Project Life Week 7

My cunning plan of not waiting round for my SC kit and leaving a note for the postie to leave any parcels with the security guard worked. My kit arrived late on Wednesday and I got my Week 7 pages finished up last night.

This week is a bit different in that I used a 12 x 6 insert for half the week and a WRMK  page for the rest. I didn't like having weeks spread over two pages so this way I am back to a week across a page.

 

I worked with a combination of SC February Project Life kit, Clementine kit and bits and pieces from my stash. This side shows me finally catching a shot of a lion dance in progress. We have been listening to the trucks travelling around the neighbourhood for a few weeks. Scarlett loved seeing it but she definitely finds them a bit loud!

 

The second side of the insert covered Valentine's Day. I made a bit of an effort this year and we had fun celebrating this. I was very spoilt with a Selphy printer which made my gift of a fun coffee mug a bit on the naff side. I bought cake treats for Hubby and Miss S  and one of Tet's colleagues spoilt him with some amazing chocolate. I used a lovely 4 x 6 Elle's Studio page for the bottom pocket and a Creative Bubble printable for the top pocket. I had not realised that the AC pockets in this format had sleeves on both sides so I could not reuse the backs of my first pockets as I had intended.

 

My final page shows a few high points from the week. Lots of great children's meals at a variety of Japanese restaurants seems to be a major feature. We visited the Canadian International School Fair and were very impressed by what we saw there. It certainly gave us some food for thought. Miss Nearly Three and her father finally changed their game of choice at the arcade and were rewarded with three toys on their first day. I rather meanly snapped this photo of MNT in full tantrum after being told that I would like her to at least put some underpants on before she sat on the couch. I am so mean!

Most of my backing pages are from a Pebbles set of 4 x 6 cards which I love. I have borrowed some labels from one of my other SC kits this month too. I really find these little labels useful on pages where I use a lot of large photos.

I am really enjoying this form of memory keeping and my plan to keep it simple has meant that I am managing to do plenty of other crafting again too. I have even had my knitting out again this week.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Sticky Fingers A Stuck! Sketch

 

I knew as soon as I saw this sketch that it would be a great one to adapt to a single photo. I rarely scrap multiple photos or 8.5 x 11 but this was an easy switch.

 Two layouts in a  row without a person's face must be some sort of record for me. I was not intending to have Scarlett's hand in shot but she couldn't resist taste testing my breakfast. Funnily enough she is not an enormous fan of yogurt or pancakes so it must have been the honey that caught her eye.

I used my January  Studio Calico kit and an additional label from Dear Lizzy's Lucky Charm collection. I really like the star washi tape from this kit. I kept it fairly monochromatic with a pinch of pink from the berries on the plate.

Thursday is normally my Project Life day but I am still waiting on my Project Life kit from Studio Calico. I know there are some Valentine's Day cards that I would like to use so I have to wait. So frustrating. I seem to be getting my kits later and later each month.

Just a final thought. Tomorrow (the 22nd) is the second anniversary of the earthquake in Christchurch that changed my city and the lives of my friends and family forever. If you are Australia based, SBS is showing an amazing documentary called When A City Falls that will show some of what happened at 8.30 on Friday evening. I lost a good friend in the collapse of the CTV building so my thoughts will be with Matty and all those others who lost their lives. Kia Kaha Christchurch.

Wordless Wednesday : Doctor Scarlett

 

Scarlett and her Daddy went to a children's playground called The City for some Daddy daughter fun before he headed off to Japan on Monday. This playground is set up with lots of different occupations and workplaces. Scarlett loved being the "doctor who looked after the babies". Thanks to hubby for sharing these precious images with me. He is well trained and came home with over forty photos from their outing!

Sunset

After being really spoilt with hubby home for a couple of months we are returning to the joys of frequent travel. This week he is in Tokyo. He is already complaining about the cold!

In true Murphy's Law fashion, our air conditioning compressors have both stopped working. In fact this happened while hubby was still at the airport in Singapore. Of course I cannot find the number for our air conditioning people. There is going to be some random phone calling of unlabelled numbers in my cell memory later today!

I have really struggled working with my December Studio Calico kits so I have moved onto my January kits and suddenly, with the help of some sketches, the layouts are flowing again.

This layout is from this sketch by Diane Payne for Write Click Scrapbook.

 
 I kept myself fairly strictly to three colours and really enjoyed playing with some new supplies as well as the kit. I had a little spend up on some flat embellies from Amy Tangerine, Maggie Holmes and Dear Lizzy and I have added a little Dear Lizzy and Maggie Holmes to this one in the form of the labels and tickets. I am also working at using up some of my older Thickers and I love these older Amy Tangerine ones. In fact, I have banned myself  from buying any more Thickers until I have reduced at least five sets to xs and js.

I don't get to see that many sunsets where I live. Often they are blocked by buildings and I am usually cooking or eating dinner or putting a certain small girl to bed when they occur. One day last year all the stars aligned and I managed to see and photograph a sunset through the buildings. When we have really amazing sunsets here it is often as a result of forest fires in Indonesia  so although they look beautiful they really are a sad thing to see.

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Listmania 5 A Day in the Life

Welcome to Week Five of Listmania. This prompt is run by the lovely Deb at Home Life Simplified.

 

In true procrastinator fashion I chose Sunday as my day as we often do a few things that are a bit more interesting than a week day.

One of the great joys of our Miss Nearly Three is that she wakes up very early in the morning. The deal is she has to stay in bed until 6 am but there is a lot of conversation and shenanigans in the time between wake up and get up.

  

Hubby is very good about doing the child organising when he is in town, so while he wrangles food and games I get to hop onto the computer and have a look at the latest news from back home in New Zealand. I rarely look at local news sites but I have a pretty good handle on what is happening at home through friends and the web.

 

I am the official barista at our place so I crank out a couple of flat whites to get hubby and myself as alert as we need to be. After a quick breakfast we need to prepare Miss Nearly Three for the first outing of the day - her weekly ballet class.

Miss NT loves ballet more than anything. She loves wearing her ballet clothing and practising what she has learnt in class. She asks almost everyday if today is ballet day. Today the answer was yes!

 One of the great things about ballet is that there is a Starbucks downstairs and parents are not permitted to stay for class. This is our guaranteed time every week to relax, catch up with each other and plan the week ahead. There was not too much joint planning involved this week as hubby is off to Japan for the week!

Sunday is also our day that we usually do some grocery shopping. I do order a lot of our non perishables on line but I like to go and choose my own produce and meat. We were there at opening time at our first stop - Medi-Ya which is the Japanese supermarket in Singapore. You can see the staff lined up at the door greeting customers as they enter for the day. It is a very nice touch.

Pickles

We are finding we are buying more food at this supermarket since my food intolerance issues were diagnosed as there is a lot of dairy free food here. They also have regular food fairs from the various regions of Japan. We tend to eat Japanese food out rather than at home but it is nice to pick up some sweets and treats there.

Second supermarket stop of the day at one of the local Cold Storage outlets. I did not used to shop there that often but they are the only supermarket that stocks lactose free milk near us so they have become a bit of a lifeline. We tend to turn the trolley round the other way so MNT thinks she is driving - it makes for fewer tantrums in the supermarket.

After a brief stop at home to unpack all our purchases we were out in the car again. We no longer have our own car after a change in policy by hubby's work but we have access to a pool of company cars and we use one most weekends. It is a bit of a pain with the car seat but other than that it works quite well. Our next destination is a trial Yogabugs class.

MNT loved the class, in spite of being the only child there. The teachers were very happy with her so we have signed her up for a ten week block of classes. It will make Sunday a very activity filled day but she does not do anything other than pre school during the week so I think it all balances out.

After yoga we head to a new to us Japanese restaurant in the same complex. They have a really great range of kids meals so Miss NT is keen to choose the best one.

 

This was what she went for. Sushi, udon noodles, some battered fish and a yakult. I swiped the biscuits for a treat later in the week if she is crabby when we are out and about.

As always, MNT fell asleep in the car in the way home. Tet had a nap in the car with her and I went up to have a nap in my comfy bed. Sadly Miss NT's nap was too short and I only managed a 25 minute lie down. Still it was better than nothing.

The consequences of not enough nap were quickly visible. After a mega tanty about why she needed to at least put some underpants on peace was restored with the provision of her weekly treat - a cupcake.

Yes she only eats the icing

The rest of the afternoon passed peacefully as MNT watched Beauty and the Beast while dressed as Cinderella. I got on with making a very standard Sunday night dinner of sausages with mash and veges.

Daddy and Miss NT sit down for dinner.

Our cat Poppy has not been very well the last few days. She has had a few hairballs and they upset her. We found her comfortably resting in Miss NT's dolly bed at bed time. The poor dolls  will have to sleep on the floor tonight.

Scarlett wound down with a story app on the iPad before we all settled into my bed with a chapter of the Wizard of Oz. We have been reading it at bedtime for a couple of weeks and she has really enjoyed it. I am now on the look out for another good chapter book to start when we finish this one. I am thinking Roald Dahl's The Twits at this stage.

Sadly, I got a little bit careless with reading my labels last night and managed to eat some butter in my veges. My plans of doing some scrapbooking were instead replaced with some long hours in the bathroom followed by a big sleep.

What a way to end the weekend!

Project Life Week 6

This week has been a bit painful on the creative front. I just haven't had any mojo and the Chinese New Year holiday kicked my behind. I knuckled down today and finished Week Six of Project Life which was dominated by the Chinese New Year festivities at Scarlett's school.

Given Chinese New Year was the major feature of the week I went into my paper stash and pulled out a selection of red and yellow papers to go with the season. It felt good to cut into some papers I have been holding onto for a while. I also made use of some new Elle's Studio and MME labels I picked up over the weekend and some of the last scraps from my January Project Life kit from Studio Calico. I am crossing my fingers that my February one arrives soon.

Some of the features of this week included making home made pizza, breakfasting out in Little India with Scarlett's teacher from last year and purchasing more cars to race down the hallway. Scarlett has been spending a lot of time writing and drawing so that was also recorded. I am in desperate need of some of the Project Life envelopes to store some examples of her work.

Page two is full of CNY festivities from Scarlett's school. We had a wonderful morning with Scarlett trying out a range of traditional activities including dumpling making and calligraphy. Many of the children dressed in Chinese outfits and Scarlett was very proud of the dress and shoes she chose.

I am thrilled with this free CNY printable from Geralyn Sy at In A Creative Bubble. Not only is it beautiful but it also the first image I printed on my new Selphy printer that hubby gave me for Valentines Day. It was much easier to use and set up than I expected. Now I just have to sort out the wireless printing and I expect my Project Life will be revolutionised.

We do not have much planned this weekend. We might head out to the Canadian International School fair on Saturday and of course we have ballet on Sunday. I am hoping to record a day in the life of us on Sunday. I hope I remember!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Blog Your Heart February Edition

I always get excited about the opportunity to take part in Stephanie Howell's Blog Your Heart. I suggest you check out Stephanie's original post  and the linky at the bottom. It is always an interesting blog hop.

There are a few things to keep in mind with this post.

1. blog whatever is authentic. whatever is truly on your mind and in your heart.
2. it can be serious, silly, short, long. note:no one said it has to be serious. but it should be authentic.
3. no judging allowed no snarky comments, no making fun, no passive agressive digs.if you are going to read the blogs linked below, don't be mean. nothing here is whining. it's me honestly sharing my feelings. if you feel that it's whining, then you don't have to read. :)

Stephanie always reads and comments on every entry which I find amazing as there are usually a lot of participants.

I decided to go back and have a look at my last BYH post and was surprised that there are some things the same and some things that have totally changed.

1. I am so grateful that I have a proper diagnosis for my stomach problems. Lactose intolerance is manageable although it does mean eliminating almost all processed foods as lactose is everywhere (in ham or chicken flavoured chips anyone?). It does mean we are eating better as a family although I do have to make sure that Scarlett gets enough calcium in cheese and other dairy products when I don't eat them myself.

2. I have baby fever again. More friends have just had babies and my best friend is having her first in July. I don't feel like our family is complete with one and I know Scarlett would love a sibling. I watched her looking after some of the younger girls at a school event last week and she was so gentle and sweet with them. However, my stomach issues are an ongoing delight and I am nearly 39 - not exactly the best time to be getting pregnant. I wish there was an easy answer.

3. The importance of sleep cannot be over emphasised. Scarlett is going through a very needy phase and this extends to being unable to spend an entire night in her own bed even if we move her bed into our room. Three in a queen bed is never comfortable and her father and I are really starting to struggle with the lack of quality sleep. Surely she won't still be wanting to sleep with us when she is five!

4. I detest children's parties! Scarlett turns three this month and we have promised her she can have a party. We looked into having one at her gym but when we tallied it all up it was going to cost over a thousand dollars! She is three! So it looks like a more intimate gathering at Build A Bear is on the cards. We do not have space where we live to have a party at home sadly. Hopefully we get out of having a party next year!

5. Scarlett has just started five day a week pre school so the pressure is on to go back to work. I really do not feel the passion for teaching that I once had. I would be much happier doing some sort of office work but I need the holidays and flexibility that teaching offers. I think maybe subbing might reignite the passion. I wish I could find a way to work from home.

6. It looks most likely that we will be staying in Singapore for the time being and that has made me a little sad. I love living here but I also liked the idea of a change of scene. I have struggled to make friends here and thought a new start would offer a clean slate. Sadly the offer in Bangkok is not that great and professionally Tet remains unconvinced that it is the right move for him. If we stay here we are both looking at ways that would make a transition back to New Zealand possible. 

7. I am having doubts about raising Scarlett here. In so many ways Singapore is wonderful for her but we have no backyard, no playground within walking distance and she already has to bus to pre school. If we were back home she would have a yard and a dog and walk to school. We could be part of a community whereas I feel very much alone in our little family bubble here. She is such a flexible girl and open to anything and I know she is happy at the moment. Trying to work out what will be best for her in the long term is really tough.

8. I love scrapbooking. It is the one thing that can calm my mind and make me appreciate all the good things in our lives when times are hard. I am keeping up with Project Life so far this year - I know we are only six weeks in but it make me happy to see our everyday life recorded.

9. I made the best decision ever when I married Tet. He is such a caring, considerate, loving husband and father. He works so hard to keep all three of us happy and healthy and although he occasionally drives me crazy I wouldn't trade him in for anyone! 

Making dumplings for CNY at S's school

Thanks for reading.

Listmania: Jobs I have Had

 

I am getting such a buzz from the weekly Listmania run by Deb at homelifesimplified.com.au. This week's topic is all the jobs I have had!

I was actually quite surprised how many jobs I have had when I sat down and thought about it. That sounds terrible but lots of them were holiday jobs rather than me changing jobs rather too often.

My illustrious career started delivering junk mail at age 10. I really wanted some extra pocket money but it was slave labour. Huge numbers of pamphlets to deliver for a very low return. I didn't last very long at that job as our family moved back to Singapore. It was a lucky escape.

As an expat child I could not legally work in Singapore so apart from the odd very lucrative baby sitting gig I did not work again until I was 14. The rules relaxed and the government allowed expat kids to take summer jobs. My first summer job was working at Burger King for the princely sum of $2 an hour. I worked the morning shift so I started work at 6 am and finished at 2.30 pm. I really enjoyed working there in spite of the low wages. At that point we had 10 weeks summer vacation and it was tedious staying at home. The following summer I picked up a job at a local supermarket working the deli counter. Apart from losing half a finger nail in a meat slicer accident it was a great job and my pay went up to a staggering $2.50 an hour.

These jobs were a means to an end and I managed to save enough for a return flight to London over those two summers. I had a deal with my parents that if my GCSE marks were of a certain level that they would give me spending money if I funded the ticket. Off I travelled to the UK and Paris for three and a half weeks at the age of 15 - flying Air Czechoslovakia no less! I still marvel at my parents letting me go but it was a wonderful trip and I did stay with friends interspersed with B & Bs.

I then returned to Boarding School in New Zealand for the last two years of school and did not work at all. I did not work my first year at University either but soon realised that a job could be very useful so I got a part time job at a local bookstore chain. It still rates as one of my favourite jobs - I worked with a great team, got great discount on books and I learned a lot both about customer service and how much fun work could be with the right people. I stayed there until I left Uni.

My first job out of University was working for the Department of Statistics processing the census. It was interesting work and the hours of 3 pm to 11 pm suited me as I could sleep late and get to the shops and bank during the day before starting work. I worked with my then partner and several friends from my school days so it was quite a fun job if a tad high pressured at times. It also made me realise that it was not the kind of job I wanted to do forever and I returned to school to train as a Primary School teacher.

I worked as a teacher for nearly seven years. I always taught Year 3 and 4 which is 7 to 9 year olds. Initially, I taught in a small rural town before heading to the big smoke of Auckland and ultimately getting my dream job at an international school back in Singapore. It wasn't a dream job but I did love being back in Asia and after changing schools spent a wonderful 3 and a half years there.

I returned to New Zealand to get married and needed to get a job (and fund the wedding). There were very few teaching vacancies so I applied for a job at an insurance company. I figured I would do it for a few months until I found a teaching role. Instead I discovered that I really enjoyed it. I took all my exams and after moving to an insurance brokers I really found my niche. I worked in insurance until I went on maternity leave and had my daughter, a period of seven years.

I am on the cusp of starting the job hunting process again now. My heart wants me to go back to insurance - I love the helping people aspect but my head says teaching makes more sense. The holidays, shorter days and flexibility of hours if I am supply teaching all work better with looking after my daughter. I really need part time work and I think supply will be the easiest way to obtain that. I am a little anxious about retunring to the workforce after three years out and a decade out of the classroom.

What was the worst job you ever had? I would love to see your list.

Happy New Year to those celebrating Chinese New Year. We attended a party at my daughter's school and indulged in calligraphy, dumpling making and even made fire crackers out of red packets. What a great range of activities to share with the community! 

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Project Life Weeks 4 and 5

Well, I have finally managed to catch up my Project Life and am feeling a lot happier. Getting one weeks worth of photos together at a time will be a much simpler process.

Week 4 was dominated by our trip to Bangkok. If it looks a little like a playground tour of Bangkok you would not be wrong. We found some good ones!

The bulk of page one was the early part of the week at home in Singapore. It includes Scarlett's current favourite game of campout complete with toasting marshmallows, Chinese New Year decorations and beautiful fresh flowers from the market. The final photo is one of me that hubby took on our first morning in Bangkok. Quite nice to be caught in the act!

These pages are a real hotch potch of supplies including the January Studio Calico Project Life kit, SC stamps, cut aparts from an SC exclusive paper and some scraps of paper from last years kits that were just begging to be used for something.

All these photos with the exception of Miss S being nearly at one with the television are from Bangkok. The lovely image in the centre bottom slot is actually my day pass for the BTS train system. I thought it was a beautiful picture of another side of Thai life that was in no way evident in Bangkok itself. Poor hubby had a cold from the moment we left on Friday afternoon until we returned home on Tuesday when it promptly disappeared. He looks pretty unwell in the shot from the aeroplane. I love the photo of Scarlett returning the wai or greeting to Ronald McDonald as we walked past the local branch. 

Week 4 was so jam packed with excitement that I added an additional page. We stayed in an amazing apartment complex that we would happily live at. It had a beautiful pool, outdoor playground and an enormous soft play indoor playground. Scarlett was in heaven. The pool was on the 7th floor of the building so had lovely views of the city and a number of beautifully fragrant frangipani trees to make it all seem that much more resort like. The top right photo is from a really wonderful Japanese restaurant we ate at in Bangkok. I loved the decorative ceiling and the food was very good too.

Week 5 started in Bangkok and ended back home in Singapore. We had a bit of a wait at the airport which we spent looking at the Thai art and having breakfast at Starbucks. Scarlett got into the swing of moving overseas by organising her animals into an international move, complete with passports. Poppy was not that pleased to see us on our return as our cat sitter is way nicer than we are! Lots of journalling here trying to get all our thoughts about the move down on paper.

The latter part of the week was dominated by Chinese New Year preparations. We have a CNY party to attend at school tomorrow so Miss S had a lovely time trying on a new cheongsam and embroidered slippers for the occasion. I will be taking lots of proper photos as she looks adorable in them! Tet's work also had a traditional gathering including tossing the Yu Sheng salad for good luck in the year ahead. They also had the Singapore standard of chilli crab which was delicious I have been told. The week is rounded off with some fun painting with Scarlett teaching Daddy how to finger paint. I also added a little about our ongoing sleep issues with Miss Nearly Three. It isn't all beer and skittles and I think my Project Life needs to reflect that.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at a little slice of our lives through the Project Life lens. I am really enjoying being back on the bandwagon. This is such a wonderful record of our lives. I cannot wait to start my Scarlett baby album using the  baby kit I purchased a while back. I promised myself I would not start it until I have finished my December Daily though.

Right, I am off to order a tutu for the upcoming birthday celebrations. Someone is ballet mad and I know she will love it!

Layouts and Learning

You may recognise the photo in the layout I am sharing with you today. It was my Wordless Wednesday image from last week. Sharing the photo prompted me to actually print it out and create a layout using the photo. I love it when my creative urges work in tandem like that!

I just love this Amy Tangerine paper. I keep saying I don't use much pink which is starting to suggest to me that I use a lot more than I think I do. The pink does match one of the colours in Miss S's leggings so that was enough for me. I used some scraps from a previous layout to layer under the photo. I also added a couple of journalling cards - the ampersand is from the SC Project Life kit and the hidden page clipped under it is a Creative Bubble printable.  I then threw in some vellum die cuts from Studio Calico and a glittery title from the Christmas Add On and called it pretty much done.

I have just started a blogging course to help me organise my blogging process a little better. It is run by Melissa at Momcomm. I do have a vague plan of how things work here but I think the time has come to be a little more focused. I have even set up a twitter account for the blog and when I figure how that all works I will be sharing it with you. 

To be honest, I am feeling a little overwhelmed by the course as some of the people taking part are serious bloggers with huge followings. I am not sure if my little spot in the blogging community is grand enough to be taking part. I have learnt a huge amount already though and I can see some ways that I can improve the blog.

As always I would love to hear from you, my kind readers. Are there things you love or loathe about this blog? I really would value your feedback.

By the way, Geralyn has some gorgeous new printables up this week. I especially love her new neutral set but the Valentines ones are also very cute.

Happy Wednesday!

Summer Holiday Starting Point

Good morning. We are on Day Two of Miss Nearly Three going to school four days a week. She was full of the joys of school when she got home yesterday and couldn't wait to go and see her teacher this morning so so far so good! She will be making the switch to five days in a couple of weeks provided she isn't totally exhausted. At that point I guess this mother needs to start thinking about a proper job.

Being in denial about the future is one of my favourite mind spaces and what better way to ignore stress than by looking back on a recent summer holiday. Shimelle has been on fire lately with loads of wonderful sketches and a starting point. I couldn't help myself and pulled out one of the few photos I had printed from our recent trip to Phuket to give the starting point treatment.

This starting point was simple and I wanted to make the most of the patterned papers I had already cut into from my December Studio Calico kit so it looked like a good way to do it.

Here is my take on the starting point: 

I forgot to take a picture until after I had adhered my photo to the layout but you get the general idea. The background paper and all the blocks and strips are from 34th Street kit and the Murray Hill and Kris Kringle add ons with the exception of the shorter green strip which used up a last scrap from the older Central High kit. The picture is of my daughter and sister at our morning banana pancake hang out right on  Bang Tao Beach in Phuket.

I have been looking for a layout to use the Smile tag from Dear Lizzy for quite some time and this photo seemed to be the right fit. Once I added my title and journalling there really was not much need for a lot of additional adornment. I am still not entirely happy with the Just Add Water sticker and it may disappear from the layout before I file it. I will give it a few days before I decide.

This photo makes me want to plan a beach getaway pronto. I will I think, as soon as we know where we are going to be!

I hope to have two further weeks of Project Life up on Thursday. Week 4 has turned into a 3 page spread so it is taking a bit longer than I intended.

I am off to have a first attempt at making Chia Pudding. It sounds delicious so I hope it turns out OK for me! If anyone has a favourite chia recipe I would love to see it.

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

Listmania Three: Crushes

 

It is Monday so it is time for another list and this one is a goody. Celebrity crushes then and now. We all had them and now I get to embarrass myself by sharing them.

I was a tween/teen in the 80s and early 90s so my crushes are very much a product of that era.

My great love during this time was Morrissey. Yep, that depressed Mancunian had my heart. All that teenage angst and affectation was just what I needed.

source: myspace.com

The second great love of mine from this period was Dave Gahan, the lead singer of Depeche Mode. This is the band that got me through the horror that was boarding school and his amazing voice is still something I cannot get enough of. I have to admit though that I was horrified to find him starring in a VW commercial recently.

Source: german.fanshare.com

I was pretty keen on Jon Cryer from Pretty In Pink. Not such a great fan of his work in Two and a Half Men but back in his Ducky days I thought he was lovely.

source: legendsrevealed.com

These days I think my tastes are a little more mature and possibly more eclectic.

I adore Alan Rickman. Not so much from his Harry Potter role but more from the English movie Truly Madly Deeply. It is all about his voice. I could listen to him read the phone book and be perfectly happy. I prefer him without the dodgy mo though!

source: ellie-red.blog.cz

Brandon Flowers from The Killers will always have a place in my heart. I love his voice and I have always enjoyed seeing him perform live. I even went to Vegas to see them! He just seems like a nice guy and I like to see them doing well.

Source: en.wikipedia.org

Finally, I am rather taken with both Benedict Cumberpatch and Martin Freeman in Sherlock. Such an excellent drama and there are aspects of both characters and actors that I find really appealling. Cannot wait for Season Three to come out. Luckily I have both seasons on DVD so I can enjoy the quality drama and actors whenever I like!

Source: digitalspy.co.uk

I have had fun thinking about this topic. I ended up using google images for my pictures and am aware that is not entirely the best way to do things but after spending the best part of two hours trying to track down sources it was the only way to get pictures up. It gets a bit tricky this blogging lark.

I cannot wait to go and check out the other lists this week. Such a fun topic! I would love to see your list too either on the listmania linky or just in the comments.