Welcome to British Springtime!

Last night we had a really short sharp hailstorm, I had to take a pic, and today I have turned it into a layout!







Yes it has clouds on it! AGAIN lol, I can't stop with the clouds at the moment, these ones I flocked to give them more cloudy like texture. The butterfly I cut on the craft robo, really please with how it cut, its a freebie I downloaded only this morning!

Tomorrow I plan to scrap a dead plant pic! Mothers Day present which I have already managed to kill.

Remember Remember

I had quite a lot to get done today, including these 2 cards for Birthdays coming up this week. Shamelessly lifted from a design team member at: http://scrappyfairy.blogspot.com/


Then I had a bit of time to do something for me, so I made this, and sorry I realise that the background paper is a bit migrane inducing!

Pretty River Flower and Lots of Stash photos

Today my HUMONGUS Sarahs Cards order came. It didn't get here til 12.30 but I set too it straight away and have just made this (theres a bit of old old stash in it too).


Here are some pics from the stash I got!

£25 Grab box with £75 worth of products in it - great value and lovely bits in it - not my personal choice of papers, but you can't have it all!



Some of the gorgeous papers I got!



Cosmo!



Martha!



More gorgeousness



Must dash now, got parents evening straight after school this evening, lets hope its a bit more constructive than last time, when the 2 teachers just sat and giggled at me!

I got it!

Well after only a couple of hours (but very intensive hours) of shopping I have my dress on order!

I tried on 5 dresses in Monsoon, 3 traditional wedding dresses and 2 bright dresses, after this I was leaning to the Bright Bright pink one. We then went to Debenhams to see the one I had liked previously (and may I say by far the cheapest of the lot) and once I tried that on, everyone was saying "Oh yes, thats the best by far" so I was going to buy it but of course it being a wedding dress they only had one size 12 in stock (the one I tried on) and it had a make up mark on it. So I ordered it for delivery to my house.

I then even managed to get my underwear sorted - its not pretty underwear, its foundation underwear an all in one suck you in and put eveything in the right place kinda garment, they have tried to pretty it up with a couple of little bows, but really they shouldn't have bothered lol!!!

Now I need to find a seamstress who can lop about a foot off the end and put a little stitch in at the bust so that I am not spilling out of the dress.

I'm very pleased with it, its so bridal and so flattering. I did have a little wobble whilst wearing it that I looked ridiculous at almost 35, 2nd time getting married and having a cheapo wedding that I was buying a very bridal dress, but I think I was put off by my hair looking awful (full of static after trying on so many dresses)and a very hot and bothered body in general. Once I am all glammed up I will look fantastic lol!!

I have a pic on my iphone of the dress (well the top section) and I will post that tomorrow, but its not the best as I wasn't supposed to photograph it (the assistant said if she didn't see, she wouldn't be able to tell me off)

Today we are off to ikea and I am going to buy TSM (not in ikea obvs!), with all the excitement yesterday I totally forgot to buy it!

I would appreciate your opinions - please comment!

Jayne and Peter have been married for 8 years Jayne does not work (she looks after the kids) Peter brings home the bacon, they have 2 children together who are 6 and 4 and all seems to be running smoothly

Jayne the silly girl has an affair and Peter finds out, he can't get over it and the couple split. Jayne has the children and Peter has them every other weekend.

Peter should NEVER have to pay for the children because he has done nothing wrong, Jayne is the one who split them up with her infidelity and therefore should not expect ANY financial support from her ex husband for his children.

Please let me know what what you think about the above scenario,Which is entirely made up by the way! I am really really wanting your brutal and honest views on this! Sock it to me!

Snow much fun

Just a quickie to show you this that I did today! Using some very old and non premium DCWV papers, love those clouds, can't believe I forgot I had that paper.

No Stash today :( Here's hoping for tomorrow

More Layouts

What an imaginative title!

I have a busy 24 hrs ahead, tonight as usual we are out with friends, but I have to take it easy (which is a shame as cider prices will be up from Sunday, so I can't take advatage of the cheaper prices) as tomorrow I am going WEDDING DRESS shopping.

I've buggered myself a bit with this wedding dress malarky, I really thought that I wanted a lovely dress but that I didn't necessarily want white - but now I really do, I really want to look bridal and of course with limited money and only 9 weeks to go, I've left it too late!

I've seen a lovely dress in Debenhams for £100 and it really flattered me, but I am not sure how easy alterations will be as its all bias cut and chiffony material, so I am going to show my mum and sister tomorrow and see what they think.

At the start of this wedding planning, I wanted a champagney coloured long flowing (not at all structured) dress and I wanted to wear my hear long and in curls and have flowers in my hair (kinda hippyish) so tell me why have I booked in to get it cut all short and sleek ala my blog pic on the header???? I also envisaged myself as a skinny size 10 and despite really trying, there is no way I am gonna get there! Its a size 12 for me!

So anyway I am excited as to what I might find tomorrow and it will be nice to have a day shopping with my mum and sister.

Here are the LO's that were just published in TSM

Exciting times and Goofing around

So today is the day when the next issue of The Scrapbook Magazine is due to hit the shelves, this is exciting for me as my article is in this issue, and I'm very interested to see how it turned out, I have to wait til Saturday though as thats when I am next going into town.


And excuse me Mr Darling but HANDS OFF MY CIDERRRRR I am not best please at the 10% rise after inflation. I do so love a nice St Heliers of an evening! Wondering how this "Brings it inline with the price of beer" when St Heliers already costs more than beer, for less mls!


Anways I finished this just now, its one of those that looks better in the flesh, and a lot of work went into it, tonns of hand stitching and doodling, I had to photoshop the frame too (which was a scrapagogo hybrid element this month)




Yesterday I stopped my stash ban (not bought anthing non essential since christmas) and I put in a whopping - and I do mean whopping order for LOADS of new stuff, I am treating myself out of the article money (which I am hoping will come soon) and Jasons easter money (he showed me the egg he was going to buy me, and I said "Can I have the cash instead"!!!)


Will be back tomorrow with the Layouts that I did for TSM

The good, The bad and The ugly

Bad things:


. Getting up twenty trillionty times for a wee in the night

. My alarm clock going off when I KNOW I switched it off!

. Eating 5 biscuits, and 1 penguin bar today

. Getting soaking wet on the school run

. My trainers leaking and my new white socks getting wet AND dirty

. Still having to make the bed Aaargghhhh - hate changing bed sheets!

Good things

. Finishing my wedding invites

. Lots of good telly to watch tonight (I know scraping the barrell a bit there!)

. Putting on aqua coloured new socks that go with the PJ's I am currently slouching in (that barrell again!)

. Starting a new LO that I think could be a good one!

Ugly things



. Well ugly is a bit strong I suppose, but its not my best effort and its photographed pants!

Hopefully I will be back tomorrow with a new LO, but its one of those that requires a lot of hand stitching (I'm doing this blog post as a break in the middle of it)

Hope your day is full of more good things than bad... or ugly for that matter ;)

Ready for my close up!

I woke up bright and early and refreshed this morning, so we decided to get up and out. We went to Leigh Woods in Bristol with the dog and it was a lovely sunny morning, we tried to geocache but did not manage to find the cache unfortunetley, but we did get a tough, muddy 2 hour round walk and Bruno was in his element! Jess wore some funky sunglasses and I got some great shots of her.


So of course I had to scrap it! This was Jess just this morning! I used my March Scrapagogo kit which came on Thurs and is full of funky Sassafras.





Loads of housework to do tomorrow as I have negelected it all weekend in favour of fun stuff and the house is an absolute tip! I would die of shame if anyone popped round now.

Wedding Invites

Well I finally managed to get the LO that I was struggling with done, its very different for me, not least because I did it 11.5x8.5 - it looks like a poster!

And then I made a start on these. Jason has been (for some reason best know to himself) getting increasingly anxious about the invites not being started, so just to calm him down a little I made a start. They are plain and simple and I rather like them. I got a little musings drawn (http://scrappyfairy.blogspot.com/) from a photo of us (shown below also for curiositys sake!), and she v kindly turned us into a bride and groom.

Hopefully Jason will be able to come off the ceiling now, he really is getting stressed with all this wedding stuff (there are some family issues for him) Don't think it helps that I am just floating around like its not happening and lalalaing whenever the subject comes up!

Me mojo it no gogo

So I've been struggling and I do mean struggling with my challenge LO for Butterfly Crafts, I was quite excited at first as it was soooo far outside my comfort zone that I thought it would be interesing - its not - its just bloody hard and frustrating. I have made 2 Layouts so far and both look like something a 5 year old would do - they hurt my eyes!

I thought I was on a mojo gogo but no I am not, I sat down to do a LO for The Scrapbook Magazine yesterday and the page just almost made itself, as I haven't had a crafty post for a week, I am going to include a sneak peak of it, me likey this one A LOT!!!



My day is pretty much mapped out today, Asda later this morning (I love getting the food shop out of the way before the weekend arrives!) Kids off to their dads at 4pm, dinner at 5.15pm, pub at 6pm(ish) Hopefully between asda and the kids going I can get in a bit of scrapping! I did have a brilliant flash of inspiration last night for the Butterfly Crafts LO, but I've forgotten what it was!! Nightmare!!

Just a quick note...

... to say I have nothing to report really! Crafting is not going well, I have a LO to do for Butterfly Crafts (and that is NOT going well!) also another one to do for The Scrapbook Magazine (thankfully I have a month to complete that, so I should get some mojo by then!)

Massivley looking forward to my Scrapagogo kit which fingers crossed, should, should be here tomorrow!

Am back on the diet full time and have already managed to lose the 2-3lbs I put on since relaxing it a bit, this is good news because not this Sat but next Sat I am going dress shopping for my wedding, this I am getting a bit anxious about as there is just over 2 months to go now and I had a look around the shops last weekend and there was literally NOTHING. I found one nice dress in Denbehams but it will need altering as I am not 7ft 5in which is the height they seem to be catering for! Anyway I will at least fit into a size 12, not the 10 I wanted but its not too bad!

See all boring stuff really, hope your life is being a bit more thrilling at the moment!

Reflective Moments

Whilst reading Lisa's post this morning http://scrappyfairies.blogspot.com/ (sorry don't know how to do those clever name linky things!) I saw she had had a go at this sketch and I rather liked it!



So I had a go at it myself. Having read Lisa's blog I took a bit of inspiration from her and used paint - Lisa does the most amazing Layouts using paint, you should check them out if you haven't already!

My attempt is no where near as skillful, but I like it none the less! And yes I am aware that it bears very little resemblance to the sketch, but thats not the point for me, its a useful springboard to creating!



I'm still having trouble photographing my layouts with my camera, it takes such dim pictures and then its hard to adjust it to look like it looks irl.

In other news I had a text from Joseph this morning that just read "Greetings from Paris" he really is a strange little boy at times lol

And lastly but not leastly ;) Don't forget to go over to Butterfly Crafts and have a go at this months challenges, theres a sketch to try and a new challenge going live on the 15th!! Theres a brilliant kit from Scrapagogo to win (and trust me I get those kits and they are lushious!!!) Heres the linky http://butterfly-crafts.blogspot.com/

Totally Quackers

Considering I was up at 5.15am and awake at 3.15am I am remarkably chipper today! Joe got off to Paris alright, despite me being awake for an hour at the aforementioned 3.15am panicking about sleeping through the alarm of all things (chance would be a fine thing!)

I was on a bit of a go slow this morning but I finally managed to get off my bum and do a bit of scrapping, and this is the result, I used a sketch for this although I went 'off sketch' a fair bit. Here is the sketch

And heres my take on it, colours are a bit brighter and more 'poppy' in real life, this is one of those ones that looks better in the flesh so to speak.

Blog Makeover

Do you likey?

This will probably have to do for creative outlets today. Been meaning to get a proper header on my blog for ages and today I finally had the time/inclination to do it. Seeing as I felt a bit tired and lathergic, I decided to have a sofa day, and so have been mooching on the internet a lot, no excuse to not see to my blog really!

Joe is off to Paris tomorrow, he has to be at the school for 5.45am. 5.45am??? I didn't know there were two of those in one day! Getting up at 5am will not be easy, I always get the shakes when I have to cut my sleep that short.

Geocache Dash

This one has taken blummin ages (6hrs!) to do, that there stitching took the best part of 2 hrs! and I really faffed about with the rest, still its a bit different to what I have been doing for ages. There is a fair bit of stamping and colouring in on this lo, I used 2 of my border stamps for this! And still not a pre-made embellishment in sight! No point buying them anymore, yes they are pretty but I so rarely use them!

Pic taken before the glossy accents had dried, I am just too impatient!

New Adventures

We got our doggie Bruno almost a year ago (next weekend in fact) and of course at first the kids were well into walking him etc but trying to get them out on a bit of a nice walk now is like pulling teeth and thats such a shame, especially with the weather getting nicer.

So yesterday I hit on an idea - Geocaching, walk the dog and turn it into a treasure hunt - perfect!

(never leave Jason in charge of camera - this is what you get!! - this is us on the way to the first cache)

Within the description of the cache it did say you would need gloves to retrieve it - so we thought this was the cache, we were right on the spot according to my iphone - so we were hopeful!

No! it was a bag of bloody leaflets, and it took AGES to retrieve it from the brambles!!!

So today with very enthusiastic kids we went off on the hunt. Typically Jason's Sat Nav was not up to the job and I ended up downloading the Geocaching app to my iphone. And then we were off! 1st Cache was only a few hundred feet from where we parked up in our town - we could not find it anywhere despite my phone telling me we were right on the spot! photos here of us thinking we had found it, nearly ripping our skin apart retrieving it and then finding approx 500 leaflets for a nearby pub (naughty naughty mr leaflet dropper - but at least you didn't walk across my lawn).

Cache number 2 was about half a mile away in Keynsham Park by the pool, we found the spot, we located the area, but the cache was not there - we know we got the right area as the app showed a pic of a previous finder and we could see exactly where it was but it WAS NOT there :(

We got it!!! the 3rd Cache was ours!!!

By now the kids were getting dissillusioned and I don't blame them, I know this works and I was confident that we would find something, so we tried for one more. The next cache was near Keynsham Railway Station another half a mile away, so off we trotted following the iphones little gps signal. This one was easy, we found the exact spot and then it was just a case of finding the treasure, took about 5 mins, it was stuck to the side of the gate with a magnet. Inside was a log where you write your details in! Kids were mega chuffed and Geocahing now deemed big success! Lovely afternoon had. Whats amazing is just how many caches there are around, you could literally park up anywhere and find several within 2 miles! Its deffo something we will do again!

Scrapping Prep and a good buy

I got these stamps a few months ago as an add on to the Scrapagogo kit. The minute I saw them I knew they were right up my street, and although I have quite a lot of stamps from my card making days, I don't really use or buy them anymore. I just love this set, its so versatile!

Today I was feeling the urge to do something creative, but I knew that I was mojoed out so I decided to do a bit of scrapping prep (basically colouring and cutting stuff etc) I've spent a happy 30 mins stamping one of the above borders and colouring it in in nice bright colours. Don't they look cute and zippy and happy? And now my creative urge is quelled and I can get on with stuff that needs doing!!

And finally, this was Jess ready for school this morning, World Book Day has a lot to answer for, it took us an age to walk to school with those 'flippers' on her feet this morning!

o

The Red Coat Saga

I am on fire this week!! 12pm and I have already done a page - almost unheard of. I think I may be getting faster at this lark. To be fair its always my lettering that takes me so long as I procrastinate about even getting the letters out (they are so messy and I hate it!) Sometimes I can look at my letter storage for ages before I get the energy to go through them!

Anyhoo this layout is all about Jessicas coat. For 3 years shes had the same winter coat (her nan bought it her and it was v big at the start lol) and it was really looking tatty and she had never looked tidy or smart in it. Trying to get her a new coat was such a trial and she only agreed to this one as we had been around 6 different shops and she was getting fed up. It says on the journaling I bribed her into it - thats a nice santised version for prosperity - I BLACKMAILED her into it as in "If you don't say yes to this coat, I will drag you around every shop in Bristol until you choose one!"

Today I got a surprise package delivered, as part of my prize from SBM I was told I was getting a daylight lamp, and today it arrived (totally forgotten about it!) and its pretty cool. The light where I scrap is rubbish and even with a fair bit of natural light today I tried it out and it was great, so looking forward to using it more! Nice bit of kit actually!

Takin' it Easy

Note to self - apostrophe is after the n and not before it. Mucho heartache over that little mistake (especially since I had an audience of the gas man, watching me grossly misspelling) with a bit of jiggery pokery I managed to amend it! The white scallopy circle thing was not supposed to be behind those letters, lets just say that!!! Also I think these colours look a little bit washed out - not much, just a bit.

Gas man has been now and serviced the boiler and and bleed the radiators etc so I can now stop stressing a bit about the state of the house and making the kids life a misery by yelling at them to pick things up!!

I am in a bit of a better mood today but I am a bit under the weather generally (again) but am working on through it!

Guitar Hero

This one is simple even for me - not a single embellishment on it! Just the story of Joe and his guitar.

I am not having the best of days, I am in a rotten mood and no reason for it really, ah well, there is always tomorrow.

March Visual Challenge at Butterfly Crafts

So today was the reveal of March's visual challenge at Butterfly Crafts and my first ever Design Team layout (yay!)

Here is the sketch:-

And here is my take on it,

So go on over to http://butterfly-crafts.blogspot.com/ and join in!!

In other news, today I did a MAHOOOSIVE house clean and I am absolutely cream crackered, but its so nice to have a sparkly clean house, I am of course obsessivly following both children and pets around the house snarling every time it looks like they might drop a crumb (kids) or molt some hair (pets)