Meet Lillan :)

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!

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 :)

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..!

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 :)

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!

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!

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

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

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...

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!

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 :)

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!

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 :)

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

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!

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 :)

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 :)

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!

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:)

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 :)