February in Numbers

Hi hi!

Here I am again, taking part in Julie Kirk's Month in Numbers. See her blog here for details if you want to join in, or to check out some more numerical lists!

4 inches of snow had fallen in my in-laws home town in Essex, which we got to play in when we drove up the day before my Granny's funeral:

1 Snow White flower display for my Granny, to say goodbye to her. Snow White was her favourite princess and she collected ornaments to do with the film, so it was the perfect display for her. It was a sad day saying goodbye but at least all my family were there so we all celebrated her life together:

20 the number of days my sister Katy came down to Dorset to stay with us. She came for an extended visit as she'd been travelling in Australia for ten months before that, so she had to stay for a while to meet, and get to know, her newest nephew! It was fantastic having her around to help out with him, and of course he loved playing with her:

6 slices of bread fed to the ducks (and the pesky seagulls that kept swooping in to steal some):

22nd - the date Katy bought an Iphone because she wanted to use the Hey Tell app to talk to her friends, and because I'd made her jealous with all the photo apps that can take pictures like this:

257 - my total score across 2 games of ten pin bowling. We had the bumpers up as my daughter was playing, otherwise my score would have been a lot lower! As it was I came third, only beating my daughter. I was trying to help her, but she was a lot better once I let her do her own thing! Photos from the bowling alley:

£30 for tickets for myself, my sister, and my friend Rosie, to go to a Ceilidh dance at a local manor house. It was amazing fun, though we learnt it's not a good idea to go to a Ceilidh with odd numbers, as all the dances are for couples! But we took turns and had a good giggle, and came 4th in the pub quiz. We won a nice bag which we're all going to swap on a timeshare scheme - 'Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants' style - and post it to each other with a letter each month! Photos from the Celidh evening:

So there we go. Lots of photos this month - my sister probably brought that out in me. She's a big photo taker - she's got over 1,700 photos on her facebook page! Whoa!

Hope you had a great February - here's to March! x

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Cuddles with granny DT layout

Hello!

Just a quick post to let you know my latest DT project has gone live on the SJ Crafts blog. Here's a sneak peek of the layout I made:

The layout was created mainly using the My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline 'Dolled Up' collection, which is so pretty! To see the page as a whole and find out how I put it together you can go to SJ Crafts blog here, or to shop for some Miss Caroline supplies go here.

I hope everyone is having a sunny Monday! x

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SJ Crafts challenge #2

Hello!

I'm a little behind in showing you my project for the second SJ Crafts Blog Challenge, which went live on Thursday. The theme this time is 'flowers' and an added extra is to use the colours pink or red. Here's the card I made for some inspiration:



Supplies = MME Miss Caroline 'Dolled Up' papers, stamps and brads, MME Kraft Funday 'Bright Days' twine, Bazzill kraft cardstock, foam tape, Mod-Podge.

 

If you want to join in with the challenge you have until the 14th of March (1pm) to create a card, layout, or other papercraft project, using the themes, and link it over at the challenge post here. You can win a 'Howdy Doody' 6x6 paper pad.

Or if you want to buy some of the lovely MME Miss Caroline collection, it's now available at SJ Crafts here. I can particularly recommend the stamp set - it features flowers, woodgrain and butterflies, including a woodgrain-butterfly. Genius!

I hope everyone's had a lovely weekend. We went for a nice walk on the beach earlier, but we didn't stay too long as my daughter walked into the sea too far and filled her wellies up with water! It was too cold to let her walk around with wet trousers and boots. Never mind, I forsee lots of beach days this summer, as (fingers crossed) I should have passed my driving test by then!

Bye for now, x

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He Is My Sunshine-Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day!

We don't make a big fuss of Valentine's Day in this household, but me and my husband do exchange cards. When I made hubby's card I wanted a slightly different colour scheme to the usual pink and red, so, inspired by Julie Kirk's 'A Month of Sunrays' and some My Mind's Eye supplies, I teamed red with yellow instead:


Supplies = Red Cardstock cut to make a 6x6" card; My Mind's Eye: 'Lost & Found 2' Rosy 6x6 Paper Pad, Rosy 'Ordinary' Brads, Sunshine 'Sunshine' Title, 'Kraft Funday' Bright Days Twine, 'Fine & Dandy' True Blue Chipboard; HobbyCraft Adhesive Stones; Heart punch; Foam Tape.

 Sometimes we have a nice dinner on Valentine's night too, but he has to work late this evening, so I'm having some girlies round for dinner and crafting instead! What are you doing this Valentine's Day?

Sending sunshiney thoughts to all my lovely blog readers ~ x

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Ten Things on the Tenth... CHA faves

Hello all!

I'm back with another 10 things on the Tenth, if you want to join in the party then head over to Shimelle's blog!

I was totally caught up in the CHA excitement in January. It's the first time I've really followed all the sneak peeks of new releases while they were happening, and listened to chat / watched videos about what things are 'hot' right now. At the end of this post I'll list some of the sites I've been stalking for CHA news in case you want to take a look!

So for my 10 things I thought I'd share what I liked best from all the bits I've been spotting. I couldn't choose whether to show my 10 favourite collections, or my 10 favourite items from them, so I'm going to do both! Read on to see what things you could be spending your money on over the coming months... (all the 'titles' are linked for more information on a collection):

1. My Mind's Eye - Follow Your Heart

I could quite easily have chosen another of MME's releases ~ Miss Caroline, but as I've just received a parcel of that (now available here at SJ Crafts!) and will be able to show you some projects using it soon, I thought I'd go with 'Follow Your Heart' which is equally beautiful.

This collection is designed by Rhonna Farrer, and I love how pretty it is. I especially like the 'Be Amazing' colourway because of the teal and yellow - a colour combo you're going to see again on this top-ten list! My must have item from the collection are the brads, check out the 'enjoy the journey one', and the yellow polka-dot one!:

2. Pink Paislee - Spring Jubilee

Ooh, how bright and happy and full of sunshine! I thought all the Pink Paislee collections this release were gorgeous, but the striking colours of this one really caught my eye. I'm planning to have a big party this summer for my 30th birthday and I want to base all the invites / decorations on this collection!

The design team's samples on the release post were all stunning too. I can't wait to get some of this collection and put it to good use! My favourite item is the illustrated manilla tags - they'd look good on invite cards (or almost anything else!):

3. Crate Paper - Story Teller

Again, I loved both their lines this release, so check out Pretty Party too. But this one swings it for me because of the ecclectic mix of icons with a traveller / note taking theme. And I really love this cork-board effect paper:

4. Studio Calico - Take Note

I don't think I own anything Studio Calico. Not because I dislike their stuff, just because it wasn't on my radar at first, and then it was too expensive for me to subscribe to their kits. But I've seen their items popping up in some UK stores now, and I know when this collection hits our shores I'll have to buy some of it! Even if all I can afford is this woodgrain Fabrip. I want to bind a mini album with it:

5. American Crafts - Dear Lizzy Neapolitan

Photo Credit: Shimelle Laine

Okay, again I had trouble choosing my favourite collection from a manufacterer (so much I want to buy!), as the Amy Tangerine Sketchbook collection is also lovely and bright. But the delicately colourful Dear Lizzy collection won in the end, mostly because I adore these stamps. The jar one is just so cute, and could work on so many projects, and the date stamp has uber-sweet phrases as well as the usual dates. These will definitely be in my shopping basket:

6. Echo Park - Graceful

At first glance I thought the Echo Park 'This and That' collection was pretty, but I didn't think I 'needed' it. And then I saw lots of gorgeous DT samples using it and I was sold! These papers will look really lovely with photos of my daughter, though I think they'll come in handy for other projects too. And I adore this sticker sheet:

 7. Lily Bee - Buttercup

Lily Bee isn't a manufacterer that I was particularly looking out for. I think their papers are lovely, but they don't usual grab my attention enough for me to actually buy any of them. So I didn't hear about this collection until Shimelle posted about it here, and I was definitely grabbed by this colour scheme, yellow, aqua, and grey? Stunning! And I desperately want this sheet of ABC stickers, so many colours on one sheet, I'll always have the perfect one to match my project:

8. Basic Grey - What's up

 

More aqua, this time with soft pinks and purples. I'm not actually sure if I'll buy this line - when I buy Basic Grey it tends to sit in my stash and not get used. But I shall have to buy this one sheet with all the hot air balloons on, possibly just to frame it as it is and stick it on my wall:

9. Simple Stories - Documented

I'm re-discovering my love for mini-albums recently, so this system by Simple Stories caught my eye. It seems like it will be so easy to customise and play around with, I think it would be perfect for a travel journal / album, or for creating a gift album for someone. The page protectors for it are fun, with different stitched segments like Project Life:

10. Heidi Swapp - Memory Files

This is a cool system. I'm starting to get annoyed with the amount of page protectors I need to buy to keep all my 12x12 layouts safe, and I was thinking of other ways to create pages (hence my re-discovery of mini-books!), and then Heid Swapp came up with this collection. It's so fun, I have seen her create albums like this before and it's great to have an easy way to follow her lead. The photos don't really do it justice, so watch this short video for a real idea of how the system works:

So there we go, a list of my favourite releases! I hope you've seen something that intrigues you and wants to make you investigate further - sorry if you're upset that I've made you want to spend more money on lovely new stash!

If you want to check out more CHA releases then here's the sites I've been stalking for information:

• http://www.shimelle.com/ - Shimelle takes fabulous photos from CHA and gives business info as well as product info, so it's really interesting to read her posts on the subject.
• http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/ especially the forum for CHA winter 2012 here. I joined in with some of the chats and challenges that were taking place while CHA was on, and it was great to hear other's views on what was 'hot', and you could win prizes by joining in. The prize draws are closed now but there's still links to videos showing the new prodeuct, and the chats are still there so you could go back and read what everyone was talking about!
• http://www.paperclipping.com/ has lots of free videos that were filmed at CHA so you get to see a bit of the booths as well as the product. Also check out the 100th podcast recorded at CHA here. 
• http://www.scrappyjedi.com/ has lovely photos of the booths at CHA.
• http://www.scraptime.ca/ Has demo videos, and booth photos.

Otherwise it's just the manufacterers blogs. If you know of any other great sites for CHA info then let me know so I can stalk them next time around!

So have you been keeping an eye on the new releases? And if so, what's your one, must have, can't wait to get hold of it, item? Go on, make me want to spend more money! x

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Sunday Storytelling - She Met Her Man

I've been reading Sian's Storytelling Sunday for a while now, and thinking that I should join in. This time I've been prompted to join in by a sad event - my Granny passed away just over a week ago. Today we're going to be battling our way through snowy East England to get to her funeral tomorrow morning. And because one of the reasons I'm thankful that I discovered scrapbooking is that it encouraged me to collect my grandparents stories, I thought I'd share one of them with you today, in her memory:

Granny told me this story a few years ago, when I'd just started scrapbooking, and I thought it was so sweet that she used to gaze dreamily at my Grandad through the canteen window before they met. I'll always remember the look on her face when she told me about it - I could see that she could remember it clearly and was treasuring the memory. I'm glad I've made a page about it so that I, and future generations, can treasure the memory too.

Bye Granny. I'll miss you.
x

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