Blog candy alert

Karen has a fabulous candy offer on her blog here . Wow think of all the lovely projects you could make with all those stamps. But if you don't win they are so gorgeous you could treat yourself to a download ... or two .... or all of them even lol.

December calendar page

Christmas last year was the best way to add photos to December's page seeing as we haven't got there this year yet. Lol. It is a tradition now in our house to have a photo of the girls in front of the tree. We missed a few of the early years but got better once the girls went to school it seems.

Embellies are Anita's dimension stickers (free with Creativity some time ago and I have finally managed to use them woohoo), 7 Gypsies sticker, Colorbok stickers, B G button and alphabet and Papermania s/a pearls .

November calendar page

Both girls feature on the November LO. Taken at the end of half term holidays when we visited the Brooklands Museum.

Embellies are Prima flowers and s/a pearl, K & Co felt ladybird. Crate Paper Kaitlin heart, B G button and Chatterbox alphabet.

October calendar page

Halloween and this year the girls decided to take
part once more. DD1 had a Horror Ball at her school and then on the 31st went out with a couple of friends trick or treating. DD2 is more timid about the evening andhad to be somewhat pushed into collecting her sister and trick or treating on the way home. DD1 managed to return with a bucket ful of sweets and DD2 somewhat less but by the time DD1 had passed over the sweets she didn't like, DD2 had as many as DD1.

Embellies are Chatterbox alphabet, 7 Gypsies stickers, Colorbok stickers, Prima silk flower, B G buttons, a little quilted handbag (tick or treat bag), Papermania s/a gems and punched leaves.

September calendar page

September sees the girls back at school. DD1 has learnt to be a little ..... erm free -er with the wearing of her uniform. Who am I kidding she is very free with it. !!! How short is that tie!?!?
DD2 is still a good girl with uniform as it should be worn (except in this photo lol) but she is still only in junior school. Next year will be a different story with her I am sure.

I love this paper from the Que Sera Sera range of K & Co. Embellies are Prima flowers, BG button and alphabet, Papermania pearls, K & Co stickers and a couple of other flower stickers.

August calendar page

August is Tots birthday so who better to feature on this month's page. Here she is with her new toy - George the Giraffe. She loves him as you can see. Lol.

K & Co die cut flowers, 7 Gypsies sticker, punched leaves and B G alpabet.

On with the calendar - July page

Thought I'd forgotten to come back did ya? Well here I am with the other 6 months worth of the outlaws calendar.

This is DD1 taking part with her school in Hamble Week's festival.

Embellies K & Co die cut Citronella shapes, Prima flower, B G button and die cut sticker, punched leaves and Papermania s/a gems.

June calendar page

The girls love to go strawberry picking even though DD1 hates eating them. It certainly makes for a good June photo shot though.

Embellies K & Co die cuts and die cut stickers, Prima flowers, punched leaves, Papermania pearls and B G buttons.

May calendar page

What a difference a haircut makes. When Spring arrives the girls go from long to shorter hair. This was the first time DD1 took a photo idea with her to have her hair cut. Hmmm little girl growing up. !!!!

Embellies Prima flowers, K & Co G A die cut butterfly, B G button, dew drops and Papermania foam alphabet.

April calendar page

April has DD1 in her school show Fashion Rocks attire. Lots of attitude and make up.

Embellies K & Co epoxy sticker and die cut flowers, B G buttons and alphabet.

March calendar page

March shows DD2 ready for Red Nose Day at school. Oh and Eeyore of course.

Embellies are Prima flower, K & Co epoxy, B G die cut sticker, button and alphabet, Papermania pearls and punched leaves.

February calendar page

Here is the Feb offering featuring DD2 last Feb when snow caused her to have an extra day on school.

Embellies are Primas, BG buttons, Papermania pearls, Fancy Pants die cut shapes

January calendar page

Here is the Jan page featuring our gorgeous Boxer dog.

Embellies are Prima flower, Woodware punched leaves, Sizzix die cut flower using Kaitlin by Crate Paper, stickers are 7 Gypsies and K & Co butterflies. The button and alphabet stickers are B G.

OMG I'm back

Where have I been? I have been crafting honest, but life has also been heaily in the way most of the time for me to get here. Anyway I was meant to be putting more of my USA holiday 1989 LO photos on here and I haven't got round to it ...... so far. I will do one day. but for now here is a calendar I've made for my outlaws for Christmas.

I set the members challenge on the Charmed Forum this time.

The first is to make a desk calendar. Can be any size (depending on your desk), with or without photos if a larger one and I would like you to add the following: Punched or die cut shapes, ie flowers, tags, frames ...... Blingy things ie dew drops, glitter, s/a pearls, gems ....... Sewing ..... or doodling

The second is to make a crafty Christmas present for somebody. This could be anything, like covering and decorating a notebook to personalise it, making a post it notes decorated holder thingy (technical term there ), make an address book, make a shopping list holder for a pad (to go on the fridge maybe), decorate a phone note pad holder, make and decorate a photo frame or ........ anything else you can think of. Use whatever form of embellishments are suitable for your chosen gift idea but include some ribbon, and chipboard somewhere and somehow.

Here is the front cover of my desk calendar.

All the papers are K & co. Flowers are die cut Wild Raspberry from K & Co and the felt embellies are Fancy Pants.

9.25 on the rim

Our final view of the grand canyon was as we left. At 9.25 we went to one of the high viewing areas to take the last photos of it. (like we probably didn't have enough already lol).

Papers are Papermania Retro (for a change), buttons are B G, flowers Prima, G/A is K & Co and letters are Papermania.

Always Changing

Sunrise is very like sunset. The main difference is that is starts of very cold and warms up. Lol. Colourwise it is as sunset but in reverse.

Papers K & Co Happy Trails. Alphabet is Papermania. Journalling square is Creative Imaginations.

Sunset

As our hotel was just 10 mins from the edge of the south rim of the canyon it was easy for us ot make a date with watching the sun set. Watching the sun set over the canyon is very colourful. The rocks change constantly as it gets darker.

Papers and Grand Adhesions K & Co Happy Trails.

Bright Angel Trail

There are trails all through the canyon. I actually wsn't keen walking down this trail into the canyon because so much of it means walking on a norrow trail with a huge drop. I don't do height well so felt quite un-nerved by this, as did the 2 people with me. This trail was close to our hotel.

Paper K & Co Happy Trails and G/A K & Co Happy Trails- Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon

I went through a whole roll of film and a half to take shots of the canyon whilst flying over it. that's a good 50 photos. It was hard to whitle them down but I managed to get 8 shots on this one LO by making a couple of mini albums.

The whole flight was an amazing experience and I would do it again.

Grand Adhesions are K & Co Happy Trails - Grand Canyon.

Fly the canyon

It was the trip of the holiday. Flying over the Grand Canyon. The joke of this photo is that I took a photo of any old plane and ws going to tell people that I went on that plane. In reality I DID go on that plane. Lol.

Paper K & Co Happy Trails. Chipboard stars from American Crafts. Papermania letters and ribbon.

Oak Creek Canyon

On the way to The Grabd Canyon we passed through Oak Creek Canyon. It is very much used as filmland especially for westerns. Up hair pin bends you get some amazing views. Sadly they were into the sunlight for me so aren't as clear as they could be.

NO paper this time just C/S. !!! Ribbon and ric rack from Papermania. Chatterbox sticky alphabet letters. Embellishment from Jolees.

Bus Trip U S A

So on with the 1989 USA holiday LOs. (and you thought I'd finished or forgotten lol.)

We made a stop out in the desert so we could see seguaro cactus up close. It also gave us an opportunity to capture the tour director and bus driver on camera.

Papers as usual K & Co Happy Trails with a G A from the collection too. Chipboard letters are thickers.

Annie card

My friend Karen is having a 4th birthday celebration for her shop site Charmed Cards and Crafts and has some fab competitions running.

This is my entry for the blog candy. And what blog candy it is. I'm very late with my entry (life in the way and all that !!!) so fingers crossed it's a high number picked lol.

Papers used are the gorgeously jazzy WRMK Nonsense, Bazzill Basics and Bling C/S, flowers are a Prima hydrangea with a paper rose in the centre and McGill pine punched leaves. Sentiment is from Anita's. The lovely stamp is one of Lou and Karen's Delectable stamps - Annie with Teddy.

Good luck to any other participants.

Blog candy give away

http://charmedcrafts.blogspot.com/2009/07/another-blog-candy-with-twist.html

Karen is once again teaming up with Graphics DIRECT in giving away a huge set of 72 copic pens. Go visit, take part and you never know your luck.

Seguaro Cactus

These cacti are absolutely enormous. It takes years for them to grow and if there is one on the plot of land you want to build on it is protected. Not so nice in this area was the Teddy Bear cactus which if you get near enought to touchit leaves its spines in you and the more you try to get them out the deeper they go. I stayed well clear.

Paper from K & Co Happy Trails. The title now is a laser cut photo I bought with Arizona already cut in it. (handy as that is where I was lol) but this shows the LO before I changed it. Doh!

Camel rocks

Not to be outdone, Scottsdale has a set of rocks in the shape of a lying down camel. (It's all in the right angle thing.)

For a change for me there is NO paper on this LO, just C/S. Flowers and Arizona embellishments are from some Arizona embellishments I had. Velvet ribbon and s/a pearls are Papermania.

Rocky Road

Out in the middle of the desert there are lots of
rocks that take on the appearance of something.

The top photo is said to be Geronimo (his face)crying for his land and the lower photo shows bell and cathedral rocks. Both are in Arizona.

Papers and die cut from K & Co Happy Trails, Stickopotamus stickers and Thickers alphabet.

Montezuma's Castle

A stop on the tour took us to this strange 'castle; in the rocks. It is a National Monument and gets lots of vistors, sadly you can no longer climb up the rocks and into the castle itself. (phew!)

Paper from K & Co Happy Trails, chipboard stars from American Crafts, Prima flowers, page from Making Memories journalling pad, Stickpotamus stickers and Papermania alphabet.

Hotels

A lot of the hotels we stayed at on the tour were much the same. These are 2 of the hotels with nice pools and a lack of crowds. Mind you they were out in the dessert! One in Palm Springs and the other in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Paper and embellishments from K & Co Happy Trails. Foam alphabet and stickers from Papermania.

It's a Small World

See others agree with me look at the queue. It is a must do honest!

Disney paper, Papermania ribbon and Bazzill basics paper flower with a B G button.

Well you now have the first 10 LOs in this album to view. There will be 60 in all and so far I have completed 50 of them. At the rate I have been going I should have this finished within a week or two. (especially as the summer holidays start soon.) Most of the LOs have been made using sketches from here. http://www.littlescrapbookshop.com.au/sketches/index.php

Anyway TFL and come back soon to see some more. :)

Do you Small World?

Yes it's annoying and yes it is sickly sweet, but on a hot sunny day in California it is very cool in there and just a little bit of fun.

Paper is from a Disney Paper Pizzaz book bought in 2005 on sale in Florida used in conjunction with a sheet from the other Disney Papers book I bought at the same time. Letters are Papermania.

Parade time

It's a must to see the parade at Disney, even when you are an adult-child. : o) Who cares if you look stupid waving at people inside costumes. Go on be brave and have fun.

Papers are WRMK Nonsense with a Winnie the Pooh HOTP punchout.

Disneyland

Being a kid again at Disneyland is fun. So many rides to go on and when I went SPlash Mountain had just opened. Had to wait an hour to ride it but it was worth it lol.

Paper is from a book of papers bought at Disney World in 2005, Prima flowers, HOTP punch out Disney characters and K & Co Happy trails chipboard embellishment.

All for an effect

This is part of Universal that was called Streets of the World. There were little fair type stalls that you could win prizes on too.

Paper is K & Co Hapy Trails, Prima flowers, Papermania s/a ribbon and s/a gem stones

Backlot

This was my first trip to Universal Studios (before the one in Florida opened too). I have been back since and things have changed so it is even better. It was a good day out though even then.

Papers K & Co Happy Trails and s/a alphabet from Papermania.

Farmer's Market L A

Just a brief lunchtime stop here but it gave us the chance to browse some little stalls with the locals.

Papers and G A arrow are K & Co Happy Trails, Prima silk flowers, DCWV rub ons , B G brads - Archaic, Papermania ribbon and WRMK Nonsense epoxy flowers
.

Movie time

Grauman's or Mann's chinese theatre is where you will find the hollywood walk of fame where the stars have their stars to say they have made it. There are also the hand and footprints of some in the forecort area of this theatre. Great fun to stand (or try to) in their footsteps.

Paper and Grand Adhesion are K & Co - Happy Trails again.

On with the holiday 89 album

Okay so I am now knee deep in LOs from the masses of photos I took when I did my first ever trip to California etc way back in Oct - Nov 1989. Wow 20 years ago almost!!!!.

Straight on with the first few then.

Hollywood Bowl - all paper and embellishments from K & Co Happy Trails collection.

Another child with a birthday!

I'm a norty Mum who forgot to put her eldest daughter's 12th birthday cake photos on here. I'll go stand in the corner. !!! As you can see Hannah had a yummy chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and giant choccy buttons. Did youknow that a cake , even as big as that, doesn't last long !!!! Now if I could I'd back date this for the end of May but I don't know how (or if I can even. Lol)

To start us off

Here is the first LO I have done in this album, although it won't be the first in the album. I have one to do of flying in to LAX.

This is of Olvera Street in LA. Very old and very hispanic. Papers are K & Co Happy Trails, Prima flowers and BG buttons. Lo made using a sketch from Little Scrapbook Sketch Shop.

Awol again

Well doesn't time fly when you are having fun. !!!!

I am busy scrapping my holiday photos from 20 years ago. Lol. K & Co brought out their Happy Trails collection and it fits in nicely for me as my holiday was in America. Amazingly I have been a bit minimal with my use of paper so it seems I have a new style lol. Photos have been taken and I will be adding them very soon. In the meantime here are the father's day cards we have made for my DH and FIL.

Rachel's birthday

My baby has reached double figures at last. Rachel is now 10. !!!! Here she is with her usual big cheesy grin and her cheeky ways. (It took her 3 goes to blow out the candle this year and that was just the one candle lol.)

Cards galore

I decided thst I was going to have a go at selling my cards so set about making what I could with the images I had myself and that my lovely friend Janet sent to me. I added some of the fab Mikey download images and these are the results.

So in addition to some other cards already shown on here (I think) I set off with DD1 to the village hall and a table top sale. Imagine my horror when I found us on a table opposite another card maker. !!!! The sale started at 10am and was pretty busy from the start. It wasn't long before I had made my first sale. 50p lol. Then an old friend I worked with at school came along and loved the cards so bought 7 of them. Bless her. !!

Anyway by the time 11am came the crowds had gone and there was only the odd person coming in so other stall holders were packing up. We held out until 11.10am but by then the organisers were packing up so we did too. I am happy to say that in the end I made a profit. Not huge but I got my entry fee back and some extra. A total of £8.30 made on the day which for 12 cards sold in the hour I didn't think was bad going and my cards were priced between 50p and £1 so I was never going to make a huge amount. Still £3.30 profit was a start.

Next to make some more embellished 'better' cards and try the florist and library out as potential sellers. Do I see a chain beginning???? Lol.