Although Ali had designed some new and inspirational new scrapbook layouts, using ribbon and buttons for this weekends show.  It was still Alfie that was the star.  He was by far the most photographed layout on the stand.  One of the top scrapbooking teachers in France asked if she could use the layout in one of her summer classes. I spoke to Ali late last night, rather tired but excited!!

Ali and Tony are now on their way to have a few days off in Brittany, have a good rest and a great time.

Bev

If you are in need of some serious retail therapy then I suggest you pop over to Paris tomorrow.  I went off  for my normal stroll around the show this evening, and well.....  My dilemma was how to get my shopping bags back onto our stand, without Tony seeing them!!  I tried putting everything in one bag!!!!  He spotted the "Pizza Box" thinking I had treated him, only to discover that it was filled with scrapbook papers.

I have tried uploading some photos for you all, but the internet connection is not being kind to me - sorry.

One section of our stand has been turned into spring - we have all your wonderful cards on display, hanging from a washing line, with wooden dollie pegs - looks wicked.  Thank you for all your hard work.  Tina made us a delightful little tag album, with photos from the blog and using all "Spring Time" ribbons, we have this on our demo table. I have never made one of these, so explaining it in english would be a problem, but in French!!! We had to take it off display today, it was causing too much of a stir! 

As I have no photos to show you, it would be wrong to tell you about the little court yard Brasserie we went to this evening..... Tony had this wickedly naughty Chocolate fondant, drizzled with warm chocolate sauce, surrounded by creme anglaise!!

Time for bed, alarm set for another 6am start, yehhh.

We are all loaded and about to leave for our last show of the season in France - Version Scrap, Paris.

The show is open From Friday till Sunday.  Although I am looking forward to the show, I am dreading the hours - the show opens at 9am and shuts at 7pm!!!!

Thank you all, for the wonderful "Spring Time" cards, albums and horse shoes (you will have to wait to see!!) for our Ribbon Challenge # 4.  Sorry I ran out of time to email you all but, we have received goodies from Marjorie, Beryl, Wilma, Carol, Jan, Tina, Leigh, Sue and Bev.  Photos have been taken, but due to "French" working hours not sure when they will be posted!!

Got to go, have a boat to catch.

I have been following the Vendee Globe, which is a Round the World Singlehanded Yacht Race.  It has been very gripping, with several competitors having to drop out, due to damaged boats or sails.  When the winner Michel Desjoyeaux sailed across the finish line, he came on the radio and said "It was his ray of sunshine".

This got me thinking - Ray of Sunshine.  My Ray of Sunshine...... SYDNEY.  This scrap page was born!!!

This is my favourite scrap page, I smiled all the way through making it!  The ribbon"scrap" detail on the side was inspired by Syd.  She was crafting one day last week, putting glitter glue on to a rubber stamp, then sticking scrap ribbons to it!!!!

Yellow is her favourite colour.  We are told this hundreds of times in a day!

I wanted the word "MY" to really stand out, as she is "My ray of sunshine". I then added a few ribbons to the tag.

Syd will not see this till later, she will say "Sydney on telly".

My Nan taught me how to sew, and it is still a passion of mine today.  We used to make dolls clothes and little blankets together.  Blanket stitch is the first stitch I remember learning, and it appears to be back "in fashion" again.  This is Rachie's favorite picture of Mollie.  Her dress has a form of blanket stitch on the sleeves, and the little house embroidery is finished in blanket stitch.

I had the layout all planned, but all the pink paper I had was too PINK, and all the white was too WHITE.  I am miles away from any craft store, so I had to do a bit of combining!  I used a pink pearl card for the base then overlayed it with a white hand made paper.  I think this has made it rather delicate, suitable for "Miss Mollie".   The border and the photo have both been hand stitched.

I do love the flowers and they are sooooo easy to make!  There is a lot of sewing on this layout (which I enjoyed - all down to you Nan!). The flowers are made from 15mm sheer with a knot of ribbon to form the centre, 6mm grosgrain for the stalks and the leaves.

You can not see the little house embroidery in the main photo, but it was just too cute not to include!

In France you can have photographs turned into stamps. Rachie brought this one to show me this morning - so thought I would include it in the layout, that's what scrapbooking is all about!!!!

Have a fantastic weekend, don't forget the change in the clocks...... I lose an hour of scrapping!!!!!

It's amazing where inspiration comes from.  Did you know that the inspiration for the modern security scanning machines at airports, came from a saw mill!!!

The inspiration for this new scrap page came from a Christmas card, three Christmas baubles hung on ribbon.  It is a very simple layout.

I am not allowed to tell you who is in the pictures, but I am sure you can guess!!

Button and ribbon detail, I used feather edge ribbon, as I felt it gave a antique image and the buttons were a perfect match. 

This velvet ribbon is a gorgeous colour and is called "Beauty".

No more scapbooking for today, I am looking after Sam and he is more into destruction than scrapbooking!!!

We are off to Paris next week to attend "Version Scrap".  A small show that is dedicated to scrapbooking.  We were invited to attend last year for the first time, but I had no idea what scrapbooking was all about.  So I spent my Easter weekend making scrapbook pages using only ribbons and buttons - well that's what we sell!!!!!

Well....... our tiny stand was swamped, my pages were so different from the "normal" French style, they were photographed all day long.  We gave up explaining they could be viewed on the website.  (Not seen them? Click HERE). 

There were two that stood out from the others and were much admired.

Alfie was our doggie, this picture was from our last holiday with him.

My two boys, Tony and his son Rob.

I have been working on some new layouts for next week - big challenge living up to last years!!!  This is the first one finished, several are part complete, waiting for a little EXTRA inspiration!

As you know this is Sam - our cookie monster!