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

 

That Silly Pink Shrimp - Pink Paislee

Hello : )

I'm designing for Papermaze today.
Remember that Valentine's banner that I made last week?
Well today I have a LO to share using the same Pink Paislee - Secret Crush collection and the Artisan ribbon.

You can read the full blog post at Papermaze here and there's a card too.
Thanks for stopping by xxx

I'm so Dizzy, (my head is spinning)

Happy Sunday to you!!

I have a funny head.
I woke up with it yesterday.
I was supposed to be displaying my wedding stationery stuff at a friend's wedding open day at her hair salon yesterday, but woke up with the room spinning and feeling so sick.
After going back to bed, I did get Ade to drive me and I set up and left it all there.
My head is still really odd though. Every now and then the room just spins or I feel in a completely in a giddy daze. Really strange.
But apart from that all is good : )

I have a LO to show here today from the Scrap365 sketch blog.
I love this months sketch which you can see here. I can see me using this one again.

I'm totally in love with the Scret Crush collection from Pink Paislee.
I printed this photo of Ade and I that Louis took of us on the beach at Anna Maria Island in Florida in October. I love the colour of that sea. It was about 5pm and the sun was starting to set.

I used one of the Pink Paislee Photograms that I hadn't used on my valentines banner shown in my previous post. Along with some of the matching Photo Frames. Love these!!

After meeting the girls/owner at the Chic Tags stand at CHA, I came home and placed an order with them.Their products are sooooo good. I found the postage really good from the US too. I placed a good size order and the postage was just $8. You can see the tags I used on this page here.

I also used the Cocoa Daisy Arrow Stamps with the Prima Chalk Inks and Ronda's Pie Chart Mask.

And whilst I mention Ronda, have you seen she has a new website?
Take a look.
I just love this bright site. I think you will love it too : )

If you fancy playing along with us at SCRAP365 you have until 15th March to upload your sketch here.  One lucky winner will win some XCUT dies.

I hope you are having a lovely weekend xxx

Pink Paislee Valentines Banner

Hello.
It's been another busy week.
So much going on.
I wanted to show this that I made this week though using some gorgeous Pink Paislee Papers, Die Cuts and Frames that I was sent from Papermaze.

My Valentines Banner

I love decorating my fireplace and this banner is perfect this month.

 

I used the Pink Paislee Artisan Ribbon to attach my wooden pages to. (just plain old clothes pegs)

  I covered the large wooden pegs in the Secret Crush papers and sanded them down for a smooth finish and attached some hearts from this paper.

I printed some of our fave Orlando photos in 8x8cm and used these fames to show them off.

The pack of Die Cuts are so cute and you get so much in there. I have loads left in my pack.

I'm so pleased with this and can see it being there for a few weeks now.

We have friends over for a Valentines themed dinner party tomorrow evening so I've been busy decorating.

So much fun.

Have a lovely weekend xxx

There's No Such Thing As Luck!!

I've had stuff this week that I've wanted to blog and share but this week has just been a whirlwind.
Work has gone crazy and I mean crazy.
For those of you that don't know I have a wedding business that I run from home.
Funky Fairies
I started the business back in 2003. The last couple of years have been quieter and at times I felt quite defeated. Money became tighter, I cut back and had no one working for me, but I didn't give in. I've worked hard, pushed myself, revamped the website, come up with new ideas, pushed my scrapbooking and teaching too and now I'm busy again just like I was back in the earlier days. January this year feels like it should be summer with my volume of work I have.
I'm so relieved.

I have found though that over the years I'm not taken seriously with what I do.
As I always do the school run and seem a very organised and bubbly person I think people see me as having a little hobby where I earn a few extra pennies.
What they don't see is my alarm set for 4.30/5am daily (sometimes earlier during peek summer) working 7 days a week until 10/11pm rushing to take kids to school, throwing ingredients in the crock pot when I get in at 8.30am so dinner is sorted for that night, grabbing kids from school at 3pm to come back and start again, stopping for dinner and starting again once the kids are sorted for bed and working all evening and weekend too.
(With all the mini breakdowns in between as I'm tired, stressed, frustrated as upstairs is untidy as I live with 3 messy people and feel sometimes like I run a oneman show.....only Ade and the Kids have the pleasure of experiencing this *smile*)

And then over the years I have heard this said so many times ''That I am lucky''.
Lucky because I work hours to suit, lucky because I haven't had to worry about child care, lucky because I've never needed to miss a school event, sports day etc due to work, lucky when I bought my brand new convertable a few years back, lucky when we've had lovely holidays to nice places.

Luck doesn't come into it though. It's all down to hard work. Hard work and determination.
This is something I feel real strong about and try and drum into our kids.
You get nowhere by sitting still doing nothing. You have to work at it to achieve.
That's where the inspiration came for this recent canvas I made.
It's hung in the kitchen to remind us all.

DREAMS DON'T WORK UNLESS YOU DO
(click to enlarge)



And on that note I shall get back to work : )
Have a fabby weekend.
Lots of love xxx

Shy Girl - Crazy Girl

Morning,
I just wanted to share this page with you as it's up on the Papermaze blog right now.
I started it ages ago when I cropped at my friend Sue's and then finished it off with some fresh energy just recently.



It's all made with Pink Paislee. I love these pretty papers. I think what I really love is that their collections are so feminine and girly, but not wishy washy and pastely. They have struck a good balance for my liking.



The page is all about my Hollie. She's worn glasses since she was 4. Now 11 and it's a daily argument : ( She hates them. I see all her personality and confidence strip away as soon as she puts them on. The fringe (bangs) come over her face, she doesn't look anyone in the eye and shys away all the time.
I just don't know what to do.
She takes them off and she's a different child. Because of the problems she has, contact lenses aren't an option and we've been told that if she continues not to wear them her poor eye sight will continue to get worse and will be very expensive for her as an adult and plus her lazy eye will come back.
She really doesn't want a wandering eye as a young adult, does she?!!
But at the age of 11 she only see's the smaller picture and thinks she knows best *sigh*.





So, I'm back around 5pm with the start of The Studio Blog hop.
If you are planning to join in or want to have a nose, we start here at 5pm - 4th March. Lots of prizes and lots of fun and it runs over the weekend.

Catch later xx

Hurry Hurry

A quickie from me today as I'm not feeling so good.
I did mean to post ths latest Sketchy Thursday sketch though. So if you haven't already seen it, there it is above.



This is a page that I made at my friend Sue's recently. I had ordered a good stash of Pink Paislee from Papermaze and had so much fun. The papers, the mists are so very me right now.



And I love how Ade captured Louis running in this photo. That boy is always in a hurry. He runs rather than walks and that generally results in him falling over, running into people and things, hurting himself and knocking things over. He just never learns.



Papers, journal card, rubbons, all Pink Paislee. Beautiful huh?!!



Thanks for stopping by xxx