Busy Bee

Well Easter was soooo boring for the most part as both girls were busy and Martin was working Frday and Saturday. My shoulder was too painful to do much housework or scrapping so I spent most of the time (since the weather was so cold) watching Harry Potter films and eating (sorry diet).

Ok the snow in this doesnt look like much but on the other side of the car (at the same time) it looked like this!

On Monday though Martin was off and the whole family went to the pub that Laura had earmarked as one possible wedding venue for lunch.

Back of Grove Ferry.

Grove Ferry is right on the river Stour and has been established as a venue for years.

Back in the 70's part of the place was used as a disco/nightclub. We ate in the main bar though. The food, in the main, was delish (although my chips werent up to much, the home made burger and pickles were yum).

The meals.

Then we went outside to look see where the marquee would go.

Outside by the river.

Well from what we could make out, slap bang in the middle of the pub garden with pub users and boat owners still able to wander around.

The garden where marquee will go.

The cost is also an issue so we continue to look round.

Next stop, after saying goodbye to the others, was a bed and breakfast farm just outside of town. I had found it on the net and Laura had emailed and phoned but had had no answer, so she had decided to go knock on doors. Wayne and I both loved it the minute we stepped out the car.
A lovely tudor type farm house, all black and white windows on the outside, with an expansive well established lawn and pretty patio,

House and gardens.

arrived at via a covered gravel walkway beside a stable block.

Covered walkway

More stable blocks to the side housed 3 ponies and a lovely (very) friendly dog greeted us as we walked to the door. The whole place feels well out in the countryside with beautiful views of the downs in all directions and the catherdral in the distant valley. The lady who greeted us was lovely too, so this one looks like a good option and has rushed to top of the possible list.

It also opened new options as surprisingly there are quite a few farm type b&b's that may offer wedding service/hire possiblities so it was back on the net searching them out.

On Tuesday I was asked to bail out a school some 20 miles away, a lovely mixed Year 1/2 class. Their poor teacher has managed to injure her foot rather badly in a gardening accident so I ended up there all week and am back for the start (at least) of next week until she has been back to the doctors. It is quite a while since I did a whole weeks teaching and by Friday not only was I very tired but the house looked like a bomb had hit it, there was no food in the house and nothing left to wear that wasnt in the wash basket. Yesterday was a busy busy housework day.

Upshot? Very little crafting has gone on but hopefully now I am up to date again there may be some to come. I have just bought my new issure of Scrapbook Inspirations and could be inspired.

(Don't) let it snow, let it snow, let it ...

Well they promised it would.

Luckily at the moment its not laying

I suspect it will

I HATE SNOW!!!!!!

Happy Easter

Jo is making progress, very slowly but progress all the same.

This has seemed a rather long week with not much going on really. I guess thats because I seem to have spent most of it in the car.

On Tuesday I was asked to go to a new school on the agency's books, one I had not heard of before and some 20 miles away on the Isle of Thanet. Now Thanet, alegedly, consists of quite a few towns, Margate, Ramsgate, Birchington, Broadstairs...but as far as I am concerned its just one almighty sprawl of roads and houseing estates that all look alike, go in no particular direction and have no specific landmarks. So I was very careful, knowing the amount of hours I have wasted driving around the place, to print lots of maps off google before leaving. Luckily I found the place first time, not effortlessly but I found it. Not that there was any real rush to get there as the TA was taking them until I arrived, since the agency had not phoned me until 9.20 am.

On day 2 however they were expecting me at half 8 so 15 minutes after being phoned and asked to repeat the cover I was back on the road. There was an accident on the main road which held me up for a while so knowing I had passed the hospital the day before I decided multimap was wrong and I knew a shorter way to the A&E. After all I had only been there the week before with Laura.

WRONG!!!!

My shortcut put me the wrong side of the railway tracks. I had to double back and try again. The school run had started by now and the traffic was horrendous. Panicked because it was now 8.25 am and I had no idea where I was I started taking roads at random. Luckily I hit on the right one and arrived at 8.45. Just in time!

Then yesterday I thought I would go and check out another school, who were advertising a vacancy. I again took directions from multimap and set off. 2 hours and a quarter of a tank of petrol later I finally got back to some familar roads after driving forever around country roads (some with grass growing in the middle of them) in the back end of beyond. I think that school is a little too far to apply for.

Apart from that I am still on here because the computer hasnt been turned off all week. And I have done quite a bit of scrapping. This one is a sketch from Scrap Mag and uses up some of my old Junkitz papers coupled with some stuff from the latest Shabby Princess free download.

How long ...

...my computer will last and let me on here to update I don't know. It totally refused to work all today and I have had to wiggle wires and threaten it with lots of dire things before it would boot up. So if I am not around its because it has finally fallen over for good.

Back in January we managed to get my dad along to the local theatre to watch the annual town pantomime. No this may not seem like much of a feat but because of his hearing disability he is very reluctant to go to these kind of things, however we persuaded him to have a go at the hearing loop. It worked a treat and he could hear everything going on on stage, thoroughly enjoying himself.

Flushed with our success we booked tickets to go to the larger theatre in Canterbury to see Treasure Island.

What a complete waste of money and total disaster!!

For a start off we couldnt hear, the sound system was totally rubbish and the actors were literally mumbling into their false beards! Then the loop we had got for dad didnt work at all - not that he was missing much but it was hard to get that across to dad, he just thought he was missing out. We swapped his loop and got a new battery but still no joy.

On top of that the acting was appauling and the story - which should have been exciting, full of murder, plots and swash buckling, was soooooo boring. Even the scenery was naff, one set for the whole 1 hour 30 mins (including a 15 min interval)!!! Yes thats how short it was. Which considering how awful it was, wasnt such a bad thing. The group in front of us even said they hadnt understood it at all, and its not exactly a complicated plot.

At least we laughed about it, but it was a rather expensive laugh at the price of the tickets, petrol and car parking.

We took mum and dad home and then went to Prezzo's with Laura and Wayne, which turned out to be the best part of the evening as we had a super Italian meal and some good company.

Not as clever

So I am not as clever as I first thought - my computer is working but is very very temperamental. Twice I have had to take it to bits again, after shutting down as it would not start again. I am tempted to leave it on all the time but am worried that the obvious short circuit/wonky connection/whatever may cause a fire. And I don't want fried cat when I return home should I go out and leave the computer on.

So I am still going to have to buy a new 'puter.

On a much more positive note, I received a text from Jan to say Joey is being moved back to the local hospital!!! Although not fully conscious, there is an improvement and a definite difference between Jo asleep and Jo awake. Soppy me, I sat in the staff room of a strange school, with tears of relief streaming down my face, scaring the rest of the staff to death. They kept asking if it was bad news, and where really genuinely pleased for Jo when they got the full story. The male TA even went off to find me some tissues.

Computer panic

This morning when I got up I switched on the computer and went to get dressed. Suddenly the cat shot out of the study and I heard what sounded like a plane taking off! It was the PC. The fan was going ten to the dozen but everything else was completely dead as the proverable dodo!
I switched off and tried several more times but it wasnt going to do any more than make a horrific noise, so I gave up and went to work.
When I got home, I bemoaned the death of my pc to Martin who's response was to simply get a new one! So thinking I had nothing to loose, I took the cover off and looked inside. Not a clue what I was doing but one wire looked like it shouldnt really be floating about in the air, so I plugged it into the motherboard in the only place it seemed to fit. I then grabbed the hoover and cleared out 2 years worth of fluff bunnies. And........

IT WORKS!!!!!

Not only that it is so much faster and better than it has been in months. I have been blaming sky for the slow internet pace, but am seriously thinking it could have been to do with that stray wire?

Anyway although I have done myself out of a new pc the panic is over and better than normal service is resumed!

A quiet weekend

So what did I do? Well yesterday I went with mum and dad to visit Kelly and take over the gooseberry Plants I bought her last week. Plus to take Ollie and her a bunch of flowers and a card as it is their first wedding anniversary tomorrow. My baby, married one year already ...and I am still doing wedding photo layouts LOL. Laura and Wayne went to look at another wedding venue, which they were much taken with. I scrapped a little and have spent so long on the computer I now have a very sore neck and shoulder.

Oh and I started a blog to note all dad's little stories on.

Crete paper (lots off, I thught it went so well with the pattern on Kelly's top) Heidi Grace Urban Acres stamps Craft work chipboard flowers Prima flowers with stickle centres Foam alphas painted and then stickle dots added American Craft ribbon Oen buttons

Update

This weeks Pencil Line Sketch
Chatterbox papers, Stampendous stamps, chipboard swirls from Bo Bunny, painted with acrylic and then covered in Ranger crackle medium, , Butterflies cut from K & Co paper and mounted on 3D foam, BG stickers and Early Learning centre beads.

There has been plenty going on here, I just havent got round to adding it all to my blog so -

Sunday
The whole family were invited round to Kelly and Ollie's for evening meal which was a lush roast pork dinner made by Kelly and a Cherry Pie made by Laura. The girls gave me ear-rings and a necklace set (Laura) and the Autumn Leaves calender 2008 (Kelly) Plus I had had a packet of skittles from Pumpkin fur baby! So it was a happy mummy who went to bed sunday night.

Only

Monday
I got a phone call from a very shaken Laura early in the morning. She had been driving to work when someone pulled onto the roundabout in front of her car. She deftly avoided hitting him only to find he was towing another car, so she slammed on the breaks. Unfortunately the driver in the car behind wasnt so quick reflexed and sailed into the back of her car. So we got to do some mother/daughter bonding sitting in A&E waiting to be seen. Luckily not too much damage although she is terrified she will have whiplash again, it seems the damage is mainly to her shoulder from the seat belt.

Tuesday
A day supply at Jo's mum's school. I have not heard from Jan since last week so it was nice to see on their notice board a staff update saying Joey was opening her eyes of her own violation.

Wednesday
Laura tried going back to work but only managed half a day so we went to pick her up. We spent the afternoon attempting to find a venue for the wedding. Seems most places have shut down and there are very few doing weddings in our area. A niche in the market but not much help for us.

Today
I again kept Laura company and we phoned up a few more venues. One is booked to veiw on Saturday, but sadly one of the ones at the top of her list no longer offer a wedding service. She did at least get the letter to the vicarage to book the church before heading off to the doctors for pain killers and sleeping pills.

The wonderful supplers of my internet service, Sky, dont seem able to give me a decent enough signal to load pages after 6 at night so I have managed to do a little bit of scrapping although I have been playing Dreamworld the longest journey which is just as much fun.

More from the French Twist Kit I got from Scrummy Stash Cafe

Good and bad

Yesterday was a really bad day. Sometimes I really love supply work, new places, people, children, no paperwork and home by 4. Others I just think why?? Why am I putting up with this behaviour/attitude. Ah well.

I did get a text about Jo. Although she has been fighting a bad chest infection she did open her eyes for a few minutes. Please God let this be a sign that she is waking up and will be well soon.

I have been scrapping and card making, and as soon as my scanner stops turning everything bright green and my ISP lets me upload more than a few bytes at a time, I will get them uploaded.

Sparkles

With still no good news (or any news come to that) on Jo its hard to think of other things going on, but go on they do. Martin has been on holiday all week so we have been getting the garden ready for the coming year. The cherry tree needed a good pruning - it should have been done in August but it was too big a job when in full leaf. We also noticed a lovely ornamental cherry tree near the house had split vertically through the trunk so most of that has had to come down for the sake of the conservatory too.

I planted heaps of seeds in the greenhouse, some gooseberry bushes and lots of raspberry canes, so looking forward to a fruitful summer (groan!)

I also made a start on the attic but it looks like its going to be quite an ongoing task.

We had dinner with Kelly and Ollie on Sunday, she tried out a new Jamie Oliver recipe on us. I don't particularly rate the guy but the steak in Guinness pie was delicious. We also went all the way to Bluewater just so Martin could go in the TFI Friday - our nearest being 60 miles away it was a bit of a trek for a beefburger.

I organised a little surprise get together for Laura and Wayne to celebrate the engagement. They were kinda out of it when they finally arrived back from Goa at half eight last night, but all the two families were there to crack open a bottle of bubbly, and look at the sparkly rock

- apart form Kelly and Ol, since it was a bit far to come out that late on a Sunday night for them, and we couldn't guarantee the plane would land on time.



I have also been crafting - I sent this one in as my entry to the BG challenge being run on A trip Down Memory Lane

A celebration!!

Last week Wayne sneaked over to see us on the pretext of filling his car with petrol in order to ask Martin for Laura's 'hand in marriage' and our blessings. He planned to ask Laura to marry him while they were away on holiday in Goa. He had also been out and bought her a stunning engagement ring.

Not able to share this news for fear of Laura finding out, we have been waiting for him to 'do the deed'. Last night our patience was rewarded, and I got a text message with two simple words - 'I'm engaged!'

Futher texts flying between India and UK revealed that she loved the ring and he had done the full romantic, meal, walk on the beach, down on one knee proposal.

So another wedding to look forward to, and a new album to bore all my blog readers with!!

Of course this is all tempered by the fact that we have had no further news (good/or bad) about Jo.

No good news

Another text from my friend yesterday to let us know that Jo has still not woken up, and was to have a brain scan, results in two days. Fingers and toes and everything else hoping that the scan is to check that brain activity is normal before forcing a regain of concience.

So I havent been doing a great deal of scrapping as its just too sad.

I have really only come on to blog so that I can record some of the good things going on (because there always are, no matter how sad you may be feeling).

Laura and Wayne have left this evening to jet off to Goa for the half term week. A well deserved break as they havent had a holiday since embarking on the property development game and worked so hard getting the house built, finished and sold (subject to buyer selling their gaff).

Kelly has invited us over for dinner tomorrow, and sent a text to say her boiler is now fixed and deep joy there will be hot water to do the washing up with!

Martin is on holiday next week. We went to Homebase for storage boxes so I can finally get up in the attic and store all my teaching stuff properly, and discovered they were having a 10% off day. So we ended up getting a new lawn mower, strimmer and wheelbarrow. Looks like its either the attic or the loft next week then.

Scary news

Floral Frenzy Kit by Linda Walton, and some Katie Hadfield bits

I had a text from my best friend this morning to tell me her daughter had fallen off her horse on Sunday, and is in a London hospital still unconcious. I havent heard any more but hope that Jo will soon be awake and on the way to recovery. In the meantime a very quick throw it all at the page LO for today's Load 2 Can't say I felt much like scrapping or blogging today.

Doing it digi

Layout removed for publication

I am still keeping up with Load 2 which now means I have made and uploaded 42 layouts in 2008 (counting todays.) The more I play about with digi scrapping the more I am enjoying it which is why my three sheets of BG for the Trip Down Memory Lane competition is sitting untouched on my table. This is the photo I have chosen to use but I thought I would digi scrap it too. All the elements and paper are from the Nani Romance kit.


Tomorrow and Thursday I am covering classes, so today I tackled all the ironing and started work on readying the garden for spring. It really is a non-stop roller coaster of a life at the moment LOL

Headache

Yes, I have had one all day today which is why I have only just thrown this LO together in order to keep up the target of one a day. And why the only other thing I have done today apart from try to sleep it off is to plant a few kiwi, cucumber and cabbage seeds in the greenhouse.

All the elements come from Nicole Kaltenecker's christmas special kit, apart from the black background, the red mat and the chains on the baubles which I made myself.

making templates

Some days I dont know where the day has gone. I certainly havent filled it with much.

I started doing a little housework but Laura phoned to say mum and dad were on the way over to collect me and take me to her place. When we arrived they were on their way round to look at the property they have just had an offer accepted on. Eager to continue their property development career, they intend to knock down the 1930's bungalow and replace it with two detached 3 bed houses. The present bungalow still has many original features, including carpets and wallpaper, and judging by the pink and white bathroom, original tiles. It really didnt deserve any more than to be flattened after salvage. Its more of a shame that the mature garden with its 6 or 7 apple trees, and thousands of plants, bulbs and fruits has to go. But if they can put two 3 bed dwellings on the plot of a 2 bed bungalow and create more decent family homes then all power to them.

I came home and since it was more like May then Feb, I planted out the raspberry canes I bought last week, some asparagus, strawberries and sewed a few seeds. I washed the greenhouse and weeded some of the garden.

Finally I taught myself to make a template in photoshop. Now all I need to do is design some. This LO is from a template, inspired by the challenge on Vera Lim's blog. I cant take part in it as I dont have any of her kits but I liked the idea of scrapping on black so thought I would have a go.

Template by Trish Heffner at Templates and More
Background paper Tamara Diepeveen aka MoonCatcher
Lots of brushes and some shadows and bevels added.

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.