Happy Thoughts

It's been a tough 'ol week what with one thing and another.I'm glad this week is now at an end. Nearly December and we love Christmas so hopefully a better week for us.

Concentrating on the positives, I had such a lovely day yesterday at my lovely friend Sue's.
If families could win 'Best Host' awards, her's would win hands down. I went with Steph and met Nicky Noo there too. Steph and I got to Sue's slightly early (Sue was still eating her weetabix) 8.45am and I think we left around 10.30pm. So a very good day of scrapping. I managed 5 LO's and a good start of my December mini book too. Plus there was lots of chit chat, delicious cakes baked by Sue's Mum, yummy lunch and tea cooked by Sue's hubby and the day was just FAB!!

Another positive, I'm so lucky to have a lovely family. We may all be spread about but we all get on so well. I made this LO a couple of weeks ago. Dad took the photo whilst he was over.
It's us 4 and our poppy dog with my Sis, her fiance and their 3 kids and my bruv too. This lot make me laugh all the time. I love them to bits.

Right, Hollie is waiting to read to me, X Factor is about to start and I need some cuddles from that hubby of mine.
Hope you had a good week xx

A whole new Week

A whole new week has started. Where do the weekends go??? I think weekends should last for at least 3 days. 2 is never enough.
We've done visiting and yesterday was spent doing, homework, lots of cleaning and tidying (a family effort, not just me for change) nice late lunch and finished with us all watching a film. I now need that third day to chill.

Anyway, scrappin. Not much of that taken place this last week. But I still have loads to show following the crops last weekend.
Here are 2 of my Cocoa Daisy LO's.

I love these photos of Ade giving a Louis a piggy back. It was a sketch by Vee.

And this one is a sketch from Anna.

It's almost time for the school run. The rain has finally stopped. Do I risk walking?????
xx

Are you ready for another Challenge?????

Beacause the next challenge has gone live at The Studio.
I really enjoyed this challenge, here how it goes:

1. Dust off those eyelet setters! Yep, we want to see what you can do with those eyelets you all bought and never used! If you honestly don’t have any, then you can substitute them with brads.
2. Your title should include a number
3. Complete your journaling in a ‘list’ style

Remember, you don’t have to use all 3 parts of the challenge, but we’d love it if you did!

I chose to do Louis' yearly LO. Every year before we have a birthday, I like to do a LO listing our current likes and dislikes. So here are Louis's.
It's also fun to add things like what they want to be when they are older. It changes every year.
We've gone from Secret Agent Spy to building lego displays at Legoland...I wonder why????

Anyway, head over to The Studio for a nose and some inspiration. Shimelle is this months Guest Designer. I'm a big fan of hers and love all her creations, so Shimelle fans out there, you won't be disappointed.

Have a good day xx

More LO's from the weekend

More LO's from this weekend. There are just so many to show.
Sketchy Thursdays set the 24th challenge. It was a sketch I'd used before, so I happily made the LO below. This it's one of my faves from the weekend.
I uploaded it and then the next day (yesterday) I was reading on the Studio and happened to notice that along with the sketch, we were supposed to bring a water theme to the LO. Doh!!! There I ago again. Always getting things wrong. So I made the LO above. I've decided to use that one at the start of my album. (I'm putting all my LO's from this weekend into 1 album) It seemed rather fitting to have that one first.




I feel really tired again. I stayed up until after midnight to finish my book. It just doesn't seem possible to go to bed before 12 anymore.

More LO's to show tommorrow : )
xx

My faves from this weekend

This weekend has been a blast. The scrapping was great all weekend long but so was the chatting too.It was great chatting with Amanda, Laura and Ronda Saturday night at The Studio and the Cocoa Daisies have just been so silly beyond belief. It's been a really funny weekend. And I've managed 15 LO's in total!!

I'm adding my fave LO's to this thread from the weekend.
Above is my LO I made for my own challenge at The Studio. To scrap with 'Rock' as your inspiration. My LO is pretty self explanatory : )

This one is a Cocoa Daisy challenge. Vee gave us a sketch to work from. I'm really pleased with this one.



And this one makes me feel happy and sad at the same time.
Taken with my little brother and sister. I've made it to sit on a stand on my desk so I can see they everyday now.

So thank you everyone who's joined in this weekend for a great weekend. I've loved scrapping and chatting with you all. Laura, Nicky, Sue M, Anna, Helena, Ronda, Amanda,Claire and Fay.
And everyone else that's played along too.
And despite what Ade thinks....you are all 'real friends'
: )

Lots of love

lis xxx

Aloada Scrap

Happy Sunday,
Just a quickie to say that the cyber crops are going well. I'm managing to get lots of lovely LO's made.
The above LO was a challenge set by Laura to scrap a fave place or view.



This one was set by Tami Morrison, to scrap with kraft and bright colours.
(click piccie to read journaling)

And this one was set by Andrea. Scrap a black and white piccie using 3 pp and some mist sprays.

Come and visit us at The Studio to be in to win prizes and have lots of fun.x

The Fun has Begun

The Cyber crop kicked off at 7pm as planned (3.5hrs ago).
The first challenge was to go vintage. I'd tried to be so organised for this crop by printing off loads of different photos. Different ages, sizes, colours and the first thing I need to do is print off a photo : ) Decided to go truely vintage back to 1949 infact. My grandparents wedding.



And at 9pm the next challenge was launched...scallops and lots of them.


So far so good : )
I wish the same could be said for the weather. It's blowing a right gale out there and really bucketing it down. The forecast isn't much better for tomorrow either and we will be here
Paultons Park. Oh why oh why??? I don't want to go in the pouring rain and I don't want to visit santa and eat mince pies in November either : (

On Your Marks...

Getting ready for the start of the charity cyber crop tonight at The Studio. It starts at 7pm UK time and sees a new challenge from a different designer or celebrity scrapper every 2 hrs right through until 7pm Sunday evening.

I scrapped my photos from The Royal Albert Hall yesterday. I used a sketch from the Creative Scrappers blog.
Elina made their DT recently, so thought I'd show some support : )



Have a fabby weekend and TFL xx

Royal Albert Hall Video

After posting just a little while ago this morning, I thought I'd add this little video that I filmed on my camera. I've never filmed with it before and didn't even realise that's what I was doing to start with, so it's out of focus and pretty crap. But thought my Mum and Dad would appreciate it.
Hi Mum and Dad xxx

The Royal Albert Hall

Yes, my baby is actually admidst that little lot : )
This is what we could see when we got to our seats last night. Well almost, the photo was taken during the performance. When we arrived just about all 775 children were waving to their parents. It was very sweet. My friend who we went with had her 7 yr old son with her and he wanted to see his big brother who was singing too. She said 'find Jack and I'll give you £10'.
He did actually find Jack (and got the £10) Should've see the expression on my friend's face : )
Hollie is on the left side.

Third down row from the top, from the right she's ninth in. She was so excited when she spotted us. We make bunny ears with our hands on our heads when we wave to each other, so I was so chuffed when she started doing this. I knew she was actually seeing us.
The performance was amazing. The kids were fantastic. A great evening : )


However 50mins before I had to collect Louis from school before then heading off to London, Amanda set a quick challenge over at The Studio.
Make a LO using only black and white with one other colour.
I was actually scrapping at the time, so decided to give it a go quickly before heading out. I'm sure I work better under pressure. I instantly thought black and white photo, the rest will happen. I had this photo, taken back in 2002. I just couldn't find the inspiration to scrap it. And then this happened. I'm quite pleased with it.
I love that photo with my baby Louis : )

The cyber charity crop starts tomorrow night 7pm UK time at The Studio.
Please come and take a nose, the inspiration will be jaw dropping, the prizes to die for, it will be loads of fun and for a great cause too. So if you haven't stopped by, please do.

I think it's latte time xx

Today I .....

.....have finished this LO.
It's the first photo I've scrapped of Dad since he left on 1st Nov. I love how is is with the kids. They all love him so much. He's just so silly and loves spongebob. An instant winner with them : )

I've used the recent Scarlet lime kit and the latest sketch from Sketchy Thursdays.
If you haven't visited, go take a look.

Today is the day that Hollie performs with her school at The Royal Albert Hall. In fact, she may well be there now. The school coach was collecting them at 12.30. We are leaving at 4.30, still need to decide what to wear.
She was one very excited bunny this morning : )

A Brand New Week

After a sad week last week and a busy weekend it feels good to start a new week. No huge plans except for going to watch Hollie perform with the school choir at The Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday.

I forgot all about the above LO I made last month. Another scrap lift contest at Cocoa Daisy.
I love doing these speedy LO's. I say I don't like working under pressure, but I often produce my fave LO's when I do.
A bit of spray misting and some photos from a fun afternoon at Richmond Park back in August. Seems like such a long time ago now.

Have a Happy Monday xx

Just Under a Week until......

The Studio kicks off with the Charity Extravaganza.
Have you signed up yet?
We start on Friday 13th November with challenges ongoing through to Sunday 15th November.
Not only is this a great cause but it will be heaps of fun too. Challenges every 2 hrs by the most amazing designers with the most amazing prizes to be won.
Don't miss out, go and sign up.

Better late than never, I did the Sketchy Thursday challenge this week and forgot to upload. Silly me. So here it is. Using the Cocoa Daisy kit and some 2006 photos.

Fireworks for us tonight. Fingers crossed it stays dry. Followed by X Factor when we get back.
Yay to Daniel and Booooo to Jedward : )

My latest Mini Book

First off, I'll start my blogging off with my happy news. We got tickets yesterday to Green Days Wembley gig next June. Yay!!! So excited already : )

I wanted to show my latest mini book make today.
I got sent the Road Map papers, stickers and little cards from Papermaze. Whenever I see the October Afternoon collections I instantly tune into a project rather than just a LO. It's almost a sin to split everything up as it all fits in so nicely together and to me they always scream out minibook.

I love where we live. I never fully appreciated it until just last year really when we got a little dog, so it's taken me 10 years to properly explore the area on foot. Our walks our now a regular family thing and we are lucky enough to have so many beautiful areas all surrounding us that are reached by foot.



So that's what I decided to make this book about. These are just a few pages.



For more details on how this was made, visit the papermaze blog.
All materials can be bought here.

It's a rainy day here again. I'm so bloody short that the back of my jeans get drenched whilst on the school run, so I end up stripping off when I get back home, hanging my jeans on the radiator to dry and putting a clean pair on whilst inside.

Think I will get a bunch of work out of the way today so maybe I can scrap gulit free later on : )
Have a good day xx

A Rollercoaster of a Week

What a week, that's all I can say. So many ups and downs in such a short time.
Dad arrived on the 24th Oct. We greeted him at Heathrow as a surprise. He didn't know we were going to be there. We met my sis at 7am in Terminal 4, we had my brother too, my hubby 2 kids and my sis with her hubby and 3 kids. Dad hadn't seen the baby of the family as my sis hadn't had her when Dad left last year and baby is now 13mth, so that was really special too.
The kids were very patient standing with their banners waiting : )
It was so good to see him arrive. We've all had the most amazing week together. We've visited our hometown Oxford, we had a Christmas Day, we've had nice walks, breakfast out, a visit to the zoo, been trick or treating, played loads of games, it's just been so so much fun. We were all devastated when Dad left on Sunday. Each year I'm sure it gets harder rather than easier and takes me longer to pull myself together.

Onto something more cheery now.....these gorgeous men : )


The middle one in particular. Billie Joe Armstrong. Isn't he just the most gorgeous man ever????
(Sorry Ade, but I know you understand) Ade and I went and saw Green Day at the O2 on 24th Oct and it was just the most amazing concert ever. I'm so pleased that Ade enjoyed it as it's me the one that's the big Green Day fan. I think Ade loves them almost as much as me now (maybe not entirely in the same way) It really was such a good show and we had great seats too. I feel even more besotted than before. I've been following this band since 1994. It was my first visit to USA. Dad had just moved there and Green Day were played loads on MTV. I ended up getting a copy of Dookie to bring home and have loved them ever since.
They announced a couple more gigs in UK next June. Presale tickets go on sale today at 3pm. We are so hoping to get tickets for the Wembley Stadium show. Fingers Crossed xx

And now onto scrapping. Something that I haven't done much of recently. I need to get myself back into it. It's only just been over a week, but feels longer.
In the meantime I have this LO to show that's the new challenge over on The Studio.



The lovely Shimelle is this months Special Guest. Pop along to join in with this months challenge which involves a sketch and some bling and see what everyone else has come up with.

Lots of Love xx