I Have No Idea

January pages :)

2012-02-15T12:42:00.000-08:00

I have finally got rounfd to finishing off my January pages :) I decided to go with a main layout as I really wanted to do a page about our Wicked trip :) I've also done a calender page but I'm not sure I'll share those as everything is on them, from parties (the girls, not me!) to dentist appoinments!

I've got lots of smaller page protecters if I want to add extra photos and want to vary it from month to month.Saying that though,I don't seem to have many Feb photos yet....other than lots of the snow!!

Last week we wnet to see Em's school show .which was great,she really enjoyed herself :) She was sad that it was over though after six months of preparing for it! When we left the house it was snowing lightly, by the time we came home three hours later we had two or three inches! Luckily it wasn't bad enough to close the schools on Friday though, as Holly had her last year assembly.

I have some gorgeous snow photos to put up here that I took late afternoon at the weekend when the sun was starting to set,so i will be back soon hopefully :)

A layout

2012-02-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

I finished this layout the other night, having started it at the crop. I pinched the idea of the black border with the pink paper from Claire's Lo here :) I'm aware that mine is very wonky - those scalloped scissors are not easy to cut straight with!I am also trying to put a bit more 'info' on my layouts ie dates, story etc.I need to go back through all my old albums at some point and at least date the photos on layouts where I haven't ,or they will mean nothing to the girls in the future (if they decide to keep them!)

It is still freezing cold here :( Yesterday we had blue skies and sunshine, melting a lot of the snow but it is back to being an ice rink out there now having frozen again last night.

Yesterday I went on a little shopping trip to Hemel Hempstead with a friend.It is years since I last went and it has changed totally from the fond memories I have of going there with my Mum ,Dad and sister when I was small! I found the coolest t-shirt in Primark :) I'm not sure about the colour but the words and photo?? I love them :) Sadly it has a hole in the seam ,but if I can't change it at another branch I will just mend it as I want it so much!

I am off to go and attempt to warm my cold hands up by doing a huge pile of ironing!

Our patience was rewarded :)

2012-02-05T13:12:00.000-08:00

As forecast, it snowed!It started about 6pm -ish and I'm not sure when it stopped! Em had a dress rehearsal all day for her school musical later this week,so she didn't come out sledging with us :(
This year was the longest we have stayed out I think, thanks to the new gloves and waterproof trousers! Holly didn't complain about being cold once,wish we'd bought them before now! As per usual most of Holly's school were also out sledging and we had a really lovely morning (although my feet were frozen!)

Although she was not really in the mood,I persuaded Em to come out in to the garden once she was home,just for a little while!

Holly spent spent ages out in the garden making a very cute igloo (probably just about big enough for a cat!) but the photos aren't great as it was a bit dark by the time she finished it :( There was also a bit of angry snow throwing when part of it collapsed!

Although there we are not forecast any more ,there is still lots of snow every where.Hopefully both schools will be open tomorrow !

Waiting ...impatiently...

2012-02-04T08:18:00.000-08:00

...for the snow! We are supposedly forecast it from 6pm this evening and through the night,so we could wake up tomorrow to a winter wonderland : D.AS we have had heavy snow the last couple of years, we have gradually got more 'prepared'! We all (except Geoff !)have wellies,we have two sledges and today I have bought us waterproof ski gloves :) That way we can make snowmen and throw snowballs without cold wet hands and a million pairs of mittens drying on the radiators! Bring it on....!

Last week we had a our family trip to see Wicked,courtesy of some Christmas money and cheap tickets from Get In To London Theatre :)We had tea in Pizza Hut first -yum! And yes, it was the third time I've seen it, but I would still go again! Holly absolutely loved it and laughed,danced and sang throughout it :) And Em was just pleased it was the same actress playing Elphaba as when we went before as she really likes her (and she was supposed to be on holiday!)

Last week was crop week :) I spent most of the time doing my January pages .They are nearly done,I just needed a photo of Holly in her Guide uniform to complete them. I have seen lots of lovely Project Life pages on other peoples blogs but I really don't think our life is interesting enough to fill a page each week (and everyone else would be sick of my camera in their faces !) so I'll stick with the current plan of monthly pages!

This afternoon Holly wanted to go for a walk at the lakes.It was freezing so we didn't stay out too long!

This is the new 'epic' hat (as one of Holly's friends called it!)that Holly and Em share! They spotted it in Claires at a ridiculous price that I refused to pay,and then a few weeks later we found one on the sale rack for £3 - bargain!They only had one left though, hence the sharing!

Catching up

2012-01-23T14:14:00.001-08:00

As I have said before ,I still have some catching up to do on my Document 2011 album. Part of me thinks I should finish it before I start the 2012 one.But I'm thinking if I don't start that this weekend I will never start it! So I think I will take my December pages to finish off and start on my Jan 2012 ones.I'm still working out how to do this years album.Last year some of my pocket pages were really full whilst others were practically empty.I also wasn't great at doing a main layout for each month so I may give that a miss...still undecided!
Anyway, these are my August pages.

The paper for my Instax camera arrived on Friday (bit gutted as I had hoped to use it on Thursday :( ),so yesterday I used it for the first time.I don't think Em quite got my excitement ('So it's not quick then?'!), but Holly was quite impressed!

Bits and bobs

2012-01-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

I am trying to finish off a few things and do jobs that have been on the 'to do' list for a while,at the moment.Last week I finally got round to putting some Florida holiday photos in frames and up in the hallway - better late than never.I also replaced a very old layout in a box frame with a new(ish) four frames-in-one frame with my favourite photos from Autumn :) This actually two frames,one hung right under the other.I'm really pleased with it:) I did have a photo of all of us that i was going to put in it, but I look so huge in it that I really didn't want to walk past it several times a day! Funny how this time last year the same photo didn't bother me as much, amazing what a difference weight loss can do!
This morning I finished off a Disney layout that has been hanging around for ages waiting to be finished :) Thanks to Holly being very eagle eyed in Claire's the other week I bought some cute rings with teacups, cupcakes and teapots on.One has now been dismantled and added to this LO :)
I am still finishing off my 2012 album,before I start this years at next weeks crop! I've taken photos of August and Septembers pages so I will be back with them soon :)

Ebay buy :)

2012-01-12T14:23:00.000-08:00

This weekend just gone I won something on E Bay :) I go through phases with E-Bay,I either don't go on it for ages or spend hours on there!Currently I have lots of nail laquers on my watch list... Anyway,Christmas before last (2010) I really wanted a Fuji Instax camera.Geoff was not impressed as I'd only recently got my Canon and he couldn't understand why I also wanted an instant camera! All the ones I looked at then were fairly expensive so I just sort of forgot about them in the New Year.I don't know what made me start looking again a couple of weeks back,but after missing out on one after I forgot to put in a bid before I went to work I am now the proud owner of this :)
Polaroid instant photos remind me going to birthday parties (when I was at junior school!)and going home with a photo of myself in my fancy party dress:) I still need to order some paper for this one before I can start using it.The girls think it's fab but I have warned them it's not a cheap way to take photos and will be used sparingly!

New arrivals...

2012-01-08T17:10:00.000-08:00

Over the last couple of weeks, the girls have been reading this blog :) They fell slightly in love with the monkeys! Luckily for them I found a couple on E Bay looking for new homes....so yesterday they met Eric and Ernie for the first time :) I dread to think what they will get up to...!

I don't really know where this weekend has gone :( Today I sorted the DVD shelves out and had a a bit of a chuck out :)This weeks job is to update some of the photo frames we have up (and use some of the many un-used ones I have!)Hence I spent ages looking through our Florida photos whilst choosing some to order:)

Whoops,I have just remembered what we did yesterday! We finally had Holly's very late birthday 'do'in the morning, a cinema trip with seven friends to see Puss In Boots!It wasn't as good as we were expecting but I think they enjoyed it :)

He's finished :)

2012-01-04T14:32:00.001-08:00

This afternoon when she got in from school Holly finished off her sock hedgehog :) He's quite quirky and a bit of an individual! It didn't really help that there is no photo with the kit and the finished hedgehog is nothing like the drawing on the bag the kits comes in! Having found an actual picture on the John Lewis website we were a bit more reassured that he looked as he was supposed to! Holly did it all herself, I had to step away and let her get on with it.When it comes to sewing I am a neat freak,my cross stitch used to be as neat on the back as it was on the front ! I think her wonky sewing gives him a bit of character!

Next project is the the felt monster kit that she got for Christmas ...!

Em is currently studying hard for her assessments and exams :( Not helped by being told that an exam she was told she was having in three weeks in now next week! Not what you'd call organised! Next week we are going back to the Orthodontist with her too.Since finishing wearing her braces three and a half years ago her teeth have moved back to where they were .She was never given a retainer which always seemed a bit strange...anyway, we will wait and see what they say.

Last day :(

2012-01-03T14:35:00.000-08:00

Today has been my last day off before returning to work tomorrow :( This is the longest time I've had off in ages!
Holly and I got up at 'normal' time to prepare ourselves for tomorrow!Last night I actually slept like a log which is a good sign.
As predicted, the weather was pretty wild today,with very strong winds and heavy rain! First thing we made some cereal bars using a cereal maker which Holly had for a while.The 'recipes' were all a bit vague,so we opted for Cheerios,strawberry fruit flakes and used strawberry jelly crystals as the 'setting agent'.Just realised though that I forgot to take any photos of the finished bars, and they have both now been eaten.
I then tackled the 3ft high pile of ironing, whilst Holly carried on making a sock hedgehog from a kit that she got as a birthday present :)After lunch the sun came out and the clouds disappeared so we made the most of it and went out for a quick walk to get some fresh air :)A bit later we settled down with a (big) bowl of popcorn and watched The Lion King ,and waited for Em to come home from school :)It was a really nice day getting lots of stuff done:)

It's a miracle!

2012-01-02T06:44:00.000-08:00

...that I am blogging two days in a row and that I have done a layout :) I hadn't ordered any new scrapping stuff at all since last July,so I decided to order some new October Afternoon with some of my Christmas photos.Although I still need to finish my 2011 album I really just wanted to do a layout so I printed off a few different photos to choose from. I used the OA Farm House range and some very old bits from my stash (Making Memories journal page,Heidi Swapp tape) It's not exactly elaborate, but I still like it :)

The weather here has been beautiful today,blue skies and sunshine though a little chilly.As Em goes back to school tomorrow we went out for a walk at the lakes this morning, something we haven't done in a while (she either has loads of homework or the weather is rubbish).Holly went for a wade in the river ,just as well Em didn't join her as we realised on the way home that her wellies have a huge split in the back!

Holly is still home tomorrow and as the weather is forecast to be rotten we are planning on a crafty day along with popcorn and a DVD :) Much as I have loved being at home the past week I'm hoping a return to our normal routine on Wednesday will also mean the return of my sleep ! I have been awake until at approx 2am or later for most of this past week :(

Happy New Year :)

2012-01-01T07:54:00.000-08:00

To be honest,I don't get that excited about New Year and this year was no different! I just about managed to stay awake until midnight...!!

Thought I would share this photo of our home made Mickey Mouse bauble :) Last year some time we were in Hobby Craft and spotted some polystyrene balls.This prompted me to have the idea that we could make our own Mickey bauble, seeing as we didn't buy one when we went to Florida. The idea was to cover them is glue and then sprinkle them with black glitter.The first attempt was a bit a bit of a disaster, as the weight of the glue caused it all to slide off and there were lots of bald patches! However , after a patch up attempt using less glue,it turned out pretty well :) The ears were pushed on to cocktail sticks which were then pushed into the head and secured witha bit of superglue :) We're quite pleased with it:) Might even make a snowy version with all the snowballs we got from the John Lewis Christmas window displays!
I haven't really made any resolutions for this year.Having lost almost three stone last year I would like to keep it off,other than that I am hoping to start scrapping a bit more and take more photos.I think my camera has been a bit neglected recently and at times my photos seem to be getting worse rather than better!

December round up!

2011-12-30T07:22:00.000-08:00

Well,2011 and is nearly over so I will do a quick round up of what happened this month :)

Holly had a her last school Christmas show,her year did a version of A Christmas Carol (quite how they managed to incorporate Thriller I'm still not sure!) Whilst part of me felt very sad that it was her last one (I had to look away from watching her in the final song as I was sure she was about to cry!)I will not miss the ridiculously early queing up to get a decent seat !The last day of term saw her last Christmas carol service at which she did a reading which was lovely (and yes, I got there early enough for a front row seat for that!) We also went to the Christingle Service again on Christmas Eve.

Em and I enjoyed an impromptu trip to see the local panto thanks to a very kind friend and had a lovely evening :) I haven't been to a panto in years and Em hasn't been since leaving junior school (hence why I took her instead of Holly) so we really enjoyed ourselves :)

This year the Coca Cola Christmas Trucks have been on a tour of the UK.The nearest stop to us was Asda in Watford (yes, very magical!) Now I really wasn't expecting it to be a lovely as it had looked on other people's blogs as it was only there in the morning so we wouldn't see the lights on it. But Asda is really not the best place to see it ! The truck was parked up right outside the store so it was almost impossible to get any photos without the Wal Mart/Asda sign or a row of shopping trolleys in :( They were also running very late setting up, we left there at about 11.30 and the photographer was almost set up to start taking pics - they were supposed to be there from 9am 1pm !

I've missed having any snow before Christmas this year, which is maybe why my Christmas spirit seemed to a bit lacking? The girls loved all their presents though which is always the main thing we look forward to :) Most popular presents for Holly were her chef's hat, and some M&S panda pj's which came with a panda eye mask which she wears every night! Mum & dad came round for Christmas lunch and as is tradition, we all went to theirs on Boxing day :)

This week I have done a fair bit of tidying up and clearing out,still lots to do though!

Over the past few months I have finally managed to grow my nails back (yes, I am a biter and work doesn't help either :( ) and have re-acquainted myself with my lovely OPI nail polishes :) I got lots of lovely new ones for Christmas as well :) Only problem is I have become slightly addicted to looking up colour swatches on the net !I wish I'd done that years ago as I have lots of similar ones which I probably wouldn't have bought if I'd known how close they were to ones I already had !

Another birthday....

2011-12-07T16:09:00.001-08:00

Last week saw the last birthday in our 'lots of birthdays' month of November,Holly's 11th . She was very happy that the teachers decided to strike on the same day meaning no school! She had a lovely day, going bowling with her best friend and then lunch at Pizza Hut afterwards :) She was also very happy with her presents, a polar bear adoption, DS game and clarinet music books among other things - her pleasures are simple! Holly had no idea of what sort of cake she wanted so decided to let me surprise her! I bought a silicone mold for a giant cup cake earlier in the year so decided to give that a whirl...not easy as there is no recommended recipe in the instructions, just use your favourite cake mixture...I decided to use the Hummimgbird cup cake recipe,it took three batches to fill the mold and could probably have done with another! Anyway, despite taking ages to cook, it turn out ok, and I managed to stick the crumbly bits together with jam and icing!

Halfway through blowing out the candles

And as I forgot to but her a badge with 11 on it, we went for the trusty Thickers instead :)

And there goes November...

2011-11-28T13:50:00.000-08:00

...almost! Oh well, blogging has not been my strongest point this year! Then again I don't know what is as I don't seem to get time to anything I mean to!

Anyway, I thought I'd share the two layouts I did at the October crop:) I haven't seen any nice Autumny papers thsi year, so I went back to my old faves Earth Love by Cosmo Cricket.In fact ,everything on the first layout is pretty old! The leaf stickers have been waiting to be used for about five years and the chipboard words are very old Scenic Route.

And this one was made using a mix of very old Bo Bunny paper,Basic Grey and October Afternoon:)
I say it evry year but Autumn photos are definitely my favourite to scrap:)

I also did a lot of my 2011 album, finishing September and almost all of Octobers pages :) I still need to go back and fill in a lot of gaps though from earlier in the year!

Since I last blogged lots has been going on so a quick round up! Emma and I went to London for the day as her birthday treat and we finished the day by going to see Wicked :) Needless to say she loved it and wants to go again! The following week I went back to London again with my Mum for Tea at The Ritz for her birthday :) Holly has had Evacuee day at school as well another Science Night trip .

It's now that time of the year though when I don't know whether I'm coming or going! This week sees Holly turn 11 (yikes!) ,and getting the day off school for her birthday and next week is her school Christmas show and pantomime trip. Her last time for both ...:( Hopefully I will make it back here before the year is out....!!

Birthdays and school trips....

2011-10-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

...are just two things that have happened since my last post :) Holly went away on a school trip to Wales for four nights ,a couple of weeks ago.After a very tearful farewell on the Monday morning I spent the week worrying about her,until we got letters from her on the Thursday telling us that the journey had been fine (she was worried about getting travel sick on the way:( )and that she was enjoying herself :) She returned on Friday evening with a heap of stinky damp washing and was out like a light at bedtime!

While Holly was away Em turned 15 ...yikes! It was a bit weird not having Holly here and Em got a bit teary at one point, but she had a good day :) This weekend just gone she had her party here at home.It's become a bit of a tradition the last few years,they have pizza,watch a bit of X Factor ,have a dance / sing a long before the doughnut game :)

A couple of weeks ago I went to the crop and did some scrapping :) I rarely seem to get any done at home these days so I really enjoy my one Sunday a month catching up :) Sadly our numbers are a bit low at the moment but I am hoping we can keep going next year.So if you know anyone who would like to join us in Southoe ,give me a shout !

You can't have too many...

2011-10-08T05:32:00.000-07:00

...leaf throwing photos in my opinion :) I have lots of Holly doing this, but she is often pulling all manner of strange faces! She tends to shut her eyes and screw her face up when the leaves fall back down incase any bits go in her eyes (so she's being quite sensible really!) The weather continued to be gorgeous last Monday so we went back up to Ayot to try for some photos with her eyes open :) Bingo :) The light was beautiful up there,I love the glow of the leaves on the ground :)

After the heatwave of last week,it has turned much chillier in the last few days. This means I am having a slight wardrobe problem....nothing fits! No, not because I have grown in size,but the opposite :) Since January I have lost just over 2 stone :) And all my warm clothes are too big :( And I can't find any new clothes in the shops that I like either :( A trip to a huge Primark is needed I think!On the upside,today I am wearing a skirt I haven't worn in two years so I can't complain really :)

This weekend we are packing Holly's case as she is off to Wales on a school trip on Monday.Four nights away seems like a very long time,I am going to miss her a lot :(But I am sure she'll have fun quad biking,doing archery and all sorts of other things!

Pumpkins and a heatwave...

2011-10-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

...yep, a pretty strange combination !
Since last week we have been having a heatwave here in the UK :) Tomorrow will be October the 2nd and the temp will be 25 degrees....mad! But it has been nice to be able to trust a weather report as they have all been saying the same thing !
So today we went to the pumpkin field...yes,I know it probably seems too early but there is a method to my madness,honestly! The place we go is not a pick your own pumpkin place.They grow them and then harvest them to sell in their farm shop. A couple of years ago we went just at the right time,they were harvesting them so they were in lots of convenient piles around the field. Last year when we went, they had finished harvesting them and there were just a few squashy ones left :( So this year I planned ahead and rang them last week to ask if the pumpkins were still in the field and when they would be harvesting them (and could I come and take photos!) All was well, they were still in the field and would be picking them sometime in the next couple of weeks :) So off we went today in search of pumpkins.On the hottest 1st of October,ever. Due to the crop rotation, the pumpkins were not just down the road from the farm shop as they have been before but instead were about a mile and a half up the road ! The very nice farmer offered to show us the way,so off we went following his landrover :) Now in reality,taking photos in a un-harvested,un-trampled pumpkin field is a bit of a nightmare! Add to that boiling hot sunshine and you get the picture! I did get a few nice photos .But I don't think I will ever get any I love as much the ones from two years ago,so maybe I should give up trying?!

And this afternoon,in total contrast to the weather we are having I took Holly shopping to buy her waterproof trousers and a new waterproof coat for her school trip next week!

Sneaking in...

2011-09-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

....to make at least one post in September!!
So since last blogging lots has happened. ...

Geoff and I had the last week of the school holidays off so we all went bowling and did a day trip to London :)
The girls went back to school (I am so not ready for Holly to be in year 6 :( )
I had my birthday :)
We have collected huge amounts of conkers!
We went to see Em get two Achievment awards at school :)
We have been to senior school open evenings for Holly :(

Hopefully I will get round to uploading a few photos of what's been going on!

But to start off with these are a couple from last weekend :) The wea ther has been gorgeous,the conkers have fallen down and there are crunchy leaves everywhere.These photos were taken at Ayot St Lawrence,just up the road from us.It really is my favourite place to go at this time of year :) Holly is modelling her new hat :)

Tomorrow we are off in search of pumpkins (which seems totally barmy considering the weather!) so I may be back soon with photos :)

Oh well...

2011-08-24T14:09:00.000-07:00

...that mad spate of blogging didn't last long ! Possibly because I haven't done much scrapping again re cently :( Though last night I dug out a 'not sure what to do with it next' Disney layout that had been hanging around a while, and finished the title on it :) Better than nothing! I should really start sorting out my August photos for documnet 2011,though I can hardly believe August is nearly over already :( Not to worry though as we are heading towards Autumn, my fave time of the year :) Conkers, crunchy leaves..what's not to like ?!

So, I am just trying to remember what we have been doing the last couple of weeks...last week we went for our annual trip to Whipsnade Zoo , with no accidents this time :) We were very lucky with the weather and it was a very sunny warm day :)

On Saturday we had made arrangements to meet Anna at car scrapyard in Hitchin for a photo shoot with Em and her friend. Anna left home in sunshine, we left in white cloud and by the time we met at Hitchin it was chucking it down with rain :( Anna did what she could but we had to call it quits early :(Such a shame as there were amazing backdrops for photos there,old rusty buses ,piles of cars(!!) and lots more . The place is absolutely huge,I would love to go back and have a really good wander round there one day :) On Sunday we went to Thurrock and had our favourite Pizza Hut Express meal for lunch -yum!

True to form the weather was rubbish yesterday on my day off :( We went out to Stevenage in the morning to get school stuff for Em and played Scrabble in the afternoon :)

This afternoon after rubbish weather in the morning,the sun came out :) So we paid another trip to Hitchin Lavender as the sunflowers have finally strated to come out :) It may have been best to go next week when more are out but we went while the sun was out! Trouble was, once again the bright sunshine meant lots of squinting and Em pulling a strange face every time she took her sunglasses off!

They have started to harvest the lavender now, but it is still worth a visit :)

More Disney...sorry!

2011-08-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

Yep,another one for the holiday album! I am getting there slowly! I finished this one a while ago though :) No Echo Park this time (!!) but more My Little Shoebox and October Afternoon :)

I cut the centre out of the shaped paper and replaced it with another sheet of MLS,so if you go looking for a sheet that looks like the above , you won't find it! None of my Disney layouts are very lumpy and bumpy .This is because I bought a lovely album from walt Disney World but it's only postbound so there's not much room for lumps!

Tomorow we have a visit from the Bowkis girls,if it stays dry the cameras may come out ....!

Another layout and lavender...

2011-08-08T14:41:00.000-07:00

This is the layout I did yesterday, another one for the Disney album :) I seem to be using the same things at the moment, Echo Park papers and My Little Shoebox alphas,they are definately my 'go to' supplies! You can hyst see that the date currently says 'nd', as I have run out of 2's and need to but another packet! The title is very glittery in real life ,and it also covers the splodge where I accidentally squashed a bug on the white background....!! I am definately buying more of these papers as I am down to just scraps of my favourite sheets and want to make some holiday mini books with it :)

And this is one of the better photos from the lavender field last week.I think I should have checked which sunglasses Holly had picked up before we left as she chose the hugest pair possible (bought a few years back as the height of High School Musical fever,they are her Sharpay glasses!) As the kids have got taller I found it really difficult to get a lot of purple background and they're not keen on sitting down amongst the bees!

It's a miracle...

2011-08-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

I have actually done some scrapping over the last couple of days :) I have finished off my Document 2011 pages for July, just need to finish March,April ,May & June...oh dear!I will gt there though as they are all sort of half done! Last night I finished off this layout that has been sat in a drawer unfinished for the last four months.

I used the Echo Park Springtime papers ,which to be honest I'm not too keen on,they are a bit too wishy washy.But I had bought them so I had to use them! I found a very old sheet of Sassafrass stickers which brightened it up a bit and used a mix of My Little Shoebox alphas and Thickers for the title.I like it a bit more now it's finished,though it will never be one of my faves! I also did another holiday layout this afternoon which I still need to take a photo of.
This week is the third week of the holidays, it's going by too fast! The pool is now up and the girls have been in it a fair bit so far :)Last week we made a return trip to the Lavender field in Hitchin.In all honesty though my photos are pretty rubbish :( It was a really bright sunny day so every photo that the girls aren't wearing their sun glasses in, they are squinting! Oh well...there's always next year ! Yesterday we went to Dunstable Downs for a bit of kite flying.Our kites are a bit rubbish though :( But at least we got some fresh air!
On Thursday night Geoff and Em went to see Harry Potter so Holly and I had a girly night watching Tangled and Pocahontas (I don't know why but it was Holly's fave Disney film when she wwas younger!)accompanied by a huge bowl of popcorn:)
I will be back once I have taken some photos of my scrapping :)

Catching up and finishing off...

2011-07-26T14:44:00.000-07:00

So any attempts to blog regularly in July failed! The girls have now finished school for another year and it looks like summer has done a runner...!
Holly finally left Brownies a couple of weeks back :( The guide group that she wants to attend is over subscribed though so I don't think she'll be starting there until after Christmas. I made her leader a Thank You album with all the photos that I'd taken at various activities they had done.I made a page from each of Holly's friends who had recently left ,with their photo on which they then wrote a Thank You note on the back of.I think she liked it...she cried! Which wasn't the intention but I did want her to know how much they have all enjoyed their time with her and how much they all liked her :)
Sunday was cropping day, with me being in charge as Anna was otherwise occupied! I didn't do any full layouts but made an attempt at catching up on my Document 2011 pages. I'd forgotten how long they take me! But I did pretty much get July's done (just need to do the family photo for the month :) ) as well as getting some of April's done. I managed to do a bit more this afternoon too whilst Holly had a friend round and Em was doing homework.I finally finished this layout too that I did at the crop two months ago but needed a title.I decided not to go with the character names as it would have been way too long,so settled for the fac t that they were the first ones that we metr, on our way to find Mickey :)
Oh dear,just realised what an awful photo that is...it looks nice in real life - really!(Just checked and if you click on it, it is in focus after all!) I used Echo Park Summer Days papers which are fab and bright and perfect for Disney photos...I need to buy some more!

At the lavender field...

2011-07-11T14:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went for my photo workshop at Hitchin Lavender field :) We got there really early as we weren't sure how bad the traffic would be by Knebworth,but the roads were clear.It meant that I had time to wander on my own for a bit as well as having a chat with Rachael Warne who was teaching the course.She was really lovely, with loads of experience (proved by the gorgeous magazine articles featuring her photographs!) First of all she gave us a talk through the basics ie apertures,shutter speeds . She showed us examples of her work ,explaining what a difference changing depth of field or focal points can make.We then took a walk around the farm and field looking at different ways to photograph the scenery etc. After lunch (which was lovely!) we then went off to take photos wherever we wanted. I won't bore you too much,but here a few that I took.

When the girls and Geoff came to pick me up afterwards they picked a couple of bags of lavender (which is currently drying out on trays in the living room!) It was very sunny by then though so they were squinting in most of the photos I took :( Love this one though,even if you can't see much lavender!
Sadly, there are no sunflowers this year :( They didn't survive May when there was very little rain.Much as I like the lavender, the sunflowers were gorgeous last year so I'm really disappointed :(

I'm hoping to go back in a couple of weeks maybe when the lavender is out a bit more as the rows weren't as full as when we went last year at the end of July.And maybe the girls will be more in the mood to have their photos taken...!!

Anyway, I did come home feeling that I'd learnt quite a bit,and it drummed into me a few things which I sort of knew but kept forgetting!I just have to remember to put it into practice!

At least we can say we went....

2011-07-08T15:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday ,as probably the whole world was aware,was the final Harry Potter premiere in London.I didn't realise it was so soon although I knew it was due sometime in July. Unfortunately yesterday was also Holly's school open evening when we get to go and have a look at all the work she has done this year.Having been into London for the previous one,I knew Em was hoping to go to this one too.So we settled for a juggling act of a quick visit to school before Em and I whizzed off to London.By the time we got there it was much later than when we went before and a totally different set up.So we pretty much missed everything! But we did get to see the screen...and the hoardings blocking everything off!
Anyway, we hung around Trafalgar square for a bit before having a bit of a wander (where we could!) and also visited the M&M shop... At least being daylight we could walk a bit further out and not feel quite so lost!
Apparently the weather for Sunday is looking good (or it was last time I checked!) I'm now just wondering how long it will take to get there as the traffic is awful due to the Sonisphere Festival at Knebworth Park....

Message for Claire C (if you read this!!) I keep trying to leave a message on your blog but it keeps asking me to sign into my Google Account over and over again :( This is the website for Hitchin Lavender .The sunflowers are due out soon too,and are also beautiful:) Their blog is usually updated as to when the flowers are in bloom :)
http://www.hitchinlavender.com/

Busy busy busy

2011-07-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks of summer term seen to be like the last couple of weeks before Christmas,with lots going on!

We had a beautiful day on Saturday watching the Maypole dancing :) It's a really lovely day as it's not competitive and the girls can dance as and when they want.We all take picnics and have a great time :) The sun shone most of the time and I now have a lovely tan ! This coming Thursday is open evening,which for some reason is really late this year! I'm looking forward to seeing what Holly has been growing at gardening club and her work on display in her classroom :) She is off Hatfield House again on Friday to take in a Guinness Book Of records largest History Lesson :)

Last week on Thursday both girls' schools were closed due to teacher strikes so I left Em in charge whilst I went to work for a couple of hours.I came home to the lovely smell of fresh baked cookies ! We went out for a walk to the lakes ,taking my camera with me as it doesn't seem to get much use these days! Love this one of both of them :)

I am very excited to be going on a photography workshop this coming weekend at Hitchin Lavender. It's the first time I have been to something like this and I am slightly worried about going on my own and not knowing anyone ! However,I am really looking forward to learning how to use more features on my camera.And as I can stay on as long as want once the workshop ends I am hoping to get some photos of the girls amongst the lavender again.Though hopefully I will go back again once the sunflowers are out too :)

What happened there?!

2011-06-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

I know I'm not the best blogger but I did an update on Friday which has mysteriously disappeared somewhere! Okay, so it wasn't very interesting and had no photos, but it was still an update!
This weekend we have been struck down with a not-very-nice bug, to put it politely :( Holly and I got off more lightly than Geoff and Em ,but it was not a good weekend.I was supposed to be cropping,but had already cancelled in fear that I might be 'struck down' whilst on the train on the way there! Just as well really! It does mean that I really to get my bum in gear though as I only seem to scrap at crops and am not getting anything done at home at all :(
This weekend Holly is due to do Maypole dancing at Hatfield House...I'm hoping the weather improves before then! Today we have had downpours and thunderstorms....I'm hoping it will be easier to sleep tonight than last night!
Holly 's has a good couple of weeks at Brownies,last week was pond dipping and the week before she got soaked at Ringos's.This involves whizzing down on small ski slope in a huge inflatable ring !It's amazing how loud a bunch of girls can scream when they're enjoying themseleves!

Yikes

2011-06-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

I can't quite believe in June already?! This means we are in the month of Maypole dancing at the school fete,Fathers day and a million and one birthdays on Geoff's side of the family! Due to the many aforementioned birthdays,we went up to the in-laws last weekend.Unfortunately Holly was very badly travel sick all the way there,which pretty much wiped her out for a day :( She was fine all the journey home though which was a relief! Anyway,both girls had a lovely weekend playing with Nando the dog and meeting their new six month old cousin for the first time :)
Last week Holly did some planting with my mum & dad,finally finding a use for her old High School Musical wellies (which I knew she didn't want to get rid of!)We also have some strawberries from last year which are re-flowering, runner beans,carrots and more sunflowers :)

The week before half term Holly had her yearly school disco.Last year she sat outside for most of it as it was too loud but she seemed to really enjoy herself this year:)
This is another of the LO's I did at the crop :) I used a mix of Echo Park and Crate paper, Maya Road doilies and my lovely Jenni Bowlin butterfly stamp :)

And the today the kitchen is finally ready to be painted :) The last bits of work were done today - yippee! Cupboard wise I still have a lot of sorting and chucking out to do but as it's hidden it's not too bad!

Back to normal :)

2011-05-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

After a very quiet week Holly came home on Friday evening :) Em and I went to meet her and I'm not sure which one of us was more excited to see her :) Anyway, she had a great time, they did so much in just a few days I'm surprised she didn't fall asleep on the way home! I did mange to make some progress in her room in the end...at least you can see the carpet now anyway! There is lots more clearing out to be done still but it's a start!
Today was crop day and I had a really lovely day :) Although I fully intebded to start catching up on my Document 2011 pages I did four 12 x 12 layouts instead :) Feeling very pleased with myself as I have finished them all but one which just need the title (I know what it will be but it's very long so I need to plan it!) I love this Lo that I did using the crop kit.The kit was designed by Anna and can also be brought from 3 Jolly Scrappers.I didn't do the class pages,but there is enough in the kit to do two pages and a mini book :)

The only things I've added are the crystal bling swirl and a plastic rose button (from a pair of Primark earrings!)
I will get round to taking photos of the other layouts this week :)
Just this week and then it's half term again....:)

Oh so quiet...

2011-05-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

This morning (very bright and early!) Holly set off with the rest of her year for a three night trip to York. I was quite prepared to cry my eyes out once we'd waved her off,but as she went off happy and smiling I was much calmer than I'd expected :) In the past she has got herself in a bit of a state before going away which in turn has me worrying about her the whole time she is gone. I think though she is over that now which makes saying goodbye that much easier . The school are updating their blog regularly too letting us know what they have been up to, I'm quite envious of their fish & chips for tea! This evening they are off on a ghost walk round York ,having visited the Jorvik centre and the Shambles this afternoon.

Whilst she is away I thought I'd try and sort out Holly's room....I wish I hadn't started! I knew it wouldn't be a one day job but at this rate I could be there til Christmas! I have no idea how she ends up with so many 'bits'. In reality I'm guessing she will naturally grow out of a lot the stuff in there soon,bearing in mind she'll be starting senior school next year (although I'm still in denial about that!) ,so I'm trying to thin it out a bit now to give her more room.

As Anna has now put up some of her photos from the weekend I will post a couple more of her fabulous finishing touches..and that cake !!

Oops...long time no blog!

2011-05-15T14:11:00.000-07:00

So I thought I'd better do an update! Life has seemed a bit upside down what with all the bank holidays and short days.There also seems to be lots going on :)

Last weekend Holly went away on a two night Brownie holiday and had a fab time kayaking,canoeing and lots of other things.She is so lucky to be part of such a great pack ,her leader has arranged so many great things for them to do over the past three years.It was also a bit sad as most of the girls she joined with have moved up to guides and it was their last activity altogether. This week she is away again ,on a three night school trip...yikes! This will be the longest she has been away from home so I'm hoping she is okay. I know I will be so pleased to pick her up on Friday evening!

Today we went over to Anna's to take the girls to Lilly's birthday party - A Mad Hatter's Tea Party! I will share a couple of photos now and some more once Anna has blogged too as it was all her hard work :)

Who'd have thought a very old Cinderella dress would be fab as an Alice dress too ?! (Note it's now at her knees, not full length!)

In other news, the kitchen is getting there :) We now have the proper work top in, so that makes a big difference and it's starting to look a bit more 'pretty', with some added 'knick knacks' :)
Hopefully I may have some scrapping to share soon as it's crop day next Sunday :) I haven't scrapped since the last one in March so I'm hoping to catch up on my 2011 album at least!

Look...photos!!

2011-04-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know there quite a few of them but I wasn't quite sure where to start ! The main pc is still out of action so Geoff has put my photos on his netbook and discs for me.I am currently using his netbook which scares me slightly as I am worried I will do something irreparable to it!
These first three photos were taken over at Moneyhole Woods (Lyzzy's place apparently!) We had never been there before until a couple of weeks ago which is a shame because it is absolutely beautiful ! The bluebells were out (as you may have noticed!) ,the sun was shining and the light was amazing.I have many more photos but thought I would bore you in small doeses :)

These two photos are a couple that I took when we went over to Anna's for the afternoon :) Anna took lots of beautiful ones whilst I hovered around behind her getting in the way!

The kitchen is getting there! All the units are in,just waiting for a couple of replacement doors as a couple of wrong ones were delivered.The worktop is being fitted in the next couple of weeks sometime and then we will almost be done :) I will share photos in another post :)

Yesterday we ,along with most of the nation I think sat down and watched the Royal Wedding :) I loved it, it just seems so long since there was an event like it, I'd forgotten what it felt like! Holly was mesmerised and sat through the whole thing, waving her flag :) We put some bunting up and had mum and dad round for afternoon tea :) Oh, just one last photo :) Cupcakes with homemade Union Jack toppers made from cocktail sticks and paperchains!

Taking shape :)

2011-04-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

No, not me !! The new kitchen :) Despite huge chunks of plaster falling off the walls yesterday progress has been made and we have lots of units up :) I'm surprised at how much bigger it looks and am really lookig forward to it being finished (not least so that we can have the rest of the house back to normal!
Stil no main computer which is a shame as we have been out and about a bit recently taking advantage of the weather and lots of photos have been taken :) Think woodland ,bluebells and a blossom tree :)
Tomorrow I am taking the girls to see Hop (I'm hoping I can ignore the fact that Russell Brand does the voice of the bunny as I can't stnd him!) Then on Thursday we are hopping on a train and going to visit Anna :) We are cramming lots in the last few days of the holidays! I think Friday will be spent moving stuff back into the kitchen (fingers crossed) and then we will have our annual Easter Egg Hunt at mum & dad's on Saturday :)

It still says no...

2011-04-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

but I am managing on my laptop for now :) Just missing looking through my photos and being able to upload the ones I've taken recently! This time last year we were in florida and preparing ourselves for the fact that we had to return home in a couple of days...little did we know at the time! I still have trouble believing our luck at having such an extended break :) I'm looking forward to receiving my order of Echo Park's new Summer Days papers as they will be perfect for scrapping some more of my Disney and beach photos :) Though all scrapping is on hold for now until the kitchen is done. Tomorrow the new boiler and water tank are being fitted and then next Monday work begins on the kitchen. The house is already pretty much upside down as we have already started removing the old units... Last weekend I went to Ally Pally for the first time in a few years :) I met up with Kerry who I haven't seen since our cottage getaway weekend two years ! We had a great time browsing ,shopping and chatting.I saw lots of familiar faces including lots that I just recognised from on line but would feel pretty daft saying hello to as they wouldn't know me from Adam! The weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed lunch outside and then sat and watched the world go by for a bit once we were all shopped out :) We're almost at the end of the first week of the Easter hols already :( Holly has been on a three part wall climbing course, not sure that it was really her thing though!At least she tried and at least I won't have to pay out for her to go again! She is really pleased to be staying on at Brownies until the summer as she hasn't yet been offered a Guide place. Tomorrow we will be leaving Geoff to deal with the boiler chaos and will be going to my mum & dad's and then off to the woods in search of bluebells :) Which reminds me, I need to charge up my camera battery.... Apologies for a non -photo post again...I will make up for it at some point I'm sure!

Computer says no :(

2011-04-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

So I am on my creaky old laptop ,which means no photos and no Bejewelled :( I can surf (slowly!) and get emails though so all is not lost! The main PC suddenly decided it didn't like what I was doing last weekend and has been in a strop ever since .All my photos are on the external hard drive so they are safe :) I don't really like doing blog posts without photos hance lack of updates! Last Sunday was crop day .I had just started sorting and resizing my photos for my Document 2011 pages when the PC shut down so I couldn't print any photos to take with me :( I faffed around a bit, took apart and finished a Lo I started last month ,started another one and completed one I have since decided I don't like ! So not the most productive day! On Monday evening Holly's school took part in a local schools Dance Festival, performing at the local theatre .They danced to Glee's version of Singing In the Rain/Umbrella :) Thirty kids all with pop -up umbrellas....very brave but really good! This morning we went to see Gnomeo & Juliet (Em's request!) and it turned out to be one of those films that Holly giggled at the whole way through :) Whilst we were out Geoff strated taking the tiles off the kitchen walls...we are in a for a messy few weeks ...!

The things she does for me....:)

2011-03-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

Every day on our way to and from school (or my mum &dad's or into town!) ,year after year,we pass a huge patch of daffodils on the green.I always mean to take photos but never get round to it.And usually on the way home from school there are way too many other people around for me to ask Holly to sit there! This evening though we had to go back for Holly's teacher consultation so as it was quiet I asked her if she'd mind sitting in amongst them for me....

Don't worry, there are little 'walkways 'amongst the flowers so she didn't flatten any by walking through them or sitting down!

Red Nose Day and cooking...

2011-03-22T04:42:00.000-07:00

As it was Red Nose Day on friday, Holly went in wearing her favourite pjs,deely boppers & red nose :)The deely boppers are a nightmare to take a photo of as they boing around so much! On Sunday afternoon Holly made a very nice chocolate sponge :) AS you may have guessed she does love Mickey Mouse and wanted the cake to have a Mickey on somewhere! So we melted some chocolate into the Mickey Mouse cookie cutter we got last year and put that on the top :)

Not the best photo of the cake, but you can see the idea :) As the weather was nice we also went out for a walk,taking the camera as it has had so little use outside this year so far!

Note to self...get Holly's fringe cut more often!

Sorting and scrapping...

2011-03-19T08:01:00.000-07:00

Last night I made a start trying to sort out my scrapping, abandoned card making stuff and general crafty 'junk'.This needs to be done over the next month before the overhaul of the kitchen (fingers crossed...)Having started with some boxes of scrapping paper I had a few Lo ideas which are currently whizzing round my head. This morning I did a layout that has been on the to do list a while...Holly's first meeting with Mickey last year :) (We ended up meeting him three times in total!)
I bought the Echo Park paper especially for this LO(from 3 Jolly Scrappers) and then used some Queen & Co papers I already had in my 'holiday scrapping' box :) I also used a few of my Disney embellies but too many that it looks over the top hopefully ?! The lovely black Believe sticker is a KI Memories Scribble sticker,from Paper Arts (these seem to be like gold dust in this country, I bought the white versions from US EBay in the end!) I still need to add the date to the journalling sticker as I forgot to set the date on my camera for the first few days of the holiday and need to double check it. I think it could do with a few more of the stars but I used all the ones I had left over from the mini book I made a while back.
I'm thinking I might make this layout again for Holly's room as The Range now stock 12 x 12 box frames :)

A little bit of Disney..

2011-03-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

does you good!

On Sunday me and the girls went to Wembley Arena to see Disney on Ice :) Needless to say we all loved it and came home happy and with Disney songs stuck in our head :)

Almost spring like :)

2011-03-12T13:37:00.000-08:00

This week we have finally had some fairly nice weather and some sunshine :) I have actually ventured out without my coat on a couple of occasions!
So whilst the sun was shining today Holly & I had a bit of a tidy up in the garden.We cleared out her little green house and planted the daffodil bulbs that we has forgotten about(!!),and some Rocket.We also attempted to do some digging in the front garden which was pretty impossible as the ground was so rock hard!

I finished off this layout last weekend that I did at a crop way back in November! I have come to the conclusion that my favourite layouts are generally Autumn themed ones simply because of the colours :) I used Cosmo Cricket Earth Love for this one.This is one of my favourite paper ranges ,I;ll be sad when I run out of it!

I finally got round to seeing The Kings Speech at the cinema this week .I did enjoy it but I have also come to the conclusion that having got used to usually going to the cinema with the kids, I find grown up films a bit heavy going! Being really tired probably didn't help either! I'm glad I went though as I did enjoy it really!

And finally we are very excited here as tomorrow we are off to see this :) :) I love Lastminute.com :)
Oops, that's a bit tiny!

What I did last Sunday

2011-03-06T12:37:00.000-08:00

...whilst I was cropping was my Feb pages :) I was a bit more organised this time though and cut out all my photos and put them in the relevant pockets before I went :) I also got time to start my Feb feature page about Em's Madrid trip, but that isn't finished yet as I needed some info from Em about what they did when :) I also started another Disney LO but I'm on the verge of taking that apart as I don't really like it ! (I have to work out how to do it without wasting too much paper first though!)

So Feb's pocket page...

Probably a bit boring to look at but it has got quite a few bits in it :) I've decided not to bother with an envelope as well though as I didn't put much in the one on January's page!

Divided pages....

There are a few blanked bits on these as there are people in the photos that I haven't asked if they mind me putting their photos on here.So fear not, I wasn't sat in a a restaurant on my own with three wine glasses and an empty bottle! And the title on the Momiji page is now complete (it should say Lillan!) as I ordered some more letter stickers this week!

Last week Em was off school with what was probably an allergic reaction to something.She has few spots and as the girl she shared a room with in Madrid has chicken pox we had to be safe.She was not impressed at missing four days of school...

Yesterday I went on a shopping trip on my ownsome to the Galleria.I never used to like TK Max,but now I have worked out which bits I like I quite enjoy rummaging in there :)Yesterday I got a couple of packs of WRMK papers ,plus a D Ring album with divided page protectors & papers for...£11...bargain!

I can't think of anything else interesting we've done to be honest! I will be back soon with another layout from a crop last year that I have just finished off :)

She's home :)

2011-02-21T14:27:00.000-08:00

This evening we picked up a very tired and sore footed Em from the airport :) I had plans to take some photos around the airport whilst we were waiting for her to arrive, but it turned out they were ready to be picked up earlier than we had originally been told and I ended up dashing up to pick her up whilst Geoff waited at the pick up point (saving us £6 on the parking charge!) Sounds like she has had a great time but I think she'll be sleeping in tomorrow!

Yesterday afternoon I took Holly and one of her friends to see Mega Mind at the cheapy cinema.It was ok, but I wouldn't rush to see it again. Today we went out for a bit of food shopping and then treated Holly to lunch in McDonalds :) I was very good and had...nothing!But oh how I enjoyed my weight watchers bagel when I got home...!

Last night I got another Disney layout done :) I'm quite pleased with how my character LO's are turning out so far.I'm not using much of my Disney stash but I think I prefer them that way! I still have plans to make lots of smaller mini books too so it will all get used up somehow!
I used new Echo Park Springtime papers which I ordered from Bellaboo last week with a very nice 10% off :)

It's been a loooong day...

2011-02-19T13:32:00.000-08:00

This morning Em went on her school trip to Madrid.We had to be at Luton Airport for 4.30 am so were up at 2.00am...! I am off to bed very shortly! On the way home we decided to go into Tesco's and get the food shop done...never again! The place was a complete tip with rubbish and spilt stuff everywhere ,the aisles were full of cages and we had to use the stupid self service tills which seem to hate us - lesson learnt! When we got home I did try going back to bed as it was still dark but although my eyes were happy to close my 'head' was still wide awake so I gave up after an hour! The weather has been pants all day so Holly and I had a pyjama day watching DVD's and playing Scrabble :) We had a phone call just after lunchtime from Em to say she had arrived safely :)
I am off to bed in the hope that I will sleep!

Meet Lillan :)

2011-02-14T05:25:00.000-08:00

My very cute Valentine Momiji :) I think she wins the award for being the cutest Momiji I own,even if Geoff does think she looks like Florence from the Magic Roundabout!
We had a pre-Valentines meal at home on Saturday night ,followed by...two games of Scrabble! Do you think it's our age?!

A weekend at the Movies!

2011-02-13T13:19:00.000-08:00

We are lucky enough to have a theatre in town which doubles up as a cinema with cheap family films on at weekends and during school holidays.This weekend I took the girls and one of Holly's friends to see Ramona and Beezus.
I'd never heard of the books but the girls liked the look of the film when they saw the trailer for it.And I have to say that it was a really sweet film and I really enjoyed it :)

Then today we had a treat and went to the full price cinema to see Tangled in 3D :) Needless to say I absolutely loved it.I am a Disney girl at heart, I could watch them over and over in preference to a 'real' film ! The animation is just brilliant in Tangled ,I think they pulled out all the stops for the 5oth animated movie :) Oh and the girls enjoyed it too!

In other news,this week we had the info meeting for Em's school trip to Madrid next weekend.Should be fun ,they are just allowed hand luggage! Just need to get our small suitcase down and check the measurements ,get her Euros and we are all set :) Not looking forward to the early strat though.she has to be at the airport for 4.30am!

On Friday night Holly went for a sleepover at her friends after Brownies. There was much excitement & planning beforehand and I think she had a good time.She's certainly been a little tired and grumpy since!

The weather has been pretty rubbish ,and typical that I got locked out on the day it poured with rain! My poor camera isn't getting much use other than at least one photo a day! So when the sun shone yesterday afternoon I persuaded the girls outside as I'll need photos for calendars next year!

Love this one of Em :)

And then I found this one that Em took whilst I was trying to find something in my bag this morning while we were waiting for the cinema to open:)

And how could I forget, this week I also went for a very long overdue visit to The Waffle House for one of these - yum :)

Another one for the Disney album :)

2011-02-06T10:26:00.000-08:00

Last night I actually felt like scrapping (I tend to only get anything done at crops these days!) I finally got theis Mulan layout done.The photo has been in the bag with the papers for ages, I've sat and pushed it around a couple of times at crops so I was quite glad I finally got it done last night!Everything on it is My Little Shoe Box except the white Thickers and the butterflies & pearls :)Now it's done I feel like I can move on the enxt one!
For Christmas Holly got a cute book called Made By Me which has lots of hand sewing projects in it.While we were in Stevenage yesterday we went to the indoor market which has a great fabric/haberdashery stall.We got her a couple of pieces of fabric and this afternoon she made herself a sweet draw string bag :)
This week Holly has played in her second school netball match.They lost but are getting much better and braver at trying to get the ball!
Today we went for a walk into town and bought the girls a Subway for lunch, for the first time!It's been really windy here the last few days, so much so that my head and ears hurt when we got home today!The rest of the day was spent sewing, playing Scrabble and we even had a quick go on Wii Sports (very out of practice on that!)
I have ideas for a couple more layouts in my head at the moment, so who knows, I may be back sooner rather than later!

And then it was February..!

2011-02-01T08:06:00.000-08:00

Not sure where the last couple of weeks have gone,I keep meaning to blog but never quite made it!
But as Sunday was crop day at least I have some scrapping to share :)As I mentioned a couple of posts ago I'm doing a document 2011 album this year :) This fits in well with crop day as it's usually on the last Sunday of the month ,when the month is pretty much done :)These are the pages I have done for January so far.I haven't filled the 'pocket'page yet, i have lots more bits & pieces to go in it, plus some more photos which I ran out of room for in the divided pages.

I just need to fill in the top right section on the page below,about our new bedroom (well, new bed and wallpaper!) I really enjoyed doing these,and it was a good way of using up all the scraps of my October Afternoon papers! I just need to do my feature ' page :)

The girls often watch the American cake programmes on the Food channel and Holly decided last weekend that she wanted to make her own cake :) On Saturday she and Em made the sponges and I helped her make the shape of the cake.I left them to ice it with Geoff whilst I was out on Sunday, and this is what I came home to :)

Cute, eh? Not bad for a first attempt :)

All change :)

2011-01-18T14:23:00.000-08:00

This weekend just gone we had a bit of a move around in our room :) Last week our new sale gargain bed was delivered so on Sunday afternoon Geoff dismantled the old one and put the new one together :) We also decided to move things around so the bed is now up against a wall instead of under the window and it makes the room look so much better :) We have also decided to wallpaper one wall with some very gorgeous wallpaper,a joint decision made surprisingly quickly for us! :) Picture wise it is proving more difficult to find what I really want :( Many moons ago when I first left home, I had some gorgeous Norman Parkinson posters in my flat.I still have those posters but they are pretty creased and damaged after 20 years...can I replace them?!It's not looking likely at the moment :( I am going to try the Covent Garden Poster shop as I am pretty sure I got at least one of them from there .If I have no joy we'll have to find something else :( (But I'm still not chucking out my posters !!)

On Saturday Holly and I made meatballs for the first time :) For some reason Holly was convinced she didn't like them though I thought if she helped make them she'd know there was nothing in them she didn't like! I think her favourite bit was smashing up the cream crackers! This weekend we'll be making meatloaf (can you guess we're using a Jamie Oliver book?!)

Eoday we have been to Ikea to get a couple of things for around the house:) Sadly though I couldn't bet one of the main things I needed though, new bulbs for my Stranne lamp :(
Apparently they have updated the design so that they now use LED's. And they don't sell the replacement bulbs to go in my 'old' version :( Not happy and I think I will write and complain as once the rest of my bulbs blow my lamp will be useless :(

Making things with new things!

2011-01-11T14:24:00.000-08:00

At the weekend we set about doing one of my 'aims' for this year and that was using things! I have had a Crock Pot slow cooker sitting out in the kitchen for the past year,new in its box.So on Sunday I made a sausage casserole.It did actually taste ok, though I think I will teak the recipe a bit next time.I am really not keen on tinned/chopped tomatoes so I will probably swap them for some tomato puree and add a bit more stock.The girls ate it though which is the main thing ! (Though Holly did leave the 'bits' like the pepper and mushrooms!)
Next thing to use was my new mixer that we got for Christmas.What is it with me and mixers? This one still doesn't seem to know the meaning of low speed and I still ended up with a cloud of flour and icing suger in the kitchen!Anyway, I made Hazelnut & Chocolate cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery book(bang goes any attempt at healthy eating!)They are lovely but even I found the combination of the filling (a dollop of Nutella type spread - we used Asda's own)and the frosting (flavoured with the choc/hazelnut spread) a bit too sickly and that is saying something!

I am still taking a photo a day, though most of them are pretty random and not really worth sharing on here!
To help with my aim of doing Document 2011 I have gone out and bought myself a diary and am making notes each day :) I haven't kept a diary in years ,but as it's small enough to keep in my handbag and won't be hidden in a drawer by my bed I'm hoping I will make use of it!

I'll leave you with this photo of the gorgeous sky yesterday morning :)

Random post!

2011-01-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

I am just waiting for the bread maker to finish so I thought I'd do a quick late night post!

There are so many photo challenges etc that seem to pop up at this time of year that it's hard to ignore them! I haven't actually told myself that I'm doing any of them, but I thought I would try and use my camera a bit more! I so much prefer indoor photos now that I've learnt a bit more about my camera settings (I still have a looong way to go but at least I've almost lost the flash!) so I have been taking a few snaps of the girls in the evenings.Here are a couple from the last couple of nights :)
Em in between dances on Just Dance 2 last night

And Holly making Angel Delight for pudding tonight :)

My bread maker is beeping so I am off to bed now it's finished :)

Pencil Lines

2011-01-02T13:47:00.000-08:00

Loved this weeks sketch so I made sure I joined in at Pencil Lines this week :) I used some lovely Echo Park papers from the Winter Time range.Although we did eventually have a huge snowfall we sadly didn't go out in it much :( This photo was taken when we went out for a walk to enjoy the last day of a fairly decent amount lying around (although the sledging mound was pretty much just a mud slide!)

A lot of my scrapping stuff is a bit all over the place at the moment as we had some work done in the kitchen before Christmas and I had to empty my stuff out completely.I have started going through and getting rid of a lot of things that I am unlikely to use :) I also use up quite a bit of paper in the run up to Christmas making calendars for presents,which has helped :)
Today we took the tree and all the decorations down.It was good to have a tidy up but it does look a bit empty in the bay window where the tree was :( We are thinking of getting a bean bag for the girls and maybe a floor lamp to make it look a bit better.For some reason I always take a photot of the tree baubles when they are piled up waiting to be put away!

We found a couple of bargains in Asda this morning:) I got a gorgeous sequinned bag for Christmas in black ,they had both colours marked down to half price today so I treated myself to the silver version and we found some half price Minnie Mouse pj's for Holly :)

I have decided to do a document 2011 album this year.I didn't follow the class/prompts at all last year but have seen some fab pages on other peoples blogs (mainly Lauras !) so I am going to try this year :) I have my divided page protectors on order and if all else fails, I can do my pages at Anna's crop :)

Disney mini album

2011-01-01T10:38:00.001-08:00

So having been told off for my sad post yesterday, I thought I'd better come back soon with a more cheerful one!
This is the small mini album I made a a little while back.I used a chipboard Papermania album (£2.99 in The Range )It came with bookrings but was of them was too loose and kept coming undone so I swapped them for ribbon.The whole thing is very,very simple! I bought lots of Disney stash when I came home fronm Florida in a great half price sale and used a couple of packs of it on this :)The spotty papers are Jillibean Soup and the alphabet stickers are from October Afternoon.

I won't bore you with all the pages, as the layout is the same on each one , character name in stickers and a bottle cap along with either a Mickey head icon or stars.The album was just the right size to do pages of both girls with all the characters they met at Epcot's Character spot :) I'm still not 100% sure about those epoxy stickers but I think they do the job ok :)
I hope you've had a good start to the New Year :) We went out this morning and I got a few bits from Hobbycraft :)We have also ordered a new bed which force me to do a major tidy up under our current one! Tomorrow the tree and decs will be coming down and we are going out to look for beanbags.Yes, it's all go here ....!!

farewell 2010...

2010-12-31T10:30:00.000-08:00

If I am honest, I'm not really that big on New Year (well actually I am big all year!!) .We rarely go out and I'll be surprised if I can keep my eyes open til midnight tonight!

However, I thought I'd better do some kind of end of year post :)

The main reason we will remember 2010 is of course our almost month long stay in Florida,which now sadly seems ages ago :( Hard to believe that this time last year we were just about to book our flights. I will admit that it did take much longer than I expected for the holiday blues to pass...

At the ,moment I seem very aware at how much time is ticking by...I'm guessing one of the main reasons is that as from tomorrow I will be able to say that Holly will be going to secondary school next year.I know it will still be 18 months away,but it will still be next year.There is something about my youngest leaving junior school that really makes me sad.No more assemblies, sports days or Christmas shows.Sigh.

I have set myself a couple of 'scrapping' things I would like to do in 2011,but I haven't chosen a word for the year or made any hard and fast resolutions.If I end up at the end 2011 lighter and fitter than I start it ,that would be good but if not...there's always the next year ;)

I will leave you with a bit of fancy bokeh, another of the 12 Days of Christmas assignments .and wish you a very hapy 2011 :)

It's been and gone!

2010-12-28T11:45:00.000-08:00

Christmas that is, since my last post! Three weeks...I think that has to be a record period neglect for my poor blog :(
So a quick round up of what's happened...
Holly's school show was fab (I will take photos of her costume once the tree is gone and I have a blank background for her to stand in front of!), Em's House Drama production came second .which means that we get to go ansd see her perform it :) The day after term ended we finally had a decent snow fall...and it's still hanging around now, though only in a mucky slushy form :( We did go out with the sledge a couple of times, but Holly wasn't really in the mood and it was really cold!
Christmas Eve saw us slip and slide our way to the Christingle service :) The walk home through the snow, admiring all the pretty lights got us in the mood for Christmas :)
Christmas Day was good,lots of lovely and much longed for presents were given and received :) I was lucky enough to get a new lense for my camera which finally saw me find my Bokeh! This was one the assignments on Cheryls photo course, and I just couldn't suss it with my other lense.

The present that made me laugh the most was the gift of three huge bags of Reese's Pieces -yum!
Boxing day was spent at my mum's and the last two days we have been enjoying lie ins and a lack of routine :) Except for Geoff that is who went back to work yesterday :(
This morning we went for a wander into town as I wanted to get a few things in the John Lewis Clearance.
We also got Holly a hat from Claire's in the sale :) I bought her a different one before Christmas but it was a bit small ,result then that Claires had marked theirs down to half price today :)

I will be back soon hopefully as I have some scrapping to share as well as the Disney mini album I made a few weeks back :)

2010-12-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

So far I am keeping up with the 12 Days of Christmas workshop :)Yesterday's assignment was to take a festive photo walk.Sadly the weather was horrible here yesterday, cold ,damp and by late afternoon pouring with rain :(These are a couple of the photos I took despite the dullness! I loved how cool the fountain looked where it was frozen :)
Todays assignment was called Get in Shape and involved taking photos of people -shock horror! I had a perfect image in my head of the photo I wanted but it was not to be! Grumpy models didn't help but I love this shot that I got instead :)

I've also had fun making my own star filter but I'll share the effects of that another day!

This is one of the layouts I did last weekend :) Not a great photo but better than nothing!I know the title doesn't stand out that much but with fourteen being quite a long word,I had trouble finding letters small enough to squeeze it in!

Today we went to Milton Keynes to see the Christmas displays and get a few bits of shopping (think Paperchase!).I don't think the decs were as good as past years sadly :( The girls had their traditional go on the carousel though :)

This week is a busy one, Holly has three performances of her school play and a panto trip and Em is also busy with drama rehearsals :)

10th birthdays and busy-ness!

2010-12-02T09:11:00.000-08:00

As always in December ,things have started to get a litle bit busy!
Tuesday saw Holly celebrate her 10th birthday :) She got her birthday wish which was snow on her birthday, although we didn't get a great deal.Shockingly though, they were actually allowed out for a snowball fight at school unlike last year when they were kept under lock and key when the bead weather hit! She is having her birthday 'do' in a couple of weeks,a trip to the cinema with a few friends and we had tea at Frankie & Bennys :)

One thing done off my to do list is Holly's costume for her christmas play :)I have no idea what the complete outfit looks like as I sent her mask, hat and tutu in after the main part!Fingers crossed she brings it all home in one piece so I can take some photos!
AS well as signing up for Journal Your Christmas this year I am taking Cheryl Johnson's 12 Days of Christmas photography workshop :)Yesterdays task was to experiment with the different white balance settings on our cameras.Whilst I know my photos aren't perfectly in focus, I'm really pleased at how 'glowy' they are :) I have yet to do todays assignment as it was pretty dark by the time we got back from school so I needed to have a re-think on my original idea.

We seem to be the only part of the UK that doesn't have a decent covering of snow,despite being forecast it :( Bah humbug! We were thinking of putting the tree up this wekend, but it feels a bit too early.Plus I really wanted to paint the living room first, so that is my job next Tuesday!

In the mood for Christmas :)

2010-11-27T01:36:00.001-08:00

This mornming I am feeling very christmassy! We have a light sprinkling of snow outside and I am all signed up for this :)
Over the last few years I have admired lots of beautiful journals on peoples blogs so this year I have taken the plunge :) I am still waiting for some supplies to arrive before I can get started :) Let's hope I stick with it :)

One of those moments

2010-11-14T13:19:00.000-08:00

Last week I had one of those moments...one of those when I thought 'We live so close to London, but hardly ever go there'So on Thursday Em and I went to Leicester Square to experience the atmosphere of the Harry Potter premiere :) We knew that by the time we got there, there would no real hope of getting near enough to see anyone actually in the flesh but at least we were there :)As it turns out,the first place where we were standing was pretty close to the 'main' red carpet (totally confusing as they were showing it at three cinemas!)But we were moved back from there by the police and then watched all the arrivals and interviews on the big screen.Despite getting absolutely drenched at one point Em had a great time :)
I'm almost ashamed to admit that I have never really watched or read any Harry Potter (Geoff normally goes with Em to see them) but almost feel like I should now!
This morning Holly took part in the Remembrance Parade with Brownies.Luckily the rain held off til about 10 minutes after they had finished.After going back to my old Junior school last week, it was a bit strange that my old headmaster from there led the service today!

I'm still here!

2010-11-07T13:08:00.000-08:00

And trying to remember what I've done for the last two weeks!
At the end of half term we went up to Widnes to spend a few days with Geoff's family.On Friday we went into Liverpool city centre,including visits to the huge Primark and Build a Bear! We caught a glimpse of Michael McKintyre in Waterstones,but weren't allowed anywhere near him due to the huge security guards everywhere!On the Saturday we went out to a PYO farm on the off chance that they may have a couple of pumpkins still left in the field...there were a couple !
We returned home on Sunday and once the unpacking had been done the girls set about carving their pumpkins :)
Sadly I never got round to doing mine and it's now outside rotting :( Although the weather wasn't the best, the girls still got dressed up and went out Trick or Treating.

Last week we got back in to the school routine :( Holly had a friend round one day after school, and they spent ages outside preparing experiments,planting pumpkin seeds whilst adding lots of salt & pepper to the soil to see what effect it will have! Ready flavoured pumpkin anyone?! Parts for the Christmas play have been given out and we seem to be on a fast track to Christmas now! Holly's year are doing Cirque Du Soleil so I am looking forward to making her a funky, bright costume! She has already dug out one of Em's old dance show leotards in preparation!

I got round to finishing a Lo a couple of nights ago.I was swayed into buying the Sassafrass papers having seen the gorgeous layouts on SJ and Laura's blogs.

My first attempt at the journalling was a a disaster though so I had to cover it up with the heart shaped banner stickers and pearls! I still need to stamp the date on it but as the stamps I needed have gone AWOL, it will have to wait!

Last night we went to a fab fireworks display :) it was a bit of a blast from the past though as it was at my old junior school. Everything seemed much smaller than I remember it! There was a huge bonfire to keep us warm, and the fireworks themselves were well worth the wait.This evening we had some sparklers ,which to be honest were pretty rubbish!

I will try and come back sooner next time!

One for the Disney album :)

2010-10-25T04:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was crop day :) I think I enjoy these more these days as it's about the only time I sit and scrap !I did a bit work on Christmas gifts and finished two LO's .
This is one of them :)
I think I have decided that I like my Disney LO's without much actual Disney stuff on them! We met Woody & Jessie on our last visit to the Magic Kingdom,although we'd already seen Buzz & Woody at Hollywood Studios. I used My Little Shoebox shaped paper and strips of Jillibean Soup,Cosmo & more MLS.
This week is half term and the weather today is gorgeous ! Sadly it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow :( We are expectinmg the Bowkis clan though so I'm sure we'll be entertained by a show at some point!

More celebrations :)

2010-10-17T14:22:00.000-07:00

Last week Em celebrated her 14th birthday...yikes, that makes me feel old ! She had her main present from us a few weeks back in time for the start of her GCSE coursework, so she just got a few small things from us on the day.Last night she had seven friends round for food, X Factor dancing and a bit of Wii Just Dance .I must admit to trying not to laugh when they all sat down and 'rocked the boat' to Ooops Upside Your Head...pretty much what I did when I was a couple of year older than she is now! Anyway, I think they all enjoyed themselves and we all survived!" Holly opted for a sleepover at my mum & dad's after her orignal sleepover plans at a friends house had to be cancelled due to sickness.

Yesterday morning we went over to Thurrock as Em had a birthday money burning a hole in her pocket and Holly had finally saved up enough money to buy her long awaited bunny from Build A Bear ,along with a pumpkin outfit! Photos to follow!We also found a few things we liked in Primark, something for everyone :) I think Saturday shopping is the way to go though as in the past we have generally gone there on a Sunday and it's been manic.Yesterday was a bit of a revelation, no queues in either Build A Bear or Primark!

This week is a bit of a mad one with teacher consultations for both girls, year cake sale and year assembly for Holly and a Brownie do for Holly celebrating the end of the centenary year of guiding.Phew - roll on half term!

Birthday celebrations at Pencil Lines!

2010-10-17T04:04:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again, and this week Pencil Lines celebrates it's 4th birthday! There are sketches going live on the hour every hour today along with a RAK for each layout.Make sure you hop on over and join in the fun!

My layout has just gone live :) I used sketch number 146.I had trouble trying to choose one as there were so many I wanted to do again!

I used a real mish mash of October Afternoon, Jillibean Soup and Cosmo Cricket papers,along with Jillibean Soup twine, October Afternoon stickers,thickers and an Echo Park sticker :) It doesn't matter how many times we go out looking for conkers, Holly will always bring home a load more, even resorting to shoving them in her boots if her bucket is full! I love how this layout turned out ,though I will admit to leaving one layer out that was in the sketch as I was starting to get confused (it doesn't take much!)
I hope you enjoy the day of sketches and I will be back later with a post about Em's birthday :)

Copy cat toadstools photos:)

2010-10-12T04:08:00.000-07:00

One of the wonders of the internet is that you get to find out about local finds from friends :) Lyzzy told me about the pumpkin shop a couple of years back and this Autumn she has come up with another discovery :)
If you carry on down the lane where we go looking for conkers every year,you come to the entrance to Brocket Hall.On the verge are these amazing toadstools :) I have never seen them in real life before, although my Dad has informed me that they are 'quite common' in woodland! I have seen lots of boring brown ones, but not these! I'm sure the van driver that went past us probably thought I was a complete nutter, kneeling on a tea towel (I knew the grass would be wet so I went prepared!)with my head and camera on one side to take this photo

I do love Autumn :)

And here's another pumpkin /squash photo, just because I love the colours :)

Autumn has arrived :)

2010-10-10T13:51:00.001-07:00

Finally the damp and drizzle have disappeared and today we have had gorgeous sunshine :)

Yesterday we went to the farm shop to go to the pumpkin field.Sadly, it wasn't as good as last year :( Although I did phone and check they still had pumpkins in the field ,when we got there, they'd already picked and packed most of them :( (Much much earlier than last year!)I managed to find a few good ones to roll together for Holly to sit on though ! I'm glad we didn't leave going there til half term though,it would have been really disappointing!

This afternoon we went conker collecting again, this time with mum & dad. We also did a bit of leaf throwing :)

I will admit to still fighting with my new camera ,hopefully I'll start improving soon!

To help, I have invested in this book, the sooner it arrives the better! I also manged to lose my lense cap today so I've had to order a new one -doh!Thankfully the replacement one comes with a cord to attach it.

Last weeks scrapping :)

2010-10-03T13:43:00.000-07:00

I meant to put these on here sooner ,but what with the rubbish weather we've had for most of the week it wasn't that easy to get decent photos.They're not great pics but I'm still learning with the new camera so bear with me!
For this one I used the new Jillibean soup papers, as well as the bakers twine and corrugted flower.The big brown flower shape is part of the packaging from the corrugated shapes.Love these photos that Anna took :)

For this one I used Echo Park Walk in the Park papers, and more bakers twine :) The colours of the photo aren't quite true as I printed it out on the wrong sort of photo paper -oops!.I will bet round to pe-printing it when I have more ink!

I have a couple more to share,but I'll pace myself as I don't seem to scrap that often these days !
As mentioned earlier ,the weather has been pretty dire this past week.I usually love Autumn ,but I love the bright ,crunchy days, not the damp and drizzly ones which is mainly what we've had!
This week is a busy one, Holly has her Harvest Festival assembly, where she actually has a speaking part (it's a whole school assembly and there aren't places parts up for grabs!) and another Victorian themed day on Thursday.Em has started dancing classes again as well as swimming with friends :)
Yesterday morning I had the house to myself ,which is rare for a Saturday so I had a giggle watching the out takes on the Friends DVDs :)
And for Lucy, this is the farm shop where I took my pumpkin photos last year :) http://www.pearcesfarmshop.com/ Hopefully we'll go again this year :)

Getting there...

2010-09-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

I am slowly learning about my camera :) Since deciding which one I was getting I have been reading this great guide on the Canon website. To be honest, I find manuals a bit heavy going.This is much more useful as it has lots of photos showing the effect changing the settings has, perfect for a slow learner like me! This weekend I had a go at depth of field,and I finally got the sort of photo I have wanted to take for ages :)

Please excuse the dust on my Momiji, it will be removed by tomorrow afternoon! I dread dusting them as they tend to have a domino effect,I knock one and the whole lot are likely to follow suit!

Today was crop day:) It was lovely to catch up with people and actually do some scrapping :) I did three Lo's, though two still need titles - watch this space :) Plus it was a good excuse to stay indoors on such a miserable day!

Victorian Day

2010-09-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

Today was Victorian Day for Holly's year at school :) They had to dress accordingly and went to vist a schools museum in Hitchin, taking with them a Victorian style lunch.Holly took a chunk of bread (!!), carrot,an apple and I made some scones last night, so one of those too :)She looked so sweet, like one of the Railway Children! The lovely pinafore & skirt were borrowed from my neighbour who had raided the costume department of her Amateur Dramatics group! The mop cap is a very old one I made for Em when she was in Year 5.

Oh dear!

2010-09-21T00:46:00.000-07:00

I seem to be failing miserably on the blogging front :( Trouble is, I know if I don't carry on I will miss being being able to look back and use it as a reference as to when stuff happens!
So, trying to remember back three weeks...
The girls are back in the swing of school now.I did take some first day photos but they weren't great and I somehow managed to not take any of Holly on her own- whoops!
Em has now started her GCSE courses.a year earlier than many schools.She is enjoying her choices though and a day when she has Drama is always a good day! Holly has started having clarinet lesons this term, at last someone is making use of the family clarinet! Her learning topic this term is the Victorians,including a trip to a schools museum this week, in Victorian dress.
Last week saw my birthday, I was very spoiled and got my long awaited new camera :) This is a present carried over over from my big 4 0 ) last year, I think it was worth the wait! I am slowly learning what all the buttons do, and hopefully will soon start being a bit braver and leaving that auto function unused!I have found a really useful guide to using a DSLR on the Canon site with I have been reading gradually over the past week or so :) So please Mrs B, stop nagging me!!
I also got a couple of Momiji's ,a DVD and some spending money :)The day was rounded off nicely with a trip to the pub with friends :)My birthday was also the same day as my mum & dad's 50th wedding anniversary.So on Saturday (which happened to be our 17th anniversary !) we all headed to my sisters for a 'family do' to celebrate :) Despite really bad traffic, we managed to get there before Mum & Dad and get everything set up in time (we had most of the food with us!) :) As well as having a proper cake, I made some cupcakes .They weren't my best attempt (the first batch went in the bin!) but they did look pretty :)
On Sunday we went to see if there were any conkers to collect ,as we went this time last year, but there weren't many down,so we'll be going back :) And luckily, Mum has had been given lots of flowers for me to practice taking photos of :)

Whoosh...

2010-09-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

that how it feels the last six weeks have gone :(Tomorrow we are back in the land of packed lunches and homework :(
We were busy last week though :) Em had her kneee looked at and redressed on Tuesday.Although it was still open a bit (yugh!) ,it is healing ok (so the nurse says!) She will have one big scar there though once it's all dreid up!
In the afternoon we went to the Butterfly Farm.My photos of butterflies weren't great, as they flew around too much!

There are lots of designer gardens to walk round, including these walls which were filled with...well, just about anything really!

As is always the way, the weather turned gorgeous last week,just as many schools went back ! Typical!Luckily for us though it meant we had perfect weather on Thursday & Friday when we went to Legoland for two days :) There were times when it did feel like we were back in Florida...in a theme park, all wearing our summer clothes and spending ages in queues!
Here's a couple of photos, I'll write more in my next post :)

Catch up part 2!

2010-08-30T13:59:00.000-07:00

So to carry on where I left off on Friday (I know my last post says Weds ,but that's when I first started writing it and saved it as a draft!)
On Friday,we finally managed to catch up Ann & the girls - better late than never! Check out the photos on Anna's blog,I love them :)I kept out of the way while Anna was taking them as sometimes when we are boith taking photos ,neither of us end up with any of them looking in the sme direction! I was also having a play with Anna's camera as I am hoping for a new one for my birthday...I need more practice though! We had taken a trip to the Dr's about Em's knee in the morning, and it didn't look too good so she wasn't feeling full of beans :( So although we were treated to a show by the others, it was definitely missing something!

On Saturday we finally got to see Toy Story 3 in 3D.If I'm honest, I didn't like it as much as the first two,I still managed to cry though !Loved the trailers we saw too and am really looking forward to the new Disney film 'Tangled' :)
Saturday evening saw Holly have a friend over for a sleepover and Em go to my Mum & Dad's for a sleepover.She was going to stay in Holly's room (Holly has to 'borrow' hers for sleepovers as hers is too small!)but climbimg up the ladder to the bed was a no no ,with her knee! Anyway, Holly & her friend eventually fell asleep about 12.30am, after Holly lost her third tooth this week!
And after saying I wasn't in the mood to do any scrapping, I now have a pile of five (yes,5!) waiting to go in my album :) Three are 'brand new' whilst two are ones that I had done at crops but were waiting for dates or that 'special' something ,to make them complete.Two of then I won't share though as they have Holly's friends in.
The pumpkin one is one that was waiting to be finished, thought I'd better get a move on as we're rapidly approaching pumpkin season again! And the bottom Lo is a new one, though I made a mistake on it and put the date as April when it should be August...doh!

Right, that si me all caught up for now.Tomorrow we are back at the Dr's with Em, depending on how we get on there kind of decides what we're doing the rest of the week....

Oh dear...

2010-08-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

I don't think I'll be winning any awards for regular blogger of the year somehow ! I've had a bit of a 'switch off' recently...I haven't felt like blogging and seem pretty incapable of scrapping :( I've spent a couple of evenings pushing bits of paper & photos round a page, but nothing and has worked and I've given up in the end.Shame as I have tons of Disney stuff I want to start using.Maybe once the holidays are over I'll be back in more of a routine...

So a quick round up of what we've been doing the last couple of weeks....

The guinea pigs ended up staying a bit longer than originally planned for various reasons.It's lucky I didn't lose them all though ,as when I went to clean their hutch out one morning ,I discovered the bottom of the hutch was hanging off by about 2 inches!

Last week we did the dreaded school shoe shop,which should have been followed by a trip to see Toy Story 3.Except the cinema was closed due to an electrical problem :( But we got passes to another showing, upgraded to 3D.We just need to find time to go back!I actually went for a night out last week,for a lovely meal with some mum's from school :) And the folllowing day we took all the kids out to Fairlands Valley park in Stevenage.It was a lovely relaxed day and everyone had a good catch up :)

Last Sunday the girls and I went over to see Pitstone Windmill with my Dad.It's somewhere we used to go as kids so took me back a bit :) Realising that it was 20 yrs since I'd last been there made me feel a bit old though!

On Tuesday we went for our annual trip to Whipsnade Zoo.The day didn't go quite according to plan though :( Em fell over and ripped her knee open, requiring a trip to A&E and stitches :( We did see the little baby cheetahs before we came though :) (They are 4 weeks old!)

Anyway, as this has turned into a huge post, I'll carry on tomorrow :)

It will be...

2010-08-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

...big! My Florida album,that is :) I went into John Lewis the other day and found the perfect book to use for the 'diary style' album I want to do of what we did each day :) With 80 pages, it's big enough to do a double page of each day,and as it's 12" by 16 1/2 ", large enough to get a few photos on each page :)I'm not going to make it lumpy & bumpy, it will just have maps,photos and journalling in it :) The front cover is as far as I've got ,but I still need to add something else to it, I'm not sure what though.

The guinea pigs seem happy so far and are getting lots of cuddles (weather permitting!)

Pencil Lines :)

2010-08-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

This week I joined in at Pencil Lines :) I loved this sketch as soon as I opened the email from Anna :) (I still get the sketches sent to me for each week :) ) The photo I was used was my original choice,but then I tried to do a Florida layout.After faffing for a while I gave up and went back to my original choice of photo!

I used mix from October Afternoon papers from the Cherry Hill, Thrift Shop and Fly a Kite ranges, love how they all match so well :)I also used ribbon roses from Sarahs Cards,Doodlebug Loopy Lou stickers and AC glitter Thickers. I always find Kraft Bazzill difficult to photofraph, it tands to come out looking 'dirty'! The layout does look better if you click on the photo to enlarge it :)

On Friday Geoff was home so we went to Dunstable Downs for a bit of kite flying.Typically, the kids cheapy £3 kites performed far better than the huge stunt kite that Geoff had!

Holly doing a bit of lazy kite-ing! Yesterday morning the girls went to see Shrek 4 at the cheapy cinema in town ,whilst I went for a wander round the shops. I went into the British Herat Foudation shop and bought myself a bargain book to read whilst waiting for the girls :) I've done this a lot recently and have a huge pile of books under the bed at the moment,waiting for me to read them!

And Friday night we had some visitors arrive who will be staying with us for the next 10 days :) But I'll share photos of then tomorrow otherwise this post will be over loaded!

2010-08-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend was a good one :)
Saturday was spent food shopping and mooching about the house (well us girls spent the afternoon bathing,nail painting & hair washing!) before heading over to Anna's for their annual barbecue :) The girls met Suki and loved her ,no photos though as she moves too fast! My camera had a very lucky escape,when I managed to embarrass myself by tripping and falling flat on my face,dropping it very hard.Luckily it survived and I love this photo of Holly's new hair band :)

The yesterday afternoon, we went to Hitchin Lavender,lavender fields and sunflowers together :) Although I kept hoping the sun would come out, I think my photos were probably better with it being fairly dull (note, my camera is qite old and I haven't photoshopped or 'popped' any of these!) I took loads of photos so I won't bore you with too many :)

The whole place smells gorgeous and you can hear the humming of the bees in the lavender :) We came home with three big bags full and five huge sunflowers :)

The first week

2010-07-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

Yep, the first week of the holidays is almost over, and typically the glorious weather has vanished and we've had showers ,grey skies with just the odd bit of sunshine :( Oh well! Holly has been the busiest out of all of us ,with trips to friends and parties, how I wish I had the social life of a nine year old! Yesterday she went in to town with Geoff and had her ears pierced,she was more excited than nervous!

This morning we went down the lakes ,taking the tennis raquets & balls with us.This was to save losing all the balls over our hedges or smashing our neighbours new conservatory windows! I got some photos of the girls which I'm really pleased with (shame about the parched brown grass!)

This weekend we are off to the Bowkis Family bash ,the girls are really looking forward to meeting Suki :)
No more scrapping done, though I have finally tried out my lovely pink Bind It All and made asmall mini book :) (Which still needs photos !)

The second one :)

2010-07-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

Yep, I have done my 2nd holiday layout ,it's a miracle! I have loads of different ways that I want to do my Florida albums,but as I can't decide where to start first I've been doing pretty much nothing so far :( I'm hoping to do a diary type album of what we did each day,another one with the maps and ride details etc and character meet ones for the girls...eventually! This is the one I did on Wednesday, strangely enough not using any of the Disney scrapping stuff I have just bought here or in the US! I used Echo Park paper (the yellow piece) and mixed it with some old Scenic Route Salem papers (the circles reminded me of Tigger!)I added some Kaisercraft pearls (the orange ones were coloured with a Sharpie as I didn't have the right colour ),some old Love Elsie ribbon and stamped some random bees :) The title is done using Junkitz and Scenic Route rub-ons (because I didn't have an alphabet with 3 g's in it!) Both girls have now finished school for the summer - yipee! Holly has had a friend round this afternoon ,whilst Em has been in hairdressers having some deep red streaks put in :) I will share a photo when I've has chance to look at them .
This weekend is Anna's crop so I might have some more scrapping to share next week :)

Almost the end of term...

2010-07-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

and I can't wait :) Holly finishes on Wednesday and Em finishes Friday.It seems like this school year has gone on forever and I will be glad to see the back of it ,for Holly's sake...
Just trying to remember what we've been doing the last two weeks...!
Last weekend Holly and I put together the small green house that we'd bought her,I'm quite surprised at how sturdy it is! She has been busying herself planting sunflower seeds :)

Last week I finally did a layout :) The orange piece of paper lifts up and there's some journalling underneath, about some of the stuff Holly has been going through recently.It tucks under the big photo corner to keep it in place :) I used the lovely new Walk In The Park papers by Echo Park,which I got from 3 Jolly Scrappers :)I bought the collection pack, so I have loads more to play with still...watch this space :)
Last week Holly has her sports day at school.No photo taking allowed though :( We also had a bit of a 'surprise' in her school report ,as it stated how much she'd enjoyed her school residential trip..erm, hardly, we were delayed in Florida and she missed it!We now have a new report...
Well it must have been a pretty boring two weeks as I can't think of anything else we've done!
This weekend I've been suffering from the 'want to go back to Florida' blues :( It's not going to happen for a few years yet so I need to get over it! I think it was brought on by buying some bargain scrapping Disney stuff this weekend (mainly for Holly )!So I may just have to use some of it myself :)

One I prepared earlier!

2010-07-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

Or at last weeks crop anyway! This is the one that needed the photo replacing on it as I'm so clumsy! I used lots of October Afternoon papers which I love,but I can never decide which side to use!

We are still enjoying a bit of a heatwave here, though to be honest ,last week was far too hot and sticky for my liking! Today and yesterday have been much more bearable though ,with lots of breeze :)

Yesterday was another day for sitting in the sun as we went to watch Holly take part in the Herts Folk Dance festival at Hatfield House. Needless to say, I have now have some annoying suntan stripes over my shoulders! It was a lovely day even if it was very hot! And I feel very left out that I am the only one without a fancy picnic bag so I'm hoping to remedy that this week!

This week is open evening at Holly's school, as well as meeting her new teacher.Anything will be an improvement on this years...though I can't believe another school year is almost over.It's two years since Em left junior school and two years till Holly leaves- scary thought!

Today I finally caught up and tackled the ironing mountain that has been growing in the kitchen since the weather turned really hot.I have been doing it on 'when iit's neded 'basis' recently!I also did a bit of tidyng up in the garden ,whilst Holly played 'London's Burning' in her tent,on the recorder :)The girls were going to have a picnic lunch in there too,but then Holly twisted her ankle and they ended up staying indoors!The old Princess tent has been very handy recently as there is very little shade in our garden until later in the day :)

Heat wave!

2010-06-28T13:57:00.000-07:00

The weather has been gorgeous the last week...though yesterday I spent most of the hottest day of the year indoors scrapping!
On Friday night I started the weekend with a very civilised 'picnic in the park' with three friends ,whilst our daughters were at Brownies.We did consider the pub, but as all the outside seats would be taken up by the smokers and the football would probably be on inside(and it was far too nice to sit indoors),so we settled for a couple of drinks sitting out on the grass instead :) I supplied the drinks while another mum supplied the Pringles, grapes, & strawberries..all produced from her very lovely picnic basket complete with pink tablecloth.I wish I'd taken photos but they would probably have thought I was mad!If the weather's as good again this Friday evening we may do the same again!
Saturday I went to watch Holly's girls kwik cricket team take part in the Herts Youth Games.Considering they have only been practising few weeks,they did really well ,only losing their matches by a few runs.It was a beautiful hot day,and the perfect excuse to sit out in the sun and do nothng for four hours!
Yesterday was crop day,and I got almost three LO's done.Well, two completed but one needs the photo replacing after I managed to drop a very sticky journaling sticker on it!This one still needs the date adding, as the sheet of letter stickers I used didn't have numbers on it - really annoys me when that happens!

We have strawberries!

2010-06-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, so not loads (yet!) ,but it's more than we managed a couple of years ago when we first tried growing them.I think then,we got about one ripe one that the birds and slugs didn't get to first....

So far this year,we've picked three (I did warn you it wasn't loads!) and there are lots more that are nearly ready :) I never seem to be organised enough to have a whole veggie patch growing,so this year we have some potatoes in a tub as well as runner beans again.

I'm not sure how much of a success Holly's Brownie camp was ,to be honest :( She has become very 'anxious' about a couple of things over the last year or so,one of those things being, being away from home :( She gets herself really worked up ,eventually making herself ill.However, she did stay the night so that's something ,I was expecting a phone call to go and pick her up! She came home absolutely shattered and was out like a light on Sunday night.

The Maypole Dancing was as sweet as ever at the school fete, plus being a PTA run event,there is nothing to stop us taking photos :) (Wow, my photo editing is so professional!!)

Monday evening Em hurt herself whist playing basketball with Holly in the garden.Turns out that she has a splintered a bone in one of the fingers of her left hand -ouch! It needs to kept strapped up for the next two weeks and then we need to return to the fracture clinic.

Yesterday we got a letter from her school ,telling us that she has been chosen to study for all three science GCSE's,starting in September (her school start theirs a year early) She's worked really hard for this so we are very proud of her :)

Yesterday was also Geoff's birthday,but he spent the morning in A&E with Em getting her hand looked at.This meant that our original plan of a trip to Ikea was cancelled (see, we really know how to party!).We did make it to Frankie & Benny's for tea though :) And as Geoff doesn't really eat birthday cake, I made some cupcakes for me & the girls, letting him blow the candle out :)

Mad week....

2010-06-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

...that isn't over yet!

Today Holly spent most the day doing this...

and ended it doing this!

She spent the day at 'Wind Day' learning two pieces of music to perform at a concert for the parents in the afternoon. And then at Brownies this evening they went bell boating down at the lakes.Although she was adamant that there was no way she was going to jump into the lake at the end again,like she did last year, she changed her mind and did a spectacular High School Musical style jump off the jetty!Needless to say she needed a warm bath and a shampoo when we got home!

Tomorrow she is maypole dancing at the school fete before heading off to Brownie District camp for the night and all day Sunday.They get to do fab stuff like archery, zip wires and abseiling.it wasn't like that in my day! And poor Em gets to spend her weekend doing homework and revising :(

I keep saying I'll do some scrapping soon, but somehow I don't think it's going to happen til the crop next week!

Another week

2010-06-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

..has whizzed by,oops!I did make a point of being a bit lazy at the beginning of the week by doing nothing but the bare essentials!
Holly started at a girls cricket club this week and has been roped in to play at a match in a couple of weeks ,she's also halfway through a golf course at school:) She is a busy bee at the moment as she is also practising for a Country Dancing festival in a couple of weeks,as well as dancing at the school fete this coming weekend.I;m not surprised she's tired at night!
This weekensd I am lucky enough to be back on Pencil Lines and Anna had some gorgeous sponsorship from My Little Shoebox :) I love these papers :) I cut out the doors, and the door handle is a self adhesive pearl :)I also used one of the *ahem* few Disney gift cards that I picked up (literally!) whilst we were on holiday.Monsters Inc is one of my favourite Disney films :) I have now filled in the date details on the journalling die cut !) Today I have been helping Anna at the last Scrapping Angels retreat :) My feet ache and my purse is little lighter,but it was worth it :) I'm tempted to back through my photos and find pictures of us from the last five years,but that might be a little scary!
Geoff has been decorating the hallway since Friday and I arrived home this evening to find that he had managed to sand down our rubbishy hand rail back to plain wood, and it looks fab :)
I am off to rest my feet :)

A sneak ...and a farewell...

2010-06-06T05:16:00.000-07:00

Much as I would love to be scrapping at the moment,I haven't had much chance.So here's a sneak of one for Pencil Lines next week,just to prove I do still do it!

Yesterday we had a bit of a farewell.I know there some people who think I'm absolutely barking about this,but we finally gave away the girls play kitchen and I am really sad :( !! It was Em's 'big' birthday pressie when she was 2,so it's been with us a while ,with lots of happy hours spent playing with it(the girls you understand, not me!) Sadly,we just don't have room in the house for it any more and it's spent the last couple of years feeling neglected in the shed,making brief appearances in the garden during warm school holidays.Luckily we have found a good home for it and Holly should still get a chance to play with it now and again .To me, it just kind of symbolises a end to part of my girls childhood,those days happily spent playing imaginary cafes with a wonderful menu of plastic chips! That said we still have a big box of plastic food which does still get played with now and then - long may it last!

Thankfully it's a bit cooler here today, though the rain meant we dashed indoors for the last five minutes of our BBQ last night! I am looking forward to having a few minutes peace & quiet to myself at some point this week :)

I'm still here!

2010-06-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

Having had a dodgy modem and then managing to get a virus on the PC,I had an enforced break from blogging.And the longer I left it, the less I remembered to come back !
Last weekend we went to Thurrock as Em had some money to spend and wanted to go to Build A Bear.She came home with this sweet little friend.

I got some new things too :)
Last weekend saw me attempting ( and almost failing!) to be a domestic goddess by making cookies and lemon loaf from my Humming Bird Bakery book.Let's just say that cleaning the oven after the lemon loaf mixture dripped every where was not my idea of fun!
Half term seems to have whizzed by and luckily the weather has been beautiful since Tuesday.Holly has been on a Brownie trip to London,going to the House of Lords and the London Eye - I think most of the mum's wanted to go too!She came home very tired but managed to stay up late playing on Rock Band with her Aunty Sylv and Uncle Pete who were visiting for a couple of days :)Em spent the morning at mum & dad's and made a banana loaf cake from the Humming Bird book again,as well as with making the icing.Although it was supposed to be Aunty Sylv's birthday cake she was very reluctant to let her actually take any home with her!
Today Em has been out with her friend all day and then off to a sleep over.In turn Holly has had her best friend over and they are camped out in Em's room for the night :) They've been in the paddling pool, painted, read their Brownie handbook (sweet!) and finished the evening watching Disneys Peter Pan in bed :)Tomorrow they have plans to make bisciuts and photo frames :) I have actually done a bit of scrapping,though I can't show it as it's for Pencil Lines next week :) I have speny ages ordering loads of holiday photos so who knows,I might start scrapping some of those soon...! I have to admit that I am still missing Florida even though we've been back just over a month now :( I am still missing cheesecake,the Disney Parks and that huge villa.Plus I'm on my last huge bag of Reeses's Pieces....:( !!

Another one finished :)

2010-05-21T04:58:00.000-07:00

This LO is the one that had a title I wasn't happy with.I may have loads of alphabets, but I couldn't think of any that would match the green in this LO, until I got home and remembered the lovely green spotty October Afternoon ones.There is a full size copy of the letter inside the Maya Road envelope,and the papers are October Afternoon.The green paper clip is one from a cute set I found in WHSmiths,I just stick some pearls on it.Anyway, I am really pleased with this now it's all done :)
At this very moment,the sun is shining and I'm hoping the weekend is full of more sunshine:) WE have loads to do around the house and graden, but if the weather stays nice, I'm opting to stay in the garden! I did make a start on Holly's room but as I wasn't feeling well that day I sort of gave up half way through and threw everything back where it came from :( I did whittle her wardrobe down from being full to half though ,which is a start!
Our PC is going on a major go-slow at the moment so I may blog even less than usual as it takes so long to do anything!

A couple of layouts :)

2010-05-17T06:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was crop day, and after faffing about with a Disney layout for ages, I gave up and actually got some scrapping done :)This Lo is one I did at the last crop, but still needed a title so I took it with me and made sure I finished it this time! And this second one is done using some lovely Colourbox papers & die cuts and bobble trim that I bought from J0-Ann's whilst we were on holiday :) The butterfly & star were from a bargain set from embellishments in the kids dept in Michaels.I also managed to use up yet another of those very old KI memories Ice Candy word tiles

I did do a couple of other LO's, but one needs something else on it,and I'm not happy with the title on the other one, so they need fixing before I class them as finished :)
I feel like I have spent the last week constantly ironing,and guess what...the ironing bin is still full! Tomorrow sees me venturing into Holly's room to try & and have a clear out and a tidy up.I may be gone some time...!!

I finished one :)

2010-05-11T13:29:00.000-07:00

I've spent most of today doing really boring jobs that have been building up and put off for ages,like sorting out that big heap of 'stuff' at the end of the bed and sorting out the shoe rack - deep joy! Along with some hoovering,lots of washing and some paper shredding it's been one of those days...
But I did stop for five minutes to stick a title on this LO that I did at the crop in March.I used Basic Grey Green at Heart papers,stickers & ribbon doilies and Doodlebug letter stickers.

Before we went on holiday, I had noticed lots of 'things' sprouting up in the garden.Upon our return, bearing in mind we were gone nearly a month, we have a crop of conker trees growing all over the place!All courtesy of the cheeky squirrel who spent ages burying the girls conkers in various pots and mud patches last Autumn! I know they will take absolutely years to grow,but I'm not sure where to grow them 'safely' as the garden isn't that big compared to the size of a full grown conker tree!

2010-05-09T14:14:00.000-07:00

So the last week has been a bit glum really :( I guess it is just post holiday blues,coupled with snotty school letters and various other stuff.And the miserable weather really doesn't help much.The girls went out in the garden this afternoon...wearing winter coats and mittens -it's May for goodness sake!!

I also manged to give myself a DIY trout pout on Tuesday - not a good look I can assure you! I reached up to get something from the high shelf in the bathroom and a full bottle of shampoo fell off and smacked me in the mouthmcutting my top lip on my front teeth.I will admit to swearing in a very high pitched voice before crying! Not for long though as I had five minutes before I needed to leave and pick Holly up from school.The first couple of days were the worst, I really did look like I'd been punched in the mouth,and I still have a delightful purple top lip - nice!

I feel like I should do some sort or re-cap on the holiday, but I don't really want to bore everyone!So I will doa few photos here & there :)

The higlight of the trip for Holly was meeting Mickey, while for Em it was probably being so close (and yet so far!) to seeing the Harry Potter part of Universal Studios.

I put away the new scrapping stuff that I bought in the US today...ok, that's a lie,I just sort of shoved most of it in to any gap I could find! I have no idea where to start with scrapping the holiday to be honest, although I have bought quite a lot of nice Disney/Mickey stuff already.I am cropping this weekend so I need to sort myself something to whilst there, so I may have some scrapping to share soon :)

Remember me?!

2010-05-03T13:34:00.001-07:00

Yes, I was among those people who went on holiday for 14 days and ended up staying for a further 11 !!

Not that I am complaining! We looked on the bright side and saw it as an oppurtunity to have an almost month long holiday, which we would never had under normal circumstances :) After the mad dashing around of parks we did in the first planned two weels, it was good to have a rest during the extra days!

I have loads of photos ,but I won't bore you too many right now, just a few ;)...

Tomorrow sees life returning to normal,I'm just hoping we can drag ourselves out of bed in the morning!

It's Easter :)

2010-04-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a busy one :) We started the day off with a trip to the cinema,to see Disney's The Princess and the Frog.Needless to say I loved it as it was a real Disney film - lots of songs, a baddy and a sad bit!
After that we headed to my mum & dad's for the traditional egg hunt :) It proves impossible every year to get decent photos as it's always over and done so fast!Anyway, the girls have both come home with a basket full of eggs :) (Which is lucky really as we forgot their baskets and I had to whizz back home for them!)

My layouts from last weekend are sitting in a pile,title-less as this week seems to whizzed by in a blur.I may get round to finishing them soon!

Not a layout...

2010-03-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

but it is a photo to make this a bit more interesting! Look at my new flip flops I got today.....

Momiji-like flip flops for a £1...what more could you want?!

Maybe tomorrow....

2010-03-28T13:27:00.000-07:00

I will be able to update with some photos! I have been driven mad by our PC the past week as my internet and emails have even been crawling at snails pace or non existant for best part of the week...*scream*
This weekend has been another busy one.Saturday morning we went to see Chipmunks the Squeakuel at the cheapy cinema in town, Now I know it's cheap but that still doesn't excuse the stupid woman next to us who rang someone from her mobile after the film started and then got up and went out,squishing past us, about 3 times.
Late afternoon we went over to Anna's to tie up a few loose holiday ends :) :) .We dined (to Anna's dismay!) on Dominos and Em practised her driving skills on the X Box! I stayed over and we spent the evening chilling out in front of the TV and the laptop before realising what the time was taking into account the clock change!
Today we were cropping ,and I think I might stick to taking the minimum in future..Kerry, you'd be so proud of me,I got four LO's done! And all I took was three packs of paper , my photos ,tape, mat & a punch...rather than half the house as usual.
This week sees me running round like a headless chicken I think....yikes!
I'll be back with photos of the LO's once they have titles on them :)

Time for a catch up...

2010-03-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

I know, it's been ages since I did a proper post so here goes...!
Holly had the privilege of wearing the golden 'G' badge to school every day last week,the G being for good, golden etc (or as some of the little charmers in her class called it 'Geek of the week'...)It promptly fell apart so I made new one,and although the safety pin has fallen of that too a few times at least all the glitter is still intact!

I can't for the life of me remember anything I did last week (!) other than a bit more holiday shopping and planning out a rough guide of what we plan to do each day :) Sadly there just aren't enough days for everything though :( This weekend we sat on Google Earth looking at 'real life' roads and marked out routes on the map :)And I highlighted various eating places and shopping malls :)
On Sunday I was woken up with breakfast in bed, a waffle with bananas and toffee sauce :)And I was lucky enough to get some very nice 'pink' presents :)
As the weather was so lovely (it's finally starting to feel a bit spring like!) we went for a walk at the lakes.The girls were not impressed to find their favourite climbing tree has been cut down though :(The day was finished off with a lovely roast dinner :)
On Monday I went over to Anna's to make a start on the Retreat 'stuff',which entailed lots of kit packing :)Not long now :)I think there are a couple of places left if you fancy a weekend of scrapping :) Check out the details here :)
And last but not least ,this is a layout I did at the crop a couple of weeks ago ,using lots of Niki Sivils Cherry Pie papers and accessories :)
I am off to listen to Glee soundtrack...very loudly :)

Pencil Lines

2010-03-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

I joined in on Pencil Lines this week as Anna had some spare sponsorship for me :)
I used Raspberry Tea Prima papers ,all flowers and swirls are Prima too :) The brown swirls are actually a corner frame cut up into various pieces!
Great minds think alike so check out Anna's LO for our matching titles!
I will be back tomorrow with a proper update before I forget what I've been doing!
I am off to Anna'a tomorrow to sort out retreat bits & pieces...that came round quickly!

And the winner is...

2010-03-08T10:06:00.001-08:00

I used the proper Random generator site which came up with number 6 :)

Which is Clare Crompton!

Clare, please email me with your address details :)

Thank you to everyone who took the time to leave a comment :)

A Little Give Away :)

2010-03-03T12:57:00.000-08:00

As promised yesterday, I have something to post to one lucky poster :) Thanks to the generosity of Anna, I have a copy of the new Pencil Lines book to give away.

Just leave me a comment (on this post only, to be in with a chance to win the book) telling me what you are loving using at the moment on your LO's, be it new stuff ,old stuff or hand made!

I will leave the comments open until Saturday 8pm (GMT),and will announce the winner on Monday :)

*** Comments now closed ***

Ladies what lunch :)

2010-03-02T14:44:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday the day finally dawned for our visit to London for Anna's belated birthday pressie :) Along with Karen, we went to London for tea at the Ritz,as well as a wander round Harrods.As you can imagine ,Anna was in her element in the food halls ,whilst Karen and I were pretty sure we'd lost her a few times! After browsing the horrendously priced Hello Kitty section (it had to be done!)and various other out of our price range departments,we went back to the food halls for Lola's cupcakes (pressies for the girls),posh cakes and breakfast yummies (ie huge croissants!)
We then made our way to the Ritz,where it can truly be said, we got our money's worth! I didn't realise that they would re-fill everything (more than once too!)

After eating a 'few' sandwiches each it dawned on us that maybe we had better leave some room for scones and cakes! Just as well we did as the scones were to die for,even better smothered with jam & cream :)By the time we'd polished off extra scones (!!)it was looking doubtful that we would manage the gorgeous cakes.However Anna and I forced ourselves to sample them ;)We had a wonderful time there, the atmosphere was lovely, not too formal and we weren't the only ones with cameras! (Though I think Anna was the only one with a fixed lense, so that the poor waiter had to disappear way over the other side off the lounge to take a photo of the three of us!)
Sadly the tube ride back was the most hideous I have ever experienced but we survived ! After arriving back at Anna's we finished the day with a 'few' glasses of vey nice wine:)Needless to say we were still stuffed from our tea & scones!
Sunday morning Karen & Kevin left for Newcastle and Anna & I went cropping .I'm glad we were inside for best part of the day as the weather was horrendous!I got a LO done, stated on an altered book thingy(whilst scaring Kerry with my knife weilding!:) )and half made the mini book that Anna taught :)When I got home I was welcomed with a tin of cookies the girls has made for me :)

We have had beautiful sunny weather the last couple of days which has made me feel so much brighter too :) I've have done lots of cleaning ,just need to get my head back round the holiday planning! I did go out and buy suntan lotion today though, so that's another thing to check off my list!

Pop back tomorrow when I will be having a little give away on my blog :)

Me time :)

2010-02-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon with Holly out all day and Em amusing her self and talking music with Geoff, I made the most of some daylight scrapping time :) I very rarely scrap during the day,I always feel a bit guilty when there is other stuff needs doing like ironing and housework!So this is the result :)

I've been wanting to use these papers for ages so I'm glad I finally did.The Lo was inspired by this one a I saw while back by the amazingly talented Karola.(note ,I said 'inspired by', I'm well aware that it's not a patch on hers!)Though it wasn't til I went off in search of a link to it that I realised I'd used a similar title too!
I used Pink Paislee papers, Pink Paislee chipboard & stickers,Doodlebug alphas, AC puffy thickers and Kaisercraft pearls.
This morning we went to the cinema and it's really time I remembered to take tissues with me! We went to see Where The Wild Things Are and even Holly was crying at the end!
Tomorrow sees us back in the school routine with some miserable weather forecast too :( I have a bit of housework to catch up on before I carry on with the holiday planning :)

I've got mine :)

2010-02-19T13:48:00.000-08:00

Have you got yours yet? I'm talking about the Pencil Lines book :) You cannot imagine how happy I am that I was part of this :) The more I look through,it the more I love it :)

So, half term is almost over and I feel like I've hardly seen the kids properly:( I suppose it's to be expected as they're both growing up and spending more time with their friends but I've missed not doing much with them this week :( Tomorrow Em is off to the cinema in the morning with friends whilst Holly is out all day at Brownie meet up...see what I mean?!I think Sunday will be a day for doing nothing!
This afternoon Holly and I decided to go for a walk for some fesh air, and to give my camera a bit of trip out (though sods law that the girls flattened the batteries in it yesterday!)Once home ,Holly set about doing a bit scrapping :)