Yay~ It's official...

(...well once I actually post the cheque...)

I am going to the Enfield *MEGA* crop and taking classes with Shimelle, Traci Hudson and Debbie Jewell! Yay!! This is on the 26th of May, so not right now but soon!!

I have a list of things to do today and I am feeling so unmotivated. You know those days when you just really can't be bothered. Yes? Well, today is one of them. I cannot be bothered. I have a heap (and I mean heap) of tidying to do. And other jobs. And I promised myself I am trying out for a particular DT place that I R-E-A-L-L-Y want (not that i'm saying I didn't want any of the others I have tried for) but this one is *da bomb* (god, i'm too old to say that, surely??) and I want it. I really want it. So try I will. Just need some super cool ideas now.

Will maybe post piccies later, depending on whether or not I can pick up my motivation... ;)

A little thought.

For this little guy.

Today he has a 'proper' big op on his front tooth... It got cracked a while back and so has left it open for infection. His appointment had come around and he was supposed to go two weeks ago ~ then they cancelled him out. But this morning he was having it whipped out but under anesthetic (sp?)

I know my Sis was supper worried about it all. After Jessica being in hosp. when she was younger and everything. And being put right under is a big deal for a four year old.

So today Georgie my thoughts have been with you. Get well soon our crazy little guy :)

P.S. further proof that I am a drama queen (or not as the case maybe) : Our printer has been out of ink for about two weeks now, which has been fine. I've had some time to do photo catch up... and it's not as if i've been cropping ~ cause all i've been doing is working. Now crop on Sunday... I ask Kev, well email him to print out some fonts in a word docu. I never knew they didn't transfer unless he had the same darn font on his laptop. So he came home tonight with, like 40 pages of this crumby boring same old same old crappy font. Why? Would? Anyone? Think? A? Scrapper? Wants? The? Most? Plainest? Font? Ever? 40? Times???

So I feel like having a *HUGE* drama queen moment. Yes, I do. I am working all day tomorrow and will not have any time what so ever to do it all again. Arse.

Moi? Never!

Over on UKS the new cybercrop chatter is up. I'm not normally a huge cybercrop fan ~ usually I don't have the time to put into the points collecting and all that but this time i'm going to try!

And how apt, i'm a drama queen... :)

I have been creating

Hambly rocks... but sometimes I just look at it and think it's too absolutely spannkingly special to actually use...
My journo'ing isn't so wonky and wobbly... I assure you it is the piccie :)

I am still trying hard to get that jumbled letter look...

There's a tag tucked behing the piccie with some journo'ing on... Just love these photos soooo much!

Hmmmm. this paper wasn't me but I guess it works with the piccie and how I snipped it all...
And yummmmm to the sequins... I love the colour of them.

Thinking of picking off the felt flowers though... they just don't 'go' in my eyes... hmmmm.

Yesterday I was a dying fly.

Before I woke up I felt all yucky and sicky and hideously wretched. In the end I called Kev at work and said he would have to come home and deal with the kiddo's I felt pretty bad. After a long sleep and shower I felt better and not so sick anymore, I managed to go along to crop...

I had three LO's to finish (see above (since when do you ever start anything at crop?? It's all about chatting right?!) And I actually did journo on them and finish them up... I even managed to start a cute little LO with some new basic grey ~ oh where has my basic grey obsession come from??? I never, ever, ever used to like basic grey... but those dinosaurs are super~de~dooper funky!

I'm also in one of those 'pondering' moods. Pondering something i've been reading and wondering about stuff. All in between waiting for pay day, pondering if certain peeps are as true as they make out, trying hard to come up with some coolio different scrapping stuff to add in to some calls i've seen posted about and some little jobs i've heard are floating about... :) Fingers crossed, eh?? And it is the Basildon crop on Sunday ~ which I am looking forward to SOOO much. A whole day of scrapping. Yippppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Hurrah for Four Day Weeks!

With the bank holiday (even though I was working hard!) It means we only have a four day week left AND it's the Wickford crop tomorrow night too :) And this week (so far) I am only working on Saturday although it could all change. I also have the Basildon crop on Sunday, since Jane kindly agreed to run with it, since i'm working alot of the time.


So yesterday, I thought things would be great. No. Emily threw up all over her 'bag' (she goes to bed in a gro-bag) and she was v.poorly. Then Kev announces he's not too good either and he chucks up too. YUCK! Needless to say he hasn't gone to work today but Emily seems back to normal...


And a while ago this happened:


Ben 'lived' in this chair for the first nine months or so of his life. I bought it for Abbeygail before she was born and it has seen through five babies and had a few babies bums in there too. It serves great as a dumping ground for stray socks, pj's and wipes etc... But it has well and truly 'died'... Today i'm going to cut off all the cute labels and some fabric to use on a LO as an ode to this fabby chair. So if anyone thinks £50 is expensive for a m&p bouncing chair. Think again. It was less than £10 per head... :)

My Big Sis's Birthday

On Wednesday night I made this. I didn't really get on with it, maybe it was because I was actually watching Kitchen Nightmares rather than actually whole, heartedly scrapping! But anyhow... I distressed these letters with sandpaper and black ink and then rubbed it off so they were left looking dirty.

I used those fabby old, vintage buttons again. Aren't they just so, so worn and full of history? I just wonder whose clothes they belonged too before they ended up on one of my LO's?

And I hand cut the swirl, which was the same as in the scrapagogo booklet but I was kinda at a loss with this paper ~ you know when somethings just don't work??? But Ben was and still is called Chubb. He was just called Chubb for so long, in fact my kiddo's all have different names to their 'real' names. For weeks after his birth I called him Charlie dog (he had a set of clothes with a little applique dog on called Charlie) and we even considered seriously if we had given him the right name. He did look like a Charlie when he was born. He had super dark fluffy dandelion hair, you know the fine super soft stuff newborns have. I made the decision, after seeing he responded better to Charlie dog than Ben that it'd have to stop and so the Kev started calling him 'fat-boy' (he was a chubby baby tho) and it got so it seemed he was being mean to him, when he wasn't. (You cannot go to the health visitor and say 'fat-boy' as I guess that we'd have social services on our case)... So Chubb-boy was born and it just got shortned to Chubb; which is still kinda unfair because he is in no way as chubby now he's started really moving but it's just stuck. Our Chubb. Hence the weird LO title.

Friday:
Today we all piled into the car and went all the way up to my sisters house for her birthday. Today she turned 39. Today she was pretty ill too.

The poor thing felt v.sick and not v.good at all. So, we had a brief spell at my sisters, a long spell on the motorway there and back and a little boy who cried for seven l-o-n-g junctions because he was just so fed up with being stuck in the car.
And so we came home with nine Easter eggs, a gianormous bar of choccie, three lovely books and a huge, huge piece of fruit cake ~ which I know will be yummy.

Get Well Soon Jill...!


And tomorrow, I start a mammouth working weekend. 5:30am here I come...

Haircuts make you sleepy.

Oh My.

For those of you who actually have been round lately, you'll know Ben has been well over due a hair cut. For those of you who haven't, this is what you would've been greeted by: (and check out the 'moobs')


This boy really needed a snip. Now Emily didn't have a cut until she was gone 2, simply because her hair is curly-ish and didn't really grow that quickly either. But Ben's hair is curly but grows so quickly. He also doesn't really have the option of piggies either :)



So last night I braved it and snipped. Hairdressers are defo out of the question, he won't sit still to eat let alone have a hair cut! So I cut it while he was in the bath.

Basin/Bowl haircut here we come... lol. I will have scarred him for life!

When Emily and I came down from finishing her bath her was really proud of it. He was grinning and pulling his newly chopped locks telling us 'cheese' ... atm everything is Cheese, juice or shuuuusssssssshhhh!

ETA: This morning it looks alot less severe... or maybe it's just growing on me :)

Whhhhhaaaaaaaa hoooo!

See me here!! http://scrapgenie.blogspot.com/2008/03/more-flippin-yummy-layouts.html

Sorry, i've no idea how to do a cool link-y thingie... but yes anyhow. How excited am I??

Thank you, thank you and thank you for including me on your blog!

Bursts of Creativity.

I love feeling like this.

That I just have a mojo and it's working hard. That I can just go ahead and produce. And produce stuff I like. I'm working on the technique (if it is and I think i'm justfied to say, for me it is) of trying to jumble up my letters... I always put my title's straight or around a certain line. Never higgledy ~ piggledy. Well i'm going to try to do this AND make it look like thats how it's supposed to be (and there is the technique) because when ever I do it, it looks as if someone has sneezed alphas over my page. It's something I want to learn to do.

As you can see, somehow I just ain't got it yet... I'm going to keep trying and trying and trying.

This paper is the funkiest, fabby-est, most favouritest paper there is out atm... (although a certain little laydee has put out her special 1 year anni kits!) The sayings on the 'Cogsmo' range are just too cute... Cannot wait to use 'whooops, It was just a malfunction!'

And this paper makes eyelets look useable!!

I have also been eagerly reading Michelle's blog (see the side links) and turning green with the fact she has a macro lens for her camera, be it that it's took her 16 years to get it... It's made me think how much i'm actually missing out on not knowing my camera. I need to do some serious learning with my special little toy. I think i'd be more willing if I had more eager children to sit still for at least two mintues while I got back to snap the shot. Or if I learnt how to switch the flash off and still keep the shutter speed up so the shots minus flash weren't all blur. But most importantly that I actually kept my camera battery charged... (yes, we are charging again... even though I have two batteries)...

As promised...

... here is everything i've been creating lately.

I actually finished two LO's yesterday and the birthday project for my Sister! Hooray... and managed to chat to Ali AND break a chair completely in two... don't ask!

A sneaky peek at a little gift for a ceratin special person...


This LO i've been wanting to do for ages... Paying homage to Charlie and Lola and Pirate Squidbones.



Glitter thickers are the best and smell of yummy glue.

And this little bit actually has short journo'ing underneath, saying 'going', 'going' and 'gone!'...

This was created with the March Scrapagogo kit... Fabric brads are so lush and anything scenic route just is fab...

Check out these cute little self adhesive pearls I picked up at Sugar and Spice...

I know i've scrapped this piccie before but each time I never seem to do it 'justice'... Still feel i've lost it here. The colour are alittle manic.

And I have no idea where the main piccie to this went to. Somehow it's got lost in cyber blogging space. Still here are two little parts of it, again with the scrapagogo kit.



It was entitled 'When I was thin...' which atm is a big thing as i'm so blummin' fat... hence why the chair prob broke.

And i'm working on a cute LO with my fabby Cosmo Cricket 'Cogsmo' range... ooooh it's super delish.

Busy Bee.

This Friday my big Sis turns 39. Well, she isn't my biggest Sis... but she is my big Sis. And of course we are driving up to Leicestershire to see her. I haven't seen her since Crimbo and cannot wait to see her and the kids.

But of course, this means I am bogged down with stuff atm. The kiddo's and work being the main two. Then DT work, submissions and creating a cute little project to go along with my Sis's birthday gifts... AND it's come at the exact wrong time but I am (yet again) addicted to Facebook.

I guess all scrapbookers should have some affinity to facebook, after all it is all about our past ~ isn't it? Well, it is for me anyhow. Yesterday I spent time laughing and thinking about the 'old days'. In April it will be 10 whole years since I left the little village I still hold in my heart as home. Weird because when I lived there, alot of me couldn't wait to leave... But since having kiddo's there is a weird tug on me back to that place which made me, me.

Will post piccie's of projects later!

Feeling Mellow?

I have to confess. Basic Grey, quiet often just isn't my thing. But this range (and I know it's a pretty old one now) is just the best. I am in love with brown atm.

So I have created these two LO's. The house is pretty funky (well, I think so)... just to prove Basic Grey is so much more than just patterned paper for the 'sally scrapbooker'.

Stitching on LO's just is the best. Especially when it's totally freehand...

Die cuts can look super cute!

Piccies just peeking from behind the cut out windows...

And fluffy felt clouds with little hearts 'floating' on them...

And my animal magic LO is just my most fave piccie atm. Emily was just so happy that day.

This funky stamp was one from a previous SoML kit or you can find Sara on etsy ~ she is punkfrog!
Glitter is wonderful ... but I can't help thinking everyone thinks i'm nutty... we are all covered in a chocolatey coloured glitter! Still it made the letters just look lush! The buttons are actually vintage ones ~ in 'real life' they are really worn and even have the old cotton still in them... handy for me as then I don't have to re-cotton them :)

P.s. We have a ladybird living with us atm :)

Clickerty~Clack...

While whirring away on my nice sewing machine last night... I nearly finished my beautiful robot fabric project. A super cute bag. Yes, how funky is it going to be???

But then this happened:

And I had no more of this exact colour either. Bummer.

I had got this far:

I had nearly finshed the handles and had sewed on blue ribbon to them, I was just sewing on the last handle and finishing up sewing on the gorgeous robot trim to the band around the top... when... whirrrrrrrrrrrr. I knew that was my bobbin thread gone. So I refill my bobbin and in doing so, my reel emptied of cotton.

Just as this funky bag was about to be use-able and finished! Luckily I have a super dooper friend who happens to be going into town today and might just manage to collect me two reels of this cotton so I can finish it up tomorrow night.

While a little boy slept.

See how cute this fabric is...?!!!



I did this.



Emily is continually fascinated by my tools and the crafts I do. I am loving the fact she is so inquisitive (sp?!), it does have it's down sides though. That felt pens and paper just don't cut the mustard with her now. She wants double sided sticky tape (or stickers as she calls it) and fancy paper and card and of course any ribbon she can get her hands on.




Most of all this afternoon she wanted to sew. She sat watching patiently for a whole hour the needle clacking along and me pinning fabric. She sat paitiently watching the cotton reel whizzing round. It's a shame it's not finished for her to see what I was making but it's nearly there...



P.s. Robots are cuter than ever!

Sneak a lookie at this...

Yum.

Betcha didn't realise that records (yes, children born in and before the 80's will remember these babies!) make perfectly gorgeous mini books??

Well they do.

And I made this sweet little project in a couple of hours last night. 8 simple pages/records/perspex pages of pure gorgeousness. I loved this little thing! Made using my March SoML add on kit. :) Perfect!

Sad thing is, when I started this yesterday afto Emily was intrigued. She has no idea what a tape is let alone a record. She couldn't quiet understand it was like a CD. My god, it made me feel super, super old.

I have plans.

I always have plans. It's whether they get finished or not thats the question. This time though, plans are well and truly in motion.


I seem to have got my 'thang' back and am well and truly motivated to make a sucess of things. I feel like a million dollars. Ok, maybe not quiet a million. Actually maybe far from a million but, anyhow. I feel good.

I feel good that I am back in control now. Which sounds weird because I was never out of control, it just felt that way. Isn't it weird how having a job, being more than just a 'mum' gives you sooo much more than you could ever imagine? I feel like the 'girl' I was before kids; 'cept I am like, hmmmm 6 stone (yes really) heavier :( That is my next task although I guess it will prove much harder than anything I have ever done before. Giving up food is so hard for me. I love food. I mean like, really love food. But for now I am happy being me again, be it that I feel I am living in someone else's fat body... lol.

I have a long list of things to do this week. Two being apply for another DT position, gotta be in it to win it right?? And then I have a lot of little and big projects kicking about. And these came today...

And I have serious plans for these babies.

Smile :)

I just got the best thing arrive... (ok two good things)
1 ~ the washing machine that should've been here yesterday ... but wasn't came this morning.

AND (and I might add far more importantly)

2~ SoML kit for March!! YAY! I lurve it. And so off I go snapping the box, the whole build up, the beautiful pile of stash inside and guess what? My camera battery dies :( Well, thats ok, I think. But no because some lazy girl did not charge the other battery last time that one died :(

So you will have to wait for pics. And in any case I think they are all sold out this month, so I would only be making you :( that you missed out.

I can tell you now the kits are mounting up and I love it! I love having a whole range and selection of products to use. I just am a stash-a-hollic. But I will tell you what is my absolute fave thing about these kits... The stamps. Just see how gorgeous they are. No where else have I seen such kitsch stamps and cool designs like these. I am building up a collection of them all. ('cept I found out I lost my tape one which I am defo going to reorder next month)

And this little beauty Sara so kindly threw in too... Thank you!!! The bike is super cute!

Last night I worked on a little rainbow book. It was a slow work in progress yesterday, I guess the weekend caught up with me and I was on the phone to my sister for 1.5 hours... just catching up and it's her birthday on Good Friday, so we are all going up to see her. I have no idea what to get her for her birthday, although she did give me a few ideas which i'm going to check out this week. And I have a fabby project idea to make for her :)

One of my h-u-g-e projects is nearly complete. I have another week of waiting around for a few answers and things to come to me in the mail and then i'll be good to go and share the whole idea. I am pretty excited by it all and hope that everyone else is too...! Fingers crossed.

Cute clothes.

Yesterday, between my two shifts we ventured into town... which has to be the first time since December. I can't say I enjoy shopping with the kids. Emily is ok but Ben does have the tendancy to moan ... ALOT!

This is even while they have a treat in MacDonalds. He just does not want to have to sit still at all. But I did mange to buy Emily a nice new top ~ purely for scrapping reasons. Yes, I like it. In fact I love it. BUT It is covered in tiny red mushrooms and I have a fabby stamp I have been dying to use on a LO. So while Ben slept til 9:15am this morning Emily and me got the camera out and took a few snaps of her in her new top. If you're not a scrapper you'll think i'm mad, sad or both but you scrappers will understand.

I got Ben a cute shirt too with a skinny Greenday-esque tie. Yes, I know it's soooo impractical and I doubt he'll even keep it on just for pictures. But it was the most cutest thing i've seen for him in a long time. And it has a cute little skull and cross bones tag which will be cannabalised once he no longer fits into it... :)

And here as promised is a revised snowman, looking alittle more finished than he did before...