March round up

This has been a crazy busy month which has focused very much on scrapping!
Has also focused far too much on eating, woops. lol

Pounds lost - +4, two weekends away, 2 birthdays, mothers day and Easter. Hopefully do better next month lol.

Games completed - 0 but Silent hill 3/4 done.

Layouts done - 27 :) Two retreats helped mainly with that.

Projects finished - 7 PL style layouts, 4 mini books.

Cross stitch done - Still none (Epic fail again)

Books read:

Sleep tight - Rachel Abbot
How far would you go to hold on to the people you love? When Olivia Brookes calls the police to report that her husband and children are missing, she believes she will never see them again. She has reason to fear the worst; this isn’t the first tragedy that Olivia has experienced. Now, two years later, Detective Chief Inspector Tom Douglas is called in to investigate this family again, but this time it’s Olivia who has disappeared. All the evidence suggests that she was here, in the family home, that morning. But her car is in the garage, and her purse is in her handbag – on the kitchen table. The police want to issue an appeal, but for some reason every single picture of this family has been removed from albums, from phones, from computers. And then they find the blood… Has the past caught up with Olivia?
I took up a free trial of Kindle unlimited at the start of the month and annoyingly have read less this month!
This was the first book I downloaded and despite it being number 3 in a series I could read it easily as a stand alone book. It was a little more predictable than I'd have liked but it was still a good read, had a few twists and turns and ended well.

Dirty Little Dog - Kate Skylark
Sophie Jenkins is living a happy life in the idyllic Dorset countryside when she meets Martin Brett, the man who will go on to abuse her and haunt her dreams for years to come. A momentary act of neglect leads to a horrible series of events that leaves her changed forever.
Badly let down by the adults entrusted to care for her, Sophie’s life begins to spiral downwards.
However, Sophie’s message is ultimately one of hope and empowerment. She is in the process of rebuilding her life when fate leads her to encounter her childhood attacker once again. The story ends with a truly shocking climax.
I was SO dissapointed with this book. I love real life stories but this read more as a diary entry than an actual book. The 'shocking climax' was more an anticlimax and so unsatisfying.

Stranger child - Rachel Abbot
When Emma Joseph met her husband David, he was a man shattered by grief. His first wife had been killed outright when her car veered off the road. Just as tragically, their six-year-old daughter mysteriously vanished from the scene of the accident.
Now, six years later, Emma believes the painful years are behind them. She and David have built a new life together and have a beautiful baby son, Ollie.
Then a stranger walks into their lives, and their world tilts on its axis.
Emma’s life no longer feels secure. Does she know what really happened all those years ago? And why does she feel so frightened for herself and for her baby?
When a desperate Emma reaches out to her old friend DCI Tom Douglas for help, she puts all their lives in jeopardy. Before long, a web of deceit is revealed that shocks both Emma and Tom to the core.
This was the last in the series and though I still haven't read the first two I didn't need to. I do feel theres no need now though as it wrapped up a lot of issues I think were raised in the first two books lol. There is another one after this though which I do need to read. I think this one did quite well so they decided to do an extra spin off.

So not too good on reading, stitching or weight loss.....but I managed lots of layouts! :D

Always be yourself

Wow this month is just racing by! The kids have been off almost a week and I've barely had time to breathe.
We spent Easter at an egg hunt at a local castle. The aim was to find 3 stars each from inside the grounds. Between 4 adults and 3 kids it took us over an hour lol. Bit harder than we expected! The chocolate eggs went down well though.

Since then it's been a whirlwind of activity. I've had my niece sleep over, took all kids to the cinema, tried to take Mum to the cinema but found out the screen was broken so ended up getting food instead. I also managed to spring clean Caitlins room so that's 5 bin bags and 2 boxes of clothes and junk out of my house :)
I've managed to do some pocket page layouts, but in all honesty I'm not a big fan of those so don't share them. Even when I use stash from the same manufactures or kits it always ends up looking more of a mish mash than my 12x12 layouts do.
Still have lots from my retreats though!
This was one I did with a last bits of my Stripy straws Like for ever kit.
I LOVED this kit. I had saved it until I had this photo developed as Caitlin is wearing one of the embellishments from it as a hairclip and I wanted to include that on the layout.
So imagine how annoyed I was to find I had left those particular embellishments at home!

Still pleased with it though :) I'm not a particularly confident person and it was a huge issue in my childhood and teenage years. I always worry about Caitlin going through the same problems I did and this seems to come out in my scrapping at times.

I scrap for a number of reasons, one being that if something happens to me the kids can still have part of me around so I tend to put a lot of advice and wishes for them on the pages. Fingers crossed it won't be needed, but I feel better knowing its there :)

xoxo colour challenge

So I looked at my blog and thought 'oh did I not blog yesterday? I'm sure I blogged yesterday' Well yes I did blog yesterday it just seems like yesterday was LOOOOONNNNNGGGGG time ago lol.
Today Cameron woke up his usual bubbly self :) Complained I would only let him have one crossaint with chocolate spread for breakfast so his appetite is back :)
Knowing he was fine my Mum and I left the men folk alone and took the girlies shopping! Mollie needed pretty much a whole new wardrobe and while Caitlin is more then fine on the clothes front she did need a new hat, backpack for school, swimming costume and shoes.
Note that nowhere on the shopping list was this t-shirt.

Took me a while to convince her that NO her Daddy did not need it. hehe.
Didn't take us long to get most of the bits we needed. Caitlin luckily found almost everything she wanted in Primark and Mollie loves H&M so Mum spent a small fortune in there so we decided to look in New look as I needed a new pair of shoes and I had a voucher.
I'm trying on sensible flat shoes, my 7 year old decides to try on these.

Was almost worth buying them just to see her Dads face when we got home!
Was a lovely, and not as expencive as I thought, day out. We have tickets for an easter egg hunt tomorrow so keeping everything crossed the weather improves!!
So shopping done, here is another layout from the retreat :) This was my second take on the colour challenge, after a little less wine this time!

This is a super old photo. It's actually Camerons very first school photo! Caitlin was still in nursery but was able to go along and get her photo taken with him. She was not impressed she wasn't allowed to wear a uniform. I did think once she was at school the novelty of a uniform would soon wear off but she still loves it.
I've no idea why I haven't scrapped this yet but glad I have now. The colours of Caits dress and Cam's jumper went well with the challenge.

It isn't that wonky in real life I promise lol, think I took the picture weird.

Take the magic home

This week has been a bit rubbish so I haven't really felt up to blogging. I've been having panic attacks again which is frustrating as anything as I haven't had one in SO long! I was looking forward to last night though :) First night of the holidays, Caitlin was staying at my Mums house so Mark and I decided to introduce the boy to Marvel movies!
He's seen bits of them before but never sat and watched one from start to finish so we decided to start with Guardians of the Galaxy.
Obviously not in the Marvel universe order but I knew he'd love Groot ;)

So we had a lovely night! Some junk food, lots of cuddles and giggles so he went to bed a happy boy........then woke up a few hours later with the vomiting bug his sister had a couple of weeks ago :(
Was a rough night with him being sick every couple of hours but he seems a lot better now it's all out of his system. Currently napping on the couch.

We had planned to meet up with the neighbours tonight for a takeaway, think that might be being postponed lol.
So still have loads of retreat layouts to share, this was has a bit of story behind it too lol. Before I went away I made up some page kits for the challenges we had. The papers and embellishments on this page I had put together with a different photo with the intention of using them in a colour challenge.
However that night I had a bit too much wine, and Amanda was sharing out her home made bubblegum vodka, so for some reason I put the photo to one side, and decided to the use the papers for the quote challenge, where we had to take inspiration from:

As soon as anyone says the word magic I think of Disneyland. I wasn't the only one as most people used photos from either Disney or Harry potter studios.
This photo was taken on our last night at Disneyland last year, journalling reads:
Though you are only young, I have the feeling this will be our last trip to Disneyland as you are growing up so fast. This selfie as we left is very special to me. Hopefully we can still share the magic of Disney at home with movies and snuggles.

Looking at it after I think it needs something blue on the right hand side, oh well its done now ;)

Catch up and Love you more

Wow, where did the weekend go?! It was certainly a 'blink and you miss it' fun/productive weekend :)
Friday, I've no idea what I did Friday. I didn't even put anything on Facebook so I've no clue hehe.
Saturday I was supposed to be going to the cinema with Caitlin. One thing or another happened so rather than going at 10:30 like planned we booked tickets for 6pm instead. Leaving the morning free.
So I went on Youtube.......
I watched a video where a girl was saying about destashing and getting rid of papers........
I decided to sort out my stash. *facepalm*
As you do I pulled out pretty much everything I have and set about decluttering, making kits, putting bits into a 'donate' bag and moving things around. Mark came upstairs, looked around and walked back out again. Hehe.

I found a 'small' pile of layouts which need putting in albums. :O

So I ended up getting rid of over 300 sheets of papers and cardstock, have a huge bag of embellishments for donating and moved a few less used items around to make it easier to work.
I feel so much better for it :)
Until the next destash anyway lol.
Sunday was my Mothers day :) I was away on the actual day so we moved it.
Started with cards and gifts in bed, of course, then we went to East carlton park for a walk.
I love walking around here, the weather was beautiful and the kids ran around like nutters.
Cameron says he's climbing a tree here. I wouldn't really call that a 'tree' but ok. :)

Family photo, minus me behind the camera of course.

Then home for lunch and chilling in the afternoon :) Mark went to bed so I moved some of my scrapping stuff downstairs and managed 4 layouts! There was a casualty though, ow!

So a brilliant, chilled out weekend. :)
Havent photographed the layouts I did Sunday yet but this one I made on a weekend away.
This did start off with a kind of 'grid patchwork' type background in mind, but after moving things about I ended up with this.

We had a sheet of these little gold words in a LFE kit a while ago and I wanted to use as many as possible here.
Still loads left though lol.

Simple layout but I like it, used up scraps and other bits and framed the photo well. This one I took on my phone one morning after Caitlin had had a nightmare and ended up in Mummy and Daddys bed. Scamp watching over her of course to chase any other bad dreams away :) So cute!!

This is right now

OK so the poorly curse has moved over to Mark now, who is in bed with a migraine. However I'm happy to report Scamp is back to his crazy self :)

So I've done pretty much nothing today. Cleaning, questionaires, general tidying up. Had a heart attack when I was cleaning the oven and wiped up what I thought were a couple of maggots from the hob! Took me a moment to remember we had brown rice with dinner last night and Id obviously spilled a bit *rolls eyes*
So this is one of the layouts I did while away in the black hills. It was one of the last I made so used scraps from Like for ever kits and other bits I had in my stash.

This is a super old photo of Caitlin, I think she's about 3 here.

Glad I have these layouts as wouldn't have much to blog about!

White space - happy days

So last night was dreadful :( Scamp was still poorly and to be honest I was sure we were going to lose him. He was very cuddly, kept shaking and didn't seem to be breathing right. Both Mark and I just lay awake next to him stroking him and cuddling him.
This morning however he's a different dog :) I don't know if its a lull like the kids get when they're poorly or the medication kicking in but he's back to his usual chaotic self this morning. :) I was honestly so terrified last night. Felt like when Caitlin was sick a few years back with a fever and kept having fits.
So hard being a Mum sometimes.
Ok so sad part over with, everyone seems to be on the mend today so hopefully will be able to finish off a few classes tonight that I didn't get done over the weekend. One I did get done was the 'white space, self paced class'
Rather than an actual 'sit down and follow instructions' class this was one where we were given the papers, embellishments and instructions to complete at our own pace. There were 5 layouts, including this one.

As Nicolas were 8.5 x 11 I mounted them onto 12x12 papers to fit into my album. I was worried that Nicola would be offended I didn't stick religiously to the original, I've been in classes like that before, but she was more than happy for us to make our layouts our own :)
So this was my take. I used the tissue and dotty cellophane our mugs were wrapped in to mount my photo and card.

I really love this layout. I'm not usually a huge fan of white space as it often feels unfinished but I like this one. Journaling reads:
On a trip to Skegness we bought you a bucket and space as we've done countless times. Usually you get bored in 10 minutes, this time however you spent hours building castles and collecting water from the sea.
Love this photo so glad I scrapped it now :)

Poorly pug :(

Well today has been a long day. I wont claim to be psychic but I woke up this morning with a bad feeling. I'm a great believer in intuition so I've been on edge all day, watching Mark and the kids for signs of illness etc.
I was watching the wrong family members. It was about 4:30 and Scamp suddenly started squealing. It was a horrible noise full of so much pain :( I rushed over to him and found his stomach was bloated and solid so we rushed him to the vets. They examined him and suspect he has pancreatitus (SP) so gave me some medication and sent him home.
This was very much needed afterwards.

He's very unimpressed with boiled rice for dinner.

So tonight will be focusing on Scamp and giving him lots of cuddles.
Poorly pug aside I thought I'd share one of the classes I did this weekend. This is the original, taught by Jackie.

I admit I loved this so stuck very closely to the original :)

Love this photo of the kids at Wicksteed, and the title went perfectly. So pleased with this layout :)

Like forever retreat

So this weekend I was away at the Like Forever scrapbooking retreat. I joined Like forever kit subscribers on a whim a year ago and I'm so glad I did. The kits are amazing, the customer service flawless and the community of subscribers on facebook are just wonderful.
There is always a risk when you put a large group of people together, who have never really met before, that personalities will clash and there will be problems. I can honestly say that I liked, and got on with everyone I met this weekend.
We arrived to some wonderful welcome gifts, including this mug full of sweets and pretty washi!

The venue was stunning, and only 20 minutes from my house!!!! There was a large room where we did our scrapping, a room next to that full of cakes and a coffee machine, then the dining room on the far side.

It was so peaceful and in the middle of nowhere. Each morning was all misty and kinda creepy but that soon burned off and we had beautiful sunny days.

Can't wait until the next one!!!

Yummy

Every year I make the kids a cake based on either the theme of their party, or whatever type of cake they've asked for.
A couple of years ago the request from Caitlin was 'Lots of colours and sweets' while Camerons was 'Minecraft'.
After some googling, and researching on Pinterest I settled on a chocolate pinata cake with rainbow buttercream for Caitlin, and a chocolate minecraft cake for Cameron with marshmallow squares.
Was thrilled with how they turned out :)

Problem is is I've had to top myself each year since! This year Cameron wants melting chocolate eyeballs!!!!

I'm putting this one in for the Shimelle scrap 3 photos challenge :)
In other news parents evening went brilliantly. Caitlin doing very well. Above average on all fronts, very social, happy little girl who engages well in lessons. Cameron is doing well particualy in maths. In fact he's doing so well they plan to give him year 6 SAT tests and see how he does with those. He's only in year 4!!! Lord knows where he gets it from, I need to use a calculator to check his homework!
Some funny comments from hubby the other day:

Me - Why is the bathroom door open?
Him - Because it's on a hinge.
(talking about the extending sunday opening hours debate)
Me - They should leave it, theres been times at 6pm on a Sunday I want chocolate but shops are shut but its not life or death.
Him - It is for those of us who live with you.

How we've managed 10 years of marriage without me killing him I don't know.

Precious girl

In a recent Like forever kit (yes I talk about them a lot) We got a pack of gold, rub on gems.
Now I love rub ons, but don't seem to use them as much as I'd like. I was unsure how to use these pretty little things until I saw this layout on the facebook group by Pol Prince.

She uses the whole pack here which at first I was wary of, but then I thought it was better I use them, than they end up sitting unloved in a box, so I took the plunge and used the lot!

I love this picture of Caitlin. Both my babies are growing up far too quickly for my liking. There are times they come home from school at night, retreat to their rooms and besides coming out for food I don't see them until bedtime!
Then there are times like this. I was sitting on the floor in the bedroom sorting some paper and Caitlin came in and asked if she could sit with me. Of course I said yes so she brought in her colouring, and we sat together just chatting, crafting and listening to music.

We do spend quite a lot of time together as a family at the weekends or in school holidays, but I treasure these peaceful, simple moments together too. :)

Real life Rosie

I don't know about you, but looking at a blank sheet of 12x12 can be quite intimidating. Rather than I wasting time, or worse, cutting into paper then regreting it, I love using sketches for my layouts as a starting point.
While browsing facebook I found this sketch from The scraproom blog. I'm not allowed to enter to win the challenge as I'm in the UK but I loved the sketch so decided to play along anyway.

So this was my take :) I used the Like forever kit 'acorn avenue' which I LOVED! I love the colours and all the arrows and glitter. I have been hoarding it for a while but decided it was time to use it.

Love these flowers and leaves, and the ribbon I was given by Jess just goes perfectly with the rest of the kit :)

So tomorrow is Thursday and I'm sooooo behind on my jobs. Early night needed for a busy day tomorrow!

Dukes farm

Hello all. :) Well I had a brilliant weekend! Ever year I meet up with a group of friends for crafting, drinking and usually laughing until we cry.
We tried a new place this year and it was amazing! The views were just stunning. It was freezing while we were there (even got some snow!) but can imagine it would be beautiful in the summer to sit outside with a cup of coffee in the morning.

We didn't venture out much, but did find the time to try out this sunken trampoline! I'd never been on one before and it felt weird, like I was going to fall through the floor lol. Gave Jess a lot of giggles though.

Over the weekend I managed 12 layouts, won a giveaway, lost two rounds of bingo, consumed 2 bottles of wine, 2 glasses of mojito, one glass of prosecco and countless cakes and cookies. Roll on next year!!!

I won't bore you with all 12 layouts now, besides it gives me something to blog about over the next few days :)
This is one I did for a challenge over at pretty paper, true stories. The challenge was to mix something old with something new. I used lots of scraps of older papers, along with newer ones to create the hexagons.
The photo is of my two playing with some light up finger things my Mum bought Cameron for Christmas.

The journaling reads 'I've no idea what you were doing or why you were doing it, but you were having fun so fair enough'

Come back tomorrow for layout number 2! :)

Challenge YOUrself

Woops, I scheduled this to post but forgot about it so hadn't wrote anything in it!
This months challenge over at Challenge YOUrself was an easy one :)

I had so many options for this I didnt know where to start. My chevron punch? Chevron washi? Use my chevron masks?
In the end I pulled out some chevron paper from a Like for ever kit. I loved this woodgrain one and multicoloured one and knew there was a good chance it would end up in my 'too pretty to use' pile, so I wanted to use it before it could happen!
I pulled out a picture of my Mum and I from a bbq this summer, I wanted to use these cute little foxes so had orignaly planned to use a picture of me and Caitlin but I could just as easily be the baby fox and my Mum the Mummy one :)

We got loads of pretty sequins in this kit, so used up a few to decorate the circle.

Pleased with this layout. I hadn't done any 12x12 in almost a month and my mojo had well and truly run away.
Once I sat down and forced myself to start however this came together quite quickly, and was the start of another 12 layouts afterwards!

February round up

Wow, where did February go?! Blink and you miss it month lol. Managed a lot of crafting this month and made a HUGE dent in my stash so very pleased. :)
So here is my round up for the month.

Pounds lost - 3

Games completed - 1, Pikmin 2 now finished.

Layouts done - 2

Projects finished - 25 PL style layouts, 18 secret projects, 4 mini books, 10 gifts for friends!!

Cross stitch done - Um, none lol.

Books read:
A dark dark wood - Ruth Ware
Blurb - Nora hasn't seen Clare for ten years. Not since the day Nora walked out of her old life and never looked back.
Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen party arrives. A weekend in a remote cottage - the perfect opportunity for Nora to reconnect with her best friend, to put the past behind her.
But something goes wrong.
Very wrong.
I started reading this in Waterstones and was surprised to see it some cheap on Amazon. It caught my attention very quickly and while some bits felt a little unneccesary and coincidental it was a good read. There was enough suspense to keep me guessing but it wasn't dragged out enough to make me stop caring iykwim. Shorter than most books I read I finished it quite quickly.

The chameleon - D.S Mitchel.
Blurb - It’s important to take stock of your life…………
Anna Bright has just learned the biggest lesson of all. In a coma and unable to help herself, she is desperate to wake and prove her ex-boyfriend’s innocence. Anna is forced to listen to the world make up events that didn't really happen, and she has no choice but to examine her life and the events that brought her here, to this hospital bed, as a silent and helpless victim. At the mercy of Pam, a seemingly callous and uncaring nurse, nothing is ever as it seems. Will Anna wake in time to save James from prison? Or will the truth remain locked inside her, still and silent? Does James even deserve to walk free?
There was a LOT of swearing in this one. I'm not usually bothered by swearing but there was so much I found myself skimming the bits where the guy was just yelling abuse at his girlfriend. That said I read this in 3 nights. I wanted to know what had happened, what would happen, why etc. It may be a frustrating read for some, why does Anna keep going back when her boyfriend is so dreadful? But having been on the recieving end of domestic abuse I though it was actually pretty accurate of how easy it is to slip into that role. Well worth a read.

Dying eyes - Ryan Casey
Blurb - With the Christmas and New Year chaos out of the way, it's time for the Preston Police Department to put their feet up and return to normality.
But for Detective Brian McDone, there is no respite from the frenzy. An unidentified young woman is found brutally murdered in a seedy section of the city, her body laced with bruises, her sharp fingernails digging into her palms. Her eyes are staring up at something in pure fear.
Nobody knows who she is.
As Brian and his team begin to piece together the clues, the answers lead him to places he would least expect. The further Brian digs, one question soon becomes apparent: who can he trust? The answer, it seems, may be life-threatening.
Mixed feelings on this one. The actual crime, who did it, why, how they were discovered etc was interesting and kept me reading. That said I didn't like the characters at all. Brian seemed like a whiny kid, Cassie a bit of a cheerleader and the other police officers just seemed odd. Don't think I'd read another in this series.

The postcard killers - James Patterson
Blurb - NYPD detective Jacob Kanon is on a tour of Europe's most gorgeous cities. But the sights aren't what draw him - he sees each museum, each cathedral, and each cafe through the eyes of his daughter's killer.
Kanon's daughter, Kimmy, and her fiance were murdered while on holiday in Rome. Since then, young couples in Madrid, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Berlin, Athens and Paris have been found dead. Little connects the murders, other than a postcard sent to the local newspaper prior to each attack.
Now Kanon teams up with the Swedish reporter, Dessie Larsson, who has just received a postcard in Stockholm - and they think they know where the next victims will be..
I love James Patterson and this was no exception. The killers were interesting, their motives and how they carried out the murders has depth and reason and the whole story seemed to flow together well rather than some more disjointed ones I've read recently.

So epic fail on the cross stitch this month. But done well on crafting :)

Mothers day for my Mum

I'm a bad daughter. It's mothers day next weekend and I'm off with my friends leaving Mum at home with Mark and the kids.
To be fair I didn't realise it was mothers day at the time, plus Im a Mum myself so I'm allowed to have a nice mothers day too.
Mum's not actually upset, shes fine with it of course :) But I still felt guilty so we had her Mothers day a week early to make up for it.
So we started off with a quick glass of wine and a selfie :) My Dad was nice enough to drive us and pick us up so I could have a drink too.
Considering I've not eaten in 3 days due to illness I'm amazed I wasn't on the floor after the first glass lol.

For Mums gift Id booked for us both to get our nails done.
Didn't start off too great as they didn't have the colour Mum wanted but she picked a purple in the end and they looked lovely. I was a little more adventurous and had these cherry blossoms.

Nails done we went for cocktails and food. Mum drank WAY more than me and was pretty gone by the time Dad came to pick us up lol.

It was a lovely day :) Only the one panicked phonecall from home and Mum really relaxed and enjoyed herself.
Mothers day mission accomplished.

Lucozade fixes everything

Thanks to Sun perks I had free tickets to take the kids to see the Snoopy movie this morning. They were so excited I couldn't let them down to I dragged myself off to see it.
I admit it was a good film. Funny and easy to watch, though I was very happy to be home again.
Determined to beat this tummy bug, and flagging after not eating besides a couple of cookies over the past few days I turned to my Grannys old remedy to pretty much anything. Pjs, curling up on the couch and Lucozade.

Actually seems to be helping lol.
Think Scamp was glad we were home too. He seems to be holding my coat hostage so we don't leave him again, hehe.