Scrapping Tonight

Pencil Lines has been sponsored by Teresa Collins this month, and today was our 2nd week that the design team got to play with Teresa Collins Designs.

I had Welcome Home papers to play with. I love the colour scheme of simple black and white, that Teresa uses with all her collections, adding just a splash of colour to each design.

How I interpreted this weeks sketch:

This sketch called for 2 photo's, but I really wanted to use this photo of us all in the back garden last year. I decided to go with 1 large photo, and then I placed the strip of paper (see sketch) and added die cuts instead of a photo to the right hand side of my layout.



I built up layers/mounts for my photo to sit on. I tied an organza ribbon and sequin ribbon around my photo, and placed a key that I cut from one of the pattern papers.





The chairs are cut from a piece of paper covered in these ornate chairs; they are calling out to cut and raised!
Finally I added a glitter monogram "B" onto my layout.



How are you going to tackle this weeks sketch? Email your layouts to pencillines@googlemail.com, and you could win a stunning RAK from Teresa Collins Designs.

And for the digi scrappers amongst you, here is this weeks template.



Happy Mothers Day, hope you were spoiled rotten...
Thanks for stopping by
Anna xx

She is still my baby girl as is Izzy, but my baby, my youngest, turned 7 yesterday and is looking so grown up. As her birthday fell on a school day, it was a quiet affair. We had a tea party just for the 4 of us, complete with a Hello Kitty cake (i will do the full on baking thing for her party).

My challenge was to do a room makeover in true 60 minute fashion, but without the team of 50 odd peeps, there was just me! I did'nt quiet manage it, and Izzy had to keep Lilly occupied downstairs whilst I blew balloons up and hung her new curtains.



Lilly is a Hello Kitty fan, and this was a great opportunity to give her room some Hello Kitty lovin and lots of black and pink touches!



Everything I bought came from Argos and Dunelm Mill (UK). I will take some proper pictures of her room, but for now here is the birthday girl enjoying her room and messing with her boyfriend!

Thanks for stopping by
Anna x

No time for a proper blog post tonight! Its Lilly's birthday tomorrow and I have been rushing around like crazy picking bits up for her. The delay in Florida meant nothing had got planned. Thankfully the Hello Kitty shop was a good starting place at the Mall of Milennia, where Izzy bought some real delights for her.
I am doing a room makeover for Lilly, and have probaly gone a little Hello Kitty overboard, but I really dont think you can have too much HK do you?



After work tomorrow I will be rushing home to do a 60 minute makeover, LOL. Peter is currently making up her new desk so I can pop into her room tomorrow.
I have new curtains, throw, cushions, desk, chair, lamp, cd player, and lots of accessories , as well as some very cheap canvas storage boxes in black and pink for £2.99!!, they are huge as well.
I have been gobsmaked with the amount of product with Hello Kitty on it, anything from a toilet seat cover to a toaster (toasts a HK face onto your bread!), and everything inbetween!

Off to bed soon, as I am pooped from 2 days back at work, lol
Thanks for stopping by
Anna x

I am so out of sorts still, and cannot wait to get back into the swing of doing my layout for Pencil Lines this week.
In the meantime, the design team have been sponsored by Teresa Collins Designs, who are also donating this months RAK.

As always just email your layouts to the readers gallery for a chance to win a gorgeous RAK from Teresa Collins.

For digi scrappers, I managed to get a template out for you this week, and I will be working on any outstanding templates this week.

Here is sketch 185



Hope you all had a wonderful bank holiday weekend. We chilled, managed some gardening; our poor garden looked so negleted!, ate homecooked food, and played on Rock Band and with lego!
All in all a great weekend in the Bowkis household!
Back to school and work for us all tomorrow, and although theres a part of us that has enjoyed the extended break, I believe on the quiet we all want some normality back...

Thanks for stopping by
Anna x

Its National Scrapbook Day, and all us scrappers around the world will be scrapping, taking classes, joining crops and blog hopping to their scrappy hearts content!

I had planned to do a class online to celebrate, but my delay returning home has put that on hold. BUT Nikki Sivils is holding a giveaway where a lucky winner from each DT's blog will get a complete line of "Nikki Sivils, Scrapbooker" paper collection of your choice!!! So the more Nikki Sivils DT blogs you visited and leave a comment, the more chances you have of winning a paper collection of your choice. I have links to all the DT's blog at the bottom of this page :)

All I ask you to do to win a collection from my blog is;

: become a follower of my blog
: tell me what Nikki Sivils collection is your favourite

Easy eh! Nikki is also looking for 20 new designers, and international are welcome to apply. Check out the link for details.

A few blog posts ago, I mentioned that I went to a crop in Orlando at Scrappy Boutique. I had a great time, met some fab ladies and spent too much money on lots of gorgeous product. I also managed 2 layouts.

Spring

This is an 81/2" x 11" layout. Photo is of Izzy at World Showcase in Epcot. I have yet to add journaling to this layout.






Supplies : Bazzill cardstock, Basic Grey papers, Jenni Bowlin butterfly, America Crafts thickers, Websters ribbon, Prima calico tag

I use D-Ring albums, and these 2 layouts will sit side by side, as a double layout would.

Hope you are enjoying your Bank Holiday weekend. Anyone have plans other than scrapping?
We are planning a night watching Avatar :)
Thanks for stopping by
Anna x

We are home, very tired, jetlagged and everything in between!
Our journey was an exciting one, in 10 days we have been delayed by a volcano, a tornado, a snow storm and then the last leg of our journey home was delayed by a flat tire! Truly was a one of a kind holiday!

There really is no place like home though, and we have been greeted by signs of spring, which has bought a huge smile on all our faces, although today it has been gloomy and rainy!

We do miss :

Florida Orange Juice
Clean roads
Great service
Beautiful weather

But home has :

my bed
my sofa
lots of dust!
my craft room
my empty fridge....

what more could you ask for?!

Anyways, we have had a rough day, up at gone 11am, girls have been to bed and now are both up again, (its 11.20pm here now!), i show no signs of being tired. Thankfully I had made no plans for any of us to return to school tomorrow and its a good job as we are all still so out of sorts.
Tomorrow I plan to tackle paperwork side of things from the holiday; insurance claims galore and pick some new dates for the retreat, as well as unpack my case full of new and wonderful goodies for my studio!!

Are you celebrating NSD? check back here for some giveaways, and talking about giveaways, I believe there is a copy of Pencil Lines the Sketch Book going to one lucky reader here...

Hugs
Anna x

equals a fantastic day, relaxing and just having family fun!

We loved Daytona beach....

Due to our ever increasing costs here in Florida whilst we wait to get back to the UK, The Deacons and us, are car sharing. Every other day is a rest day by the pool, and are much needed after all the walking around parks for 2 weeks!
Rest days are Fun days!



Back later with a layout I did at Scrappy Boutiques crop yesterday, yes I actually went to a crop here, and I loved it!
Hugs
Anna x

We had a lovely day at Busch Gardens thanks to the offer of a free day pass to all stranded passengers.
The weather was beautiful, the park was quiet and we all decided that Busch Gardens is definitley on our top park to visit. It was such a leisurely day with something for everyone to enjoy :)
If you are a rollercoaster fanatic, well with 5 to choose form you will not be dissapointed! For me lots of animals, great rides for the girls, shows to keep out of the heat, refreshments on tap, and so much more!

I just loved the apes, well we all did. The viewing areas are behind glass as well as open viewing; many of my closeups are are from behind the glass.


How cute is this Orangatan!



Colourful street dancers



Waiting to get wet from a passing roller coaster!





Anna xx

I have 16 copies of Pencil Lines the Book with me here in Florida, and can despatch at a local postal rate :)
If you are interetsed in purchasing a copy, email me at albowkis@hotmail.com and I will forward a pypal invoice to you.

£14.95 + postage within the USA

Back later with a Florida update from Busch Gardens, Tampa. Enjoying a lazy day by the pool.

Hugs
Anna x

We are still here in Florida, costs are spiralling as we learn that we have no "rights" as we are not flying with an EU carrier and AA insurance only cover departing flights from the UK, not returning flights!
To be honest, we all just want to get home.
We have heard that Seaworld/Busch Gardens are offering a free day pass and WDW and waterparks are offering a free day hopper, and free parking to all stranded tourists. Hoping to get our WDW pass tomorrow and we will probaly do a water park, as we are a bit WDW parked out tbh!

Anna xx

Our flight has been cancelled and we will not be returning  to the UK until April 28th-29th .
Scrapping Angels Retreat next weekend has been cancelled and will be rescheduled upon my return.
Our travel insurance, as I am sure is the same as millions of others, will not cover us for a cancellation due to "An Act of God". As you can imagine, hiring a car, accomadation, food and entertaining 2 girls in Orlando is not going to be cheap!

I am hoping to go and get some pictures printed somewhere locally, and buy some glue and do some scrapping!
Anyone reccomend a good/cheap photo printers in Orlando? Do Target do printing?
Also any cheap recommendations for entertaining kids and adults alike??

Hope you are all safe and not do dusty, LOL
Hugs
Anna xxx

Looks like the volcano in Iceland has caused us to be delayed, and it looks highly likely that we will not be flying out Saturday morning!

I am keeping a close eye on the news and our airline; anyone expecting replies from me via email etc, this will be delayed until my return to England.

Here a little Disney love in the meantime!



Hugs
Anna xx

We are here, honest! Just had lots of problems trying to get on line. The weather is beautiful, sun sun sun. Our feet are tired, really sore, but hey, I guess this is part of the Disney experience! I , in typical form am now suffering with a frightful cold and a voice that sounds like i smoke a 100 cigarettes a day, but that may mean i will be well for the retreat!



We are all loving the Disney Magic, and our favourite park by far has been Epcot, and we still have the World Showcase to do yet!( we managed to see Mexico only and that blew me away!)
The girls have loved seeing all the characters and we have bulging autograph books.

A quick post as I am waiting for photos to download.
Hows the weather in Blighty? any thing news worthy to let me know about?

Hugs all
Anna xx

Sharing some sneaks of my layout class I am teaching at the end of the month for Scrapping Angels retreat (places are still available).
This is a fun layout using Nikki Sivils Flaming Butterfly range of papers. Lots of layering, dimension and some flower making and even a little bit of doodling!.

How excited are we at Pencil Lines to be joined by American Crafts and 2 of their Design Team this month!. Last night we kicked off with Elizabeth Kartchner, and I was lucky enough to play with her Dear Lizzy line of papers. I need plenty more, all of the collection, embellishments, ribbon especially, and so on and so on, you get the picture don't you! I am a big fan of Elizabeth's work, her style in scrapbooking, photography and her life! Kinda always looks just so picture perfect....

Here is my layout "Cromer". The photos were from our visit to Cromer last year. I fell in love with the beach huts and bunting that the town was decorated with.


For the digi scrappers amongst you, here is this weeks sketch as a template for you to download for FREE.

Thanks for stopping by
Anna x

We are packed, and ready for the holiday where dreams do come true!
Two very excited girls, one of which cannot wait to meet TinkerBell, autograph books made, thanks to the Silhouette and Bind It All. We are headed to a hotel for tonight and the we are "leaving on a jet plane"

We will be stopping by blogland, so do check back often and follow us all on our Disney World Adventure.

Until next time!
Anna and a very excited family!

The odd thing when working for magazines, is that you work so in advance, that I often forget what I have sent in! But one thing I hadnt forgotton, is that I am now the Scrapbooking Memories (Australia) new sketch artsist, and I have been waiting patiently for what seems like months, for my first sketch to be published!
This week my magazine fell through the door and I love what the design team did with the sketch; a layout and a card each, so good to see the versatality of sketches being exploited.



I am sharing my sketch with you here as well as a free digital template of the sketch for you to download.



Please leave a link below and share you layouts or/and cards for all to see.




Enjoy the rest of the Easter weekend
Thanks for stopping by
Anna x

Congratulations Sonja. Please email me your address and I will post out at the end of the month, as I am on my hols.

Hope you are having a lovely Good Friday. We have finished shopping for bits and pieces for our hols, and the girls are all packed, and I am nearly packed!
Picked up some gorgeous clothes for me and the girls at H&M, wish I had gone there in the first place now. i forget that H&M is only a 1/2hour drive from home, so not far at all.
I am totally in love with their Garden Collection.

I picked up this tunic top 



and this floral dress 



If only I was a 5'8" size 12 and I would have bought most of the Garden Collection, but alas, my lardy size 16 was not available in many of the items I had fallen for!

This I LOVE!


Now I am praying that my dislike for fried food and burger and chips will  mean that I will live on salads whilst away in Orlando and all the walking we will be doing, means I will come back to Blighty a trim size 12!, one can dream on can't one!

Thanks for stopping by, and if anyone has restaurant recommendations in Florida, or any must know info, please leave a comment
Thanks for stopping by
Anna x