Whizzing through...

This is one of those manic weekends (aren't they all in the run up to Christmas?!) when I seem to be doing a great impression of a headless chicken!
This morning we had Holly's birthday party here for five of her friends.She opted for a craft party and they all went away with decorated, bags, photo frames,christmas baubles,notebooks and foam hristmas trees :) And although the house has a sprinkling of glitter throughout, I can honestly say it was the easiest party we've ever done! No snatching of the pass the parcel, no sulking because they didn't win musucal statues and no getting bored!
After lunch we went and did the dreaded Tesco/Asda food shop and once home I whizzed off to the town to get the last few bits for tomorrow and pop a little something in the post to Anna .Whilst it was freezing cold, it felt so Christmassy!
This evening has been spent watching the X Factor (sorry, but Ruth was robbed :( ),making a birthday cake and wrapping presents :)
Tomorrow we are off bright and early to Milton keynes to see the Christmas displays, visit Father Christmas and go on the train ride :) Might even have time to squeeze in a little shopping too ;)!And then it's back home for birthday and cake and presents for Holly :)

Brrrr....

It's been so cold here today! Shouldn't complain though as at least it's been dry and bright :)

Not much done today as I had to hang around for the bloke to come out and service the boiler this afternoon.I asked for him to visit between 12 and 3...yep, he got here at 10 to 3 ! But at least it's done and everything is working fine :) Whilst waiting around i sorted out the photos for the calendars as my photos arrived from photobox this morning....or some of them did,25 of them have been sent seperately...what was the point of that?! I am planning to start them next week once we have holly's birhday at the weekend out of the way.

Here's my tree that I finally got finished,inspired by Jen Hall's gorgeous one.(Scroll to the bottom of the post)It still needs some ribbon sticking back on (as it's fallen off since I shoved it in my wardrobe in January!) This one has been covered with love Elsie Noel papers,whilst the other two will be a mix of love Elsie and the new KI memories papers.This evening I have cut and arranged all the squares for the other two,just need to stick them down and number them :) If anyone has one of these left from last year that they don't want,I would love to do another one !

Tomorrow I need to rummage through my stash to find supplies for Holly's party on Saturday.She is having 5 friends round for a crafting party,I've ordered a few bits from Baker Ross for them as well as having a few other ideas using stuff I already have here.

Right,off to glue squares!!

Why...

aren't weekends longer?! I am sleeping really badly at the moment and it shows,I look as rough as anything today! I am off to bed once I'm done on here!

Today has been a weird day weather wise,woke to a sprinkling of snow and rain....and by the afternoon the sun was out and then back to heavy rain this evening -yuck!Yesterday afternoon I went out for a walk with the girls to get some fresh air (while Geoff stayed home and did the ironing!) We went down to the lakes which were practically deserted.I don't think the swans were impressed with us though as we forgot to take bread :( Rare photo alert -me in a photo,taken by Em :)

I have finally finished one thing on my to do list,my Tesco advent tree from last year! I still have two more to do ..maybe they'll be done in time for next year?!I have now finished ordering photos for the calendars so guess what I'll be doing from next weekend,I am stocked up on DST!

This is my Pencil Lines layout for this week, though I'm now looking at it and thinking it's rather plain...I may go and chuck some more stuff on it this week!

I used

bazzill kraft

Scenic Route papers

Sassafrass letter stickers

Prima bling

Angel Kiss flowers

The photos are of Holly dressed up for a Minibeast day at school two years ago.I've been meaning to scrap them for ages!

This week sees me carrying with the cleaning/sorting blitz I started last week ...what joy!

And now she's back again!!

Whoops, I really did mean to blog at sometime whilst she was away, but hey, that's life!
Anyway,needless to say I have a pile of washing to do (though I have decided against trying to save the socks,they've gone straight in the bin!!).It seems like she's had a good time even if she is completely shattered and went of like a light when she went to bed!
Today Anna came over and we have been doing what we do best - shopping!!I managed to get the odds and ends that needed to be got for Holly's birthday as well as a snuggly deep pink fleece/throw for the kids to argue over in the living room! Holly always wraps herself up in the Ikea one we have so now they'll have on each..if I don't get to it first! We hit Asda where we found some fab bargains and gorgeous clothes (for the girls, not us!) before rounding the day off with a trip to Hobbycraft :) We had to wait for our hot chocolate though as the machine in Costa's was broken when we first went there,it was worth the wait though :) Plans have already been made for our next trip out in December !
This weekend we will be taking it easy as Em catches up on her sleep :) Although we were forcast heavy now for Sunday it's now saying just rain - shame :(
No photos to share as I haven't taken any!

Away she goes...

So this week it's Em's turn to be away.And to say Holly is missing her would be putting it mildly!They said a very teary farewell to each other before I took Holly to school this morning as I decided it was better to do it here than have them in floods of tears in the school playground.And this evening Holly cried herself to sleep ,bless her :( She is now fast asleep cuddling Em's favourite Big Monkey toy as he was a bit too big to go in her suitcase with her!I so hope they remain as fond of each other as they are now,when they grow older.
Looks like plans to see Anna tomorrow may be cancelled as Lilly is still off school but hopefully we'll be re-arranging it for later this week :)

Catch up

I didn't realise til after I'd posted last night how long I hadn't posted for - whoops!
Holly stayed off school till on Wednesday too in the end so the Christmas shopping trip got moved to Friday instead.Whilst in Watford I bumped into the oh so lovely Lyzzydee who seems to think that qualifies as stalking..strange woman...;)Anyway, we got quite a few bits & pieces plus I found a gorgeous shop full of lovely Momiji stuff :)
Yesterday morning Holly had a party to go to,after which we quickly popped into the school Christmas craft fair.We then went to my mum & dad's for a late birthday tea for my mum.Amongst the other treaures I found last night in'the bag', Mum also gave me my Brownie certifcate and I found a couple of photos of me going on Pack Holiday many many years ago!And amazingly eanough I can still name all the girls in the photo with me! Shame I can't normally even remember what I did last week!

This Is my Pencil Lines LO for this week :).I admit to having really struggled this week :( No idea why as I loved the sketch and our GDT's work but I still sat pushing paper and photos around for ages before getting it done.
I used
KI Memories Lace cardstock
Prima swirl (what a surprise!)
Angel Kiss flowers
Basic Grey buttons
Papermania letter stickers
Sassafrass journalling label
The flower centres and dots by the swirls are cute little puffy stickers I got from Paperchase.
And yes, I have missed a word out of the journalling...doh!!It should say 'a bargain bought last year'
Tomorrow Em sets off for the Isle of Wight until Friday.Her case is all packed and ready.I've checked the weather and it looks like it should be good for them after Tuesday.That said, the BBC weather site very rarely seems to be right these days!
The bathroom is almost all done now,just some new lino to go down and the walls that aren't tiled to be painted.It looks so much better already though.
This weeks plans include seeing Anna on Tuesday so that she can start her Christmas shopping,trying to distract Holly from missing Em too much (!!) and trying to catch up on general house 'stuff'

Bag of mixed emotions...

This evening when we went to my mum's for tea, I came home with a bag of 'stuff'.I say stuff because it has so many different things in it ,ranging from old b&w photos, baby congratulation cards,scary 70's photos of me & my sister in huge flares,postcards and newspaper clippings.I sat and went through this bag,giggling, wondering,and then I came across a newspaper cutting.Which was the my Grandpa's death announcement in the local paper...and I started to cry,even though it 23 years ago.I also found photos of my Nan & Grandpa's house and started to remember things about it ,it made me realise I need to start scrapping the old things like this too,or at least write about them somewhere before I forget about them.I have no idea where to start or how to use a lot of the photos as they are so small,but hopefully I can do something with them.I'll have to add it on to my list of to do's :)

Cupcake Cuteness :)

Yesterday my 'mystery package' from Anna finally arrived after sitting at the post depot for the weekend (it would have gone through the letter box, but the daft postie took it back with the larger parcel which wouldn't fit ) How cute is my cupcake ?! Okay ,so Anna is the first to admit that her stitching isn't straight,but I love it, because she sat and made it just for me :)Thank you so much hun :)

The bathroom is coming along really well ,just the grouting to be done and then a lick of paint.It will also need new bath mat,shower curtain etc.Geoff has worked his butt off in there! Not sure that the kitchen will get done too as that will take some major 'moving around' of stuff on my part! The living room needs a coat of paint too, but I can do that and we already have some paint 'left over from when we last decorated it.

Holly has been home the last two days but she seems well enough to go back tomorrow :) I think she was going a bit stir crazy this afternoon so we went out in the garden for some fresh air (as it actually stopped raining for today!) and did a lot of tidying up,leaf sweeping up etc.

Tomorrow we are heading off to Milton Keynes to do some Christmas shopping :) Whilst part of me dreams of getting carried away with all the present buying hype, in reality we don't have loads of people to buy for , nor to we have a huge budget! Tomorrow is more for Holly's birthday bits as her main pressie is sorted ;) The Christmas displays are already up which are usually fab.I've just looked online...and Santas Grotto is fully booked for Christmas Eve already! Not that we were planning on going that day anyway! I think we'll go on Holly's birthday as the following week I'm going cropping :)

House of chaos...

<

Yep, that's our house at the moment ! Well it's not so bad I guess....just the bathroom is in chaos.Geoff is re-tiling it so the bath and shower are out of bounds until tomorrow.And I was so looking forward to a soak in the bath tonight!

Yesterday we went and got the bits that Em needs for her trip :) I do love Primark ! Just need to borrow a case from my mum & dad and make sure we can cram everything into it!

I have just realised that there is a load of stuff I should be making/getting on with at the moment ,as December is approaching....I need to decorate the cardboard advent trees I bought last year,start on the four calendars (two of which need to be posted) and I'm also tempted to do the Ali Edwards christmas journal.I have lots of Christmas bits & bobs that never seem to get used and part of me wants to prove to myself that I can start something like this and actually finish it!

This is my Pencil Lines layout for this week :) Yes, I used the same paper as Tracie:) I did cut out one of those flowers from the other paper and then decided against using them! It is much more 'brown' in real life!

Anyway,I used Crate Paper

Kraft Bazill

AC Puffy thickers (my fave!)

Doodlebug Loopy Love alpha stickers

Prima crystal swirls

Angel Kiss flowers

Love Elsie epoxy sticker

Heidi Swapp felt butterfly

I did have a few more journalling strips to go on it,but they covered Holly's curls in the photo so I just used the date the photo was taken.

Geoff is off this week to work on the bathroom and kitchen (time allowing).It looks as though he will have a little companion tomorrow though as Holly has just been really ill and is now snuggled on the settee next to me :(

Thank you

for the lovely comments on the post below :) I'm now on the third day of the yucky cold which means I can now taste again.As for feeling 'blue',blame it on hormones!!I still feel a bit 'off'..lots of stuff going round in my head that's making me feel like the most horrible person in the world,but I'm not sharing that on here! I did have a thought today though...I think I might start writing a 'normal diary' again sometime soon...I often 'write' my blog posts in my head several times a day ,but none of it ever makes it on to here! The only thing that bothers me is what if someone else were to read it all...I used to keep diaries when I was younger and reading some of them back is a scary experience! So anyway, I think I might start one ,if I can find one that spontaneously combusts when anyone other than me touches it!
I haven't done much the last couple of days other than feel sorry for myself (!!) so this afternoon I made the most of the light and sunshine and did my Pencil Lines layout.It was one of those 'spread your stash all over the living room floor' scrap sessions :)
This evening we went to a fab little firework display at a local school.I love fireworks (though not when they're let off in people's back gardens!) and they had a huge bonfire too .It always takes me back to being at junior school and having tomato soup in a cup and hot dogs at the fireworks display.So now Halloween and Guy Fawkes are out of the way I guess we're on a countdown to Christmas...groan!!
I can't believe it's a week already since Holly went away!It's Em's turn the week after next when she goes off to the Isle of Wight for five days-yikes.We are off to buy her some stuff for the trip tomorrow.I know they say not to take new stuff but as she only has jeans and they recommend tracksuit bottoms we are off to Primark !

What do you do...

...when you are feeling blue? I don't know what is wrong with me at the moment but I just feel yugh.I kind of feel like I'm getting a cold but then I suddenly feel ok again.It could just be this miserable damp weather...I don't know :( This afternoon I put on girly feel good film whilst I did some tidying and ironing in the kitchen and felt a bit better after that.I also dusted my Momiji's as their hair was starting to turn slightly grey!
I don't have much planned for this week,we may go to a fireworks display on Friday depending on the weather(Which doesn't look good at the moment)Which reminds me, we have sparklers for tomorrow night :)
Just remembered this layout that I did a few weeks back and don't think I've put on here yet.I used a KI Memories crop kit from Anna :)There's journalling on the pink MM paper under the photo :)
I am off to bed as my eyes are almost closing ...and it's only 10.30,what's happening to me?!

She's home

...and I think she's glad to be back :) When we went to collect her she burst and tears and said 'I'm so happy to see you'!She has been fine during the day time but got a bit weepy again yesterday evening.They were all worn out last night though and asleep much earlier than the first night!She came home with a decorated shoe box full of halloween inspired goodies she has made ,including a felt ghost,a wand and a bottle of glittery 'potion':)I will take a photo of all her treasures tomorrow.

Pencil Lines is live with a new sketch ,here's my layout :) I decided to merge the four small photos into two larger ones.And yes, I know the date is on the star and also on the stamped journalling! I did the star first as it covers a very prominent stranger in the background of the photo.Have to admit that I wasn't pleased with this layout at first,but by the time I'd added lots of bits to it,I was happier!
I used
Sassafrass paper
AC Puffy thickers
Prima crysatls
Heidi Swap ghost stars
MM letter stickers
Basic Grey buttons
Today has been spent catching up on the badly neglected housework so lots of hoovering and floor mopping!We left the halloween decs up for Holly but tomorrow I will pack them up and give the place a good dust over.
Em is back in school tomorrow ,whilst Holly has an Inset day (just as well!)

Something's missing round here...

and it's strange without her :( As expected,there tears when we left Holly at the place where they are staying for Pack Holiday :( Her brownie leader was amazing though and rang us within 5 minutes of us leaving to let us know she had perked up and was fine.She then rang me twice during the evening with two updates as to how she was.She got very panicky at bedtime but they calmed her down and she was fine.I cannot thank her leader enough for being so amazingly patient with her.By this morning I just wanted her back home! But we have had no phone calls today so I'm guessing she has been having a whale of a time!I know she would have been more upset to have come home and miss out on the party tonight!We are expecting to collect one very tired Brownie tomorrow afternoon!

Last night we had a massive two Trrick or Treaters which suited us just fine!Em wasn't bothered about going out but we did pop round to see a friends new black labrador puppy...who was fast asleep and absolutely gorgeous :)I managed to do my pumpkin quickly ,in between baking biscuits and packing Holly's bag!
Today we took Em to Milton Keynes as she had some birthday money burning a hole in her pocket and as Holly doesn't particularly enjoy shopping,it was a good day to go!The shops were full of tempting Christmas stuff!I managed to get myself and Anna a mega bargain (sorry hun, you'll have to wait for your birthday!)and got a few bits & pieces for Holly's birthday.
Tonight we are ordering a pizza and watching X Factor and a girly film (Sorry Geoff!)
And tomorrow...we are counting down the minutes till pick up time!