Sooo tired

Kristin Cronin-Barrow Quick page

After dog sitting for Laura's dog last night and then working with a really difficult class today (some very challenging behaviour *sigh*) I am way too tired to do more than a quick page with the only photos I could find on my pc. My Father in Law's birthday some 20 odd years ago.

No time to play

Today (and tomorrow) I have been called in to do some supply work so no chance of playing in my scrap room. Although tiring it was a nice day to go into school as the children were all doing plenty of activities to celebrate chinese new year, ending the day with a visiting troupe who demo'e some chinese lion dancing. So today its just a quick digi LO and to wish everyone Fung Hei Fat Choy.
Again lots of freebie brushes to make my own background.

I've just discovered that Prima hybrid have a forum...and a blog...and a gallery. I think it was just me but I kept loading the site and then getting lost. I didnt find it very easy to navigate for some reason. And even though I managed to register with the forum when it first went live, I could only ever end up in the shoppe. I desperately wanted to go join in the opening party but guess what ...I finally found it tonight. And its all over done and dusted. So now I'm off to see what else I've missed out there.

Inspired

Inspired by reading/looking at the beautiful work on Vera Lim's blog this morning I fired up Photoshop and had a go at making my own backgrounds using a huge selection of brushes. (I finally found where I had stored them all on my pc). Its no where near as good as Vera's work but I am quite happy with it as a first attempt.

My own homemade background, and a variety of 'bits' found on the net free.

Today both Martin and I are off work. But we cant think of anything to do. I've told him at this rate we will have to join the Heritage group and start taking coach trips out like proper old people do. In the mean time I am on here and he has settled for 'Homes under the hammer'. I'm going to drag him out in a moment to go book some theatre tickets, Treasure Island is playing at the Marlow next month and Dad excited over his new found toy on the hearing loop, wants to go.

That wedding album

I didnt get called to do any supply today and since I had managed to catch up with most of the housework and shopping I had a bit of a lazy day.

Dad is feeling better and recovering from his 'man flu' (mum just had a cold) so they came over for a coffee, and then I took myself out to post two job applications and take a look round the local hairdressers.

I hate hairdressers. I dont mind the hair cut. I have the kind of hair that will look a mess whatever disasters or brilliance any qualified person with a pair of scissors can come up with). No its the 'small talk' with strangers, the intimidating atmosphere in the actual saloon. So I avoid them like the plague, and usually use one of those mobile hairdressers at my parents house. Except she has been under the surgeons knife twice in the last 6 months and still recouperating. My hair was last cut in September (if you dont count the hacking of the fringe in December) so is long overdue a trim.

Well I looked.... and thats as far as I got. How do they justify the price of a 15 minute trim??? So next time I am off, I may get really brave and go offer my head as a model.

I spent the rest of the day tidying up my scrap table and washing all my cutting mat, messy mat, and table. Now minus glue I can safely get on with the LO's for the wedding albumn. Today's Lo is a bit of a cheat as it is the second half of a double LO. I did work on the first side though as I decided I really didnt like the photo that I had accidently managed to get repro herma on, so I took the photo off and redid it, with a different photo. There are quite a few singles that need making into doubles so I could be doing those for a while.

Chatterbox papers (theres a surprise) E-Z rub rubbons and papermania ribbon

A doddle!

Today it was Martin's day off. Today he spent the entire day sitting in Kelly's cold house with a stinking cold waiting for her boiler repair man to come. Who didnt turn up!

I got to go do supply in Ashford, a good 26 miles away.

So happy faces all round today.

But I am keeping up with LOAD 2 and still having fun. This is another for the wedding album (who's idea was it to take so many photos??)

Chatterbox paper, Heidi Swapp flowers, Provocraft Madeline Plain alpha's coloured with
pink sukara suffle pen, and some little gems.

Template

My lovely and talented padder mate Andrea wanted some guinea pigs to try out her new template. Its fab and this was the fastest Lo I have ever put together!
The kit was a freebie called Pastels from this site http://lemondedejuly.canalblog.com/

Load II day 2

I cant believe how many extra visitors I got just by signing up to Load II. Thank you for the nice comments. At the moment I am busy trying to finish a paper LO using the challenge rules but as I dont think it will be finished in time for today, I have done a quick digi LO. It doesnt quite meet the weekly challenge as I have used 2 pattern papers, but its still one I like.

The film strip embellishment is by Deanna Patterson from her Wintersnight kit but I have
changed the colour in Photoshop

Load II

My own cardstock background, pattern paper by Nanine (Romance kit)
hearts drawn with pen (heart brushes)

On scrapbook-101 they are hosting LOAD II, a chance to continue were LOAD I left off. Now the first challenge said to use one photo, one sheet cs, one sheet pp and one pen (no computer) I am hoping this last bit is not right or a lot of people who digi scrap will be left at the starting blocks. Anyway here is my first LO for Load II

Oh no he isn't!

Its been a busy few days, with supply work making me very much in demand. I finally managed to get a few days off and used them to catch up on the housework and washing.

Last night we got time off for good behaviour though to go to the local little theatre production's annual Panto. When the girls were little, it was the high light of the year, and part of Martin's christmas was to queue up for the matinee performance tickets from half 5 in the morning. Yes it was THAT popular. First saturday in December would see most of the town lined up waiting for their complimentary tea and toast breakie as they waited for the box office to open at nine and start dishing out tickets.

It was made that popular by our local Doctor Lee and the two evil henchmen. Wonderful actors who made the show what is is. As the girls got older, and with Dr Lee takeing retirement both from doctoring and acting, and dad no longer able to hear what was going on, we stopped going. We havn't been for some years, but Kelly has a new found interest since her friend Hannah started taking part in the products. This year she invited us and her grandparents along. She even got Grandad to try out a hearing loop (with great success may I add). And whats more, Dr Lee was back taking his usual part as the dame, and the two henchmen after a years lay off were also centre stage.

It was brilliant, with lots of traditional audiance participation (Its behind you!) songs old and new (even a Take That hit) a script that, as usual, had little bearing on the original fairy story of Sleeping Beauty, plenty of awful jokes and a gun that squirted most of the watchers in water. However the thing I found the funniest, and the best was the way the cast got round some very silly Health and Safety rules.

We had all been agast and dismayed to hear in our local rag that this year, throwing sweets into the audience for the smaller observers was to be prohibited. Apparently one theatre had recieved a complaint from some old lady who had been hit by a flying missile - sorry I mean candy. So in its usual heavy handed way, authorities had banned all those taking parts in Panto's this year from distributing unhealthy teeth treats from the stage. Stupid. One more sign of a world gone mad. Yet our fun was not to be dimmed. If the cast cant throw sweets, then simple, lets get those people sitting in the front row seats to chuck them about instead!!!

Anyway it was a good evening out and the only thing missing was Laura who I wish could have come too.

So BPS Load of this class is over. I amazed myself by keeping up and learnt a few new digi tricks along the way. Here are the last few LOs.

Joanne Bain kit

kit from Kim's designs (Kim Broedelet) called Loveable,
and is a scraplift from Carol (Croppy) on her design team

Keys

Following on from the lost passport saga (you may be pleased to hear tracking reckons the replacement will be with us in the next 72 hours) poor Laura phoned me up yesterday, just after I got in from doing a days supply to tell me she didnt have her car/house keys. She was still at work and stuck as her car had never had a spare key. So having just driven from Canterbury I had to go back again, fighting the rush hour traffic and the failing light (I am a hopeless night driver) to pick her up and take her home.

Luckily this morning her keys magically had appeared on her desk so a bit of a mystery as to where they had been but alls well and all that.

I am getting lots of supply work at the moment and really enjoying working in the school I am in right now. The house is a mess, there is no food in, and the washing is creeping out the bathroom door since we werent here at the weekend. Mmm, no I dont need full time work do I?

I am slowly attempting to go back and add all the credits to my BPS LOAD LO's - not easy since I have some stuff on disc and some stuff on the hard drive, but I will get there.

Blogger doesnt fancy my photos tonight so watch this space for more BPS LO's

London

Just come back from spending the weekend in London. The family had clubbed together to send hubby and me to a show(Lord of the Rings) and overnight stay for my 50th birthday and this was the weekend they had booked.

We drove up, yet despite having planned out the route on multi-map, and borrowing Kelly's A-Z we still managed to get lost looking for the hotel. It took us nearly an hour to find our way around the rabbit warren of roads near Tower Bridge and even when we did spot our hotel, we couldnt get to it as the road was closed for roadworks, so it involved another go around Algate to find a one way street going one way in the right direction.

So in the end we only had time to drop our suitcases in the room and dash back out to grab a London black cab to the theatre. By saving on messing about walking to undergrounds, changing tubes etc we then had time for a drink and sandwich in a pub before the show.

The performance was really good with fantastic special effects, although there was a bit of licence with the story line to fit it all into 3 hours. It was the matinee performance though so lots of kids but the audiance was very well behaved. Some of the younger children got a bit upset when in the second interlude some Orcs came into the stalls and scared them. The only two dissapointing things were the price of the ice creams in the break and the fact that no one seems to dress up to go to theatre land any more.

We had exchanged some Tesco vouchers for deal tokens to use at Planet Hollywood but it was too early to eat when we came out, so rather than go back to the hotel and then return for our dinner, we wandered into Covent Garden and watched the street theatre. This was almost as good as the show, so we dug deep into our pockets at the end to fill the guy's hat. Well deserved.

Planet Hollywood was packed and it was a 2 hour wait until we were seated. I think if we had not had the Tesco vouchers we would not have eaten there as we could have got the same food for half the price just next door in the TGI Friday. But you live and learn.

We did try walking around after that to take in the sights and atmospher but London is so much more crowded now then when we used to go to the West End in the '80's and after being knocked aside for the fifth time, Martin could see I was getting a bit stressed by it all and suggested returning to the hotel.

Here is a little note for Sir Ken Livingstone though. We had paid £8 for the cab to Drury Lane, we looked at the underground (and aside from it being dirty, scruffy, uncomfortable and involving at least one change of line to get us back) the tickets were going to cost £4.50 each! So Ken, what is the point in a conjestion charge if its more cost effective, quicker and more comfortable/convienient to take a cab??!??

Anyway a big thankyou to the girls, my parents, son-in-law, Wayne and Martin for a fabby weekend. I really enjoyed my present.

I would love to put some photos of the hotel, the theatre, the street show, on here, but this morning we walked over to Leadnam market where I went to take a few more pics, only to have my card come up saying reader error. When I finally sorted it out, all the photos from the day before had been wiped.

And just to proove how expensive London can be - even though we already had our tickets and hotel paid for:

£3 - park car until restrictions ended
£10 cab plus tip to Theatre Royal
£19 two drinks and sandwiches each in pub for lunch
£8 two ice-creams and bottle of water in theatre
£10 drinks waiting for table in PH (I was only drinking soda!)
£10 service charge and bit over the money I had in vouchers for meal
£10 cab back to hotel
plus the amount of shoe leather we used looking for an ATM that wasnt going to charge us £1 to get some cash out!!

Instead here are my last few days entries for the BPS

Kelly in dad's garden
Background by me,flower elements Colours of Tuscany from Jen at Chaos Lounge

Kelly Michelle
A quick page by Shabby Princess

Another Shabby Princess Quick page

Kez under the tree
Barbara Schiefer Christmas Nature kit
Bauble from A-liya
Chain from Jane Atwell
Atomic cupcake action

Saga of a passport

In 4 weeks time Laura and Wayne have booked to go to Goa in India. This trip (quite expensive even though out of season) is their treat to themselves for all the work they did building their house. They are really looking forward to it.

Of course such a trip isnt as easy as jumping on a plane to Spain. It requires visa's and injections and such. So Laura went to dig out her passport so they could start preparing. Visa's apparentley take 2 weeks to come through and they only have 4 weeks, time is ticking. Except Laura couldnt find her passport.

Now most people would be able to say - well I used it last when I went to ... I know it must be in the house someplace. But for sometime Laura has been living between 3 homes. She has needed her passport for her CRB check with school, another one for Christchurch, to replace a driving licence as well as their last trip abroad. It could be anywhere. So we have all been on the hunt, but with no joy.

With no more time to look, she got her dad to get her a replacement passport form (which have to come from the main not the nearby sub postoffice) rushed off some photos and got Wayne's brother to countersign it. Then yesterday we were to take it into the post office for checking and posting post haste. Only Craig hadnt got the wording on the photo right, the photo wasnt showing all her eyes anyway, and some of the form was filled in wrong. So we took a trip into town to nab Laura at work to put things right. After wasting an hour and a half for her to come out of her teaching lesson, a new form was handed over. This time we decided to get my friend jan to countersign it. So last evening was spent pleasantly over a coffee and catch up natter while Jan did the deed.

Hopefully (fingers crossed) it will all be right now and we can send it off today. Hopefully the passport office will be quick, and RM efficient. Hopefully they will get their passports, their visas, their injections in time and wing their way off to far off lands!

Some more LO for BPS.

This is this weeks sketch for pencil lines. I knew it would be perfect for Kelly's wedding album which I still have tons of photos to do but had put aside while making christmas cards and stuff. Back to that chatterbox, but I hand cut the florish!

And a really quick one using some Automic Cupcake borders plus a kit I downloaded free but which didnt have any credits on it, its called Moments.

The one where I do some mother/daughter bonding, spend in the sales and ..oh yes, scrap!

A busy weekend.

I dashed into Canterbury early Saturday as I had heard that Wilkinsons were selling cheap plants, where I nabbed 5 raspberry canes, a blackberry bush, runner bean, pea and sweetcorn seeds plus some plant labels and a pair of gardening gloves for the princely sum of £14 ( I spent more than that on dad's raspberry canes alone last year!). I then remembered that I would need something half decent to wear to the theatre when we go next week.

Now try as I might it is just not easy to squeeze into a changing booth with raspberry canes and runner bean seeds in tow, even if I did loose 1.5LB at WW this week. So home again to drop of stuff and (following a quick visit by mum and dad) off out down to Westward Cross and a bit of a browse through the clothes sale racks.

While in Canterbury I had seen something I liked in H&M but not in my size so that was my first stop. OK not very upmarket but it wasnt a bad little dress for £20. Have you noticed just how hard it is to buy a dress? I mentioned before how few there were in M&S? No? Well in a whole 2 story shop full of ladies clothes they only had 3 dresses! One was bright orange!!! One was so low ALL my bra was on show, and one not in my size. So I was really pleased to find a dress even half suitable. I like wearing day dresses, much more comfortable and no worry about things matching, or having no waist so they gap or fall down. But it seems that they just dont sell them. I went in several shops were there were no dresses whatsoever.

So I was in cowpat heaven when I walked into Peacocks and discovered that for half of one wall there was nothing BUT dresses. Yeah ok. They were all very similar in colour and style, but I bought another two!! A new short jacket, a couple of cameo tops, a new pair of shoes and a top also found their way into my basket. Sales are brilliant, and if you wait for the crowds to die down there are still plenty of bargins to be found.

I was just about to plough into the handbag and jewellry sections when my mobile went off ... and then died. No one ever phones me. So I jumped back in the car and rushed back to see Laura - who had spent the entire day pulling her house apart looking for her passport. She needs it for her visa and to go to Goa in 4 weeks time and as it still hasnt turned up, panic arrises.

Today I took Laura back into Canterbury where we spent a pleasant hour mauling all the goodies in Jane Norman. Wayne's mum had bought a rather expensive jacket in there for Laura's chrissie pressie but it didnt fit her, so we had plenty to spend. And spend we did. And nattered, and had coffee and a brilliant morning.

Finally more BPS stuff.

Colours changed in PS but elements from Little flower Douceur au Caramel

Busy because of illness!

Inner child kit by Rachel Bohall Desighns

With all these nasty viruses going round at the moment there has been lots of supply work on offer. In fact I had to turn some down today (one school have been so impressed with me they actually asked the agency specifically for me).

As much as I love teaching Reception and as much as I rarely get offered that year group I just couldnt do today. My poor baby herself has got the rotten flu thing and has been off work since Tuesday. That in itself wouldnt have been enough for me to turn down the chance to earn a few pennies but she inadvertantely took some medication that she forgot she is alergic to. It causes her to halucinate. And now the doc has told her she cant drive. Although she is feeling better, she cant go back to school just yet and is feeling really down about it. So I am off over to see her where I am going to attemp to teach her to sew!!

In the meantime I have also been shortlisted for two interviews - fingers crossed. I would love a permenant job as suppy is just sooooo hard. Especially when they keep phoning up at 8.25 am!!!!

Some more stuff for the BPS - sorry I will get all the credits and upload as soon as I can.

Quick page by Gina Hoff from Weeds and Wildflowers

Holly elements from A-liya kit

Colours of Tuscany kit from Jen at Chaos Lounge

Keeping up *Pant! Pant!*

Gosh doing all these LO's for BPS is a real marathon. I am keeping up - just, but it has meant time for blogging updates has been lost to Photoshop! Added to the fact that thursday and Friday I was called in to supply a lovely class of children in a school a bit of a hike away. Which gave me the opportunity to try out the new Ka car some more. Still no photo as now it has been on its two day cross country rally through all that torrential rain we have just had, it needs a good clean.

As well as digi scrapping and teaching, I have been trying to source some red striped and checked homespun material in order to make some soft toys from a brilliant book I have just got from Amazon. They are all christmas type dolls and bits and I really want to have a play but finding the right fabric has been a bit of a problem. I have finally found something not quite what I wanted but near enough on ebay and am now waiting for it to arrive. Watch this space should I be successful.

Today Kelly and Ollie had invited themselves for a roast dinner, so yesterday since Martin was home I dragged him around Tesco before rushing off to collect Laura and Wayne who had asked for a lift to the pub. They were off to a wedding and were meeting all the other guests there, but didnt want to drive. It has been a bit of a busy time for Laura as Wards had chosen the same weekend to hold an open house viewing of their house in hopes of getting a sale.

Now here is a cautionary tale - remember to give clear instructions when asking for something to be done!! I had promised that I would hire the Rug Doctor carpet cleaner and clean Laura's carpets for her on Friday, going halves on the cost and doing mine while it was out on the 24 hour hire. Work took presidence though so in order that Laura could get on with the job as soon as she got in from work herself, I asked my mum and dad to pick up the cleaner and take it to Laura's house. What I forgot to say was not to collect it until late afternoon so that I could do my carpets on Saturday and take it back late Saturday afternoon. Dad collected it at 10 in the morning. Meaning it had to be back by 10 on Saturday. So Friday became a marathon carpet clean in and Saturday we were up early to take the thing back. Still it has made an amazing job of them. We have been using them on a regular basis for some years but even I was impressed that it managed to remove all the oil that has spilled out of the deep fat fryer when it fell over in the pantry.

Anyway on to my BPS Layouts! I apologise for lack of credits, I will find all the bits on my computer and see where they have come from, and when I have I will add them on.

More Shabby Princess. This is based on a card class by Andrea seen on this weeks Creative World, I just added photos and letters to her idea.

I felt like doing something a bit pretty pretty. Its another template - got the hang of the mask clipping now, and apart from adding the wording I've not messed with it.

Its ages since I used a template, I thought it would be a quick option but resizing all the photos and then remembering how to clip the masks actually took me twice as long. Its not a LO I could do in paper though as I am hopeless at cutting the photos all the same size. And I forgot to write all the credits down so I will add them as I find them again.

Ok first attempt at trying a style similar to Kate Hatfield's. In fact some of the elements are her design any way.

I enjoyed playine with this one, used an inky over lay and lots of a Shabby Princess kit

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to my mummy!!

I am going to see her later so hopefully there may be some photos to share.

In the meantime here are a couple of LO's that I have uploaded for the Big Picture Scrapbooking contest.

This paper one doubles as my A entry for the A-Z challenge being run by Creative World. I am doing 12x12 individual LO's and hoping to use up some of the pre-married photos of Martin and I. These were me in 1974!
And this digi one is Martin and his work mates from a wedding we went to this summer (said loosley because half of the country was under water at the time) in The Forest Of Dean.

Out for the count.

Its really odd, I am getting more hits on my blog than ever before due to the BPS links, but I am actually sliding down the chart. (I keep the link there so I can quickly go look at all the other crafty bloggies). I have concluded that tons of new people must have started up new blogs as the year started. This is great, more stuff to read and share!

I am really getting into the digi stuff again. I have realised that not ony am I far far quicker (I actually finish LO's in hours rather than days) but I can do things I would never be able to do with paper. This LO is a prime example. Its todays entry for the BPS, and in real life paper and glue there is no way I could print and crop all the photos to be the same shape and size. I just dont have the skills or patience. And since I made my own background paper for this one, I wouldnt have the cs supplies for real either.

Laura taking Bailey for a walk in July when he was but 5 months old. He is severly much bigger than that now and although boisterous, a real sweetheart. He is a Champagne retriever.
Frame is from Miss Mint After Midnight kit.

Yesterday I spent the entire day taking down the decs, sortign them into the boxes, cleaning, and an hour shifting the tv back to its rightful position and untying all the cables. I am so going minimalistic next year!

Crafts, LO's and more

Wow! The scrapbooking community are excelling themselves with free stuff intended to get us all beavering away with our scissors, glue and Bazzille in 2008!

Yesterday I got my first prompt email for Creative World's A-Z album, which is starting off today. I am not actually going to do an album, but use the prompts to give me a push doing 12x12 LO's for the albums I already have on the go.

Then I also discovered Anna's 365 challenge, daily prompts to make you get out your camera EVERY day this year (except did she forget it's a leap year?). Already there are 4 prompts up. This looks like fun and although she would like to get you scrapping the photo you do and journalling about it at the same time, the focus does seem to be on the photo taking to record your year. So I am going to have a bash at that too.

I am still keeping up with BPS - this is attracting so much attention! Here are the LO's I have done for Days 3/4/5

Day 5
A quick page by B Derksen, (I never use these) but I have added a ribbon, some text and a pattern to the bauble.

Day 4
Messed about with a curling action to get the photos like that, I'm not very good at this 'throw everything at the page' style but I am going to keep trying.
Kiki Holbert swirls, Barbara Schiefer and J Baechtold kits, Sil & Nic clip and stitched circle,

Day 3
Nicole Kaltenecker Christmas Frames and a Kiki Halbert florishes that I changed the colour of.

I am using this as a digi springboard and each LO I am attempting to play with a different technique.

Yesterday I finally gave in and bought a decent 'fake' christmas tree in the B&Q sale. Its not that I am fed up with hoovering up pine needles (although this is becoming more of a bind) but I just dont think today's christmas trees do so well in central heating. As a child I am sure that the tree seemed to last longer and drop less needles. Mine had only been indoors 12 days yet when I undressed it yesterday, there was barely a needle still clinging to it, they were all in a heap on the floor.

Add to that the fact that in order to fit in in the front bay, we have to loose an armchair and move the tv unit (with associated perifials and wires), it is just too much effort just for Martin and I.

So for a little more than this years throw away version cost, we are now the proud owner of a 6.6ft slim aspen fir FAKE tree!

BPS

When I uploaded Day1 1 LO to the BPS class there were 49 other LO's. I have just read this morning that they have 2400 scrappers signed up for this!!!!

Well it is certainly getting me scrapping anyway, and as well as that Creative World start thier A-Z prompts in 2 days time. I have just signed up, so no excuses for not creating this month!

Here is my Day 2 entry for BPS - the site is 8 hours behind GMT so I will be posting one day late on here each day.

Barbara Schiefer Christmas kit and one of Scrapdolly's lovely transparencies.

Get a Load of This

That is the title of the new 'freebie' class over at The Big Picture Scrapbooking this month. The idea is to upload a LO a day for the 31 days of January. A bit of a daunting task but already over 500 people have uploaded to the gallery. They are taking registrations for a few days more yet so anyone can still sign up.

I am a slow paper scrapper but can knock out a digi LO fairly quickly so yesterday I visited a few blogs and snagged a few freebie kits, loaded up Photoshop and got back into digi scrapping. I've not done any for a long time, and it was good fun.

So this is my Day 1 LO




Mostly Miss Mint Winter Sparkle kit and some stuff from JBaechtold and a couple of brushes.

First this year

2008!

Gosh last year went so fast!

We had our friends Jan and Trev over to help us see out the old year and the new one in.I had made a huge buffet and we chatted, played Rummikub and then taught Trev how to use the Wii.

This took a while as the controllers needed reconfiguring from when they were used at the Cricket club on Wayne's Wii, and we couldn't find the handbook! The flat batteries in the remotes didn't help either LOL

Trev - who hates all new technology with a passion - was sceptical at first but once we got onto the bowling and forced him to have a go, loved it. In fact we had to insist on stopping to watch Big Ben and those fantastic fireworks. A quick rendition of Auld Lang Sign and he had us playing again until gone 1.30 am!!

Of course those phone messages take awhile to come through on NYE and just as I got to sleep another one arrived at 2.39am, waking me up. So today I have a splitting headache from lack of sleep. NOT from drinking I might add, as we were so involved in the games I only drank one glass of wine.

It was a good evening though.

No finished projects to upload today but I do have 3 on the go at the moment. This is the start of a word book I am making using my papers from the Christmas Kit Swap I organised on the Pad.

More projects

As promised some more craft projects. I WILL get more on here LOL Years ago I got these cones with little elf heads on them, no idea where from now but they come out every year and sit on the fire place.
Over the years they have slowly all lost their little heads though. I bought some foam balls about 6 years back meaning to mend them, but it wasnt until this year I actually did anything about it. Of course I managed to buy the wrong size foam balls so I only did a few. I am going to get some bigger 'heads' to do the rest. Maybe I will do them before the 6 years is up next time. LOL



What ever way you are seeing it in this even I wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Busy busy crafting

This blog doesnt really show up the fact that I am really crafting away busily. I am going to aim to get more on show in 2008.

In a pique of madness I decided I would like a folk art kind of Christmas theme next year, we have been putting up the same decs in the same places for years and I would like a bit of a change. So I started by making this:


Its actually from a woodsaw pattern I found on the net but I have changed the quote, added the christmassy feel and taken off the season hangy bits to add stars. Oh and instead of wood I made it from chipboard. I'm quite pleased with it as a first attempt. I had the fun of digging out my acylic paints and using heaps of glitter.

I am also having a bash at cross stitch and am half way through a little angel pattern. I have a folky Father Christmas pattern to do too, and am hoping I will be able to put one in each of the little silver frames that Wayne's parents bought me. Watch this space but it could be some time as I am a slow sewer.

Friday I collected my brand new shiny KA car!!!

It was a bit sad to say goodbye to my poor old Astra convertible, it had done me so well over the 4.6 years I had owned it, and I loved driving round with the top down and the radio blaring. But it really was in a bit of a sad state and since none of us are particularly great at car maintenance, it had to go. We took it to get an offer on part exchange, I wasnt expecting any great shakes so was really surprised and pleased when they offered £450.

Anyway now my lovely new one is sitting on the drive. I have been to my mum's and back in it, and it is a really neat little run about, with a bit of a tiger under the engine once out on the open road.

I'm just waiting for decent light to take a photo.

Bring on Boxing Day

Kelly and Ollie, not wanting to miss out on a family Christmas with us, had asked if we could have a repeat day at 'Nan's' on Boxing Day, complete with the roastie dinner and all. This meant that mum and dad had to get up and leave Laura's early in order to get the joint of pork in the oven and the central heating on to warm up the house (Dad refuses to use the automatic timer).

We were all meant to go but sadly poor Wayne had a repeat attack of the flu bug and ended up in bed the whole day, so Laura stayed home to clear up and administer to his fevered brow :( We nipped home, fed the cat and went to my Parents, where Martin decided to have a play with his new remote control indoor helicopter...in the garden!

Within minutes he was back telling us it had flown down behind the shed between the fence and the back wall, and he needed the fishing net and hoe to get it back safely.

Martin cooked dinner (family tradition) but although it was lovely, we were still so stuffed from the day before that it was a struggle. All we really wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep, but Kez wanted to play board games (another Christmas tradition) so we finally settled on Trivial Pursuits '90's edition.

Now maybe I am getting older, but I am sure the first ever edition was ok. hard but you at least had some hope of answering 7--80% of the questions. These questions were written so badly (gramatically) and were so obscure that even Ollie (who I am sure secretly holds a Masters degree in Board gaming) wasnt able to answer many. And those of us who never pick up a paper or watch the telly had no hope.

We struggled on and tried not to get frustrated but really we should have all stopped and got the playing cards out. Exhaustion won in the end and Kelly took Ollie home because he wasnt feeling too great. We left soon after and I think we were all in bed really early that night.

So that was Christmas!

And such fun it was too. Well most of it anyway.

Christmas Eve its traditional for Mum and I to go to the Christingle held in the little church hall at the end of her estate. It is usually a beautiful crib service containing the Sunday Schools attempt at a nativity with the Christingle combined and is very child orientated. Laura was going to come with us but Wayne had man flu and so she had heaps to prepare with 9 of us to feed at her house the next day. She kept phoning to say yes she would, no she couldn't, yes she would come. In the end she didn't come and I am so glad she didn't. We had forgotten that the family man Vicar had left the Parish since last Christmas and we were treated to a really boring, not at all child orientated, long service led by a lady Vicar, who really was well past retirement age. It was so disappointing after the wonderful services of the past 10 years.

Christmas day we were up bright and early, woken not by our children, now grown and flown the nest, but by the blinking cat! I'm not sure if he knew he had a stocking full of goodies, but he's not normally pesting us quite so early so who knows? Anyway Kelly and Ollie soon turned up to get us moving towards Laura and Wayne's house. Not that it did much good because just as Mum and Dad were leaving for the grand present opening, rellies in Oz phoned and held them up for an hour!.



Here is a list of all the goodies I got:

A stocking full of purple lushness from my Secret Santa Stocking swap (Thank you - I still dont know who you are, but sooo much stuff, wow!)


From Martin and Pumpkin:
An adventure game
Suffle sukara pens
Pink ipod accessory kit
Bead machine book

From Kelly: 2 of Jeromy Clarkson's books
The latest Terry Prachett hard book
A set of Aqua flo brushes

From Mum
Ice cream machine recipe book (yummy!)
Rummikub special edition

From Laura and Wayne (after 5 years of being on my list)
A 4.5 ft bubble lamp with fish

From Gra and Di 2 Oval shaped vintage sinlver and sparkly photo frames.

From Jan and Trev Body shop bath goodies

We only unwrapped the ones from each other, as Di and Graham (Waynes parents) were coming on later and we would open more pressies after lunch. Ollie and Kelly left for Jemma's and we started in on the sausage rolls, played chrissie music and chatted.

Lunch was superb. Wayne made pawn cocktails, with melon for Laura and I. Then it was full turkey roast with all the trimmings and a ton of veg, followed by Christmas pud and mince pies AND vienetta ice cream, cream , custard and milk. Ending with After Eight mints, and coffee/tea.

Then suitably stuffed, we opened more pressies. We watched TV while Wayne and his parents went off to visit Wayne's nan and brother who was suffering from the one day flu Wayne had had on Christmas Eve, and who had had to stay home in bed instead of coming to join us.

As if we hadn't eaten enough, Laura then faced us with salad, cold meats, pickle, bread rolls, sausage rolls, and a huge trifle with cream! And even when we had all eaten as much as we could Laura's fridge (a huge American one) still looked like this!

Di and Graham went home around 10.30 but we were sleeping over, so we sat up until gone one in the morning playing a hilarious game of Beetle drive!

Thank you to my family for making it a wonderful day.

Whirl of Christmas preparations

I'm not sure where the last week has gone to. I havent really done much of significance but have done shopping, baking, and general preparations for the Big Day. Martin has had to work the last two weekends so he is really tired and not up to going out much.

Last Thursday I had to sign on, the lady got quite stroppy . Despite the fact that I have been doing this for several months, and I even had a star for 'good job hunting' I dont seem to have got it right this time. I had to sign off and sign back on because I had done 3 days supply in one week (you can only do 2.5 without this happening) so I had been for a new claim intereview and this was my first sign on back. You have to do three things each week to show you are looking for work. I had filled my form in as per. However suddenly looking on 3 web sites wasnt enough. Suddenly looking on the web counted as only 1 thing even if you look at a zillion sites! Looking in the paper only counted as 1 thing even if you went through every publication known to man. So I had only done 2 things not 3.

So the first person to let me know what else I can do to find a teaching job please tell me, because I am damned if I know. You cant phone or write or cold call schools. Its the one thing guarenteed to get you on a 'dont employ this person' list with Heads. So what's left? Even the Job Centre person couldnt tell me, so she just right on doing the 'broken record' you must do 3 things routine. Eventually she said contacting the supply agency counted - err and this week when they are shut for the holidays?? We will see.

If that wasnt enough I then took my mum to the new Vue cinema to see Mr Magoruims Magnificant Emproium (great fuzzy film by the way) were we had more problems. Bailey the dog had chewed up Kelly's Christmas present. Too late to order a replacement I had promised to go by one in the shops for Loz, so mum and I arrived with 2 hours to spare, in order to go shopping and have a bit to eat first. We checked on the poster outside the cinema that the internet had given me the wrong times, only to find the first showing wasnt for another 6 hours!!! Ooops.

Anyway we did our shopping and then walked back to the cinema. The foyer was still locked but other people were turning up. One lot of lads, drove off again, and one older dad with his grown up daughter started making a right fuss, about how this wasnt the first time blah blah blah, he was going to write to the Managing director blah blah. It was better entertainment than any film so we hung around for a bit. A young mum with her two kids turned up and politely tapped on the window to the staff inside (yes there were staff, just all the doors were locked.) "Can you come here and talk" she mouthed, but the staff wouldnt budge. "I just want to know what time you are opening, I have two young girls and its freezing" still the staff wouldnt come talk to us.

Eventually we all sneeked in when the contractor putting in new chairs left the door open! I asked the young lad by the ticket booth what time the film was, turned out the net was right, the poster wrong, so I explained and he asked me (really politely) to show him the mistakes. I took him outside and he thanked me for helping out. Then the Manager turned up. He laid into me as if it was my fault. I hadnt even complained, just pointed out it was causing them to loose customers, but he still went on. "Why cant people look on the net, its not his fault the poster is wrong, what was he supposed to do about it" rant rant! Mmm good job the film was ok.

Friday I spent all day with Laura baking mince pies, cheese straws, and vienesse biscuits. Then we snuggled up to watch 'Its a Wonderful Life' (Love that film)

Continued to open my advent swap and being spoilt rotten.

19th day - a small note booklet with a large cut out heart shape on the front
20th day - more flower buttons (blue)
21st day - Lush hair and body gel
22nd day - an Ikea Christmas cone tree
23rd day - Lush Happy Pill

And yes I have scrapped!!




I got held up on I because it took so long to make the little acryilic mini book (there was a lot of glittering that had to dry) It has three pages but since it is so hard to scan and they are all more or less the same I have only put one up. The colours are way off - the 'i' on the front is not white but green.

A new Ka!!!

Today was Martin's day off, so we decided to go out looking for a newer car for me. This follows on from the other day when I went to turn the lights on and the knob came off in my hand!! Since now the window leaks big time when it rains and I noticed a hole over the wheel arch, it really is time to say goodbye to the old lady and get something a little more practical. As much as I will miss my convertible. :(

Now I never want much in the way of transport. As long as it starts ok and gets from A-B safely I am happy so my criteria looking round was 'blue, def not silver or white, a working radio, and under £3000' Well we didnt see anything we liked and most decent cars were about £4500, so we ended up in the Ford garage and are now signed up for a brand spanking new Ford KA!

To be collected 2 days after christmas.

It has a cd radio, and it is sort of blue - deep blue which in my eyes is black but there you go! I've never had a new 'new' car before and am quite excited!!

Crafting news:
On 16th day of christmas my SS sent to me some little tiny flower buttons
On 17th day - Cosmic shimmer regal artic aurora embossing powder and
on 18th day a silver gel pen to match the gold one I got earlier

I am still doing the prompts for the girls A-Z albums, they say they are enjoying them and Scrapdolly is doing some fantastic pages. I am still plodding on with them, and last night managed to do H

On the 15th Day of Christmas

This blogger needs an extra few hours in the day to keep up!

My Secret Santa has been sending to me:

Day 13 - some Crate Paper ribbon on a little reel
Day 14 - some Ikea star tree decorations
Day 15 - a packet of Woodware tree ribbon brads

I am being treated so generously by my SS!

So what have I been up to?

Sadly Kelly's bunny had to be put to sleep because it had Myxi. Kelly was very upset, and there wasnt much I could do to comfort her. My parents went over to visit her and offer tea and sympathy.

I went to Canterbury to get the last of my Christmas pressies, taking mum along with me. We were doing quite well on her list until she suddenly came over very grey and looked really awful. She complained of pains like a knife cutting slices off her legs, and needed to sit down. I was really worried, but aftere a coffee she recovered and we then took a very slow stroll back to the car. I did manage to get nearly all the last bits though and today sat wrapping them up, attempting to get the DVD to work so I could watch a few christmas movies. No luck there but the house is looking really Christmassy now with all the decorations up, the tree twinkling and piles of presents under it. The finishing touches, a table cloth for the little table and a table runner for the dinning room table made by yours truely from an Ikea sheet this afternoon, make it really cosy.

The girls on the pad say they are really enjoying my A-Z promps although not many of them are managing to keep up. I cant complain as I have only managed to get to F myself, despite promising today I would speed scrap a few pages. The middle bit opens to tell the embarrasing story of when I thought as a child I had seen Father Christmas fly past the window, and begged to be put to bed so as not to be missed.



Last night Wayne, Laura and I went to the new Vue cinema at Westward cross to see The Golden Compass, which we all throughly enjoyed. Not up to the standard of HP but still good, and it does get most of the plot from the book in, all be it not in exactly the same order, and it does finish before the book does, which is a bit odd. Still looking forward to the next two! Its a nice cinema too, and much better than having to traipse all the way over to Ashford.