Simple Pleasures

A couple more pages from my Moleskine. The first set of tangled Inchies are standard black & white.

They are rather dramatic in just black & white, but I find them quite harsh on the eye. I think adding a little colour makes them more interesting to look at, so inspired by the beautiful evening sky, for the next page I added a little sky blue pink.

The watercolour wash background was created before the inchies were filled in, as at this stage I was waiting for my Sakura Pigma Micron drawing pens to arrive.

Once dried, I sketched my inchie borders.

Then I started to play. It's amazing how you can lose track of time doing something so simple. I don't like some of the completed inchies, but that is not the objective here. It is more about developing pen control, relaxing & letting the ink flow.

I was very pleased with the result & may still use this method even though I now have my waterproof pens.

Touching the Past

This layout in my mini memory keeper album records a visit to the Titanic Artefact Exhibition, which was held in London in 2010.

It is inspired by a challenge on Color Stories Inspiration, where they set a colour palette & sketch to follow.

I created a pocket to hold my notepaper journaling.

The two pieces of notepaper are double sided. The first records a diary style memory.

This is the reverse side, showing a newspaper boy holding the headline poster.

The second holds copies of my ticket & my boarding pass.

The reverse side has the story of one passenger, Mrs Hart.

The background paper is from Case File no. 30.

Royal Post

Another page in my mini memory keeper album inspired by a challenge on Color Stories Inspiration.

This layout records an event from 2006. I sent Queen Elizabeth II a handmade card for her 80th birthday & I was delighted when I received a thank you letter from Buckingham Palace, signed by her lady-in-waiting.

For this layout I used the Case File no. 26, details of which are shown below.

I only used elements provided, but tweaked them to include more relevant evidence of the event in question.

Postal stamps from the envelope & the coat of arms from the letterhead & below a copy of the letter.

I duplicated the layout background so that I could create a pocket on the bottom half of the page.

I made an envelope, which is secured in place by the crown seal.

It lifts out easily, so you can look inside.

Inside the envelope, is a miniature version of the card I sent.

Including the actual greeting printed inside.

This page sits perfectly beside my previous layout about The Royal Academy.

Steady work at the barre

Another page in my mini memory keeper album

inspired by a challenge on Color Stories Inspiration.

This layout records my ballet exam at

The Royal Academy of Dancing,

whose motto is Salus et Felicitas,

latin for Health & Happiness.

The case file notes for this challenge are below.

I used the brick wall image from case file no. 33,

with a quick coat of pink wash.

I added some graffiti by uplifting

Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias signature

from my certificate,

together with sketches of ballet dancers

from the cover of my exam syllabus book.

I created a little pocket to hold my journaling

& copies of the certificate & accompanying report.

They are secured using ribbon.

Just pull on end of the ribbon to lift the papers out to read.

Sadly I don't have any photographs of me in my ballet outfit

or of the day itself.

It was a very exciting day,

as the exam was held at The Royal Academy of Dancing

in Knightsbridge in London.

I can clearly remember the room & the upright piano.

There were other girls taking their exam that day,

but I did mine on my own.

I also remember the uniformed soldiers in the barracks opposite.

They looked very impressive.

The grass is always greener ...

Another page in my mini memory keeper album inspired by a challenge on Color Stories Inspiration.

You might think this is an unusual photograph to pick out of all my summer holiday snaps this year, but this one always makes me laugh when I see it.

For this layout I used Case File no. 35, which is shown below.

Picture the scene. We were on our balcony, resting in the shade on a hot summer's afternoon, when we hear footsteps crunching across the pebbles in the garden. Two cows, as bold as brass, had walked down the main road straight through the open hotel gates & were weaving their way around the villas through the flower beds.

We grabbed our cameras & went to track them down. We found them perfectly content eating the grasses & enjoying the cooling sea breeze.

I used the quotation from Emerson provided in the case file.

"Live in the sunshine.

Swim in the sea.

Drink the wild air."

The birds across the top of the page were lifted from the photograph below. The owner had painted a line of flying birds on the end wall of their house. Another photograph that always makes me smile.

And finally, the perfect place to keep three small pieces of sea tumbled glass collected from the beach.

And relax ...

This layout is prompted by a scrapbooking challenge by Color Stories Inspiration.

The case file for this challenge is shown below

I adapted a quotation from James Dent for my journaling.

"A perfect summer day is when

the sun is shining,

the breeze is blowing,

the birds are singing

and the lawn mover is broken."

a perfect day to relax is when

the sun is shining,

a gentle breeze is blowing,

the birds are singing,

the flowers are blooming,

you have 

a comfy seat,

friends to chat to

& a nice cup of tea

The flower is a Dahlia from my parents garden.

The butterfly is a Rub on from Kaisercraft's Bonjour collection.

Your secret is safe with me

This layout is prompted by a scrapbooking challenge by Color Stories Inspiration.

The theme & prompts are shown here.

I took the postcard from the case notes provided

to document my visit to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.

The first photograph is of the tower, the middle one of a view over the city

& the last shows the shadow the tower cast over the river Seine & beyond.

Although I have been to Paris several times,

this was the only occasion I went up to the top of the tower.

I used the two birds from the file as embellishments

& created a banner to go across the layout.

The postcard is hinged, so just lift the tags to read the back of the postcard.

Let your heart guide you

it whispers softly

so listen closely

"Follow what you are genuinely

passionate about and let that guide

you to your destination."

Diane Sawyer

The postal mark is a Rub on from the Bonjour collection by Kaisercraft.