First Scrapbook Layout of 2011

Some of you spotted this layout on my WOYWW post this week. I had started with a sketch from Scrap-A-Little and produced my first scrapbook layout of 2011. My first page for months actually.

Having no new photos to play with has really affected my creativity and I need to get out with my camera and take some more. Unfortunately, I do tend to be a 'fair-weather photographer'!

The layout features photos of DD2 at a Halloween party. The photos are taken from Facebook and had already been put through an ageing process before being uploaded there, so they are not the best to use for scrapbooking. But as I've already said, I'm lacking new images to play with so these were better than nothing!

Using Tim Holtz paper, I drew a large cobweb starting from the top right-hand corner. Some black velvet ribbon, buttons and jewelled brads completed the page. Before I actually saw the photos, my daughter informed me she had dressed as a Victorian Vampire (whatever one of those looks like!), hence the words in the poem I made up instead of having hand-written journalling.

I must admit I'm much quicker making pages with a starting point like a sketch. If I'm trying to make my own design from scratch I can take hours to finish one layout! 

But I'm sure I'm not the only one with that particular problem.

Happy Birthday WOYWW

Spelling

Whilst I’m on the subject of the English Language…. Am I the only person who spots incorrect spelling and grammar everywhere? From menus on boards outside restaurants to job adverts in the window of a temping agency. I don’t mean using text spelling (which is a subject for a Blog in itself!) or even American spelling, but simple English spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. The words ‘there’ and ‘their’ are constantly mixed up, (the writers need to know that a spell checker is not infallable!) and apostrophes are seldom used correctly. Even the wonderful BBC website has spelling errors.

Every book I read seems to have mistakes.- and they seem to jump out at me! Have publishers got rid of proof readers in order to save money? Is there such a profession as a Proof Reader any more? Judging from personal reading experience, I think not.

When spelling is no longer a separate subject taught in schools and phonetics is how children learn to read, it’s not surprising that young people cannot spell. A surprising number of trainee doctors I know write spinal chord in patient notes and on request forms - go check and see if you’ve got any musical notes hidden in your body!

So an ‘old biddy’ like me who had weekly spelling tests at school and can still remember being mortified at getting one word wrong (I always scored 10 out of 10 but on one occasion spelt 'usually' with a ‘y’ at the beginning - I was 8 at the time!), always finds it irritating to read incorrect English. So what? We can all laugh at literal translations from Chinese perhaps which are often hilarious. Or we can use a translation website and make a howling mistake. What does it matter if it’s wrong?

Actually not only is it irritating but it can be bad for business! Today I saw a verse on a new set of rubber stamps which had a word missing from the poem which I happened to learn at school. Again the mistake jumped out at me straight away! It made me sad to see it. It ruined a lovely set of seaside stamps and a lovely poem. Had no-one proof read their work before it went to print? The manufacturer is going to get so many e-mails from people my age pointing out their error, they will soon regret it!

And, no, I haven’t e-mailed to tell them, and I won’t be buying the stamp set either!

(See the correct verse on the photo above)