October's Here!

Phew! How long is it to half term?? OMGosh, I am soooo tired right now - my body clock is telling me it's time to gather food and go to bed for 3 months, and I certainly wouldn't have a problem with that!  The new term only started 4 weeks ago and already I am shattered!

Well what a week I just had.  I got a phone call last Tuesday from Middle School asking me to come over to look at my son's foot.  He'd apparently had an accident playing cricket and they thought he probably needed to see a doc.  So I shot off and sure enough he DID need to see a doc!  As soon as I saw his foot I could tell he'd broken something, but when I got him to the Minor Injuries dept, I was really shocked to see a huge lump under the ball of his foot.  X-Ray revealed the most horrendous thing I've ever witnessed - his big toe had dislocated and was sitting UNDERNEATH his foot!  ARGH! I nearly passed out!  He has also got two broken bones and a fracture in the big toe.  I've never been a cricket fan, and I can't see him wanting to take it up either!  Mind you, he was worried it might impact on his drumming, but thankfully he's managed to keep that up.

Anyway,  here is my latest card offering.  I made this one for one of the team who's birthday it is tomorrow, and I used the Magnolias Down Under challenge for my inspiration.  Their theme this week is Pink, White and Gold - gorgeous colour combo and I loved making this - I hope you like it too!

That's my lot for the moment - see you soon and thanks for stopping by! :o) xx

Autumnal Sunday

A very happy autumnal Sunday blogland!  I think it's time to pack my sandals away once and for all and dig out some of my winter woollies! Brrr.... it's definitely turning a bit nippy out there!

My card today is for three challenge themes.   To begin with I was inspired by Bev's sketch on Just Magnolias

and I combined this with TOMIC's Make your own background challenge.  The only printed paper I used on this was the leaves on my flowers.  I also combined it with Anything Goes's Vintage/Shabby Chic theme this week

Moan alert here.... Does anyone else have the problems that I'm having with blogger at the moment?  I see hundreds of gorgeous inspirational cards and projects out there that I would love to leave a comment on, but unfortunately, if the comment box is directly beneath the posting, blogger won't allow me to comment and I have tried pretty much everything to rectify this.  I have found that the only blogs I am able to comment on are those who have a seperate pop up comments form which is such a shame!

Well that is my lot for today.  I have a few domestic chores to attend to then I am going to have another scout around for more inspiration!  Thank you for visiting me, I hope you like what you see :o)  Have a great day. xx

Card Giveaway!

Oh blimey, this last week has just whizzed by and tomorrow I'm back at school!  I'm not unhappy about it though as I have a really exciting year ahead of me which I'm really looking forward to.

My card today fits 3 challenges so I'm submitting it to this week's Sketch Saturday challenge - here is the sketch:

And here is my card:

I'm also submitting it to this week's Magnolia Down Under challenge where the theme is Frame It and this week's Simply Magnolia challenge whereby Anything Goes!

Now then, to mark the end of the summer I have decided to give this card away in a random draw, so if you would like to own this card (it's a pretty big one, I tell you!!) then please leave your name in the comments and I will get my kids to draw someone's name (if there are any!! LOL!) this time next week and I'll send it to whoever they draw - blank if you prefer! ;o)

Thanks for stopping by :o) x

Stop the clock!!!

 

Argh!!!  Time goes way too quickly these days and before you know it, the school hols are almost at an end and it's going to be 'all change' from next week, but I am so looking forward to the challenge.  Having just completed my first year in KS2, I am going to go back to working in KS1 in a Y1 class! WooHoo!  I feel like a big kid!

It's going to be a pretty big academic year for all of us here.  My eldest is about to enter his last year at Middle School (OMG, how did that happen???) and my youngest will be taking his end of KS2 SATS - boo hoo..... my babies are growing up far too fast!

Now then, I have struggled, let me tell you.....!  It has been such a long time since I made a card and I really, really have struggled like mad to get back into the swing of it!  I needed a challenge to kickstart me off again and I found the TOMIC  and Totally Tilda challenges this week just perfect!  The task is to create a card or project with a Back to School (+ Metal for TOMIC) theme so I created this:

Trust me, there is metal on there - if you look closely I have used a metal (although painted!) brad to hold my tags together.  I have made this card for one of my lovely TA friends, and am about to go off and make a couple more for others! 

This Tilda and the rest of the school accessories was actually part of my DT pack when I was a member of the Magnolia International DT and I remember how much I really struggled to use it then, and this time was no exception!  The ruler, pencils, blackboard (which I've not used here!) are a dream to paint up, but I have always found this image really difficult to colour!  I'm sure we all have a Tilda that we find hard to work with!  Anyway, after several attempts, and many different uniforms, I finally decided to go with the green and grey because it's the colour of our school uniform.  The graph paper is ancient - I got this in a pack years ago but decided to drag it out again for this project.

While I have not been papercrafting, I have really noticed how many new products hit the shelves on a daily basis, and it's quite astonishing for me to see how people can still manage to keep up with all the latest products!  Is it just us who are really feeling the pinch right now?  I can't believe that companies are churning out so many new things (dies seem to be the quickest moving!) and people can still afford to buy them in their thousands!  I watched C&C on TV earlier this week and drooled at all the gorgeous new Nesties, but sadly my family need to eat and have a roof over their heads so that has to be priority! Nevertheless, if we are to believe the presenters, they were 'flying off the shelves'!  Even with the split payments I just couldn't justify picking the phone up.  I kept thinking about next term's school trips, music lessons, uniforms, shoes, and Christmas just around the corner, so my sensible side triumphed! Humph!  What wouldn't I give for something lovely and new to play with! :o(

Oh crikey, that sounded a bit miserable, didn't it? LOL!! Not one bit of it - I'm going to trawl through all the stash I have and make a dent in those papers I have stored away and hopefully make the most of the stuff I do have!

Well I'm going to go and start on my next Back to School card - I can't just give one out - now that I've made for one friend, I will have to make at least two more!  Thanks for stopping by my blog and I wish you all a good day! :o) xx

A shabby little number

Oh my, where has this week gone?  It seems like only 5 minutes ago I was waiting for that school bell to ring so that I could start a long, relaxing and self-indulgent week at home.  Well relaxing never came into it - I've spent the week redecorating but it was worth all the swear words - I love my new-look dining room, even if I did have to apply 3 coats of paint to the walls...Grrr......!

However, I have managed to find some time to get my stash out and start playing around again.  It feels a bit weird because I'm not getting a daily fix at the moment.  I need to organise myself a bit better so that I can get more craft time in.  At least it's starting to look and feel a bit like Spring now - that's always a good spirit lifter!

It's absolutely AAAAAAAAAAAGES since I took part in a challenge blog so I decided that I would get myself over to Saturday Sketchers and pick up their gorgeous sketch this week as I knew that would be all the inspiration I needed to get going.

Isn't it fab!  Lots of lovely layers there.  On my travels I also noticed that Magnolias Down Under and Anything Goes challenges had the theme 'Distressing' this week so I'm entering this for their themes this week too.  So here's my card:

99% of the papers are from Donna's gorgeous Bearly Mine collections - mainly the Vintage collection in this instance.

Well that's my lot for today.  Thanks for stopping by and wishing you a very happy weekend. :o) xxx  

Back in Tech Land

Happy Wednesday morning to you, and if you are reading this can I just say how happy I am that you popped in.  My blogs have been extremely quiet for what seems like a lifetime but it's been out of my control.  I don't want to bore you with the details but, fingers crossed, everything should be OK now! 

Anyway, I am a little late posting this here - thank you Isaac for finding us another trojan to deal with!!!!  This is my DT offering for the current Bearly Mine Challenges theme which is Ribbons and Pearls:

It's been an odd couple of months in many ways.  Cash is tight (so what's new??) and stash spending has been non-existent.  In the absence of computer technology I have been playing around with other crafts and concentrating my efforts on home decor rather than papercrafts.  My sewing needles have had an airing, as has my crochet hook (though I think the less said about that one, the better!!!).  My dining room has been desperate for a facelift for about 3 years now - I decorated in there about 6 years ago and loved it up to about 3 years ago but have been putting off the inevitable using lack of inspiration as my sorry excuse.  However, I have finally found inspiration and have begun the process of revamping.  OMG, it's only a small room but it's taking much longer than I expected.  But I can see 'the look' beginning to happen and that's spurring me on.  Still a long way to go though as I am painting furniture too...... or rather, I will be once I get get off my backside and make that move!!!

So, that's me so far in 2011.  If you fancy winning yourself some goodies, get over to the Bearly Mine challenge blog and play along - there's some fab stash up for grabs and my teamies have come up with some amazing inspirational samples to whet your appetite.

Thanks for stopping by - catch you soon! :o) xx

Oh Joy!

Happy Sunday all - OMGoodness, isn't it freeeeeeeeeeezing!!!!  Now I do love a bit of snow, but sadly, that's all we got - a bit!!  But the cold is something else altogether....Brrrr......  It doesn't seem fair to have all this cold with so little snow to show for it! LOL!!

Over at Keep it Simple this week our theme is Joy.  Now the idea is to keep it SIMPLE, and that's what I did with my original project.  I made a hangy thing using K&Co Die Cut shapes - dead simple and done and dusted in about 10 minutes tops.  However, when I left it to dry what I didn't realise is that there was a bit of glue one the Deer and when I lifted it, a big chunk of paper came away with it leaving a nasty looking gash on the bottom die cut. Boooo!!!  For the sake of the challenge I played around with my photo editing suite and managed to sort of disguise it, but I wasn't completely happy with it so I quickly customised this card I'd made by adding the tag with 'Joy' on it! Yay!!

The papers I used are from the Bearly Mine Christmas Fun collection and they are so gorgeous to use!  There are so many beautiful papers in these kits that there needs to be more than one Christmas a year!!

Well that's my lot for the time being - my fingers are like little blocks of ice and I'm making far too many typo's because I can't feel them - plus I can hear hubby's car engine running which is my signal that he's ready to drive me off to Tesco so we can all eat this week!!!

Have a fab (and hopefully, warm!) Sunday and thanks for popping by! :o) xx