More scrapping goodies

This is a very picture heavy post! This is my pre-crop challenge and mystery kit which I was lucky enough to win prizes for both! First is my pre-crop challenge which was what home means to us. I had such fun doing this layout and I am going to put it in a 12x12 frame and put it up in my scraproom/dining room.


This was my mystery kit which was from Sarah's crafts. I just loved this kit and was so excited when I saw it as I think usually the papers tend to be very generic so that most people can work with them but these were so fun and perfect for me. I am so glad Sarah's cards was my teams supplier as I definitely think our kit was the best and I love her monthly kits too. So anyway I loved it so much I made loads and still have a bit over too!

This is for Christopher's door and he just loves it, it goes with his new bed!


Kieran winning his bounce-athon at school. He had the highest number of bounces in a minute so he won a prize which was a 'Little Robot' and he was very pleased with himself!

I made the mini book by just cutting it out of the pizza box and then covering in black card. I stitched the inner pages in like a book.

Will post some pics of the kids at Gulliver's for Halloween soon. Only 4 more sleeps til New moon!

Very busy

Oooops surprise, surprise it has been a while again! Well things have been busy recently but had a wonderful weekend cybercropping! Of course I am so slow that even though I spent most of the weekend just scrapping I did only complete 4 things! This one was a challenge to use sewing on a layout.


This one was a gorgeous class by Tracie Oakes which I just adore, I just have to still think of a title I want and then put the title block in. It is a dreadful photo because we have had such miserable weather and this was at about 4:45pm.

This was a fab class by Rachel Millington which I really enjoyed doing except for the fact that my sewing machine decided to break in the middle of it and Paul could not fix it so I had to leave off all sorts of stitching and I love sewing on my layouts, I think I will have to go and get a new machine quickly!

And this yummy class was by Di Oliver and I had a ball doing this one. It was a very time consuming class because you make the box frame from scratch and then have to paint it etc but it was well worth the effort. I was literally covered in glue and paint but I have the lovely finished item to hang up in my home this Christmas so I am very pleased!

I still have my precrop challenge and mystery kit which I will upload tomorrow but this is one I finished a little while ago and is my month in review layout for erm March 2008! I am only a little bit behind ;)

Oh Jessica Sprague has a free class starting here today I think. I do love her work.

Only 5 more sleeps till I get to go and see New Moon with Leanne! (it is more exciting than Christmas!)

Not much interesting going on

Been a little while again! I have actually done a layout but unfortunately the weather is dreadful we have had the lights on since 3pm so I am not going to get a picture today.

Not much has happened in the last couple of weeks, so I have not taken many photos! However I do have this one of Christopher in his new cricket kit which he is very proud of. I had to sew about 10 inches up as the pants were so long! He is playing matches every Friday night, at the moment it is just the under 9's and Kieran will only start playing with the under 10's after Christmas. That will be it then until spring I think when they will go back to week night training and Saturday matches. Kieran of course is not happy that he has to wait till January to play again but was very happy when Joe asked him to fill in the other night as they were short of players that week and as Kieran has only just turned 9 he could get away with it.

Shame poor Christopher has been so sick the last few days with flu, I was starting to get really worried by last night when his temperature was still raging after 3 days and he was just so ill. He still had a temperature today but much more moderate and he has perked up a bit and started to eat a bit again. Now we just have to hope we don't all get it but that is doubtful, especially as I basically ended up sleeping with him for 2 nights (or not sleeping!) but fingers crossed as we do not want to be sick through another school holiday!

Oooh and some other big news is there is a cybercrop next month on 13th to the 15th! Yay, I just love cybercrops, a whole weekend of scrapping and Paul is always so good with looking after the kids so I can get on with it!

And just because I am not in the slightest bit obsessed here is a picture of my current desktop image ;-)

Competition!

Just found the most amazing blog candy of a Quickutz Silhouette! It is on the Crafters Kitchen blog and is donated by La Pashe, so head on over there to go and see!

Back! (again..)

Oh dear, another very long gap in between bloggings! Life has been crazy as always and I have not found much time for anything. Plus for the whole of September I had The Mommy and Daddy visiting from SA so was just trying to spend as much time as possible with them! Have also just booked our flights to SA for next year so I am soooooo excited!

Anyway another quick layout I managed to squeeze in and I have started another one for my year in review album (2008 ha ha!) so I will hopefully have that one finished and up very soon. (well one can only hope can't one...)


This is the kidiewinkles receiving their cricket trophies last week. They have been so excited to get these, although you wouldn't say so by the photos would you! (very serious important business you know!) Anyway they are pleased as punch and the trophies now have pride of place in their bedrooms.










































Just had to add this photo in as I just love the way that Christopher cuddles on our laps. He had one of his bad nights so was awake and sitting on my lap here. At 7 he is now starting to get a bit big (size wise) to do this really but he just makes himself into a little ball so he will be small enough. He has always been a very affectionate child and loves to sit on your lap etc and I am so not looking forward to him getting too old to do this anymore because I just love it when he comes and cuddles. So I made sure I had a photo to scrapbook and remember it by before that happens.

I did not spill coffee granules all over the child I promise, I am not sure what happened there, all I did was fix the red eye in paint shop and ended up with those brown marks all over the photo and they were definitely not in the original...


Oh and I just had to put these in for the cute factor. We have not been able to put these fold up mattresses back in the loft for a couple of weeks because the kids have been having so much fun playing with them. They have been using them morning and night to watch TV, eat on, play games on etc. This is them after eating their breakfast in them. But alas they really are the most comfortable mattresses (100 times better than blow up ones!) and we did not want them to get ruined so we eventually had to take them away, that and they were driving me crazy sitting in the lounge all day.

And just for The Mommy, here is the latest New Moon trailer!

I have not blogged for a while as we were away for a while and crazy busy for the few days we have been back! Will try get on later with some photos but for now here are two previews for New Moon! I can't wait for it to come out, roll on November!!!!!

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON trailer


The Twilight Saga: New Moon 'Meet Jacob Black' Preview in HD

Scrapping and food!

Yay, another scrapbook page! I am definitely back into it and can't wait to do another one. This is a dreadful photo because it is overcast and dreary outside as it seems to be most of the time at the moment, UK summers! I will try and replace it with a better one once I get some decent light.

I am even putting some close ups in this time like I have seen on other blogs. I always like to see the close ups so thought I would try it too!




Kieran has recently decided that he loves Michael Jackson, he has liked him for a little while but it increased dramatically after Michael Jackson died. Him and his Friends did a Michael Jackson concert at school which they called 'Thriller Live', it was so cute, they made posters to put up at the school and I had to print out song lyrics so they could practice them. His teacher said it was wonderful because it kept them all out of trouble! He recently bought a book on Michael Jackson with his pocket money and then he used his savings to buy the 'History' CD. We ordered it from Play.com and usually when we order from there it arrives within 1 or 2 days but of course because he was desperate it took a week! So this is him sitting outside on the pavement waiting for the postman on the day it finally arrived. We had just got back from the library where they were doing the holiday book challenge ( they were making Fantasy books ) it was about 12:00 and the postman usually comes at about lunch time so he went straight back out to wait for him (luck for the postman he actually had it that day!). I don't know where he got his impatience from..;)

This is Christopher waiting with him while munching on his wheat-free banana muffin, he loves eating them and helping make them!

Speaking of yummy things, after doing the kids lunch today I had to take a photo because it just looked so delicious, Paul now thinks I am completely
loony! I just loved all the colours though! They had
apple flavour rice cakes with sliced apples and cheese on (one of their favourites), a mini cupcake, fruit (the one with the blueberries is Kieran's of course!), cheese strings and mini sausages and then some left over Parmesan chicken goujons from supper last night. This was the first time I have made them, it was a Rachel Allen recipe an I just made it with wheat free flour and bread crumbs. They were really divine, even Kieran who doesn't eat much meat went back for seconds (of course I did put double the Parmesan in...). I will definitely be making those again.


There is a great competition to win a shopping spree and some loverly flowers here courtesy of Scrapbook Outlet Online!

I suppose I had better go and get the kids into bed and hopefully I will be able to get some more scrapping done later if I am not too tired......

Another scrap page!

I actually managed to fit a bit of scrapping time in this weekend and managed to do a page! I thought I had better do one of the school ones seeing as I am so behind on them, this is year 1 and Kieran goes to year 5 in September! A quick simple one but I really enjoyed doing it so that definitely makes me want to scrapbook some more. The "need to scrapbook" urge is back now so hopefully I will be doing some more pages soon!

Paul took off a couple of days this week so we went to go and see 2 movies this week. We went to go and see Harry Potter as a special treat on Thursday, Kieran and me really enjoyed it but I don't think Paul and Christopher were that mad over it. Then on Saturday we went to one of the Kids movie specials that we go to quite often (because they are so cheap and the kids love them) and watched Monsters versus Aliens. That was a hit with everyone, especially Christopher but the theater was so packed we had to split up and our seats were terrible (teach us to get there earlier next time!). We have also been enjoying finally having some sunshine and have been going to the park, playing cricket and the kids have spent loads of time out on their scooters and things making the most of it before the rain comes back! I will get some photos and put them up in a couple of days.

Finally a layout!

So as I said, I have not scrapbooked for months, so to get back into it I used a sketch by Patti Hutchinson ( www.phutchsketches.blogspot.com). Great sketch but I still had a hard time getting my mojo going again and the layout took days and still turned out naff! I was quite lost and kind of sticking things on for the sake of it....but it is a start and hopefully now that I have completed one my mojo will return!! (please, please, please!)
I have been reading my Twilight books for the third time and loving them just as much as the first time! I read a lot of books and it is very unusual for me to read a book more than once but I just can't seem to get enough of these. I can't wait until Stephenie Meyer writes some more books! I have been trying to go really slowly and enjoy the experience instead of rushing through all 4 books in 4 days again, so I have been forcing myself to put them down and get on with what I should be doing and reading a book or two in between each book. I have just finished Eclipse and am reading something else to hold off on the final book but I am just dying to get stuck into Breaking Dawn so am speeding through it. Here they are, kept near my bed where I can see them often. I got all the hardbacks as I plan to have them for a long time, except for the first one that I already had in softback and I didn't want to give up the movie cover anyway. I will probably get that one in hardcover eventually though. I have also seen the movie numerous times too, I won't say how many.....;)

I did say I would probably not be very good at updating this didn't I? Ok, well how about very bad at updating this. I will try harder! Here are just some random photos from the last couple of months!

Megan, the kids and their new puppy came to visit after driving up North to fetch the new puppy. Which was great as we have not seen each other for a couple of years! Of course the kids were in seventh heaven with a puppy around and you could not get them away from it!

A couple of pics of Christopher, he had to go dressed up as a clown to school for a clown workshop day they had near the end of term where they learnt to juggle etc. Of course the day was huge hit with the kids (even the teachers dressed up!). The other photo I just had to take as he was just so cute taking his doggy for a ride on his scooter, you could just eat them sometimes!

It is school holidays right now and being the typical British summer holidays it has rained almost every day of the holidays so far! We have not got to do much so far due to the rain so the kids have just ended up with friends round here most of the time and driving me up the wall with them all in the house! So with the rain we have done some movie watching with popcorn and other munchies and of course the kids favourite 'Treasure hunts' where I hide various clues around the house and each one leads to the next one until they eventually get a surprise at the end. The sun was actually shining today so as we took the car in to the garage this morning they took advantage and decorated the driveway! I just love Christopher's T-rex and Kierans eagle with a tu-tu and legs (which was supposed to be a piranha!)



We did have some sun before the school holidays of course luckily while Paul's mom was over from SA so we did get to have a few days out including to some country parks, we also went to the local canal for a boat ride and to the Museum for Science and Technology in Manchester which the kids really enjoyed, especially the puzzle room.






I have been so bad and have not done any scrapping for about 3 months now but made myself start a layout the other day, will hopefully finish it tonight and then will upload it and hopefully that will get me back into scrapping mode again!

A start!

Well finally I have started a blog. I am sure I will probably not post as often as I would like to but I have been saying I must start one for a couple of years now. I wanted this blog for my own records of our life and for distant family to be able to view up to date photos and happenings of our lives, so I will try to keep it as up to date as possible. I will start with a few Easter photos from this weekend.

The kids were actually up just after 5am and we lay with them for ages to try and get them back to sleep, especially as the Easter bunny had not come yet! I don't think any of them actually went back to sleep but luckily for them the bunny came even though they were awake, he must have just been really quiet! We made them lie there until after 6 some time and then spent the rest of the day half dead because we were so tired, and we had gone to bed after 12am! There was much excitement during the hunt and we kept having to tell them to be a bit quieter because all the normal people were probably still asleep! Of course they got way to many Easter eggs as usual and had a chocolate overload!


Followed by some photos of our trip over the weekend to the Huddersfield Canal. The kids did a 'Easter egg hunt' where they had to run around the place and find pictures of Easter eggs with letters on to spell out an animal found at the canal and they could then get an Easter egg (free, except you have to pay a pound for the egg, and how do you tell a child you can't have the egg at the end!). They had great fun doing the hunt though and found a chicken!




We were supposed to go on a half hour trip down the canal but after we had bought the tickets and waited half an hour, they remembered that they had actually booked the whole boat out to a tour group. We could either have a refund or wait another hour for the next boat. We did not feel like waiting around so we got a refund and took the little taxi boat back to the parking which was a 15 minute trip anyway. The kids loved it as the people who ran the boat took a shining to them and allowed them to sit up front, outside, while everyone else had to sit inside. I am sure the other poor kids on the boat were not impressed!



We then went to another country park not to far from us.
Very pretty but not nearly as nice as the ones closest to us. We just walked around a bit, stopped and got some ice-creams and went and visited their special garden where the kids looked for newts in the little pond but no luck!

One of my favourite things about living in the UK is how beautiful spring is. I totally adore the blossoms, I find it totally amazing to see a tree completely covered in flowers with no or hardly any leaves! Of course there are the gorgeous Daffodils, crocus and snowdrops I just love the bright clumps of colour everywhere, and since there are quite a few farms and open fields near us, there are just loads around at the moment! Here are a couple of photos from our outing this weekend with some signs of spring!