Friends

This post today is dedicated to Friends. Aren't they the best??!!
I love my friends so so much. I like having different kinds of friends.
My sister and my hubby are my best friends, then there's friends that go way back, every day friends and special friends.
Alot of my friends are scrappy friends. I would class quite alot as special. We chat online on our message boards everyday. These girls know more about me and my family than most people. I really really love these girls and really value their friendship.

A couple the sweetest girls in scrapbooky world I know are Diana and Heidi.
They were kind enough to want me to stay for another term at Sketchy Thursdays.
Along with Julie too. Julie makes me laugh. So full of energy, a very positive lady.
So here is the brand new sketch from Sketchy Thursdays this week.



Click here to join in and see what the new design team has to offer : )

My LO this week is all about this special little friendship. My darling neice just loves our little dog. So much so, if Millie is upset or not doing as she is told, my sister calls up and I have to be Poppy down the phone and 'woof'. This sorts out Millie straight away. I do feel very stupid doing this though, but as I love my niece so much : )



These photos were taken last weekend. Millie decided that Poppy needed a 'blankie and tea'.








Yesterday, I was lucky enough to meet one of my special Cocoa Daisy friends Anna.
Anna is a gem of a girl from Sweden. So kind, so sweet. I loved being able to meet her in London yesterday. Thank you Anna for a lovely evening.



Today I am tired, so tired. Ade and I went to London early afternoon and did so much. We didn't plan to, it just kind of happened. Now I feel shattered. It was a great day though.
I've had my lovely friend Steph over scrapping today and tonight I'm seeing 'Mum friends' for a good goss. Should be a giggle, but right now I'm not feeling so sociable.

And talking of bestie scrappy friends, I'm due a call from my bestie any minute. Better go get the coffee on

: )

Lots of love xxxx

I love my fireplace

Doesn't it look pretty?
All decorated for Halloween.

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There's a full post here about it and how it was made.



I'm dashing off now.
A day in London for me with my lovely husband and tonight we are meeting up with one of my favourite scrappy friends Anna. I can not tell you how excited I am. I love Anna to bits. She's a Cocoa Daisy girl from Sweden and is over with work.
Check out her blog and she how talented this girl is.

Have a good day xxx

Happy Days

So yesterday I showed the new Cocoa Daisy Kit along with the October Sketch LO, today I've got a couple of the LO's to show that I made with this kit.
The colours are very Autumnal, so I've tried to brighten the pages up as much as poss. Most of the papers are doublesided with the brighter side being on the other than what was shown in the photo.

So My Leaf Fight LO.
Using 7Gypsies stickers, journal tag and buttons.



A crazy leaf fight in Windsor.




And Siesta.
Don't you just love a guilt free siesta???



I love this patterned paper that I cut the strips from. So many ideas for this Jillibean paper.
And I've just painted over anything round I could get my hands on. I really like this look.



I'm feeling drained today.
More problems at school with Louis. We had trouble with a couple of boys in his class last year and it's become very physical now and Louis was hurt both Friday and yesterday. I'm waiting for his teacher to call me and I just feel sick. I hate all of this : (
But the playdate went well yesterday and Louis is going to start playing football tonight with the nicer boys in his class. The other Mums all feel the same, so I think it will be good for this little group to get together like this once a week.
A bit of team spirit.

See you tomorrow xxx

2 out of 5

Have you seen October's Cocoa Daisy Kit?
Nice eh?!!



Mine finally arrived Thursday morning, 8am. It took almost 3 weeks to reach me. To be honest I'm just grateful it arrived. I was starting to worry that I would never see it.
As I knew it was coming and knew what I was getting more or less, I planned ahead and printed off photos and made notes.
So by the next afternoon I have 3 LO's and a card ready to upload to my DT gallery at Cocoa Daisy.I was really pleased with the kit and have found it very easy to play with.

I created this page yesterday morning. I love how the kit is very Autumnal but I created this bright page with it.



This is from Ronda's sketch which you can see here. It's the October Sketch at Cocoa Daisy. Deadline is 31st Oct and you don't need to use the kit to join in or even be a member. Anyone can play along.



This page is all about how Louis wants to be 2 out of these 5.
Spy Agent, Zoo Keeper, Scientist, Author or Lego Designer.
On the left of the page, I've cut circles out of the pp and then cut in half to create the scalloped look. It's the same paper, just doublesided. I've the cut 2 thin strips from the other papers and layered along the edge.



The thickers came in an addon kit. They were an aqua colour so I painted over them so they stood out better.



And this is the cute stamp that comes in the main kit. I love stamps like this.

From one sketch to another.
Have you seen the sketch this week at Twisted Sketches? If not this visit here. There's a card sketch on there too.
Here's my page from last weeks sketch. So rectro, don't you think. Click the photo if you want to see close up.



I love this photo of me as a babe with my young parents. I find it so scary that Mum was only 18. So young! I particually love this photo as it was taken at my Grandparents pub. They were a landlord and lady right up until I was an adult, so growing up, we were in the pub lots. We were very very close to them and stayed with them lots. We would help bottle up as kids and clean the bar.We loved it! That smell of ale now as you walk past a pub and seeing those old bar mats in the photo at the back are such comforts. I love it!! Strange : )



The kids have friends over after school today. Hollie one friend and Louis two. I plan to make up my own fresh burger mixture so they can shape their own burgers for tea and I've made brownies for pudding.

Have a good day, thanks for stopping by xxx

Pagemaps, Cheese and The Studio

It's Home Sweet Home at The Studio this week.
Here's the challenge:

There's no place like home... create a page featuring your home. Maybe your favourite spot, the flowers in your garden, or even the leaking pipes under the bath. Just make it an authentic snapshot of your life right now!



I love my little bits and pieces that I've collected from various places. Each one holding it's own special memory, to me this makes a home.
This is a dish that I bought in Turkey years and years ago, way before kids on a girlie week away.
And I've used my Studio Calico kit from last month. I love those Sassafras papers.



I've spread the B&Q (home depot)tester paint on with an old credit card. I love this effect.

And now onto Pagemaps. I think the majority of scrappers have heard of Becky Fleck.
Our design team at The Studio got asked to make up some samples for the October sketches. I really enjoyed doing this. Becky's sketches really are good.
You can view all of the October Sketches here and view all our LO's too.
Here's my page.







A lazy one on this rainy morning for us. (After a day out at my sister's yesterday)
A birthday party for Louis at some point, baking brownies, putting away the laundry, homework, some games with Hollie whilst Louis is out and I want to finish a Halloween banner that I started Thursday night. I love Sundays.
Enjoy xxx

A Yummy Sketch

Here's the yummy sketch from Sketchy Thursdays this week. Nice eh?!!
I had something completely diferent in mind. I was actually going to do the larger photo with 3 little ones, but then this came together.



My love for baking and pretty things in pink.
I swpapped the 3 little photos at the side for the 3 little frames instead.



I used a pretty 12x12 die cut page to lay over my bazzill and spray misted with about 3 colours.



Do you like my pink mixing bowl? A Christmas prezzie from Ade last year : )
The majority of this is still leftovers from the Cocoa Daisy July kit.



My Cocoa Daisy kit finally arrived this morning. It took 3 weeeks, all but 1 day to come. Amazing!! It was worth the wait though. I very speedily managed 1 LO first thing and another has been started. I just couldn't wait.

I'm meeting my friend at the healthclub tonight. Fitball class. I think I must be nuts. She assures me it's very relaxing. I actually feeling very nervous, but looking forward to our swim,sauna, steam and gossip afterwards.

Enjoy the rest if your day xxx

Mini Book and New Kitchen

Good Morning,
Lots to share today.
Starting with this little project that I made using the September Cocoa Daisy Kit.
I loved making this latest Mini Book. What I loved most of all was how easy it all came together.



ABC OF OUR FAMILY.
Full details on how it was made are on the Cocoa Daisy Blog here.



And now onto my newly painted kitchen. Yay!!
I'd painted it about 7 years ago a combination of a minty green and a lilac with the wall where my range cooker is a very dark purple. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But it was so dark and over the years Ade and I seem to be collecting pale pink and blue accessories, crockery etc. So it's now all white (with the exception of 1 pink wall) and now all our pink and blue goes perfectly.



This is my favourite part, where I keep my coffee maker : )
(above)



The kitchen is L shaped, we had it knocked through a few years ago.



On the right by the back door is my studio : )
So easy to pop in and out of here and where I spend most of my life.
(photo above)





And the pink wall which reminds me of strawberry milkshake.
Where I keep my favourite recipe canvases. Very Handy.



So, I am very happy. This has lead to me sorting the understairs cupboard yesterday, Ade's junk food cupboard (which if I had my way would be used for something else) and now I'm about to attack the studio, starting with sorting paperwork. Yuk!! I would rather iron I destest it that much. Still, I will feel better when it's done.

xxx

A Scraplift

Hello.
Today I'm adding this LO which I made at Sue's a few days ago.
Nicky and I took a magazine and decided to scraplift the same LO. We've done this before and like seeing what we both end up with.
One of Ronda's LO was in the magazine, so we chose her's.
To see Ronda's LO and the one that Nicky made too, click this link here.

Cocoa Daisy Scraplift.



I used mostly Crate Restoration papers to scrap my lovely husband.
It's a good job I didn't have to upload this LO last week as I hated him. I don't think I could have added it to my blog to be honest.
But I love him again this week.
Don't you just love hormones... I know he loves mine : ) Poor Ade x



The kitchen is finally finished. Horray!!
We called it a day at about 10pm last night. Ade kindly put everything back up on the walls for me, my cook book stand, untensil rack etc.
I love it so much. I can't believe what a difference a new lick of paint has made.
It feels lovely. I baked a lemon loaf cake this morning whilst enjoying my new kitchen. I feel so inspired to decorate throughout now. First the hallway, now the kitchen. The kids bathroom is currently stripped bare, nothing, not a sink or a tile. We now have about 3 weeks though to get that done before Dad visits from USA and I have a houseful. No pressure : )
I would really like to do my studio. It's only been decorated the once, about 7 years ago when it was converted from a garage to how it is now. But as with all building work, cracks start appearing after a few months. It's looking very tired and needs a good lift. The thought of clearing out all this stuff though is very scary.

One last thing I wanted to mention.
Amanda has added my bits and pieces to the new Scrap Rat shop. See here.
And the first blog post is live with some creations from me : )

Thank you.
See you soon xxx
Please go a take a look.

Something Old, Something New

Hello,
Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you had a good weekend.
My friend Amanda has started a new venture.

Scrap Rat

A lovely crafty store specialising in all vintage scrap goodies.
It's very early days still, the online store only went live yesterday and there's still lots more goodies to be added. Please pop over and take a look though.

Amanda kindly asked both myself and the very talented Tessa Buys to design for her.
I then received the most amazing package of goodies to play with.
I have made quite abit already. The frame above was my first project using the script papers, cards, lace and the vintage typed words.



Not only is everything so unique and wonderful to play with, look how it arrives.



Everything comes so beautifully packaged. I had to grab the camera before I started opening it all. It all looks so lovely. Things like the packaging really make a difference I think.
There's also free p&p within the UK and some special offers running right now.
So good luck Amanda, I hope the new venture really gets off to a great start.
Visit Scrap Rat here.

This then leads me to Amanda's other baby, The Studio.
A new challenge was launched yesterday. Scrap your perfect day.
I'm always telling Ade that I would love to take him to New York.
I went years ago before we were together and I know he would love it.
It's such a perfect place for him.
Shopping, coffee shops, a bit of sightseeing.
Visit the Studio to see what the other's came up with and you can join in too.



I'm in the midst of painting the kitchen. I spent all day painting yesterday. Everything is white. I love it. Top coats now, I'd really like to get it finished and cleaned before school later.
Wish me luck : )

I Love Mini Books

I just wanted to share with you today what I'm most excited about this weekend.
This



I've signed up for an E CLASS with the lovely Elsie.
I've been following Elsie for years now. I loved her papers and embellies way back then and adored her scrapbooking books.

I enjoy Elsie's blog daily and reading about her latest adventure. This lady really inspires me. She really does and on a daily basis.

Here's her blog if you haven't come across it before.

A Beautiful Mess

And if like me that photo gets you so excited and gives you the urge to start making and creating, read further here for more information on how to join this class.

Photo Journals

Happy Saturday xxx