Rain rain go away

I don't know what the weather has been like where you are but it's dreadful here! Windy, rainy, even had a freak hailstorm this afternoon which I got caught in and it hurt!
Days like these are perfect for staying home and bring crafty so that's what we've done :) I managed two layouts, first this one from Christmas just gone. Looking at it now I think it needs something in the top left hand corner, hindsight is a annoying thing sometimes lol.

As I have a HUGE amount of Christmas papers, embellishments, photos, I'm making it my job to work on that pile this week and get it down to a more manageable level. Some are newish, like the star die cut, and some are reallllly old, like the paper from one of my first Sarahs cards kit.

Another christmasy layout, using Christmas embellishments anyway :) Love this photo of Caitlin in the snow so kept it simple. I had to improvise a little with this one as I had misted the paper and stuck down the bits at the top and bottom, when Mark handed me a boiling hot cup of peppermint tea which in my haste to put down ended up splashing on the papers.
Wasn't impressed.
Ended up turning it upside down and having to move things about so the photo covered the tea stains lol.

Love this little snowflake charm. I bought a bag of them years ago and they were really cheap, since Frozen came out however and everything snowy is very in demand the price has shot up so now making them last lol.

So that was my morning while the kids played together. Obviously that didn't last so this afternoon was spent putting together some of Camerons minecraft toys he got for Christmas and playing with hama beads :)

Weather supposed to be rubbish again tomorrow so hopefully more layouts to share then :)

Plans gone wrong again, but glad they did!

Today was a very lazy start to the day. Cameron had slept over at my Mums last night and as expected Caitlin was exhausted so when I woke up this morning at 7 it was just Scamp and me. Rather than wake Cait and Mark I thought I'd let them sleep and went downstairs to tidy up.
So I cleaned the kitchen, collected all the dry washing, sorted and put it away, put out another load of washing, tidied the garden, cleaned the floors and come 10:30 I sat down with a cup of coffee and Scamp and I were STILL the only ones awake! Was getting bored by now so did some questionnaires online and watched tv until everyone finally woke up at 11:30. Cameron was dropped off a few minutes later so glad I had enjoyed the peace and quiet while I did as was all go then lol.
Played with the kids for a while and we planned a nice relaxing PJ day watching films and playing. :) Then I went on Facebook and realised there was a 'destash' event near me that day. Basically a little church hall in the next town holds one twice a year where people rent a table and sell unwanted craft supplies. I wasn't going to go, but messaged my neighbour about it and she was very excited so decided to get dressed, brave the dreadful weather and go along.
So glad I did! There was a woman there who really just wanted rid and had a table full of scrapbook stuff. I got this little lot for the bargain price of £15 :)

Managed the one layout today too, so brilliant day craft wise :)

Happy birthday Mummy :)

Today was my Mums birthday :) We had bought her a pandora charm to go with the bracelet that my Dad got her and to make the day special we all went out to lunch. Was a laugh form start to finish.
First everyone was (good natured of course) making fun of me because whenever we go to the Harvester, I fill up on the salad bar then take home my main meal for later. I know I know its dreadful but I LOVE the salad there and why waste it! If I had a choice I'd just go and eat that but they don't let you lol. Then the kids got 'make your own sundaes' where they had a an ice cream, and little pots of toppings to add like mashmallows and honeycomb. Cameron, being Cameron, managed to miss his huge ice cream and tip all his honeycomb into his drink. This of course the kids found hilarious!

Back to Mums for cake, then our friend came round with her baby boy so had cuddles too. :) All in all a lovely day :) (and I still have my burger in the fridge for tomorrow lol)

Stuck

Tuesday night I sat and made the invitations for Camerons Pokemon themed birthday. Only having a small party at the house and only needed to make 6 so didn't take too long :) Cameron loved them and I must admit I was quite pleased how they turned out too. Thank goodness for circle punches!

We've wrote all the details on the back ready for Cam to hand them out Friday.
Now of course as I did Camerons, Caitlin started to get impatient for me to do hers, despite the fact her party is over a month away. As hers is an art themed party I decided to do an artist pallet style one. I managed to make a grand total of.....

1, before Caitlin came into my room bawling her eyes out so I tucked her into bed with me. This of course means any colouring or anything which needs light had to be stopped, so now I'm watching Netflix on the laptop with headphones on.

One day I will learn to stop making plans lol.

I bought stuff!

Since Christmas I've been super good to try and pay off debt. I honestly can't remember the last time I bought stash supplies. Anyway Mark and I were talking about money and saving etc and he was saying that we needed a bit of a treat so I put in an order and was SO excited when this was delivered :)

I've pretty much ran out of flair so I ordered these, some DST and a grab box. Love this flair!

The grab box was full of beautiful papers so had to take a close up of those.

Cant wait to start scrapping again!!!

Counterfeit kit blog hop

Hello again hoppers :) Yep its me taking part in the counterfeit kit blog hop again :) Hopefully scheduling will work this time!
Assuming it does and you've managed to hop here from Clair, I have TWO layouts to share with you this month. the challenges were:

Challenge #1: Border Craze: Get crazy with borders
Challenge #2: Irish Challenge: Celebrate St Patrick's Day with some creativity!
Challenge #3: Desk Challenge: Take inspiration from the state of your desk

First I did challenge number one. It was set while I was on my weekend retreat so perfect timing and I came up with this.

I used pretty much a whole sheet of stickers, along with dew drops to create the flowered borders at the corners. I love this photo of the four of us in Turkey a few years ago, particually the kids so wanted to make the photo the main focus and used a polaroid overlay to highlight them.
Not often we get a nice photo of all of us so glad I scrapped it :)
So onto the second layout. The third challenge was to take inspiration from the state of your desk. I loved this idea! So different for a challenge. Obviously you were not allowed to change your desk you had to take it as you found it, and this was mine at that moment.

Clear gap in the middle, pile of embellishments at each corner and little bits dotted about the edge.
So with that in mind I made this, :)

Excuse my thumb at the bottom, Scamp was determined to be in the photo and kept climbing on my layout so this was the only way I could take the picture! Like my desk I decided to put the photo in the middle to be the blank space, then have two embellishment clusters in each corner. Its quite simple but I quite like it.
I'm loving little flags at the moment but in counterfeit spirit rather than buy more I made one out of a toothpick and a scrap of paper. Can see me doing this a lot more. :)

So I hope you liked my layouts, please leave a comment to let me know you were here :) There's lots of other talent on the hop, next on your list should be Margie but here is the full list in case you've got lost and stumbled on mine along the way.

CKCB

Lisa

Clair

Gemma - You are here

Margie

Tina

Laura

Virginia

Sherrie

Jemma

Recap

So I've not been about for a few days, had a few bad days but all good now :) Quick recap of my weekend

Friday
Cleaning, PTA meeting, Mollie stayed overnight. The day raced by!

Saturday
Another busy one :) Took the kids to the cinema in the morning to see Home.

Really funny film, found myself laughing at a few bits that the kids didnt get so they looked at me like I was nuts lol. Rushed back as Cameron had a birthday party to go to, so dropped off him and Mollie and went shopping. Poor Caitlin wasn't feeling very well at this point. Put it down to too many sweets and too much driving about so she sat in the cafe with Mark while I got the shopping done. Was the first time in I don't know how long it came in under budget! Shows how much gets added to the list when The kids and Mark 'help'

Sunday
Woke up this morning to a beautiful sunny day :) Decided to clear the garage out and get out the summery toys which the kids loved! My garden was full of chalks, bubble mixture, hula hoops etc. Also had a very proud Mummy moment. Told the kids to go into the garage 'toy box' and sort them out into two piles. One the wanted, one they didn't want. A while later came out to three piles, one wanted, one for the bin, and one that 'kids who arn't as lucky as them and dont have many toys might like' Awww! :)
After all the cleaning the kids went next door to play there, I followed and ended up sharing a bottle of wine with the neighbour. We were chatting so much next thing we knew it was almost bedtime! We hadn't done dinner, baths or anything lol. So the kids had a quick bath and Pizza hut came to the rescue for dinner. A lovely relaxed day :)

Monday
Where did the sun go!? Cold and overcast today. Did some cleaning then finished off a hama bead project for Caitlins room :)

Plan to paint the canvas tonight and hopefully hang it up tomorrow. She's been a bit weepy yesterday so hoping it will cheer her up.

Grown up colouring.

It's Friday tomorrow!!!! I'm really excited about this weekend :) Mollie is coming to stay tomorrow night and I got tickets for us all to see Home on Saturday so the kids will be thrilled. Then cam has a birthday party saturday afternoon so will be enjoying some girly time. Weather permitting we're hoping to go to the park Sunday so all in all have a nice weekend planned :)
In the meantime I've been enjoying this. I popped into my local shop yesterday and spotted the new magazine thats just out called art therapy. Basically its grown up colouring lol.

Mark was so impressed he got himself one too! So tonight we were all gathered around the table colouring in lol. Mark and I with our magazines, Caitlin with one of her many books and Cameron with some angry birds print outs.
Was lovely actually as it was so peaceful and we just sat and chatted. Can't see me subscribing to this but I've been told theres some similar books on amazon so might have a look. Who says you need to grow up? :p
Oh before I forget, I've done a post about Caitlin and Scamp, now for my oldest baby :)

Hi I'm Cameron :) Here are a few things about me.
- I'm nuts, absolutely nuts. Mummy and Daddy think it's impossible for me to keep still as I'm either moving, singing, chatting, jumping etc etc. Even if I'm sitting watching tv I'm bouncing or wiggling about.
- I love computer games. If it's electronic I love it. My fave games at the moment are Minecraft, pokemon and skylanders.
- I'm great at maths. I've always loved numbers, data, memorising facts etc. I've always been confused by grey areas and prefer knowing facts and figures so maths appeals to me.
- I have no middle ground. I'm either really happy, or really sad. Something which doesn't bother me in the slightest one day can leave me in floods of tears the next.
- I LOVE my food. Mummy thinks I was starved in a previous life as I'm constantly worried about where my next meal is coming from. Despite eating twice what Mummy eats thought I'm thin as a rake! Mummy says its not fair lol.
- I used to come out with very odd comments when I was little. About how we didn't have DS games when I was here before, or cars or anything like that either. I used to talk to people who wern't there and there was a man who came to visit me in my room who told me jokes and made me laugh :)

- My fave tv show in Phineas and ferb, and of course Pokemon. I take after my Mummy as I tend to pick a show I like, then binge watch it on Netflix until I've seen them all.
- My fave food is fish, chips and peas; but in all honestly there isn't much I won't eat.
- I hate it when people are sad. Mummy and Daddy have to watch films and things before I do because if someone on the TV cries I end up crying too :(
- I'm very protective of my little sister, I even fell out with my best friend because he was mean to her and refused to talk to him until he said sorry.
- I love being outside. Nanny said I should have been born on a farm as I love to just run around fields and trees.
- I'm very grown up for my age, and try and take care of my Mummy and sister when I can. Mummy says I'm her little star :)
- When I was a baby I didn't sleep. The first night I slept through I was almost 4. Mummy says I used to have a certain pitch in my cry where if I reached it she knew she wasn't sleeping that night. Funnily enough if I get upset now I still have that same pitch I reach if I get really sad.
- Mummy says I was born me and never changed. Baby photos of me I look the same but smaller, I loved my food, all electronic toys and putting my toys in order. Now I'm bigger I still love my food, all electronic toys and putting things in order :)
- Despite growing up way to fast, I admit I'll always be my Mummys baby boy :)

Clear but cold

OMG its freezing today! Beautiful weather but it is cooooollllllddddd! Yesterday was a long and busy day so today will be mainly starting the spring cleaning I intended to do yesterday.
On a good note the reason it was such a long day was that we spent almost 3 hours at the hospital getting Caitlins new cast on which she loves! Its bright pink, lighter and gives her more of her hand back to use.
As well as getting Caitlin a new cast, we got ourselves a new microwave. Our old one gave up the other night and we need one! I never eat fresh food, my dinner each night is whatever was left over from the night before. I also tend to make a large pot of coffee in the morning then microwave a cup in the afternoon and at night if I want one so even though its money from our budget I'd rather not spend we went on the hunt for a new one.
After looking about a bit we bought this one down at Tesco. Should have been £70 but because the box was bashed to hell it was only £40 so not too bad :)
Wasn't until we got it home that I realised it had a mirrored door! Now we keep the microwave on top of the fridge so I can see this helping with the diet as every time I go to the fridge I see my face staring back at me! :p

Ok so to do list is wrote out, washing machine is beeping at me telling me its finished, better get on with it!

Its monday?!

After Saturday dragging Sunday just raced by! We had planned to go to the car boot sale but when we woke up at 6 it was horrible outside so decided against that. Unfortunately I couldn't get back to sleep so decided to get up, make myself a coffee and enjoy the peace before everyone else woke at 9ish :) I did get told off because tradition is to give me breakfast in bed but didn't think they'd be grateful if I'd made them all get up at 6 just to feed me lol.
Once they were all awake though I was spoiled with my gifts :) Lots of hand made goodies from the kids, including a card from Caitlin which is super special.
When she handed it to me (its the one on the right) she looked upset, she announced she hadn't done it herself as they made it at rainbows when she broke her wrist, so the leader had to do it for her. But before I'd got there to get her she'd managed to sign it but her handwriting was a bit wobbly because it hurt. I almost cried! My baby girl was sitting there with a broken wrist and was worried about signing a Mothers day card for me!

As well as my beautiful handmade gifts I was spoiled with a special one from my amazing family :) I've wanted a Pandora bracelet for I don't know how long so was thrilled to open this. Isn't it beautiful!

As shes now got them I can share my Mums gifts :) First is her card, look I made a card! I'm dreadful with cards so quite pleased with this one. :)

Then her mothers day book. Its tradition that each yeah I make her a mini book with photos of the grandkids in. The little heart in the bottom corner has 4 pink gems, one for each granddaughter and 2 blue for her grandsons :)

Won't share all the pages but these are my two faves. One of my two playing in the summer,

and one of my niece playing at a park.

Today is mainly catching up now I have full internet back, then hopefully a little more scrapping time later :) Poor Caitlin has her cast changed tomorrow. No idea what they'll need to do so fx it is painless and goes well!

Is it still Saturday?

Today has been one of those days where it seems to have dragged, but at the same time I've managed to get a lot done :)
Almost finished my Mums mothers day gift which is a good job really lol; done 3 loads of washing, stripped the beds and scrubbed the bathroom. I also dealt with a very sad little girl :(
All was fine until the afternoon when I told Caitlin she had spent enough time watching Stampy cat on youtube (4 hours is enough I think!) and she had to do something else. She went to her room and sulked.
Thinking it was a usual tantrum I gave her a while then went in to find her sitting staring at her arm and I knew it was bothering her. :(
Caitlins not one who just comes out and admit when something is upsetting her but when walking Scamp she opens up and chats more so off we went. Turns out she was trying to play this morning but everything she tried to do she couldn't, she was also upset we were supposed to go to the park tomorrow but there wasn't much she could do there. We managed to come up with a few things we would do and decided to go to the car boot sale in the morning to see if we could find some new toys so she seems cheerier now. She stayed at my Mums last night so I think she stayed up late and its probably tired too which makes everything SO much worse in a kids world doesn't it.
So crisis over these are the last of the layouts I did while away :)
First is one of random areas around Disneyland. Now I'm sure I did this one for a challenge but I can't for the life of me remember what one. Still pleased with this layout though :)

not overly sure on this one though, not a huge fan of the flowers. Id forgotten my bling so made my own using the liquid pearls I had with me :)

Now this one I do remember what challenge it was for. Again a new one for me over at Rochelle Spears blog spot here. The challenge was a tic tac toe challenge using this box.

I picked:
- Polka dot paper - the punched stars are.
- The colour green - The word 'are' and some green chevrons.
- Something that sparkles - You can't see it too well in the photo but I've dripped glimmer mists in the background.

Well as its Mothers day tomorrow I'll be able to share my Mums gift then :) Hope all Mums get a lie in and a nce relaxing day!

Friday the 13th

This morning while walking to school my neighbour pointed out it was Friday the 13th 'Oh I don't believe in all that' I said. Famous last words! Popped to Asda to grab a bit of shopping, forgot half of what I needed, home to find out the internet was still down! It had stopped working the day before and we were told it had been fixed that morning. Apprently everyone elses had but nope ours was still broken and they couldnt get anyone out until monday!
Im sorry to admit I can't deal with no internet until monday lol. I pay bills, do questionnaires, my life is on the internet. Luckily I found out on my laptop that I can get BT wifi for the next few days for £18. So phoned Virgin, told them I was paying for that and would like £18 taken off my virgin bill :) So I'm back online!
Still sharing layouts, this was actually the last one I did on the weekend from an old Sarahs cards kit. I scraplifted this from the inspiration booklet as my mojo was running low by then. :)

Back to the challenges I found another new one, Scrappin great deals here

This was a new one to me as I've never done a mood board challenge before. Basically I had to take inspiration from this in any way I liked.

and I made this layout. I made white ink splats inspired by the little tree at the bottom, punched some circles to link with the round clock face, used green tags to tie in with the couch colour and the love in the photo is obvious :)

I love this photo from Great yarmouth last year. Its hard for my parents to be raising a child again at there age, but times like this, when we see Mollie so happy and relaxed, make it worthwhile :)
Back to sketch challenged but another new blog, Scrap africa here.

I rotated the sketch and added lots of colour and ink splats to mirror the messy 'painting' in the photos.

Journaling reads 'To keep you busy at half term we found the idea of painting brad with milk and food colouring. Made your toast more interesting for lunch!'

Craft club

Dropped my mini celebrity off at school this morning lol. All the kids rushed over to see Caitlins cast and the staff were all fawning over her. Bless her think shes feeling a bit better about the whole thing now.
Was a very cute moment last night :) Woke up to find Scamp lying alongside Caitlins arm, so he was next to her but not on her cast. He had his head next to Caitlins and she had her hand on his back so she was gently hugging him. Really wanted to get a photo but as soon as I moved Scamp woke up and ruined it lol.
So back to layouts :) While away I joined a facebook page and found lots of challenge blogs I didn't know exsisted! One of which was 'Scrap our stash' here Rather than a sketch or colour challenge they asked us to use an item from our stash beginning with the words that spells Stencil. A bit different and very interesting to do :) So I did this one:

S - Stitches at the bottom.
T - Triangles on the side
E - Edging punches to make the strips at the bottom
N - New stash! The papers were all new as was the chevron punch used.
C - Corner stickers
I - Ink
L - Layers

Next was back to goo old sketches over at Stuck sketches This was the sketch given

and this was mine :) I didnt have 3 photos so used two but I love these photos and the bright colours in the layout :)

Last for today is the Challenge YOUrself challenge :) Might need to get some more photos developed soon as running out of ones with me in them!
This months challenge was to include a bucket list in your layout. Each Summer holidays we make a list of all the things we want to do before the kids go back to school. The last thing on the list last year was a trip to Wicksteed park to go on all the rides. We were lucky we picked the last nice day of the year to go.

Well its now 3pm and I'm running a craft club tonight to help the kids make mothers day cards etc. I'm taking along my magnetic cutting board as I'm hoping that will help Caitlin so sh can colour without holding the paper. Fingers crossed anyway.

More layouts

Well today we decided to keep Caitlin off school so she could get used to her cast. Glad we did really as I didn't realise how many things you need both hands for! Poor girl is getting very frustrated with herself but sure she'll get used to it in time.
Obviously still no crafting, in fact I haven't even unpacked from the weekend yet! So more layouts done from then to share.
The first is for a sketch challenge group I'm in on facebook. It was my turn to set it this month and I picked this one.

And this was my take :) Another doggy photo, this time of Scamp sitting on Cams back while Cam drew. They often sat like this together when Scamp was smaller, he's a bit heavy now though lol.

Next was the first one I did over the weekend and was a quick one in between chatting. I love this photo as was actually just of Mark and his cherry coke drink in Disneyland but Cameron decided to photo bomb him!

Last one for today, this was for a sketch challenge over at Scrapmuch?

As I only used one photo rather than 3 mine turned out a bit different from the sketch, still pleased with it though :)

So Caitlins back at school tomorrow. I've spoke to her teacher so they're aware of the situation and can't really keep her off for the 6-8 weeks it will take to heal. Much as I'd like to! Wish us luck, can't see drop off being much fun :(

loooooong day

Well. I had started this post earlier but then life stepped in lol. Yesterday Mark had a minor op, no big deal all went well but left him groggy and sore. Obviously the powers that be decided I didn't have enough on my plate so 15 minutes into Caitlin being at Rainbows I got a call saying she had fell and hurt her wrist. 3 hours later we found out she'd managed to break it. :(
She's ok, dissapointed she can't do her tennis lessons at school but cheered up when I pointed out she gets to sleep in Mummy and Daddys bed as can't climb her high sleeper with a cast lol.

So my plan of relaxing and crafting tonight went right out the window lol. Luckily I managed plenty on my weekend away :)
First was for a sketch challenge Jess set for us :) I had to also include some brads.

This was my take :) I love the way the boys at sitting watching tv together :) The sketch was quite girly but rather than the flowers and butterflies I put circles and stars which I think worked well.

Next was a sketch challenge over at Kraft + blog here This was the sketch and you had to use something that sparkles.

This was my take. Pictures from disneyland a couple of years ago :) For the something that sparkles I used glimmer mists, bling, pins with gems on and liquid pearls :)

Well after today my head is pounding so think an early night is in order, night all!