Blueprint Sneaks

Hello.
I hope you are enjoying your Christmas break.
Did Santa visit?

We've been having lots of fun.
We are child free over night, so I shan't be hanging around here for too long.
I have a latte and a date with Jack Bauer waiting ; )   (we are starting series 6 tonight of 24!!)
We know how to live life.

Anyway, my January Cocoa Daisy kit came just before Christmas and 4 LO's, 2 cards and a PL page later, I have some sneaks for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The full reveal is tonight at Cocoa Daisy here.

8pm EST.

 

Enjoy your evening x 

 

OLW #78 - Magic!!

Magic is such a fantastic word!!
Especially this time of year.
There's so much magic to be felt in the air.

That's our word of the month over at OLW.
Here's what I created, inspired by this one word.

 

I concentrated on this time of year and how the magic still works for us.

 

 

It's surprised me speaking to friends this month, now we have children at senior school, how many have forgotten the magic. We know our kids must be 'non believers' although in our family it's never been discussed, but the odd secret smile exchanged gives it away. But we all go along with it in our family and to me, the magic is still there.

I'm so pleased that Louis still wrote to Santa this year and I love that they still want little notes in their advents and still want to sprinkle magic reindeer food outside on Christmas Eve.

It is the most magical time of year and I'm glad it still lives on in our home.

 

 

I used a fair bit of Pink Paislee on this page left over from projects earlier this year. I love those wooden alphas. I inked mine, used some Tattered Angels Glimmer Glam and some stickles.

There must be sparkles and glitter wherever there is magic.

 

If this word inspires you too, please come and play along with us at OLW here. 

 

Have a magical day xxx

 

 

 

Framed Work

Do you often frame your work?
Sometimes, I get a piece of patterned paper that is just too nice to be used on a LO and then stuck in an album. Certain papers need to be on display.
This was the case when I received this piece of die cut 12x12 by Pink Paislee in my Cocoa Daisy Dec Kit.

I did a whole blog post for Cocoa Daisy yesterday, show how some of the girls on the team used theirs. There were some really good ideas. You can see them all here.

So as I mentioned already, I used mine as a framed piece. It's a gift for my sister.
I took this old frame.

 

Sanded it down a little, washed it with gesso and added some red acrylic paint on the end of my finger and marked the frame with it here and there. 

You can see the distressed look of the frame here.

 

 

I've added photos of my sister's children, some ribbon and a stamp from the main kit along with a badge from an addon.

 

 

I really hope she likes it.

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by xxx

 

Documenting December

How's it going with the Christmas Scrapping?
I struggle with this every year. However this year I may just have found a way that works for me.

I have a blog post all about it at Papermaze here today.

And my story.

 

I know I'm odd. I just can't help it : )

 

On that little note I shall leave you and wish you a good day xxx

Sketchbook365

Have you seen the last sketch of the year from Sketchbook365?
You can see it here.
It's such a cute sketch.
My take on this sketch was featured on the SCRAP365 blog here.
SCRAP365 sent me these wonderful Websters Pages goodies to play with from the Family Traditions collection.

 

 

 

 

The closing date to play along is the 13th Dec and the prize is sponsored by Websters Pages.
You can play along and find out full details here.

Thanks : )

We are Officially Counting Down

Yes we are!!!
We broke the news to the kids at the weekend when we were out for hot choccie and cakes.

We are so excited!!
Trip #4 and it gets more exciting each time we go.

Another LO made with my December Cocoa Daisy Kit.
I used quite abit of the Day in the life kit here too.

I tarted up the Maya Road Chipboard Alphas. Got glitter everywhere : )

This is my take on this months Cocoa Daisy Sketch.
You can see the sketch and challenge here along with Mandy Kay's take too.
Love this months sketch.

We've just been out Christmas Tree shopping and purchased some more outdoor lights too. We did our usual of stopping off at 'jacks fish and chips' after and having chippies in the car : )
I love our little traditions and love that I'm married to someone who loves this season just as much as I do. Makes me happy.

Enjoy your day xxx 

Laugh

Louis makes us laugh so much.
He is such hard work still at almost 12yrs, but does make me laugh so much.

I loved the Teresa Collins packaging from some embellishments that came in my December Cocoa Daisy kit. It has 'Family Stories' at the top. So I covered up the 'Teresa Collins' bit on the left and used it on my page to tell a 'Louis Story'.

 

We were looking for a small dolphin gift to take home for our friend Stephen whilst we were in SeaWorld. It needed to be small inorder to take it home on the plane.

So Louis picked this one : )

 

 

  I used the 'NOTES' stamp which you can see here. I can see me using this stamp a lot.
Handy for all kinds of projects.

I used lots of pieces from the 'Family Time' addon here to make this page. The Teresa Collins sticker sheet is FAB!!! And I love the Lilybee badges.

 

If you would like to see the other projects the rest of the design team have made, you can do so here.

 

A couple more Louis stories.

We've been watching 'Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here' with the kids this year (recording it to watch the day after). I was making Yorkshires with Louis on Sunday after we'd seen the one where Mo didn't like her dinner as there was too much oil.

So I show Louis that you have to put oil in the pan to make the Yorkshires and get it nice and hot before you add the batter. He piped up so genuinely 'But Mo doesn't like oil!!'. 

**rolls eyes**

 

And my latest favourite Louis moment, last night.

I was in the kitchen with Hollie last night, she was working on her Christmas Cake decorations and I made snowmen cupcakes.

Later when I was on my own Louis came over to me. He must have heard us talking girlie stuff.

He put his hand carefully on my back and said so lovingly ''Mummy you are doing so well''.

So I asked why. ''Because you have your period and haven't even been angry yet''.

What can you say to that coming from an 11yr old boy????

He makes me laugh.

I hope that I'm prepping him to be good husband material at least : )

 

      Oh and here are the quick snowmen cupcakes I made last night.

 

 

Just a quick lemon sponge with a cream cheese frosting. I added some marshmallow fluff to the frosting. and split a big marshmallow for the snowmen and dusted with icing sugar.

Not so great for lunch boxes : )

 

Well have a lovely day.

I hope you are feeling the Christmas spirit a little already too.

xxx

 

Ovada Art Exhibition

Yesterday we took a trip to Oxford.
My brother had some art being exhibited.
We met my Mum, her hubby and my Nan there too.
We arrived. The exhibition was tucked away in Oxford city centre in old old warehouse.
It was so cool.
The buildings were stunning.

 

So, my brother along with some of his Uni friends were exhibiting here.

 

 

The building inside was a piece of art in itself.

 

 

Ryan here had made his own medium. It started off being the same weight as himself in this white studio. He spent the whole weekend working and experimenting with the self made medium.

 

 

I loved Nancy's piece.

All these pieces of art are little maps of her day to day trips. Each one has been date stamped from when she took the trip.

 

  

 

Then upstairs on a little mezzanine level was my brother art.

It started on a piece of glass details on the Aids PEP treatment. How it works. 

 

This was his piece.

(the day was National AIDS Awareness Day)

 

 

 

There was an ipad with a short video along side it.

The video was of a naked person. My brother Gareth had painted the HIV virus spreading throughout the body. He then used the wet wipes (used in the art piece) to wipe away the paint, representing the P.E.P anti HIV medication and the virus being wiped away.

 

 

He's sculpted his own hands and made little red Aids Awareness ribbons for each person to take away.

I was really impressed and feel so proud of him. A lot of thought has gone in to this.

 

Here we are with my brother. Hollie, me, Gareth, our Nan, our Mum and little Louis.

As you can see, Gareth is the only one to get any height in our family.  (I'm 4ft10 (146cm) I have hopes for Louis still : )  

 

 

We then went off for lunch in Oxford.

We had such a great day.

 

 

Dressing Up

I'm a little behind my blogging.
I had a few nightmare days last week.
My pc died....again. just 11 months since the last time.
Thankfully everything is always backed up but it's the inconvenience of it all.
Ade rebuilt it for me, but as always, things are never as straight forward as they should be.
Then my big printer that I use for work wouldn't work and I kept getting the same error message coming up.
I really thought I was going to have to get a new one.
Thankfully Ade ended up fixing that too.
6 days later, after working from the lounge room, from a laptop,  I finally moved back in to my studio and then had so much work to catch up with. Thank goodness it's not my busy time for work.

So I do have a few projects to share here.
The first is a fun step by step tutorial that I put together for Cocoa Daisy this week.
The December Kit was launched on the 26th Nov.
In each main kit there is a really cool set of Maya Road Chipboard Alphas.
I love messing around with anything like this.
So as a design team, we each showed off this week what we did with ours.
You can see them all on the blog this week here.

I got really artsy with mine and put a step by step tutorial together here showing how I dressed my alphas up.
They ended up looking like this. But all the stages of the making process are on the CD blog.

     

 

I loved putting this together : )

I hope you like the tutorial.

Happy weekend xxx

OLW #77 - Grace

Hello,
Today I'm here with OLW. (One Little Word)
Our word this month is GRACE.

Here's how I used that word on my LO this month.

I used this months Cocoa Daisy kit with some older Cocoa Daisy thrown in. It always feels good to use up some older stash.

 

And it's all about how Hollie graces our lives.

I don't know what I'd do without her.

 

 

I keep an old pocket dictionary for projects like this. I tore out the 'g' page which had the word 'grace' on and cut it into a heart. The arrows are pointing towards to word grace.

 

Please go and see the other creations from the OLW team here.

It's such a creative team and not just LO's either.

We'd also love to see your work, so come along and link up to us.

 

One last thing before I get back to work, as it's Thanks Giving this month and it falls on the same day as the Cocoa Daisy Reveal, we will be having the reveal on the 26th this month, not the 28th.

 

See you tomorrow : )

 

SN@P!

Hello and a Happy Monday to you!!
I hope you had a good weekend.
I'm stopping by today with a Project Life double page.
A very colourful one at that.

 I've just blogged for Papermaze with some hints and tips when using the Simple Stories SN@P! cards. You can see the post here.

I'm surprised I've stuck at PL. I've been going out it since April and I love being able to look back through the album.
Who knows, maybe I'll even manage a December Daily this year???
It'll be a first if I do.

See you soon. xxx

A 1hr Mini Book

Hello.
It's all speedy mini books today.
How fast does it take you to make one?
I used to give up part way through as I lost interest, but this year I've totally rethought the whole mini book process and can make them in under an hour now.

I did this during the Cocoa Daisy Crop to show you how quick they can be made if you are organised.
I went from this:

 

To this in under an hour.

 

 

 

My theme is how I love Fall with my husband.

We love cozy and this time of year is just perfect for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is just a little taster, I have lots of photos over at Cocoa Daisy here along with full step by step instructions so you can make one too if you like. (in under an hour remember!)

 

Whilst I'm talking mini books, check out Jody's here. It's so different and so cool.

I just LOVE it!!

 

Cocoa Daisy have a special offer on right now.

For those that start up a subscription or renew their's this month  get a free addon.

Take a look here for more details on this fab offer.

This months kit is such a fab one to start with. I have made 10 LO's, 5 cards and a mini book (with 2 addons too). Love it!!

 

 



 

I hope you are having a good day xxx