Layouts to share

So here are the layouts I created with my Cherry Arte kit from Rebecca's Scrapbooking Stash - if you haven't got one yet, you should (just for the buttons in my opinion...sign of mild obsession again...). I found these papers so easy to work with - they are fairly bold and bright prints but I found they worked perfectly, particularly as my cats tend to lie on a fuschia pink fleece which is a nightmare to colour match with most paper ranges! I think I'm definitely getting better at working with this page size too - I'll never feel quite as at home with it as I do with 12x12 but I'm starting to realise that you really have to tone down the sizes and embellishments so that you don't overpower the page!
The first page is about my cat's toes - I'm probably more obsessed with these than I am with buttons and I'm always messing with them which I'm sure drives the poor things mad but they put up with me because they know I'm their mad mumma!
The second page is about my cat Ernie - he is the longest, stretchiest cat in the world and sometimes when he is getting comfy on the bed he gets himself into the funniest positions and lets you scratch his belly and pull him around without a care. So this layout is dedicated to him!The final layout is about Bert and Ernie - sometimes they get so comfy together that they have a hug, and I took these two lovely photos of them one day in December when they were all cosied up! I love my button and ribbon heart - never thought I could possibly use that many on one 8.5x11 page! All my titles have been stamped with various Autumn Leaves alphabets which I'm going through a phase of totally loving at the moment.

I went to work today and got through it, hardly my best teaching mind but I didn't expect it to be. I'm still feeling a bit pants though so I might go to bed early with a hot water bottle and a dvd to try and sleep it off. Roll on weekend!

Buttons, buttons everywhere...

...I can only blame Rebecca and her gorgeous kit for this, but I think that today I created my most button laden layout ever. Of course, I can't share the whole thing yet but here are a couple of sneaky peeks to give you an idea of what I mean. I LOVE this layout - I think I might have a button fetish (purely in scrapbook terms you understand)! Sorry the colours of the photos are a bit wierd, thats artificial light for you!

I've been feeling a little better today, not exactly A1 but I plan on getting back to work tomorrow, I hate it when I fall too far behind because it can be impossible to catch up for weeks. Even now I know there will be loads of cover lesson work on stacks of A4 paper sitting on my desk waiting for me when I get back in the office...

The State of Things...

I thought I would share some pics of the work in progress that is my bathroom. On the upside, I really like the colour I chose for the wall. On the downside, as you can see, in one corner we have no wall! And yes, that toilet pan is the sole sanitary luxury we have in the house at the moment.

Been feeling rotten today, but I'm off to the doc's tomorrow so hopefully all will be sorted and I'll be feeling right as rain in a day or two.

In the meantime, here are some sneaky peeks of some layouts I've just sent off to Rebecca's Scrapbooking Stash. This month she sent us a totally gorgeous Cherry Arte kit - I can't enthuse enough about how much you get for your money but you could create at least half a dozen layouts easily and have loads leftover. The little jar of buttons and clips is just the best! I've been doing a bit of stamping and tearing, as you can see...

You Two Have Taught Me...

I thought I would share with you today this page I made last Wednesday - I just finished off the journalling this morning. Its made using a gorgeous paper from the November Back Porch Memories kit (an American scrapbook kit) which was so totally beautiful on its own it really didn't require much doing to it except drawing and doodling around some of the designs and cutting a section of it out to feature on my layout. The photo is of my mum and dad at Bella Italia, the restaurant we went to for my Dad's birthday, and I wanted to do a layout on all the lessons they have taught me in my life. I used Freestyle alphabet stamps for my title and a couple of rubons that came with the kit but other than that it is a very simple but heartfelt layout.

I'm hoping for a quiet Sunday today - I think I need to work on improving my mood and at least the sun is shining here which always makes me more positive. Lets hope next week is a happier one!

Bathroom Misery!

A couple of disasters on the bathroom front - suffice to say, that is the last time I let Ed measure up the room for furniture! It means we will probably be left without a working bathroom for three weeks until a new bath gets delivered and my Dad can come back up to fit it. And my scrap room is still full of tools. So I think I'm going to have to get a big tray and start scrapping on the bed next door - there is no way I can go three weeks without making a page!

Fortunately, I have a few pages to share with you now, which I made for the Papermaze blog. The first is about a weekend I spent in Brighton last September with my old uni mates - we ended up getting addicted to Singstar on the Playstation and had a brilliant time - that game is hilarious! The papers were KI Memories new Pop Culture range which I thought was appropriate to the subject matter.

The next page is about my little cat Ernie - who it turns out is a bit of a scaredy cat as while the bathroom work has been going on he won't even stay in the house and runs away at the very sight of my Dad! This page makes use of the KI lace cardstock which I have doodled on to make it stand out more.

Finally, I made this little card too - I'm not really a cardmaker but I didn't think this one was too bad - I like the little brad centres for the cut out flowers.

I have a couple of pages in the pipeline but who knows when I'll get to finish them now? Hopefully I'll get some done tomorrow, but for tonight I'm off to a party...

A little out of sorts...

I've been feeling a bit strange over the last week - it might be the January blues to blame but I'm super-emotional. I was even telling off a really annoying kid earlier and then felt like crying for him while I was doing it! (I'm sure he didn't by the way, I wasn't that evil!). And then in the next minute, I feel full of rage and have to grit my teeth to avoid going off on one about something trivial. So as you can imagine, I'm an absolute joy to live with at the moment, and I really feel for poor Ed who is having to put up with me! I'm going to make a conscious effort to try and be more calm and collected from now on...

I have been doing a little scrapping, but of course there is no point photographing anything till the weekend when there will be enough light to take a decent shot. I've been working with my Back Porch Memories November kit (which I used for Bella Italia) and I've put together a lovely layout about my mum and dad.

Tonight, I've got to work on a CJ entry for the crop I go to - got some ideas already so just a case of putting it together. However, that is not as easy as its always been - the big bathroom refit starts tomorrow, and as a consequence my scrapping space (the spare bedroom floor!) is being used for random tool and box storage. In the mood I'm in, that means that I currently feel like hitting said boxes, but my logical side knows this will achieve very little and I shouldn't be behaving like a spoilt brat when Ed and my Dad are doing me a lovely bathroom next door. So I'll just have to put up with a few weeks of scrapping on the table downstairs and carrying everything around the house with me.

On a more positive note, a lovely kit arrived today from Rebecca's Scrapbooking Stash which she is planning on selling - the papers are by CherryArte and she has put together a lovely set of embellishments, including (gasp) a whole jar full of buttons! I'm a complete button freak so this is like a kit from heaven for me :) Quick turnaround on this one, so expect to see my creations in a week or two...

Bella Italia

So here is the page I made last night, its called Bella Italia and is about the restaurant we went to in Banstead for my Dad's birthday in December last year. Whilst we totally love Italy, we are never that impressed with the food out there, but this restaurant was just great - the food was absolutely delicious and we had a really good time. As usual, I had a little bit too much red wine, but then thats just me!

I wanted to create a bit of a distressed look for this layout, and so I dry-brushed the edges of the cardstock using white paint, and I sanded the edges of the photos and the paper with my BG file kit (I got this as part of my prize and thought I wouldn't use it but its actually been really helpful). I handcut the word Italia out of white cardstock and then used the white vinyl Thickers that came with my kit for the rest of the title. I stamped a journalling block in white paint, and added a few white rubons for interest. Finally, I added the button borders, again most of these came with my kit.

As I said yesterday, its not a complicated layout but I really like it - the colours are just perfect as they remind me so much of the decor of the restaurant, as well as the colours of Tuscany too. It was just so simple to put together too - no messing about with different papers or fussing with embellishments. And it makes a change for me to have no black stamping on my page, although I've got to admit I did have to hold myself back - it just doesn't seem the same without a stamped embellishment or three. But I'm liking the understated look. The only thing I might do to change it is stitch some thread through the buttons.

Anyway, I hope you like it!

A quick update...

I'm off to bed in a minute, its been another busy week and I'm shattered. But I have just managed to complete a layout, and guess what? Its all for me! Not a DT in sight. I used one of my Back Porch Memories kits which I have to say are totally gorgeous and made it so very easy to put a layout together. Its quite a simple layout but I am rather in love with it at the moment - I hope it will photograph well in the morning so I can share it - its so dark all day that sometimes you can't get enough light for a decent shot in the middle of the day.
I'm off to get my hair done tomorrow, can't wait as it really needs doing! Don't know whether to go for something a bit different - if I do, I'll share that on here too :)
Night night...

More Christmas pages...

I've been pretty busy over the last few days doing some DT work for the Papermaze blog - it should be up there later this month but for now I can't share it here. However, I have managed to get another two pages of my christmas journal completed, which means I only have two more to do to reach my target of christmas day! I think thats quite an achievement as we are only halfway through January :)

The first page was for December 22 and was another to do list of the things we had to get completed before the big day. I was surprisingly organised and didn't have too much to do, but managed to jot down a few things. This isn't my most favourite page - it could do with something in the top right corner but I don't have anything suitable so for now it will have to stay as it is.

The second page was for December 23 and was about Stockings. Now, we don't have stockings these days as we are all in our twenties and poor mum works full time and doesn't always manage to finish wrapping the presents. So this picture of stockings was found on the internet. We did have stockings when we were younger, but they were hung on the end of our bed, a device to try and win mum and dad an extra hour in bed before we opened our presents under the tree with them. It was always exciting to think that Father Christmas was going to be in our room that night, though I remember my sister being convinced that she had seen him and being a little bit scared of seeing him again! You never know, maybe she did see him...

Work as always is pretty busy, and I have to go and mark Year 10 books, as well as doing the washing up and making our lunches. So I'm afraid this post will have to end here, but I will be back soon, hopefully with two more journal pages to share!

Down

I've been feeling a bit depressed today - it often happens to me at the weekends as I guess I'm just on a buzz all week so that I can get through. Feeling a bit dumpy and miserable. The same thing happened last weekend, so I created this layout to try to get the feelings out. Its another of those layouts which aren't exactly the best subject matter but are important in telling people about yourself too.

Its called Down, and is a really simple layout made by printing my photo on acetate and then using white acrylic paint to make a background and border to the page. The title was made by using BG chipboard as a mask, and I used Autumn Leaves stamps to decorate and create a journalling block. Finally, a few Papermania pearl brads (my favourite!) completed the layout.

Its not the tidiest or most accomplished layout in the world, but I actually quite like it - its different to my normal style and I'm going to try and do a few more pared down pages in the future if I can, just to challenge myself a bit. Trouble is, I always look at a page and feel the need to fill it - I just don't know how to stop!

I've been doing a bit of DT work this weekend, so no more christmas journal pages to share yet, but I'm determined I'm going to get the last few up to Christmas day out of the way, so check back for more in the next few days!

Davina bites back!

Well the first day back wasn't too dreadful - the kids were pretty good and my lessons went quickly - I'll soon be back into the swing of things and its such a short term anyway that I know it'll fly by.

However, I have a confession. Davina McCall has killed me! Her thirty minute workout clearly stretched my muscles more than I realised and now getting up and down the stairs is agony, even on Nurofen! The trouble is, I'm supposed to be going to Pilates tomorrow evening with two friends from work - I've never done Pilates before but I know its all about stretching, and with my muscles currently trembling at even the prospect of lifting me off a chair, this could be severely embarrassing. To any of my blog readers who have experienced similar and have any tips for getting my leg muscles back into gear, please share your secrets and leave me a comment!

Onto more enjoyable things, and here is my latest Christmas journal page. I'm determined to get up to at least Christmas day and here is the one for the 21st, so only four more to do to have achieved that goal (depending on how quickly that happens, I might try to get further). The picture is of my living room on December 21st - spot the rogue clothes horse spoiling the festivities! But it was the day after I broke up from school and I was trying to get everything ready for driving down to mum and dad's, so I will excuse myself. Its a good thing I decided not to take a picture of my craft room (or, more accurately, floor), because that was a total tip and still is!.

Wishing you all a happy Monday evening, I'm off to mark Romans projects and wallow in my pain!

Last day of freedom

I am feeling a little depressed this evening - its back to work tomorrow and my two weeks of enjoying myself and doing very little will come to an end. Its a very short term - only five weeks - but its still not fun thinking about getting up early again and all the marking I've got to do!

So how is my health kick going? Well, I'm not exactly on a diet (I ate cheese earlier which can definitely not be classified as healthy food!). However, I did decide to make use of my Davina workout DVD earlier and, sadly enough, I found it really hard going. When I used to go to aerobics classes at uni I know they were harder and lasted longer, so this is not a good sign! But you have to start somewhere, and hopefully my fitness will build up slowly. I don't want to be so unfit that I'm getting heart attacks at 45!

Before I go back tomorrow, I have two more pages of my journal to share with you, and one more is on my craft mat at the moment waiting to be finished.

December 19th was our chance to write a letter to Father Christmas (I'm afraid I'll never really know him as Santa, I'm not that Americanised yet!). We never really did this as children, so it felt a little strange. What we did do though was write Christmas lists, so I decided to include me and Eddie's christmas lists in little pockets on the page. I think it will be really interesting to look back at these in a couple of years and compare what we wanted now to what we want then!

December 20th had to be about an unexpected delivery, and funnily enough, when I got in from work that day there was an envelope on the mat with a Jersey postmark on it. I was puzzled - I started worrying that I had a long lost relative living in Jersey who I had forgotton about and definitely hadn't remembered to send a card to! However, it turned out to be from my friend Corey, who, loving any kind of novelty gadget or gizmo, had decided to send us a personalised Christmas card via Moonpig.com (yes, that card website with the very annoying adverts). Since I made this page after Christmas, I didn't feel too guilty cutting the greeting off the front of the card and including it on my page. The cartoon is unfortunately more than a little appropriate!

Over indulgence...

I have seriously over-indulged this holiday. I have eaten way too much chocolate and other goodies which I shouldn't have and I'm feeling bloated and larger than I want to. So now its time for the traditional January health kick!

I need to make sure that I stop snacking on rubbish and make sure the house is full of healthy food. Now I really love healthy foods but invariably you have to put a bit more thought into putting them together - a salad has to be prepared, rather than putting a pizza in the oven! Which at the moment is quite easy because I'm still off work and I don't mind pottering around the kitchen and popping to Sainsbury's for missing ingredients. But come Monday we shall see how committed I am - I'm never one for making lunch the night before when I could be scrapping or reading or doing just about anything else.

But I'm on the right road, because tomorrow I'm going to an exercise class with my friend from work. The thing that worries me is that my friend informs me it is called 'Buns of Steel'. This does not sound like a friendly way of easing me back into regular exercise. This sounds mean. So tomorrow I may well be writing a blog post complaining of aching all over!

Anyway, back to scrapping, and I have another two pages of my christmas journal to share with you. December 17th was a difficult one, since I hadn't really bought any 'perfect' presents (don't get me wrong, they were nice and all, but nothing really stood out). So I went with one of my all-time favourite presents instead, our little kitten Alfie who I've mentioned on this blog before.

December 18th was far easier - talking about food is never much of a problem for me! And no, thats not a picture of my christmas dinner - there was far more food than that on our table!

Happy New Year!

I certainly hope its as good as last year! I have lots planned, and have spent most of today trying to plan our new bathroom (maximum style, minimum budget!). However, I managed to get a few pages of my Christmas journal done last night and plan to do a few more tonight - I at least want to get up to Christmas day, even if I don't go beyond. I did write down my thoughts in response to each prompt every day so its not too difficult to put the page together now.

The first today was for December 15th, and is about 'visiting', which I do every christmas as I travel down to stay with mum and dad. Its a simple page, but it eased me back into the process well.

The second page today was for December 16th, and is about being thankful - I have lots of things to be thankful about, but I chose just four for the page so as not to clutter it too much as the title is rather busy. Its come out pretty green on the scan, but its not quite that bright in real life!