Sleep deprived scrapping!

I woke up in the early hours of Saturday morning and could not get back to sleep.  I don't know why as I usually sleep like a log!  A combination of the first week with my new team at work and the impending tea party for over 120 Guides, Brownies and Rainbows that I had helped to organise I think!

I got up to make a cup of tea and then found myself wandering into the study/craft room and had the mood to scrap.  Not only did I make the weekly challenge on UKS but I then decided I needed to use up the rest of the scraps I was staring at and make a second lay out.  I then went off back to bed for a couple of hours snooze followed by 7 hours of setting up, organising and running a Guiding Jubilee tea party (which went really well) - boy, was I shattered at the end of the day!

So the weekly challenge was to use this sketch, with a photos about a man in your life.  We then had the added challenge of using paints/mists/inks, mixed alphas and ric rac (the challenge was set by The Ric Rac Ravers team - thanks ladies for a great challenge)

I am still on my stash busting mission so reached for an old kit from 2010 I think - Sarah's Cards' February kit; Lily Bee - Vintage Poppy.  I then grabbed a photo of Tony that I love from our holiday in Kefalonia a few years ago.  There is a tag behind the papers which details how we are soul mates and that we are still going strong 18 years on (when they said it would never last!)

 I then had just enough left to make a 8 1/2 x 11 page which is the size I am using for my childhood photos.  My Dad took everything on slide format back then so if I print them too big they lose their clarity.  I copied another page I had already made at Sarah's Cards retreat in 2010 and based it on that.  It was a class from one of the DT but I can't remember who now (help me out somebody?!)

I think I may have enough to squeeze a card out of the rest - may give that a go tonight!

My month in numbers - March

Yes March! I just realised yesterday when I started to draft my April post that I had not finished March's! So without further ado here are my numbers for last month...

Alex and I made 10 cupcakes between us at a cup cake decorating course with Chezzie le Choux.  We had great fun and the cookie monsters made another appearance at my charity cake stall (more of that later).

I had 1 tetanus injection which was sore for a while but at least now it is 10 years 'til the next one is needed!

I had a fantastic time at our Twilight Addicts retreat in a huge barn in Herefordshire with 10 lovely scrappers. I made 6 pages and 5 cards at over the weekend.

With another colleague I organised a cake stall at work and we raised £260 for Sport Relief by baking like demons and selling our cakes for £1 a go!

9 ladies headed off for a date at the theatre.  We saw Hormonal Housewives and laughed until our sides ached.  I would definitely recommend seeing if you can!

Josh headed off for his first scout camp and managed to complete a 5 mile walk in the hills of Snowdonia National Park.

And finally 6 of us went out for the night in Liverpool- no reason, just because we could - we ended up having a ride in a Police riot van (not because we had been breaking the law but because we could not find the restaurant) with 3 policemen!! We eventually ended up at San Carlos and had a delicious meal along with several glasses of prosecco (I know there should be a number there but I lost count after the first 3!!)

I'll be back in a couple of days with my April numbers -if you'd like to view more numbers then head on over to Julie's blog where there are tons more links to view

Enjoy the rest of the month x



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Sarah's Cards' challenge

I did have time for one more lo at the crop on Sunday and that was to do the challenge over at Sarah's Cards' blog.

This was the sketch we needed to work from....

And this is what I created...

I have used a very old Sarah's cards kit - literally the remaining scraps! - together with some sequin waste and a Hambly Screen Prints transparency cut into a strip.

There are just a couple of days left if you still want to enter and be in with a chance of winning a voucher!

Finished one Shimelle class - now on to another!

I had a great time at Leannie's Lovelies Crop in St Helens on Sunday.  So friendly and civilised (with lunch delivered including gorgeous lemon cup cakes!) I will definitely be going again :)


Anyway, I'm normally quite productive at crops but had set myself the challenge of finishing 4x6 Photo Love which meant December's page using 12 photos!  It took most of the day but I am so pleased with it - it was worth it!  I have used photos of our day at Disney Hollywood Studios in 2009.  We were lucky to be there when they were hosting one of the Star Wars weekends and with all of us being aid fans in this house it was a must!

The page is quite difficult to explain but essentially it is 6 double sided papers with a photo either side and they get a little bit larger with each layer.  They are then all tied with twine (thanks to the lovely Claire for that!) and attached to the page.

So having ticked that box and done all 12 of the challenges from last year (albeit a little later than planned) I am now really excited that Cover to Cover is starting soon.  This is Shimelle's new class based on organising your albums and getting them to flow. Something I have been thinking about lot lately.

I'm really hoping this will get me more organised and find a way to fill in the gaps in my album - I know they are there!  I'd love to hear from anyone else who has signed up to this.

Today was a day off, now I have my new four day week, which was unusual but very enjoyable and a chance to catch up on jobs and do some stash sorting which went quite well :).  Just as well I had nothing special planned as the weather was plain awful!

Hope it may be have been sunny in your neck of the woods!

Missed this one!

Oops!  I realised I have missed uploading this page I did at my mini retreat in March with the Twilight Addicts. Used up another Sarahs Cards kit (yay!), I think this one was Echo Park (but I could be wrong!) The photo is of Josh dressed as Greg out of The Diary of a Wimpy Kid from last year's book day.



Just a quick post tonight and I will have more lay outs to share tomorrow from my weekend crop :)

Thanks for stopping by x

Stash busting lay out and cards!

It's not very often you find blue papers, and I mean really blue, but these Journey papers from Authentique matched Josh's uniform really well. I had them left over from this lo here called "Ice Maidens", so together with some AC chalkboard card it was time to use them up!

I stitched a little and added some butterflies, pearls and ric rac and the whole thing came together really quickly.

To ensure I am continuing with my stash busting I used the remaining scraps to make three cards for my charity basket.

I'm now off for a week from work as the kids are on Easter Holidays so in between some days out and other activities I'm sure I will sneak in a little scrapping!

Hope you've all ejoyed your Easter weekend :)

Sketchy Scrappers 1st challenge

A few of us on UKS have got together to form the Sketchy Scrappers where we set a sketch challenge every month.

Jess set the first one with this lovely sketch...

I wanted to use the sketch with a main photo and 3 sub photos and came across the idea of recording Alex's obsession with pandas! I dug around in my old stash and found these papers from 3 bugs in a rug which I had left over from a class. I added some rub ons from Fancy Pants and Basic Grey and some flowers which I won from My Creative Scrapbook. A few stickers and a mix of alphas and I was done!

I had a fab photo from our holiday where Alex had gone straight to the panda puppet first to try it out and then took some shots of all the pandas she owns to add to the bottom strip. The journalling reads "When Daddy gave us all silly nick-names one day we had no idea that yours would turn into such an obsession! Now the panda is your first choice when buying anything from pjs to mobile phone charms." As you can probably tell, the nick name Alex was given was Alexandra Giant Panda...don't ask what mine is lol!

Thanks for a great sketch, Jess - looking forward to seeing what we have to work with in April!