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