Having a poorly sick day...

I have Things 1 and 3 at home feeling all poorly sick and sorry for themselves, so whilst they are asleep on the sofa I thought I might actually update my blog. Well it was either that, or do some ironing, and when it comes down to it, blogging beats ironing hands down!

What's been happening since I last blogged way back in September? Well, to be honest, nothing worth writing about. Life has pretty much gone on the same way it usually does for us... school/back from school/after school activities/busy weekends trying to complete unrealistic to do lists... lol!

One thing that is worth writing about is the 3rd Sarah's Cards Ltd retreat that took place in Warrington at the beginning of November. It was another fun weekend with lots of laughs, too much food, and in my case very little scrapping!

You can see a post about the retreat on the blog here. I can't believe it's only 4 months until the next retreat in March!!! There are still a few places left and you can grab yourself one of them here. There were 6 fab LO classes, and the LOs can be seen here. My mum came to the retreat this time as a late birthday/early Christmas present. She was really nervous about going as she didn't know anybody (apart from me obviously), but she was soon befriended and chatting away like she'd known everyone for years... and she soon got a 'fresh air' buddy too! She loved it and had a fab time, making lots of new friends. Here she is with 2 of her table friends, Dr Eileen and Trina.

Now it's bad enough having to have the DT photo at the end of the retreat, but this year I was forced into having a small group photo too... lol! It's been printed out and stuck to the treat cupboard door so I don't go in there... look at that tummy!!! Oh dear!

 Like I say I got very little scrapping done... I only completed 1 LO!!! As it happens it was a LO for the November challenge on the Sarah's Cards blog, set by Nat. The theme is to think NEGATIVE. I went down the using the negative space in my alphas to create the eyes design feature.

 I bought the Pink Paislee Phantom range, including stamps, stickers and transparencies as soon as they came out, because I just knew they'd be perfect for the Halloween photos I have yet to scrap from previous years... but of course I started with photos from this year first! As well as the challenge LO, I also did this LO of Drew studying 'little Oliver' dressed as Harry Potter. I don't know if it was the glasses or the scar, or just how incredibly cute he looked, but Drew was fascinated with him. The photos were taken at the 'First Annual' Garratt Halloween Party... there you go Jen, it's out there now, you HAVE to have another party next year! There will be lots of LOs appearing from the fantastic afternoon, so watch this space, this space and this space.

I used the chalkboard stickers to make the spider embellishment, the very cute Halloween stamp set from American Crafts and a strip of gorgeous Amy Tangerine mix tape., the background grid paper was also by Amy Tan.

I can share a few more LOs that were created using the September kit. This was a gorgeous kit to work with, and even though at first glance it looks like a 'girly' kit, it was really easy to use on boys LOs. There are a couple left to buy.

 My blog post goes up on the 1st of each month, and this month I decided to use a mix of papers by Lily Bee and Studio Calico. Here are my LOs, and you can see the blog post here with a tutorial on how to create perfect stitched titles, and the flower embellishment using a circle punch here and here.

Righty ho, that's all there is for now folks... I'll be back one day... I may even make the effort to blog again before Christmas... lol!

XXX

Testing, testing...

Just seeing if blogging using a phone is as easy peasy as the app write up says it is!!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Another New Year

I guess it's the teacher in me that I still work on an academic year... I can't believe we're well into September already!!! Harry started full time school o Monday, which h is so far really loving. It means that I only have 2 small children at home at any time now, and on some days it's just me and Drew... which is fab! Harry was very excited about starting school and on his first day (which was just a half day) he sat holding his bags all morning just waiting to go.

He's not so keen on the school dinners, so we're going to have to see how that one goes.

A few weeks ago Rob and the boys did a bit of tree surgery, removing all the dead leaves from the Cordyline tree. I got some great photos from the afternoon, and can't wait to scrap the sequence of Drew picking up a snail, studying the snail then realising he didn't like the snail touching him!!! Here are a couple from the sequence.

Harry had the very important job of project manager, so got to wear the high vis vest and hard hat....

After a summer of being scared to go on the trampoline Drew discovered this week that he now REALLY like to bounce. Trouble is we have to lock and hide the keys or he lets himself out to bounce no matter what the weather or the time of the day!!!

On Friday Drew and I had an afternoon in the garden together... he's such a monkey and wouldn't let me take his photo, so out of over 100 photos taken I got lots like this....

I'm not looking...

 I'm still not looking...

 But I did get this cute one of him telling me to go away...

 Then he escaped into the playhouse, so this was taken through the window...

 And I got loads of him hiding behind the playhouse and peeping round at me.... I love this one in particular...

 On the scrapping front... I've recently bought lots of the new yumminess coming into Sarah's Cards. My favourite being the Pink Paislee Phantom range... can't wait to start playing with these. I also bought some MME Lost and Found 2 Breeze papers, which I used for the September sketch challenge over on the Sarah's Cards Blog. I've started to look through some of my old photos to scrap, and decided to use my favourite one of Oliver when he was 5 days old. His first few scrapbooks are really basic as I didn't have any tools or pretty papers, so I feel like I should re-scrap some of the photos so that hi are as nice as Thing 2 and 3's.... it's just my very valid excuse to buy more papers and scrap baby photos!

 

I used the same range of papers for this LO of my lovely friends who got married at the beginning of the month. It was a refreshing change being able to use sparklies for sparklies sake.

Here are a few images of work I've done for the Sarah's Cards Blog. This month I started an Art Journal using kraft envelopes as my base. You can see the blog post here.

I also did this LO using a kraft envelope as a pocket, using these Glitz stamps, which are also in the sale section so you'd be foolish not to get!!!

These LOs were for the July blog post.... but I forgot to blog them on here, because I'm good at being forgetful like that!

Ok, that's it for a few more days/weeks/moths/years... I doubt it'll be the last option, but it's not likely to be the first... lol!!!

Another year older...

Another year wiser.... hhhhmmmm, well I'm not so sure about that, but it's better than saying another year closer to 40... or as my friends all said, half way to 70!!! July was a busy month here, with my 35th birthday, and Thing 1's 8th birthday... scary how quickly that came round too!
School broke up for the summer so it became extra busy in this house... which is why I haven't blogged in an age! I'd apologise, but seriously, is anyone really bothered that I didn't blog... lol!

Last week Rob and I both took a week off work and we went out for day trips with the boys. The weather wasn't forecast to be great but we actually got lucky and were only rained on once... and that was while we were on a water ride so it doesn't count!

We went to Chester Zoo first. Drew was only really young last time we went so it was great seeing him watch the animals properly for the first time. It wasn't a scorching hot day like the last time we went so the animals were really active, which was fab... especially the monkeys and orangutans. All the exotic animals in the zoo and  guess which were the boys favourite???

The dinosaurs!!!

There is a fab summer exhibition of life size moving (so obviously real) dinosaurs, and I have to say they were pretty impressive. Luckily we went straight to them first so we got up close before the crowds of chavs with their rude kids got there and pushed in!!!

On Wednesday we headed over to Rotherham to Magna. It was meant to be a rainy day so we planned this to be an indoor visit. However the weather stayed dry, and the kids spent the day in the BIGGEST outdoor play area I've ever seen... it just went on and on, and was fab! It had a water park area too, although it was too cold for the kids to go in that... well my kids anyway, there were some kids in there... turning a lovely shade of blue!!!

It's a good job the activity park was so good as Magna itself was SHITE!!! Seriously... don't bother, it's dark, it's smelly, the 'fun and exciting' interactive exhibits are not fun or exciting, and they are few and far between. What was funny was seeing all the adults walking round with a 'WTF' expression and all the young kids clinging to their parents legs or crying in pushchairs because of the dark and the spooky sound effects playing! We plan to go back, but only on a sunny day to use the park and water area.

Oliver finally got over his fear of climbing, and realised that actually he could do it and it wasn't as scary as he thought it would be... YAY!

 This one took some mastering as it was quite steep and a bit slippy, but he got there in the end.

 A bouncy thing they all enjoyed... and see the big kid in the background having fun too... lol!

Harry and Drew loved this sand area, and actually played really nicely together for ages.... I had to get photographic evidence of that!

Thursday was a day off... I was meant to catch up with my paperwork, but that didn't happen..... but I did watch quite a few episodes of SATC... lol!

Friday we went to Drayton Manor for the day... Oliver was very excited to be able to go on proper big roller coasters (and so was I). Thomas Land was a massive hit with Harry and Drew... if you have little people I can highly recommend a visit here... even if they are not Thomas fans, it's just so much fun.

Oliver and Rob are on this... so proud of my big boy being brave... this is one ride you won't ever get me on... ever! Been there, done that, vomited and cried... don't need to do it again... EVER!!!

Harry overcame his fear of people dressed up in costumes to have his photo taken with the 'space peoples', Drew freaked out when the space peoples started following us!

We went straight from Drayton Manor to my parent's house in Edwinstowe, as it was the Robin Hood Festival, and as they live a short walk from the Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre, it would have been silly not to go. The boys loved the open air shows, the birds of prey and the jousting... silly mummy forgot to take her camera!!! It was absolutely heaving, and when we were walking home and could see all the traffic problems caused by the massive amount of tourists, it made me very glad I don't live in that small village anymore.

And so back home and back to work. I have loads of work to do... childminding paperwork... boooo! and DT work...yay!
There are 4 new members of the Sarah's Cards DT, and I'm so chuffed my friend Helen got a place.... I LOVE her work. Go take a peek... it's fab!
Here is some work I created for the July kit.... I used the Teresa Collins stamp maker to make the Henry Hoover stamp... super cute isn't it?

This LO was of Drew pretending to be asleep so he didn't have to answer me when I asked him if he had pooped!!! This is his new thing... I don't want to talk to you, I pretend I'm asleep... lol!!!

A summery LO of Ginger bear squinting in the sun... wearing Drew's hat!!!

The Sarah's Cards blog is still a fun and exciting place to be for loads of crafting inspiration... you seriously should check it out every few days, the ladies are producing some amazing work... I'm so lucky being a part of this team.

For my July post I had a play with the Maya Road Resist. Here are the 3 LOs I created, and you can see step by step photos on how I created the LOs here and here.

Each month there is a challenge on the blog where you get the chance to win a £20 voucher to spend in the shop... £20!!! I can't think of any good excuse not to play along. This month Rachel set the challenge, to use 5 different pp on a LO. Here is the challenge, and here is my LO.

 My time on the Twisted Sketches DT came to an end, and due to work commitments I didn't have time to extend my term, which I was very sad about... but I look forward to playing along with the fab new Twisted sisters from time to time. For my last ever LO I created a collage of all the work I had created whilst I was on the team... I drew the title like it is on the blinkies and used the pink/black/white colour scheme.... I have to say I really like how this turned out!

And lastly a 'just for me' LO... I started this at a mini crop at my house... fannied about with it for far too long, but it came together in the end. No patterned paper, just lots of misting, a bit of graffiti and black outlines... simples!!!

Hope you made it through to the end of that post... lol!

I really should try to blog more often... I will, one day... soon... maybe ;-)

ta ta for now

x