good day....

today was a good day bc...
I finished tidying the lounge and it looks SO much better the new way round

I sorted some of the toys in the boys room....

Cleared the accumulation of paper from the dresser...

Had lunch with my friend Verity who I have not seen for ages....

Had some divine chocolate torte from Waitrose..oh SO lovely!!!

made up a recipie which tasted so nice.... put a fish fillet (we had rainbow trout, or you could use salmon) in foil and make a vague bowl shape, squeeze over some lemon juice, cut up some root ginger and sprinkle over, dash of light soy sauce, drizzle of honey, fresh corriander ripped, chopped red or yellow pepper, long chunks of mango, salt and pepper.... fold the foil over making sure it is sealed but leaving room for the steam to expand the foil. Pop in the oven gas mark 5 or medium for 15-20 min depending on the size of fillet. Serve with salad and bread. I'm not a fish lover but I loved this!!

Lastly I am out on a date tonight at a Tapa bar in Camberley with my husband Colin !! yippeee!!

funny week...

I have had a really weird week. I have had lots on my mind so I have really struggled to focus on anything. I have found this really frustrating bc I hate having non productive days or weeks. The house was annoying me...you know when the odd pile if paper becomes more than one and then suddenly its....annoying!!!

So poor Colin arrived home tonight to find the whole lounge in turmoil....and me re-arranging all the furniture!! Not what he wanted to see...anyway now it is all nearly sorted it look so much better!!!! And I feel so much better!! And I downloaded my lastest photos and fell about laughing!!! Just look at these...

Jamies *new eyes*....."

(lotto sign) "Mummy look they have put a sign up to say we can play here!!" Jamie

Lucia getting all hairy!!

look at this!!!

A friend of mine spotted this on QVC and it is lovely...if you like chipboard then wait for it...2,700 pieces!!!! There are four alphabets, scalloped borders, index cards, little flowers, circles, triangles, squares, Christmas trees, hinges, frames,...the list goes on. If you order more than one you pay the same postage. A really good bargain. Find it here

Well busy planning some new things one is a Fri night & all day Saturday crop in the summer (not sleeping over) I will fill you in on more details when I have finalised the dates.

Have a great week!! Enjoy the sunshine and look on QVC but don't spend too much!!!!

class details....

Right for all those who are going to Odiham crop on 14th April.... I have the class details. You will be very pleased to know that this class is very quick and easy not like the last class which was lovely but a bit time consuming!!!

Lots of people ask me how to do page design to use photos that are 6x4. It is very easy to get in a rut so...my class is on designing with 6x4's. These pages are designed to do in under an hour and they look really great.....

Now you know what I am like...miss perfection...well it is true, by learning a few tricks you can produce pages which look great in under an hour, I have tried and tested it.

I will provide 1 cardstock, 1 patterned paper and a selection of goodies and we will concentrate this lesson on two photos but I will give you examples to take away with a variety of LO ideas.

You will need to bring two photos of either landscape or portrait or both. Also you will need to bring a one word title cut out or chipboard letters at least an inch /2cm high. If you go for a white unless you know what colour paper you will like to have. (you could always paint them)

Please let me know as I will prepare the packs before to save time on the day. If you have a colour preference or manufacture preference please let me know.

This is an example of one of my quick pages not the one we are doing just a flavour.

words...

Yesterday a lovely friend of my gave me a card. She had written some lovely things in it, which made my day.

It got me thinking how important our words are...spoken or written and what effect they can have on other people.

How often do we tell people how much we appreciate them?

Why they are special to us?

Thank you for doing something?

Comment on a job well done?

What if we extend this to not just family and friends but people who randomly come across our path...shop assitants...receptionists...postworkers...the list is endless.

Not only does it make that persons day better but you will feel really good. The great thing is...it doesn't cost you ANYTHING!!! How good is that, something for free!

So often our natural reaction is (especially us Brits) to complain, moan, look on the negative side, talk badly about someone, criticise...I'm sure you can think of plenty more.

So this week why don't you...say something nice to people you live/work with, pick up the phone and rig someone and tell them how much they mean to you, write a card...be creative...yes you could even do a scrapbooking project!!!

And before you criticise, moan, get cross...think do I need to say this or could I approach this situation from a different angle...this is something I need to do a lot especially at home and with my family...

Here are some little proverbs about *words* which I found....

Proverbs 15:4
Gentle words are a tree of life; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.

Proverbs 16:24

Kind words are like honey— sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.

Proverbs 18:4

Wise words are like deep waters; wisdom flows from the wise like a bubbling brook

Proverbs 20:15
Wise words are more valuable than much gold and many rubies.

Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust

Have I made you think?

Ive made myself think!!!

An example of positive words.

Jamie goes to football every friday night. He loves going and always attacks each task with 100% enthusiasm and energy. He never gets upset if his team doesn't win and always shows excellent sportsmanship when someone else gets player of the week. He is the smallest there so does struggle to get the ball in matches and often spends his time *chasing the pack*. Each week he would come back and tell us what happened and who got *player of the week*

Well this week I thought (proud mum) that he was doing really well and had made a mental note to tell him when we got home and give him a special sticker. Well at the end of the session a delighted Jamie was awarded *player of the week* for the first time! It was for listening, playing well and noticing something about a goal which no-one else had.

His little face beamed in total surprise and utter delight. At the end he rushed over to show me his certificate. All the way home all he talked about was his certificate and once home he rushed in to show dad his precious certificate. It went to bed with him!!

Who says words are cheap...they may not cost anything but in my mind they are priceless!!

A few words on a bit of paper made Jamies.... day, week, month, whole training season!!

dinosaurs and flowers in the snow..

I wanted to let the children have a little play in the falling snow today (although is was quite wet snow) so we went to school early. When we arrived at school we found a stranded dinosaur in the snow. Ewan and Jamie had great fun making an igloo for this dinosaur!!! i love hearing their make-believe stories and the voices they make when they are playing. also it is nice to see them playing together without fighting!!

(Poor Ewan has got such a nasty bruise on his head from when he fell over on Sunday.)

On the way to school I was trying out my new camera (old one broke) No unfortunately the nice canon one i wanted was not in the budget, someone gave us this one...just another simple one but it is amazing what you can do with it. I was trying out the macro setting and got some great shots of flowers in the snow

.

Just notice on Ali's website she has posted instructions for a mini book which looks lovely take a peak.

Question 4# from Shauna

If you were stranded on a desert island what 5 scrapbooking thing would you take and why...

Ok hopefully it was a nice island otherwise I would get really bored!!! I would take:

1. Photos
2. Scissors (always useful for lots of things!!)
3. Buttons I love these so much as they are so versatile
4. Ribbon...I have to have colour
5. Paint...I could use the paint for titles, backgrounds and make my own patterned paper.

I hear you thinking hasn't she left out the most obvious? Cardstock!! Why yes but...I'm sure there would be something else on the island I could use for a background. After all I wouldn't be that concerned about it being acid free!!! :)

Good question it was fun...send me your address Shauna...unless I should just send it to the chicken coop?!!! See Shaunas blog if you want to know what the joke is!!

thank you...

thank you to everyone who sent me a comment to cheer me up ...that was really sweet of you all. (it did cheer me up!)

I had a lovely day on Sunday bc I realised (although they are hard work) how great my children are. They plotted and planned all weekend to give me little presents for *Mothers Day*. Colin said it was really sweet that they organised it all and it was their ideas...which makes it so much nicer.

They had all made cards at school or pre-school but Jamie had managed to lose his! So with Phoebes help he made a new one. I kept having to walk through parts of the house *without looking!*Then they filled a box with presents and cards, chose some flowers and presented them to me with lots of hugs and kisses. So sweet! :)

Also, I have such a wonderful husband who, tried so hard to make sure I had a proper rest to recover...that he has gone to work today totally exhausted!

Something I was inspired by....I was looking on Ali Edwards blog and she set a challenge to capture your nightly routine and document what you do.....even if you don't have children it could be interesting to remember later on... go on have a go... I am going to post this later on ...have lots of blogging time to catch up on ...

Also I haven't forgotten two more questions to answer and three raks to send off and Katrinas buttons...will try to do that asap...have the raks ready(will try to take a photo so you can see what is coming)...they just need to make it into the post!!!

Right I need to get tidying up as my mum and dad are coming over...they have been in the UK for nearly tow weeks and I have only seen them once bc they have been ill as well :(

Have a great Monday!!!

feeling really ill...

I am feeling really bad...heavy cold, chesty cough, aches etc... so I will probably not blog for a couple of days bc all I feel like doing is lying on the sofa...see you soon. :)

today I was inspired by...

I went to Fleet today ...I didn't need to get anything I just wanted to look around the shops at the clothes and places like Cargo. I took my camera and this is what I saw that I liked....

Had a lovely iced coffee here!! mmmm :)

Blossoms at the childrens school...so pretty

Something I was not so inspired by!!! Lucia decided to re-arrange the plants!!!

Hope you are inspired. Why don't you take a camers out and about with you and take pictures of the things you think are eye catching, colourful, pretty....things you just like the look of and then do a layout of them.

Question 3# from Carolyn

"If you could have dinner with five famous people (dead or alive) who would they be and why?"

Ok ...so good question ...took me AGES to come up with my top five. I just couldn't decide ...but here they are...

Leonardo da Vinci...this man was amazing. Not only was he and awesome artist, he was an engineer, inventor, writer, philosopher...the list goes on. I love his lateral thinking and ability not to go along with the current thinking of the time but to explore new ways of doing things. His attention to detail is phenomenal. (picture is from his sketch book)

Jonny Depp...such a varied actor and so funny and quirky!! I love him in Pirates of the Caribbean. I think he would liven up a dinner party!!

Amy Carmichael....she gave up a comfortable life and went to work in India. She did an amazing work rescuing children from forced prostitution in Hindu temples and setting up schools and places where they could live. She was passionate about God and wrote some amazing books which are worth reading. I have been so challenged by some of her quotes especially from a book called Edges of His Ways'

Barbara Hularicki who was behind Biba. I recently discovered her in research I did for a class on the sixties. She turned fashion on its head making cutting edge fashion assessable to the masses for affordable prices. She also didn't follow the trends of the day but did her own thing mixing vintage with modern.

Elsie Flannigan...I love her style of scrapbooking even though I can't do it !! I also love her sense of fun and vibrancy that comes across in her work. She has good taste in music and always has something fun on her blog. She also takes fantastic pictures of all sorts of things. I am amazed at her ability to see something she wants to do and then achieve it.

When I looked back at the list I noticed that they were all people who went/or go a different way from the rest of society. Lateral, creative, challenging thinkers. I like people who are a bit different bc they make me think.

my favourite photo at the moment...

I took this photo of Lucia which i love bc it captures her spirit of being inquisitve and slightly blurry bc she is always on the move. The lo is using the new BG Perhaps paper which I LOVE. The green title has scanned rather green! i used a bit of paint to define the photo and painted a chipboard swirl the same colour. Where my journalling is i also put a little paint on just to give it a plain background, to allow the journaling to show up. There was a little doodling on the paper whic i extended with a brown pen. Hope you like.

I will try to answer another question tomorrow and post up what you are getting. See you then.

question 2#

from Willina
I would like to do an album of our holiday in Paris. The photos were taken over a week and obviously in lots of different locations, so I can't really use the same colours to create a running theme. What other ideas do you have to make the pages look like a unit.

Good question. I think holiday albums/themed albums can be hard to do so that each event stands out but still retains a sense of being one....
This is what I would do;

First I would look at the photos I had and decide on how I was going to present my album. I could :
1. Divide it up into each day what we did where we went...
2. Focus on the experiences ie places we visited, food, culture, places we stayed, funny things that happened . Each page would have a mixture of day.
3. Choose a theme like the senses. I did this for a series of layouts for a trip to Thailand and I used the titles sight smell taste etc to convey a sense of our holiday.

Then I would choose 3-4 plain colours which complimented the majority of my photos
also I would choose a few patterned papers which would go with my theme/photos if I needed extra detail.

I would come up with a few layout ideas and use them throughout the mini book as this gives a sense of continuity. These could be rotated to change things around a little.

Finally I would choose a few embellishment such as ribbon, buttons, flowers which would be in the same colours as the papers i have chosen. I could mix and match them but as they are repeated through the book it gives flow.

Titles I tend to use the same font through out a mini book but just change the size or weight to give a different effect.

Hope this helps! thanks for your question. Just click on the envelope and sent me an email with your details so I can post your goodies.

Q&A....

Ok I planned this badly!!! Sorry I have kept you all in suspense. Colin is away all weekend and last night I was out with the girls from school (mums) what a hillarious evening...but it meant I didnt have time to post the results... (sorry)

I will try to do them all by the end of the weekend. Good questions!! I will choose the five for the main goodies and then everyone else I will answer your question and send you a little something for participating as a thankyou from me.

Question 1# from Bridget (B x) (please e-mail me with your details)

If you could be invisible for a day what would you do.....such a funny question!!!
And if a film was made of your life ...who would play you?

I would love to go into school/pre-school and see what my children were up to. i have spent so much time with them but that is a part of life I know nothing about. i want to know who they play with and how they really are when mum is not around. I would love to see that side to their personality which I don't see at home.

I would also like to make things happen like moving objects and see what peoples reactions would be...

also Jamie visited Windsor Castle this week on a school trip and last year I went to Buckingham Palace...i would love to see what the Queen does. i'm sure I can think of more things for this one so if they come I will add them on

Someone to play me... (fun) I think Kate Winslet or Kirsten Dunst

I love the variety of characters they play. Also Kate is a real woman...curvy like me!! What do you think good resemblance?

More later...the children are up to all sorts of mischief whilst I am on the computer!!! Better go and keep them in order. We had waffles this morning so i think it is a bit of a sugar rush!!!

just too gorgeous....

I just got an order through from Artbase with some fab things from American Craft...plastic flowers....and punctuation...there was some felt flowers but I think they have sold out!!! then I look today and they have more stuff!!! Oh no!! Look under Latest Additions

Tomorrow noon I will take all the questions and choose my final five!!

make-up, mud, washing powder and knitting....

ohh my two younger ones have been UP TO MISCHIEF the last two days!! it involves lots of mud , make-up and washing powder.....knitting is something me and phoebe have started learning. Will post more details later!!

So yesterday it was a lovely day ...I thought Ewan and Lucia could play in the garden that would be nice....mmmm..they had a lovely time digging a hole in the lawn and making a mud hole. I don't mind the mud really as they were having so much fun, it was the pot hole they had created. I managed to divert them to another area of the garden...which kept them happy for awhile.

I love this picture of Ewan...just gotta scrap it!! Sooo full of mischief!!

Well today the monkeys found Phoebes make-up and put it on each other....unfortunately they wouldn't co-operate for photos. Then Lucia found the washing powder and started pouring it on the floor and making patterns...fun for her but not so amusing for me....did just manage to see the funny side!

Positive thing my friend Sarah has been resisting scrapbooking set down a challenge...if I could learn to knit she would have a go at a mini album....she came ove today to teach me and Phoebe. I learnt how to knit a flower....looks so cute!! Phoebe picked it up really well and is knitting a square.


Loving the questions... I am glad I put friday as the deadline as it gives me a chance to think about the answers!!! I wonder who it will be? :)

back to reality...

Ok a week of being really ill has left me with....
*huge pile of washing
*messy house
*no cakes :(
*loads of jobs to finish

So today is back to reality...SLOWLY!!

I decided to do something from each list and also something fun.
Aims:
* 2 loads of washing put in
* fold and put away 2 loads
* tidy 1 room
*bake 1 cake
Fun thing...
I challenged myself to do a LO in an hour...not to worry about if it was not perfect or just right...will post it later

Don't for get to post me a question about what ever you want I have some lovely goodies to give away!! You've got 'til friday...get posting!!

good quote..

" A tough person sees a stressful situation as an opportunity for growth "

look what I saw..

A lunar eclipse...sky was clear and crisp...loads of stars A bit fuzzy but i only have a small camera...it was awsome!! Beautiful sight

Who wants some goodies?

I have been sorting out my studio...and rearranging everything. So liking it!!! I have found lots of goodies that I had forgotten about so.. I thought I would give somethings away. :)
If you want a little parcel then post a question for me before next friday (you have a nearly a week!!)..it can be about scrapping, myself, classes...
You think of a good one and I will choose five questions to answer...so get posting!!!

cheered me up...

ive had this really nasty flu all week which has drained me of my energy. Its quite frustrating when you have lots to do and you physically can't do it....but tonight was lovely bc I had my crop and there were lots of new people. (thank you for coming!) and I got to use my *newnewnew* basic grey Phoebe paper.....there was of course only one person I could do a LO about...my Phoebe!!! Hope you like it! :)