Butterflies Page

This page was inspired by Nerine's Pirates and Butterflies Page. I've used a combination of CM and SU products again. It was hard not to make the page too girly since the photo has Liam is in it as well as Kiara and Avryl!!!

Products Used - CM Spargo True 12 inch page, CM Pink Lemonade Card Stock, SU Night of Navy Card Stock and Ink, SU Flitting By Wheel, CM Navy Fine Tip Pen, Kindy Glitz.

Hope you all like it as much as I do.

Scrapbooking

I don't know why but for some reason blogger is uploading these images in their original rotation - anyone who knows how to fix this please leave me a comment with instructions! So imagine these pages rotated 90 degrees anti clockwise.

I was surfing the net for inspiration and came across a sketch for a card challenge that I based these pages on (go here for the blog I found the challenge on http://inkastamp.blogspot.com/). I came across another challenge that was for Breast Cancer awareness month - use a pink ribbon anywhere on your page. A combination of the two and this is the result!

Products - CM Pink Lemonade, CM Earth Elements Designer Prints, SU Whimsical alphabet (now deleted), SU grosgrain vanilla ribbon, CM brown and pink pens. I used a pink bold tip pen to colour the ribbon as I didn't have any pink ribbon.

I'm really happy with the result - I hope you all like it too!

After that marathon blogging session I'm off to help Avryl tidy up her room!!

Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle

By the time we hit Edinburgh I was extremely tired, so I reserve judgement on it as a city. It is very different to both London and Paris. We only saw a tiny part of it really despite walking all day again!!! Edinburgh Castle from the outside looked like the largest castle we had seen, but because it is still very much in use the part that was open to the public didn't take long to see.

Normandy Beaches

Typical Aussie showing a bit of bum crack above her jeans!

Avryl Posing with her Sandcastle

Avryl and Daddy - Omaha Beach

Omaha Beach

OK so again I don't have many pics of Normandy - I know that Aaron has more though!! These are all from Omaha Beach. We stayed in Arromanches and spent a whole day driving along the different beaches - it's surprising how long it takes to drive short distances in Europe. The roads seem to all be narrow and windy unless you're on a motorway, which our GPS apparently objected to!! I loved the Normandy area, I could quite happily live in an area like that, it's very pretty - the only downside is the cold weather!!

Stonehenge

Everyone told us - just look at it from the road. Well we got there and you can see it really well from the road but, we wanted to walk around it. This was where we bought the Overseas English Heritage Pass that allowed us entry into 100 sights managed by English Heritage and gave us a guide book to plan our trip to Edinburgh around the sights that interested us! The pass definitely paid for itself and a bit extra. And I did enjoy walking around Stonehenge with the audio guide to here more of the history and myths surrounding Stonehenge.

By the way as you've no doubt figured out I'm a bit out of order here!

Warkworth Castle

Looking out one of the windows
This was one of Avryl's photos - budding photographer that she is, she had using my camera down pat by the end of our holiday!

This was another find in the English Heritage Guide Book - this is a fairly intact castle - missing windows and roof only. It was the second home of the Percy family - we drove past their main home - Alnwick Castle later in the day, it was huge!!!

Ieper - Menin Gate

Menin Gate - I can't believe this shocking photo, I hope Aaron has some better ones or I might have to steal Nanna's post card!

Ieper - this seemed to be the town square - we bought the best chocolate here!

This is the highlight of the whole trip for me. Aaron and I have had a painting of Menin Gate - Menin Gate at Midnight, hanging on our wall since I fell in love with the original at the Australian War Memorial while Aaron was at Duntroon. The monument in real life was extremely moving and the history of this town so sad. The town was basically flattened in WWI, 60 000 Australian fought in this area of those 46 000 died. This monument has the names of all the fallen soldiers (not just Aussies) who do not have a grave stone else wear. The side walls are full of names, it is unbelievable and incredibly sad how many names there are here. Every evening at 8pm traffic is stopped through the gate and the last post is sounded along with a short ceremony, including the poem, "For The Fallen"that is read at our ANZAC Day services. It was an extremely moving evening and even now when I think of it I get goose bumps.