Aaaarghhh!!!!

My lurgy has now developed into that kind of heavy cold where you literally just want to scratch your face right off! Kinda like chopping onions all the time. Its a bit like hayfever except I don't think the pollen count is particularly high at the moment so I think this must just be general lurgy.

Never mind, I had a really nice weekend with the folks anyway and enjoyed my meal out. Its not my birthday till Tuesday, but since everyone is back at work by then we decided to celebrate it this weekend instead. The food was excellent - really good quality ingredients and great flavours. It was also nice to discover that I now weigh 10 stone 5 pounds - I'm very happy about that as I was only aiming for 10 stone so not far to go :) Here are a couple of piccies of our evening out.

In other news, my article on using chipboard letters went up on the Scrap, Paper, Scissors blog yesterday so I can finally share some layouts here. I have to admit, these aren't my favourite - I'm going through a bit of a scrapping low point at the moment so I really pared back my style with these two pages. The first one (which I have since added a few gems to after I scanned it) has got some great photos of Ed and Elmo and I really like the chipboard lettering itself which I painted in several shades of pink. Its all a bit simple, but I suppose sometimes thats not a bad thing and its certainly a change for me!

The second page was a bit awkward coming together. I just wanted to use plain chipboard letters, which is a bit of a breakaway from the norm for me anyway and sort of dictated me in not being too fussy on the rest of the page. I thought, seeing as the page is about our Haven holidays as kids, I might do a postmark to mimic a post card. It ended up becoming the whole 'Blockbusters' board you see here, but I don't totally hate it - it just doesn't set the world on fire for me!

I also made a little mini book, but seeing as I want to share the rest of that after it has reached its recipient, I won't upload the front page on here for now...

Just because...

...I think everyone else should get to enjoy the Crusha kitten song too. This time they are at the gym. Now maybe I should dig out that old bottle of Crusha from the back of my cupboard...

Piccies of home...

...so, the lurgy continues, but I don't want to bore you all with another rant about it so I've decided to share with you a few piccies I've managed from the confines of my home. For those of you taking Shimelle's class, you will know that we were supposed to be taking pictures of our local area or town. Now clearly, this was going to be a bit of a stretch for me seeing as I haven't much felt like leaving the house. So I thought I would do my best by hanging out the window and seeing what I could catch with my compact camera! So the shots are my VERY local area but I actually quite like some of them - a true ode to suburbia! I'm far too ashamed to upload these to the Flickr group as there are some awesome photographers sharing their work there but its very inspirational taking a browse through the group pool.

This photo was taken through the living room window this morning - the little white blob is the neighbour's cat, Beano, who I absolutely adore!

This one is a familiar sight in this area - reception in Coventry is so bad, everyone has these oversized beasts as aerials on their rooftops!Of course, for all the Sky obsessives, we have the obligatory satellite dishes...I do like the little wisp of steam coming out of the vent behind!

I absolutely LOVE this little blue car owned by someone in an adjacent street - its always got its little nose poking out of the garage there and I had to take a photo of it to document my area - I'm sure its got a name like Brum. Maybe I'll call it Colin...I call this shot, Rooftops to Nowhere. I'm sure there is something in that direction. But all I can see are very similar looking rooftops. The joys of the suburbs.

And because it wouldn't be my neighbourhood without them, here is one of my little fluff monsters, perched on the fence.

I'm going down to my parent's tomorrow as we have booked into an Italian restaurant in Banstead to celebrate my birthday - I'm determined I'm going to enjoy it as I've been looking forward to going for ages so the lurgy had better be gone by the morning or else!

Dreaded Lurgy!

Ok, surely this is not fair. I work all term without getting sick and the minute I'm on holiday and can enjoy some time to myself, I get sick. I woke up this morning feeling terrible - aching all over and coughing and spluttering. After dosing myself up with painkillers and carrying a hot water bottle around for most of the day I'm starting to feel human again, but I feel like a whole day has been wasted doing nothing!

Two prompts have arrived for Shimelle's class now, neither of which I have attempted. There is a layout and a mini book to have a go at. I'm not sure about the mini book, I don't think the theme suits me exactly, but I do want to have a go at the layout. Trouble is, I want some decent photos to go with it and currently the weather is atrocious so every shot I try to get will be grey and miserable. Here's hoping for at least a little bit of sunshine tomorrow! I'm not too stressed though, the point of the class is to have the projects there for when I am ready, so I might hang on till next week.


Over on Papermaze's blog Scrap Paper Scissors there is a cool competition. Its all about using this picture, made of felt and buttons, as an inspiration point for your own project. As part of the DT over there, I will be making my own take on this, probably in the form of a layout which will be up on the blog in the next week. If you fancy having a go, get on over to the blog and look up the details.

Gorillapods!

Ok, maybe its the fact that it makes your camera look like something out of 'Batteries Not Included', or maybe its the realisation that I can't keep my hand steady long enough to take a decent photo, but having read about these on the Shimelle.com class forum I've decided to order one from Amazon. As much as one day I would love to have a digital SLR with all the trimmings, I know that ain't gonna happen any time soon, so at least I can make the most out of my compact. Even if it isn't as good as everyone says it is, I know Ed will have a fabulous time fiddling with the thing - gadgets are to Ed like the holy grail of existence! So I'll patiently await my purchase and see how it works out.
No prompt as yet from Shimelle today, so I'll probably be back on later to update...

A relaxing Easter Monday

Its been good to not actually have to do anything at all today. Me and Ed enjoyed a bit of a lie in this morning - his last one before he goes back to work tomorrow - and then we pottered around the house a bit. I tried to make a start at clearing up the back bedroom again, I never seem to finish that task as there just isn't anywhere to put most of the stuff in it, but at least I can see the floor well enough to drag a hoover in tomorrow!

Shimelle's first prompt arrived, a preparation one which made us think about our definitions of home. I have put my answers up on the forum for anyone else who is taking the class, but I might put them up on my blog here at some point too. So a nice easy one without any actual creating today, just journalling and capturing our thoughts. I'm a bit concerned that this class may be a bit technical for me - Shimelle told us to look out our camera manuals and even tripods (which I don't have for my very simple point and click digital camera). My camera is dead basic so I'm hoping there isn't going to be too much focus on gorgeous photography as I think I might be seriously lacking in that department! Particularly with indoor photography - the flash on my camera is so harsh I never seem to get very good shots so I always turn it off and end up with slightly blurry ones which I like to think of as 'atmospheric'! Still, believe it or not I actually have a Photography GCSE from back in the days before digital cameras, so it might actually start me thinking about apertures and depth of field again as well as composing shots, so it can't be a bad thing.

We spent the evening up at Ed's parents for a birthday tea for his sister. A nice evening, but a bit like torture for me as I picked through all the gorgeous food to find the things I could actually eat on WeightWatchers core plan. I stuck to a lot of salad, a tiny bit of tomato pasta (though it was probably a bit oily to be 'free food') and some chicken skewers, though I couldn't resist the tiniest taste of ginger trifle for pudding. I probably won't stay within my 21 points limit this week, but at least I am eating significantly less than I was and when I weighed myself on Ed's mum's scales (in clothes, after dinner I hasten to add) I was 10 stone 12 pounds which is better than the 11 stone 2 pounds I was the last time I weighed myself a few weeks ago. I would love to be 10 stone when I go away in August, so I've got quite a while to achieve that target and at least I've made a good start. Now I just need to get myself a set of scales so I can motivate myself to carry on...

The Jam House

Another week goes by without a post, but its been another hectic one so I have a bit of an excuse! We broke up from school on Thursday, so I was marking like crazy all week so I have hardly any books to mark when I get back. This means I've got a fairly free and easy Easter break which is always nice to know.

I've been doing quite a bit of scrapping, none of which I can share yet but hopefully the first of it I'll be able to post in the next few days. Quite a few pages for Papermaze, some using new products from CHA which are very yummy indeed. My pages will start appearing on the blog as soon as the new stuff hits the shop.


Last night, we went out in Birmingham for Ed's sister's 30th birthday. It was at the Jam House, which had live music and dancing and we all had a lot of fun. I am now back on WeightWatchers (not going to meetings but just using my old stuff) which actually saved me getting drunk as I could only allow myself 4 gin and slimlines - therefore I look half decent in most of the photos. Here are a few of my faves:

Me and Ed at the start of the evening

Ed and his two sisters (it was the birthday of Nic who is on the left)

Me towards the end of the evening, looking a little bit tipsy! Ed's bro in law is in the background :)

In other news, I'm about to start Shimelle's There's No Place Like Home class. I have no idea what its going to involve or how much I'll actually be able to get done, but I will try and keep up with at least a bit of it. I'm going to hopefully keep my blog a little more up to date over the next few days to go along with the class, so watch this space...

Inspirational

With all the bad and intermittent blogging I have gotten up to recently, I almost missed a comment to tell me that my wall plaque had been picked out as Inspirational by a new blog of the same name! Thanks girls, I'm glad you liked it - it still has yet to be put up on the wall, as my scrap room is still more of a junk room, but one day maybe! If you want to go and have a look at all the other Inspirational work that has been picked out after crafty blog surfing, go and check out this site: Inspirational

In other news, I appear to be getting the dreaded lurgy! Not feeling exceptionally ill, but my throat feels like it has got a big lump in it or is closing up or something. At least it doesn't hurt at the moment, although its a bit of a pain when I'm trying to eat. Might have to guzzle a lot of tea and veg out in bed in the hope that it will go away quickly...

...almost forgot to say, I have signed up for Shimelle's new class, There's No Place Like Home. I love Shimelle's classes, particularly with her new discussion forums to share ideas. So even though I probably won't have the time to take part in it straight away, I will be able to use the pdfs she sends to inspire me when I have a bit more time on my hands. If you fancy taking part, check out Shimelle's blog for details: Shimelle.com

The tunes are back!

Well, I've had a complaint about removing my playlist from my blog. And I have to admit, I was beginning to miss the tunes myself! However, its not always convenient to have music blaring when you are sneakily checking your blog at work. So this time, I've set it up so that it only plays when you want it to - scroll down and press the play button and it will randomly scroll through my tunes. I've added a bit of a new selection too. So, to the lady who loves to listen, my playlist is back, just for you ;)

CJ entries and more

Seriously bad blogging again. The trouble is that while I have been making a few pages lately, I'm just not allowed to share them yet which is all quite frustrating. But finally I do have some stuff to share, so here goes!

First up, I made this page for the Its a Creative World blog. The girls there asked me to do a guest spot so I decided to put together this layout about my little bro when he was about two (he is now a handsome young man of nearly twenty!). I love how cute he looks in this photo with muck all over his face, and sometimes its hard to believe that he was once this small! I used an old Back Porch Memories kit for this one, very pretty papers that went perfectly with the colour of the top he was wearing.

Second, I have two CJ entries for the crop I go to on a Wednesday - I was a bit behind but have almost caught up now and we are doing the final handover next Wednesday which is quite exciting!

Life is still hectic, but I think I'm thriving on the pressure and am actually producing way more than usual. I've had to strip back my style a bit, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to have a change in the way you make your pages and it breaks up the very overloaded and detailed albums that I have. I've only got about a week till Easter now, this half term has just flown by!

Talk Talk - you w****rs!

For anybody even remotely considering having anything to do with Talk Talk (they of the multitude of adverts on TV with people creating scenes under a birdseye view camera) - DON'T! We took up their offer of very cheap broadband over a year ago now and have lived to regret it. Firstly, we paid for it for three months but could never get properly connected. So we decided to cancel, and thought everything was ok until we got a letter about unpaid bills several months later in April last year. Again, we rang up to cancel, only to receive a letter this February (nearly a year later!) demanding £277 and threatening to pass us onto debt collectors! Needless to say, we tried to phone, and after getting cut off twice while being passed from pillar to post, we went into a Carphone Warehouse to sort it out. The manager there assured us all was well. And then, of course, today we received a letter from a debt collection agency demanding £310! I am absolutely fuming! Talk Talk claim that they had sorted it out, but the debt collectors know nothing of the sort.
Talk Talk's customer service is abysmal - don't touch this poisonous company if you value your sanity! Anyway, rant over... :)

So what have I been up to? I've been scrapping for a magazine commission, and also putting another little project together for an upcoming event. I've also been asked to do a few entries for the It's A Creative World blog as well as work for Rebecca's and Papermaze so I'm working on those too. Very very busy, but nothing to share just yet - think I may have taken on just a little too much recently, but there is nothing like pressure to get me productive.

And happily enough, the bathroom is so nearly there, I think I'll be having a shower by the weekend! Which means all the tools and other rubbish can come out of the spare bedroom. Whic in turn means I get my scrapping space back! Yay! I never thought I'd be so desperate to get that bedroom floor back :)

Long time, no blog!

Sorry, I've been an awful blogger the last week or so, mainly due to work being totally mad and way too busy for my liking! Lots of training sessions and other bits and bobs to plan for and I'm trying to do a bit of a book-marking push to get them all up to date. I've been doing a little bit of scrapping, but nothing I can share here yet - all will be revealed in the next month or so, but it does mean that my blog is a bit inspiration less for now.
We are still enjoying the long saga of bathroom redecorating which is taking forever and really driving me mad now. Ed is currently doing some more tiling, but I don't hold out much hope of a shower in the next few days at this rate. When it is finally done I think I'll be showering three times a day just to make the most of it!
So, a bit of a boring update, but I'll endeavour to post something far more interesting in the next week, just as soon as my life gets a bit more interesting too!