Mental note...

...from now on, always check that the lid of the kettle is firmly secured. Today at work, I was making tea for everyone and the kettle was quite full. After it had boiled, I went to pour it and water seeped through the edges of the lid and splashed straight on my hand! Twenty minutes under the cold tap later, I thought I had gotten off pretty lightly. Now, its much more painful, although I think I've avoided any major blisters. So now I have a bright red, slightly swollen hand.

So to cheer myself up, I watched Ashes to Ashes this evening - not as good as Life on Mars, but still the most entertaining thing on our lacklustre TV schedules at the moment.

I'm off to bed, with the hope that my hand hasn't started peeling by the morning...nice!

A (poorly photographed!) CJ entry

Tonight was crop night and although I was seriously lacking in energy/motivation/inspiraton I had an enjoyable evening just talking and pottering without doing any serious scrapping. I did however hand over a CJ and got two back in return - I'm behind everyone else in this CJ lark unfortunately - and here is a really bad photograph (thanks to very poor light conditions) of the entry I did for it.

The theme was Colours so I chose pink because of these gorgeous photos I had taken of a little bunch of flowers my mum bought me last week. They have really cheered me up and have kept really well - good old M&S!

Just looking at these photos makes me feel happy as I can imagine that Spring is on its way, although outside it feels like we are far from it.

Anyway, I'm off to bed now to try and regain some of the energy I am sadly lacking. I am SO not a winter person...

Let's get happy!

I've had a bit of a stressful day at work - don't get me wrong, going back after the holiday is never a bundle of fun, but a boy in the last lesson today decided to bring a whole load of personal issues into the lesson and then proceeded to take them out violently on a book, another pupil and finally a door. I was fairly shaken by it all as the boy is taller than me and I wouldn't have a chance of restraining him if he really did lose it. So it wasn't exactly the happiest of afternoons, and this evening has been busy with lots of marking too.
So I've decided to include this in my post, as everytime I see it it makes me happy, and I've always loved this song:



As far as scrapping goes I've been pretty unproductive over the last few days, but I'm off to complete a CJ entry now so hopefully I'll be able to share that tomorrow. Here's to a happier day tomorrow!

Oh, What a Night!

So it was Valentines day yesterday and me and Ed decided to treat ourselves to a night at the theatre. The other day we bought tickets to a musical playing in Birmingham called Oh, What a Night! - its basically all seventies disco tunes put together to form a plot about dance auditions in a nightclub. It was a good night, although probably not as strong a show as Grease which we saw there last year, or my personal favourite Dancing in the Streets which we saw in London (I am a bit of a Motown fanatic!)

I did make the shocking discovery last night that Ed has never seen the film Xanadu - so amazingly crap its a classic - and, even more shockingly, that he had never heard the tune Midnight Train to Georgia before! Surely EVERYONE has heard that tune? He needs some serious musical education - all that dance and house music may have poisoned his brain in his youth ;)



Of course, Valentines day requires cards (apart from last year when I forgot, and will feel ashamed forever more) so I set to making one for Ed the other day. Now, I am pretty useless at making cards, so forgive the simplicity of this one - it just doesn't seem to come together like a scrapbook page for me, but I do like my jaggedy hand cut heart.

I'm off to London later to enjoy the last weekend of my half term - its gone way too quickly for my liking, but at least next half term is really short and it will be Easter before we know it!

My CJ came home!

My CJ arrived back home the other day - Rebecca who made the last entry was super-organised so I got it a whole month early! As promised, I wanted to put all the entries up on my blog so the other CJ participants could have a look at each other's work. I had to do a bit of guess work as some weren't labelled - the tags were filled but I didn't know which page they referred to! (I know I forgot to write a tag in one of the CJs I did so that's even worse - smack to me!). But I think I have everyone sorted now. You can see my original entries here and here. So without further ado, here are the rest:First up is Ann's entry - I know Ann from the crops we attend so I know how important a time the closing of her school was and I love her choice of song which summed up the feelings of her and her pupils. We are fellow school teachers and share a good moan every other Thursday at our crops!Next up was Jo - we are a similar age and so I understand her love of Take That - Have a Little Patience had more meaning however as it was top of the charts when her baby was born. The baby bag opens up to reveal the true meaning of her song.Next was Karen's entry - a love song which brings back memories of her special day. I absolutely love that Basic Grey Blush paper with the bird on - I always have a spare sheet of it in my bag.

Next up was Sharon's entry - she had chosen a song that gave her inspiration and encouragement at a time when she was in great need of it. I love that music and lyrics can have a really positive effect on people - I know they do on me.

Next was Jane with her entry about her West Ham themed wedding - her song choice was of course, I'm forever blowing bubbles!

Next up was Sam, with lots of hidden journalling. She chose the Queen hit Radio Ga Ga because of her love of the radio and memories of Live Aid.

Then we have Kelly, who loves the feel good song Don't Stop Me Now by Queen - this really reminds me of cheese nights at uni so I know what she means! I love this little detail in the corner, and Kelly even included a real CD!Next is Lynne with Lola's Theme by Shapeshifters, chosen because it reminds her Summer, fun and a special person in her life.

Finally its Rebecca, who chose Common People by Pulp - it reminds her of uni days, similarly to my choice by Coldplay. For me, Common People takes me back to high school days of being Britpop mad and doing our best to blag our way into clubs and bars - I can remember jumping around singing this at the top of my voice with my mates!

So overall a fantastic CJ - I can't believe its now finished, but I'm really pleased with the result. Its taken my nearly an hour to put this post together but I hope you guys liked seeing the finished product!

In need of a hug!

I've had a very busy three days - mum and dad came up to visit so that dad could help with decorating the bathroom and me and mum spent several days shopping, chilling and generally enjoying each other's company. Mum helped rearrange my kitchen which was great, and even dug over the flowerbeds in the garden while we've been enjoying such unseasonable good weather! We cooked some lovely meals for my Dad, bought a few bits of houseware from the new Coventry Ikea, and drank copious amounts of cappucino in various cafe's around the city.

And now, they've gone back home. And I feel SO sad. I love my parents, and I hate that I live a good two and a half hours away from them. I'm pottering around a very empty and quiet house now (it just so happened that Ed went to a football match and my friend Corey who had been visiting for the day went back home within the space of half an hour of my parents leaving - it was like a mass exodus!). So I've decided to go off and visit them at the weekend too. Cos I'm definitely in need of a hug :(

I've been lifted...

...over at the MojoHolder blog! The girls told me a while ago that they were going to lift a page but I wasn't sure which one they had gone for - its this one:

So if you want to see what they did (and there are some really great pages there, some of them look totally different to mine) then get on over and have a look!

A very quick post...

...and a very quick page. I sat down tonight if front of Ashes to Ashes (I was a HUGE fan of Life on Mars!) on the tv and had a bit of a play with some of my BPM December kit. I had the idea of scrapping this picture of me and my cats being woken up by Ed as he caught a photo of us lying in one morning. I decided to make a sun out of ribbon, and used one of the journalling tags as the centre. The white thickers came with the kit, though I find them a bit irritating as they just won't stick down! May have to re-glue tomorrow.

Its not my favourite layout - there is something about it I'm not sure about but I just can't put my finger on it. I think I'll probably leave it as it is though - you learn from every layout you do! The colours of the scan are a bit funny for some reason - its a bit bluer in real life.

Now off to bed, just one more day to go till half term...

We are so alike!

I created this page ages ago now, right at the beginning of December but it has only just gone up on the Papermaze blog so I had to wait till now to share it. This page is about me and my mum - virtually my whole adult life anyone who knows me will say as soon as they see a photo of my mum: my god you're so alike, I thought it WAS you but with dark hair etc etc. We are really alike, and to be honest I'm happy about that. I think my mum always looks great, she has a great sense of style and if I look as good as she does in my fifties after having three kids I will be totally made up! So I always take it as a compliment :) The page was supposed to be a scraplift of one from the Autumn Leaves book Designing with Details, though I will admit my page didn't end up looking much like the original - I have never scraplifted before so I found it quite difficult. But I'm really pleased with the finished page, especially that handcut title.

In other news, my videoed lesson went really well - the kids were great bless em, and felt so important that I had chosen them to try out the skills lesson with. They are a lovely bunch! Only two days to go till half term now, and even though its been a short stretch I'll still be glad of the break, its always hard getting up in the morning at this time of year.

A wall plaque to share!

So the sneak peeks I gave you the other day were of a wall plaque I made for the Papermaze blog. Three of us made a different word out of Rusty Pickle Jumbo Letters, and I decided to make mine a bit pink and girlie using Scenic Route Loveland papers and my trusty Autumn Leaves stamps. You can see the other girls plaques over a Scrap, Paper, Scissors but here are a few piccies of mine...
I've got a really busy day tomorrow, getting a lesson videoed so lots to prepare tonight, and I've also got a ton of washing to do. But hopefully I might get to do a bit of scrapping later too!

Peep!

I've been trying to go through some of the old kits I have lying around my room and use them up - there is no point buying more stash while some of the stuff I've already got is left intact! So last night I took a small amount of stash downstairs, just a kit, my tools and my ink pads/stamps really and created this layout using the December Back Porch Memories kit. I quite liked the idea of restricting myself - it challenged me to use less on the page and therefore finish it much more quickly. Its not my usual sort of style - way too simple - but it does have some of my trademark stamping and buttons and I just adore this photo of Ernie so even though its probably not my most accomplished work, I do really like it. And those Prima flowers with the gold on are gorgeous - I have five left, so going to have to ration them out I think! Unfortunately, because its a bit bumpy, the scan has gone a bit fuzzy at the bottom, but you get the idea...

The lack of a shower is really starting to grate on me now - my hair feels disgusting, and since I ran out of dry shampoo I've been resorting to talc to try and improve matters! We are going to Ed's parents for showers later on, but in the meantime I really need to do the food shopping and I'm feeling too minging to leave the house. Grumble grumble grumble...

Sneak Peeks...

...thought I would add a couple of sneak peeks of something I have been working on for the Papermaze blog - it involves Rusty Pickle jumbo chipboard letters and my beloved Autumn Leaves stamps. Sorry about the colour - artificial light strikes again!

My page!

I thought I'd scan in my page in the magazine and share it with you that way, seeing as I haven't got a photo myself. So here it is - the style is very different to the old SI - it looks like my layout is standing up to be photograhed against a backdrop, I quite like the way it is presented.

I didn't get to bed till quarter to three last night, and then Ed had me up at half eight this morning, so I'm currently feeling pretty knackered. I think its going to have to be a lazy, stay at home day. He is off to the football in a bit, so methinks I might spend the afternoon scrapping and maybe watching Help! on dvd. Sounds like a good afternoon to me...

Scrapbook Inspirations...

...has my commissioned layout in it this month. I absolutely loved creating this layout but in the rush to send it off I hadn't photographed it myself, so I was starting to forget what it looked like! There was a little sneaky in the back of last month's issue, and then when I got home today my magazine was unexpectedly waiting for me and my layout was there on page 33. Can't wait to get it back home now, I'm still waiting on my Love layout from the February Reader's gallery too, I like to get them back to the safety of their albums as opposed to the rather dubious care of Royal Mail! I'm liking the new look of the magazine too, and there seems to be an awful lot more in there this month, or is it just me?
I can't believe this horrible week is finally over - I've only really started feeling myself again today, so I'm off out this evening to my workmate's for a housewarming gathering. I think I will definitely take the camera, although knowing me and my inability to drink without embarassing myself, all the dodgy shots will be of yours truly! My friend Gurpreet, whose house it is, has spent ages preparing food for us all so I think we are definitely in for a treat. I'm leaving Ed at home to vegetate and play on the PS3 for a night, which I'm sure he'll enjoy too. Heres to a relaxing weekend!