I have a new Great Niece who arrived safely last Wednesday. Haven't got to see her yet as we haven't been to Brighton since she was born but hoping for Dec 6th and a nice cuddle with her.
Anyway here is the card I made to celebrate her arrival. Papers are K & Co, alphabet BG Oh Baby and stamps are Magnolias - Tilda with baby Tingla and Graffiti Edwin.
Craft Diner has a challenge on (by Jill from Jilly beans) to create something using just cardstock NO patterened paper *eek*. You can use stamps and ink, glitter but no brads, metal embellishments or ribbon.
Here is my attempt in the form of a 12" x 12" LO. I used 4 sheets of Papermania textured cardstock. From it I made a double sheeted background then with 2 further contrasting colours I die cut flowers, butterflies and letters on my Big Shot. I also embossed a piece using my Cuttlebug embossing plate - stylised flowers. I pieced the butterflies together to add colour to each of them and the smae with some of the flowers.
The cardstock works out to 22p a sheet so this LO cost just 88pence !!!! Photos are from our holiday in April at Disneyland Resort Paris. The black sky was just before the heavens opened on our last day.
These photos were taken at the Quenn Elizabeth Country Park near Portsmouth. It's a huge area with loads of walks and things to do. 
The girls love to pick strawberries and when you have a pick your own farm on your doorstep almost it makes it much easier to do. Pickwells can even be walked to. How convenient is that !!
These photos were taken at Mottisfont Abbey in Romsey. Mottisfont Abbey is one of the National Trust's places.
Paper is K & Co.
This is one of the photos taken in Paris. These tiny irises were growing in the garden at Notre Dame.
This card has lots of layers using papers and vellums in the same design as the acetate on the card above. Only thing I'd change is that I used gold mirri card (as originally it was going on the acetate card). I'd switch that to silver if I could to keep the theme going better. 
This was LO 2.Papers are We R Memory Keepers from the precious metals range and also Heidi Grace (which I cut *eek*), Punchboard - Heidi Grace, Star brads and mini Prima flowers linked together with my Jelly Roll Glaze pen. Alphas are mixed Thickers and some K & Co from Alphas to go ? box.
This was LO 1. It's a photo I have scrapped before but I like this photo and went with it again.
Papers, die cuts are K & Co Neopolitan Citrus from a scrap pad to go. Daisy D's stickers for the title and some of the words, Prima flowers
I've been a bad blogger again. Been busy though lol.
Here is my DD1 on her first day at senior school. No tie because they hadn't been given them at that point. School changed all their ties as they have introduced Communitites this year (houses to most of us) and as such presented every child in school with a free tie.
Papers, stickers and shapes are BG from the Two Scoops range. Lush !! Alphabet stickers are a mix of Chatterbox and Thickers from American Crafts.
The title just came as an obvious one due to her sleeves being too long on her blazer. Well she'll soon grow. !! This was a sketch at the CD for Sept.
Well the first one to set the challenge was Carmen. This is my LO from the sketch. I stuck pretty close to the sketch and really like what i created. (Always a bonus lol)
Paper is K & Co - Mira collection, We had to hand make flowers, so I cut mine out of more Mira paper and added some glitter stickers from the same collection. The embossed word stickers are .... yep, you guessed it, Mira too. Buttons are BG, ric rac from Papermania and alpha stickers are Chatterbox.
Here is my take on the sketch for the card This one had to have a stamped image on in place of the photo..jpg)
The ATC had to have at least one of the Dottie or George downloads - (available to buy from Charmed Cards and Crafts - and reated by the very talented Lou Brigden.)
If you haven't already done so, check out her blog she is amazingly talented.
I won't bore you with all the pages as there are 19 pages, so 38 LOs. Lol. You get the idea though from these. There are all sorts of ways for recording journalling - squares, tags in pockets and mini envelopes, even around the photo mat and a concertina booklet. It took a long time to do. (Thank heavens for the summer holidays.) The girls reckon she'll be in tears when she sees it. Hopefully they will be tears of joy. I'll tell you when we give it to her. Lol.
Should say that papers are a real variety in the album. Lots are the Dovecraft collection, also the HOTP baby collection but there are also some grown up papers (for family shots) like K & Co and Doodlebug. Embellishments include, ribbons, flowers, gem stones, threads, stickers and buttons mainly.
Here is the front cover of an 8" x 8" album I made for DD1's head of year teacher (last year) DD2 might well have her as a teacher for part of this year, and I worked with her for part of last year. She is expecting twins and so thegirls and I thought we'd make her a book ready to take some photos.
Well finally is the last LO in this holiday album. It shows us on the last day and just before we left the park to go on the Eurostar train back to Ashford. Our bags were waiting fo rus at the train station so what you see is what we bought. That's the trouble with buying daily and over 6 days.
Come the end of the week you gather it all together and it's more than you imagined. The girls both bought large cuddly toys and the best way to get them home was in their suitcases. DH had room in his bag luckily for their clothes lol.
By the end of this day we were ready for home and totally shopped out.
Bazill bling, CI epoxy bottle caps stickers, Fancy Pants felt swirl, mickey sticky brads, Chatterbox alphabet stickers.
This had to be about the best afternon the girls spent. The hotel pool was open from early morning until late at night but most times when we got back to the hotel, the girls were tired and didn't have the energy for the pool (neither did we). 
DD1 just loves her Pooh bear collection. They had their own money for the holiday and were allowed to spend it as they wanted. First day and DD1 bought the biggest Pooh she could. Well she would have gone bigger if we'd let her but we had to put a size limit on it in the end. He's very soft and squidgy though and she loves him.
Paper K & Co, flowers Imaginesce, C I epoxy stickers, Chatterbox alphabet and assorted brads.
Walking round Disney takes it out of you (especially after a few days at it). Here are a selcetion of shots of us relaxing. DH took me and the girls with out us knowing as you can see. Men !!!
This is our hotel that we stayed at this trip. For the first time we went off Disney and chose the new Thomas Cook hotel - Explorers.
It turned out to be a good choice and for the girls the best feature was the pool I'd say. (Even though they only got to spend one afternon there). It was a shuttle bus ride away from the Disney complex but the buses ran sooooo frequently that it wasn't a problem at all.
Would we go back. ????? Yes we would. !!!!!!!!!!!
Paper, ribbon and die cut shape are Far East collection, DCWV. Lo was done using a sketch.
Paper is the revrse side of the paper on the Long Climb LO. Gorgeous Kaitlin collection from Crate Paper. Felt shapes are Fancy Pants and alphabet is Chatterbox.
The view is taken of the various stages of the long climb up to Sacre Coeur. From the crowded area of Montmartre to other parts of Paris in the distance.
Part 2 of this LO is missing as I haven't taken a photo of it ........ yet !!!
.jpg)
This is Bubbles. Now there is a bit of a story to how she came to be with us. Cindy was the only pig we had and she got on very well with Butts the bunny. After we lost him she looked so sad and lonely that we decided to get her a friend. Plan A. A friend at work had some pigs and offered one of her 'spare' pigs to us. We jumped at the chance and so her baby pig was to come and live with us. When it came to it though she couldn't catch the baby and turned up with baby's Mum. We named her Sprocket. She was just 18 months old. Until we could introduce them we kept them apart in seperate hutches.
First introduction seemed to be going well until Cindy bit Sprocket. We tried a couple more times and found the same thing happening. Plan B was to have yet another pig from my friend at work. This is where Bubbles comes in. She is a year old and Sprocket's baby.
So picture it, Sprocket and Bubbles in one hutch and Cindy in the other. We tired to introduce the pigs to each other by just going for it and putting them all in the run in the end (as suggested by a friend). A bit troublesome at first and then things seemed fine. They were all laying down together and looked like they had bonded. DH and DD2 had been out to buy a new 2 storey hutch for them whilst we were doing the meeting. That's when it all went pear shaped. Cindy went for both the new pigs in the hutch and the end result was they had to be seperated.
Now we have 3 pigs, still, and in 2 hutches but at least it's not the war zone it was. Phew.
This is Sprocket
So here is DH with DD1 & 2 towards the top of those steps. Lots of people stop here for a breather and to see the view so they did the same. (Plus they were waiting for me as I kept stopping for photos lol)
