LSNED catch up

I've fixed my LSNED book, adding in a page and moving stuff about, so that I could fit in the 21st of September that I'd missed out! It means that tuesday became a double spread, but that worked out okay! Click on any of the photos to enlarge.
 

I spent a few hours on tuesday last week looking for quotes to put on our Creative Creatures website, but the quotes were inspiring me too, especially the one on the right. It's about not worrying about whether you are original or not, if you just create without thinking about it you will be original. This is something I always worry about, and it's silly, because really I know everything has my unique style stamped on it.
 

My daughter was feeling a bit ill on Wednesday, but watching TV in bed for a bit cheered her up!
  

I can't manage to do an online food shop without forgetting to buy lots of things I need!

My mum and stepdad came to stay, it was lovely to see them, and my daughter loved all the attention she got!

I used to always draw with pencil, though I often went over it with pen afterwards. Lately I've been drawing straight with pen, and I'm loving it. I think it makes my pictures a lot more lively and confident. I got some new drawing pens on Saturday so let loose with them on this page!

That's it for today. Me and little one are still in our PJ's and it's nearly 11am so I'm thinking we should really go and get dressed! Hope you have a good day! xxx

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weekend pics

Sorry I've been absent for a few days. I know I said I'd be showing you some more LSNED pages, but I had a slight problem with my LSNED book. I suddenly realised that I had missed out a page, and done all the pages since then with the wrong dates (four of them). I'm the kind of person that it would drive me crazy if I just left it, so instead I've been ripping out bits, sticking in new pages, and changing all the dates. Now I'm waiting for some PVA glue to dry before I can scan all the pages and show them to you!

I'n the meantime, I've also been busy having fun the last few days, with a visit from my mum and stepdad, and a day out to Kingston Lacy House with hubby and daughter. Some photos:

A walk to collect some blackberries....

... and to feed the ducks!

Little one got her facepainted at the Hobbycraft birthday celebration.

Sunny poses in the Kingston Lacy gardens.

Even the butterflies felt like posing!

The house is quite impressive.

Little one behaved most of the way around and was rewarded at the end, with a room that hhad toys to play with!

So that's what I've been up to this weekend! I also got my next DT project done for the Fiskarettes blog - these autumnal cards:

Details on how I made them can be seen on the Fiskarettes blog here.

We're off out in a minute, to pop to some shops. Hubby wants to buy a wine making kit, as a friend of ours has one and hubby is jealous of the cheap wine! So he might be getting into homebrewing!

Bye for now xxx

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The Paper Variety and LSNED

There's a new challenge blog called The Paper Variety, and today I finished a layout for their second challenge. It's a recipe challenge to use borders, autumnal colours, and inspiration from a movie for your title or journaling. Here's my layout (click to enlarge):

I made a border for the whole page by making a crumpled paper frame. I took a 12x12 piece of Urban Rhapsody 'Points of Interest' flat paper by K&Co, cut an 8x8 square out of the middle, and then spritzed it all over with water. Then I gently crumpled it all up, and flatened it again a bit, shaping the paper how I wanted it to be when dry. I let it dry almost completely - then I finished it off with a with a heat gun! Once dry I handstiched it to a piece of 'carob' Bazill Basics using wool of the same shade as the hat in the photo. I quite liked the frame, but the page was a bit too brown, so I cut a thin strip off the edges of the carob cardstock and then mounted it onto pink Papermania cardstock, but you can't see this very clearly in the pic as it's only a narrow edge.

We'd been watching Mulan just before I saw the challenge so I used a quote from there: "The greatest gift, and honour, is having you for a daughter." And as my daughter is wearing the hat that was a gift from Sian, I talked about this too - as it's a treasure to know that there's lovely geneous people out there in the world (and a lot of them are bloggers / crafters!)

You can see the challenge here, they have this fab kit up for grabs from The Treasure Box Club:

I also have some LSNED pages to show you, I'm catching up a bit, but still have a few to do! Click on any to enlarge:

Finally (blimey, I had a lot to show you today), my layout for my second Fiskarettes DT project:

Using lots of Fiskars stamps and inks, and their self-inking stamp press. If you want more details on how this was put together see here.

I shall try and post a couple more LSNED pages tomorrow! xx

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A quick one...

...to say that through Lisa's blog I've just discovered 'Scrap That' a scrapbooking reviews site. This month they have been reviewing kit clubs, and they're doing a giveaway for a Scrapagogo kit at the moment. But hurry if you want to enter the giveaway, it ends in a few hours! The link to enter is here.

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photos from the weekend

I'm lucky that my best friend Rosie's family are very welcoming, they treat me like one of their own. Me and my little girl went with Rosie to visit them at the weekend. Here's some photos:

Rosie's step-dad carrying my little girl after I was tired out!

Rosie carrying my daughter after her step-dad was tired out!

A funky hat - a gift from Rosie's Mum

It was a bit more blustery the next day!

I had a lovely relaxing weekend, so thank-you to Rosie for taking us, and to her mum and step-dad for welcoming us into their house.

I'm now quite behind on LSNED, but I'm trying not to let myself get too stressed out by this when I have a million other things to do! xx

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making and baking

We had a day of wandering around some shops on Wednesday, looking for a few wedding bits for my friend Rosie. It was a little depressing as I have absolutely no money to spend and kept seeing stuff I'd like, but hey-ho, I just have to hope I won't be broke forever (click to enlarge):



On Thursday night Rosie came round to make some mock-ups of her wedding invitations, which was lots of fun (click to enlarge):



And we also made this super yummy chocolate cake:


Me and my daughter are going away with Rosie for the weekend, to visit Rosie's family, snoop around her wedding venue, and go for some nice walks. So our bags are packed, my daughter has her hair in bunches, and we're ready to go:


I'll be back on Monday! xx

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LSNED catch up

Sorry I've been a bit behind with showing you my LSNED pages. I still haven't done yesterdays, but here's the 9th through to the 14th for you to see. Click on any photo to see it larger, or click here to go to my online album to see the book so far in case you missed any.

I haven't got much to do today other than housework and playing with little one, which I'm quite looking forward to. And this evening Rosie is coming round to try and make some invites for her wedding, so that should be lots of fun! Bye for now, xxx

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beautiful people

I am lucky enough to know lots of people who are beautiful inside and out, and I've been making layouts about a couple of them. The first is about my best friend Rosie (click to enlarge):



(Supplies: Papermania light yellow cardstock, Daisy D's Beacon Hill 'Bull & Finch Pub' paper, Collage Press journaling card, Papermania doiley stamp, Studio G flower stamp, American Crafts 'Vera' vinyl pink letter stickers, Papermania brad making refill kit, book paper, envelope paper, Bunty annual, Alice in Wonderland playing card, handmade paper, lace trim, old key, bead from a bracelet, heart earring, white ribbon cut from inside t-shirt, Magnetic Poetry word bead, pink and blue acrylic paints.)

I followed Sketchy Thursdays October GDT challenge sketch:

As the sponsor this month is Gauche Alchemy, I decided to go with their ethos and try to use lots of upcycled items. I met Rosie when we were on a literature and writing degree, and now we have a business running creative writing workshops, so a lot of the items were book related! I particularly like the Alice in Wonderland playing card, which is from a card game I bought about 7 years ago and have never played, so I decided the pack would be put to more use if it was integrated into my stash:

You can also see in the above pic a bead and a key - I have a box full of old jewellery bits that I can add to projects (the heart earring on top of the journaling card is also from this box), and they're tied together using white ribbon cut from inside a t-shirt (the bits you're supposed to use to hang it up with). There's some lace trim I bought at a car boot sale stitched onto the page underneath them. The comic strip looking paper in the background is from an old Bunty annual, I scanned the page in and then applied a sepia effect before printing it so it fitted my colour scheme.

To keep with the literary theme I made two flowers out of book paper. As we also run a business together I made the other two flowers out of envelopes - the kind you get statements and bills etc. in - have you ever noticed the cool patterns some of these have inside? A friend pointed it out to me recently and I couldn't believe I hadn't realised it before!

The strip of paper that's tucked behind the flowers was handmade by Rosie, and the brad on the left was given to me by her for my last birthday, so this page is about her in more ways than one! She saw the layout this afternoon and I think she likes my ode to her!

The other layout I have to show you is of my sister Katy and my daughter, looking all glamorous on Swanage beach even though the wind was blowing sand into their faces (click to enlarge):



(Supplies: Papermania black, pink and blue cardstocks, Thickers 'Roller Rink' glitter white letter stickers, Fiskars 'Everywhere - Square' punch, Fiskars 'Christmas 2' and 'Scrapbook' clear stamp sets, Papermania foam swirl stamp, Fiskars 'Christmas' shape template, Sakura moonlight blue Gellyroll pen, Papermania blue shimmer dots, Collage Press journaling card, pink and white acrylic paints, Brilliance white ink pad, pink button brads, lace trim.)

I feel a bit drab when I'm with them, they always look like movie stars!

This was my first DT project for the Fiskarettes blog, you can see details on how I put the layout together here. The harlequin style diamond pattern was made with a brand new punch they sent me - not even available to the public yet - makes me feel special! It's a magnetic punch that can cut windows anywhere on the page. It will come in really handy for aperture cards.

I have a lot of LSNED pages to show you, I'll post them tomorrow. I'm going shopping in the morning with Rosie, to find a few bits for her wedding next year, very excited!

xxx

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Addicted to crafting!

Does anyone else feel like the more crafting they do, the more they want to do? I thought that doing Shimelle's LSNED class would get annoying, trying to keep up with making a page each day. But instead it's just a good excuse to go to my craft desk, then once I've finished the page for the day I start on something else, which leads to ideas for more things = never ending crafting! I did no creating last night as I had a headache and went to bed at about 8.15pm, and I woke up this morning feeling a bit wierd, like my fingers missed making stuff! (Don't worry, I made up for it today!)

First I need to show you the page I made for the Fiskarettes monday challenge this week - to create a project using paint or mists. Here's my finished layout (click to enlarge):

You can see my post on the Fiskarette's blog here if you want more details on how I put it together.

Me and my little girl did go out to Corfe Castle with our friend Rosie on Wednesday afternoon, but I couldn't afford to pay to go into the castle itself. So we went for a walk instead, and spontaneously decided to try and get to the top of one of the hills which overlook the castle. Did we choose the hill with steps and a clearly marked path to the top? Of course not! We scrambled up a steep track on the other hill, climbing past gorse and blackberry bushes to reach a great view from the top:

Little one wasn't as impressed with the view as she was with the abundance of rabbit droppings though! Every step she took she said 'oh, more rabbit poo!'. But I loved seeing the castle from a different angle. And I chose the walk as my lesson for the day (click to enlarge):

I took my inspiration for the journaling from the Robert Frost poem about going the less travelled route, as though other people do walk up this hill it's less popular than the other walks around because it's that little bit more difficult - and that makes it feel more like an adventure! Though it was also a little bit scary coming back down on the steep, slippery slope (okay, it wasn't that steep, but I'm a wuss when it comes to walking down big hills, I always worry that I'll slip and roll/slide the rest of the way down). You can probably see that I used old map paper to make the hills, I painted them with green acrylic paint and then while it was still wet I wiped some of it off with a baby wipe so the map could be seen through. I like the effect, I'll have to use it again.

Finally, I made a card today for my Grampa, who turns 80 tomorrow:

I hope he gets it in the morning, I mailed it first class so fingers crossed. We're going to a birthday party tomorrow, but not his - he's not having one. It's one of my daughter's friends who's turning 2. We're hoping for good weather as it's supposed to be a garden party!

Have a great weekend! xx

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feeling scared and feeling silly

On Monday we tried to go to a baby and toddler music group we attend during term-time, but it doesn't start until next week. Luckily though, lots of other mummies made the same mistake, so we all went to the playpark instead. It was good for my little girl to have so many others to run around with, and all the kids had great fun, but us mums didn't get much time to relax. I never realised until I had my daughter how heart-stoppingly scary playparks can be! One minute your child is playing safely, the next they're about to step off a high platform or slide down the slide when another kid is trying to climb up it. Arrghh! It's so hard to balance between calmly watching your child, or being over-protective. If I had a pound coin for everytime a mummy said 'careful!' I'd be feeling quite rich by now! So, my lesson for the day (click photo to enlarge):

Don't worry, there were no accidents. But I think I'm always going to be worried when we go there!

Yesterday was spent doing office work for my self-employed business (running creative writing, arts and crafts workshops for kids). We've been updating the website, http://www.creativecreatures.moonfruit.com/ if you are interested in taking a look. My daughter was at nursery all day, and hubby was thankfully clearing some of his junk out of our conservatory, it's looking a bit more like a room and less like a storage area now!

The lesson I chose to record for the day was one which makes me feel a bit silly. I've spent 11 months with my netbook, and all that time I've been complaining about how dark the screen goes if it's not plugged in. I was sure there'd be a way to adjust this, but had asked hubby (a computer whizz) and he didn't know, so I hadn't bothered going any further. Last night I got completely fed up with it, so I typed the question into google, and 3 minutes later, my screen is bright as day. Obviously I'm happy it's fixed now, but it makes me feel very dumb that I've been living with it for so long! Here's my LSNED page (click to enlarge):

Today we're having a chilled out morning. We're planning to go out this afternoon with Rosie for a walk around Corfe Castle, but for now my daughter is painting:

And I'm working on a page for the Fiskarettes Monday challenge this week: to use paint or mists on a project. I'm using this photo and some carstock which I've spritzed:

Hopefully I'll be able to post the finished layout tomorrow! Bye for now, xxx

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