A Grand Night Out

I so rarely take my camera out on nights out and I really should more often as I do miss some gems at time!

Last night I thought to take it. We had a very nice night in Bath and actually I drank less than usual, Big Nick worked in my favour by drinking my left over lager between pints!

Here is Big Nick and Julie (it was so nice to see them as its been ages since the last time!)

Julie and Nicky

A nice one of Jason and I (apart from my double chins trying to make a bid for freedom)

Jason being a drunken prat on one of the Bath Lions, I wanted a nice one of us either side of it, but Jason being Jason acted the fool! We then had to scarper for the train as it was already in the platform!

Crochet Progress

Jessica was very happy when she came home last night from her school trip to see her blanket in progress, it has been all consuming this week though and therefore I have not done any scrappy stuff at all - I need to find a better balance. Its 4ft 8 inches long and will hopefully be about 60 coloured stripes long when its done





We are off to Bath on the train this evening for curry and drinks with Alan and Nicky and Big Nick and Julie. I am a little concerned because Big Nick knocks the drinks back very fast and the rounds absolutley fly by, I don't really want a mega hangover tomorrow but it might be inevitable!

Neon Brights

Thats the colours I chose for my new crochet project, a ripple blanket for Jessicas bed.

Yesterday I went to Wells with my sister, its a lovely little town, very oldey worldey with some pretty little gift shops and probably about a thousand cafes and coffee shops. To my shame my sister and I both spent the most time and the most money in the cheapy pound shop, we are pure class!



I bought nine balls of nasty acrylic wool and couldn't wait to get started on my blanket. I spent about 5 hours crocheting the afternoon away. Its a good job that I have a dinner out with Nicky last night or I think my hands would have seized up.



Hopefully Jessica will be pleased with the progress I have made when she comes home on Friday - I miss her!

Goodbyes and Sneeks

Today I waved off Jessica on her school residential trip to Little Canada on the Isle of Wight. I feel a bit sad to be losing her til Friday, she is such good company and a real mummys girl. I managed to get a fit of OCD and had to run up to her and re-check her suitcase for her swimming costume, which I KNEW I had packed but just could not tell my brain that!

On Friday I got an assignment from The Scrapbook Magazine, a couple of months ago I was asked to be part of their design team when the new editor took over, and this was my first bit of work for them since the change. Its a bit of a complicated brief and the 'theme' really had me stumped so I hope they are happy with what I have made them, I am pleased with it, here are a couple of sneek peeks





I've had a lovely weekend, lots of sneeky scrapping, meals out and drinks with mates, just as I like it!

Bounce

Another LO to show you, not a favourite thats for sure, but I needed to call it done and move on!



Today I have made a simple birthday card for Jasons niece who will be 7 on Tuesday, she is a very girlie girl so I wanted to make it pretty and soft .



The 7 is made by cutting a big 7 on the Craft Robo and then attaching it to a sheet of printer paper which I then ran through the printer with the typed happy birthday message so that the message printed on to the 7! (did you understand that? lol)

The pretty cut out background paper was cut with a file for the craft robo, and then mounted on to white cardstock.

Rewired

It is so good to be back online proper (and not via iphone)

My new Laptop lead arrived just 10 mins ago and here I am blogging, which I know is a bit sad, but in my defense I have nothing else pressing at the moment!


(lighting not brill on this one!)

Inbetween nursing my head cold (yes still!) I have managed a little scrapping, I have one on my table that I can't decide if I have finished or not and I have this one that I made a couple of days ago with my September Scrapagogo kit, which this month had some cracking Hybrids which I have used on the page (the tree, the frame and the bottom letters)

Now I am off for egg and soldiers and a read of Scrapbooks Etc which arrived with my lead.

Unplugged

I'm having to do a short and sweet blog post today as the lead for my laptop is on its last legs and has now decided that it is not going to charge anymore and so I have just a small amount of charge left before its over and out until my new one arrives :(



I've not done much today, just this Christmas cards using some scraps, this is probably my favourite of the ones I have made so far!

Now I am off to have a little play with my new Scrapagogo kit before dinner.

Lily Bee happiness

I was chuffed to get an email from Lily Bee to say that one of my Layouts was featured on their blog as part of their Friday Faves! I only used a little scrap of Lily Bee paper on the layout too!

You can see my Jenga Chips layout here: http://lilybeedesign.blogspot.com/

Her Biggest Fan

A nice clean and simple one from me today, made using this sketch from here

I changed a few elements around, but the sketch is visible in the design.

I wanted to machine stitch around the circle and this is not an easy thing to do, however I found this little tutorial here that made it more possible, a bit more practice and I may perfect it!

As usual on a Saturday I now must dash off to drop the kids off at their dads and then we will be off out ourselfs, this week its curry and drinks with Nicky and Alan. (I didn't mention last Saturday night, but it ended up envolving Cowboy hats, tamborines, being photographed and not getting home til almost 1am, and this started off as a quiet meal out!!!)

Krispy Kreme

For ages now Jessica has been nagging me to get her a Krispy Kreme donut. Today I went into town with my sister and there is a new Krispy Kreme there and so I decided to give into Jessicas demands

Don't they look yummy? We've all had one each and there are still loads left, which is good because this box of delights cost me £9.95! But its a special treat. I had a Lemon Meringue Donut which had meringue icing and a lemon curd filling.

The rest of my shopping trip was successfull, I wanted a pair of black boots and a pair of brown boots and I have come back with both, I also wanted a new brown and a new black bag and unfortunately I could not find one I liked.

In crafty news heres a little Bookmark I made for Joe earlier in the week, it was a quick 10 minute project, but I think its quite sweet and its very sturdy and Joe loves it!

Accident Prone

I am really putting myself through it at the moment, I'm a bit clumsy at the best of times and I often have mystery bruises about my body. Last 24 hrs however have been a bit hairy, stubbed my toe BIG time earlier on and last night I almost managed to knock myself out.



I was in a bit of a rush and in my haste I slammed a kitchen cabinet shut, only I didn't I pushed it further open and the door swung back on its hinges before richocheting back and smacking me bang in the head. Oh My God it seriously felt like someone had punched me, proper fall to your knees pain and shock. Today my head is so sore and swollen around the area, luckily I have a large crop of freckles and its hiding the bruise nicely, although how I didn't have an immediate "egg" head I will never know!



Back to scrapping. Heres what I made today with my lovely lovely new stasharoonie!





And to Anna, the paper with the banners is Bella Boulevard, Midterm.

Stash Attack

I did it! I caved in and bought myself some new Cha stash, put the order in yesterday and it came today. As usual I bought loads of papers and not much else.


My nice postie delivered it at 10.30 so I have had time to have a little play and I have made this





So nice to have some new goodies to play with!


Did my first run in almost 2 weeks this morning. I've had such a horrid cold that is worse in the mornings and evenings so running was out of the question. I hated the thought of starting again so I only did 20 mins this morning just to get out and get started again. It was ok I suppose!


Hope everyone is ok, I've noticed that its been very quiet around here lately, everyone must be too busy with other things at the moment to blog, hope it picks up soon as I love a good nosey around blogs!

Today I have mostly been making....

....Christmas cards!

First 2 using the Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather line and the last one with some old Scenic Route paper (I miss Scenic Route!)

I now have 4 christmas cards done, which is about 4 more than I managed last year!!!

Greetings Friends

Didn't think I would be blogging today as we had so much on, we've been to Bristol to buy some bits and pieces for Jessicas school residential in a couple of weeks. She has to take old trousers, its ironic that I had to buy the old trousers as we only had nice jeans and jeans are not allowed! I have bought her some jeggings and another pair of pink legging like trousers, finding joggers proved impossible.



Then the ever boring Asda trip. *sigh*



Got home at 2.45 to find that my Pink ATG that I ordered yesterday had indeed arrived, gotta love Craft Obsessions they really are on the ball with getting their orders out. So Got gun will tape and of course I had to have a little play, so I made this quick little Christmas card, this took me 15 mins! 15 mins!!!!! Me who takes hours to make a card did this so quickly.





Its made with Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather line, I got this as part of a blog prize from Scrapagogo, its probably not for me scrapping wise, but it will be ace for cards and I can see me using it a lot this christmas for exactly that.

Now I must dash as the kids are due at their fathers in under an hour and we are supposed to be eating out with Ray and Les tonight and I am sat here under all my scrapping supplies looking like stig of the dump!

Scrappy Purchase

So what was my scrappy purchase I alluded to in yesterdays post?

A pink ATG of course!! I would like to make it CLEAR that I did not buy this because it was pink, I am not one of those silly "must have all my tools in pink" girls, I bought it because I have the ATG 700 and I wanted the thinner tape dispenser as well.

I'm glad I kept a bit quiet about it because as I predicted they have already sold out of it!

It may even come tomorrow as its already been dispatched.

Avid Reader

I've kicked the housework into touch, I'm not feeling well enough to do both, so scrapping won today! :)





This is a pic I took on holiday, the kids were driving me mad wanting to go from one activity to the next without any breathing space and I was frankly getting frazzled with it all. I took them to WHSmiths and bought them a couple of books each, which was lovely as they both love reading, we went back to the caravan and I actually had over 2 hours of complete silence where I managed a cuppa and a relax at long last.

I'm still trying to develop my 'chuck it all on' approach to scrapping and feel that I am getting better at it, its a look I really like so I am glad that its slowly starting to fall into place for me! I also used some more of my flocked borders, I am going to have to make some more of those, they look so cute and effective in real life, but I need to buy some more x150 adhesive first and I am looking about for a bargain.

Tomorrow I am making a scrappy purchase, but I'm not telling you what as I think there will be very limited stock and that it will go FAST and I am just to selfish to miss out lol!!

Monkeying Around

You'll have to give me a bit of poetic license on this one as I realise it is a Gorilla in the picture!




I finished this one off today, once I managed to drag my poorly bottom off the sofa (I always feel a bit better when I acheive something!) I used some old October Afternoon papers for it and I rather like them! I also cut out two borders on the robo, one of which I misted blue and the other I stamped little black stars on.

I've been dying to see the Summer Cha stuff in our online stores and last week I did a fantasy shop where I put all the bits and pieces I liked in my trolley - just the paper I liked came to £56 and that was only from 4 manufacturers! Eeeekk that scared me a bit I must admit. Will see how much money I have at the start of the month and I may treat myself to a few bits and bobs, but £56 is probably going to have to come wayyyyyy down.

I've had a quiet day, spent 20 mins trying to find some of Joes PE kit for school, I know I washed it all last week so it should have been in the laundry cupboard somewhere, but could I find it? no! I had it ALL out and feeling poorly as I was it was not a nice job! After some major panicking I found it all nicely ironed in my bedroom. I know I didn't iron it, so it must have been Jason in one of his 'watching sky sports news and feeling guilty about it so will do some ironing at the same time' afternoons. Sounds nice until you have to spend 20 mins in my laundry cupboard cos you don't know that he did it!!

I currently have 2 almost teenage boys playing band hero right above my head, it may have been a silly idea of mine to buy it for Joes birthday, still only one more day of him at home and Jess goes back tomorrow - I will miss them actually, although not the bloody disney channel!