its snowing!

Which I hate because it is cold and wet and I have to go to the doctors again this morning..... but if it pitches I will love it because it means lots of photo opportunities :)

anyways, I'm back this morning with a couple more pages to share with you from my working through the pencil lines sketch book!

this first i am unsure about.... the pictures are from our holiday 2 years ago. we visited a sea life centre and ran into their mascot Ali the Alligator as we were about to leave. 

I hate these stupid things that dress up, I know they are people inside but they still freak me out lol but Lola loved it.

The large rainbow flowers are part of a pack that I got from Sassafras when they were clearing their stock... I like then but not sure they look right on here??? and also I'm unsure if I should make the curly chipboard a darker colour??? what do you think???

  

This second one is much more simplistic and my style. 

The only embellishments i have added are the gems along the bottom which hopefully tie in with the diamonds in our rings. I'm not sure if its too empty tho?? lol bit of a funny one.

would be grateful to hear what you think

xxxxx

like a kid with a new toy!

Afternoon.... 2 posts in one day, wow I am spoiling you, or boring you lol

just a quirky as this morning my lovely post lady brought me a parcel from Anna Bowkis. the pencil lines sketch book!!! as pencil lines has unfortunately had to stop running :( they have reduced the books down in price to £9.95 including postage...BARGAIN!

so I thought it would be a nice idea to get one for my ladies at crop as some of them are a little unsure of themselves and these sorts of things always help. whats extra special about the book is that it explains how you can use sketches to help you scrap...this may sound odd to people who use them a lot but if you are relatively new to scrapping sketches can be daunting. the book explains that you can make it your own, you can turn it upside  down if you want to, or flip it over, or add a photo as you are creating something for your album.... you need to make a sketch work for you!

anyways..... me being me like a kid in a blooming candy shop couldn't wait to open it up and get started so here is the first page made based upon the first sketch in my new book

the photo is of Elsie moo making her funny face at my cousins house before christmas.... Ive pinned a lot of grey and yellow pages lately so its obviously a colour combo that I'm drawn to so I decided to do one of my own.

also note the wash tape..... yum yum!!!!

see you soon xxxxxx

nerd herd!

so Pinterest strikes again!

am loving the inspiration that pours from that place, you can't look without staying at least 10 minutes (but usually more) to see what everyone else is pinning. or for searching for something u need!

the page I'm about to show you, as well as being inspired from something i found there , is also inspired by Shimelle Laine and her Glitter girl post from this week. she talks about embellishments and grouping and layering, and as I'm rubbish at adding stuff it seemed a good place to start.

I have blanked out the face of Mikes friend as I asked for permission to show it but haven't heard back yet. this picture was taken last night after they got back from the cinema. they watched monster in Paris in 3d and naughtily stole the glasses, took the lenses out so they could be nerds!!!!!

they were quite happy to pose for a picture and found a calculator to make themselves look even more nerdy. did make me chuckle. hence being scrapped straight away.

by the way i have a new obsession...... wash tape! loving it and obviously need more, so expensive tho!!!!

right off to play with the girls.

see you soon xxxx

a little less of me!!!

Good morning everyone!

and yup its a very good morning here as its my weigh in day ( I do weight watchers at home) and this week I have lost another 4 lbs...... bringing my total to albs in 2 weeks. I am a happy bunny indeed, thats almost half a stone you know lmao.

If you have a Pinterest account check out this idea I found, if you don't have Pinterest, I'm not sure if you can view it or not but its basically 2 glass jars one says pounds lost and the others says pounds to lose. 

You use glass pebbles and start off with how ever many you aim to lose in the pounds to lose jar and as you lose them week by week you swap them to your lost pounds jar.... how cool will that be to see your weight loss changing in front of you, very motivational i think. so I aim to get that going this week.

will post piccys when I do!

Now onto the important stuff... scrapping!

I have done a few pages this week but couldn't post any because either my scanner didn't like them or my mac stitched them together wrong (so not helpful) so I pinched my mums little camera for a bit so I can keep you up to date.

heres the first:

I used some of the pictures my Grandad took on our day out to Cadbury Garden centre, when we saw father christmas and went ice skating. I wanted to put them all together to show what a fun time we had together. 

The sketch came from scrap365 mag and is actually their sketch challenge for the month, I don't think I'll enter it tho as I'm not over the moon with how it turned out but its another one in the bag!!

the second:

Using a picture of Daniel (very rare that I get one these days)

you will see last time I posted everyone else appeared in my pages somewhere but not Dan so I wanted to do one of him to balance it out a bit. 

This is a photo that I got a week or so before christmas, and for once he wasn't pulling a stupid face or trying to hide. Thats why I called it reasons to smile, he had a few lol.

Love these numbers tags that came in my studio calico kit last month and have been waiting for a chance to use them so this list format gave me great opportunity.

Oh dear just noticed the R from reason has fallen off...dont worry I will find it and it should definitely not read Eason!!!! lol

The circle border piece was left over from a page I showed you last time, with the half circle at the bottom, and you see the ferris wheel bit at the very top??? that is actually packaging that came with my studio calico kit.... if they send you say free delivery reminders, or tell you that something is gonna be on sale, they always always print something lovely on the other side and I always always keep them to use on my pages..... like a little bonus every month lol. and altho ferris wheels have nothing to do with christmas or daniel, I just thought they are something that usually make people smile so it was ok to use it. thats how my crazy mind works, as i can't use something when it doesn't connect in some way lol.

now onto my third:

first some background info: 

Wednesday has officially become my day off, or half day off if i have to get shopping as my Mum is now having the girls on the afternoon for me to get Elsie A.K.A Mini diva.. a chance to get used to being away from me sometimes.  after the horrid experience at crop last time things had to change so hopefully this is a step in the right direction! 

anyways.... I was having a bit of time to myself this Wednesday and ended up on Facebook, as you do trying to find some inspiration to scrap, I ended up talking to Carole who firstly introduced me to the world of Pinterest, naughty naughty.... and then she very kindly chose a page from her collection of pins for me to scrap lift.

the original is here 

I was originally upposed to be doing a snowflakes page so that I could enter a competition on a blog , but as i used all of my snowflakes on my other page i had none left to add, so completely changed the theme up.

This picture is of Lola and Paul's dad, and was taken at our wedding. so thats how long its been sat in my box. was so pleased to finally use it, and it also gave me a good excuse to use these new papers that mum had got me that morning.... they are called Portabello road by paper mania, its a real 'rule Britannia' pack of papers, all red, white and blue, lots of flag prints but all made pretty. 

Must also say that my tub of flowers hasn't seen the light of day in a very long time so they were quite pleased to be opened up and used lots for this page, its been a while lol.

so thankyou to Carole for kicking my butt into doing something that day, even tho you were the reason that I didn't move all afternoon afterwards. Pinterest is very very addictive!

Right its now 7am and time to get the male species of this house up. us girls have been up for an hour already!!!

have a good day everyone xxxxxxx

little update!

Morning, hope you're having a very lazy sunday, after all thats what they are for!

Im gonna try and keep up to date with this blogging malarky, especially for my Aunty Chris :) so today I am showing you a couple of pages that i've done over the weekend. the first is with a picture of Elsie from our trip to Cadbury garden centre, before christmas. 

we took the kids to see Santa and also had a great time ice skating afterwards. obviously elsie was too small for ice skating so she had to be wrapped up really warmly to stay outside with mum and my grandad to watch us make fools of ourselves. 

My grandad took this picture of Elsie whilst she was sat in her buggy, patiently waiting.

I was really not intending to do this with the page at all..... I was going to copy a sketch from the new magazine scrap 365... you can add their blog and webpage to your iPad!!! worth a read, and the mags so far have been full with great ideas so worth a buy too!!!

however, I wanted to add 'mush' (my technical term) to the sides, but once I did that with kitchen towel and misty ink, I didn't like what else i was going to add on top so had to change my design. 

I thought the edges of the 'mush' needed definition so i used the lid out of the mister bottle with the stick on the end to trail the red around the edges. shows how much the colour changes when its more concentrated. 

Even after that was done i still wasn't happy so remembered the heart template that I had in my messy bag so just went for it. 

Its not at all my usual style, and I'm not 100% sure I like it but its finished, and I'm not touching it anymore. Paul thinks it needs more but I'm done messing with it so its off to my album before I really do mess it up.

My second offering for today is using pictures of Elsie and baby olivia, from their meeting at the christmas Lollicrop. they were born only 2 days apart and have only seen each other a few times since then. this is the first time they have been together in months and the difference in them was amazing. see for yourself:

the first thing we all noticed was the size difference. Elsie is massive compared to Olivia, yet Elsie is the younger of the 2. 

I guess having a 6ft 4 dad has an impact on a child lol. 

They were both very nice to each other tho, and altho both were very inquisitive about each other they were  good girls. 

The layout idea itself came from Shimelle Laines blog. and her very first craft along project.

find it here 

I didn't do it exactly as shimelle did, but I'm pretty pleased with the results. 

thanks for popping in today to check it out. see you soon xxxxxx

PS.... I almost forgot to say... if you do check out the scrap365 website, go to the events tab along the top, and search through the crops list!!
I have added lollicrop to their listings, very exciting lol

Honey I'm home!!!!1

Wow thats been a long break away....

a month without me, must have been heaven lol, I have been intending to update my blog before now but things have happened, you know how it is.

I have had to send my beloved camera into be repaired, I can no longer cope with the hassle of having to add on the external flash, and changing the battery every time I want to take one photo. its getting a bit boring, so off it went this week and I'm keeping my fingers crossed it doesn't cost too much to fix....

second on my list of things going wrong and breaking is my scanner / printer..... I was going to scan in my newest pages to show you instead of photographing them but when I switched my printer on that wasn't working either, so I am currently awaiting a replacement one.

Im waiting on a third thing to go wrong, always comes in threes, just hoping it won't be something that costs me too much!!!

so anyways they're my excuses for not being able to post my pages lately, that and I hadn't really done much until my crop this saturday. Christmas is a big run up, a tiring day and then weeks to get everything straight again, but finally we are there and life is getting back to normal. If things ever were normal around here????? lol

so heres my first page:

I started this one on new years day.... I was having a bit of a rough day and so made a a list in my book of all the things I wanted to change in my life..... then I was tidying my pig sty of a bedroom and found my december studio calico kit, so from that I made this...or at least started it.

I didn't use anything that wasn't in my kit and have not used a picture, I'm getting better at these sorts of pages. I highly recommend limiting yourself to stash you can use on a page. it makes us think clearer and allows us to use things that we may have overlooked for something more in fashion, or that we are more comfortable using. especially if you get a pre made up kit form someone else as they tend to group the kit so that most things in it will come together in a really nice way. 

If you don't get a kit then do it yourself, throw some stuff that you like together in a box, include embellishments, alphabets and of course card stock and patterned paper and go for it. see how many pages you can create from one box of stash. 

now for my second page:

another naughty sneak peak I'm afraid..... this has been made for the chinese whispers group that I'm in and so is a copy from a page that I was sent on the first of January. I must say altho it has its core ingredients, it actually looks nothing like the original that I was sent, but I guess thats what its all about.

The page itself is about Michael and how he loved his kitchen experiments kit that he got for christmas but was most excited about wearing the goggles lol. as you can see my camera was playing up whilst taking these pics resulting in uneven lighting but I still loved the one of him putting the goggles on so I just used it.... embracing imperfections I think its called!

I did this one at January Lollicrop, I had already received my january studio calico kit so I put decembers and januarys together and only took that as my paper stash. I did take other embellishments but must say I did mainly use things just from my box. its really liberating I can't go on about it enough. the only extra pieces I added on this one were the stickers, which came from a sassafras box I got before christmas. love how it all works together tho. and with the wooden background paper I think it brings a country feel, but also reminds me of a science bench from when I was at school..... and there was m worrying how I was gonna use that page!!!

now for the third:

My second page that i made at crop, a very quick one based on a creative scrappers sketch. and another to add to my christmas album for this year. pic is of Lola on her new scooter that Nanny bought her. she isn't very good at riding it at the moment but she will learn!!! again the papers and alphas etc are all from my studio calico kit. yum yum

number 4:

this one is a page of Elsie moo, taken before christmas sharing a mince pie with Ali. 

loving the tapes that you can get at the moment, this black and white one seemed to work perfectly to highlight the word confetti that I wanted t place alongside this picture. I think the picture speaks for itself without much explanation, but i loved the gestures that came in the sentiments xmas pack. 

and see that flower???? its plastic and from Jenni Bowlin.... apparently it can be misted and inked or sprayed or painted, but here it is in its plainest form. and i love it!

see the heart cut out piece with the journaling in it???

if you look at the page of Lola it has hearts on it.... this is the leftover bit form that that you might normally chuck in the bin...it just happened to be sat on my desk when I was looking for something extra. love how it clashes but like that it works...or at least i think it does and I'm happy with it lol

and last but not least I have a sneaky peak of the class that I'm going to teach next month.

what with Valentines day coming up it had to be something a bit mushy and romantic, so I've decided to do a mini book on a page about my wedding.... people doing the class can use wedding pics or couple pics or children pics... pets.... whatever they love!!!!!

done using red obviously and new papers form the Basic Grey Piccadilly range..... 

I hope it goes down well at crop next month :)

right enough gassing from me.... its Michaels birthday tomorrow so we are having a family birthday dinner meal in tonight, so that mum can join us and we are taking him out to a restaurant tomorrow to celebrate.

its no wonder I'm so fat when everything revolves around food lol..... ill make the most of it and start the diet next week!!!

take care all, please feel free to comment, i love to hear your feedback xxxxx