Challenge LOs

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

Wot No Hands

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.

Fully Loaded

Here is my entry for a fully loaded challenge on CD. The oh so talented Anita creates fab fully loaded LOs and in the absence of any forum challenges set us a challenge herself to create a fully loaded LO.

This was my 3rd go and although it isn't as fully loaded as the other 2 it was my favourite so I entered this one.

Papers, 3D stick outs, stickers and tags are Chatterbox, Flowers Prima with various brads, s/a pearls and BG buttons. Pearls help frame the photos.

Challenge time

This has to be one of my favourite recent pieces. Shell and I set up some new challenges for the girls on the 3Cs forum. We each in turn have to find a sketch then make a card, an atc and a LO using that sketch. We can make various stipulations for each item as we chose.

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.

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.

Other items

I have been hard at work on other projects too. It's been a long time since I blogged. (Sarah will agree here lol.) First I had trouble getting things on there, then I was caught up in what I was doing and then DH was on 2 weeks holiday. You try getting pc time in those 2 weeks. It would have helped if I had my photos in the shared folder so I could access them from my laptop but I hadn't. Lately though DD2 has been grabbing the pc during the day and then DH claims it when home from work so no chance.

Tonight I've been kind to DH and let him watch his film in return for me having the pc. So now all I have to do is find some of the things I have created and add them on here. Off for a rummage.

Other items

More baby album

Here are a sample of the LOs I have created for the photos to be just placed in. I tried to follow the standards as in the standard baby albums I had when my girls were born. (Wish I'd had something like this now)

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.

Baby album

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.

Papers are Crate Paper - Baby Bee collection with some of the co-ordinating tags and rub ons. Additional embellishments are some craftime buttons and Doodlebug alpha rub ons. Ribbons were from Charmed Cards and Crafts.

The back cover is also Crate Paper - Baby Bee collection (photo at the bottom)

This is the inside front cover. Just love those elephants. She doesn't know what sex the babies are and doesn't want to so I have had to go fairly neutral with the pages, I know these have pink on them but I couldn't resist. Papers are Dovecraft.

The inner back cover is the same collection.

Ooh dear

Well it's been a while since my last post. I'm a bad blogger but I have been busy. School ended 2 weeks ago already for us. (Only 4 more weeks holiday lol). DH has been hogging the pc everytime I wanted to upload things and during the day I have been busy crafting to get things together to show here and elsewhere. Those are my excuses and next I will try adding some bits to share with you. (well when it lets me that is !!!!)

The End

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.

PoolBabes / Surf's Up

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).

We promised them an afternoon before we left to spend time in the pool. Dad was the lucky parent to go in with them and I became the photographer.

DD2 loved the flume but DD1 wasn't brave enough for it choing to go on the smaller uncovered slides. We never knew which way up DD2 was going to be when she landed in the water. I can safely say she thoroughly loved every minute.

Paper Crate Paper 1, Chatterbox 2, stickers from CI, flower from Papermania.

Love is ........

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.

Relax

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 !!!

Paper is the reverse of the Grandad LO with Mira embellishments and a few Jolees bits.

Grandad

The girls first met Buddah in Epcot in 2005 and that was when they christened the statues of him as Grandad. Okay it bears a pretty good resemblance to their Grandad, so it's no wonder they did it.

This one was out in the car park area by the bus stop in our hotel, and was big enough for the girls to really pose with it. DD1 rubbed his belly for luck of course but DD2 just wanted to sit on it.

Papers from the Mira collection by K & Co. (Paper too nice to embellish so I haven't lol)

Explorers

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.

Phew! What a view.

So just when you thought I'd finished my French holiday LOs on my blog, here I am again with the last few. (just haven't found much time recently for crafting so haven't much new stuff to add here anyway lol).

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 !!!

Pigs

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

Bunnies

Meet Leon and Smudge our 2 lovely bunnies we've adopted. Smudge is the black and white girl (English Spot) and Leon the brown boy (Lionhead.) They are great fun and are becoming more and more friendly everytime we spend time with them.

Today they had to come inside for a run. (More rain than we could even dream of asking for !!!!) Smudge is much more adventurous and found her way to the stairs. She slowly went up a couple and came down then got braver and in the end was happily hopping round upstairs from room to room. Leon was more cautious until we put him upstairs and then he was off. Catching them is a bit of an art as they love to run, and when the alternative choice is sitting in a hutch in the rain outside, who can blame them.

Yahoo

Today DD1 and I got to adopt our lovely new bunnies. They are gorgeous (you'll have to agree once you see their photos here I'm sure) and are soooo friendly. We are on 6 months probation with them as far as things go with the Blue Cross. The one bad thing that DD1 didn't like about the contract was that as they were both strays if their real owners come forward then we have to give them back. *eek* After the 6 months we are officially their owners though. Fingers crossed (although in the 3 weeks since we first chose them nobody had come forward to enquire about them even).

Long climb

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)

Paper, stickers, chipboard letters and shapes are Crate Paper from the Kaitlin collection