Lucky Me

I won this fab 'hanging' at the auction on Saturday :) It was created by the amazing Gigi ,one of the SIS Tv Fashionistas.I have loved her work since seeing her art journal cards for Emily Falconbridge's prompts last year.Thank you for your Gigi for your generosity , I hope you don't mind it coming home with me!I now need to find the right place to hang it out of the way of sticky fingers!

Just for Ania,here is the bag too :)

I have a whole heap of ideas for stuff that I want to do right now, but I don't seem to actually doing any of it :( I much prefer scrapping during the day ,but then I feel guilty that I should be doing other stuff ...Next on the agenda is re-doing Holly's room, as her new Ikea bed is still packed up behind the sofa!

Tomorrow I am popping over to Anna's to help unpack stuff from the weekend.

And I have to share this photo pinched from Anna's blog as I love it! I normally spoil the photos I'm in, but I actually like this one for a change!

Nice...

So I finally got to have a go on the Wii Fit last night having not had a chance on Friday and been away since.And I am obese with a Wii Fit age of 48...nice!!I am aiming to become a muscle legend a la Annie (at 1am Sunday morning!!)In my dreams....
So, the retreat....well, most of the feed back has been good as far as I'm aware so hopefully that means I haven't been sacked and I get to help at the next one!
We carried on the tradition of having more than one one pudding,the food there is wonderful and I've probably eaten enough to keep me going for two weeks (not that it will!)It was great to spend time with Kerry and Louise as well as being able to put lots of new names to faces too :)We were also lucky to have the wonderful Debbie Jewell with us on Sunday too! Oh, and a special thank you to Carol & Julie who didn't mind me occupying their table evrytime they left the room!
The auction was a success gain too, but I'll leave it to Anna to share that news :) I won something that I really wanted and will share that next time I blog.
I am now the very happy owner of this gorgeous Momiji along with a funky Momiji bag ,which were a present from Anna (and hand picked by Peter-you have great taste ;)!)
I have a bag full of lovely new stash which I bought from the shop,sadly I have to go through the task of unpacking all my stuff bfeore I get to play with any of it :( And before that I have a heap of the dreaded housework to catch up on too...

And finally, here's my Pencil Lines layout for this week
I used
Cosmo Cricket Story Time papers
AC felt shapes
felt flowers from John Lewis
Heidi swapp letters covered in Doodlebug glitter
K&Co brads
Studio G alpha stamps

Home again...

...with aching feet and a very fat tummy after a weekend at the Scrapping Angels retreat :) As per usual I have hardly any photos but came home with a whole load of happy memories!
Thank you for having me Anna...when's the next one?!;)
I will be back tomorrow after a full nights sleep (the first for a while!)a proper post and my Pencil Lines layout which went live earlier this evening.

So, so envious...

of whoever gets to take home this sweetie at the weekend!I have a feeling there won't be enough pennies in my pocket to secure her a place in my home,so whoever wins her will be one lucky person!Verity has been very very kindly donated to the auction by Little Cotton Rabbits.Go and check out Anna's blog to see the other fab items up for auction at the retreat .We are hoping to beat last years amazing total of £700 for the very worthy cause of MS, in memory of Anna's dear Dad.So, retreat girls, empty out your penny pots and bank accounts and come with your purses full!I am waiting on a very special 'item' for the auction from an amazing person, fingers crossed it arrives by Friday.If not, I will take along a photo so the girls can bid on it and I will post it straight on to its new home when it arrives :)
I'm starting to get excited now, though as per usual I'm not at all organised!
Today I have made cookies for Holly's school year cake sale, and this evening made a batch of fairy cakes which I will turn into butterfly cakes tomorrow morning!I have also caught up o some hoovering as well as shifting lots of boxes out of the kitchen & living room - hurray, it's starting to look better by the day!
After the retreat I will be having a clear out/sort out of my stash and re-storing it all !Then maybe I will start using it more!
And to cap it all..it's been sunny and warm today!!
Still on my to-do list for this week are...make name badge, sort paperwork for the weekend,tidy house before I leave..oh, and dye my hair.Yep, I am going play it unsafe and do it the day before I go,will probably leave it on too long and turn up looking like a Goth! Nah, hardly likely...but if it goes wrong I won't have time to re-do it!

Phooey

I don't know why, but that is how I am feeling at the mo...phooey! This miserable weather isn't helping and neither is the fact that the house is still stacked high with shed junk & stuff.Tomorrow they are coming to take it down again (!!) and then put it back up on the right base,Talk about a waste of time & money! I will just be glad when the house is free of tools ,ladders & 'stuff'.
I have to make myself lots of lists of to do's this week before I head off to Anna's on Friday.This includes my PL layout for next Sunday and two CJ entries!
I am seriously unimpressed with the photo of my layout for this week -it looks so much 'zingier' in real life!
I used the Scrapping angels April kit,using Pink Paislee papers.

I also used Doodlebug sugar coated lettters
I love these old photos of Holly from three years ago,she looks so small!
Yesrterday we decided to brave the 21% sale at Ikea....never again will I trust RAC directions!! We normally go to Thurrock as although it's further away, it's the most straightforward to get to.But yesterday we thought we'd try the Edmonton store (22 miles away) as we thought we'd be in there a while so it was best not to have to drive too far.Let's just say we could have driven to Thurrock and back in the time it took us to find the place after a couple of tours of Enfield....!Almost two hours it took us!Once in there , it wasn't as busy crowd wise as I'd expected...but I've never seen so many people arguing whilst shopping! Oh and then we had to wait about 20 mins for a trolley....and typically we joined the queue at the till where there was a problem with someones payment...In future,we will stick to Thurrock...and will only visit at quiet times (That's if I'm ever allowed to go back again!)

A day out..

..or at least a trip 40mins down the railway line anyway! Today I went over to Anna's to work work work! Really we could have done with a few more hours but those things like real life and children get in the way!Anyway, we got a lot of kit packing done ,paperwork sorted and Galaxy eaten :) The weather was gorgeous so we ate lunch outside , a first this year! And on the one ocassion I actually managed to remember to charge up and take with me an Ipod shuffle -what do I do? (No, not just pick up the headphones like last time!) I pick up a 'spare one' (NOT mine) which only had three double albums of Christmas songs on...and the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing! I was not impressed!By the time I'd found the Dirty Dancing songs I'd almost reached Anna's...

Yesterday I finally got round to ordering a proper 8.5 x 11 album so hopefully it might be here tomorrow and tidy up the drawer where my Lo's and albums are (the small LO's are in ab ag at the moment!) I think I should be getting 2 cj's in the post too, making that 3 to do by next Friday...mission impossible maybe?!

This is the only photo taken today,a rush job as we dashed off back to the station!

Scratch that last blog post title...

...it seems summer isn't coming yet after all :( Today we have returned to it being cold and very wet again :( I'm now glad I spent most of yesterday afternoon out in the garden doing loads of digging,ready for the next sunny day.Whenever that may be.We dragged the kids over to B&Q (Holly was most put out at such torture...)where I bought lots of pansies, sweet peas.lobelias and some petunias.I admit to being stingey and generally buy B&Q value plants! Okay, so they may not look much at first, but they generally seem to grow perfectly well once they've been planted /potted up.The girls wore themselves out (again!) having space hopper races and setting up an obstacle course to manouvre!
We ended the day by settling down to watch Enchanted :)
A new sketch is now live over at Pencil Lines :)

I used KI Lace cardstock
Bo Bunny Teen Chic paper
Doodlebug sugar coated alpha & paper frill
Ac Velvet Thickers
Cosmo Cricket chipboard
Maya Road journalling sheer
Heidi Swapp brads & bling & ghost heart
Prima birdie

I really need to do more layouts of Em, so I made a start with this one! At the moment she is really revising hard for her Stats and spends so much time with her nose in a revision book! We're not putting any pressure on her but I'm surprised at much she's knuckled down as we've always had to nag her to do her homework in the past!I think she's just realised that by putting in a bit more time, she can actually make a difference to what marks she gets.
This week I am off to Anna's to help sort out retreat stuff...eek, it's come round quick!I also need to get the next couple of PL sketches done so I'm not running around at the last miunte right before the retreat!

Summer is a coming...

or it feels a bit that way anyway as I have done my first lawn mowing of the year!Actaually, I use the term lawn in the loosest possible meaning..it's like trying to mow the Himalayas it's so lumpy & bumpy.I finally resorted to using the strimmer after hitting a pile of stones half buried in the grass by Holly,thus snapping the belt on the mower...I'm hoping (weather permitting) to start digging out the beds in the front garden soon and begin planting up the hanging baskets ,plus putting in some sweet peas again.Funny to think that this last time last year we had planted all the seeds in the veggie patches! Might attempt them again this year but one of them needs to made a bit smaller first. With the weather being nice the last few days the girls have been spending lots of time out in the garden after school wearing themselves out.As a result Holly has been sleeping in til about 7.15 in the mornings - a miracle!
No scrapping being done here I'm afaraid..house is still like a tip with stuff all over the place :(
But..look out for these on a layout very soon! I was going to share these Maya Road sheers with Anna, but sorry hun, they're so gorgeous I think I'm going to keep them all to myself! I'll give you some Galaxy instead!
Tomorrow Holly starts at Brownies, she's looking forward to it as she'll be with several of her friends from school :)
Lots of boring house stuff to do this weekend ie food shopping, run to the tip etc etc.Geoff is working on Sunday so weather depending ,us girls will be going out for a walk or making cookies! I'm also hoping we'll be getting Enchanted so I'm sure that will be watched too ( anything to break the non-stop High school Musical marathon we seem to be stuck in at the moment!

But on a brighter note

Go Liverpooooooool!!!

It's official

Whilst I am eternally grateful for the roof over my head...there are days when I hate being a council tenant.I am off to eat chocolate and drink wine before I start crying out of pure frustration again.It's been one of them days....

More barmy weather

Today I should have be cropping over at Anna's,but after waking up to a couple of inches of snow I decided not to go as it's quite a long journey in dodgy weather and hopped back into bed for a bit longer!I missed seeing everyone though and having a bit of 'me' time...roll on the end of the month!

So after a quick trip to Tesco's, we all went out into the garden and built a snow lady called Emily! We used almost all the snow from the ground and the garden is now nice and muddy! It actually wasn't that cold out, though by the afternoon it was flippin' freezing!

The house is a tip due to boxes and bits & pieces of shed stuff all over the place. I feel like I haven't stopped all day..having cleaned the bathroom, hoovered everywhere,ironed and then slaved over a hot oven.Yep, I am desperately trying to find the domestic goddess within me so today I made Cottage pie for the kids tea (they were very suspicious as to why the recipe had celery on it!).And yippee, it went down well! Even Geoff sat and ate a plate full!

On Thursday Holly spent most of the day at a friends house so Em I had some fun in the kitchen making 'healthy' ice cream (well it's gone rock hard so I don't know when we'll ever eat it!!) and then making burgers :)

On Friday we finally had a lovely day for the Easter egg hunt - better late than never! Em went in a bit of a grump but I still managed to get the photo that I used on my PL layout this week:)


Talking of which,here it is.

I used papers from the Scrapmuse kit again as I have so much left!

I also added Rhonna Farrer swirl stamps

Maya Road felt bird

Angel Kiss blooms

Scenic Route chipboard letters

Tomorrow is finally d-day for the dreaded shed...I'll believe it when I see it!

*will add other pics when I can get to grips with new technology - say no more*

I saw a mouse...

...and I don't mean Holly's favourite Mickey Mouse either... We've noticed mouse pooh in the shed recently but never managed to find them - until today.As the weather was dry I decided to try and move out and re-pack into new boxes some of the stuff piled up in there.I moved a bag from on top of the kids old carrycot (it was being used to store stuff as it has a plastic base and keeps things dry)and oh yuck, I was hit by the smell of mouse wee!! They'd chewed a bin liner up and nested in there :( I dragged the carry cot into the garden and with being disturbed, a little furry face peeped out at me resulting in a very loud scream from me!With Geoff typically being at work when I needed him, I rang my Dad! Whilst waiting for him to arrive I thought I'd pull said cot into the middle of the garden...prompting one mouse to jump ship and run into next doors garden!When my Dad arrived he bravely moved the bag that was on top...and the second occupant hopped out and legged it back into the shed!!Yes, we'd forgotten to shut it! We eventually managed to chase it back out again and have now boarded up all the gaps until the whole thing is replaced next week - not a day too soon!I'm just glad we got them out, I really didn't want to have to kill them, as despite stinking the place out they were actually quite sweet looking and I am a bit of a softy!


This morning we went down for a walk by the lakes for a bit of fresh air and to give my camera a bit of use! As both girls were wearing their wellies they decided to go for a paddle in the river :) They had wanted to do it during the summer but it was always packed - today they had the place almost to themselves!It was ctually quite warm and summer like today at times - at long last!

Not much else planned for this week.Holly is sleeping over at my Mum & Dad's tonight and on Friday we're having a second attempt at an Easter Egg hunt with their cousins! At some point I guess I need to do some scrapping too...haven't touched anything for a week now.

The Scrapping Angels retreat is fast approaching too...I can't believe it's been almost a year since the last one!Am looking forward to seeing some old faces again plus the new ones too!