Excited!

God my sleeping is out of control, about 5am I dropped off this morning to be awake again by 7.45am! Gotta get this sorted out!

To console myself I have booked us spur of the moment (and too much expense really!) to see Les Miserable this afternoon at the Bristol Hippodrome. I LOVE Les Miserable and this will be my 5th time seeing it, 3rd time at the Hippodrome and twice in the West End.

Apparently the staging has been completely reworked and is stunning - no revolving stage anymore but lots of techno gizmo foolery stuff! Can't wait! We are in the upper circle and 2nd from top row so not sure how much we will see, but I have had bad seats before and its never too bad (touch wood) NO NO NO!! No touch wood, silly girl!

In scrap related news here is what I did this week for Paper Proposals Its an ATC inspired by an advert (surf washing capules in my case)

This is coloured in with water colour pencils, stamped, outlined and glittered. Go on over and take a look at the challenge and join in!

Birthday Post

Good evening, I've had a lovely birthday, despite being up with the lark again. I have turned into an old woman these past few months and I consider myself lucky if I am still asleep at 6.30am but 5.30am is not unusual.

I got a sewing machine and an ATG from Jason. Jessica bought me a necklace with her own money (bless her) and I got 2 massive bars of chocolate! My mum bought me the Echo Park Walk in the Park collection (which I like a lot more than the summer one) and a border punch and some glitter liner.

I have been sewing like a woman possessed and I am afraid that everything I post in the next month or so will be sewed to within an inch of its life. This is what I made today with my birthday goodies!

I thought I would show you a corner of my craft space which is getting more and more 'techno' everyday and I couldn't scrap without it! My craft robo, laptop and new pride and joy, sewing machine!

For lunch today we went to Chiquitos, they do an amazingly good lunch time deal of 3 courses for 8.95, bargain! So we stuffed ourselfs and it was lovely! Tonight we have a party feast courtesy of Iceland (I make no apologies for that, I LOVE their duck rolls and battered prawns) if we can manage it as I am still stuffed. I also have 4 ciders of various unusual flavours to share with Jason, and we are all going to get very competitive on the Wii, in fact there is TOO much noise coming from the living room already, Jess and Jason are already getting lairy, so I best go and join in!

Work in Progress

Uggg I am so cross with myself for saying in yesterdays post that nothing was going to stop me from running on Thursday. Just for the record 'touch wood' doesn't work!



I woke up today with a sore throat and sore throats are normally a sign for me that I am going to be ill, sure enough about 11am today, the dizziness started and I feel generally gotty. Trying to work through it though as I always feel worse if I sit and do nothing.



This is a sneek peak (because I haven't finished it yet!) of what I have been working on today






Its for the bedroom, to go on the wall and requires a fair bit of stitching, I have half the stitching done and will prob finish the rest off this evening. These are our bedroom colours of light pink and sagey greens (with lots of white as a background)

I now have to drag my poorly self to the high street to pick up Jessica from Holiday Camp and Joe from swimming (in same place luckily) but I think I will treat us to the bus back, Jess will be knackered from doing activities all day, and I think the 25 min walk to get there will be enough for me also.

Isn't she lovely

Well sometimes!!

God its been hard work this crafting lark today, loads of time to do it, but nothing happening when I tried. This is the end result, which I do actually like, although I messed up the journaling by forgetting 3 words and then having to change what I was going to say to make it kinda fit! Ah well!



We have finally got up all the flat pack, the new curtains and the new matching duvet set, so our bedroom looks really nice now, although its not entirely finished its so much better than the junk room its been for the last 2 years.

There was a price to be paid and that was that I was as stiff as a board for a few days, everything that could ache ached! I was in so much discomfort and as a consequence I couldn't run for a couple of sechuduled days (and that narked me off!) So I ran on Monday AND today as well, both 30 min runs and on both days I covered 4.15km. Its really important to me that I finish this program on my birthday on Thursday and as I now only have one more run to go and I am doing it on Thursday then not much can go wrong (touch wood, touch wood).

After the program ends I am going to continue with 3 30min runs a week and hopefully before too long I will be able to cover 5km in that time. Then I will just keep getting my time down on the 5km, when I get it down to about 28 mins (if thats even possible), I will start to train to 10k.

Sketchy Thursday Challenge and some bargains!

I've been playing crafts this afternoon (unusal for a Saturday) I was really feeling the urge but did not have the mojo, so I went sketch snooping and found this challenge at Sketchy Thursday

and thought I would play along. Even with a great sketch it didn't come easy! Anyhow here is the sketch:

And here is my take on it (we had to use Yellow and a hand made embelishment)

Today we popped into The Range to look at a lightshade (we didn't find one we liked) but I did notice these little beauties and they are fab at £3.99 each, and they cut really well too!

An apple for teacher

Uggghh I feel grotty this morning, in bed at 12.30am and awake at 5am, not fair! I am sooo tired. Yesterday was another day of flat packing, Jason and I did the large wardrobe, it was tricky because I was so stiff and achey from the day before and my wrist was really hurting too. However it is now 95% done, we just need to attach another 2 doors. Today we have the big chest of drawers to assemble - deep joy.





I made this cute little card this week for paper proposals The challenge this week is to use the blog colours to make a card. I used the Craft Robo's Print and Cut feature on this to make the apple, and 'Thank You' is also cut on the Robo. Pop on over and have a go!

My Flat Pack Hell

I feel like I have been run over by a train!

6.30am - out running for 28 mins, covering 4.08km

7.00am - showering, making a cup of tea, finishing off teacher/friend leaving cards (inserts)

8.15am - walking the dog to the fields, popping to the shop

8.50am - back home - commence housework

8.55am - Argos arrive with our new bedroom furniture (2 hours early but hey!)

9.15am - finish housework and start on the flat pack

11.30am - finish first set of drawers (I made a few mistakes alright!!! lol)

11.35am - start second set of drawers - by now I am aching all over and so I am slow, even though I know what I am doing this time!

1.25pm - finsh the drawers and make me some lunch.

Spent the rest of the afternoon, hobbling about, picking up Jess and feeling like I have been in a fight with something that fights better than me!

Jason has just got home from work and has kindly suggested fish and chips for tea (yay) so I can continue to take it easy now.

That Flat Packing is HARD physical work!! (can't believe they took me 4 hrs, really didn't think I was working slow, but they have those metal slidy door mechanism that require a lot of work and instead of nice little nails to hammer the back bit in place I had screws! SCREWS - it took forever!)

These came yesterday (I really wanted to do a 'oooooo look at the pretty colours pic, but I am lets just say a better scrapper than I am a photographer!) They are for my sewing machine that I will receive in 1 week when I turn 35!! Can't wait to have a play!!

Yet more cards!

A couple more cards to show you today.

First this one that is for Jessica's teacher tomorrow (when she breaks up), she took another one in today as she has two teachers and that was this ones last day - I will show you that card on Friday. In the meantime heres the other one. I made this as I didn't like what I made yesterday!

The teapot and the sentiment was cut on the good ole Robo.

And this one is for a friend of Jessica's who is leaving the school for good tomorrow (Jess never gives me much notice) I can't take any credit for this design. It is a card kit file for the Robo, the only bits I added was the crepe paper ribbon and the sentiment.

Keep on running

Lots to do today, had to take Skittle to the vets for her booster, the vet thinks she has a skin allergy, that could be down to pollen or could be an allergy to fleas (she doens't have any but apparently just coming into contact with one could be enough) I think and hope its the pollen as she does not normally pull her hair out. In fact shes only done it once before - this time last year, so pollen would seem to be the culprit.

Then we had to go to the cattery and pay our deposit. Then a trip into town to buy some chocolates for Jessicas teachers.



Then I made 2 cards this one and another I can't show you yet - this one is a bit rubbishy but I like the other one, which I will show you on Friday!

I ran again today, the run itself was ok, comfortable breathing etc but EVERYTHING was conspiring against me and I think I just ran so well because I was so bloody CROSS!

1. Could not get my contact lense in so had to wear glasses
2. Jason told me that my running shoe had dog muck on and that he had "washed it off" what he meant was "I LITERALLY shoved it under a running tap and got it as wet as I possibly could"! I was honestly squelching around and it was so uncomfortable. Seriously I could have wrung the shoe out - what goes through mens heads sometimes?
3. My running podcast had mysteriously dissapeared from my iphone so I had to take my chances with my entire song list and hope I didn't get a ballad
4. My brand new sports water bottle had a faulty valve and I could only get the tiniest of trickles of water out of it.
5. I slipped and almost landed on my arse, but managed to correct myself
6. My foot bleed and I runined a pair of socks.

Ah well, at least I ran, I only have 4 runs left now before I become a graduate of C25k and that is likely to be on my birthday next Thursday.

Tonight I am off for a meal with my mate Nicky, so that will be nice.

Scrapping under the Influence

I should be very ashamed of myself (but I'm not!) Today I was just settling down to a bit of crafting, after doing all the housework and sorting some of the bedroom mess up upstairs (we are awaiting new bedroom furiture and its all a tip at the mo) when I got an email off a mate. Basically she was having a sickie after being a bit fed up at work and wondered if I wanted a lunchtime drink.

Me? Drinks at lunchtime? Yes please!!! So off we trotted to our favourite pub the ship for a cheeky glass of vino (which turned into a bottle each -oops). At chucking out time I was glad to go as I could see a colony of flying ants appearing from a patio crack, and if you read my blog you know that I am PHOBIC of the buggers. I rang Jason to pick me up and he said that he had seen the flying ants whilst picking up Jess from school and was already on the way to the pub - he was going to bustle me into the car apparently and then tell me of his ant spotting so I didn't panic (isn't he lovely?)

So although I am a bottle of wine for the worse I feel quite alright, and for the first time ever under the influence fancied a bit of scrapping, so I did! Here is he result - not bad eh? (although I may wake up tomorrow and regret it lol) This was my quickest lo ever at 30 mins! maybe I should always scrap 3 sheets? Ok maybe not!





Yesterday we took Bruno on a long walk by the river, at one point we wanted to cross and Bruno flatly refused to walk along the lock plank and had to be carried! So cute! The little 'song' on the journaling tag is from the musical 'annie' and I sing it to him all the time! (the dog not Jason!)

We booked a holiday over the weekend. 7 nights at Haven Devon Cliffs in a lovely caravan (we booked privately through a private owner, so we know what we are getting) I am so excited, I love holidaying with the sproggies, they appreciate it so much and its always so relaxed and I enjoy treating them and 'never saying no' If we get nice weather it will be so relaxed, its apparently a huge site and I envisage afternoons at the outside pool sipping rose whilst the kids splash about - heaven!

Bath Time Blues

I said earlier I was feeling crafty today, and heres the result of that craftyness. I used my July Scrapagogo kit that I received yesterday. Robo was used on the raindrops, the shower, the paw print and the word 'time'. I also Glossy Accented all the robo cut outs.



I took these photos of Bruno yesterday, we walked in the field and it was very soggy, that coupled with the fact that he has been ponging lately meant bath time! He is very good about it really and just puts up, but look at his ears on that photo on the left, he is not impressed!

Sleep over is underway, they are currently tucking into Nobbly Bobblys (I LOVE those ice-creams) after cheeseburgers and Jenga chips (I stack them on the plate like Jenga). The girls will be getting ready for their school disco in a bit and I think the boys will appreciate the house to themselfs for a while!

I would so love a drink tonight, but tomorrow is a run day, so not a wise idea!

Why I Love this Photo

Thats the challenge this week over at Paper Proposals, so pop on over and give it a go!

Heres my take on the challenge, really enjoyed doing this one, and love how bright it is, I got those journaling stamps last Saturday at the Mod Scraps sale, and they stamp beautifully (and lovely on kraft too!) The 'love' border was cut on the Robo

I have another sleepover for the twiglets tonight, just one friend each and the girls are going to the school disco so it shouldn't be too testing! The only thing is trying to get them to tidy their rooms beforehand, I have just had to go in and finish the job - their idea of tidy and mine are not the same!

I am looking forward to a bit of scrapping today, I feel the creative urge!

Have a good weekend folks x

The Arrival

Inspired by the gorgeous beloved papers I received yesterday, I sat down and made this. Robo was used on the kraft loopy frame and the leafy branch and the letters! Getting good at using this machine, and now that I am using it so regularily it doesn't feel like a chore.



Its bumper postie time this week. Today I received an ATG and some tape, I can't use it til my birthday in two weeks though :( I've take in out and loaded it up and had a little play, but now it is firmly wrapped back up for Jason to hide tonight. I also have a sewing machine on order, I wanted the Janome Sew Mini and found it for a good price but then realised the link was 6 months old and I cannot find it at the same price, so I have gone up a grade or two and got a full size one and now I may just have to get into sewing fabric as well as paper eeekk, the sewing machine is also a present so I will have to wait again. Also my mum is sending me Echo Park a Walk in the Park collection which she has ordered and had sent to my address.

Luckily today my Scrapagogo kit arrived, so yay, something that I can actually open and stroke and I LOVE it this month, though I was going to be a bit BLAH about it, but the embellies are so cute, lots of banners and bunting, so sweet! I've got some mothballs on order too, but you know, I can't get too excited about them!

Ran again this morning, it wasn't as easy as Tuesdays run but it wasn't too bad. We did a fair bit more road running this morning and that included a bit of up and down which was hard for me as I am used to running on flat ground, thats prob why I struggled half way through. Mentally for me the best bit is when there is about 8 mins left and I can start to finish the lap I am on and head out of the fields and back home via pavements. The road bit of this stretch is slightly downhill and its so lovely when you are at the end of a run, its like the pavement is moving you and it takes the strain off the old legs.

Unfortunaltey that is the end of the 25 minute runs and on Saturday I have to increase it to 28 minutes, doesn't sound like a lot does it? a 3 min increase, but mentally its hard to get my head around.

A sort out, some new stash and other bits

I've been scrapping but its for Paper Proposals so I can't show you that til Friday, so I've not much crafty that I can actually share, although I am working on something at the moment and it might be finished tomorrow.

Today I decided I needed to resort my papers, I have what I think is a fairly unique way of sorting my papers - I don't! - by that I mean that they stay in the plastic bag that I bought them in and I know what papers I bought when, its worked up til now but I decided that I needed a new sytem and decided to go for Manufacturers as a system, think this will work well for me.

Here is a pic of my main manufacturers after the big sort out

Mid way through the big sort, the postie knocked with guess what? MORE PAPER, this time it was MME Beloved, I realise I am late to buy this one, and I have loved it for quite a while, but none of my usual 'go to' craft stores stock it. I finally gave in last week and ordered just this small amount (plus some Basic Grey, Basics paper) and had to suck up the postage on such a small order.

It is LUSH

(forgot to alter the colours on the above photo, it should look more in hue like the other one!)

Running is going well, I ran on Tuesday, my third 25 min run, this one went so well and was such a relief after the struggle that was Saturdays run. I was comfortable throughout the run, no breathing problems, no achey legs. Don't get me wrong, I would so rather be sat on the sofa watching tv and eating a Mars Bar, but Tuesday is the closest I have come to loveing the run, and my pace and distance was much better. I run again tomorrow morning its my last 25 min run before I go up to 28 mins. I am not looking forward to it, but I am REALLY looking forward to having done it!

An early morning wake up call

Well for any UK readers anyway, if you're international *hello*

I was awake at silly o'clock again this morning, so at 6am we decided to bring our 7am run forward and just go out there and get it done. I feel like I have been on an army assault course, it was the toughest toughest run ever. It was 25 mins again like last time, but so much harder today. Yesterday in my wisdom I decided to drag the stepper out and do 15 mins on that to 'keep myself ticking over' all well and good but the stepper uses entirely different muscles from running and so today my legs started aching after only a couple of minutes, my breathing was all out of kilter and I knew I was going to struggle all round the course.

How I dragged myself around I will never know, my stats are down today, I ran slower I ran less but I did the 25 mins and for that I am immensley proud of myself. All through this program I have done whats been asked of me and I have not failed, at times that was bloody hard and today I thought I was going to get my first fail, but I am stronger than that! Raaarrrrr

However despite running my little legs off this week I have managed to gain 2lbs, I'm not surprised, exercising I may have been but I have also been following the mantra "A Mars a day helps you work rest and play" really in my case it should be "A Mars a day makes you gain lots of weight" I'm not bothered though, a 1lb of that weight has to be muscle gain doesn't it?



Went to sit down to craft yesterday (I was thinking circles, thats what I wanted to do, something with circles) and I found this LO that just needed a title and journaling. I had only started it the day before and just totally forgot about it! So here it is all complete! Robo Resolution is achieved with the birds on a branch, the large blue frame and the title letters.

Today I am going to the ModScraps sale in Bristol and then on to town to have a girly shopping hour with Jessica, its time for 'that shop' first bra time, she is all giggly about it bless her!

Mini Book made from cards

Hiya, head on over to : http://paperproposals.blogspot.com/ for this weeks challenge, which is to use cards creatively, I was asked to make a simple and quick (not that I do much crafting 'quickly') mini book from cards. I choose to use the donkey ride pictures I took at Weston the other week for this one. Its just 2 cards inside of each other and secured with ribbon. Simples!

So pop on over and have a go! Winner gets to be the guest designer for the next weeks challenge!

I have Joseph off school today on an inset day, he is currently clunking about upstairs making a racket! I'm a bit concerned that today might be my 'most dreaded day of the year' or in other words FLYING ANT DAY. I saw one of the little blighters yesterday afternoon, just one solitary flying ant and I nearly had a fit!

When I was little we used to have a swarm of flying ants in our living room For one day each year they would take over that room and I would make myself scarce, over the years I have gone from hating them but being able to go out, to literally being scared witless of the the things, when they swarm I stay in! I've already warned Jess that if I am not outside the school on home time, she will have to walk home herself and I will get Joe to meet her half way!

Another 25 minute run looms large tomorrow morning.

Awww sod it!

I'm not doing much crafting this week and what I am doing I can't show, so I am going to show you the above just to keep the old bloggeroo ticking along. This is the LO that I did for Scrapbook Inspirations Ideas Book 2, technically I'm not allowed to share this just yet but seeing as the magazine has once again folded (damn you recession) I don't think that they are going to get their knickers in too much of a twist! Its hard to see from the photo but the patterned paper is behind the kraft and not on top - you should see the back of this Layout, it is shocking!! Its nice and textured though and looks very effective IRL.

Today was my first 25 min run, I did it, it nearly killed me but I carried on moving my legs and I managed it. I've been so busy though today that I have not really recovered from it. I got back from the run and then walked the dog (back up to the damn field that I just spent 25 minutes running in!), tidied my house and then *big breath* sorted out the laundry cupboard and that took 2 hours of hard physical slog. Finished just in time to do the supermarket shop and now consequently I am knacked! Massively massively knacked and sod it, I think I may have a nice glass of rose tonight, if I don't fall asleep first!

Learning how to use Print and Cut (and other stories)

Hiya everyone - not blogged since Saturday - shocking work!



I think most people know that the Craft Robo is an electronic die cutter that plugs into your PC/Laptop and will cut out any number of shapes, files and any true type font or dingbat you want to chuck at it. It has another feature where you can print something out (via the software) and then get the Robo to cut it out for you. When I got the Robo last Feb I tried that and it didn't really work for me so I never tried again as I wasn't fussed with that anyway.


Recently I have seen some cracking Print and Cut files and was feeling like I was missing out a bit on my Robo's capabilities, so today I had another crack at it and the above pic is the results - I can do it! Hooraarrrrr !!! Love those ornate frames, they are more detailed looking IRL and of course as with anything on the Robo I can cut it any size up to A4.


Of course what I am supposed to be doing this morning is working on 'project: Get this house in some sort of order' but when the crafty bug comes a calling what you gonna do?

My rare Saturday night in was a major fail - we went out! Mark asked to keep the kids another night as they were at the seaside and didn't want to rush home, so with that decided it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity and with a bit of good news on the 'how much tax we have to pay this year' front, Jason was keen to celebrate, so we had a meal out and then the usual but always great, drinks with friends.


I was very anxious about my running program this week, was absolutley convinced that my legs would not remember what to do, was so sure that they would just start screaming "What the hell are you trying to do woman" at me. Went for a run yesterday morning very apprehensive but I managed it, it was 2x10 min runs with a 3 min walk in between. Now all the intervals have ended my next 4 runs are 25 mins no stop runs, then 3 runs of 28 mins and then 3 runs of 30 min runs. Its amazing to think that when I started this just before my wedding I was puffed out after a minute or two! When I get to 30 mins I SHOULD be close to or on the 5k mark, my pace is not to shabby so I should get there! Now I don't have to listen to the podcasts anymore, as much as I LOVE what they have done for me, Mr Ulrey is rather fond of techno thump thump music which bores the bum of me! My own music will be bliss!

A rare Saturday night in

Tonight we are at home with the children, I was trying to think back to the last time we had a Saturday night in and I really can't remember when it could have been. Its been at LEAST 2 months and possibly more like 3.

We decided to try one of those M&S dine in for £10 tonight whist the kids have pizza. So we went to pick it up and whilst on the way to the tills saw this - Jason and I really like fish platters, in fact when we eat out on Saturday nights, we quite often choose something like this:



so we couldn't pass it up - the killer though was that it cost £12!!! We decided to treat ourselfs as we had £30 of vouchers from the wedding. So we have a real feast this evening and I am mucho looking forward to it. I have bought the kids Strawberrys and a bar of Galaxy and I am going to let them melt it in my little heater and they can have dippy strawberrys! Yum Yum

I've even managed a little crafting and craft tidying today, another rare Saturday occurance as I like to get out and about at weekends generally. I made this card for my dads up coming birthday (I must post it promptly as despite posting his fathers day card on the Thursday before it didn't turn up to the Wednesday - don't get me started on Royal Mail and my theorys on their post storing)



Robo Resolution acheived on the scooter and the greeting! Background a little wonky though ooopps!

Tomorrow we are doing lots of ferrying about, Jess is performing at the Keynsham Music Festival with her school, so we have to drop her off for rehersals and then again for the performance and Joe is going to a party in a nearby town, so we will be coming and going all day long!

Check out......

......this new blog http://paperproposals.blogspot.com/ that I was thrilled to be asked to design for.

Week one is a sketch to use up all your papers strips that we all have knocking about!

Heres the sketch:

I was asked to do an 8.5x11 version, so my take on it is below:

Go on over and join in!

The Big News

Well the big news is that today I ran 20 mins without stopping, it was Week 5 Day 3 and this is the dreaded run for all c25k runners. All of a sudden you jump from running for 8 mins at a time to this massive 20 min non stop run.

I slowed my pace down right from the start, and just kept plowing on. My pace didn't really change throughout - there is a tricky bit of the field lap that I run that I always seem to struggle on and it was no different today, especially running into the wind so I think I was slightly slower on that quarter of the lap.

I had no way of knowing how far I was into the run as I did not listen to the usual podcast today and choose to have my own music playing. When Jason lapped me I asked him how much longer and was really surprised to find that I only had 3min40secs to go!

Feel very chuffed with myself!

Crafting wise I have been very busy with a couple of projects which I can't show you yet (secret squirrel stuff!!)

And because every post needs a pic, heres one of Jess (on the left) at her sports day yesterday with her new(ish) haircut that she made me do last week :(