A quick catch up

What a busy few weeks I've had. With a daughter that won't sleep and cries all day (calpol is quickly becoming my new friend!); various charity events I'm involved in all coming to fruition and Christmas fast appraoching, finding time to blog has been difficult. However, I have still managed to find to craft.

This weekend I started work on this years altered advent calendar. I'm so glad I thought ahead last year and bought one for both Jack and bump (later to become Emma!) as Tesco weren't doing them this year. Since I took this photo I've added some Cosmo Cricket Jolly By Golly papers to the drawers and roof and I'm just waiting on a few embellishments and the all important numbers to finish it off. Will post a pic once it's done.

I also went to an all day crop with the lovely Jo and Kim at 3 Jolly Scrapperes recently and had 4 lovely classes with the wonderful Tracie Hudson. I really enjoyed the classes although given that the night before I'd had a rubbish night with the girl, it took me a while to wake up enough to enjoy it.

This LO was using the Glitz design papers and lots of inking frames onto acetate and sewing. I should have used a portrait photo for the main part but I struggled to find a suitable pic so I went for landscape instead. I think it still works. I love the Tim Holtz bird and birdcage too.

I haven't added pics to this one yet but it'll have a 6x4 on the red photo mat and two smaller pics at jaunty angles on the bottom LHS.

This is possibly my favourite LO of the class; a DLO using Echo Park Christmas collection. I just love the bright colours against the b&w photos. The multi photo DLO makes such a refreshing change. Can't wait to use the rest of the generous amount of papers in the kit. Roll on Christmas!!

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? I'd been meaning to scrap these photos of a weaning Emma making lots of mess with her breakfast when Shimelle posted a prompt about using a letter format to journal your story. As someone who is great at tongue in cheek, this was right up my street. For the first time in ages, I did a 12x12 DLO and kept the format quite simple to allow the photos and the letter to be the focus. I downloaded a free child like handwriting font from the net as my journalling font and wrote Emmas name with my left hand to make it more messy. I'm really pleased with this effort.

For those of you who are nosy, the journalling says:

Dear Mummy,

As you know I'm a growing girl and growing girls neeed one thing: food. If you haven't realised yet, I love my grub, especially weetabix.

Most babies might only have one weetabix biscuit for breakfast but I'm not most babies. I definitely need two. However, this shouldn't mean that my morning meal takes twice as long. I just can't wait long enough for you to spoon feed me and have resorted to providing myself via my fingers. This is resulting in a lot of mess on both me and my surroundings. Perhaps you would consider speeding up the rate of feeding? May I suggest that as soon as you have fed me one spoon, the next portion is immediately spoon loaded. This should stop the need for crying inbetween moutfuls.

I'm also aware that sometimes one bowl of cereal is not enough and I'm still so hungry taht I'm having to resort to chomping on anything else I can find including the cereal bowl. Admittedly if we managed to get less food around my mouth and more in my belly, I might find that I am more satisfied but that seems like an issue for another day. Perhaps you would consider offering me a banana or a yoghurt once the bowl is empty?

Please take these points into consideration to improve the breakfast experience for us all.

Looking forward to seeing you bright and early tomorrow!

TFL. xx

Doc 2010: August

I'm frantically trying to catch up on some projects that I'm doing as I've told myself that I can't start doing December Daily until I've finished these other projects. Being strict with myself like this is the only way sometimes that I'll get things finished! In the meantime I'll just have to content myself with stroking my Christmas stash and Kraft album that are all ready to be played with. :)

This is a LO I made using the remains of a Sarahs card kit (I think it was January's Bo Bunny kit). This is another of my personal challenges to use up some of the colletcion of kits I have lurking in my stash bag! I'm quite pleased with it although I'm not entirely convinced about the lettering. The letter stickers were too light to use on their own so I backed them on the brown card but now they seem too bulky against the rest of the LO. Any suggestions on how to improve this, then please leave a comment- I'd be pleased to take any alternative ideas.

I also spent last night cropping with some friends and finished my pages for my August Doc 2010 album. I'm quite pleased with how this album is looking. August mainly featured:

-K and I celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary

-Emma learning to crawl

-Dad's 60th birthday and a surprise party

-my garden going into full production mode- blooms and veg a-plenty!

TFL. xx

True Stories Prompt 3

I managed to complete a LO today based around the third prompt in Shimelles True Stories class. I took the 'Repeat and Rinse' idea and wrote a list of things about Emma with the sentence opener 'This girl...' The journalling is on different journalling spots included in the Sarahs Cards Kit for this month and then they're layered using foam pads etc to give a bit of dimension. I've hidden one piece of journalling under another at the bottom and on this I've written some of her less desirable qualities. I figured in years to come she'd be glad that I've hidden these from easy viewing!

On a different note, I'm absolutely loving the papers in this kit. They're the Restoration collection from Crate Paper and they're right up my street. Can't wait to use them more.

The boy done good

I often wonder if my OH is ever listening to me but then ever so occasionally, he does something that just takes me completely by surprise and makes me realise that I really have hooked a 'good 'un'.

Take my birthday meal on Saturday night. Ages ago we'd had a conversation about approaching 30 and I left clear instructions that if I was going to do it, I was gonna do it right. I wanted balloons and cake and banners and sparkly things and generally just a massive fuss. Heck, it ain't often that I get to be the centre of attention so I might as well take my chances. Thinking he'd probably forgotten I didn't mention it again but alas, at our meal on Saturday, there it was, a table with helium balloons and confetti glitter and later on, the biggest chocolate cake I think I'd ever seen. :) :) :)

And then today, he went shopping by himself whilst I was with friends. I recieve a text saying that he'd bought me some gifts, which was surprising enough in itself but curious, I couldn't wait to get home to see what I'd been bought. In a John Lewis bag were:

Apparently, they were a 'saw this and knew you'd love them' type gift. And he was right. It just proves that ever so occasionally I can be surprised by his thoughtfulness. I think he's a keeper. :)

Shimelle's True Stories- day 1

At the beginning of the year, I made a resolution to try and make my journalling in my scrapbooks better but so far, I've failed miserably. It's not that the heart isn't willing, more that the journalling seems to be a last minute addition to my page and by that point there isn't much room for anything else than the who, where and when. When I heard about the latest class by Shimelle Laine, 'True Stories', it sounded ideal for helping me to find my journalling voice and for incorporating better journalling into my LO's. Afterall, isn't that one of the main reasons that I scrapbook- to preserve our family memories?

More details about the class can be found here.

Today was prompt one and despite having a blank page to start with once I took pen to paper the ideas started to flow. They might not be perfectly coherent for now, but it's a start, huh? On the first few pages I took the FAQ idea and decided to write about how we often get asked whether or not we're going to have another baby? It felt good to try and explain the conflicting views that K and I have on this topic although I feel that this could be greatly improved with more editing.

Please excuse the fact, that this page is upside down. It's too late for me to be bothered to change it!

I also decided to try and draft 'a note to self' but again, think I could definitely say more about this once I've had more time to think. There's definitely a LO or two within this lot!

Finally, this is my notebook cover which is material based with velevty flowers. Pretty, right? I bought it for a bargain price at Tescos, not knowing what I was going to use it for but knowing that it was too nice to leave on the shelf. I'm glad it's getting some use now.

Scrapology blog candy

Have you seen the blog candy on offer over at Scrapology: Adventures in Scrapbooking? If not, why not? It's well worth a look as I can verify- I was the winner of last months candy!
Get yourself over to here! They've got a monthly challenge on too which is well worth trying. Enjoy!