Showing posts with label St Andrews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St Andrews. Show all posts

Update and freebie

0 comments Posted by Lynn at 10/12/2010 02:52:00 pm

Well, September has been a busy month!  I'm managed to scrape through to the finals of the Digiscrapaddicts designer contest (by the skin of my teeth) and the experience has been amazing.  I always find when I enter things like this that it stretches me and I learn new techniques which is no bad thing.  I mean,  I learnt how to make vellum paper for this contest as well as how to make staples, although to be honest, my attempts are not exactly the best.  I do have a little freebie for you but more on that in a bit ;).


The big news is that my son has almost got my website up and running!  He needs to finish the shop part of it, and I have to give him info for the home page and so on, but it is looking like it could be active next month!  It seems to have taken eons to get this far, so I am really excited and will definitely let you know when everything is live.  Of course, you will undoubtedly find out as the blog will be transferring over too ;).


So, what has been happening here since I last posted?  Well, our middle son has now gone back to University in St Andrews, and of course, I took my camera along for the trip (have you ever known me not to do this?!!!) and just look at what we saw.


This is walking up from the harbour towards South Street:




A view of South Street:




The harbour, taken from the pier:




And another shot of the harbour!




The pier:


By tradition, the students walk down the pier every Sunday after chapel.  There are various explanations for this tradition, but my favourite is that the students used to accompany the visiting preacher back to the harbour where he would get in his boat at the end of the pier.  The students, in the main, wear their red gowns (or at least we used to when I was at St Andrews ;) ), walk down the pier on the right hand side, climb up the ladders at the end of the pier and walk back along the top of the pier.  I'd never do that now as it seems an awfully narrow path and such a long way down to the rocks and the sea beneath!


Then there is, of course, the castle, where if you wear your red gown (students in St Andrews wear red undergraduate gowns) you can get in free!




And finally, my son's room!




He reckons it'll be a good room to have a party in!


So, I believe I mentioned a freebie, and here it is.  It's a very rough and ready grab bag containing:



  • Vellum notepaper;
  • Rose overlay;
  • Rose paper (pink);
  • Chick;
  • Ribbon wrapper; and
  • Rust effect paper

Like I said, it is very rough and ready and is just odds and ends I have lying around on my hard drive! There are no TOU's in there or anything other than the six items.  There isn't even a preview!  So feel free to grab it by licking HERE.  Hopefully you will find it useful.


I do intend to start blogging more frequently from now on,  but don't hold your breath!


Happy scrapping!

 

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Settling in and freebie

1 comments Posted by Lynn at 10/13/2009 05:11:00 am

Well, Sam seems to be settling in at St Andrews now and we don't seem to be using the family alert system any more i.e. when one of us is concerned, we contact one of Sam's siblings and get them to text/messenger/phone him so's not to appear too worried! Maybe Sam has seen through this ruse though, as I am on messenger to him, he says something to me and I get big brother to ring him!

As for the rest of the family, we are getting used to the peace! Now that there is no one playing Call of Duty, Storm Force, and the like, the house is so much quieter! What's more, Sam can't bring his computer home at Christmas so no shoot 'em up games then, either!

I've not had time to do much designing - things are starting to get busy work wise and I have had a lot to do the past few weeks. This weekend is likely to be busy too as I am off to help out at The Presence, the national day of prayer at the NEC. If you should be going, come along to the Release International stand and say hello! I can then tell you all about persecuted Christians ion Eritrea - I think it is amazing how people never get to here of the persecution going on in other countries. It is almost as if there is a conspiracy in the press not to report it, but there are some real horror stories out there and I am in awe of the faith of persecuted Christians, how they carry on witnessing despite incredible hardship and danger.

Anyway, turning back to designing, I have managed to put together all the spare stuff I made for my Arbour Winds kit that I ended up not using. It has actually made a mini kit and here are the previews:





And yes, I've just noticed that there are no titles on the close up preview and since I have closed down Photoshop and now have to go and do breakfasts for the guys followed by the school run, I stand no chance of updating this.... Oh well.

To download the mini kit, click HERE.

Happy Scrapping!

 

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SAS Designer challenge

1 comments Posted by Lynn at 9/23/2009 06:11:00 am

Well, I must obviously be getting used to the weekly deadline, as I have now started the SAS Designer Challenge for those eliminated from the contest. I must be a glutton for punishment, especially since I drove 800 miles in 60 hours to take our middle son up University in Scotland over the weekend....

I thought when he went to University, it would be easier (on the heart) than when our eldest went. but if anything, it seems worse! Of course, time dims the memory and you tend to gloss over the bad things, so perhaps I'm forgetting the worry and concern we have when our eldest went to Uni, although I do recall several weekends where either we went up to see him, or he came down her.... But he was less than 2 hours away, whereas Sam is 8 hours away.... So maybe it's the distance, because we probably won't see him again until Christmas; maybe it is because I went to the same University and went through exactly what he is going through right now; maybe it's just because I love him and miss him and know he is having a hard time settling in. I reckon he will be a lot better when lectures start next week, as he will meet the others on his courses.

Until then, it is a case of getting to know people in his hall and trying to find a friendly face to talk to. Of course, having a roommate who is totally inconsiderate, always has people round and has already had people sleeping on the floor overnight (totally against regulations) when they spent a considerable time talking about Sam when they thought he was asleep is not helping either....

But St Andrews is a beautiful place and a wonderful University as you can see from the photos below.

This is one of his room, or at least his half of the room:


This is the view form the top of St Rule's tower. The grey semi circular building in the centre is the Hall of Residence where my son is staying.


The cathedral ruins:


The view from near the West Sands overlooking the town:


The castle:


Looking back up at the castle from the beach!


The Quad:


Sorry the photos are a bit dark. It was cloudy and overcast for most of the time and whilst I have tried to lighten the pictures, they actually look better on my screen than they do here on this blog!

So, whilst Sam is settling in, I've been busy designing my kit for the Designer Club challenge. We were given the colour swatch to start off with, the theme was boys and I had an awful time trying to decide what to do! The challenge was to create everything from scratch (no CU!) and since I take loads of photos (much to the dismay of my children as I keep making them wait while I take photos when we are out !) that wasn't a problem. My problem was what to actually put in the kit to make it useable... Anyhow, this is what I ended up with:



And here's the close up:


Let me know what you think. You can either download it following the links at the SAS gallery HERE or direct from 4shared HERE.

Happy scrapping!

 

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St Andrews

1 comments Posted by Lynn at 10/14/2008 09:40:00 am

Well, I've not been around much because last week, I took a trip to St Andrews as our 17 year old son wanted to go see the University since they had an open day last Wednesday. I went to St Andrews myself for four years, and I had completely forgotten just what a wonderful place it is. It has really got to be one of the absolutely best places to go to University in the whole world (not that I'm biased, mind;)).

The weather on the way up was atrocious. We left at 5 in the morning, and were faced with this on the way up:

The above is the traffic on the M6 - it wasn't actually raining at this point (or if it was, it was only very light rain), but just take a look at the low clouds. But shortly after this, once we had managed to get through Edinburgh (I took the wrong turn just as we hit the outskirts of Edinburgh and it then took us an hour to get form one side of the city to the other with all the roadworks and what not!), we were on the Forth Road Bridge in torrential rain:

The drive from there to St Andrews was awful, with spray and all sorts on the road. But when we finally arrived, what a change in the weather. We had a beautiful afternoon, with blue skies (albeit cloudy at times) and glorious sunshine. Of course, I was in my element taking loads of photos! Here are the old ruins:

We used to revise in the grounds there in May before our end of year exams. There is a long wall which you can't see in the photo but it is a real sun trap so you can revise and get a tan at the same time!

And this is the harbour:



Looking across to the pier:





The Atlantic Ocean:


A misty shot of the castle ruins:


Looking back from the pier at the town:


On the pier looking back at the old cathedral ruins:


Part of the castle ruins:


This was taken on the Wednesday morning - we have brilliant blue skies all day and it was absolutely gorgeous, really warm and sunny:


And a better shot of the castle:

Sam loved it, and is going to apply here, so it remains to be seen whether they make him an offer and if he can get the required grades.

I'll be back some time this week with another freebie - don't know what yet, or when , as I have four tax returns, amendments to a set of accounts and a set of company accounts to do plus a trip to Warwick University tomorrow for their open day! It's a busy week!

 

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