birthday surprises!!!

WOW is all I can say about that!!!

yesterday was amazing.... I have such brilliant, loving special friends, each one caring, generous and all for me.... too much to take in in the space of 6 hours, a bit over whelming but perfect with it. 

I had lots of birthday cards..... some handmade by my talented friends obviously..... lots of jewellery, which I love!, 2 humungous... and I mean massive bunches of flowers which were delivered by 2 different florists.... really lovely I also received balloons galore, vodka and chocs ,yum yum,  an amazing frame with everyones comments and wishes on it that was at the crops...and some that werent at the crop yesterday(lots of planning went into it!) 

and also a basket full of 30 things that I love all put together by my best friend Ali...she must love me millions for the effort that she went to to make yesterday a surprise and with so many gifts for me. I love you too babe, millions!!!oh and Ali also made a fair few cupcakes which went down a treat!!!

here is a pic of a few of my fabby crop friends..... this will be going in my new signature frame to remind me of the fun day I had on my 30th x

arent they beautiful!!!!

so anyways.... I did manage to do some crafting too whilst being very aware of things going on around me and paranoid at the same time.... I am still trying to play along with Shimelle Laines cyber crop weekend and I must say im loving, really loving all of the challenges that she has come up with....if you read this Shimelle...you are a star!!!!

It has inspired me loads and it even had me up at 2:30 am saturday morning sketching out a page on my ipad cause I didnt want to forget it!

here is the page in question which I put together for the second challenge which was to use up stickers from different ranges, I htink I can safely say I did that!

and also linking it into my big picture class lesson for this week, I thought about the page and how it comes across to people just taking a quick look and the elements that go into it..... so heres my page followed by the analysis...

so the 4 lines around the outside..... to me represent my children who I talk about in the journalling.... 2 thicker lines around the outside for my 9 and 10 year old boys and 2 thinner lines protected in the middle to represent my 3 year old and 5 month old girls.

then the coloured z's not only represent sleep...but I thought the bright colours also stand for the colourful almost lifelike dreams that I have. 

I had great fun with this page and I actually like it a lot, I hope you do too.x

so now onto the second layout of the day...also a Shimelle challenge. this one was to start our own page from a preset starting point that Shimelle had set, we werent allowed to choose pictures or anythign until getting  to this particular point in the page so I went for it. it was really hard for me as I always start with photos first but there were papers in my new studio calico kit that I really wanted to use so I used those and flowed from there. here is the outcome of that challenge.

 its a special page for me as the journalling tells how proud I am of Elsie for getting to grips with her little arm. she is now using it to help do things, in this photo she is using it to hold her rusk in her mouth.... such a proud and heart wrenching moment for me at the same time. she is such a quick learner and a very smart girl. she is gonna go above and beyond my hopes for her.

thanks for looking and Shimelle...thanks for the inspiration. xxxxx