November BOM Challenge on Club Srap

Just a short entry today with not much text but some layouts I thought you might like - they are quite funny because they were for a "10 things that..." challenge that was on the Club Scrap Group this month. However, you will find that I've modified the theme slightly into "9 things" because that went with the paper, which has numbers (I highlighted them with circles) printed in the design: 1 - 9. The third layout I modified to just one thing because I don't like "brag pages" in general...
For those of you who are not into scrapbooking: "BOM" means "Book of Me", and it's all pages that somehow centre on yourself - your ideas, memories, likes and dislikes, role models, attitudes or whatever the person devising the challenge asks for (BOM pages are mostly done in challenges...). It's great fun to compare what everybody makes of it!

Challenge: 10 Things you love

Challenge: 10 Things that make you smile

Challenge: 10 Things you like about yourself

Credits: paper layouts done with Club Scrap kits "Let me count the ways" and "Autumn Splendour"; some stickers and deco brad from Making Memories; peel-offs from Crafts Creations

The Day of the Butterflies

Okay, this is going back a few weeks and I admit that, looking out the window right now, it is hard to believe that these pictures were taken only in October. But I'm so pleased with them that I really want to share them with you, even if it is a little late.
There was one particular day when I looked out the kitchen window while doing the dishes - the view gives straight onto our herb beds and the ivy hedge which was in full bloom, and: full of butterflies. It was just incredible, there must have been 30 or 40 or maybe more of them. I dropped everything I was doing and went out with my camera for quite a while. It was amazing - the golden autumn sunshine, the warmth, and the beauty of it. The butterflies seemed almost tame: they let me come close enough for some really great photos. There were three different types: Red Admirals, Painted Ladies, and Peacocks, although of the latter I didn't get any photos, they just never got into the right positions (it's quite a tall hedge climbing the big fence to our neighbours!). They stayed there all day until the sun went down, but strangely the next day, although it was sunny, too, there were only a few of them.

Credits: based on quickpage by Robin Ackler

Credits for 3 pages: Club Scrap "Farmers Market" digi Kit

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Or nearly so… Three of my friends had got married or had their marriages blessed within the last two months, and yesterday was the funeral of John Dunster, one of the elderly chaps in our church whom I had come to know and like at the Friday Morning Coffee Break where I frequently help. The funeral was a great big affair in our church, with four clergy attending, including the retired previous vicar who had been in service at John’s confirmation. I sang in the choir – a lot of hymns with strong descants, which John really used to like and always commented on, though I found it really hard because my throat was still sore from that cold. But it seemed fitting to sing for John’s funeral because I’d been genuinely fond of him – we’d had some very good chats and he’d always had an encouraging word or a suggestion when I did my year as Social Events Coordinator at St Peter’s, a duty that I had found truly burdensome. So yes, it feels like I’ve lost a friend…

Credits: quickpage and elements from Robin Ackler

Credits: kit "Lacy Memories" from Manuela Zimmermann; Wordart from scrapNfonts; tab from Mandie Stewart

Fireworks revisited

Some people asked me for a bit more background on all the fireworks celebrations here on the 5th of November, and so I did some research and used it to make another couple of layouts. The photos in these are from last year's fireworks - I hadn't looked at them for a long time and was surprised by how different they are from this year's! (Compare to pages in post further down...) Anyway - the text in the layouts is too small for reading here but I've copied it all below the photos - the rhyme as well as the tradition, so I hope you'll find this little excursion interesting!

Credits: scans of paper LOs made with Club Scrap "Time & Space" kit

Remember remember
the 5th of November:
gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason
why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

A Tradition Begins...

The words of the famous rhyme have their origins in 17th century English history. On 5th November 1605, Guy Fawkes was caught in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament with several dozen barrels of gunpowder. He and his co-conspirators were subsequently tried as traitors with for plotting against the government. Fawkes was sentenced to death by a form of execution most horrendous; hung, drawn and quartered, which reflected the serious nature of the crime of treason.
Beginning the following year, in 1606, it became an annual custom for the King and Parliament to commission a sermon to commemorate the event. This practice, together with the nursery rhyme, ensured that this crime would never be forgotten! The poem is sometimes also referred to as 'Please to remember the fifth of November'. It serves as a warning to each new generation that treason will never be forgotten. In England, the 5th of November is still commemorated each year with fireworks and bonfires.

Raindrops on a Spider's Web

This will be a rather short entry as I've really got a bad cold and don't feel very creative or chatty but wanted to share a beautiful/thoughtful photo/layout with you today:

Credits: template and papers from Amy Watson

I took this photo only a couple of days ago in our front garden which is full of spiderwebs in the St John's Wort and the berry bush beside the entrance. I happened to walk out between two showers (of which we have plenty these days!) and was startled by how beautiful these webs all looked, as if they had pearls or jewels strung onto them! Had to go and get the camera out...

Going Organic

Monday is delivery day! It’s always rather exciting waiting for my box… And what am I talking about??? Well, this:

Credits: everything from Club Scrap's "Farmer's Market" digi kit

I’ve been getting these organic fruit and veg boxes since early summer this year when I signed up following a junk mail flyer that came through my door! NOW – I’m really not the kind of person that normally reads junk mail, let alone reacts on it. In fact, they normally go straight into the bin. But there was something appealing about this particular flyer – a funny size paper with cartoon veg on it… I liked what I read on the flyer, so I visited the company’s website, and I liked even better what I read there. Their idea about weekly boxes (with a database for your likes and dislikes and a substitute system in place for things that you don’t want in your boxes…) and their ethical contract schemes and environmentally friendly principles impressed me. Things have not always gone smoothly but the service is good – every complain has been looked after promptly with money credited for unsatisfactory produce, so no problem really…

The company I’m talking about, in case anybody is interested, is called Abel & Cole – as far as I know they deliver in most of England. You can visit their website here: http://www.abel-cole.co.uk/ - even if you aren’t intent on buying, it is interesting to read about their concepts with contracts for farmers, non-airmail imports and “in transition produce”.

I must say that these boxes have also stretched my cooking ideas a bit further, since I now regularly get veggies that I would not normally buy in a shop, which then leaves me having to sort out recipes that I haven’t cooked before – and that’s interesting, too. Even Sean seems to enjoy the experiments (well, mostly…). And needless to say that the swap to organic produce and the increased amount of fruit and veg we now consume has got to be good for our health! I’m really quite enthusiastic about this (not that you wouldn’t have noticed…)…

Bookcrossers' Meeting

Last night I went to the monthly meeting of the local Bookcrossers in the Crown Pub here in Chertsey. We have been meeting every second Wednesday of the month for about a year and half now (phew – time really is running!!!) and it’s always great fun to catch up with everybody's news, particularly of course on what we’ve been reading, what other bookcrossing meetings people have been to, and what books we have wild released or found where…and of course, to swap our latest reads as well!

For those who don’t know bookcrossing: the word was added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary in August 2004 and described as “n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise”. I think the idea is great and I’ve been a member for just over two years now. If you would like to learn more about it I’ve put their worldwide website in the link section to the right: do have a look; it explains it quite well in more detail, and if you are interested you can sign up there and then (it’s free and very easy to handle). You can also find my virtual bookshelf – of course under coolboxuk – and see what I’ve been reading over the last years and what I’ve got piled up and waiting!

And here is a photo of one of our meetings – actually one of the first, in summer 2005. The group has grown since then although not everybody comes every time, so most meetings are still quite intimate in size (yesterday was very much so - we were only four!). The sitting area we are using here is behind the reception (The Crown is also a hotel) rather than in the pub – it’s quieter there and not as crowded, since our meetings often collide with “football TV evenings”…

Credits: this is a photo of a non-digi layout: everything used is from Club Scrap except the little letter peel-offs from Crafts Creations

Bonfires and Fireworks

Yesterday was Bonfire Night here in the UK – Motto: “remember, remember the 5^th of November”… As usual, the whole weekend closest to the date is dominated by the noise and smell of bonfire and fireworks - but it is doubtlessly good fun!

Our church had an open-for-all party going on Saturday night in the wonderfully large garden of the Vicarage, with a three-course outdoors meal (soup served through the kitchen window, sausages and burgers from the BBQ and a table loaded with cakes for pudding), a roaring bonfire behind the shed and an amazing 45-minute fireworks display! As per the latest count, there were 340 people there, including a group from the local assisted-living home, and everybody seemed to really enjoy themselves! The food crew even had to pop over to Sainsbury’s to get some extra burgers and sausages…

On the way home, we were “treated” to more fireworks displays over Chertsey in all directions – people seem to have more and longer parties and displays every year! It was beautiful – that is not to say that it’s all so well: the town seemed swathed in the dense and acrid smoke and smell of the fireworks (we won’t ask what that does to the issue of Global Warming…) and the noise, when they were still going in some places at nearer 1am, was rather detrimental to the idea of sleep…

But here are some photos of the fun part: party time at the vicarage and bits of the fireworks we managed to ban onto camera…

Credits: Papers by Club Scrap (Wheels & Sprockets kit) + overlays by Suzanne C Walker

Credits for both above: papers, ribbons, blue tags by Ann-Marie Borg; other elements by Club Scrap (Farmer's Market extras)

Credits: background paper by Hummie; other by Club Scrap (Wheels + Sprockets kit); template by Jen Caputo

I probably won't have time to upload anything for the next couple of days, so watch this space again towards the end of the week - and as always: please leave your comments!!! Thanks!

Glorious Autumn

So after my introduction, in typical English manner, I think I should talk a bit about the weather!

This year, I was really stunned with it, because it broke all the patterns. To start with, that wasn’t very nice because we missed out on those first sunny days in March that I love so much – it just kept on, raining and cold, until the beginning of June, with only a few decent spots in the first half of the year. Then it broke very drastically and I can remember the exact day! Why??? Because it happened to be the day of our Blessing of Marriage celebration, 3rd of June. I had been so worried in the days before that I would be freezing in my lovely gown and that the rain would spoil the silk. But on the morning of the day I looked out of the window and I simply couldn’t believe it! All blue skies and sunshine – it turned out to be a really hot day, the first one of the year! And it was followed by many more as the weather stayed generally nice until the end of July – even very uncharacteristically through those dodgy weather days of the Wimbledon Tournament. Just as the school holidays began it turned for the worse– poor kids, they got nothing but rain and grey! Then it brightened up again right with the beginning of the new term and we had wonderful weather all throughout September and October, the kind I was used to around my birthday time from my childhood days… There’s nothing like the colours of a glorious Indian summer, and it even stayed warm with it, right until a few days ago. The first of November brought the first frost with all the summer plants in the garden dying a very sudden death, and ever since winter’s approach could be felt: it’s coats and gloves now and you can see your breath once the sun comes down, but we still have blue skies and sunshine during the day!
Now I bet you are wondering why I’m giving you all this weather report? Well, it is SO English, isn’t it – and apart from that it made a nice introduction to today’s set of layouts… These are all photos taken only a couple of weeks ago during a trip to our local farm shop, and I really love them. They represent the glorious autumn we’ve had this year so very well…

Credits for all layouts: kit used - "Farmer's Market" by Club Scrap

Welcome to my blog

Credits: LO made with a kit from Julia Fialho

Welcome to THE COOLBOXUK SITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here’s my first entry into my brandnew blog – and like with all new things, this is really exciting, but also awkward… What shall I talk about???

Maybe I should tell you the story first of how this blog came to be named. Most of you probably think that COOLBOXUK is rather an odd name, but actually it has been one of my “labels” for quite a long time, and started for a reason. That was several years ago when I first got into crafts on the Internet and wanted to join my very first yahoo group, one to do with card making. I jokingly asked Sean to help me find a user ID for me and he suggested “coolbox”, because I complain about feeling cold all the time unless it’s really boiling hot! To my surprise, somebody else already had that ID and she turned out to be a lady from the US, so I added the “uk” and off it went… I have since used that same screen ID for all kinds of groups and forums, so if you ever want to look for my stuff (for example in some of the links given on this blog) just look for “coolboxuk”!!!
I think I’ll leave it at this for today. I’m aiming to write something here at least once a week, if not more often, because my idea behind having a blog was getting in touch with my friends again on a more regular basis. I do hope you’ll enjoy hearing from me this way – especially because there is the added advantage of seeing things as well because I intend to upload photos and scrapbook layouts along with my ramblings (like the one above which I made specially for he occasion).

It would be great if you could leave comments whenever you pop round, either via the blog or the usual email and I'll get back to you!!!