It was the Best Week EVER!!

I've harped on about it before I know.
But the week that Ade and I spent in LA in 2013, on our own, meeting up with the CD girls at CHA really was the best week ever.
I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

I'd printed off a few small photos from the trip some time ago and they've just been sat in a dish on my desk, so when this April Cocoa Daisy Kit arrived and I saw the blues, I thought it was time to scrap these photos of the best week ever.
It was the first LO that I scrapped using this months new kit.

 

The papers are perfect right?!

The heart paper and the cardstock, along with the leaves & alphas are from the main kit. The clouds and kraft paper are also from the main kit and are exclusive CD papers. You can view the kit in full here. It goes on sale tomorrow.

 

 

The small alpha stickers were from last months kit, I just coloured them in with pen so they matched better. The circle was drawn using a tea plate as a template.

 

And a close up of the piccies from the best week ever.

I would love to go back again. We keep talking about it, but it was just so perfect, I don't know if it could be recreated again. I don't know.

 

 

I hope you all had a good Mothers Day yesterday. We had fun. A visit to a garden centre, fed some Koi and dinner at the local pub. It was fun : )

 

Wishing you a very happy Monday xxx  

 

Hosting a Girlie Dinner Party

Firstly, Happy Mothers Day to all you Mums!!

Being a busy Mum myself. I have a 14 and 12yr old and I run my own business. I work very long hours. I made a promise to myself at the start of the year that I was going to make an effort to see my friends more. Once my youngest started senior school in September and the school runs stopped, I found that it was easy not to keep up with friends like I used to.
I make sure that once every couple of weeks I take a break during my work schedule to meet with friends and have a coffee.
This week I hosted a girlie dinner party for 5 of my favourite girl friends. They didn't all know each other that well but I knew that they would all get on.
I wanted to treat them all to some lovely food and table treats and make them all feel special.
It was so much fun.
For me personally, I love all the planning.
I sent each of them a little invitation.
I made the invites using the Prima Instascrap cards here.

The dinner party went down really well. I was so happy to spend such a lovely evening with these lovely ladies. I dressed the table beautifully.

 

 

 

 

I made sweet little table favour/place settings using old jars, washi tape and tags (and blossom from the garden)

 

 

I used the washi tape from my March and April Cocoa Daisy Kits.

If you would like to make jars like these, I have a full tutorial here.

They are great as little vases and I also use them as tea lights.

 

 

And I made lovely food all from scratch to treat my friends.

 

 

 

 

I really want to recommend these Cheesy Pretzel Bites that I made to go with the homemade tomato and basil soup. They were amazing. I love baking and I think this has to be one of my all time favourite recipes. I found the recipe on Pinterest here.

 

 

 

To go with them I made a normal rich tomato and basil soup.

 

 

To jazz it up a little I made the most delicious cream cheese and basil ice cream. I know it may sound a little odd, but the creaminess and cold of the icecream in contrast with the rich hot soup was so good. I urge you to try it. The great thing is that when hosting a dinner party, both the soup and the ice cream can be made the day before. 

 

If you have an ice cream maker, here's the recipe that I made. I was inspired by this sweeter recipe here.

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• a good couple of hands of fresh basil

• Special equipment: an ice cream maker

Blend cream cheese, milk, sugar, and salt in a blender until smooth. Transfer to a bowl, then stir in cream. Freeze cream cheese mixture in ice cream maker. Transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden, at least 2 hours. Let ice cream soften 5 minutes before serving.

I highly recommend an evening like this.
It was so much fun to treat and spoil my friends and it made a lovely change to play in the kitchen and cook for people that really appreciated it rather than kids that moan at you as it has 'lumps' in it : )

I'm doing afternoon tea next month and I'm already planning.
Enjoy your Mothers Day all you lovely Mums xxx

 

Turning 39

The years are flying by.
I don't feel old enough to be in my last year of my 30's.
I feel too young and silly.
I like playing pranks and being rude.
40 sounds so grown up!!

Anyway, I was 39 on the 19th March so I scrapped 3 of my instagram photos from this day.
I got asked to make a LO for the Cocoa Daisy newsletter using just the April Kit paper addon.
Here it is:

 

It's one of those LO's that I feel really happy with. It's it's all come from 3 pieces of patterned paper. No embellishments, no alpha stickers...just paper.

 

 

 

 

A cake made by Louis and Ade, a new dress and a decorated sitting room with lots of prezzies and cards.

 

 

But the best bits of the day.....Louis had drawn me the first picture in ages and Hollie let me walk to school with her. (although she did tell me not to get used to it. It was a one off!!) 

 

So that's my LO and that was my 39th birthday.

Thanks for letting me share it with you xxx

 

Upside Down

Good Morning,

I scrapped this story recently about Louis wanting to go on his first 'upsidedown' rollercoaster back at Disney in 2012.

 

I used a new sunshine mask from Tim Holtz which is my new love. (the mask, not Tim)

There are some really cool masks if you click that link and I want them ALL : )

 

 I've put together a little step by step over at Papermaze today on how the LO came together.

It's all about using Project Life style cards in different ways.

 

Here is the story.

 

 

And Louis before we started to queue.

 

 

Right, I have to dash. We have an away footy match this morning and should have left already.

Enjoy your Saturday xx

 

 

 

Cocoa Daisy April - Playing with Glitter

Hello!!

I have some sparkly fun for you today.
In the April Cocoa Daisy Main Kit comes a little bag of gold glitter with teeny weeny golden stars.
I thought I'd add some sparkly touches to some cards.
I've been so rubbish with card making lately, so I'm trying to get ahead of myself.

 

I used the cards that come in the 'Day in the Life' Kit.

 

I have a step by step process here  and some more piccies if you want to see.

Just a little warning....you get a little messy : )

 

 

 

Lots of fun!!

 

I hope you have a fun day xxx

 

 

 

A Hint of Sunshine Sneaks

I've been having a lot of scrappy fun in my studio.
My April Cocoa Daisy kit arrived on Friday and within 48hrs I'd scrapped 3 LO's and 4 cards.
This kit will go down as one of my all time faves.

Here are my sneaks:

This makes me happy : )

You can see the other sneaks from the other DT girls here.
The full reveal will be on Friday 9pm EST here.

Enjoy your day xxx

A Number, a Splat, a Clip & a Word of Wisdom

That's Sharmaine's challenge at Cocoa Daisy this month.
Can you add those to a LO?
If so then link up your page to the challenge here and you could win $10 to spend on Cocoa Daisy goodies.

Here is my LO that I made.

It's a combo of the Feb & March Kit
The number being the number of years we celebrated being married on Friday.

 

I used a black Maya Mist on my wooden '7' and coloured in the Elle's Studio alpha stickers in black and the 'year' were taken from the October Afternoon alphas, I drew around them lots of times. All from the March Kit.

 

 

The 'You are so Loved' stamp came from the Feb Kit. It's so cute!!

 

 

Today we are celebrating my birthday. March is a busy month.

Not doing too much. Working and currently eating a broccoli, cashew & cranberry salad whilst I type. But the kids were sweet today. They got into bed with me this morning, Louis did a drawing and Hollie let me walk her to school. It's been years!! She told me not to make a habit of it though, it was a one off : )

 

I hope you are having a good day too xxx

 

 

Sneaks 'n' Stuff

There's lots going on at Cocoa Daisy right now.
Some I can share....some I can not : )

I can share these amazing sneaks for the April Kit.

I can not wait for this kit to reach me.
I was terribly greedy this month and have requested the whole lot.
The kit and addons were so irresistible.

I can also share that a couple of our Mandy's have left the team sadly : (
But we do have the very sweet Piradee who is joining us.
You can read more here.

And something else, we are starting a new monthly Project Life Challenge which you can see here.
That should be fun : )

The rest....you will have to wait and see.

Hugs xxx

OLW - Dream - (with mega give-away)

I have a little treat for you today.
Are you ready??

For those of you who follow the OLW challenge blog. You may have noticed that Februarys challenge got missed. Ronda hasn't been well for a while, but the good news is that she is back : )
Not only is she back but she's back with prizes.

We are making up for lost time at OLW. Not only have we got a challenge for you, but we now have 2 challenges plus prizes.  Each of us on the team is doing a give away. Cool eh?!
All you need to do is play along with us.
You can see the actual challenge on the OLW blog here.
You just need to be inspired by the 'one little word' and upload your LO/Project to the OLW blog. Easy!

So the words are: DREAM & CALM

I'll start with Dream.
I got sent some very lovely Simple Stories paper from a very sweet friend this month and knew instantly it was going to be a mini book.
I've now made a Disney Dream Book.  Everything we dream for, for our 2014 trip (207 days to go!!)
I'm so pleased with this.

It's quite a tall mini book and something I will continue to fill in these next few months before we go. These Simple Stories - Say Cheese papers are just so perfect!!

 

I'd had some personalised ribbon printed as a fun family gift at Christmas. At has 'The Abbott-Saunders Family printed on in Disney font with Mickey Heads. So I used some of this on the book.

 

 

The book is full of layers, all the pages are different sizes with something fun on every page.

 

 

Some favourite photos from the previous 2012 trip.

 

 

I used my new Mickey Punch quite a bit on this : )

 

 

We plan to be here on the first morning of our trip in October.

We are hoping to book breakfast with Winnie the Pooh which will give us early entry in to Magic Kingdom.

 

 

Everything is now booked and paid for. I've documented everything that has been booked.

 

 

 

Some journaling of our dreams for this trip.

 

 

 

 

  

Yay!! My Mickey Dreams Book!!!

And now for my Feb project :Calm
This was a little art therapy when things were a little crazy last month.

We'd love you to play along.  Just add your word inspired work related to Dream, Calm or both to OLW here.
Please leave a comment here when you have played and I will pick one lucky winner who will win this little lot.
There are 6 Cocoa Daisy Stamps plus Alpha Stickers, Lots of Journal Tags & Stickers, Wood Veneer, Doilees & some Chic Tags Goodies.
 

All the other OLW team members have give-ways too, so take a look here.
I hope you feel inspired.

Thanks for stopping by and good luck xxx