Royal Wedding

Have you been watching the wedding today?
We've loved following their day on tv : )
I've enjoyed it more than I expected.


I've launched a new challenge at Cocoa Daisy this morning to celebrate the Royal Wedding.
Simply scrap something wedding related and include bunting on your page.



You need to add your page to this Cocoa Daisy thread by Sunday 29th April midnight Eastern time and a winner will be selected and will receive a small prize.

Off to carry on enjoying the festivities again now and have a sausage sarnie : )
xxx

Bird Ducks

So, another week almost done.
It's been a really busy one again.
I have today the new Sketchy Thursdays Sketch which I love this week. Very Very usable.
I have scrapped a holiday story this week.
Click on the piccies to enlarge and read the silly story to go with it.







It's Royal Wedding time in the UK. We had a street party as school yesterday afternoon which I helped with and was lots of fun.
Not too sure what we are upto tomorrow as Ade wants to watch it on tv. I'm not fussed but would like to party. I suggested Windsor tomorrow afternoon as it's local, but wondering if it will be really busy. What do you think?

Don't forget the Cocoa Daisy Reveal tonight. 9pm UK time
xxx

Vintage Ink Sneaks

Here are some sneaks of the new Cocoa Daisy kit 'Vintage Ink'.
Tomorrow is the reveal party at Cocoa Daisy where the new kit gets revealed, the designers show their new LO's and other creations and we play games and chat 'kit'.
Visit us here to take a look.

Don't forget the Cocoa Daisy Design Team call is running until 15th May.
See here for more details.

Nothing else crafty from me today.
I'm having a complete manic week with work. Working til late and up again 4.30am. Helping at school this afternoon with a wedding street party. Hopefully come Friday I can stop for abit. I have so many ideas for LO's. I just keep writing my ideas down.
I miss you paints!!

See you tomorrow with the Sketchy Thursdays new sketch xxx

Deal Maker

Good Morning,

I decided to get up real early today to enjoy the first few hours alone in my studio.
A fave thing of mine to do. Coffee on, music on and scrap. I've actually been printing off and editing lots of photos for our Easter holiday mini book that I'm making this weekend. It's going to be based on 'the stories' this year.
I like to make the albums whilst the stories are all still fresh in my mind.

I didn't get much scrappy time in, in the end yesterday, but 2 LO's did come together grabbing a few minutes here and there throughout the day.

Here's one of them and also an Easter holiday story.
(click photo to enlarge)
The Deal Maker



Louis is always trying to make money and think of ways to do so.
This day we were all building our own creations on the beach. We all needed sandcastles made so seeing as Louis wasn't building anything in particular we asked him to build them for us.
He charged us for making them!!
I was quite pleased though as we found out later that he hard charged Hollie 5p a castle and me just 1p and I got 5 castles for the price of 4!!



I used the new Fancy Pants collection 'Beach Bum' for this page.
The stars I reversed and misted and the title has been sanded for a more rustic beach effect.
The wave and fish are in the little pack of 'design embellishments' from the collection.



So what are you upto today?
Hollie and I are having a girlie trip out to M&S this morning. A bit of shopping first thing, just the two of us. We also have a BBQ planned today and Dr Who and back on TV tonight. Yay!!!! A family fave of ours. We can't wait : )

Enjoy your Saturday.
Lots of love xxx

A Challenge, A Crop and a DT Call

This is a 100% Cocoa Daisy post today.
'Good Friday' should be filled with good things.

First up is a page I made for the Cocoa Daisy sketch challenge yesterday.
Another one of Hollie and like yesterday also with 3 piccies : )
(click on photos)



I spent ages snapping away at Hollie on the beach and just love how this came out. I got asked yesterday if the photos were of me : )
The sketch I worked from can be viewed here. If you want to join in just link up your photo to the same thread. The challenge runs to the end of this month and the winner gets a $10 Cocoa Daisy gift certificate.



I think this LO may end up being on a wall.



Most of this page was made from last months Cocoa Daisy Kit and now I'm working on this next months that will be revealed on the 28th April.
Until then here's a sneak of the 'Vintage Ink' kit.



Fancy a Spring Crop? Lots of giggles, tons of inspiration, great challenges and class with prizes to be won and all from your own pc with not a penny to spend.
Sound too good to be true????
Pencil in MAY 13 - 15!!!!! It's the Cocoa Daisy Spring Crop.
All you need to do is register with Cocoa Daisy so you can play along here.

And lastly Cocoa Daisy are holding a Design Team Call. I love working for this company, it's been an absolute pleasure from the start. I recommend giving it a go. Christine has no set amount of designers and international designers are welcomed too.
For more details, read here.

So that's it for today now.
I have a ton of work again but insist of scrapping with my May Cocoa Daisy kit some more today. So many ideas : )

Enjoy this Good Friday xxx

Growing Up

Hello Hello,
Another sunny one **smile**

I've been excited to show this page this week that I made using the new sketch from Sketchy Thursdays.



More so because of the photos.
It's the third Easter now that we've gone down to Charmouth and this year Hollie seemed so grown up. So I took a photo from each visit to compare.



(click on photo)

Hasn't she changed??? Louis still looks pretty much the same, but my baby Hollie is so different.
I suddenly have a child that goes out alone, shops alone, walks the dog for me, does house work and can be good adult company now. It's happended so fast.



I loved these wooden butterflies that came in this months Cocoa Daisy kit.
I think they are Maya Road. I cut the clouds out from some Studio Calico packaging.



Now the paint I want to really rave about. Jenni Bowlin. I can not praise this paint enough. LOVE IT!!
This colour is called Chicken Fed. Cute huh?!!



Don;t forget as always, pop along to join in this week with Sketchy Thursdays. Amazing inspiration and an amazing prize again. I'm so lucky to work with these girls.

We've had a very busy week. Louis went to a close friends bowling party on Tuesday and went back and stayed until yesterday afternoon. I left the card until the last minute so did my usual for a boys card.
Visited Twisted Sketches for a sketchy inspiration and grabbed my Sassafras bag of goodies.
The boys are really into Moshi Monsters, so the monster collection was perfect.



I have a quiet house today. Hubby at work, Hollie at Chessington with a friend, Louis go carting with his Dad. I would like to say I'm having a lovely time scrapping but I have a ton of work to do instead.
Nevermind. I want to make sure I'm free for family days on Saturday and Sunday and we are out on Monday. So it'll be worth it.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the sun if it's sunny where you are xx

Journal Embellishments

Hi,

I'm blogging from a very sunny and warm England today. So lovely : )
Shame I am sat behind a desk working all day. Nevermind, it's cheerful looking outside anyway.

Whilst I was away lasy week, a canvas of mine was shown on the Fancy Pants Blog.
Some of us were asked to design with the new Journal Emellishments.
Oh decisions, decisions. They are all so lush.



I chose the 'it's the little things' collection, my new favourite from Fancy Pants.
And as I love this collection so so much, I decided I want a canvas to hang so I can admire the pretty things all the time.
(click on photo)



I handstitched around each journal tag to add testure and to draw in the eye a little more.



I've also used lots of other things from this collection...papers, brads, and some other bits.
You can read the full blog post over at Fancy Pants here and see what the other designers made too.



Right, back to work for me.
I must apologise first though for my lack of blog hopping right now. I feel so behind. With going away last week and still having the kids home from school this week and being busy with work, I'm struggling with everything else right now.
I will hopefully catch up soon as I miss visiting everyones lovely blogs and having a good ol' nose : )
See you soon xxx

Let's Play

Another weekend has flown by, I hope your's was fun.

I have the new 'Studio' challenge for you now.

Today's challenge is: Play! Create a page that focuses on 'play'. This could be in the form of photos of your kids playing or you could 'play' with a new technique or colour combo on your page. Use your imagination!


This made me think of a recent photo I took as I entered Louis's room to check on him before I went to bed.
He'd lined up all these lego mini figures accross the room.
You just never know what you'll find when you check up on him at night.
(click on photo)



This page was made using lots of bits and pieces I had in my little saucers on my desk. Quite a nice way to put a page together.





If you have a page you would like to make for this latest challenge, pop along here.



Today has flown by.
It's been so so sunny. We had a lovely visit to a farm today, followed by a garden centre. We came home and enjoyed being out in the garden. Hollie, Ade and I did some gardening. Hollie has decided to plant up some big ceramic pots and look after some violas she chose. We also had our first bbq this year. A whole chicken on the rotissori (however that's spelt!) I made it rather spicy but it was yummy along with very spicy paella. Yum!!

It's been a really nice day.
See you soon, thanks for stopping by x

We're Back!!!

Hello : )

We've just got home after a lovely week in Dorset right on the Jurassic coast. It's been so lovely and such a great week. Lots of beach time, walks and giggles and tons and tons of photos to go through.

The car is now unpacked, the washing machine on with the first load and the coffee machine on too. I miss my lattes so much when we go away.

Before I go back into the house, I'll leave you with this weeks Sketchy Thursdays Sketch.
I had been so organised with my DT work before going away and was surprised just now to see that this page wasn't on the Sketchy Thursdays blog with the others and then realised I'd entered the wrong date for it *rolls eyes* silly me.

So here's this weeks double pager sketch:



Or if you are like me, you can turn it into a single page LO.



A photo taken on Mothers Day just a couple of weeks ago, using last months Cocoa Daisy Kit.



Washing load #2 ready to go on now.
See you soon. I love holidays, but it does feel good to be home : )
xxx

Spring is Here

I love Spring time!!!



I've just posted this Spring project and tutorial on the Cocoa Daisy blog here.



Hope you like it!!
Happy weekend xxx

Busy Bees

Busy, Busy,
That's what this week is.

To start this post off I have my page I made this week for Sketchy Thursdays.
A few photos of Louis having fun at the Zoo a couple of months ago. It's very interactive and he loves all these bits.





I've used mostly the paper collection from Fancy Pants 'Beach Bum'. I love the bunting which you can cut from the paper strips.



And here is the sketch if you want to join in this week. There's a really good prize again this week.



Now on to my Busy Bees. I mentioned this week that the kids had to dress as bees for school. They were taking part in attempting to break the guiness world record of the amount of people dressed as bees in one place.



The standing record was 1902 and they managed just over 2400. That was the nursery school, Infants, Juniors and Secondry school.
I took some time out to go and watch and I actually managed to see both Hollie and Louis which I was really pleased about. It was such a fun atmosphere.







And the Honey Monster made a guest appearence too.
This was all in aid of protecting the bee as apparently they are dying out.



I have a parent/teacher meeting at Hollie's school now, so better dash xxx

Just loving....

The latest Fancy Pants lines.
Thought I'd share a little of what I've made lately.



My absolute favourite collection of this latest CHA launch is 'it's the little things'. I love the combination of pinks, aquas and kraft. It's girly but not wishy washy. Right up my street.



I've used lots of things from this collection, the design and journal embellishments, patterned papers, rubbons, flowers, brads and new chipboard alphas.



This page is all about Hollie and her 'moments'. She has us in stitches at time. For a bright girl she really has her dumb moments, like recently when she woke dead on midnight, She was so sleepy and got up to the bathroom. I heard her and went into her room to check she was ok, she looked at her clock '00.00'' and said 'oh wow, i didn't even know zero o'clock existed'.



A little cupcake I made for Mum. She's been nagging me for a particular recipe for ages now and as it's on a canvas in my kitchen, I just didn't get around to copying it down for her. So with her Mothers Day prezzie I included this. On the back the recipe folds out and there's a magnet too so it can go on the frigde.
These are the Fancy Pants 'Beach Babe' papers.



And lastly a little project I'm really pleased with.
I picked up this reduced frame some time ago. I knew what I wanted to do but was waiting for the right papers.



I've used these patterned papers from the 'it's the little things' range and the 'live laugh love' is a rub-on from the same collection.
Three handcut hearts, folded and stitched in place.



Now a Sketchy Thursdays page to make.
See you soon and thanks for stopping by xx

Rain or Shine

Happy belated Mothers Day for fellow Mums celebrating yesterday.
We had a lovely day. A visit to a garden centre and a farm when the kids got pecked by chickens : )

The next LO challenge was launched at The Studio yesterday.
This week we are thinking about places that mean something to you:

This weeks challenge is to create a page about a place that is significant to you - What does that place mean to you? Maybe it has great memories or not so great memories. It could be a town, a house or even a whole country.

Here's mine:



Our place we enjoy going to is Mudeford, down near Bournemouth in the UK. It's a little over an hour from us and a place that we go any time of year, rain or shine.
We usually take the camp stove and park up near the grass area. We make bacon rolls whilst the kids play and climb trees. We love the beach here, the boats and the place where we crab. It's lots of fun.

If you have a place that you would like to scrap about, visit the Studio to see what the other members of the DT did with this challenge and link up your page too.

We have a super busy week planned.
We are going on holiday on Saturday so I have everything to plan for that. I have stacks of work to do before too. About 3 DT deadlines, plus Hollie only has school Mon-Wed this week and we have a dress up as a bee day for both kids on Wednesday and a school disco for Louis on Wednesday too.

So without further a-doo, I'd better get back to work.

Lisa xxx

April Fools

Happy April the 1st!!



I'm starting today with the new sketch from Sketchy Thursdays.



I flipped the sketch onto it's side to use.
I used this old photo of Hollie at just 10 months.
It was her first flight. We flew London to Chicago and onto Dad in Evansville, Indiana. She was so so good, even with us having a 4hr stop inbetween the flights. She wasn't mobile but was always content to sit and play. Such a good baby.

I've used some Pink Paislee here from the 365 degrees collection.

There is a seriously good prize on offer this week. A stunning kit from Scrapbook Circle. It's really worth playing along. Take a look here.



So today is April Fools.
Every year Louis likes to do something.
Today he is going to school with a black eye. Not so noticable in the photo though. He has a fake poo in one pocket and I've attached clear string to a coin for him. The idea being that the coin sits on the ground and he pulls it up when someone goes to grab it. All fun.



And here's my Hollie this morning. She looks so grown up with her short hair.



I have a trick or two myself up my sleeve this morning. he he he

Have a fun one xxx