Stamps, Flowers and Biffy!

We have been having a crazy busy month again!   I feel like I am always waiting for the crazyness to end, I am always thinking that next week it will be calm down and then I can get to all the things that need to be done and sorted and can just relax a little, but then next week comes and things continue to just be crazy.  But I suppose you adapt and learn to deal with things as they crop up, I have just had to learn to accept that my life is unpredictable and things can't always be perfectly planned and it is okay to not be on top of everything!  One of the things I have definitely not been on top of for the last few months is my blog and recently my blog hopping which has really bothered me as I always wanted to have an organised blog with 3 or 4 posts a week but for now I have accepted that won't be happening in the near future :)

Anyway enough with the rambling!  This is a layout I did (while I was away on our retreat) to showcase the new Bo Bunny background stamps....I am just loving these stamps, I love all stamps but background stamps are just my favourite and the designs chosen for the Bo Bunny ones are fantastic!  I used the Family Is line which is just soo cute and so perfect for my family lol

We all went to watch a Biffy Clyro concert on Monday night which was brilliant and definitely in my top 3 concerts I have been to so far :)  Here are a few photos but they are taken with my phone and we are way at the back of the arena.  We always book in the same area because although it is on the far side of the arena it is directly in front of the stage so your view is still better than being closer and on the side.

 As we all like Biffy Clyro we made a bit of a family thing of it this time and took the kids with, this is Kieran's third concert and Christopher's second.  I think we have decided that Christopher is not really a concert person though as he was a bit bored.  We also went with my BIL and SIL who love concerts as much as we do and our two nephews.

It was my Birthday yesterday and I just had to share some photos of the beautiful flowers that hubby got me for my birthday.  I think he has become a bit indecisive as he got me three boquets!  Lol he is so sweet :)

I am just loving my Instagram app on my phone!

So I was going to finish off with my favourite Biffy Clyro song but I couldn't decide between Bubbles, Many of Horror, Mountains and The Captain so instead I will just play my favourite song so far from the new album.  It is called Black Chandelier..

I hope everyone has a wonderful relaxing long Easter weekend with their families and loved ones.

Scrapping With Friends!

I am always delayed with everything these days!  Last weekend I went away on on one of my scrapping groups annual scrapping weekends.  Every year we rent a lovely quite place in the countryside called Meadow Barn and we scrap, chat and eat lots of lovely cakes!  This is really the most fantastic group of totally wonderul girls (and men!) and I am so glad to have met all of them!  Here are a couple of group shots.
This is the nice normal looking posed group shot.

Hmmm the cracks are starting to show a little bit....a little bit more like us

Below are the two guys who join our group every year, the tall one is Lisa's husband who does digital scrapbooking and cooks us some divine Mexican food on the Saturday night each time.  The other one is Karen's husband who doesn't scrapbook and usually goes for nice long walks in the beautiful country side but always helps us out in loads of little ways and on the Friday night this time made a very yummy chilli con carne which we used to top some of our jacket potatoes.  

Take note of all the tubs of droolworthy cakes in the front of the picture there!  The cake queen is definitely Karen who makes the most divine coffee cake ever, she also bought special chocolate cup cakes, Dundee cake, Mince pies and biscuits!.  Even Lisa's extremely talented young daughter sent a lemon drizzle cake along, unfortunately I didn't get to taste hers as I was too busy eating Julia's completely yummy lemon drizzle cake but I did hear lots of rave reviews :)

We also did a mini gift exchange this year where we each made or brought a little gift for each person.  These girls think of such amazing things, we have been so crazy busy that unfortunately my gift was just a little box of Mini Eggs as I didn't end up with any time to make something although I doubt that I would have been able to think of anything as nice as the other girls did!

The gorgeous decoupage stone was made by Julia and we all got to pick our designs.  The chocolate item is a little chocolate man topped with fudge pieces with a spoon stuck in it is from Gemma and is to stir into hot milk!  The little blue milk carton box is from Karen and is full of mint imperials.  The beautiful box and matching card was our gift from Fiona and it was a little class and all the supplies to make them!  The sweet little dried flower tags were from Tara and were made by her adorable daughter and MIL with flowers picked from her MIL's garden.  The three little tags were hand made by Ali.  The little badge was from Jess and we got to choose which saying we wanted.  Lastly the gorgeous bag charm was hand made by Lisa in whatever our favourite colours were!

Then my lovely friend Lisa is making and selling these beautiful beaded bracelet and earing sets.  I adored them when I saw some of them over the weekend and totally fell in love with and immediately wanted this one which she called 'Nature's Glow'.

Alas my photo does not do justice to the beautiful colours in these, I just adore them!  I saw her make one over the weekend and the amount of care and effort she puts into them is amazing. If you would like to look at some of the other sets she has up for sale or buy your own set then go and check out her blog here.  Hmmm I think I might need a couple more of those soon! :)

Well as usual I didn't get too much scrapping done over the weekend!  I am a slow scrapper in general and I tend to spread out a lot so the tight scrapping space bewilders me and I get slower than ever lol.  But I don't mind as I mainly like seeing all my lovely friends and having a laugh and we do lot's of that!  Plus the long drive is really good for me especially as this was my first long drive since my accident last year so I was a nervous wreck but felt much better afterwards :)  But I digress I can only show you the card I made for now... this was for this months card sketch on the Bo Bunny blog.  I did the sketch this month and this is what it looked like...

 This is my card using the very pretty new Isabella

Now that I have posted this I can see that the bow has gone skew and is covering some of the pearl swirls! That is really going to irritate me lol.

Anyway that is it for today, I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend and all the mothers out there have a fabulous and relaxing day tomorrow!

Gesso Background Tutorial

I have a little tutorial up on the Bo Bunny Blog today for creating a textured background using Gesso and some of the gorgeous new background stamps Bo Bunny recently released.  This is the finished layout that I used the technique on. 

 This is my Granny and me a few years ago, sadly she is no longer with us but as she lived with my parents and us for around the last 25 years of her life me and  my sisters were really close to her.  She really was the cutest Granny ever and was always laughing and joking and I would always call her Old Bag and she would call me Young Bag.  I actually found a letter the other day that she had written me after I had moved out of my parents house and she had signed it O.B and that made me smile (and a little bit sad too) and that's when I knew what my title had to be for this layout :)

I used the gorgeous new C'est La Vie and lots of the new flourishes and one of the new doilies that are all from Bo Bunny's latest release.

 

 Bo Bunny Products:
Patterned Paper: C'est La Vie, Decoupage, La Vie En Rose, Belle/C'est La Vie
Noteworthy : C'est La Vie
Chipboard : C'est La Vie layered Chipboard
Brads : C'est La Vie
Petals : C'est La Vie
Jewel Flourishes : Frosting Jewels
Doilies : 4" Small Doilies
Stamps : Flourishes and Such Stamps

If you would like to see the tutorial for creating my background then please stop by the Bo Bunny Blog.

Surprise!

Hi everyone, been gone a while again.  Things have been totally crazy around here as usual and one of the reasons is hubby has been offered a job on the other side of the country and we have decided to move!  So we have been sorting the house out and having agents over and now we just have to quickly sell our house in a very bad market :)  Sadly we also lost a family member last week that has affected the whole family greatly.

Today I am sharing a layout done with the new Surprise range from Bo Bunny and some of the yummy new background stamps.  I am so in love with all the new background stamps because they are have that distressed kind of look, I am so in heaven and I can't wait to try all of them out!

Bo Bunny Supplies:

Patterned Paper : Surprise!, Twist, Banners/Surprise

Stickers : Surprise! Combo Sticker

Buttons : Surprise! buttons

Chipboard : Surprise! 12x12 Chipboard

Stamps : Geometric Patterns Stamps; On This Day Stamps 

I also decided to have a haircut last week.  My life is generally pretty stressful and I decided that any little thing that will make my life easier is worth it and shorter hair probably will make things a bit quicker!  So this is my hair before which was just past my waist.

I kept the hair they cut off and am donating it to a cancer charity and this is my hair now.  Everyone keeps telling me it makes me look younger but I think it makes me look older and like a grown up lol.  Whatever the hairdresser had put into it also made it look really dark so I now know what I would look like with darker hair :)

Finally for today....everyone loves Scrapbook Trends right?  Well Bo Bunny is giving away a year long subscription to Scrapbook Trends!  All you have to do is follow the Bo Bunny Blog and leave a comment on this post here.  You can also find a wonderful tutorial for colouring doilies by the amazing Juliana Michaels on the same post :)

Mama-Razzi2 and Weymouth!

I have been absent a while again as we have had a lot going on here, including maybe some very big changes in our lives!  But anyway first off is a quick layout I did using the new Mama-razzi2!

This was done for the layout formula on the Bo Bunny blog which is where you use a limited supply list for your layout and the list is as follows...

1 piece of cardstock

3 pieces of patterned paper

1 sticker sheet

1 other embellishment set of your choice

This is my layout which is Kieran's first camera that he got for his 6th birthday so of course the photos were just perfect for Mama-razzi2!

This is what I had left over from my supply list.

One of the things we have been busy with was a trip to Weymouth.  Although it was still really cold it is amazing what a difference heading South makes in the temperature and we even had sunshine!!  Of course no matter how cold we could not keep the kids out of the water!

 They did lots of skipping stones!

Walked around and saw some of the sights on the beachfront...

                                                    The kids also went on a Donkey ride

We were literally right on the beachfront and this was the view from our hotel window and wow I would love to wake up to this every morning!  These two photos were actually taken by Christopher and I am so impressed! :)

Anyway that is me for the night I am shattered so will have to get around to doing some blog visiting tomorrow night!

Glitter!

I am just sharing some layouts from an article I did on using glitter on your scrapbook pages for issue 65 of the Scrapbook Magazine.  These were all done using glitter and glue applicators from Glitter Perfect which makes detailed glitter application really easy!  I even have one of the layouts really small on the cover, on the last one it was only my hand from one of the step by step photos lol!  The other little layout next to mine is another member from the Bo Bunny design team Mireille!

These were all done using Bo Bunny Country Garden.  For this first layout of my Mom and Dad I edged the photos with glitter...

 I also edged some of the petals and stamens with glitter.

 Lastly I covered some chipboard butterflies, dragonflies and some wooden words in glitter.

 I love this photo of my grandparents that I used on the next layout!

 To do the glittered title I printed my word out on a piece of cardstock in a light grey then used a superfine nozzle to apply the glue before adding the glitter

 I also added glitter to paint to give more texture to my bricks.

 

 This last layout is me and Paul when Kieran was only about a year old and we were still living in South Africa (hence the sunshine!)  The giant cat was my cat and his name was Skunk, both his parents were actually Siamese cats but he came out black and we had to have him!  We had another snow white cat Al who is not in the photo, I really need to scrapbook them sometime as they were definitely our first babies! :)

 

 I used the glitter to make a frame for my photo using double sided tape.  I started by cutting a frame from cardstock and then covering in double sided tape.  I then used an edge punch on some strips of cardstock and stuck them onto the frame before covering it in glitter and making sure it was all pressed down.  Once that was done I removed the punched strips and covered the rest of the frame in a contrasting glitter.

I also highlighted parts of the pages like the butterflies with glitter.

Have you seen all of the new Bo Bunny releases?  I am so excited, especially for the Misc. Me stuff and the stamps...well I am just in seventh heaven, I just LOVE stamps and background/texture stamps are my favourite!  There are still a few hours left to leave some comments on the Bo Bunny Blog for a chance to win some of the gorgeous new lines!