RAK's, paintings and flowers!

One of my favourite scrappers is having a fab giveaway on her blog Life and Times of a 12x12 Addict


I bought the most beautiful painting for our lounge the other week, I just love it as it has so much texture and is the perfect colours for the lounge. I have been 'planning' on doing some paintings for the house for a few years now but never get around to it and I have not painted any pictures for years now, the most I have done is a few pencil portraits so when I saw this gorgeous painting I decided to just give up and buy one, I bet I will suddenly have an overwhelming urge to start painting again now. :)

I have been lucky enough to be completely surrounded by flowers at the moment! I bought a few bouquets for my mom while she was here and then I got the first 2 bouquets and the pot plant from my DH for our 13 year anniversary. The last bouquet he bought me on the way home from dropping my parents off at the airport to cheer me up. Isn't he just the sweetest :) I was having to get creative with vases in the end!

Challenges and Cybercrops

This is a very picture heavy post! I am having a very bad week and decided to do some scrapbooking to occupy my mind and remembered that I had found a site called Sketchy Thursdays that I have been wanting to try and have just not had the time recently. So anyway I has a look and tried their latest sketch below.


I really loved this sketch so I enjoyed doing the layout and do love the result which I kept very simple because I loved the clean look of the sketch.

We had a cybercrop this weekend past on UKScrappers. I only did a few of the classes as I just was not up to scrapping this weekend due to one thing and another but these are the classes I did complete. This one was called The Strand by Sarah Youde which I loved!

This one was Angel Islington by Angie Woolfall, which was a totally gorgeous frame class.


This was the first one I did called Bow street by Sarah Palmer, which was loads of fun to do.

These are the two layouts I did for the mystery kit beforehand, my teams kits were from The Craft Emporium and the kit was very scrummy. Unfortunately I didn't have the time or inspiration this time to play with it so I only did these 2 layouts and a card.


This was the layout I did for the pre-crop challenge which was supposed to be of someone who has been a big part or influence in your life. I chose to do my little Granny as she lived with us from when I was really small and has been a big part of my life, so many of my childhood memories include my gran and I have always loved her to bits. Unfortunately she died on Tuesday morning at the age of 87, I am quite gutted (hence the trying to keep my mind occupied) and I am now so glad that I did this layout of the 2 of us, even though it sets me crying every time I see it as it is still up in my scrap room.

Quick one!

Well I have really not been very good at updating recently and there has just been so much going on! This is just a quick post to show how spoiled rotten I was for my birthday! I got this fabby laptop from DH which I am just thrilled about as our old laptop took up to 45 minutes to even start up so I never used to use it anymore. I also got loads of seeds from the kidiewinkles to make lots of flowers in the garden for mommy :)


I also have my parents staying with us at the moment which is of course the best birthday present! This was my favourite present from them because of course I am only slightly Twilight obsesses! The tin is really gorgeous and so are the books, I will never write in them of course, just stroke them every now and again ;)

This is the gorgeous card I received from the girls in the Twilight Addicts group over on UKScrappers. We do a birthday fairy and this card was made by the talented Jane



One thing updated! I will try and be good and get on later or tomorrow to add some more.

Spring is coming!

It is so wonderful to see some sunshine and the flowers beginning to appear here and there! Only crocus so far but at least it means spring is here! The boys are very proud of their little pot plants as they are currently the only flowers in our garden! Christopher insisted I take some photos of him with the flowers.:)

As I mentioned in the previous post we have been having our own mini cyber-crop and this is my third layout for it. The challenge was to scrap about a gift (my sister :)), use handmade embellishments and use an old faithful tool which was my paper piercer and a needle for some hand stitching.

I used the totally beautiful Making Memories Noteworthy paper. This is my sister and I at my younger sisters wedding in 2008.
I only got around to doing 3 of the challenges due to time constraints and the fact that I am just so slow!! There were quite a few other challenges and I would have loved to do them all but at least I managed to do some and really enjoyed doing them too! Then I also won the 3 challenges! Hows that for luck and a wonderful surprise, I think I need to do a few lottery tickets this weekend ;).

Mini Cybercrop!

We have been having our own mini cybercrop over in my Twilight Addicts group on UKS, just nice and relaxed with one class every couple of days over a two week period. But of course even with the easy time allowances I am so behind! I have had a busy week and Christopher has been ill and up at all hours of the night coughing and battling to breathe so I have had hardly any sleep and am walking around like a zombie which is not helping my scrapping speed.. Anyway this challenge was to choose a song by one of your favourite artists and then use that in your layout, either in the title, song words or meaning and then relate it back to Twilight. I do not have a favourite band as I like so many. I had a whole list of songs to use but the Scorpions song You and I seemed to be the easiest to use, so I chose that one.

The heart is actually canvas that I painted and then embossed in my cuttlebug and then inked. I saw the technique on MA's blog and totally adored it so quickly went out and bought some canvas, (I just got an artists pad that is already primed) and this was my first attempt but I plan on many more as I think there are just endless possibilities! I used Scenic Route loveland collection and Kelly Panacci Colour me with love paper.

This was the first one I did and it was just based on a sketch.

I used American Crafts celebration papers. I totally adore the heart which is from Chatterbox and the elephant is so cute, don't remember where that is from though, possibly also American crafts.


I have been decorating again! This is a photo of the corner of the lounge where the computer desk is and I decided it was too plain and needed something. I originally had a large frame with a collage of photos in but it looked silly as there is a large framed mirror in the centre of the couch. I saw a photo somewhere of a room with two or three shelves with photos and pics in different sized frames on it and loved it! So this is the corner before...
I went to B&Q and got some picture shelves which I had to paint as they were white and although I loved them they just didn't match! I also got some nice new frames from the range and printed some black and white photos. Paul says he thinks the corner is too busy now but I like it! I know its a dreadful photo but it was quite a dull day even though the sun was mostly shining!
I did photos of some of the other members of the family and me and Paul as we have all these lovely framed enlargements of the kids all over the house but only a couple of everyone else.

Flower Pot Men!

I have just finished another layout with some gorgeous October Afternoon papers. This is one I have been wanting to do for ages now, it turned out nothing like I originally imagined it but I like it anyway. It is another double of course because I have serious problems deciding what photos to use for a layout as I love them all! The fact that I take so many doesn't help of course, there were 48 photos for this one little play session (though not my fault this time!) and I probably had 20 of them printed and then had to narrow that down as to which ones to scrap. Not an easy task for me!




I saw this layered flower in the Creating Keepsakes a couple of months ago and really wanted to try them so had a play and added it to this layout. I couldn't resist and did sneak a little bit of glitter glue onto the butterflies ;)




I have wanted to learn how to crochet for years now and decided the other day that I was going to finally learn how to do it. I got some books out of the library and bought myself a hook and a couple of balls of wool and started playing. This is just little pieces I have been practising with....ahem, the blue and brown item is supposed to be a 5 petal 'flower' but I somehow ran out of space and it is now a 3 leaf clover! I think I have a problem seeing where each chain is so I miss a few! The top right item was supposed to have been a heart but that went very wrong and I gave up on it. Paul says maybe I am just not meant to crochet and I should find something else to try! I told him to stop being rude, I have only been doing it for 2 days so I am sure I will improve! Here's hoping anyway... So for now I am going to just persevere and do a few squares and learn all the stitches and how to read all the goggledygook abbreviations!

Yummy New Book!

Look what I just bought!


Besides one monthly magazine I don't often buy scrapbooking books as I think styles and tastes just change too quickly for it to be worth paying out the price of the books as some of them are so expensive. However I jumped at the chance of getting this one, not only because I just love Elizabeth Kartchner's work but also because of the fact that it is based on challenges so even if the current (or just mine!) styles change from any of the examples used in the book the challenges can still be used. Having said that I do find most of Elizabeth's designs quite timeless anyway and will probably still love them in 2 years time and the work of the other scrapbookers in the book looks really great so far too. I haven't looked through all of it yet as I am trying to savour it (does anyone else do that?) but it looks really good so far and I am looking forward to starting some of the challenges, I just need to finish the layout I am currently working on (and because it is me it takes ages...) and then I will start with the first challenge!

We are covered in snow again. I had to pull over on the bottom of our street to let a school bus go past and I then got stuck! The kids wanted me to just leave the car and we could walk home so they could have another snow day, because they have not just had a week of holiday! Anyway I eventually managed to move but then had to park miles away from the school once I got there because I wasn't even going to attempt those roads...

I am still here!

Unfortunately it has been a while since I posted again so I have another picture heavy post! I will start off with some scrapping. I seem to only be doing doubles at the moment, probably because I have so many that need to be done because I prefer doing single pages so tend to let the doubles build up...Anyway here are the latest two I have done and I am busy working on another and then I have promised myself I will do a single just for the sake of scrapping and enjoying it! ;) The first is Kierans first (and only so far) sports day in Reception! I do wish they did it as a regular thing here as I always loved sports days when I was a kid and he thoroughly enjoyed his, but alas they don't....


My April 2008 page, I am only almost 2 years behind ;)


Paul had his 43rd birthday the other day and is suddenly complaining that he is looking old and considering shaving all the gray hair off, but I told him he wasn't allowed!


The kiddiewinkles are dog obsessed so whenever we go to Michael and Leanne's house they almost spend more time playing with the puppy than their cousins! We went and spent the night there as they were actually reasonably free for a change as Michael has broken his foot playing football.

This is my new Twilight puzzle I got to replace the one with missing pieces. I now have 2 because they sent me the wrong replacement so Paul said I should just keep it and order another of the original one! He really is just the sweetest thing sometimes! So this is the finished replacement and it was so much easier than the other one but I am really looking forward to building the other one again now that it has all the pieces (we checked!).


Christopher has had a busy month with lots on. He won the award at Beavers and was pleased as punch.

They had a Circus skills workshop at school so they all had to go in dressed as a clown for the day and learnt things like juggling, plate spinning etc. His favourite was unicycle riding.



He went to his first school disco as well, they start them in reception but we always just thought he was a bit young. It was a dress up one so Christopher insisted on going as Dracula (albeit a kind of toothless one!) he also won a prize for his outfit. They have separate discos for the infants and juniors but Kieran didn't get to go to this one as he had a cricket match. As the school is so far away and I wasn't 'allowed' to stay I had to sit in the car with a DS and a blanket because it was freezing and too dark to read a book. The things we do for out kids....


Less photos of Kieran unfortunately as I wasn't at the cricket match and Paul doesn't like to take the camera with, but he is very pleased with himself as with moving up to the next age group he is now using the proper bats and corky balls so he got a new bat, shin pads, arm pads, gloves and all the other paraphernalia you need and a bag on wheels to keep it all in. He also moved up to the next colour cap for swimming and got his 50m badge. This is him riding his new bike that he got for Christmas, at least his knees don't almost touch his ears anymore :)


This is what I am currently reading and I am really enjoying it. It flows really nicely and is very easy reading. I seem to be very into these 'teen' reads at the moment, as I have also just ordered Hush, hush from Amazon and have Fallen on my birthday list, maybe I am trying to re-capture my teenage years ;)