MAY 365...

Quick update on my 365 Calendar Challenge from Kate's blog.... Finished May miraculously!!! I decided I quite fancied having a go at the bubble technique after Niamh came home from nursery with a picture done like this(sad but true...lol...)...after a couple of false starts I found a tutorial here...I think to get more colour depth white cardstock would be better (my practice pieces were definitely more vibrant)...I am using a Pink Pig book for this and the pages are cream but I do like the effect - it is more subtle than I first thought it would be...

I used one of my stamps from my new Unity KOTM as a little frame, double stamping with a raspberry ink for special occasion days.... I cut out a few masks and then stamped some swirls in the same raspberry ink...I had to put some of them on their side as they wouldn't all fit in...and I had a little mishap with my days (got them muddled up!!!)....The word May is done using an alphabet set and as you can see I have another little mishap going on there too...Only one zero so I stamped 201 and then the single 0 at the end but I still had the black ink pad open from stamping the frame (Tim Holtz) and yes you've guessed it...I had stamped it before I realised...Oh well never mind - wouldn't be art without a few mistakes...that's my story and I am sticking to it...

PS - Still not started June pages yet!!!!

WEDDING AND MORE MAD HATTER...

On Saturday night we had the wedding dance for our friends Gillian and Steve (the hen party from a couple of weeks ago...). They both looked absolutely gorgeous - sorry no photos...

When we asked what they would like as a wedding gift they said nothing so I decided that I would make them a guest book for everyone to sign at the dance...

It started of as a kraft Paperchase book and I followed Judy's instructions from the Craft Stamper magazine a few months ago as it was dead easy and as usual I was last minute Annie!!!

And these three were the most beautiful girls there - Ellie, Emily and Kate....

Another quick addition to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party - little bags like the ice lollies that my kids love (sorry can't remember the proper name for them)... Elaine had given me one with a prize in it at the Stampin Up party a couple of weeks ago and I thought they would be great filled with sweets of some sort for Niamh's party so this is them ready to be filled with just the tops to seal and crimp...Very easy once you get the measurements right!!!

SU PARTY AND UNITY...

Last night I had a Stampin Up party with Elaine as the demonstrator...

This is the card that we made using the new colours...they are gorgeous!!! There was a lot of sales so now I am just humming and haaing (is that a word???) about what to choose from the catalogue as my hostess rewards...

These are the cupcakes that we had afterwards - I would like to say that I made them myself but they came from Costco....

Ellie and I went into Aberdeen on the train this morning... I had to go to the Vodafone shop to try and sort out a new mobile after sending my one away for repair in January and them losing it - wasn't very impressed with the service I have to say... My original phone is a limited edition one worth #350 but I was only allowed to choose one up to #255 and they were all pants so I made them ring round the other stores to find one the same as my original one...they eventually found one in Edinburgh so now I will have to go back into Aberdeen to pick it up...

When I came back I found that the postie had been and delivered my first Unity Kit of The Month... They are gorgeous...can't wait to try them out...

And this is the free gift that came with them for being a new subscriber....10 lovely single random Unity stamps, a gorgeous brown ink pad and a selection of double sided 6x6" papers... I am really loving the frames.... Right, of to see if I can finish the bottle of Pimms (with some gingerbeer) that we started last night!!!!

Almost forgot - yesterday I got an email telling me I had won the 3D Jean blog candy - very exciting as I have looked at a lot of stuff on there after being introduced to the site by Sonja and this will give me an idea of some of the things I might like to try...

OOOPS... ALMOST FORGOT...

These are the party invitations...I did them over at Jacqui's crop on Sunday....I had a wee squiz through Etsy looking for ideas and pinched some of the wording from there....The base is made from kraft cardstock, I then matted on a layer of dictionary page (the kids are horrified that I keep ripping pages out of this huge dictionary that I bought in the charity shop for this purpose!!!)... I printed everything apart from Mad Hatter's Tea Party which is stamped on using SUs real red and then stuck this layer on top of the dictionary... and for the finishing touch I added a wee flourish and the White Rabbit's pocket watch...

JUST A WEE ONE TODAY....

I stumbled across this at Big Picture Scrapbooking after being led there from Jo's blog so I thought I would share....

I was HAPPY that Vodafone have decided to replace my damaged mobile since they have lost it
I am GRATEFUL for my good friends (you know who you are!!)
I think LIFE is ok at the moment
I do WONDER where the last 20 years have gone
I so WISH I was more organised
I SAVE way too many things just incase
I ALWAYS seem to be chasing my tail
I CAN'T seem to break a bad habit (ie eating too much chocolate, cakes, etc)
I BELIEVE that life is what you make it
I always PROMISE myself to be more organised
I LOVE my family more than anything in the world
I SCRAP to keep the memories alive for my kids and their kids and because I just love it.....

These are MY answers - what's yours???...xox

MAD HATTER'S TEA PARTY....

Last year I thought I would do a Mad Hatter's Tea Party for Niamh's birthday after seeing this TweetyJill collection by TJ Designs in the June 09 Craft Stamper magazine but unfortunately I couldn't get them at the time despite searching online for hours!!! You all know what that is like... With all the Alice in Wonderland hype this year a couple of months ago I thought I would try again.

She is 5 in July and we are going to put up the marquee in the garden and Allan (who is the dad of one of her friends at nursery) the magician is coming and I have managed to get a lovely wooden croquet set from Tesco (5 year olds and croquet, not sure how that will work out...lol)...I also thought I would get them to decorate hats as well....so here is what I have started so far....

I have made a few banners - HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIAMH - WELCOME - MAD HATTER'S TEA PARTY - out of all the old patterned and plain papers that came from Costco once upon a time as I am determined not to buy anything that I need (except the stamps) and use stuff I already have...we will see how long that lasts....These were all cut out of the Cricut (started at the crop at Sunday at the Papermill - thanks Emma, Fiona and Sheryl - there was only the four of us but it was great to get it all started without being interrupted by the kids all the time and finished on Tuesday afternoon) using various carts. I had them all laid out on the conservatory floor and woe betide anyone who went in there...lol...they are all cut out and ready for sticking and stringing together...
I made these little 'Drink me' tags from the Sizzix Tag die and taped the small one to the big one and then stamped on them using two different stamp set...I will add string to them later... I plan (once Allan is home!!) on going round the charity shops looking for some old tea sets and tea pots which I am going to use for their drinks - definitely thinking pink lemonade here...mmmmh...

I made these little cake toppers as well - I cut out the flower shapes and circles using the Cricut again and stamped 'eat me' on the small circles and stuck them on the flowers, I then used DST to stick the cocktail stick on the back and glued a Mad Hatter's Tea Party stamped image to cover them up... I thought they came out really well...

I am now of to raid the free papers that come with magazines to do the invitations unless Ellie has used them all...Watch this space for more bits and pieces to come...xox

HALF TIME AT PITTODRIE....

Morgan was invited to play at half time at the Aberdeen v Kilmarnock game... Here are all the boys patiently waiting for their turn to get on... when they did come on they got to come through the players' tunnel... Aberdeen was up 1-0 at half time....

Sorry about the rubbish quality of the photos...I only have a point and shoot camera as I the better ones are waaay beyond my brain capability...lol...

Here he is in goal ....looking good!!!Going in for the save....

Saved!!!!

At the end they did a lap of honour all clapping their hands - it was fantastic.... I was very proud of him as he didn't let in a single goal...

At the end of the game Morgan and Jamie begged me to wait outside for the players to come out so they could get autographs - an hour we stood and it was FREEZING!!! In the end they only got Kilmarnock players and one of them actually asked the boys onto the team bus so they could meet them all - they were both in their element... This is Morgan getting Jimmy Calderwood's autograph...
All in all a very good experience for him...just a pity Aberdeen got beat 2-1 in the end...

PS - Had a haircut this morning - what do you think??? It is much shorter than I have ever had it....x

TEA, FREESIAS AND PEACE!!!!

I thought I would post some 'time machine' shots of the lovely peace and quiet I am having this morning - it is the first time since Friday I have been able to sit down with a cup of tea and some toast in total quiet!!!! Sonja posted some piccies last night using the 'Hipstamatic' app on her i-phone, but unfortunately my pennies wont stretch to an iphone (just yet!!) and I remembered I was doing pictures for one of my Rusty Pickle books using the 'Time Machine' function on Paint Shop Pro and these are the results...as you can see these are the same flowers that Sonja shot at my house last week...I love freesias..they are so sweet and old fashioned and they look beautiful in the lovely jug that I got from Susan for my birthday....

Anyway these are two of the reasons I have not had any peace this weekend... Niamh and her cousin Blair...him and his brother Finlay came to stay on Friday afternoon as Jen and Pete were of to Milan for Pete's birthday and they left yesterday morning and of course Allan is still away so it was just me all on my ownsome with 6 kids... On the whole they weren't too bad but they definitely had their moments!!!!

Think I may do all my photos like this on my blog as I really like this effect...xox

HAS MY MOJO RETURNED......

So I will start with this little plaque - someone asked me to make this ages ago for them and I completely forgot so I thought it might just be the starting point for getting my mojo back up and running again.... These were also something that I had forgotten I had to do as well... they are door plaques for my nephews...

This is something else that I have been working on this week... It started of as a set of plain frames joined together with hinges which had given me the idea to do something like this from Red Lead .... then it kind of evolved....

First of all I painted the frames using Adirondak paint dabbers in Celery and Sail Boat Blue...I then stamped the Tim Holtz images using Stamping Up Basic Gray ink

I painted the butterflies (Stampin Up Chipboard) in white then stamped and covered them in Crackle Accents but the stamped image went blurry once it had dried - still a nice effect tho... The flowers are cut using the new Tim Holtz Alteration Die Tattered Florals using just a piece of cardboard from a pizza box and then covered in some dictionary pages and more crackle accents... the other one is done using a piece of canvas covered in Faded Jeans Distress Stickles...both have a brad pushed thru for the centre...

This is 'Marci' from Stampotique... I stamped and embossed her and coloured in with Distress Inks...then masked her to do the background which has the little dots picked out in Black Diamond Distress Stickles... I stamped her little bows again and stuck them on with pads for a little bit of dimension....

This is 'me'... When I was getting the canvas for the flowers this picture was on the roll and was just the right size for the frame so I thot why not!!!

And last but not lease this is 'Smile'... I did the same for him as with Marci above....

Not sure but I am thinking that it is lacking somewhere and needs something else just to finish it of...but I am going to enter it into the Stampotique challenge 'Think Out of The Box' anyway....xox

edited: I have added the lttle word tabs on each of the frames but I am still not sure it is the 'extra little something' that it needs....

APRIL 365....

Once again it is the end of the month and time for the 365 Calendar Challenge hosted by Kate...So here are my April pages...

Last week I realised that I had an extra day circle there being only 30 days in April and not 31 like I had...so I filled it in with one of my all time favourite stamps 'You are just jealous because the voices talk only to ME' by PaperArtsy....

If you want to see more of this kind of thing head over here to the Flickr site and have a look at what everyone else who is doing the challenge is up to...

Have a great May Day weekend....xox