Some summing up

Its been a pretty crazy couple of months around here.  The children went on school holidays and a couple of weeks later we had a new little boy in the family.  Baby T is my Great Nephew and he is now 5 weeks old.  He and his Mum and Dad moved the week he was born and they are now sadly nearly 3 hours away so the poor little sausage gets the life squeezed out of him when he visits as we take turns to hold him.

He has been down visiting this week and so we helped out by having Harvey, their lovely Staffordshire Bull Terrier for a doggy sleepover.

Between baby-watching and doggy sitting, we've not achieved much this week I can tell you!  We just about managed to fit in a quick snuggle with my other Great Nephew, Baby E who arrived in the world last week (you might remember from this post.)  He is now a whopping 4lbs and 10oz!  Even Management managed to get a snuggle of this one!

Two babies in a week is almost more than Miss Bella can handle.  Throw Harvey the dog into the mix and we have been a little... erm... overexcited to say the least.

She has found the slightly longer days at preschool really hard to adjust to with all this extra excitement going on.  At the end of the week it was all too much for her... bless!

I was really glad to get back to a routine again and part of that routine is the monthly Artful Angels crop.  This month we were visited by Handmade Treasures with her lovely displays of ribbons and buttons that looked like a lovely sweetshop.  I admit, I broke my stash diet here but only a little bit.  I used some of the stuff on Thursday when my friend came over for a scrappy play date and I managed to catch up on a few projects.

So we are now 2 weeks into the school term and I have no plans to visit or be visited by any babies or dogs this week, or to go to or host any crops.  I've also decided that as I didn't get off to a very good start with all this going on, I am not going to try to catch up or continue with LSNED this year.  I have too much to keep me occupied to be going backwards.  I can start exercising again this week and my new course starts in about 10 days time so I need to get as much done as I can before then.  Look at all these lovely books!

My routine will be a little different from now on that it was before the summer holidays but I really hope it will take me forward as I have really stalled in the last year or so with all the goings on and I can really feel the difference in my mood.  I thought if I shared my resolutions here then I might be more accountable to actually continuing with them.  So:

I want to get back to my running and hopefully start to attend the regular Park Runs held locally.
I want to make real progress with my weight loss and head towards losing another 2 stone.
I want to engage more with the children in the precious times that we have together now.
I want to get back to enjoying cooking by planning ahead and researching my Slimming World recipe books.
I want to stay in control of the house in terms of the housework, the de-cluttering and the decorating.
I want to make positive progress with my shoulder injury.
I want to keep on track with my coursework and start to look for outlets for my work.
I want to make progress on my unfinished projects and keep adding to my haul of finished layouts.
I want to make progress with my photo workflow.
I want to be calm and happy and feeling like I am moving forward.

Feel free to nag me, if you got this far you deserve it! ;-)

Bye for now
xx

Another 7 days of LSNED

First of all I wanted to say thank you for all your lovely words about my new DT role with S J Crafts.  I'm really excited and also a little bit nervous about it but I really appreciated your comments.

*WARNING*  Shocking photo below!

8th - I like this.  (Obviously I'm not talking about the sunburned beetroot look on my face or the rather plump silhouette!)  There are just so many things I have learned in the last couple of weeks about exercise, being in the gym, and running.  Most of all I realised that I actually look forward to my runs.  This needs to be a layout for sure.

9th - Jalapenos Rock.  Although being on a diet means some things are for special occasions only, chillies can liven up many dishes with no calories.  I never used to like omelettes but with jalapanos in I absolutely love them.  I have taught myself to make them so they are light and fluffy and totally delicious with a salad. Chillies are my friend.

10th - B can make a smoothie. The kids had fun at the local agricultural show where one of the stands was about healthy eating and they were encouraged to make wraps and smoothies.  But it didn't mean she had to drink it.

11th - Raspberries are not blueberries.  After running out of blueberries, which I have EVERYDAY in my muesli, I was forced to try raspberries instead.  I love them in yoghurt but they did not work at all with my breakfast.  We must never run out of blueberries again.

12th - She loves corn-on-the-cob.  This is such a great time of year for produce and it looks like B is joining the rest of the family in loving sweetcorn.  Shame it has a rather unfortunate after effect though...

13th - It sort of works.  I've been promising myself one of these garlic crushers for a couple of years now since I first saw them at the local agricultural show.  It makes a paste out of the garlic and things like ginger but it also grates chocolate, nutmeg and nuts quite finely too.  The end bits are tricky though...

14th - I have a new flower.  I saw this flower on Kirsty Wiseman's blog and I love it even though it went a bit wrong.  I have lots of ribbon so I will definitely be using this technique again.  Sometimes doing it wrong can be the right thing.

So that's the first couple of weeks of September done and I am already planning a layout for all the fitness stuff I have learned.  I've got lots of journalling to fit on so while I'm on the treadmill doing my C25k, I'm also mentally working out how I can fit loads of writing on without it becoming a page full of text!  Hey, it makes the time pass and that's all good, yes?!  Crafting on the treadmill, is that extreme scrapping or what?!

Bye for now!

xx

I'm excited to announce....

...that I have my very first DT role!

I will be designing for the newly opened S J Crafts which is a lovely on-line shop based in the Bournemouth area.  Sarah holds regular open days and crops so I hope to get down and meet her in person very soon.  In the meantime I can look forward to a parcel of goodies for my first assignment which I will obviously be sharing on here too.  I am really excited about this and I think it was fate that made our paths cross at just the right time.

Sarah has frequent special offers in the shop and P&P is free when you spend £15 (and who wouldn't want to spend £15 when she has such lovelies as this collection?)

The other wonderful team members are:
Jo
Jenny
Louise
Jennifer

I had actually guessed 3 of these but I'm not sure how!  They are blogs I have visited often and admired their work and I hope you will too.  I'm looking forward to seeing what we all come up with and I'm really excited to see an independent shop stocking lots of different product lines and I'm wondering what else will be coming to the shop soon.

I had such a great day yesterday and it started with Sarah's e-mail asking me to be on the team.  Then one of my layouts was used in one of Shimelle's prompts for LSNED.  Then a mum at school told me that I look slimmer everytime she sees me (that went down VERY well I can tell you!)  Then I lost 1.5lb at Slimming World and came home to a grocery delivery where we ended up with £5 of best ham for nothing.

This morning I went to the gym, as is my normal Tuesday routine, and I completed Day 1, Week 4 of C25k and I managed it okay!  I am feeling on top of the world right now and although I know I must be very careful with my moods, it finally feels like things are starting to fall into place.  I am even feeling brave enough to go to Alexandra Palace on my own on Sunday (please let me know if you will be there too!)

So I hope you will join me for a virtual cuppa, have a peruse of the shop blog and the other ladies blogs too, and say "chin chin" or "bottoms up" (or whatever it is you say where you are) in order to celebrate all that is good in the world.

Bye for now xx

Sketch of the Week 14th September

Just a flying visit to post up this fab sketch from Shimelle from last week.  

The colours are much better IRL but I really wanted to get the photo done and it was awful weather so I had to do it indoors which is not idea.  I decided against using MME again and went for Crate Paper's "Emma's Dresse Shop".   The butterflies are actually patterned and they are Jenni Bowlin.

That title is the thing that held me up for days.  I used some very thin pink and white polka dot letter stickers but they were a bit wishy washy.  I tried to outline them with my American Crafts brown pen but it is has never worked properly.  I swiped it across a Distress ink pad and that seemed to work but it looked crappy so I painted over the letters instead.  It still looked crappy so I put some crackle accent on top.  It still looks crappy but I gave up at that point!

I'm really pleased with this little cluster though.  I've been wanting to use this ballet ticket since I got it and it seemed like a good time to use the larger Emma's Shoppe sticker.  The ribbon flower is a new thing for me and it was something I picked up from Kirsty Wiseman.  Its one of those where you tack along one edge and then pull it tight.  It was a bit too long though and it ended up wrapping around on itself but I love it!

The beautiful cameo was stolen from another layout.  I am looking for something more masculine to replace it as it was a layout about Management.

Right, time to grab a spot of lunch (nothing too heavy as its Slimming World tonight!) and then I have to find out my programme for C25k tomorrow.  I'm now on Week 4!  Yikes!  More on that soon.

Bye for now xx

4x6 photo love for August

Good morning from a wet and windy south coast of England.  Let me tell you that I am NOT enjoying the school run at the moment!  We shortly have to go out in it again to take B to her first ballet lesson of the new term.  We are both excited about it although it is in a new place and I need to find the building and where to park in a special area etc and that always make me anxious.  She will need new ballet shoes as she has gone up 2 sizes and I really ought to sell her old one,s but I want to keep them as they are her first pair.

A couple of weeks ago I finally got the photos that I took at one of her previous classes.  I've pulled out all my favourite ones and I want to put those on layouts with only 1-3 photos.  I also had a little collection of 2nd best ones that I wanted to put on one layout that was about her class in general.

Cue Shimelle's amazing 4x6 Photo Love class at 2Peas.

Good grief, this was the trickiest one so far and it took me ages.  I had to walk away several times and come back with fresh eyes.  It is arranged over 3 page; one full page, and the back and front of a cut down page.  The tricky part was lining up the cut down page over the final full page so that it still looked pleasing to the eye and not obviously an extra page.

The papers are MME Lost and Found and I may just have gone a little OTT with the very special brads in the same range... ;-)  The title letters are The Girls Paperie.

This is the inside front page featuring a yummy bit of Dear Lizzy ribbon rose trim and some embellishments made from old music paper.

 And then the full page featuring a selection of general things I wanted to remember about the classes.  This is the bit I would rather do again as I should have butted the photos right up together and the embellishment cluster in the middle wouldn't have been needed and so wouldn't have divided the page so obviously.

A close up of the home-made embellishments, the Dear Lizzy aqua music print ribbon and one of the yummy brads.

This is how it looks in the page protectors which are sewn together.  Mine is just attached with DST at the moment but I will sew it next time I get the machine out.  It clearly makes them part of the same layout within the album.

I even threw on a resin flower and a few blingy bits too.

Tomorrow I will endeavour to do an update on my gym training and C25K programme as well as my lessons so far.  I will try.  I will try.....

Bye for now xx

Sharing some cake (well virtually anyway...)

I've been meaning to share some pics of a cake I made for about 6 weeks now!  It was for this little guy's 5th birthday and we celebrated by heading over to the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth and having lunch at a Yo Sushi! (On his request!)

The boat ride and lunch was far more exciting than the tower in the end but it was a clear day and we could see for miles.  Please excuse B's hair - she refused to keep her scarf on and couldn't see where she was going!

Then he had a party at a play centre and I made this cake for him.  Its meant to be a kind of tumbledown castle and you can just about see the cannon and cannon balls on the top but I was rushing to take the photos!

You can also just about see the gargoyles above the drawbridge door there too.  They take soooo blooming long to do that even if they were good enough to sell, I would never make any money!  And I get very stressed by any art work I do for anyone else.

The pirates I did recently were actually very well received.  I only asked for the cost of the canvasses but this morning the mum gave the money and a lovely card, a beautiful notebook and pen, and some gorgeous shabby chic tins to keep some of my crafting stuff in.  I was really pleased as I have been having a really bad couple of days and this got through that wall of doubt and sense of failure that I carry at those times.

I've been really enjoying my running on the Couch to 5k programme but as suspected, I will have to take it much slower and repeat some weeks.  I walked a fair bit this week and the steep inclines where we live have aggravated my SPD.  I did however go for a gait analysis this week and got some new trainers that suit my running style and should hopefully prevent some of the problems getting worse.  It was made a lot more enjoyable by the lovely fit young man who served me, so much so that when my husband asked how much my new runners were, I didn't have a clue!

Well I had better finish packing my bag for tomorrow's 12 hour crop.  I've made 8 page kits plus I have 3 in there already from last time, which is obviously a tad ambitious but I don't want to run out of things to do and it allows me to decide which ones I want to do at the time.  Expect some new layouts in the coming days :-)

In the meantime, have a great weekend.

Bye for now xx

Crazy?

I guess crazy runs in families because both my kids are totally crackers.  I used a sketch by Kirsty Wiseman from her on-line crop sessions that she holds some Wednesdays (keep an eye on her blog) for this layout about my crazy baby girl.  She must have been about 10 months or so and she used to pull this face a LOT then.  It was sort of a kissy / snorty face and she knew it made people laugh so would do it even more.  

She has stopped pulling that face but she is still completely loopy.

And talking of crazy, I started the Couch to 5k challenge Tuesday and I managed to complete the 3 sessions required for the first week.  Hurrah!  I also managed to stick pretty rigidly to my Slimming World diet too so I was expecting a fantastic loss for my weigh in this evening.  Although I am very pleased that I finally got my 2 and half stone award (that's how much I've lost... not what I weigh...) but I didn't drop enough to see a new number on the scales and only just made my award, a measly 1.5 pound off.  Ho hum, better luck this week and I am trying to be very very good again with the hope that it will combine with the efforts of this week and mean a really good loss that was worth the effort.  A chap lost 6.5lbs this week and he had a few beers.  SO unfair!

Bye for now
xx

WOYWW 109 - Two spaces to share today

Good morning Wednesday!  I have 2 spaces to share with you this week

 I finally finished my pirates but I'm not totally happy with them.  I picked up the wrong pen when I was doing the outline and its too thick.  I think I've decided that doing art for other people is too stressful and I'm glad its done and I will be relieved when the little boy has them in his grasp.  If they go on the wall, fine, if not, that's fine too.  Now I can get on with my art journal from Kirsty Wiseman's MIMM class!

And as for my other space.... well let's just say that's a work in progress.  I'm hoping to do an on-line crop with Kirsty this evening so I need to have a bit of a tidy up as I don't have any space at all!

I've got lots of stuff to put away including the layout that B got hold of and ahem.. altered, here. That new stash needs to be put away too which includes my new little brayer - its so cute and it has little feet so you don't put paint on your work surface.

In other news, I started the C25k running program yesterday and I am officially being ultra good with my syns on Slimming World as I'm wasting money and time by doing it half heartedly.  I'm also trying to update my iPod with some tracks that are the right rhythm for me to run to - watch this space to see if I ever make it to the 5k mark!  Today I am feeling sore and stiff from the new release of Body Balance though so I am glad of a day off, aside from the dreaded housework!

But before I start that, I think I'll have a little peruse around some other crafty spaces listed on Julia's blog.

Have fun, bye for now!