aghhhhhhhhhh

This is what has filled my day since Tuesday.....
Internet - Down - short bursts here and there....
Phone line - Down completely
Nikon - dropped and now flash wont work!!!
Life - pretty pants!
Back soon!!!!!
xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ugg!!!

I WISH I didn't LOVE these boots...
I wish their cosy woollen style covers made me heave..
I wish I didn't covert something so commercial...
but I do.
*sigh*
They are knittedcuteness in a boot.
Its not fair.
I wonder if my local "cheap shoe shop" have fakes in yet.......

Scrappy Sunday

Today I am experiencing a couple of baby free hours, Diana has whisked Finlay away to play at Clambers, give him some lunch and hang out till the afternoon, so I am using this oppertunity
to tidy, catch up with Hollyoaks and Scrap! I had some Layouts to finish up that were laying around, so I took today's time to stick, bling and page protect them!
I love scrapping in the day, its SOOO rare! I normally have to wait till Finlay is in dreamland, dinner is in my belly, and Eastenders is on before I get into scrapping mode. A refreshing Sunday change!
I am not removing my slouchy trousers ALL day I tell you!
Slob Slob Slob :P
Anyway.
1st is a Picassa collage printed at my local photo printers (as my printer prints photos really flat and awful!) Entitled Park Life, with a little hand cut tree from Pink paislee paper - only I swapped the blue flowers for little leaves as it fitted in better.
***
2nd is a LO with Finlay on his "phone" bless.. The card stock is hand cut and TOTALLY inspired by the new range of Crate paper coming out - their die cut space paper is CUTE!
***
3rd is the Layout I am teaching at my Wednesday crop this coming week... most of the ladies who come along are really girlie girls, so I am pulling them out of their pink safe zone!
***
4th is a really quick 6x12 LO, with Finlay's "Mohawk" hair (which occurs when I am getting mushy banana out with a wet wipe lol) Very simple.

As always...
Please feel free to click on the images to view them larger! As you know the score with blogger's picture allowance... *sigh*

Anyway - Have a great Sunday!
xxxxxxx

Cosmo Releases and POTD

I know you saw this picture earlier today, but I am making it my POTD, mainly cos I love it, and also because I forgot to take my camera out with me today, which is a shame, as when I popped out with my mum earlier, we came home to find Finlay in a hilarious state with his grandad, with an entire chocolate biscuit mushed into his face and hair...
anyway.. onto some crafty stuff
I am LOVING the New releases set to come from Cosmo.
Cosmo and Crate and 0ctober afternoon will be the papers of choice for me in 2009 I predict.
I adore their release peeks.
anyway - two posts in one day? madness.

Saturday round up PICTURE HEAVY!

These blooms are gorgeous! I loved making them, and they couldn't be easier! They are die cuts from the K&Co paper flowers party favours range. I popped out each layer, glittered with sparkles and blinged the centres. They are going to go on greetings cards for the shop, I cannot wait to finish them up on some Amy Butler paper - cute!
***
I scrapped last before last, a LO that is more "classic" than my usual cartoony style, its a picture of my mum and Finlay in the park, one of my favourite pictures of my mum ever.
I used October afternoon, in my most loved colour scheme!
The butterfly broke off a hair band I had, I kept it in my stash for over a year till it found a home, I think it sits nicely on this page.

Here is a card I made using one of the un glittered blooms from before, It was for Ben's mum, who has been a bit of a star recently.
xxx

I love handheld shots, you get close up's, and also get to know my shoulder very well lol!
Mum bought me this pink top - I wear a LOT of black and dull colours, so it is great to feel empowered in such a bold colour - plus it has really soft and floaty gathered sleeves which make me feel all medieval...
anyway..
Here is a picture of me Fin having a nasal rummage in the car, we talked about this, and decided that its gotta be human nature right? who knows! Either that or he is copying his dad hehehe!
*polishes halo*

These two beauties are Maya road Crown albums I have bought in for a friend, I know she is gonna rock these out and I cannot wait till I see what she does.

Glittered K&Co letters - are LOVELY! Firstly they are mixed size, which looks fab on LO's in my opinion, and then the colour - green - yay!
Yesterday we were due to see a friend in Fareham, but Finlay is a nightmare in the car, screaming himself sick, we barely got to Brighton before we stopped to let him stretch his legs, so we decided to abort the mission, and rest our ear drums.
Whittards 50% sale was wonderful, and this lil cup'n'saucer found its way home to me, cute huh!? £3!! :-)

Paper chase had these really thick heavy duty Kraft folders, A4, which I will use for photo storage, as I have some pretty huge pictures that are waiting their scrapping destination.
It begs to be altered...
hhhmmmmm
*cogs whirling*

Another pretty thing in my home are these Amy Butler Grand Adhesion's.
I never really got into 3D stickers till I saw these, they really are sooo pretty, and yet bold funky colour scheme, they will look sweet on cards or feminine layouts - that black and white one would look good on a masculine LO if you did it right too I reckon....

More thickers....
I recently found a love for them, and adore them when they are "new" and sealed and pretty...

And last, but not least (and I know you're bored now so hurrah) My new 6x12 album.
Its AC Corduroy, and i love the texture of it heaps.
Its green, of course, although not the green I thought it would be! I had a "paler brighter" colour in my head from the picture on the catalogue, but its still nice!
I recently got into 6x12 scrapping, when I noticed that most of my 12x12 LO's are scrapped in a 6x12 space anyway!
So now they have a home.
Right- I have rambled on LONG ENOUGH!! Bye!
xxxxxxxxxx

This is a random blog post - I will do a crafty one later but for now you can sit back and be bored by a little history lesson.
I live near Brighton, and today I happened to visit the town with Ben and Finlay.
I chose the West pier remains as my POTD (see first pic)
Its not the greatest picture in the world by all means, but its still something I want to document in my 365 as it is something that provokes two emotions in me,
1: Excitement - that we are near the Brighton car park, and therefore near Paperchase lol
and
2: Sadness, that such a beautiful historic structure was destroyed.
It was built in 1866 - providing entertainment for the sea side town,
but in 2002 its demise was too much for its aching structure and it fell into the sea, It lay broken for a year before catching alight in 2003 and eventually the destruction ended up washing the first part of the pier away.
Today only the end of the pier remains "standing" Its boney ghost protruding from the waves, an frail and rusted reminder of what once was.
x

sneeks.... & POTD

Those are two sneeks for you, one for an upcoming Dream Girls challenge, and one for a cool new challenge blog that I was invited to be a part of!
(more on that soon!!!)
I love these two Layouts - I got my home made paint spritzers out again, this time in green.
I have decided that I love green more than any other colour, and think I probably always have.
It is certainly going to feature a lot in my year.
mmm, my "green" year! I wonder what colour last year was, I think it was brown!

This is my POTD - I was standing with my camera fiddling with the battery after charging it, and Finlay was looking down on the floor all contemplative at his shoe.
I started focusing in on him, just because, and he looked up at me, with eyes that could melt the polar caps, and I fell in love all over again.
Talking of love...
2007 I was all about Crate - I loved it, I stocked every single item they did, 2008 came and I moved on from crate for bolder designs, BUT.. someone directed me to their CHA releases and WOWZA, hubba hubba! Gotta love me some of these!!!

blummin gorgeous!
these images are not in order, and nore can I actually put them in order as I am a lazy lazy blogger. But please feel free to admire them! check out the crate website for more lushness.
xxxx

POTD

I think that says it all lol!
Guess what..
I will be scrapping - (yep! for all those who forgot I actually scrapped!!) Later!
I am excited. I have TWO pages on the go, just waiting for the red glitter glue to dry.
mmmm fancy!

Picassa love

PICASSA LOVE
I created this today in picassa, we are having it printed huge from photobox and I cannot wait till it arrives!
It was so much fun to make, and so easy....
Picassa rocks cos you can organise all your pictures into folders, blog from it, Edit in it and most of all create in it. And the best bit?
ITS FREE!
Go grab yourself some picassa love!

Monday Tuesday.....

So who's impressed that I'm still actually doing this?
I am!
I downloaded Shimelles prompt, and sat last night filling out the form that will form some basis of the project, and I realised how changeable my feelings are. I am both Happy and Nervous all at once, I jotted down all the form asked, and sat back never feeling more complex, but I am ok with that. I mean, I know I have a lot to work on this year... so it kinda helps to keep a track.
***
I finally chose my word of the year.
NURTURE.
It covers pretty much all I aim for this year,
To care for Finlay, helping him grow and learn.
To nurture my own ambitions and make something of myself,
to hold onto the things I care for, nourishing them and keeping them safe.

I have a backup word that I can throw in, incase my WOTY fails me *(lol)* which it won't...
TIME
Mainly because I want more of it, I need to spend some of it wisely, I need to delegate it and not waste it.
So, less facebook lol, more painting, less eating rubbish, more walking, less procrastinating, more memory-making-cuddle-kissing-heart-popping moments!

just quickly...........

I made a little BIA book for my Sister in law *(to-be I hope one day!)* For little notes, I bound one of those credit card size plastic voucher cards for Debenhams inside for her birthday, I hope she liked it!
Jan 17ths picture and 18th below. How cringeworthy is todays!? I cried!
All better now, and our kitchen looks beautiful again! (it was getting seriously un tidy in there, every surface was "dumped" upon. Now its all clear and clean, and moved around. Which is nice as we have more space in there now. I certainly won't sleep if I think about that mould 2night, it made my skin crawl!!
We know what caused it though, so that won't happen again!!!

Anyway - yet again 2day has slipped past me like a flash....