not long now!

This week has been manic, got xmas plays/ carols concerts coming out of my ears and no time to cook dinner in between...bit annoying as I've not been at all prepared which has meant eating far more crap this week than we would normally. Cant even say we are going to do it properly tonight as its the boys turn to do their singing at school so we have to be back there by 5 and probably not home til 6 ish, thank god for pasta!!! 

however, whilst Elsie slept this morning I did manage to squeeze in a very quick and easy page....

love these pics from when she was eating her very first mince pie on Friday, she really did enjoy it. 

I used paper from lost and found range which was almost ready to go...but as I can't bear to do pages like that I had to add some bits of my own, so the couple of titles went on and a bit of chipboard to show the christmas relevance. 

not bad for a page done in half an hour!

thanks for looking, see you all soon xxxxx

13 sleeps!!!

Good afternoon :)

I must say what a good mood I have been in lately?!?!?! maybe its the christmas spirit finally taking over me?!?!?! I don't really mind what it is as its a good thing.

Im just here today with a couple of christmas pages for you to see.... one that I did off my own back and the other for one of shimelles prompts.

This is my own creation, I started making this at crop on Saturday and finished it off yesterday by adding the 3d baubles, which Im not sure if you can see but they are fully outlined in black stickles, god I hate waiting for that stuff to dry!!! but I think its worth it?!?!?!

never thought that I would use this particular paper for a christmas page but here it is, I think it works well.

the second page is a little different:

This was for shimelles prompt about...you guessed it christmas cards!!!

I NEVER send christmas cards, and inside the envelope is a note that explains why. not cause I'm scrooge, more like I'm very forgetful lol. 

I don't have a photo to explain this so the envelope is in place of it. 

see you later xxxxx

baking day!

Good Morning everyone!!!

I'm feeling really good this morning, rather chilled out and relaxed, but I'm keeping busy at the same time.

Its 10:43 and I have already made a cake, mince pies and cheese straws and I have made some 3d baubles which have been decorated with stickles, just waiting for it to dry before I can finish my newest christmas page.

here is a picky of my mince pies, just to make you all hungry lol

 yum, will be enjoying these a little later with some cream!!! :)

and now back to business, some more scrapbook pages to show you.

Firstly the full class page that I teased you with Friday, it actually went down really well at crop, 8 ladies joined in with the fun and all the pages looked fab. hopefully I fulfilled what I was asked to do and maybe taught them something  new at the same time.

I used some ideas from last months scrap mag, and I took inspiration from one of my pages that I really liked. I included texture by using an edge distressed, the cuttlebug, toothpicks which I painted white, some tutu trim, and some plastering mesh stuff. we also made some 3d objects and crumpled up the floral frame to give it some height. Must say this step was hilarious as it horrified quite a few of the girls, when I told them to screw it up lmao... i did have to help a couple!!!!

my next page is the second in my xmas collection for 2011, and I took inspiration from the first of shimelle Laines, journal your christmas prompts.... it was too make a list of intentions for the festive season, there was also a page which looked very similar to the one I have made, I liked it so much that I needed to scrap lift.

Picture is of a pair of my fluffy xmas socks, I live in these in the winter!!! 

and my last page for now is one I did of the photo I posted on friday, Elsie Moo posing as Rudolph. and as promised it has been titled Moodolph!!

I was unsure of slapping all the red paint on to begin with but just went or it and must say the end result is growing on me. 

The felt reindeer came from a pair of my sons xmas socks from last year, Lola borrowed them when her feet were cold and somehow the reindeer just fell off!!! funny that!!! but he wasn't gonna head for the bin, I stashed him away in my craft bag for the perfect page, don't think it could get any better use than this x

thanks for popping in today, Im currently waiting for some stickles on my 3d baubles to finish drying then I can come back and show you my next xmas page.

hope to see you soon xxxxx

crop tomorrow :)

Evening all....

Very productive day today, been very busy trying to get everything ready for tomorrow.... as its xmas crop day!!! woohoo!!!

Newsletters are printed and ready to go, price list all done and in the folder, class almost finished and looking quite cool even if i do say so myself... want a sneak peak?? you will see it half finished as thats how it went into my newsletter, wonder what you will make of it???

I was asked to do a texture page by Sarah, one of our newest members to crop, so I took on the challenge and my mind has been working overtime as to how many textures I can fit onto the page.... this page uses many things to make it touchy feel.... also as a joke she said she wanted it to be interactive and make noise too, so just for fun.(altho it looks and sounds quite cool) I added jingly bells to it!!! :) very spesh!!!

I will reveal the rest tomorrow after it has been done at crop, i promise!!

Tonight I have more running about to do before I can sit down with a vodka and watch the new Harry Potter dvd for the 99th time.... I do love a bit of HP :)

photo opportunities!

A real quick one tonight, as i should really be bathing the girls and making sure the boys are ready for school tomorrow, but i took some lovely photos today, of the family putting the xmas decs up.

As promised beforehand we are all making more effort this year, so this afternoon we had family time, we did the decs, watched a movie together and then had dinner together, now the boys have legged it off before we make them do anything else with us and not let them play on their computers lol.

I managed to get some lovely pics of all the kids today... actually only a sulky one of Lola so I won't show you that one, but unusually some lovely ones of the boys so here they are:

Elsie with a red ball in front of her nose. it was Daniels idea to do it and to scrap it and title it Moodolph as we call her Elsie Moo

Mike adding some decs to the tree

Dan without a weird look on his face for a change, and instead a lovely smile x

Mike with a very cheeky grin!

And not the kids but just love this pic of my decs, the word NOEL stacked up as we were sorting it all out. 

Oh and just to finish this quick one off... a pic of Elsie moo posing as a kung fu queen!!!

whoops!!
again another [page to scrap, this time probably titled... Kung fu Moo Moo!! :)

Can you tell what we have been watching lately?!?!?!!

I have a page to show you that I finished today but I haven't taken pics yet so I might be back later with those xxxxxxx

happy Saturday :)

Good Morning!!!

And it has been a good morning, Elsie Moo slept all night and having gone to bed at 8 last night feeling rough, I had a really good nights sleep too and feel refreshed this morning.

Good job too as I have a lot to do today.

Lola has been invited to her first friends birthday party and thats this afternoon, so you can imagine how excited she is!!, saying that tho she's already dropped hot chocolate all down the front of her clothes that she was supposed to be wearing to the party and has had to change, so that upset her, but she will have to go as she is lol...im sure none of the other kids will mind what she looks like!!!

Im also waiting for Elsie to wake up so that I can go to my Grandads to see my Aunty Chris and uncle Mick, who have come down to visit...and to make a cake, and maybe do a little crafting and anything else that might need doing lol... 

But whilst Elsie is asleep I am catching up with my scrap back log and blogging... so that I'm up to date and don't get told off by my Aunty chris who is an avid follower :)

This morning I bring you another of my secret pages...sssshhhhh!!! this is the second one from the chinese whispers group that I joined, I received the page to scrap lift on the 1st December and have done mine already, so that on the 1st January I'm ready to post it on

here it is:

When i first saw the sketch I was a bit unsure how i would make it work for me.... but I think this has turned out ok?!?!??!

I was extremely excited to use my brand new papers from Sassafras, they were having a closing down sale so were selling off boxes of their products with 70% discount, I had both boxes, and it took a very long time to get here but it was def well worth it..there was tonnes of lovely stash in there..... yum yum yum

I also used some of the lovely thickets that I bought from my friend Katy, she's very bad for tempting me with them, but I get them at a bargain price, and she gets extra pennies to spend so i guess we are all happy in the end :) alphabets are my most favourite thing ever!!!

I also used the Sassafras pop up flowers, they bend in places so that you get depth on your page, love them a lot!!!!

plus I got to use my Elsie pics from the last post, she's such a clever girl!!!!

right things to do, people to see...catch up with you soon xxxxx

advent!!

so.... I kinda didn't wait for Shimelles first prompt, and as Carole and I were talking via Facebook this morning she spurred me on to get some stuff done , take some pics and scrap away.

We decided that advent would be a good place to start as it kinda kicks off christmas, day one, you open door 1... I usually get myself and Paul a calendar too, but thought  buying 6 would look a bit odd so 4 was enough.

Anyways, I did use a little bit of shimelle for the first page, I added that card that I filled out this morning to my page, it doesn't have anything at all to do with the content but I ilk it on there, and as my album will be purely xmas themed and for this project I didn't think it would matter.

enough chat, heres my page...

As a base for the page I used Shimelles sketch of the week, which I try to do as often as possible, it used 2 pics which was handy as that was what I had printed off and it just all seemed to fall together really well...

I am actually gonna do another page for today, using the real prompt for shimelle, its a little different to what I might normally do but I'm gonna give it a go 

xxxxx

24 sleeps!!!!!

Happy December!!!!

Today the kids were very excited to have opened the first door on their advent calendars, and I think Elsie moo was very shocked to be having chocolate with her toast for breakfast lol.... something I hope she doesn't get to used to :)

Today also brings the start of the new class that I am taking part in... Shimelle Laines journal your christmas. I have had the introduction this morning and am eagerly awaiting the first prompt so I can start.

with the first prompt came a download.... I wont explain anymore because I can show you... we were told to print it off and fill in the gaps, so heres mine

I must have an honest and open moment with you now... despite having 4 children I don't really DO xmas, yes I buy presents and I love watching the kids open them up and be happy etc, and I always cook xmas dinner and make the table look special... but I never really have the xmas spirit.

Usually I have my Nan here, nagging me to put up the xmas decorations and make the house look xmassy for the kids, but this year is our first without her.... so I have no one to give me the extra boost this time. 

So from now on, and especially for my Nan I will be making a conscious effort to be more xmassy, to have more festive spirit, to be happier, and more into the season... because I know what she would say to me if I wasn't!!!! 

I have had tears already for her not being here with us to celebrate and I am in no doubt that there are plenty more to come, but I have to keep going.... if I don't buy the kids xmas presents who will???? If I don't decorate the house and make xmas special for them, who will???  

This year and every year from now on xmas will be for the kids and for Nan because she loved to do it all for them and now I am taking over the job.

To motivate myself a little more I have joined the class above and will be making a xmas album to follow my first proper journey to xmas, I'm hoping it will spur me on to do the things that I might not do otherwise.... and as I never usually scrapbook xmas at all this will make me do that too!!

I wonder what you are doing this xmas??? do you celebrate big?? 

This morning as I awoke thinking of Nan, I decided to dress Elsie in the last outfit my Nan had brought for her. Nan got it in a sale, and was thinking way ahead as she always did... but now i have something to cherish... I took some pictures of Elsie in it for you all to see. 

Elsie making her funny face at me!

showing off her crawling skills, which I am very proud of x 

Using her second word as she points at the camera.... "LOOK!!"

And another just because I like it! :)

I am gonna scrap at least one of these pics to journal about it being from Nan... its gonna be hard as I haven't attempted to do one for my Nan yet, but its something I have to do as I want the girls to remember what a special lady she was and to never forget her. they may not know her like I did but I will show them how much she meant to me and how much they meant to her.

xxxxx

a boy page!!!!

with the boys being older, they don't like their photos being taken so much, and I always find myself scrapping pictures of the girls and hardly any of the boys anymore, so when I spotted a page by Christie on the studio calico Facebook page, that I loved I knew it had to be a celebratory page, and I had the perfect pics from Daniels birthday this year just waiting to be used.

This also tied in with shimelles 20th prompt for the patterned paper party class... and boy do Iuse lots of patterned paper here..... shield your eyes if they don't like madness lol

look at all that LARGE multicoloured bunting!!!

Fab isn't it lol.... the design itself, not boasting about my page lol...

I loved Christies use of paper in this way, I didn't even cut the bunting pieces all to shape, they were very random and if you look closely enough very wonky too lol

the idea behind this prompt was to scrap lift elements of someone else's page but changing it slightly so that it is our own.

I definitely copied the banner element, but Christies had lots of other layering and elements to it, and as you know me, I'm pretty boring when it comes to other bits so I left mine kinda plain as I think on my page, the bright colours say enough xxx

thanks for looking today, hop you've had a good weekend...

Ooooh and we went to see breaking dawn last night, if you are thinking of going to watch it, go... it was AMAZING!!! go team JACOB yum xxxxx

so proud of myself!!!

So I'm finally trying to get back on track with Shimelle Laines classes.... 

todays layout (finished yesterday) was done for prompt 19 which was to use tiny scraps to make a page look special... although this thought was in the back of my mind, for this prompt I was actually more inspired by Shimelles example layouts for it. 

it was a plain white background, with a band of coloured punched butterflies, with the photo mingled in amongst it all... it looked fab. So I took this idea and made it my own.

heres my attempt, and actually I love it!!! :)

I actually started this page with a teeny tiny butterfly punch, and to be hones the punch was a bit rubbish and kept sticking, and the butterlifes were only about a cm wide so it would have taken me forever to do.... but I had this punch of my mums in my craft bag, which I still have from borrowing it on the weekend... thanks mum!

so I decided to use it and use my square punch around it.... then a title came to my head about Elsie being herself etc, firstly I I had actually started this effect by using lots of different pink scrpas from my scrap bag, but when I put it all together it didn't look right, I knew I wanted an odd blue one amongst them so I cut this next...then I chose to find a pink that would compliment the blue, and do the rest the same... and yes this piece also came from my scrap bag. 

I also knew I wanted the squiggly frame around everything and that I wanted the words to have a long trailing tail after them but I don't like my handwriting and was unsure about doing it, I probably would have chickened out had Ali not been here to give me some of my own advice.... she said just do it, if you mess up its just a piece of paper!!! 

thanks Al xxx

I practiced once, and then just went for it and to be honest I'm really pleased with how it turned out. 

so thanks for looking today, let me know what you think xxxx

honest opinions please!!!

Morning!!!

Here is the page that I started on Saturday, its taken me until now to decide if its finished and to stop adding little bits and pieces to it because I am unsure about it. 

It started off as a simple, sophisticated kind of page... with a little splash of paint, but when I got home I felt it needed something so searched the internet for some downloadable mermaids and it evolved from there.

Cartoony things /embellishments are not really my kind of thing, they usually make me cringe but it needed something to make it more for Elsie than lovely for me. so this is what I chose...

I would really appreciate your honest opinion on this one, what you think I should add or take away?? or what I can do to improve it?? I'm kinda tired at looking at it, and altho I love the picture and the subject itself its stopping me from moving on so its time to put it to bed unless you can think of anything???

It also opens up, see where the mermaids hair over laps the edge?? and where the M overlaps also...thats because that lifts up to reveal hidden journalling and an extra picture underneath. 

The journalling explains about her love of the shower, how she loves to play with the water etc etc

thanks for looking / listening I can't wait to hear your suggestions xxx

12 hours of bliss!!!!!

good afternoon ladies!!!

well I survived 12 hours of scrapping, plus 2 hours of preparation before hand and and hour afterwards.... I was knackered when I got into bed at half 11 last night but it was well worth it.

The 12 hour crop went perfectly, a couple of people were unable to attend but those that did made up for their absence. we had good food good company, lots of laughs, it was a great day.

My day started at 5 in the morning when Elsie decided it was time to get up... lovely!!! I then had to sort all the shop stuff to go, my own stash to go, make sure all the food was looking lovely and get that all lined up ready to go. I had to find a secret santa as I had not done mine and thought as the host I had better join in!! 

We got to the scout hut at 8, where we chucked ourselves straight into the hard work, setting up the tables for the mass to join us, setting up shop to look beautiful.. and getting the beef stew and chicken casserole put on so that it had 9 hours to simmer away slowly!! 

We were finished by quarter to ten and good job cause people were already arriving, we started off quiet... it wasn't until 11ish that everyone who was coming had turned up, I was worried that we'd be half empty and all the prep would have been wasted but I wasn't left disappointed. 

I started my class of at 11:30... I was nervous as ever that the 'students' wouldn't like it, or they would find it boring and ugly... but I needn't have worried at all, everybody seemed to enjoy it and everyones looked fabulous, they were all happy. 

here is a pic of the finished page so that you can match up the sneak peaks to the real thing.

This is the page as it looks in my album

And now with the photos flipped... I had told my 'students' to journal on their pulley out bits, so that it was hidden when photos were visible and visible when photos were flipped, as I myself hadn't thought about doing so when I made my own!

It looks a bit bright and mis mashed, but all the elements of the page work together, and as always, I was aiming to teach beginners a technique rather than a finished page, I like them to add their own flare and style to it else I may as well make it for them.

they took away from the class the ability to make a waterfall element without being scared of it and for that I was pleased.

Sue who has only been to the crop twice, loved it so much that she made another one on a smaller scale for her mums album, it was lovely!!!

After that we had lunch and then Stevie from Stampin up came and gave us all a demo and some a hands on workshop, it went down really well... she then loved it so much that she stayed and had some dinner with us and even helped us out with the final judgement for the competition. 

In between helping everyone else I managed to do one page of my own, and start a second one. heres the finished one:

Pic is of Lola in 2009.... wearing my granddads hat backwards, I've loved this pic for ages but never used it... so when I joined a chinese whispers group and got my first page to interpret I found this and took my chance. 

I really should not be posting this page up at all, as in a chinese whispers group you only get to see the layout of the person before you as she sends on a page based on someone else's page every month and you make one up of your own based on the page that you are given. so if anyone else form the group sees this I might be in some trouble. but as I'm new and don't really know anyone there we might be safe for now!!! plus I like it a lot and wanted to share it, willing to take the risk lol

I am halfway through my next page, need to add more paint and more embellishments and I need to move my title slightly as I forgot to allow for the hinge where it opens up!

might be back with that to show you later xxxxx

sewing titles.... am I glad thats over!

Prompt 18 of Shimelles class, a mini book to use up loads of patterned papers.. if you know me you will know I DONT do mini books, they are too small, i can't cope lol so I chose a reoccurring aspect of the mini book and applied it to a page to fit in my album.

throughout the book there were years, sewn onto the opposing pages , I loved how this looked so chose this to replicate. It took a long time and I almost ran out of pink thread but I got there eventually and I think my hard work paid off???

the pic isn't the best, its dark here so there is a glare from my kitchen light, sorry about that x... but at least you can see my sewing bit!!!

pics are from 2009.... don't ask me why I chose them, I just scanned through my photos and they jumped out at me. I think I have done some of them separately but never on a page together, i think it works quite well??? I used a sketch from a site that I had never heard of before called sketch support take a look and see what you think.

also I used another website to choose some colours to match... Its my new addiction, I can't help stopping by there everyday to see if something new has been added and its called Design seeds, try that too, you might get inspired like I did.

The next thing I would like to share with you tonight is a page that Lola did.... when I was painting on my layout below she wanted to paint too, who I gave her the same equipment that I used and the same paints, but I gave her a white piece of card stock as I have tonnes of it. 

she made this:

I absolutely love it, I think it will make the perfect background to a page of her scrapping and making a mess.... having fun but at the moment she won't let me use it, she says she doesn't want me sticking pictures on it because it is hers.... maybe if I hide it for a few days she will forget about it and I can steal it for my album!??!!? :)

I love how she doesn't think about things, I over thing everything that I put onto a page yet Lola, and other kids I guess just do it.... its so free and easy, you can see where she tried to cop a few of my lines around the outside, when she first started out she wanted to make it into a house but soon got carried away swooshing paint everywhere!!!

watch this space to se if I manage to make it my own lol

thanks for looking.... I might go a bit quiet for a couple of days, lots to do to prepare for 12 hour on saturday, but I will definitely be back on Sunday if not before to let you in on all the gossip!!!

xxxxxx

a little teaser!!!

So tonight I am being judged.... or rather my work is.... 

I am teaching a beginners class at my 12 hour crop on Saturday and 7 people have already signed up to do it which is great, scary cause I hate being in front of people...but great that people want to learn something that I want to teach!!

A couple of the girls coming to crop are undecided and have asked for a sneak peak to make their final choices... if they like it they will do it and of not they won't... no pressure there then!!!

I am hoping they do like it.... but the colours are not to everyones taste and they might not like the style so its 50/50 whether they actually will or not, we will see.

here are the sneak peaks that I gave them

I would love to know what you think, and whether these sneak peaks would make you wanna join in or not?!?!?!?!!

a quick update!!

Its been a bit hectic around here the past few days...

Lola has had a tummy bug since Thursday, altho she doesn't seem poorly she can barely eat without needing the loo, docs are on the case and we need to take samples,(looking forward to that bit lots!!!)

Elsie Moo has started to move, I wanna say crawl but she doesn't really crawl, I don't know if its her arm holding her back from doing it properly or if she would have done this anyways but she kind of uses her hand to pul herself across the carpet and her feet to push her forward... so not really crawling but she gets where she wants to be with no problems!!!

This afternoon we have a couple of junior doctors coming to the house to talk to us about Elsie... I was asked by my doctor if I wouldn't mind having a chat with them about how NOT to deal with patients as we had such a bad experience with Elsie when she was born...not just because her arm was missing but because of how they handled it at the time. It could have been done a hundred times better but it wasn't so I guess she wants the juniors to leaner form others mistakes by talking to us to see it from our point of view...

I'm a bit, well actually a lot, nervous about this as I don't know how I'm going to handle it.... I can talk openly about Elsie missing her left forearm, but when I think back to that day I get upset, it was a traumatic experience which I wouldn't want others to go through which is my reason behind agreeing to do this but I do worry what effect it is going to have on me today. I have tried to have counselling for it but I just don't feel ready for that right now, its been a tough year so far and I need to be in the right place before I can talk about all of it openly to a stranger!

So.. anyways... this morning when Elsie went back to bed and to keep my mind off of this afternoon a little bit I did some scrapping, I am really behind on Shimelles class prompts as its just not been the first thing on my mind this week, so I thought I'd try to do a bit of catching up... plus i ahem been really inspired by 2 things over the weekend.... the first being the new scrap magazine called scrap365... it came on saturday morning and is just lovely, full of fresh ideas... just gorgeous... and secondly by the sketchy thursday team again, you can find the link to the sketch I used here... Its for their december challenge but I didn't want to do a gratitude page as I was just really inspired by the sketch itself.

so here is my finished product:

It uses pictures from our bonfire night at Leigh court last week, and lots of shiny, lovely metallic paint!!!! yum yum thanks for looking xxxx

secret secrets!!!! ssssshhhhh.......

Gosh I have lots of secrets today...

Can I tell you.. um no! but I can mention a few bits about it :)

I have been asked by someone to do something special next year, it is crafty and I was extremely overwhelmed and excited and nervous to be asked, I haven't yet said yes as my confidence is low but maybe I will feel better soon?!?!?!

enough said?!?!? I think so :)

Also my other very secret thing is about my class for my 12 hour crop this saturday.... I have finally got around to making a page for it and its not too bad.... for you ladies on Shimelles class, you will have already have seen it!!! ooohhh!!!! so don't tell will ya! :)

It is definitely a beginners class, thats all I can do at the moment... but it has moving bits.... and lots of cutting and a bit of measuring which is unusual for me... nothing over complicated altho the beginners in my group will probably freak about it :)

I can't even post any pics in the unlikely case that one of them might have a looky...which is doubtful but you never know!!!

Right might be back later but right now Moo moo has just woken up...

speak soon xxxxxx

kitty cat

So yesterday didn't go to plan... A friend turned up with a gift for Lola... he had been telling he the other week about the child catcher in Chitty chitty bang bang, so we found clips on you tube for her to watch but yesterday he turned up with the video for her to watch... so yesterday afternoon was spent watching chitty chitty bang bang with Pete and the girls lol.... The poor quality picture and dodgy songs along with the film itself flitting from one scene to the next was quite funny... I must have watched it as a kid, but for the life of me I don't remember it... at least I have seen it now, what was I missing  :)

Fireworks last night was amazing.... everybody clapped and cheered as they exploded one after another and the prettiest ones were those that exploded once into little sections and the the little sections poofed again to make more pretties in the sky, was really beautiful. 

my stupid camera was playing up tho so I didn't get any pics but hopefully there are some on my granddads camera, will upload later if there are any good uns!!!

Elsie surprised us all by loving it all, she didn't even flinch with the loud bangs or anything... Daniel however has a fear of looking up which reared its head again last night..I must look up what thats called and see if we can do anything for it. 

The hog roast was delicious and instead of the promised hot chocolate I had a couple of cheeky vodkas :) and the best bit was that I still lost 3lbs on my diet this week, I'm so proud of myself. little by little I will be skinny ish again lol

so now onto why I'm here.... my page from prompt 15, yesterdays was wrong it was 14 not 13 :) 

the prompt was about us folding paper to make embellishments for on our pages, I dreaded this when I read it, I'm not one for using tacky embellishments usually, or any embellishments if I'm honest lol so this was gonna be a toughy for me.

I knew however that I wanted to scrap Elsies halloween pics so used this as my starting point. I decided to research origami on the net, googles amazing isn't it!!! then I thought it might be nice to do a cat to match the one on Elsies costume. 

I found the most easy and straight forward video on you tube telling you every step of the way how to make a cat, so I did this, and to be honest i like it but wish I hadnt ruined it by drawing it a face!!

anyways here it is:

I used this weeks sketch by sketchy thursday, you'll find the post for it here

I also used my blackboard stickers, I was trying to find something roundish, to put up int hat corner and this pumpkin shaped one jumped out at me!!!

please let me know what you think :)

see you soon xxxxx

part one....

Titled so because I am hoping to get more scrapping done today... which might result in more posts, we will see!!!

firstly... isn't the weather looking disgusting right now?!?!! its dark, I have lights on and its yucky wet.... and on the day that we are all going out as a family tonight to watch the fireworks and have a hog roast at Leigh Court!!! what a bugger!!!!

hopefully it will settle down and cheer up a bit but it looks unlikely..wellies and macs for us all I think, will be fun :)

anyways back to business:

something to brighten up the day... 

Pics of Elsie Moo when she was teeny tiny... hand and feet.. with a close up shot of her face, I got asked once how I take such good pictures and my answer was simple... I get up close and personal to everything, I don't really like pictures with a load of background rubbish, for me if you get in close you get the full attention to be on what you want without having all the disturbance behind. 

its not everyones cup of tea but its my style and I like it :)

The sketch today was from Shimelles class again, prompt 13 I think I'm up to now, and it was all about using smaller photographs than the average 4x6, so this one uses little pics matted together to make a 4x4 square.

I then completely copied Jenny Chesnicks layout as I instantly fell in love with it... loved how she used circles to make her page more 3d but using the same patterned paper to do so... I didn't have a large enough circle punch so opted for squares and rounded the corners, I don't think it looks too bad....

I would love to embellish a bit more but I am so awful at it I would rather leave it plain that add stuff and ruin it, Shimelle needs to do an embellishment class next I think!!! I would be first in line.

hope to see you soon xxxxxx

Busy times!

Its been a busy few days... and there are a few busy ones more to come!

Monday was spent making up a lot of bargain bags for my customers... Basically I packed up my sale papers in bulk and was selling them at a stupid low price..still have some left if anyone reading this is interested!! just let me know :)

the largest were packs of 58 and sold for £14.17... these aren't crappy 12x12's they are lovely branded quality papers including cosmo cricket, basic grey and SEI so well worth the pennies. obviously as I have been selling out of certain papers the pack sizes have gone down but the price also reflects this... like I said let me know if you're interested before they are all gone xxx

Then obviously it was halloween evening... lots os little visitors at the door and for our own a chocolate hunt around the house, a good time was had by all :)

Yesterday we had a girly day, drooped Lola and the boys at school then started our busy day.... council office to sort some stuff, post office to post off one of the kits from above... and then we got to do some xmas shopping.
I added some stuff to my collection and mum got started on hers... Ali was with us so we stopped out for lunch, nothing major I'll have you know, my diet is going very well at the moment :)
and then we got back to it.

When we got home it was time to do the school run again, cook dinner... bath, bed routine and then time to eventually chill out on the sofa, what a long but fun day :)

Today its only 9am and I've already done a load of washing, washed the bottles, taken the kids to school, done the food shopping and now I'm writing this to you.... ooh plus I placed my first order witht he new supplier :) watch this space xxx

when I'm done doing this, I might have half hour to scrap then Im off to get Lola from nursery then we are heading up to Louisa's for the day so that Lola can see her besets friend Georgia and so that I can have a natter with the girls :)

Dinners already in cooking so I'm all good for later, seem to be so organised today, don't know whats wrong with me lol.....

right so now i've nattered about a lot of rubbish time for my scrap page... Im behind again but sometimes life gets in the way eh, this is the page from Mondays prompt which was to make a 3d page with texture in it in some form. I chose to do the first sketch and to add raised banners using foam tape.... I got to use my lovely Lola witch pictures and also my brand spanking new banner punch which I got from stamping up!!! very cool!

here it is:

I ended up (on monday night) sorting out my paper box, trying to find the cloud paper that I knew I had but it wasn't where it should have been... I pulled everything out and then ended up throwing a third of my paper out that I knew deep down I didn't really like too much and was never gonna use... I counted 468 sheets that I didn't want!!!! I was amazed at how much I had actually... and now my box looks a little empty, but on the other hand it is full with loveliness, everything that I am looking forward to using, which is a nice thought.

Anyways I hope you like my page, when I first got the spider paper in a kit last month I was nervous about how I would use it but this seemed perfect (its covered in spiders on the other side lol)

I hope you like it...

anough waffling on from me, things to do and people to see.... catch you all later xxxxxx

Happy halloween!!!

good morning fellow witches :)

you'd think form all of my Halloween phrases that I celebrate Halloween in a big way but I really don't. 

I don't take the kids trick or treating because I don't believe its right to go knocking on peoples doors begging for things, in my opinion thats what it is... and yeah Im probably bonn a get a lot of stick for saying that but thats how I feel! 

I do however let the kids dress up and we always do a chocolate hunt around the house for them so they don't miss out. if we do happen to go out, which is hardly ever, we only visit people we know and  I always check beforehand that they don't mind. I probably sound really weird but with so many odd people around these days you can never be too safe. 

anyway here are a couple of pics of the girls dressed up, we aren't doing anything today so they are wearing them all day lol.... 

bewitching Lola..... posing as ever

and cute kitty Elsie!!

also what I want to share with you this morning is my page from over the weekend.... only one this time as its been a busy one.

the prompt this time related to taking inspiration from ourselves, and using one of the pages in our own albums that we love something about and taking that element on to make a new page. the same as SJ's take one, which Shimelle linked to during the class. 

firstly the page I found in my album that I love:

I don't know why I like this page but I do... I think maybe the fact that I actually like these photos of myself helps, i just think the colours work well too.....

so heres my page taken from that: 

the elements that I too from the first page are the number of photos and that 2 are big and 4 are small.... the rough edges of the backing pp and the wonky mats under the pictures. 

You wouldn't believe how long this page took me, this was the 3rd time I changed my mind on what papers to use, 4 times on how to arrange the photos, it was a bit of a pig. but I'm quite happy with how it eventually turned out.

now to wait for todays prompt... I wonder what Shimelle has in store for us on halloween morning!!

Not liking the clock change!!!

so its..... 7:08 AM on a Sunday morning and I have already been up for 2 hours.

hating the clock changes, We as adults can cope with the extra hour in bed or one less hour sleep... kids however just don't get it. the boys are easy enough to get back on track, Lola maybe not so bad, but a little harder and Elsie is just gonna be a nightmare. she has a routine.... she wakes and sleeps at certain times during the day, and now I have to try and change that, bloody hate having to change the clocks... it messes up everything lol

right rant over, just had to get that off my chest, slurp of tea.... now onto the important stuff!

my next scrap page obviously lol and some news!!!

This is my offering for prompt 11 of Shimelles pretty paper party, if you haven't checked it out already please do, its great for inspiration and only costs £12 for a months worth of inspiring thoughts and ideas!!

It came on Friday and was based around quilting patterns and how to translate from one craft to another. we were given a couple of quilting pattern sites and a few ideas of pages by guest designers but to be honest this is the first prompt I have looked at and not really been into it. if you know what I mean.

It didn't speak to me, I didn't get excited by the prospects of what I could do with it because it was just a bunch of random shapes and pattern mixed up on a page.... not my usual style at all. but never one to pass up a challenge and determined to make the most of every single prompt and piece of inspiration I set about my task of finding something that hit a button with me. 

I finally came across a pattern in the shape of a heart... who couldn't do something with that?!!?! 

I printed it off and found a paper pad in my scrap bag so I knew all the papers would match without me trying too hard, lets face it this was gonna be tough enough as it was! 

then I started hacking at pieces of paper and actually measuring them correctly to make them fit into an 11x11 box that I wanted... this lasted all of about 10 minutes before I got bored and instead of cutting every piece into shape I instead shaped the ends that needed it and the instead of cutting the other end I put it underneath the next bit instead, saved a lot of time and made me happier because I really hate measuring stuff, and like to work more free flow. 

The pattern itself is meant to be in a square shape, as if on a quilt section but I just didn't like it that way, so I cut off all the bits that I didn't like and made it into the heart shape that I liked.  

I had a couple of photos in mind for this project but settled on this one form our wedding day... we were having our only posed photo session (i wanted our photos to be fresh and natural) and were on the stairs of our castle... sounds so posh doesn't it!?!?! Craig our photographer was on the stair case above us and took some great pics from this angle. which I would never have thought about. 

If anyone is looking for a wedding photographer in this area I would recommend him in an instance!!!

anyways.... I wanted to keep the rest of the page as simple as possible as the quilted patchy pattern is mad enough for me lol... I hope you like it xxxxx

OOOhhh and some other exciting news, I signed up with a new supplier yesterday and they do some yummy yummy products which will be coming to my shop very soon!!! :)

this week......

I was so inspired when I watched this fortnights video by Sj take one - part 3

take a look and see how she inspires you.... 

the theme this time was lists.... and she talks about making pages about ourselves for people to remember who we are, and not just about doing pages about the kids.... so I did it... after doing a page for yesterdays Shimelle prompt I thought I would sneak in an extra page and it was this:

I won't say I came up with the idea myself because I really didn't, I very nearly scrap lifted the whole page from Laura Buckingham who is a guest designer for Shimelles class and Laura did this page for prompt 2 of the patterned paper party. It stuck in my head so when I saw the list thing and not liking pics of myself I thought I would give it a go. 

the list tell about all the things I've done this week, as its half term the kids have been home so we have had some cooking fun and some gaming fun and they've had friends over. so its not been a typical week but a fun one.

thanks for looking xxxx

stamping it up!!!

So here I am, back with another page from todays prompt...woohoo I have caught up!!!

Today Shimelle challenged us in 4 ways... this is the first but I loved this so much that I am gonna try and do the other 3 also. we had to stamp to make our embellishments. 

I haven't done so much stamping in ...well ever I don't think but really like how my page has turned out. its really not this yellow in real life, its more natural browns and beiges its just the light in our kitchen makes it look a little odd. 

here it is anyways:

I was very economical with this page... I only used 1 full sheet of 12x12.... as my base paper.

the green grid piece is actually packaging for some rebellious rub on by prima that I bought a while ago, and couldn't bear to throw away the piece of card as I knew I would use it somewhere.

the rest is scraps from my scrap box.... I had originally stamped straight onto the patterned paper but the stamp didn't stand out enough and got lost in the pattern so I decided to re-do it on kraft to make it pop out. and I think it does.

thanks for looking, I'm off to take a look at challenge 2! xxxx

prompt 9

So... I made my soup, butternut squash and carrot, with delicious spices in it and some chilli for kick.... thats all done and waiting for me to eat it all for my lunch...ok maybe not all of it I will save some for mum lol

Then Elsie stayed a sleep for a little while so I got to do my page for prompt 9... it was to use kraft paper and add one colour only to make the layout.... I started off with good intentions, only pulled out a full sheet of kraft and my blue patterned paper scrap bag.... I threw on bits to resemble the first sketch that was given...then when I had to trim one of the makers tabs off it was a beautiful spotted red on the other side and It looked lovely against all the blue and kraft so that got added, and then I added a little more to balance it out... and then finally I found some pics to match with it. 

Im quite liking starting off with no photos in mind, its a new way of scrapping to me but it makes it so ugh easier to chuck a page together and if you don't have a picture that fits perfectly you can always change one to black and white lol.

anyways heres my page:

photos are of hubby and the girls.... journalling explains how the three of them are similar and then goes on to tell how they are both now daddys girls and I am all alone :( lol.... I wonder if it will stay this way forever?!?!?! 

fun guys!! :)

Morning all :)

just a quirky this morning as I'm losing valuable scrapping time, plus I need to make my soup yet for lunch!!!

I wanted to share this page with you from Shimelles prompt 8.... I asked my mum to choose my colour scheme and the sketch from those provided by Shimelle and she chose the ones that would be most challenging to me, thanks mum!!.... I'm pretty pleased with how they came out, and as I chose the photos after I'd done the basis of the page it made it very easy for me to scrap this picture of my Nan and Lola. 

I have shied away from photos of my Nan since she passed away as its really hard for me to do at the moment but as this page was ready, and as its such a lovely memory of her playing with Lola, as she always did... I found it easy. yes I had a few teary moments but I did it... I broke through that barrier and maybe that will allow me to do more now. 

anyways here it is:

Im sorry its a really bad quality picture of the page, the rain is pouring here and the natural light is really bad in my kitchen. 

but you get the basic idea... colours are green and purple, both of which I hardly ever use in my scrapping. and letters are thickets from a studio calico kit.

the mushrooms are my favourite bit, and I actually found these on the net, when I searched for hybrid scrapping mushrooms lol.... they are from a kit that I bought from www.scrapdelicious.com

it was called nature walk and cost me less than £2 for everything, papers, elements, 2 alphabets!! 

Shimelles prompt the other day relating too using printed elements really got me thinking, and now I think I'm gonna use it all a lot more. if I don't have it here for real I can find exactly what I need on the net and its so cheap!!! I think these mushrooms are so cute and finish the page beautifully. 

anyways time to get on, butternut soup unfortunately isn't gonna make itself!!!

have a good day, hopefully see you later xxx

prompt 7

we are now onto prompt 9 of Shimelle Laines pretty paper class and so far I am loving it!!!

here is my page for prompt 7 as I have a little catching up to do:

I have used another picture of Elsie Moo, in her pushchair this time as we were wandering around the lakes at Portishead. She always looks so chilled out with her feet up on her bar!!!

it also uses a sketch of the day and uses SJ's formula for making a page with patterned paper...

1a+1b+3c= perfection!!

here I used 1 large patterned paper - the black floral

1 plain (but edged) paper - the die cut sheet

and 3 small pattern pieces - red star, red edged piece and black photo mat.

I hope it looks ok??

I've been looking at this page for a while and altho I like it... it lacks what I always lack on my pages and thats embellishments.... am thinking Shimelles next class should be about using embellishments lol

thanks for looking