And it's done!

Well my purely selfish, have fun playing layout is done.

Inspired by the Shine canvas on Maxine Hazebroek's blog. (the shimmery blue background). I dug out some papers I have had for ages (the shimmery blue I bought when I first discovered scrapbooking in 2004) and the other pp has been in my stash pile for at least 18m I think too!

Cardstock Bazzill
Shimmery Papers (plain and patterned), Paper Adventures
Dragonfly accents and bird rub on, K&Co (also very old stash)
Chipboard, Heidi Swapp and Fancy Pants
Flowers, Dunelm and Prima
Brads, Making Memories, Heidi Swapp
Crystals, Heidi Swapp
Alphabet Stamps, Making Memories
Lots of painting, inking, sanding, tearing and machine stitching

Picture of Chiara and DH taken in the Summer. Everyone says she looks like Josh (who I think is the image of my Dad) but I think she looks so much like Len. And she certainly has lots of his personality traits too!

Anyhow, my tummy is rumbling which means it is dinner time, then I have got to get down to serious work of DT stuff for the mag. I enjoyed playing though, I think I needed to do it to rekindle my mojo. I hope this will rub off on the assignments I have to do :D

Sitting here drumming fingers

Cos I am working on this layout and need to add some machine sewing to it before I can put it all together. And DH is sat at the other computer blocking my access to the machine. Grrr! Will dive into his place the moment he moves! I know, a very feeble blog entry but I just wanted to get it off my chest :D

On the Up

Thanks for everyone's best wishes. I woke up feeling a lot better today, managed to drag myself out of bed at gone 10.30 am so I think the extra sleep helped in my revival.

Had a pretty lazy day, some household chores followed by a couple of hours just tidying up in the office/craft room. Even so, things aren't looking too straight as I simply have too much stuff for the storage I have in here. And even worse, I've made a huge mess again as I've started work on a new page.

I've been inspired to play after visiting Maxine Hazebroeke's blog. Oh WOW isn't her work just divine! (rhetorical question, I fail to see how anyone can contradict me on that one!)

I first discovered Maxine's work in one of the first scrapping books I bought "Celebrate" with the For Keeps 2004 Elite Team. I just love her textural, lumpy bumpy, chic style. There is such an incredible amount of work involved in her pages. I could never emulate because I am simply way too lazy in my scrapbooking!

Anyhow I was totally inspired to get my stuff out and have a play. I particularly loved the shimmery background of the Shine canvas and went rooting my old stash to find a piece of shimmery blue paper that must have been one of the first things I ever bought (in fact I have had to rescue it from the *the kids can have this stuff* pile) and also uncovered another beautiful piece of paper from the same place. As usual I've got the photo and papers in place now just figuring out what else to do. But I can say that I love these old papers I've dug out.

So go on, go back through your stash and create a page with at least one piece of paper that you have had since your first foray into scrapbooking. I'll be back to upload my own creation when I have finished it. I'd love to see what you do too.

Woe is Me!

Said tongue in cheek.

Spent last night with whatever it is that makes me feel awful. Something to do with colonic spasms. Was trying hard to stave off panic attack (which normally follows these episodes) as when they get really bad I can barely breathe and hyperventilate (have been hospitalised twice in the past because I need the oxygen and stuff to breathe and the safety of being in hospital to calm me down) Not that anyone actually looks at me, I just get dumped in a bed without pillow or blankets, obviously don't want to make it a good experience. Last time was worse as the couple in the cubicle next door were obviously not very ill either (if you get my drift! - yuk!)

Thankfully things didn't get that bad but I feel totally bruised and worn out, like I've been in a boxing ring with someone big and nasty. Have spent the day in bed, got up to get tea for everyone and am now back off to bed.

Elsies 52 Challenges and DW Colour came in the post today and I haven't even had the energy to look at them yet!

I was really looking forward to going to the Stoke crop tomorrow too, but I don't think I will feel up to the drive as it's a fair way and very country roadish route too.

On the plus side I get out of taking Josh to his swimming club tonight (8-9) as Len will take him instead.

Orange Wednesday

I usually take the kids to the cinema during the holidays on Wednesdays because of the Orange Wednesday 2 for 1 offer (if you have an Orange mobile phone text film to 241, they send a message back containing a voucher number which you show at the cinema counter).

We were just setting out today when Len came home from work early so we managed to take two phones with us so only paying for the 2 out of 4 of us. Quite pleased really. We saw Open Season which was, well, okay, quite a few laughs, but nothing special and I really wouldn't have liked to have paid full price for us all. I was hoping to see Hoodwinked as the previews for that look much better - unfortunately it wasn't showing in Derby today.

It was also haircut day today. We go to a No Appointment place in the Derby Eagle Centre (hence usually combining the trip into town with a visit to the cinema whilst we are passing). Josh has his hair done by this fab chap called Ali. He is wonderful, very friendly and charming (oh and good looking too) He greets you personally when you walk into the salon, shaking Josh's hand and making proper small talk with him whilst he cuts his hair. This is a man of many talents as he is also a dab hand with the cut throat razor and does that eyebrow plucking thing using the threads. It's fascinating to watch him in action.

Both the girls also had a trim. I had to gasp when Mia was returned to me, the girl had using straighteners to get rid of the curls to make it easier to cut. *sob* she looked so grown up. Mia was ecstatic though as it made her hair look longer and more like Chiara's. I should have taken a photo, I know - will have to see how things look in the morning.

I went to my friend Donna's for our usual Wednesday night scrapping session. Well, we talk, drink tea and each chocolate, but we do have a layout out in front of us in between all this. I love escaping one night each week and Donna is a beautiful and caring person. Another friend I would never have known if it wasn't for scrapbooking.

Oh I love going to crop!

It seems ages since the last crop I went to and I do so love going, even if the girls are never very happy at my piffling attempts at a social life for myself.

This weekend I went to Hobby Horse near Derby (this is my most local crop) unfortunately there was no Donna, Jackie or Kathryn (poor Kathryn's car broke down on the way) so my best scrapping buddies were missing. Still got to chat with lots of others though, including some new faces (Kim and Sarah, hiya!) as well as other faves like Lisa, Dani and Claire. I managed to get three pages completed (not bad given I didn't open my crop bag until gone noon).

Isn't this fun?! I love this photo but the coach seat background was very distracting so I cut it out. I'd just received a 3 Bugs paper pack from Scrapkits and however tempting it was to use the pink flowered papers, I felt that the photo stood out better against the green. Added in the MM rub ons, Doodlebug asterisk stickers and a few Papermania crystals. A very different page for me but I really enjoyed myself with it!

The second page was for the challenge, I decided to give it a whirl with 40 minutes to go and just scraped in the time limit! The challenge was to use the diamonds paper and murky orange cardstock (sorry didn't really find either too inspiring). Once I had added in the Autumn Leaves paper, HS chipboard and stamping using the lush stamps from Rhonna Farrer and Danelle Johnson I was pretty pleased with the result. I'd had this photo of Mia printed out onto canvas for a long while and the colours were just perfect.

And finally a quick one using another set of 3 Bugs papers from Scrapkits. I printed out these four photos of my girlies together to save having to try and get them cut and aligned perfectly. Just added a few of the die cuts, buttons and crystals and again my latest stamp finds.

I've uploaded this one onto the gallery at Modern Scrapbooking, they have just rejigged their website and message boards and are running a layout competition to use 3-5 photos at the moment.

BACK AT LAST

I know, I know, been mega naughty not updating my blog. But well there has been yet more crap (ooh am I allowed to say that on my own site?!) in my life, including the broadband company going bust and the replacement dial up connection being totally pants.

However, have got a new broadband connection now. I am with Eclipse internet and I have to say that the speed and ease with which it has all gone has been second to none. Being a total utter technophobe I needed to call tech support to help set up the email but they were very helpful and sorted me out in a matter of minutes.

Unfortunately our line can only take 1mb speed max, even that is a huge improvement for us though. I didn't want any bundled packages (we hardly ever use the phone) and can't get a lot of the services (ie sky, cable, talk talk) out here either, so the choices were limited. I was talking to another parent whilst watching Josh at swimming club and he was with Eclipse (at home and work) so given his recommendation I went right along and signed up. All done and dusted within the week too. Oh and they do have a referral programme so if you are thinking of moving I get £30 if you use my referral code of SETORR (like I did for the other parent).