Taylor Tattle

Farewell for now!

Well this post has been a very long time coming! I know how sad it can be to follow a blog and then see absolutely nothing new.  You never quite know what has happened .... well, in my case my heart just wasn't in it anymore. And then Jessica Sprague offered a class called "Bloom your Blog" which gave me the perfect opportunity to work on a new blog.  I had purchased the domain at least 2 years ago, but never quite got round to doing anything with it.

I loved the class (well it was Jessica, enough said!); it was really chock full of information and goodies and I worked my socks off.  Seriously I had no idea how much work goes into customising a blog, its very hard work (well, it was for my not so logical brain, LOL!).

For some time, I have wanted to change the focus of my blog to less of the family stuff and more crafting, organising etc and to open it up to the public {insert big worried sigh here} and so scrappypixels was born!  Since I purchased the url some dudes in the UK have set up a web site (about gaming I think) with the same name, or rather Scrappypixels, so hopefully this won't be too confusing.

Its not quite finished; I had every intention of launching after Easter, but Holly and I went to stay in our villa in Cyprus during the school holidays and then I decided to join in with LOAD in May (Layout a Day) which has taken all my time. I didn't expect to actually keep up with the class, but for some reason I became quite determined.  I'm fed up of starting things and giving up; I really wanted to prove to myself that I can stick at something; so here I am at day 20 with 20 digital layouts completed, most of which I am pretty pleased with. I know, its nothing short of a miracle, but digital templates have really saved me and I am now addicted to shopping at Designer Digitals (thank goodness they had a sale on!).  Here's a sampling .....

{template: Jessica Sprague Photoshop Friday)

{template: Katie Pertiet}

{template Simple Scrapper; papers by One Little Bird}

The theme of LOAD this month is based on the game Cludeo; the prompts have been such fun and I have a list of LO's that I want to make once class is over too!

Oh and just because spending up to 4 hours a day on a digital LO isn't enough work, I downloaded Adobe Illustrator today and started working on classes that I had purchased in December!  Its really cool!  I still haven't been able to afford Photoshop for my mac, but have been chugging along quite nicely with Elements 10.  And then Adobe dropped their little bombshell about the Creative Cloud.  Which probably would be super, but I doubt it will be available here; it certainly wasn't when it first came out *sulk* ! I will wait and see what happens when my monthly trial of Illustrator runs out, maybe it will all work out.

Well, that is enough from me for now; thanks so much for checking back in and I will pop back when scrappypixels is ready to launch.  If you want a sneak peek, you are welcome to check it out at scrappypixels.  There is still more work to be done, such as changing out the photos in the header banner, they are merely place holders so that I could see how it fitted in.  I also need to complete the About Me section.  I'm pretty excited about my new blog, all I need is the time to complete it!

Have a wonderful day!

12 Days of Memories (2012); Deep Sea Fishing

Today was a bit of a day to remember; we got Alexander out of the house for a family trip to the Mall!!!!  OK, he had to come really, otherwise he wouldn't have a bike for Christmas, but it was so lovely to have the four of us together for almost a whole day!

The trip was a huge success ..... a smattering of Christmas decorations in the Mall; a ridiculously large amount of time spent in Crate & Barrel (*sigh* in love with that place, I want everything, LOL!) and clearly some festive purchases were made; stop off for a muffin and toffee nut latte in Starbucks; most of the final Christmas presents purchased, oh and it was pretty cute to see Holly and Alex sneaking off into Paperchase to get surprise gifts for me, bless!  They do struggle with what to get their Dad, so I might have to help tomorrow.  Mission Impossible if you ask me.

So, onto today's memory ........

Since Holly and Alex have always wanted to go fishing, I thought it would be nice to surprise Kev with a deep sea fishing trip for the whole family (for his 50th. Again).

We should have been going fairly close to Kev's birthday, but the weather was bad, so the trip had to be cancelled.  It wasn't until April that we finally managed to get on board; the weather had improved, but not too hot that we would be uncomfortable.

The boat was a little smaller than I expected, but there were only the four of us on board, plus two crew members, so it wasn't exactly crowded!

The first part of the trip was spent "trolling" (I think that is what they called it?!).  Large fishing rods were attached to the back of the boat and when there was a "bite", you got to haul the fish in.  Which happened quite a few times!  We didn't want to keep the fish though, since none of us wanted to deal with cutting it up, ugh!

The second part of the trip involved actually fishing with smaller rods.  Lets just say that one of us has totally lost her sea legs and spent all this time extremely unwell; although you have to be pretty impressed that I still managed to get photos!!!!  Kev caught a few small sherry's, so he was pleased.  Holly wasn't so lucky and Alex was getting pretty bored, until he somehow managed to catch a large catfish; pleased with himself much?!!!

It was a huge success, but sadly I don't think I will ever be doing it again .....

Be back on Sunday; we have another mall trip tomorrow (yay!) and I'm not planning on leaving until we have purchased everything we need for Christmas!

Have a great weekend!

12 Days of Memories 2012: Hollywood Party

For those of you who attended the on-line live event at Big Picture classes, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!  I was a bit sleepy to take much in last night, but re-joined at 6am this morning and had a blast!  Its a good thing it was recorded though, since I didn't get chance to work on my album {Cheri, it was fun to "see" you there!}.  Mind you having my photos go to Qatar hasn't exactly helped, long story .....  I did get Kev to take a picture of me in my grass skirt etc, not a very flattering shot, but you might just catch it on the Instagram feed for a day or two!

So back to the 12 days of memories .....

2012 was also a fairly momentus year age wise for Holly and Alex too as they turned 13!  Alex isn't huge on parties, so he chose to have his best friend over for a sleepover.  Holly, on the other hand was dying to have her friends over for a party plus sleepover, and I was more than happy to help devise a theme (we chose Hollywood, mainly because our local party shop had a load of really cool ready made decor items!) and also plan other fun decorations.

This was a pretty special memory for me; not only the crafting part, but spending time with Holly decorating and seeing her enjoy her party so much!  Now you know how teenagers are about having their photos taken, well we purchased a film strip photo frame and used this as an excuse to get photos of all her friends; in fact I was able to print them off and put up the frame during the party itself.  Everyone loved seeing themselves on the Hollywood film strip!

{please click for larger image}

The decor was so much fun to put together too; I used printables and customised them with Holly's name and the number 13.  Oh and the party was a great success; everyone had a good time and I don't seem to recall the girls staying up late or making much noise! (although this may have something to do with the fact that it was on a school day!).

Might not get chance to update over the weekend; I am determined to get all the Christmas shopping done, which probably means hitting the malls on both Friday and Saturday.  I do hope there are at least some Christmas decorations around (not that we should expect it of course!).

Have a wonderful weekend, and be back soon!

12 Days of Memories (2012); Helicopter flight

Welcome to 12 days of memories in 2012, part one! 

One of the highlights of 2012 has to be the day Kev and I went up in a helicopter.  It was one of Kev's surprises for his 50th birthday in January, and something that, if I'm honest, I was totally dreading.  I have always been terrified at the thought of going in a helicopter; they seem so flimsy.  I was an absolute wreck waiting for our turn and couldn't believe that I was put in the front with the pilot!  There were 5 of us, and I did feel sorry for Kev being squished in the back, but you have to go where you are told!

In the end, I have to say it was the most amazing experience!  We have lived in Dubai for almost 10 years now and to see it all from the sky was truly amazing.  It was only 15 minutes, but in that time we went over Palm Jumeira, over towards the Burj Khalifa and down the coast line.  Stonking!  It certainly was a great gift idea; Kev loved it too!

{please click on photo for larger view}

And what a relief that I have got over my fear of helicopters; can't wait to do it again!  Stay tuned for memory number 2 .....

Oh and if you are going to be joining in Big Picture's Mini Books on Maui event later today, I will see you there!  I've got my grass skirt and lei style bracelets ready to go and I'm pretty sure there might be a tropical coctail at hand too!  It starts at 9pm Dubai time, so I will see how long I can stay up.  Otherwise I will join in again tomorrow morning, either 5 or 6am start!  The 12 hour time difference almost makes me afraid to go to Hawaii, although I won't let that stop me; its on my dreams list that's for sure!

Almost recovered!

Hi everyone!

Well, the whole coming out of hibernation thing didn't quite work out, mainly due to the lurgy that persisted way longer than expected, ugh!  Unfortunately Holly and Alex were also sick and had to have several days off school.  I won't even begin to think about how far behind I am with Christmas prep; 14 days to go, ha ha ha (laughs hysterically) .....

It also seems that the American postal service has got it in for me this year; Shutterfly have now sent 2 copies of the same calendar, both of which have got lost.  And that is only the beginning.  No matter, I have been quite pleased with myself for not only starting my Christmas Journal, but almost keeping up to date with it * gasp*.  I am tending to share everything on Instagram at the moment, but let me share my cover here too ...

and a little work in progress from yesterday ....

 

Lets just say I am expecting the Crappy Blogger of the Year Award, so I reckoned the very least I could do was to end the year with a little highlight series.  I did miss blogging some cool stuff.  And yes, despite it not being a particularly great year (mmm .... understatement), there were at least some good parts!

So, for the next 12 days (or less!) I am going to highlight 12 fun memories from 2012.  And just as a heads up, if you received a Christmas card with a link to our review, then this will just be a repeat of that!

And finally, I'm pretty excited that I got to lesson 1 of my Christmas photography class.  And even better, there might just have been a little squeal when I managed my first pretty cool bokeh shot ...

OK, well that's all from me for now since I need to get working on my 2012 highlights series.  Hope you are all well and enjoying the festive season!