DCM and Dream Street Papers...

Im loving all these challenges around and to tell you the truth its this thats made me really love this hobby!! Not just going through the motions of scrapping for an album but pushing myself to do things i wouldnt normally do and i think ive finally found a style im happy with, ive tried simple layouts and it just wasnt me.....ive tried loads of patterened papers and it just looked messy! Now im working on the cluster of embellies look and it is sitting well with me - im finally happy with how im scrapping and thats all that matters isnt it? :)


Here is a card for the daring card makers ribbon challenge this week, first time ive taken part but not the last, i should have done this ages ago!!

creation station!!

I think my creative train is on full steam ahead!! I am loving 'doing things' again....dont get me wrong there hasnt been a point when i have disliked it but im now at the 'ok what can i make next' bit!! I made a few bits for halloween including a tin for my niece, filled with candy and bearing a DIVA logo im sure it will go down a treat :)

I love the look on Jakes face in this picture, so wide eyed and innocent (believe me he isnt - behind that smile and those sparkly eyes are pure devil child, the cheeky laugh that goes with the mischief is all part of his charm!!) lol

My mum rocks!! lol

Well i could hardly pass up the opportunity to get Jake this T-shirt - even if he doesnt quite think so when he is older and i have the photos to make him squirm!! lol I love paper piecing (should i have whispered that??) - i dont mean the teddy bears and random scrapping circa 1990, i mean punch shapes and making scenes like the one below. This is a snowscene capped of with snow via the ink daubers (how cool are they and why have i just discovered them!!) made for the Design Collective christmas extras :)
Collectively Yours dare this week was elemental - you know, water, air, fire and earth. Well since during the summer we spend an awful lot of time at the beach (yeah they are all water babes!) it seemed the only way to go with a beach shot. Jake is terrible for not wanting to get wet and had us in fits of laughter with his genius way of skipping that 'wet trouser bottoms' syndrome!! lol

What time is it??

SCRAPTIME!! Now whenever i look at the clock it tells me to go scrap, make art - whatever, its scraptime! lol This was a project for the papercraftjunkies design team challenge. Tracy set the challenge this week about time and this clock was just shouting out to be altered - it already has pride of place on the wall in my studio!

The Bad Girl Kits forum set the october challenge to use journaling on your layout, these are more pics of the boys at the beach and some notes on the usual routine. You know the kind, skimming stones, jumping waves, being told not to get wet and falling face first into the water - that kind of thing!! lolOh and im absolutely covered in magnolia paint splashes why cant someone invent a non-splatter roller!!?? Im completely whitewashing the house in the hope it will sell quicker, what is it all those 'sell your house' programmes say......'make it neutral and cream' well yes the life is being sucked out of our house in the hope someone can fall in love with it the way we did.....funny how life makes sudden twists isnt it!

Dirty Dancing..

The living tv show started tonight (infact its on right now!) and im loving it - its set at Kellermans and looks just like it did way back when!! Im doing some serious arm twisting with dh as its got to be our next holiday - i swear it would be a complete dream come true! I dont know anyone who doesnt love Dirty Dancing! lol

Heres another layout of me (yawn i know but im loving the girly papers lately and im the only one i can use them on!!) Im working on some christmas projects so will share those soon too :) Ive entered a few DT calls and a couple of manufacturer contests and still have lots to do so please cross your fingers for me :) :)

for the love of basic grey...

Im in their gallery with my About a girl layout - I made this at the retreat at the weekend, airing my new Fancy Pants stamps......boy are those babies HUGE!!! Its made using the Infuse papers with prima flowers, circle stamp (think its an autumn leaves one) and the fancy pants stamps.
Isnt this just the cutest thing ever!! A mini atc carousel - i dont do atc's too often and dont enter swaps so dont really need one i just think its mega cute and would look fab on my desk! lol
Here is a sneaky peek of a project for the Design Collective 12 week run up to christmas - im loving all the different ideas the girls are coming up with, 13 girls designing and each with a different take on each weeks challenge!! This is on top of the normal classes too! :)

Scotland and stamp obsession....

We had an amazing time at the Scotland retreat!! It was Heathers birthday last tuesday so i suprised her with a party theme (heather organised the whole retreat so it was the least i could do to bring some decorations and a pinata without her knowing!!) lol Thankfully she loved it! The pinata was a huge shoe and didnt half take a beating to break - i swear at one point we almost trashed the tree with all the blind swinging of that stick! All of the sweets inside were batterred to a pulp and eventually it was Mel who knocked it for six!! lol
erm.....nuff said - the 3 amigos!
Heather was a fabulous hostess and is a Rainbow leader - on Saturday night we got to meet some of the girls as they had made us all a 3 course meal and served it to our table!! These girls are so pretty and polite and bearing in mind what some 14/15 year old girls get up to these little grown ups were a complete and utter role models for the younger brownies out there - they gave up their saturday night to come and make a meal for a bunch of 15 nutty scrapbookers! They deserve any badge going in my opinion!! lol
OK, so have you fallen for the Magnolia stamps yet??? I know i have.........

Back at the sewing machine...

Overnight i finished off the bag, purse and keyring for Marja and they are winging their way to their new home tomorrow :) Im really pleased with how they turned out - i am still working on the whole zipper thing so for now this is a tie purse instead! What is it with zippers i just cant grasp - anyone out there that hold the secret then please put me out of my misery! LOL

I have some projects to finish off for the Design Collective and PapercraftJunkies so best get busy (plus im making a secret birthday pressie - sssshh, cant tell you anymore but will share pics soon!) ;)

New fabrics.....

I finally finished sorting my studio (im calling it a studio as ive now moved all my sewing things in there too!) and i can finally get to work on some outstanding projects! Marja has commisioned a tote style bag to take out when she takes Naomi in the buggy - i have the fabric and the ideas so Im making a start on that tonight, with co-ordinating purse and a little suprise too.....will post piccies once marja has got her hands on it :)

We are having a huge clear out ready for a carboot sale - even if we dont move house for a while yet we needed this clear out ready for christmas otherwise the kids wont be able to move again! LOL

Im so in love with this programme - infact i think its overtaken Grays Anatomy in my 'best programme ever' category. The story lines are great and of course having eye candy like Rob Lowe cant be bad can it??

Its my Birthday!! :)

Its my day today and what i thought was going to be a pretty run of the mill and nothing special birthday turned into the BEST birthday ever!! I have been so spoiled by girls i have the pleasure of calling my friends, these girls are just the most fabulous people i have ever met (and i havent even met some of them!!) lol Look what they bought me....a gorgeous HUGE bouquet of flowers complete with vase!.............an absolutely gorgeous bangle from A String Of Beads! I admired andreas when she had hers on and it looks so pretty!! Also from A String of Beads is a beautiful necklace, all dark and lush swirls from the fabby Heather! Some handmade christmas stamps from my phone buddy Lemon! lol A gorgeous handmade Home is where the heart is canvas and a pack of fabrics from the very artistic Clare and some beautiful embellies from Lousette!! I feel so spoilt!!!Look at all these cards- ive never had this many cards since i was in infant school (you know when you use to get one from EVERYONE in class! lol) I have noticed the neighbours looking too probably wondering what special occasion it is! :)

DH took me out for lunch and let me stop off at the Scrapbook shop where Gill was serving!! I havent seen Gill in years so that was a fab addition to a fab day!

busy busy bee!!

I love working on these mdf layouts - here is the third in a set of 4 that are now on my kitchen wall - its great to be able to display some work without having to sort out frames, nails in the wall etc. All i have done is attach some double sided sticky velcro to the back of the mdf and stick it to the wall - the mdf is light enough to be held up by it and it means they are flat on the wall too instead of at an angle due to a nail etc :) I finally got the jacket finished for sewmamasew and I LOVE IT!!! So does Ethan as he wont take it off, its really given me the clothes making bug and im definately going to make more! I thought i would struggle giving it was my first venture with fabric outside of bags but the pattern was so easy to follow and everything just seemed to flow :)

Went to see Gwen last night and what can i say apart from FANFLIPPINGTASTIC! Loved the fact she actually came out and into the audience running down the aisles and singing in the stands - its obvious she loves her fans and judging by the response she got last night everyone loves her too :) Im slightly worse for wear this morning having come down with flu over the last couple of days! The boys and dh arent well either so its 5 cases of man-flu on top of me feeling like pants so if you have any hugs, medicine, patience etc going spare throw some this way!! LOL

Im going out!!

Yep, im off out tonight for the first time in ages!! My little sis bought tickets to go and see Gwen Stefani for my birthday and tonight is the night (birthday isnt until tuesday), Soooooo excited as its bound to be a real all dancing all singing show! :)

I have so much to do today including photographing items for my next DC class, finishing my write up for Sewmamasew, finish my project for Papercraft junkies DT, parcel up some RAK pressies and alround finish off projects that are now taunting me!! Will be back to post some piccies later :)

Christmas is a comin' .....

sorry couldnt resist!! I picked up a couple more christmas pressies today (bargains at Tesco - 75% off toys, what could be better!) , the boys love playing rough with their cars etc and they get thrown around the garden etc so im all for some cheap throw away toys!!

I dont know if its the weather getting cooler or that feeling of the nights getting darker but something in the air is feeling Christmassy - and you know what - IM LOVING IT!! I cant wait to get the decorations out, cant wait to start making table centrepieces, cant wait to start wrapping presents and everything else that comes with it.

Maybe im feeling this way because its been an absolutely awful year here - i mean BAD.....some days i really feel like standing there and shouting ' if theres anything else hit me with it now i really cant get any lower'!! There was the problems with the neighbourhood, bullying, dads cancer, business problems and now the fact we have to move again....seriously if this is karma i must have been such an awful person in the past! I try to live by the 'dont do anything to others you wouldnt want done unto you' but boy i think ive had my fair share of crap now, someone stop the ride i want to get off!!

OK, that was a little heavy but im guessing i just needed to get it out there and if youve made it this far then thank you :) On a lighter note then here is a piccie of my gorgeous teeny one (before a much needed haircut!)...

...his favourite phrase at the minute is 'what you doing?' He makes me smile :)

I now have a reason to use pink!!

Meet Cassie :) She is our new teeny 9 week old kitten - now i will be the first to admit ive never been an animal person but me, dh and ethan went for a walk the other day with the other boys at school and we stopped in at the pet shop to show ethan the bunnies etc. Sitting in the corner of a cage was a little teeny ball of black fluff - she poked her head up, flopped her head down and just looked so sad - my heart melted there and then. *wub*The lady at the pet shop said someone was coming to pick her up that day but if she didnt turn up she would give us a call and let us know - fully expecting no phone call we tootled off home and sat wondering what kind of home she had gone to. Next morning the phone rang and she said 'what time will you be here to pick up your kitten!!' The boys were all at school when we picked her up and had no idea about her at all as we didnt mention it - they are so ecstatic and dote on her and she is the bestest thing to happen to us in a long time! She is only 9 weeks and is the same size as the tv remote control....so teeny that you have to watch where youre walking as you may stand on her!!!

Its was self portrait saturday over at HS:MS yesterday - this is one of the pics i did when trying to get a shot for my avatar on here but sadly i just cant do the 'elsie' look - i just look like im constipated or something! mwahahaa

today at HS:MS its Show off Sunday - show a favourite pic - heres mine, how cool is this t-shirt!! LOL

The boys are back.....

....at school - partyyyyyyy!!! LOL I dont mean it honestly but after 6 weeks of constant MMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMM you kinda look forward to packing them out of the door on a school morning! ;) Ben started BIG school and Jake went back to school from being taught at home instead of nursery for the last few months of last term!

Im just sorting through more holiday photos and have already received 200+ that i need to scrap! I had a visit to B&Q for more MDF and cant wait to make a start on more actual wall layouts - i have 3 so far and they look SO cool! Heres a couple more holiday shots and i will take some pics of the layouts on the wall and post them too -

Todays post at HS:MS is - To grasp, carry or support with your hands. Find 'hold' in your space. Ethan bought this monkey at Banham Zoo and hasnt put it down since!