You are enough.

Wow, its now September and I forgot to share this.

I am a HUGE Supernatural fan! Not only do I love the show but the fan base and the cast are amazing. They say its part of being the 'Supernatural family' and t is kinda true. If you post on any of the facebook groups about a problem or being sad etc the posts of support you will get is crazy.
The cast are brilliant too. The work they do for charity and their fans is inspirational, seriously I cannot gush enough about how great they are!
Anyway one of the charities is 'Always keep fighting' (info here) which donates to mental illness/suicide causes. One of the ways they raise money is though selling limited edition t-shirts.
I've always wanted one, but since it had to be imported etc I just couldn't justify the cost. For my birthday this year though I thought sod it I want one!
I was soooooo excited when it came :) I'm a bit of a bargain hunter and don't usually buy clothes for myself unless it's on sale. So this is now the most expencive piece of clothing I own lol. Worth it though :)

puddle jumping

I love this layout, which is surprising as when I use my DIY kits I don't usually like them as much as my bought ones.
This one had a ton of project life cards in it, so I used as many as I could here for layering and love the result.

Love this background paper. Perfect for photos of the kids jumping in puddles!

Keeping me on my toes

I've got a fair few photos in my 'to scrap' pile that don't have a story to go with them as such, but are still nice photos. I was struggling to scrap them because of this but then decided to use them to scrap general stories. Daft things my kids say for example.
This one is a photo of Caitlin and me years ago on Camerons birthday, but the story is from a couple of months ago when we were watching tv.
Caitlin - I love pole dancing.
Me - Caitlin, what's pole dancing?
Caitlin - Its like at the circus where the man climbs the pole and then spins and does tricks.
Me - Ah *breathes again*

I love the look on her face here, she looks like shes up to mischief even then!!

Head in the clouds

I love this paper. Its from the 'In bloom' kit from Like for ever which has been my fave kit so far!
As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to use this photo, then I saw a layout one of the other members had done and I decided to scraplift. Sorry but I can't find the original now to give credit!

The photo is from this March when I went to dukes farm to craft with the other girls. It's always a great time and this time we had a sunken trampoline in the back garden too! Think we had more fun on it than the kids usually do lol.

Darlin

I love this photo. It was taken when Mark and I went down to London to see The Lion King. It was a couple of years ago now, but that year we had a resolution to do more things just the two of us. Obviously the kids are the most important parts of our lives but we had got to a point where we went nowhere without them. If we were out shopping and decided to grab a coffee or a mcdonalds I would feel bad we were doing it without the kids.
So this trip we asked my Mum to babysit, and off we went to London for the day! It was a brilliant day out, and the kids had a great time with Nanny. I think the fact I spent a small fortune on gifts for them while we were there might have helped too :p

I called the layout 'Darlin' because I was using the journaling jar my friend Julia had given me. It contained lots of little prompts such as a book you recently read, your fave colour, or something you like to be called.
When Mark and I first got together he started to think of a pet name for me. He called me baby, sweetheart, honey, but none of them sounded right. Then one night he txt me and said 'Night Darlin' and it stuck :)

11 years later he still calls me that, I'm only Gemma if I'm in trouble, lol.
Speaking of getting into trouble, I'm sure my kids try to make me look bad at times! Cameron came into my room the other night looking all scared:

Cameron - Mummy Im worried about you.
Me - Why love?
Cameron - Because you drink lots of alcohol in the morning and they said on the news at school today alcohol is bad.
Me - I don't drink alcohol in the morning love! Where did you get that idea?!
Cameron - You drink coffee and you said we're not allowed coffee because it has alcohol in it.
Me - No, I said it has caffeine in it.
Cameron - Is caffeine and alcohol not the same thing?
Me - No. *sigh*

Expecting a call from social services soon about my drinking!

July/August recap

Hand up, I forgot all about this over the summer holidays. The kids being off always messes up my routine but I have been keeping track anyway.
Back to normal now so here's the Summer recap.

Pounds lost - +2, all goes to pot in the summer holidays lol.
6/11

Games to complete
- Professor layton, The lost future
- Silent hill origins
- Yoshis wooly world
- Uncharted
- Silent hill the room
- Pikmin 2
Not doing too badly here!


Layouts done - 25 Better move my bum on this.
130/365

Cross stitch done - none. *hangs head*

Books read:
The accident - c l taylor
No Time For Goodbye - Linwood Barclay
Out of the dark - Linda Caine
The secret sister - Diane Chamberlain
The Breakers Series: Books 1-3 - Edward W. Robertson
24/52

Not as far as I would like at this point in the year so better hurry up!

Challenge YOUrself

I was about to say it was August then but it's not its September! Maybe my brain will wake up a bit now the kids are back to school...........nah probably not!
So it's Challenge YOUrself time again! Thankfully I was a little more with it this time and remembered to use a photo of me first time.
This months challenge was to include sewing somewhere on your layout. Now I've seen some sewing layouts and I think they are amazing and beautiful but I will hold my hands up and admit I do not have the patience to do the intricate work others do. Its beautiful, its lovely, but it's not for me.

So I wanted to show you didnt need to do a huge amount to make sewing pretty. I had this die cut paper in my stash a friend had cut for me and I decided to use the stitching to highlight the pinwheel design. I didn't have any embroidery thread nearby so I used some rustic twine I had in my stash. I could have gone and got some but I'm lazy so there you go. I like how it turned out anyway :)

I think most of the embellishments I've used are from the Coco vanilla 'Hello sunshine' collection which I was lucky enough to pick up in a sale recently over at Like forever. I love the colours in these and they go great with this photo of me on holiday last year.

Jornalling reads:
Somewhere, in the recesses of my Mums loft is a photo of me, aged 1, sitting next to the same Humpty Dumpty. I still love him now :)

2016 Scavenger hunt roundup

Yey I finished the Scavenger hunt!!! well within deadline too, go me :) Here are the photos I took this year.

1. A "wild heart" - a naturally occurring heart
Found while I was walking Scamp. Spotted a neighbours fence had these leaves poking through. Quite glad I got this as the next day they had cut it all down!

2. A footprint or pawprint
When Mark and I got back into the car at the town I noticed a cat (I assume) had walked all over the windows with dusty feet. Mark found it funny I was photographing paw prints when we live with a dog, but I like getting photos that have a bit of a story behind them rather than just 'Scamp walked over my floor after being out in the rain'

3. A skeleton, bone or x-ray
Mark had a bone density scan at the start of the week. I did ask if I could have a copy of the scan but no :( The nurse did let me take a photo of a skeleton in the corner though :)

4. A book or magazine read during 2016
Ok I didn't read all of these, but I did read 'Out of the dark', 'The silent sister' and 'The accident' so a few of them crossed off the list :)

5. A porch or deck
Ok so I'll be using this photo twice, as clever me spent a weekend at a caravan park and forgot to get a photograph of our caravan!!!! I did get a picture of the kids browsing one of the 'for sale' carvans though, so this can could for caravan and porch.

6. A camper (caravan)
See above :p

7. A family gathering
Quite a few to choose from this Summer but I love this photo of all of us at the BBQ we had in Salcey forest. It was originally a photo of Cam and Cait dancing on the log, then everyone else climbed up. Crazy people my family :)

8. A drawing, art project, artistic photograph, scrapbook page, greeting card, or art journal page created by you
Lots to choose from for this one! Picked this layout I did for a challenge in our Facebook group Sketchy scrappers (feel free to come join us!) Great for using up scraps!

9. Someone playing with, in, or around water.
Again lots to choose from, but I love this one of me and the kids in the pool in Spain :)

10. A bicycle
The kids brought home a leaflet from school offering free tickets to see Wall-e at our local cinema. The kids love that film so of course I booked tickets. However I didn't read closely enough and turned out it was a bike-a-thon! The projector was powered by dynamos so you had to pedal to watch the film.
Of course you COULD just sit and watch, as many did, but my bike mad daughter dragged me up to take part lol. So proud of her though, she was the youngest who took part and lasted the longest, even got a round of applause from everyone when she finished :)

11. Fresh produce
As Cam was upset after dropping off Cait at her brownies weekend we went to a garden center we passed to pick him up a treat. There was a little hut next to it selling fresh fruit and veg so obviously I snapped a photo.

12. A window
While we were in Spain I took this photo of Cam and Cait messing about on the balcony. I love how happy she looks and how much her big brother is making her laugh. I know I could have picked a stained glass window or something but the view from this window was so special I picked this photo.

13. The moon
I took a picture of the moon out of the window of the plane, but it ended up really looking bright like the sun rather than the moon :\
I was lazing at the pool one morning and saw the moon over the mountains and thought it made a pretty picture so choose that instead.

14. A buffet of food
Had to laugh at this one. When we went to Legoland we stayed in a hotel that included a buffet breakfast. I asked the kids to stand next to it so I could take a photo of them. Mollie piped up 'You don't want a photo of us, this is for your hunt isn't it and you just don't want to look like a crazy lady taking photos of food!'
Girl knows me too well!

15. A team logo
OK I admit I've no idea who this team are! Around the lake at our hotel where stalls where you could buy the usual holiday stuff. One of which were keyrings you could have your name or something stuck into and they had this as an option.

16. A map showing a trip taken during the time period
A map of Legoland which we took a trip to. We loved it there and will def be going back :)

17. Twins
Knew this was going to be a hard one. While we were in Spain however Mollie shouted that there were twins in the pool. Quick snap and yey another crossed off!

18. A supermarket cart, basket or trolley full of groceries
Took a quick snap of Caitlin pushing the trolley of goodies before we went down to stay in a caravan for the weekend :)

19. A seasonal cocktail or beverage
I love all the summer frappes that costa and mcdonalds do. This year mcdonalds have a chocolate honeycomb one which is amazing! Driving down to drop Caitlin off at camp was much further and hotter than we thought so stopped off for a treat.
Love Mark, we were driving out of the car park and I asked him to take a photo of my drink. An odd question to most people, he just asks 'Does it need a certain background?' :)

20. Someone laughing
I was going to use the photo of Caitlin for this but then I saw this photo my Mum took at the airport. I've NO idea what was making me laugh so much. I had had a couple of drinks by this point as I'm a nervous flyer and based on Marks face I think I was being a bit loud! Hehe.

21. A photograph of you with a newspaper or calendar page from the time period covered in the Hunt. Note: you may not use a substitute for this item.
I did try and get a paper with a nice headline but I don't think those exist! This was near the end of the holiday so I'm wearing Marks t-shirt as my back was burnt to a crisp. Ouch!

alternative 1: a lighthouse
Took a few photos of lighthouses but my fave is this one from Legoland in the 'Friends' section.

alternative 2: a baby (human or animal)
It was my niece Evies birthday so I went up to help set up her gift (xbox 360) and took this shot of my nephew Rylie sitting in his bouncy chair. Made me laugh as my sister was there, saw me take it, but later rung my Mum asking why I'd took a picture as I was being sneaky! Don't think she trusts me ;p

Back to school!

So was back to school today!! We were all so ready for that. The kids love being off but the novelty was wearing off and I was more than eager to get back into a routine.
First though we had one last trip. We booked a cheap Sun holiday at the start of the year to spend a couple of days down at Haven in Mablethorpe. We always love these holidays as everything is on site and the whole family can come, even the furry ones. :)

While there we also made this! I love it, seriously I LOVE it! We all painted it together and put our fingerprints around the edge. I plan to use it to put Santas cookies on on Christmas eve.

Also, look! I remembered to take photos of some of my more recent layouts! I'm doing well on the to do list today :)
Th colour is a bit off, its not quite so blue in real life but you get the idea. I was using up my scraps as much as possible so this was a good one for all the strips I seem to have.

Also managed to scrap some photos from around 4 years ago! So was a very productive 'use it up' layout.

Tomorrow I really need to blog about my scavenger hunt photos. Ill add it to my list :)

Epic

Well Ive had an interesting night. :\
Was walking Scamp home when I heard shouting, I was listening to music on my headphones so took them off and heard someone shout 'Help!' me and another lady went towards the shout and found out a disabled ladys house was on fire!
We got her out and to safety and the other lady waited with her (and Scamp who happily trotted into a house on fire behind me, crazy dog) while I went back in and phoned the fire brigade. I found some bottles of water as couldn't find the kitchen (house was a maze!) and started to put the fire out. I came back out to tie up Scamp and me and the lady (Sally it turned out) went back in and managed to put the fire out using the kitchen tap, vases and bottles of water we found in the living room. Fire engine turned up and checked the place out. Ambulance came and checked us all out (even gave me my ECG and forms for further scrapbook layout) and all good. Bit of singes hair and the lady who's house it was was obviously shook up but all healthy. Home to a rather worried family only about 3 hours after I left lol.
It sounds so crazy and surreal now. TBH I'm still a little in shock about the whole thing, I mean come on, putting a house fire out with vases of water! Its nuts!
The fireman did give me his coat though lol.

So off craziness and onto layouts. Im sure you can forgive me for not photographing more up to date layouts tonight, by the time I got home it was dark lol. This one is a scraplift and I love it!
Not my usual style, if I tried to do a layout like this by myself it usually looks like I've just chucked random embellishments on a page, loved this one though so copied it pretty much identical.

Ok I fully admit the wine is kicking in now and I cant remember at all who did this originally but I will find out and put credit in later lol.

Off to bed now, night night!