A bit more ' Explore'

Thought I had better do a bit of a catch up on my 'Explore' course - I seem to keep running out of time!

My selection of mappy lovliness

Day 3's prompt was first gather together a selection of maps.

So here is what I found after raiding some travel brochures and leaflets, as well as an old school atlas and my road map book.

Then we were asked to cut lots of different size circles, both from the maps and from paper scraps and layer them up to make into embellishments.

Circles and 'map' tag in my playbook

Some more circles waiting to be stuck together

 

 

 

 

 

Circle details

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I loved Mandy's idea of making a tag out of the map. 




This is Mandy's original here  -

her blog is : -  http://6ichthusfish.typepad.com/6ichthusfish/2011/07/making-map-embellishmentsday-3-of-explore.html





Day 4

Day 4 was all about 'Perfection'.

This day really made me think hard and fast about my life and the direction I wanted it to go.

I have always considered myself to be a 'perfectionist'. I get very annoyed if I cannot be the best or do the best which often leads to disappointment and abandoning of projects! I will often take much longer to do something because I always want to do it right not just do it. 

In fact, I am already behind with my playbook/tasks/blog because I had to have just the right maps and just the right postcard (which incidently is too big for my playbook  -LOL! ) and having never done a Shimelle class before I have to keep checking the forum discussions to make sure I am doing everything right.

BUT - there is no right or wrong - I know that - but it's ingrained and going to take a long time to change it !!

So after a shedding of a few tears over my less than perfect life I have written down my thoughts and printed them off. There was too much to put into my playbook and I wanted to keep it private, so I made a little pocket where I have put my ramblings :)

The important bit I will share with you and that is the end, which says :-

Right so focus on the positive -
I am healthy.
I have great friends.
I have 3 wonderful sons whom I adore and they love me.
I get to travel to the USA at least once a year
I live in Cornwall with its amazing landscape - perfect (hey I said the 'P' word) for photographing!
I have a great job - it doesn't pay that well :( but I am my own boss, I can do what I want (within reason) every day, I work from home and I am providing a great service for children whose parents chose to work (or in one case go to the gym and out shopping :)).

The photo I chose to represent something that seems pretty close to perfect in my life is :-

A rare pic of me and the boys together in one photo !!

In my playbook I've backed it with paper saying 'I love you'.