My Month in Numbers 2013: July

Hello hello.

How do you fancy joining me as I untie July from its moorings and send both it - and all its statistics - gently downstream towards August?

Good, let's make a start ...

July was the 1st time I set questions for us all to try to answer and this month's inaugural 'communal count' asked ...

And, as I'm the host, I felt obliged to answer both questions. You however got to pick and choose, because guests are allowed to be fussy! Here are mine:

Between 10-15 = How many individual items I carried around in my everyday bag this month
This included my core essentials of: purse, phone, keys, tissues, mints, black Bic pen, notebook, sunglasses, lip gloss, Ibuprofen and fold-up shopping bag ... plus ... occasionally [depending on the weather or whether I want to carry everything]: a fold-up shower proof mac, a bottle of water and my camera. [I really wish there was something weird in there so I could explain all in a funny story ... but it turned out pretty average really! I did used to carry a plastic zebra everywhere with me. But you knew that already, right?]

Meanwhile ...

330[approx]= how many photos I took [give or take a few I deleted straight away and a few I most likely forgot to count!!]

Not all of these were memorable moments, glorious landscapes and fabulous days out though. Nor were they a collection of every meal I ate [although I did take my fair share of foodie shots while on holiday]. No, some were photos of craft projects, blurry images and things I'll no doubt delete later when I clean up my hard drive.

And I only printed 5 photos all month - a sure sign I'm in a scrapbooking lull ... to say the least. [Edited to add: after scheduling this post I printed off lots of photos of my twice yearly crafting retreats to put in my album ... so maybe the scrapbooking's picking up a little!]

Now then ... why don't we look at a few of these 330 photos in question  ...

6 hours = the delay we had  between setting off for our city break the first time round ... and when we actually began our travels. 

2 minutes = how far we were from home when the ignition lock of our car jammed up and our trip ground to a halt.
The lock died while we were still in the petrol station filling the tank for our drive down to Lincoln!! This meant we had to push the car off the forecourt and sit and wait for rescue. Once home I updated my Dad via text ... and this is the genuine - yet highly appropriate - typo I made while meaning to type 'someone's coming':

Considering how I felt at the time ... the error makes perfect sense to me!

Anyway .. the locksmith [who we waited all day for] let us down and we ended up borrowing a car for the week instead. But finally we were on our way ...

36p = the fee to cross the toll bridge into Lincoln:

Crossing this bridge always marks the beginning of our breaks away in Lincoln - once we're on the other side of that we're in holiday mode! And, after waiting all day to get there .... it was a welcome sight.

78,000 = the number of people who attended the RAF Waddington Airshow the day we were there:

And no, I didn't count them all myself. The organisers believed it was the gloriously sunny day and, importantly, the very clear skies, that brought everyone out in such numbers. We'd arrived before 9am and bought our tickets when we got there ... yet by 10am they were turning away anyone without a ticket!!

Imagine how pleased we'd have been to have had our car breakdown before even setting off, then waiting 6 hours to even begin the trip, only to finally get there then the following day get turned away at the gate!!

100 = the number of steps climbed to reach the roof of Lincoln Cathedral:

Considering how many times we've been to Lincoln before, and that James lived there for many years, we did quite a few 'touristy' type things on this trip and a roof tour of the cathedral was one of them.

 

Due to restoration work on the exterior of the building this wasn't their usual roof tour [where you actually go out on to the roof and can see for miles and miles.] No ... this was something more intimate ... more Pillars of the Earth:

The 90minute tour took us behind and indeed above the scenes of the Cathedral, up into the space above the vaulted ceilings where we could see the actual construction of the building. The tour guide even pointed out some of the maker's marks left by the men who worked on individual beams ... in the 13th Century!

It was a wonderful experience so, if the opportunity arises ... go and try it yourself. Go stand where the medieval craftsmen stood and admire their work.

132 = the number of steps climbed to reach the the top of Redcar Beacon [which was one of my Scavenger Hunt photos last year]

Just as we did in Lincoln, we did a few tourist-type things once we were back home too including our first trip up this new tower which sits on the beach. [Everyone wanted a new pier ... but we got this instead ... we're still trying to keep an open mind about it!]

There's actually a room up in the beacon called the 'Sky Lounge' which you can book for the day ... and I couldn't help but ponder the possibilities ... anyone for a day of crafting overlooking the sea?

And, as we're speaking of steps ... I finally got a pedometer!! And I can now bore you with all kinds of statistics!!

3752 = the number of steps my current morning walk route takes:

It also took 28.15 minutes and I covered 2.62km.

What it doesn't mention is the 3 blisters I have from my new walking shoes. 1 of which I actually got from the gel inserts I added after getting the first 2!!

21/31 = the number of days I blogged. Which may well be a personal record. I seem to have a lot to say at the moment!

4 = the number of books read all of which I pinned to my Pinterest board of books read this year. 4 definitely seems to be my steady monthly average.

And finally ...

6 = the number of items from the Summertime Scavenger Hunt list I blogged.
However ... I actually found more than that which I'll be sharing in the weeks to come. In fact there's only 1 photo left for me to take and I'll have found all 21. Which is just as well ...

... because my friends have persuaded me to join in their 52 week photo project now! But those are numbers for another month ...

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So, that was how my month added up now ...

Here's how YOU can join in:
If you've never joined in before there's a lot more information on the Month in Numbers page - including a 'How To' guide to inspire you. [You don't need to follow any guidelines other than those I'm about to set out below ... everything else I'll leave up to your own creative  interpretation!]

**Please note: I can only 'pin' a post to the board if it contains at least one image/photo. Otherwise I can only leave a comment and smile at you from a distance**

So ... if you want to share a link to your Month in Numbers post / photo / layout etc for me to then visit, comment on, and pin to the communal Month in Numbers Pinterest board then ...

• Leave a link to your numbers in a comment on this blog post ... but ... 
• When you swing by my blog to drop it off - please leave a comment for me while you're there. Not because I'm needy ... but because it's nicer if you don't just throw your link on my table and leave without saying hello!  
• Please remember to link to my blog in your post. As much as I'd like to think that everyone who reads your blog already knows what 'My Month in Numbers' is [hey, it's nice to be popular, right?] ... the truth is, they don't. So unless you explain to your readers where the idea comes from and how they can join in too, they'll never know.
• And finally ... please try to take time at some point in the coming month to visit and comment on a few of the other posts too. It really does help build a community both around My Month in Numbers .. but also around your own blog space.

If - after reading through all the info on the Month in Numbers page of my blog - you still have any questions just get in touch. My email's in my right sidebar as are the links to my Facebook page and Twitter.
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I'll look forward to reading your numbers ... and the stories the numbers unlock.

And you can drop back tomorrow to collect your questions for August's Communal Count.

Julie :-)

Snippets of Words: 'Have Strong Wings'

Hi, hi.

In the previous Snippets of Words post I mentioned some of the benefits of using foreign language papers and for today's example, while I didn't use it for my sentiment snippet I did use it as my background paper:

Now, call me shallow, but the page may be all about Russian nuclear physics [true story] ... but isn't it pretty? I love the way it's aged and has that gorgeous yellowing around the edges. [You can get your hands on your own from  the existing packs in my shop or as always, you can arrange a custom order. No problem!].

As for the sentiment snippet itself, this one came from a 1960s illustrated children's encyclopaedia entry on birds ... but again, as I also mentioned in my earlier post ... these kinds of phrases can take on their own, alternative, meaning when you free them from their original context:

And suddenly a simple fact about some prehistoric bird can become a positive, life-affirming  message to the recipient of this card!

The remainder of the card was just an experiment with combining the lovely soft ice-cream pink with jade green:

And in a nutshell, that's how I roll: playing with colour; mixing vintage book pages and patterned papers ... and snipping out something the will [hopefully] mean something to someone!

Have you found a perfectly pithy phrase lately? I swear this is true ... I was tidying my craft room while thinking about accountants [as one does] when I picked up a snippet of an old book page from the floor. And what should the snippet say when I turned it over? 'Profit and loss'! Spooky no?

Right then ... I'll be leaving you to sift through your pages or to visit my shop for a wide range of book pages old but new to you to inspire your next project!

Julie :-)

p.s: My Month in Numbers will be here on the 31st [as usual on the last day of the month] ... see you there.

Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt 2013: The Windmill do-over

Hello.

Not only have I already captured a 'windmill' photo for Rinda's Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt, I even shared it here on my blog, last month. And I never intended to go seeking out another but then two things happened:

1.  my good friend Kirsty - windmill freak, tomato hater, creator of the soon-to-be-published craft book Hoop-La! :100 Things to do with Embroidery Hoops - Neale, yes, that Kirsty Neale, expressed her deep disappointment that the windmill I found wasn't a real one ... ;-) and
2. ... on our drive in to Lincoln the other week we spotted a 'real' windmill high up the hill ... seemingly very close to town. And it's a sight we've seen many times before, off in the distance, but which we'd never, ever, seen any closer up ... so we decided to make this the year we tracked it down!  Which was easier said than done ...

Once you land in the city centre you really can't see it anywhere. Which is very strange considering the size of the thing!

Then we came across a tourist leaflet for it in our hotel, in which we learnt:

• It was real after all! Yay!
• Built in 1798 Ellis Mill it was still in working order. Yay!
• It's open to the public. Yay!
• You can buy souvenir flour there. Yay!
• It's only open on weekends 2-5pm ... oh ...

It was around 6pm on a Sunday when we learned that it's going to be an entire year before we get to go again and look inside the thing! I couldn't believe we came so close to the full mill experience and missed out by a matter of hours!!!

Anyway, to make the best of things, the next morning we decided to go and have a look anyway, checked out a street map and set off for a for a walk ...

After a while we found this rather promising road name:

So we followed it around ... and around ... past tightly packed, old red brick terraced housing where we soon  realised that we were looping back on ourselves and heading back towards the main road we'd just turned off! The road was one long curve and we were almost back were we began but then ... we passed by a house calling itself 'Windmill View' ... and once again ... our hopes were raised.

But where was the view? How could there be a windmill tucked in here between these narrow roads and small houses?

A few steps further and I had my answer ...

And there she was, in all her glory.

Her arms open wide in welcome:

and, for the second time ... I got to tick-off my list ...

 No.16 A Windmill:

And a beautiful one at that!

For those interested, here are a few more details:

And if you want to play along with the Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt there's still plenty of time [it doesn't finish until Sept 21st 2013] then make sure to visit Rinda over at Gallo Organico for all the details.

 

Thanks for spending time here today.

 

Julie :-)

It's A Sign: Can we clarify the phrase 'enjoying yourself' please?

Hi, hi, hi.

I spotted this sign in the communal lounge area of the hotel we always stay in when we visit Lincoln.

The image it conjures in my mind is a little too x-rated for this blog ... so I'm going to just rely on you spotting the same risqué double entendre that I read into it ...



I'm just not sure how anyone 'enjoying' themselves [quietly or otherwise] would show respect towards the remainder of the guests.

But I guess every establishment has its own customs ...

;-O

I think I've said enough already ... I'll see you later.

Julie

Snippets of Words: Questions, questions, questions.

Hi, hi.

In my previous posts I've been heavily promoting / twisting your arm / forcing you ... to consider how the most random 'found' phrases make brilliant sentiments for your card making. And that's true. They are brilliant. Would I lie to you?

However ...

... if that's not really your thing, how about finding a snippet which poses a question instead? Like this:

The great thing about asking a direct question on the front of a card - or indeed on any paper craft projects - is that it gives you an automatic link with the person reading it.

We just can't help answering it ... even if it's just in our heads. So, if you like the idea of snipping out some ready-made questions then here are a few tips ...

Where to find a good source of interesting questions to add to your projects:

Old school books and textbooks:

• just think back to when you were in school and were given a book to work through when the teacher wanted to keep everyone quiet for an hour!
• School books, comprehension books, textbooks, Q+A books ... they're all filled with questions for you to browse through and find something suitable for your project
• An old 'Library Assignments' book from the 60s has become a firm favourite of mine and has featured in many, many projects over the last few years.
• You can often find this kind of book in the childrens' book section of old book shops or ... you could always commission a custom pack of question pages from my shop and 'll do my best to find a mix for you from my collection.

Another bountiful source of questions is ...

Foreign language phrase books:

• because phrase books are set up to help you make sense of things in a new country ... they're full of questions!

Granted ... the usefulness of the questions you can find in these can vary ... I mean ... you can go from the ever-practical 'Where is the beach?' to the, well, less immediately useful such as these I've found in my collection:

• 'Have you fruit salts?'
• 'Ought I to dress?'
• 'Would you close the porthole?'
• 'Is your cycle in order?'

Much fun can be had by deliberately snipping phrases out of their original context, wouldn't the following [genuinely taken from my old phrase book hoard] make great existential questions on a project?

• 'What are you doing here?'
• 'Who are you waiting for?'
• 'Will you come with me?'
• 'Must I change?'

If you've been inspired to go question-hunting then you can find old phrase books in the usual book shops / charity shops / car boot sales etc OR there are pages from phrase books in my Foreign Language text packs:

Please note: they also contain a mix of pages from dictionaries too - so they're not all phrasebook / question type pages.

But if you'd like a purely phrase book pack ...again,  I can put together a custom order for you. Just get in touch.

And, before we go, here's a quick look inside the card itself:

Paper scraps, sticker sheet surrounds, patterned tape .. all the usual suspects here:

If you want to catch-up on the other posts in this series, there's the Snippets of Words Pinterest board where I'm keeping all my posts, plus inspiration form other people too.

I'll share another snippet card next Monday ... maybe you'll have some snippety projects of your own to share by then? If you fancy it - just let me know - and I'll drop by for a look. Or link me up via my Facebook page.

But I'll be back before then with something else to try to drag a grin from you! [You know me: will perform for smiles].

Julie :-)