my top tip. Don't use the "x" style machine as you get loads more use from just feeding bits through the refill) Papers and stickers are all For the Record.

Its been quite a week in Britain. One that can leave you saying "huh?" and "why". It has also left me with some hope as I see so many people responding positively and trying to work out seriously and sensibly what to do to stop this kind of rioting happening again. I was quite surprised to really appreciate Russell Brand's heartfelt (if sometimes flowery) ponderings which will feature in my sermon on Sunday!

Its been quite a week!

I had a brilliant study leave talking to different people - and transcribing about 16,000 words! Thanks to a rather wonderful (Holy Spirit guided?) coincidence, I had booked a special something for Friday night which fitted in perfectly. As a thankyou for doing something a dear friend had treated Phil and I to a night at the theatre combined with a stay at a London hotel. It turned out that the hotel was only 10 minutes walk from the United Reformed Church central office which was where I was doing my interview that day. So rather than go home I ate a lunch bought at the King of Falafels (a roasted veg wrap - and they roasted the veg while I waited. Yum) at a quiet park and did some more reading (spoiled only by the rudest girl in London who was so rude I am not even going to tell you what happened. I wanted to intervene, really I did but thought she would probably smack me one) until I met up with Phil at the hotel.

I had phoned him to ask him to bring a camera but he missed the call so I have no record of the wonderful afternoon and evening we spent at the hotel and wandering round London. Ah well. We stayed at the Grange White Hall which is right next to the British Museum. Then we meandered around Seven Dials and Covent Garden and then had a meal at Carluccios which was soooooo tasty. Then we went to find the theatre and we were a little early (what me - early for the theatre just in case? Who would have thought!) and spotted a little garden just behind the theatre. Wow what a find! Its called the Phoenix Garden and is a teeny tiny oasis of calm and beauty. We went to see Blood Brothers which was fab and it was a treat not having to worry about getting the train home again.

Next morning we had a little stroll around the British Museum (still mostly closed we were that early) and then travelled home again to discover the house and animals all still standing. Phew!

Which all goes to explain my lack of card until now on Daring Cardmakers. It is the first Friday of the month (again?) and the choice was poppy or gladioli. As I have a poppy stamp that is what I went for but I decided to give it a twist as I have used it straight for a DCM card before. So I stamped the layers of this stamp onto various MME Stella and Ruby papers and added some black Glossy Enamels in the centre
Other Details: Cardstock: Papermania and Fancy Pants; Stamps: Papermania and Imagine That; Ribbon: Anitas and from stash; Dies: Spellbinders; Embossing folder: Cuttlebug; Gems from Imagine That.

Here is a layout I made a while ago but I am behind in showing them off
When Carys and I went to see the Wizard of Oz for our birthday we took a camera with us and tried to take a nice photo of the two of us. Guess our arms are not long enough...
Details: Cardstock: Fancy Pants; papers: Tim Holtz (coloured with distress ink), Echo Park, Basic Grey and MME; Elements: Echo Park, Pink Paislee, Jenni Bowlin; Spell binder dies

Close up of the words and bad photos!

Its back to the real job tomorrow but a week away from the cut and thrust of church life has me raring to go - at least in the short term!

(Don't) take a letter Miss Jones

This week I am mostly on study leave. Which means doing the qualitative research section of my dissertation. aka interviewing people, recording them and then transcribing the recording. Phew that is hard! I have realised although i can type quite fast I really can't keep up with interview speed AT ALL. Thank goodness for my digital recorder.

(BTW I think I have discovered another question for the "Are you a real grown up" quiz. does the word "Dictaphone" make you snigger? If yes, you are still not a real grown up. Guess what my answer was?)

Two people who are obviously grown up enough to do a bike ride for charity are the two Dom's who are raising money for Kids Company - a charity supported especially by my dear friends Sue and Nicki, amongst others. Do have a look at the website about the bike ride here

I'm playing catch up with some crafting this week as well. here are two layouts I made earlier.
My nephew loves his dad so much as this layout describes!
Jack was born 3 months premature - you can't tell now can you? Its amazing what science and prayer can do! The conversation took place at the end of the day when Jack was on his dad's knee and he turned and looked at him with such devotion. So sweet!
For the layout I basically raided my scraps of paper file to find things that I thought toned together which I punched, die cut and layered. I added the guitar charm as Martin plays in a band.

The other layout is also Jack related.
and uses lots of October Afternoon papers and stickers and letters with a little misting and sploshing of inks as well.
There are yet more wedding related pages to be revealed I'm sure you are thrilled to know. But it is a great way of recording memories and keeping me out of trouble.

Right can't put off the transcribing any longer. It has been fascinating so far to ask people questions and reflect on their answers. And realise that I was quite possibly wrong in my assumptions about team Minstry, leadership and authority. Well its is good to be humbled from time to time...