Lazy Monday afternoon .....

Lazy Monday Afternoon .....

At least it was when I started writing this blogpost, but since then I have struggled to get the photos to show the right way round and in messing about lost the whole post - very frustrating - I have no idea about the workings of this blog posting affair so its all very hit and miss and that is exactly what I did just now!!  All lost in the ether - oh well - I'll try again.  Perhaps it is a bit mad with me for keep changing my blog name - had you noticed?

I really just wanted to tell you about the great weekend that I had !!   On Saturday I drove 7 of us to the Stamp and Scrapbooking Show at Ally Pally.  Jill was my co-driver and helped keep me on the right route - in fact I think we may still have been going around the M25 if she had not kept reminding me where to go.  It only took about half and hour, we arrived early enough to avoid the parking police and could park in the top car park - bliss!!  We had a great time and spent lots of money!  Here are photos of my purchases -  some a little skew-whiff as I cannot seem to re-orientate them - you'll just have to turn your head a little if they are the wrong way round!!

the paints I love - just had to have some more ...

See they just want to lay on their side!!

And now I cannot get out of centred!!  I had headed to the Paperartsy booth first, as they have lots of bits I love and need.  Luckily Mark gave me one of the pin badges with a new Lynne  Perrella image on - very honoured indeed.  I bought some other bits there too ...

And then I visited some other stands, and here are photos of the rest of the bits I bought .. (you may notice some  more PA bits ..)

Oops the middle one is upside down too - cannot see a way to rotate it here and so just tilt your head a little if that helps!!

I know everyone thinks I come home and put the stuff away and never look at it again - well honestly I try not to, so on Sunday morning I made these

Embossed using Stampin' Up white embossing powder - just love the chalk board look which is about everywhere at the moment and then by chance this weeks UKS challenge was to do a black and white layout of something everyday so I did this 

Miss 15 then asked if she could go to Ally Pally so I gave it 10 seconds worth of thought and loaded the kids in the car and off we went again!!  The boys went ice skating there, and we wandered around a much less crowded show than yesterday.  It was much nicer actually being able to wander in and out of the stands, and watch the demos - we were only there for a couple of hours but it was very relaxing.  I ended up watching Leonie off C&C - she was demo-ing the Ranger Melt Pot for the Creative Expressions stand.  Watched her for ages, she was so patient and chatted to everyone and stood up for photos etc - and so enthusiastic all of the time.  I was very impressed.  She gave me some of the samples which are gorgeous, and of course you have guessed it, I invested in a melt pot!!  The organiser had to tell her to stop demoing as it was way past closing time!!

So home we came and now I have to find my UTEE so I can play with it!!!

Thanks for reading this farxxx

Nearly a week since ...

 ... I last blogged.  We have been enjoying the time away from routine and school. 

I took Miss 15 and some friends to see Cheryl Johnson of FeelgoodPhotos for a 'late' birthday photo shoot.  They had 2 hours of perfect girly fun, bright colours, high heels, wigs, hats, tutus and specs, dressing up for teenagers perfected, and during all the fun CJ actually managed to take 200 photos!!  Now we are all waiting, excited to see the results. 

I also dragged Master 12 to the ICHF show at the Excel Centre - its only about a 20 minute drive from home - or would have been had the satnav known about the Docklands railway!!  We were only in there for about an hour as parking was extortionate, Master 12 watched the time carefully!  I needed some plastic boxes for my decopatch so bought those and then I happened across a booth which I had never see before - full of french fabrics and vintage ribbons, lavender and rosebuds.  I bought these ...

I love them - and intend making a patchwork heart from them to put in the middle of our bed headboard.  I have not patchworked since the hexagon place mats I made in the early '70s as a child so it could be a bit of a learning curve!  The fabric it is laying on I bought in IKEA this evening and will use that as the main covering for the headboard.  The French cottons are soft and gorgeous but far too expensive for me to cover the whole headboard in, and this IKEA fabric will be a good backdrop to them I think.
And then of course, I had challenges to complete too - the weekly challenge for UKS, where we had a sketch to follow and I did this ...

Its an photo from 2006 of Master 12, I am feeling quite nostalgic lately, my children are growing up and I am missing their dependence a little.

I also managed to do the monthly challenge - for this we had to find inspiration from a members layout using the third letter in our user name, mine was 'u' and members were limited, but I found one I liked and scraplifted it ...

Another old photo!! This time of Hubby and Mr 21.

More tomorrow - time to chase the darlings to bed!! xxx

And tonight ......

I have spent the afternoon and evening alone - funny old feeling being on your own when you don't expect to be.  I have 4 children you see, the youngest is 12 - he at least should have been home, but he was invited to sleep over at his cousin's, the others I expected to be away - Miss 15 is in Italy on a school trip, Master 16 nearly 17 is at his girlfriend's and Mr 21 was at work then out with his girlfriend.  He is home now, the smell of cooked pizza alerts me to this!!  I am full of a cold and not feeling so good which is why I think the invite for Master 12 was put forward, to give me a break.  But really I don't need a break, I love the school holidays, I love having my children around me - there will be plenty of future without them, of that I have no doubt so I am in no rush to be away from them now.
I couldn't motivate myself to craft so scanned the sky planner and found a two part drama I had recorded months ago - a book I had always meant to read - Birdsong - Sebastian Faulkes - I've no doubt you have all seen it - well just to say I loved it, watched both parts and whiled away my evening very pleasantly.
Actually due to my cold, I have not played much lately, but did manage to do the UKS weekly challenge last week ...

Its a photo of Mr 21 taken in 1998.  I had searched out some old photos to scan and put on a digital photo frame (given to us this Christmas by our very dear friends Mr and Mrs Groat!).  Its a big screen (about 10x8) so the photos look great.  And this one just kept jumping out at me, begging to be scrapped!  There he is, so innocent, happy with his camera, enjoying a day out.  Halcyon days but such hard work in so many other ways!

 
 

Its been a while...

So I'm guessing you thought I'd lost this blog or that I'd given up so soon after my first wind - well maybe I did a little, maybe I thought that the bits I was doing were not really the sort of thing people would like to see, things of little interest to others.  As a member of a team on UKS I do layouts every week for the challenges which are set, some I absolutely love, some I just do not seem to be able to get to grips with and although the challenge is completed there is often very little I like about the page.  I have been a bit out of sorts over the last couple of weeks too which probably has not helped my mojo.  Suddenly becoming the mother of a 21 year old son makes you feel quite old - older, funnily enough, than I felt when I turned 50 !!  But then again I am!!
So I finished the CJ I was doing for last month, thought I could post a photo of it, but having just 'shuffled' through several files of photos on the laptop, seem not to have taken photos - brilliant.  
Here are a couple of the challenge layouts I have done though

I have also just sent off some cards for the March card swap on UKS - the theme was vintage and not to buy any new stash and to use some downloads from the Craft Stamper site (never knew they were there so that was exciting!), and also card sketches from CS too.  I confess I did not follow the sketches very closely - hope Sian and the others forgive me for that, and it was the first time I had ever attempted 'vintage' and also I am pretty useless at making cards as I am a bit messy!!! But here they are

I am still waiting on my next CJ to arrive - should have been here at the beginning of the month - but never mind.  I have also joined the next tag swap, and am eagerly awaiting the return of the inchies and twinchies!
I'm glad I came back to see you, I'm glad I felt able to put on some more bits. I thank Sandie for this, she had posted a link to Julia's Push-Up Bra Bloggers Workshop and I read a bit and thought - hell yeah - I can do that - so here I am - doing it as best I can, as a beginner, looking for her voice! xxx

 

But today .....

I didn't get quite so much done - as is always the way when hubby is home.  I imagine he will do everything and I will be left in peace to play!  Ha! It never happens like that - we end up having coffee, chatting, etc and neither of us gets much done!!!
But I did manage to finish my tags for the UKS January and February Tag Swap - when I joined I thought I only had to make 3 tags but then I read it properly and realised they were running Jan and Feb together so had to make 6 tags!!  Well they are a day late in the post but then this month is rather short, so I'm hoping Rosie will excuse my tardiness. Here are the January ones - these had to use something new - so I used new stamps some JOFY from Paperartsy and some Tim Holtz which I bought at Five Lakes earlier this month...

And these are the February ones which had  to include some hearts on them. I struggled a bit more with these - not sure why but I am glad they are done!

Now I just have my chinese whispers CJ layout to finish and my layout for the As You Like It CJ - all UKS madness xxx

And then last night .....

 

I thought I would go back to the  original canvas I had planned to use for the UKS Mini Canvas Swap!   I have loved watching the you-tube video of Leandra transferring stamped images on her crackly tissue onto canvas so thought I would give it a go.  Took a few goes to get it reasonable - on one attempt I had totally forgotten to heat-set the versafine ink, fine while I was painting the back of the tissue but I was very sad as I used the glaze on the front and saw my inked image grey and disappear!!  Lesson learnt quickly!
Via Paperartsy I also saw a class Lin Brown taught and I loved the way she put the crown on the tea-cup lady's 'hat' so thought I would pinch that idea.  I'm fairly new to this sort of work (more a paper person really) so I have to admit at the moment while I am practising the techniques I am busy pinching other people's creative ideas!  Sorry - but I will always give them credit - and I am so very thankful for all you wonderful people who put your ideas out here to help us beginners, and hopefully when the techniques become second nature I'll be able to let my creativity flow through into it too!   But just for now its a bit white knuckle!!! 
And here it is ....

I received the frame via a UKS swap last year or was it the year before so thank you IRBOO for that (though I did recolour it gold and black to match my canvas better)
So as I am a useless decision maker/taker I will be posting two canvases to the swap - this one and one of the JOFY ones.
Now I must away to collect hubby from Heathrow - he's been away 8 weeks - allowing me lots of time to play - but now I'd better collect him and hope he'll do some of the housework which has been sadly neglected these past few weeks!!  Hoping the M25 is clear xxx

AND SO THIS AFTERNOON I .......

 

I played with my new stamps - I am determined this year to make good use of all the things I buy.  Now that I am not working and earning my own money I feel I must justify my spending - a little anyway!!  So having finished my chores this morning - well - bought chicken food and posted some Ebay sales - nothing too scary, I settled down surrounded by my Paperartsy paints, some canvases I bought in the Works (6 canvases 5"x7" for 99p - bargain) and those gorgeous JOFY stamps. Admitted I got more than a little messy and at one point it was debatable as to where the paint should be ending up -  hands? trousers? desk? canvas?  I tried hard to remember all Leandra's tips and hints - especially the white dots bit! - and think I managed a reasonable beginner's replica of what she had shown us.  I am pleased with them - and think one will be sent off for my UKS Mini Canvas swap.

Well here they are - what do you think??

And then this evening I spent a pleasant three hours with my Stampin' Up friends making cards - none of which I finished totally so I won't be blogging them for a while!!! xxx