First Date

It's our 8yr anniversary of our first date today.
I used my August Cocoa Daisy Kit to make him this.

A tiny little mini book using the Fancy Pants papers from the main kit.

Just a quick and simple book with a few snapshots of us.

 With our favourite ever memory being in LA this January.

And the back of the book.
There are more photos of the inside in my Cocoa Daisy gallery here.

We are taking my niece and nephew home this morning and then heading out for a childfree afternoon. We are going to Bristol for the first time for a wander and some lunch.
Our first ever date was the movies 'War of the Worlds' and dinner at Wagamamas where Ade introduced me to Japanese Noodles : )

Have a fab day xxx

Travel and Explore with 80 Days

It was the Cocoa Daisy reveal last night.
I totally love this kit, infact I've made so much even with getting 2 addons, I've almost run out.
I did make 2 mini books though (one of which is huge) plus LO's.

I made this LO journaling to the kids how much Ade and I love travelling and how fortunate the kids have been with the lovely places we have taken them to. I do hope they have our travel bug. I know Hollie does already. Bless her, she had her first visit to the States at just 10months old and the second time she was 2 and Louis was in my tummy : )

CALCUTTA ADD-ON

The Calcutta addon comes with a pack of cute Fancy Pants paper bags. I used one to store my hidden journal tag. The tag in a vinyl wooden vaneer and comes with the main kit. I wasn't sure how well it would take to pen, but left to dry and was fine.

You can see more of the kit and the addons here.
It goes on sale to non subbers on the 1st.

xxx

An ickle bit FIERCE

Hello.

I've had this one sat on my desk all week waiting to be finished.
I grabbed a few minutes and did the journaling this morning so now I can finally share.
The inspiration came from the OLW challenge blog.
This months word is 'FIERCE'.

Can you tell how much fun I had with this?
I opened up a lovely new set of inktense pencils for this LO.
I used a dinner plate to draw around with the pencils and them went over with a thin paint brush and water.
The title is hand drawn and cut out.
The bits and pieces are 'MME' Take Note card & Pins, Jillibean butterfly and Studio Calico wooden chevrons. The journal lines are all hand stitched.
You can visit OLW here.

 
How's the summer going?
We finally broke up from school on Tuesday.
Louis got the Gold Book Award.
Each class has one award per term. As the classes are kept together throughout Junior School this means that out of about 35, they get 12 chances to get this award.
We are so proud of him.

 

 

Hollie also got the award when she was at this school : )

 

Talking of Hollie, we had some blue flashes put through her hair on Wednesday.

 

 

She is getting older and more grown up.

She had friends sleep over Wednesday night and they took the train in to Reading yesterday to go shopping.

They woke up yesterday morning to freshly baked strawberry muffins.

I love them being home.

 

 

I hope you are enjoying your summer.

Lots of love xxx

 

 



Princess Dolphin & a Sketch

I'm going to start with a bright and fun one this week.
It's Princess Dolphin.
I don't think that's her real name, but that's what Hollie and I called her.
Isn't she pretty?

We were at SeaWorld and Hollie was in a very fun and happy to be photographed mood. So you have to just make the most of it whilst it lasts : )

This LO is for the Sketchbook365 challenge. It's the new August Sketch. See here.
Love this sketch!!
You can click that link to see what the other DT'ers did and the prize that's up for grabs too.

 

I hope you are enjoying this lovely weather.

Smelling the nivea sun lotion and after sun each day just reminds us of Florida : (

446 days to go....

 

Speak soon xxx

 

Cover Girl

I'm a little bit excited today : )

I'm on this months cover of SCRAP365.
How cool is that?!!

Here's a LO that I made for the 365 Sketch Blog a while ago, that I never ended up posting here.

 

We took this photo of Louis as we entered Universal Studios in Orlando.

 

 

Hollie is off to the Alton Towers theme park with school today. I dropped her off at 5.45am.
Louis had his leavers bbq and disco at school yesterday. We are almost at the end of term.
Louis and I are going strawberry picking with friends after school tonight and off for coffee and cake after : )

Have a delightful day xxx

80 Days

That's the name of our August Kit.
he he he he ....and I have it already : )

I love this kit so much.
Fancy a sneak?

 

Cool eh?!!

 

It goes on sale on the 1st August here.

And the addons go live on the 28th July.

Exciting!!!

 

I have a big project planned with mine that I plan to start later today and it has nothing to do with travel either.

I can't wait to get stuck in.

 

Have a lovely day xx 

Crazy Times Ahead

I've been meaning to finish this LO here all week.
Today I finally sat in the garden with my needle and thread and added those final finishing touches.

It's been a while since I played along with OLW.
I adore these challenges and find the team so inspiring.
I haven't had chance to be as creative as I would like recently. Work seems to be taking over everything, but these past few days I've been pushing myself to find some creative time and I feel so much better for it.
I need it.
The word this month is 'CRAZY'. I instantly thought of my mad family.
Dad is due over next month and life just goes crazy for a few days whilst he's over. The journaling reads:

the time has almost come. dad will arrive from the States and the rest of the family will join us. Our 4 will become 11 for a few days. There will be lots of laughter, rude jokes, noise, late nights & early mornings as we will want to spend as much time together as we can. There will be picnics, late night snacking with movies, fun days out, games, catching up & just being together. My family are mad. These few days will be crazy. bring it on!   

 

I used a gorgeous pp from Glitz for my frame. The days of the week paper is a Cocoa Daisy exclusive. I made my own tag and added a fabric Cosmo Cricket brad. The alphas are foam grey thickers which I transformed using my fingers and acrylic paints.

The finishing touches before adding the journaling are some inktense blocks.

 

A very therapeutic page for me to make.

 

If you are interested, here is the OLW challenge blog.

There is a DT call until the end of today.

 

And before I head off to help Ade with the bbq. This was me getting creative again this morning in the garden whilst Ade dug the flower beds : )

 

 

Enjoy the last bit of your weekend xx

 

Hook, Line and Sinker

It's been one of those weeks.
Full of ups and downs.
Hollie turned 14 and we had a really good day.
Louis had his last sports day before he heads off to 'big school'.
4 races with 2 2nd places and a 3rd. He didn't do so well at the skipping race : )
We are in to our 2nd week without a fridge/freezer. So not funny in this heat.
The maintenance guy is now booked for Tuesday to fix it.
It's great having the insurance as we would have needed £1200 to replace it, but they've messed us around abit : (
There's been some other crap too thrown in that I won't bore you with.

My August Cocoa Daisy kit landed yesterday though. Yay!!! I have so many ideas spinning right now.

I've still been enjoying the July Cabana Kit though. I've just put up a blog post for Cocoa Daisy showing different ways how we've used the anchors in the kit.
Here's my LO.

 

I documented how Ade and I got together in the summer and that the summer always feels special to us. 

There are some other great examples of how some of the other CD Girls used theirs here. 

If anything it's worth checking it out just to see Ashley's page. I think it's my favourite LO of the whole month.

 

Not quite sure what we are up to today. The kids are both at sleepovers and due home in a couple of hours. Despicable Me 2 was planned but it seems too nice outside to watch a movie.

We shall see....

 

Enjoy your Sunday xxx

Celebration

I was really excited last month when we got told that Cocoa Daisy would be working with Becky Fleck's Pagemaps this month. I'm a huge fan of Becky's sketches.
You can see my sketch that I was given along with some of the other designers work on the Cocoa Daisy blog today here.
Using my July Cocoa Daisy Kit, here is my LO.

 

I'm so happy with this LO. It's funny how you have that feeling about certain LO's.

This was such a lovely afternoon. There is a residential area in Disney, Orlando called 'Celebration'. It's like the perfect place to live. Beautifully kept, picture perfect homes, a small lake with lovely walks, quaint shops along the waterfront with cafes. It's just lovely. We had a quiet Saturday afternoon away from the business of the parks. Just wandering, enjoying the wildlife on the lake and stopping for ice cream floats by the lake and luckily there was a little arts and crafts fair on too. It was a really good afternoon and definitely a place we will visit again.

 

 

 

I love the summery colours in this kit. They were perfect for my photos. It still seems strange thinking how hot is was and it was just before Halloween : )

Those sparkly Thickers in the main kit are fab and that Elle's Studio patterened paper that I used has to be an all time fave of mine.

The blue circle was made using the stamp from the main kit. There are the words in the centre 'You Are My' but they didn't fit with my page, so I added a Studio Calico Cork Sticker which came in the 'day in the life kit' to finish it off and it worked perfectly.

 

If you also love sketches, I really recommend the Pagemaps Blog.

And by clicking here you will also see the fab Cocoa Daisy contest that is running right now.

 

Thanks for stopping by today xxx

 

  

Using Up Scraps

I feel so much happier in myself this week for finding some creative time.
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment on my blog. It really means a lot.

I got my fingers messy this week too. That felt so good. It had been a while.

I've posted a whole step by step piece over at Cocoa Daisy today showing how I turned my leftover July Kit Scraps from this.

To this.

It's all here with photos and instructions.
Please let me know what you think.

Thanks. Have a lovely day xxx

Breakfast in Seaworld

I've had a real scrappy urge this week. Not much time, but I treated myself yesterday.

I'd planned to play along with the Cocoa Daisy July Sketch Challenge anyway and printed off my photos yesterday morning. You can see the sketch here.

I then carried on working. Louis finished school at 3.15 and should be home around 3.30pm.
It got to 3.45 and he still wasn't. I know he chats with his friends, but he's only just started walking home alone and I keep telling him to come straight home. I've also told him to only ever walk home the one way. So that if ever he's late I can walk that way and no where he is.
So 3.50pm, I looked up the road, no sign. I grabbed my phone and went looking. The second road. no sign. I then called one of the Mum's who's sons he walks with, her son was home but was late. I walked on in her direction. No sign of anyone. I was now feeling really sick.
I called another Mum, her son wasn't home either. At least I knew they were together, but they don't live near us.
I was started to feel sick and shakey wondering where on earth he was.
Ade then called and said he was home.
He'd walked part of the way with the other friend and came home a different and longer way arriving after 4pm.
That was the worst 10/15mins of my life.

  After lots of hugs and a serious chat I turned to some scrap therapy.... and a glass of wine.

 

Half an hour later I'd made this. It seriously helped calm my nerves.

(the photos and papers etc were laid out ready)

 

 

I loved this morning at SeaWorld. We arrived early as we'd booked a 'behind the scenes tour' which was amazing. Touching sharks and stroking a penguin.

This breakfast was so good. Sat outside in the sun nice and early. With lattes, muffins and cookies.

See the black and white cookies dish in the photo. We'd bought a couple back in 2007 when we got married. We stopped to watch the Shamu show and Ade went and got them for the kids (the dishes are killer whales). But we hadn't found them again. So we were excited to find them here and bought a couple more, The kids still love those dishes.

 

 

I've used my July Cocoa Daisy Kit, Cabana.

It's now on sale here.

There's a fab free postage offer on right now too for all countries.

 

 

In honor of the 4th of July holiday we are offering
FREE shipping on all US orders of $75 or more and all Canadian/International orders of $1

25 or more. Just use the appropriate code at check out:

Domestic orders: USA4thFREESHIP
Canada/International orders: INT4thFREESHIP

And the best part is that we have a few July kits and add ons still available - in fact this month's kit is perfect for recording your 4th of July (see how we timed that)! Check out the selection: http://bit.ly/14ry4qD

Hurry, this offer is only good now through midnight Eastern
the 4th!

 

xxx

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Scrapping

It's hard to believe that it's summer right now.
I'm still taking a hottie to bed most nights and it's raining outside....again.

But the talk is summer over at Cocoa Daisy tonight with the reveal of the new July Kit 'Cabana'.

Here are my kit sneaks.

The kit is so summery.
You can see more sneaks here from my fellow CD teamies.

And here is the sneak of the kit which goes at sale to the non subbers on the 1st July.

 

I'm so thankful to these kits arriving each month.

I can honestly say, that work is just so busy right now, if it wasn't for these gorgeous kits landing on my doorstep each month and me having to do no thinking , I don't know if I would be scrapping these past few months. 

Christine takes all that effort out for me.

 

So as you've probably guessed by my poor blogging, work is busy. It feels good though. When you work for yourself you have to be grateful for this and not moan.

I'm tired though.

This weekend however, plans got cancelled so I figured I'd planned to take time out anyway, so Hollie and I are painting her room. We have white and teal paint and some black chalkboard paint too : )

 

I did make a few cards this week. I blogged for Cocoa Daisy yesterday. You can see here.  

 

 

And I also made this LO earlier this month for my 'Just for fun' Cocoa Daisy challenge.

 

 

This challenge is about lifting my own style. You can see the full details of how to play along here.

And if you want to join in with the reveal tonight. It's 9pm EST here.

 

Have a fab weekend.

Hugs xxx

Family Treats

Hello : )

I'm still here, or just about anyway.
I have to except I think that I don't scrap or blog well during my busy work months.
I should just be happy and enjoy the moments that I do get instead of stressing about it.

I did mange to do a LO and 3 cards this week.
I still had so much of my June Cocoa Daisy kit left and it's so beautiful this month that I couldn't just leave it sitting there.
So today I have put together a new blog post for Cocoa Daisy all about using frames on our work. What they do and different ways to use them.
I have used several pieces from different Cocoa Daisy designers so please come and check it out here.

As a taster, here's my piece.

 

 

All about our favourite family treat.

We go to our local hotel 'The Village' and get wings and fries. We take our Florida Books and ipad and plan our Florida trips .In the summer we sit outside and in the colder months we cozy up near the fire. We love it here.

 

I also made some cards for this blog post which are on the Cocoa Daisy blog today.

 

Thanks for staying with me during my busy times.

Have a great day xx  

Mixed Media Art Class

Good Morning.
I'm really excited about this next class that I'm teaching in Swindon.
I was actually sad to leave the canvas behind at the store : (

It's a large canvas 14x20'' and has fab textured and layers. It looks worn and loved.
You can choose your own quote to go on it. I picked this one from Walt Disney.

The class is on Sunday 7th July in Sparkle Dreams in Swindon.
You can see all the details here.

It's going to be a fun and very messy one : )

You are my Happy Place

Quite easy to guess where that place is if you know me half well.

It's Magic Kingdom.
I love this photo of the sun setting over Cinderella's Castle.

I used my Cocoa Daisy Kit for this page. I do love a pop of colour against the craft look.
This months kit is so full of bits an pieces.  

I've just put together a whole post of Project Life inspiration over at Cocoa Daisy.
You can see it here. Lots and lots to see.

I hope you had a good weekend.
A busy one for us. Some gardening, lots of working, a roast beef dinner and some kids activities thrown in too.

See you soon xx 

Giving you a Taster of Candy Shoppe

Yes, it's the 1st of the month which means NEW KIT!!
Yay!!

'Candy Shoppe' is the perfect name for this months Cocoa Daisy kit.
It's so sweet.
I love the sugary sweet summer tones which this month holds.

You can see it in full here.
I picked the 'Pixie Stix' addon and also the 'Candy Dots'. They just all work so well together. I've mish mashed the whole lot up this month giving me one huge kit to play with.

 Here's what I've made so far.

Lots of the addon 'Pixie Stix' here.

I wanted to tell the story of when we went on the Dumbo Ride at Magic Kingdom.
It was pretty lame and we all agreed when we got off. A Cast Member came around as we got off to go through a survey with us to hear what we thought about the ride. Louis scored it 8/10 on all accounts say ing how good it was. When she left we were confused and asked him why he's said that. He said that he hadn't wanted to hurt her feelings : )

I'm really struggling with taking photos. My favourite camera broke a couple of weeks ago : (
So I had to use Ade's big SLR this month and I'm not so used to it, so this is a combo of the SLR and instagram.

I also made this little card for a special 'bride to be'.

 It's a mixture of the Main Kit and the Pixie Stix addon.

I'll show my other LO tomorrow. I also made another LO last night that still needs the journaling and I have more planned and a mini book too.

Love this kit!!

This week has been really busy.
The kids have been off school and I've worked loads and have been getting over a cold too.
Tues-Thurs I started work at my desk at 7am and worked until almost midnight just trying to keep up. All meals were placed infront of my at my desk except for Thursday. I did whip up a quick cake as Louis and I went to a friend's in the aqrftrenoon with other friends. We had a lovely lunch and I did take work with me too and carried on again as soon as we got in. She kindly gave us a doggie bag so the family got fed that night and I reheated her noodles and ate at my desk again that night.
 I love Elma's wonderful Indonesian cooking. I'll change that to 'we all love Elma's Indonesian cooking'. : )

Kids are now out til this evening, so it's back at work for me again now.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a super weekend xxx
 

Remember Me????

Hello.
It's been a while **blush**
Thanks for sticking with me.
I am so snowed under with work right now and struggling to fit anything else in right now.
I finally created last week when my Cocoa Daisy kit arrived.

Here's the proof.

This latest kit is so summery and pretty. I love the colours.
The full reveal is tonight where you can see our full galleries and all the goodness of this fun kit.

 http://www.cocoadaisy.com/forum/index.php


I taught a really fun class at Sparkle Dreams on Saturday in Swindon. I started the day with a sore throat that then went in to a full blown cold by the evening. I'd forgotten how lousy colds make you feel. I ache so much and feel so tired despite sleeping most of the weekend : (
Back in to work today though, no time to feel sorry for myself.

I hope you had a good weekend.
Thanks for stopping by today.
Lots of love xxx

We have a Winner!!

We do have a winner from last weeks Cocoa Daisy Inspiration Day.
Thank you to everyone who popped by.

Everyone who left a comment was printed off and folded up and I let my youngest pull one from a pink bowl. The one picked is Katie.

  ScrappingKatie 

Please email me your details Katie and I'll pop your prize in the post : )

lisa@funkyfairies.co.uk

Have a lovely weekend everyone xxx

Cocoa Daisy Inspiration Day & Blog Hp

 

Hi! Welcome to my stop on the Cocoa Daisy Day of Inspiration Blog Hop!

You should have come from Kim’s blog.

 If you’re starting here, be sure to go to the Cocoa Daisy blog and check out the rest of the team’s bags!

Here’s my Maya Road hip bag

I used loads of Maya Mists on my bag and applied Jenni Bowlin acrylic paint dabbers from the Daisy Boutique with my fingers. Waiting for each colour to dry before starting another.
I added a big bow (which is the May Arts Ribbon from the April Kit) and some brads too. A couple of pins on the front are very special as they are from my fellow teamie Sharmaine who gave them to me whilst we were in LA.

 And because we ended up having more fun than we thought, we’d like to give a

chance to alter along with the Design Team. Hip bags will be available in the store

come the June kit. Pick up your own to alter and we’ll have the DT vote on a winning

bag. More details will follow!

I’m going to be giving away this Cocoa Daisy bundle.

I've been collecting bits and pieces from my kits and have so many bits unused.  Here are a whole load of stickers, brad packs, embellishment packs, Teresa Collins Sticker Notes, MME Stickers, Wooden & Chipboard embellishments, tags, doilees, glassine envelopes and some exclusive Cocoa Daisy Stamps too. All brand new. I've still got some more kits to go through so will be adding more to this bundle.

 

 

To win these goodies, please leave a comment on my blog and follow me if you don't already and if you LIKE the Cocoa Daisy Facebook page and let me know, I’ll enter you a second time in my drawing! I’ll be closing the drawing on Monday the 6^th of May at 8 AM EST.  One lucky winner will be randomly drawn. I’ll announce the winner here later that week.

Good luck!

I hope you’ve been inspired by my bag!

We have been really busy at Cocoa Daisy lately and would like to say thank you to all our Daisies and celebrate our wonderful hobby with am Inspiration Day today on International Scrapbooking Day.We have lots going on at Cocoa Daisy today.
Chat, challenges, RAKS, games and tons of inspiration.
Come and see here and join in on the fun.

Here is the full blog hop list:
1. Alissa Fast

2. Anna Bjorkland

3. Ashley Calder

4. Denise Morrison

5. Emily Pitts

6. Jaime Warren

7. Jody Ferlaak

8. Kim Stewart

9. Lisa Saunders

10. Mandie Pierce

11. Mandy Koeppen

12. Mandy Kay Starner

13. Sharmaine Kruijver

14. Stephanie Wheeler


Now it’s on to Mandie Pierce's blog for my inspiration.
xxx

A Day in the Life - May

I am loving all this sunshine and blue sky business lately.
I hope it stays around for a while.

I've been keeping up with Project Life.
Go Me!

I got the Cocoa Daisy 'A Day in the Life Kit' this month.
It's soooo good and jam packed with goodies. Exclusive Simple Stories/Cocoa Daisy cards, word stickers, embellishments and exclusive Cocoa Daisy Stamps too.

Here's what I made.

 

I love these stamps!!

 

 

And some bits added from our travels this week.

The Day in the Life kits have reduced postage and no added postage at all when bought with a Cocoa Daisy Main kit by the end of the 3rd each month.

I've put together a blog post on Cocoa Daisy today showing the kit and how we on the DT used it this month. Come and see here.

Thanks xxx