Tuesday 31 March 2009

Happy Birthday Poppy!

Happy birthday to my little pal (and Xander's main squeeze!) Poppy, who turns 2 today!


Poppy's mum commissioned me to make Poppy another doll as she loved her Christmas one. This time she wanted Fifi - hmmmmm a tad complicated but I gave it a go and I love her:
Have a great day Poppy!

Saturday 28 March 2009

Letters From The Past

So, I'm just sat here studying away (I know how to spend a Saturday don't I?!) and the course is talking about traditional letter writing. I suddenly remembered a letter my Nan had written to me when I was in hospital after my first heart surgery. It lives in the drawer in my bedside cabinet, along with a picture of me and her (which, if I had a scanner I could blog too).

So, I dug it out and read it, I swear I could instantly hear her voice. Nan died when I was pregnant with Emily, so coming up to 8 years ago now, and yet it was just like I could pop down the road and answer the questions she was asking ('How you doing with the meals, plenty on the menu, I thought they were awful, no salt in anything it put me off they were that bland.') No Nan, I've just had heart surgery, they don't encourage salt!!

It's so easy to forget about how personal letters are; I only ever communicate by email, text or on here but I wonder if in years to come, I could still hear anyone's voice from a retrieved email?

Hmmm, what do you know, this degree thing's actually got me thinking!

Thursday 26 March 2009

Get Voting!

So, my little transatlantic blogging buddy Kim has requested a new Garlics scrapping challenge. So, I've been mulling it over and thought I'd leave the decision up to you lot! So, on the the left you will see a poll, you just need to vote for what kind of challenge you'd like:

1.A regular scrapping challenge (i.e. I give you colours, title or some other thing and you come up with something from that)

2. A scraplift such as this one.

3. A theme for an exploding box.

So get voting, especially you Kim! ;)

Sunday 22 March 2009

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers Day to all my fellow yummy mummies out there and of course to my own mum.

I was ordered back to bed by a very bossy 7-year-old this morning so they could bring me breakfast in bed (scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, toast, orange juice and coffee, yum!). I've got 4 cards in total and a pot of baby roses to go out on the patio. At the moment, I'm enjoying the luxury of still being in bed at 10am; though will have to drag my lazy bum up soon as Emily's insisting on a Mothers Day crafting session!

This afternoon I'm taking my mum to the pictures to see The Young Victoria as a Mothers Day treat. I of course made cards for both her and Rob's mum. I've joined a weekly challenge on my UKS team mate Michele's blog and did these for last week's challenge:

For presents, I again turned to the wonderful Deanna. I just loved these when I saw them on her site and thought they'd make lovely Mothers Day presents. They're rice bags that you pop in the microwave and then use on sore muscles. Hope both mum and MIL are nice and relaxed today with these on! Deanna made her's from knee socks but I couldn't find any so made fleece ones instead. Most importantly they are decorated with felt flowers handmade by my very talented daughter!

They even have washable covers:


Anyhoo, better fly. Emily is stood demanding a crafting session right now and sometimes it's just easier to go with it!
Hope everyone has a lovely day!

Friday 20 March 2009

Bubba Squishing!

Today, me and the Billy boy have been for a little trip over the hills to see my good friend and fellow scrapbooker and blogger Rach (who I haven't met up with for a ridiculously long time!). Xander had great fun with his old pal Cam; they weren't up to any mischief honest (please, could they have looked any more guilty!)

They did play lovely together and Cam was very good sharing all his toys with Xan.
And no, if Cam's big sis Charlotte asks, they weren't on her DS while she was at school, honest!

But, the main reason for our trip today was to meet this little lady:


How blooming adorable is she?! This is Caitlin who is just 7 weeks old and she is gorgeous. Auntie Lou spent a good majority of the afternoon having a good old squish of the little munchkin.
Of course, with Rach being in my craft family, crafting just had to be done to welcome little Caitlin into the world. For this, I turned to one of my blog inspirations at the moment, Deanna, and her wonderful hooded bath towels. I loved how they turned out:

But I'm not sure Caitlin quite got it. (She'll thank me when she's snuggly warm after her bath tonight!)

Me and Rach spent the rest of the afternoon shovelling down homemade chocolate tart (the woman just had a baby 7 weeks ago and she's making me desserts!) and discussing lots of scrapbooking stuff. Thanks for having us over Rach, was lovely to see you all!

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Baby Em!

Awwww, who remembers this pic of baby Emily? I love this picture; she was only 20 weeks old but the Emily personality was already shining through perfectly! I remember I had this picture up on my desk when I first went back to work after my maternity leave. ***SNIFF***

Anyway, did this layout for this week's UKS challenge which was to scrap with fabric. It's the title page for Emily's baby album (which is actually coming together after all these years!).

Right, better crack on. I've still notes from school today to write and tomorrow is a full on assignmnet day. No rest for the wicked! Mwahahahaha!

Monday 16 March 2009

Puppy!

So, last week I decided to expand my scrapbooking community and join UK Scrappers. OK, I'll amend that, I actually joined 2 years ago, I actually decided last week to take the plunge and post on their website!

Anyway, I got adopted by my new scrapping mummy and have now joined a team (hi girls!;)). I also did my first ever UKS challenge. It was to scrap a funny face and I just had to scrap this picture of Xander!

This teeny tiny dog is actually a toy from a Happy Meal and he takes it everywhere. he also loves showing me it and shouting 'Puppy!' at me, which is exactly what he's doing in this pic!

Anyway, just a quick post again today; it's assignment time again! Aaaarrrggghhhhh!!!

Sunday 15 March 2009

More Babies!

A very quick post today as the whole family's been struck down by a stomach bug, so typing's a bit of a chore at the moment!

However, before the lurgy took hold we did manage an afternoon at the farm seeing all the new baby animals! Here are some pics, enjoy!!









Friday 13 March 2009

All Together Now...Aaaaarrrrhhhh!!!

****MAJOR CUTENESS ALERT***

Yesterday, we popped up to see my friend Lisa; I haven't seen her for ages so we needed to catch up and she was going to root through her accessories and see if she had anything for my wedding outfits. But also, their cat had kittens on Tuesday and we just had to go and nosey.

We weren't sure how Minxy would react to visitors as she's so protective of her babies, so I went in and stood back for a while; but once she'd seen me and knew I wasn't going for the bubba kitties she started purring and relaxed, so I got to spend a bit of time with them! So, so, so, so cute!

Here's proud mum Minxy with her brood:


And here's the grey tabby I was desperate to sneak in my pocket:

Poor Minxy was shattered and had a little rest while the babies had tea:

Although I didn't cuddle any of the kittens (thought it was unfair as they were so young), Lisa was there at the birth and Minxy's been more than happy to let her help with the babies, so she had a little cuddle of one. Look at that face!


Alas though, all kittens are still with mum and there's none shoved in my handbag! Rob did say that if a kitten entered the house then I'd be exiting; and in a few weeks, though they'll still be cute, they'll be running up curtains and scratching furniture, so was probably a good thing! But they're just so cute - all together now:

AAAARRRRRRRHHHHH!!!!!

Wednesday 11 March 2009

The New Picasso, Wedding Fever & Shiny Shoes!

For the past 18 months, Xander and I have been going to a toddler group every Thursday morning. He loves it there and it gives me an hour to sit and gossip, drink coffee and eat toast whilst my boy is entertained. I love Yvonne who runs it, she's a star...except when it comes to mess! She has this pure evil streak that makes her get out the messiest things for kids to play with! I did nearly stop going when she once got out the shaving foam!

Xander's normally quite happy with the carpark, train track and dinosaurs; but last week I did relent slightly and let him wander over to the messy end of the room. It wasn't so bad, just paint (and sponges and sticky hands, aaarrrggghhh!!!), she does only have pink aprons so he did look a little disturbing but hey-ho, if he's going to have a pink phase it may aswell be now rather than when he's a teenager!

Anyway, it turns out my son is a little arty genius! He sat happily painting away, mixing up his own colours and using all different mediums (sponges, paintbrushes, his fingers, the girl next to him's pigtails etc etc) and do you know what, I think it's very good for a 2 1/2 year old!

I was even more impressed as Rob and I had just watched a film where this painting went for $10 million at auction:Anyone else seeing a similarity?

On other crafty news, I can finally share the invites I've been working on as they've all been sent out now. First of all, the ones for my cousin Laura's wedding:

I also need to do menus, placecards and a seating plan to match.

Then there's Gemma & Dave's:


They may look simple but...THEY WEREN'T! 300 pieces of ribbon, cut, melted and glued then assembled; seeing those things in my sleep now!

However, I did celebrate finishing them by going out and buying myslef the most unsensible sparkly shoes for G&D's wedding:

Ack, who cares if I can't walk, they're blooming gorgeous!!

Monday 9 March 2009

And We Have A Hat-Trick!

So, on Friday night I was banished upstairs as Rob was shampooing the living room carpet (big heavy things carpet cleaners so not good for us stent folk!). So, I decided to take all my scrapping stuff up with me and do yet another layout - that's 3 in a week!

I did another page from Emily's baby album (yup, yet another 7 year wait!). I went with these pictures of when Emily first met her Great Grandad (my wonderful Grandad); I remember someone commenting about the contrast between his big well-worked rough hands and her tiny delicate ones so went with that for my theme:

I'm not sure why I pick when I'm at my busiest to have a scrapbooking roll. Last week was manic again and yet I managed a hat-trick of layouts. If I ever get a so-called quiet week I'll no doubt be slumped on the sofa without an an ounce of crafty mojo in sight!

Friday 6 March 2009

Some Of My Other Favourite Girls!

Of course, my favourite girl ever is my darling daughter, that goes without saying! But, I've had a bit of time for some of my other favourite mini girls over the last couple of days.

I had an hour to spare yesterday so decided to do a spot of speed scrapping. I chose to do one of Ally and Steve's little girl Elise as I absolutely love this picture that Ally gave me the other week. I'd see a LO by Anna Bowkis in a magazine so used that as the basis, plus all these lovely red papers and embellishments that I've had lurking in my stash and just been dying to use. I think this picture of Elise was just perfect for it! She'll be chuffed as, being one of my best mini mates, she's a regular reader of the blog: Hi Elise!


This afternoon I've had another of my favourite girls over, Evie. Me and her mum had lots and lots of wedding stuff to organise (only about 12 weeks away now, eek!) but we did get time to take Evie and Xander to the park as it was such a beautiful day outside. So glad I took my camera as they insisted on holding hands all the way there:

They had so much fun; Xander loved the seesaw:

And insisted his favourite cousin join him:


Evie was very impressed with the tractor and insisted on driving us all to the seaside on it:


But of course, the biggest hit had to be the swings! Laura, you'll have biceps of steel after pushing those two:

This weeekend is more of a boy weeekend as Emily has a playdate with Scott (who's getting too old for cuddles with Auntie Lou - but she steals them anyway!) and Xander has a birthday party on Sunday. Yes, we're starting with the never ending round of birthday parties; thank god the other one's getting past that age now. Kids' parties everyother day, ***SHUDDER**!

Monday 2 March 2009

Now For Something A Little More Sedate...

So, after all the excitement around here over the last week or so, yesterday was a much more sedate affair. I picked the kids up in the morning (had a great big lie in til 8.50, woohoo!) then when we came back, we decided to take advantage of the mild (ish) weather and test out Emily's new big girl bike. I must say, she got the hang of it straight away:


She also had chance to wear her new bike helmet (thanks Nanna!):

Of course, Xander wanted in on the action, so Roary had to come out of the garage:

However, poor old Roary was soon abandoned when Xander spotted the cars on the motorway:


Em and I had also started some scrapbooking on Saturday. She managed to get hers finished (no photos yet as they're on her brand new shiny pink digital camera!) but I was a bit slower, so got mine finished yesterday afternoon. I've come into some rather nice scrapping stash so thought I'd use some of it for this layout of Xander's first birthday:


Right, with the theme of sedatedness (no idea if that's a word!), I'd better crack on with the studying for this week; lots and lots of reading today, can feel the eyelids drooping already!

Sunday 1 March 2009

They Should Put This Stuff On Prescription!

So, back in the very dark days last year, when I was laid up in HDU feeling not very well at all, there were a few things that got me better. Firstly, there were some great doctors, then the lovely nurses who looked after me. Of course there were a truck load of drugs and equipment that got this rickety old body of mine going again.

But, sometimes you need a bit of something to keep you motivated to get better. One day, my sister came to visit me and said she had something to tell me. She said that she got notice of tickets going on pre-sale, and the day before she'd had an email saying Metallica were going on pre-sale, and she'd just happened to get 2 tickets for me that morning! I swear that heart monitor didn't know what had hit it!

For anyone that doesn't know, I LOVE METALLICA! When I was 14, me and my friend Ali queued for 12 hours to get into their concert and get to the front. And I named my son after the lead singer (well, middle name but it's an honour none the less!). I'd seen them a few times since but that's been at festivals and so physically seeing anything other than a blob on a stage is difficult. So, when the tickets came and it said Row F, I got rather giddy!

I had a bit of a warmup on Thursday when me and the aforementioned Ali went to Manchester to see them. It was fab (I cried when they came on!) but we were 3 rows from the back and were finding it hard to make out the lovely James's face. So last night, off me and Rob trotted to Sheffield, with our Row F tickets, very excited at being 6 rows back. We got a beer and a hotdog and went to find our seats; were we on the sixth row? Oh no! Because Sheffield seating starts at Row E so we were on the second row! How I didn't choke on the hotdog I'll never know!

It was AMAZING! I loved every single second of it and I screamed, sang, clapped along (as the bruise on my palm this morning will testify to!) and did all 'yeah!'s when the mighty James requested them (anything for you James!). I'm also sure that Kirk the guitarist smiled at me again (last time he did when I was 14 and getting dragged out by the sercurity guards before I got crushed!). OK, so he was probably smiling at my whole section but let an old lady have a little fantasy eh?!

So, no Lucozade or bunches of grapes for me in the future, you know now what to bring Lou for a full and speedy recovery!

Me and the mighty James Hetfield!

It's me and Metallica!