JUDO WEEKEND...

Well on Friday at 4.10pm we started what seemed like an epic trip to Manchester for the NW Open Age Banded Judo Championships.... we decided it would be easier to fly so Allan booked us flights via Dublin - Dublin you might ask, only place that Ryan Air flies to out of Aberdeen... and all the other airlines were way to expensive.... Arrived in Manchester airport around 9.30pm and headed straight to the hotel... Weigh-in was 8.15am to 9am the next morning in St Helens so it was an early start... Found the Leisure Centre no problem with the help of our trusty Tom Tom Sat Nav (best invention ever, wonder how many marriages have been saved due to this device...lol...).

Morgan didn't get of to the best start losing his first fight but he gave it his all... he won his second and lost his third so no medals home with us this time... I have to say tho that the judo was harder and faster than anything they have experienced before as was the judging... but hopefully it will have opened their eyes as to what is in store for them in the future...

After this we headed to Old Trafford where Allan and Morgan did the tour (I declined this having done it before) and sat in the bar watching Man Utd get beaten by Everton 3-1...

Hoping this is who Morgan aspires to when he is training with Aberdeen Football Club....lol...

When they were finished we went over to the Trafford Centre and I feel like such a hick for saying it but it was amazing....shops upon shops upon shops and the food hall (The Great Hall) was simply something else...

The next morning we woke up to about 3" of snow and we got to the airport to find it shut... we sat in the executive lounge drinking cappuchinos and hot chocolate and eating croissants for 3 hours before our flight finally checked in... it was touch and go whether we would make it to Dublin in time for the connection to Aberdeen but we did and got home about 4.30pm picked up the girls and got Morgan finished packing for his school ski trip the next day....It's been relatively peaceful here with just the girls if you don't count Niamh....xoxo

BLOG AWARD...

Today I received a lovely surprise in the form of a blog award from my inspiration Dyan... Love you...

Rule 1.... pass it on

Rule 2.... 10 things that make you happy!!!!

PASS IT ON... decided I would pass it on to my 'real life' friends... go check them all out....

Sonja..........Susan..........Jude..........Leigh..........Elaine..........Mandy..........Erika..........Sharon

10 THINGS (in no particular order)...

1. My lovely, lovely family!!!!!
2. Sunshine and Pimms with gingerbeer
3. Watching Morgan win a Judo fight...yayyy
4. Watching Ellie in panto
5. Watching all my girls (Ellie, Libby, Niamh) in the dance show
6. Knowing that Niamh is going to school after the summer holidays
7. Chocolate (real chocolate!!!)
8. The bed all to myself when Allan is offshore
9. Morgan training with Aberdeen Football Club
and last but not least......
10. Crafting, lots and lots of lovely crafting...anytime....anywhere.....

So there we have it... pass it on girls

Tomorrow I will post about our judo weekend (haven't uploaded the photos yet)...x

GINGERSNAP CHALLENGE...

I have been pondering over this for a week or so and after seeing this challenge on Gingersnap Creations to use your three favourite colours (which in this case are pink, green and browns) I decided to give it a go... I have tried to do a slightly different take on the House of Dreams from the March issue of Craft Stamper.... (sorry can't link the actual article)

First of all I covered an MDF heart in this fab tissue paper which came with a present that I received for my birthday last year from Jude.... I cut it out, used gel medium to stick it on and then brayered over it to smooth it down... adding a little Worn Lipstick distress ink round the edges....

I sponged some Worn Lipstick and Tattered Rose distress ink onto white card and I then stamped the Movie Star Paper Artsy image (which I received from Elaine as part of my Secret Santa gift) on top... matted it and stuck it to the heart... The butterfly is an image from Lisa's Altered Art which I changed to black and white and then sponged Peeled Paint distress ink over and stuck some little pearl flat backs to... I re-stamped the image again and cut out the stars and then crackle accented them and stuck them over the original ones to make them pop a little... added some string for hanging and there we have it - I am quite pleased with how it turned out... It shall be winging it's way to a friend as a birthday present now but not before I enter it into the challenge...

We are of to Manchester later for a big judo competition so won't be around for a few days so enjoy your weekend...xoxo

ON A ROLL....

Well I can't believe it... I was flicking through some updated blogs on my list when I went onto Kenner Road and I have won some more blog candy - how lucky (jammie as Sonja says!!!) am I??? I love the Kenner Road blog - everything is so fresh and lovely.... anyway this is what I have won this time...

On another note I would like to say thank you to everyone who has left messages about Haggis... Thank you, they are all very much appreciated....xoxo

RIP HAGGIS....

Tonight we had the sad task of having to put to sleep our beloved dog Haggis... Haggis was 14 years old and I can still remember the day we got him... He has been deteriorating since we came back from holidays in October... It was like he was still a puppy one week and an old man the next.... He will be very sadly missed especially by Niamh who loved that dog as much as she loved Charlie our other westie who died suddenly aged 11 a couple of years ago and despite being only 2 at the time Niamh talks about him still.... RIP Haggis - you will be missed....

MORE BLOG CANDY....

Yesterday I had a message from Laura at As Happy As... to let me know that I had won some stash from her One World One Heart blog hop giveaway.... how exciting....

This little lot is to be shared out between 6 of us and Gez from GezzyB's Crafty Bits won this fabulous frame (I'm not jealous...lol...)

On another note... my lovely new copy of the Cath Kidston magazine/catalogue arrived this morning and it is so full of yummyness and I want it all....

We are of to Manchester/Liverpool this weekend for a judo competition and having just read Kirsty's blog have found out there is a shop in the Trafford Centre but the irony is that I probably won't be able to buy anything very big as we are flying with hand luggage only....Noooooo....

Lunchtime now and then we are of to Tesco for some last minute bits for Morgan's ski trip next week - need to get it all organised before we go away at weekend as we are not back until Sunday evening and he leaves at stupid o'clock on Monday morning...enjoy your day whatever you are up to...xoxo

ANOTHER HEART....

Yesterday morning I found a pair of jeans belonging to Niamh that had a big hole in the knee so I decided to see what I could make out of it... I cut a 14cm heart from the Cricut using the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge in scrap card and used it for a template to draw round...

I then printed out the word 'love' on the wordprocesser to use as a template for stitching, I over stitched and then just pulled it away when I was finished (should have done a photo of this stage but I keep forgetting...). I blanket stitched in red round the outside, I always have trouble starting and finishing this stitch for some reason... it's a bit wonky in some places, hence the button sewed at the middle... I also couldn't work out how to get the hanging ribbon in so I just sewed it on at the back along with the button.... In hindsight as I am typing I should have sewn a button on the back as well to hide where the ribbon is attached but you live and learn right????

POST UPDATE..... Just checking out some other blogs and found this on Gingerscraps blog - how weird is that!!!!!

MATCHBOX EMBELLISHMENT SWAP...

This last couple of weeks have seen me busy with the Matchbox Embellishment Swap over on the Bubbly Funk Forum....

I received mine yesterday from Tracy and it is filled with lots of lovely felt flowers, ribbons, buttons, frames and embellishments all in a great assortment of creams and browns... Thank you Tracy...

I was lucky in that my swap was Sonja, who I know well so it wasn't hard for me to do something I knew she would like....

I used a used brown paper bag and did the same technique as my February calendar pages using my Carte Postal Tim Holtz stamp, covered the box and then made a little paper flower from an old dictionary and wrapped some brown IKEA string round it....

My next job was filling the box - I didn't have that much navy to put in but did have lots of browns and flowers so in they went and I even made a couple more paper flowers in keeping with the theme.

I decided to gift Sonja my Tim Holtz star stamp as I now have another that came in a set so I think she was quite pleased with that... The little buttons I made at the last crop using Emma's circle punches and some cardstock glued together for thickness then covered in more dictionary pages and inked round the edge with Vintage Photo distress ink...

All in all I really enjoyed this first swap that I have taken part in and I would definitely do it again...xoxo

MORE DOCUMENT 2010...

Here is an update on how my Document 2010 journal is coming along....

I borrowed Elaine's SU tab punch and made these cute little tabs for the months of my journal... I used MSE Multi Collage Alphabet set to stamp the months in SU's Chocolate Chip... I then used my SU sponge daubers (if you haven't got these you should definitely get some - I find them much easier to use than the big Tim Holtz or Inkssentials blender tool...)


The big JAN letters are from 3bugsinarug Blossom range and I stenciled the hearts and flowers from some offcuts that I had been punching shapes from earlier in the week using Adirondack Paint Dabbers... the pink flower didn't turn out so good tho...


And these are just some of the pages I have done so far...

I made the lollipop flower on this page after Leigh pointed out this blog on her blog last week and since then I have gone a little bit flower mad....lol...

Hopefully will have a few more of the pages to show you in the next week... thanks for looking...xoxo

ANOTHER BLOG AWARD...

I have been awarded this award again... this time from Leigh, so thank you....Why not pop over to her blog and look at some of the amazing cards she makes....Leigh is one of the North East Scotland Croppers - we meet once a month at The Papetiere at the Muggiemoss Papermill in Dyce... I started going last January after being egged on by Kara and I haven't looked back, they are a really great bunch of ladies....

I won't bore you with any more weird things you wouldn't want to know about me and since I have already passed it on, I won't do that again either....xoxo

DOCUMENT 2010...

Last night I was pondering my Document 2010 Challenge that is running over on UKS and wondering how I was going to do it all since I don't have a spare 12x12 album when I clicked onto this fabulous youtube tutorial by Tangie Baxter that I bookmarked a while ago and suddenly it all fell into place... I have this notebook that came as part of a gift set from Boots last year so I set to work adding and distressing pages... and I have to say I am very pleased with it (plus it was fun)...

So my new project went from this

...to this very quickly indeed...

Just away to dig out all the bits I saved for the month of January and get them in the book now....xoxo

JANUARY PAGES COMPLETE...

Well here it is... my first month completed and uploaded....Not sure if it is very interesting reading tho....(apart from 28th when we got very excited about Morgan being asked to train with Aberdeen Football Club's Youth Development Team...Morgan is a goalkeeper)....

And here is my February pages done and ready for their days to be added....

First of all I stamped and embossed the Tim Holtz Urban Tapestry corner in black... I then used a script stamp which I stamped all over in versamark and then clear embossed....

I did the same with the other page, except I turned the corner... then I used a dauber to apply Worn Lipstick distress ink all over... I took the iron on a medium dry setting and some baking paper and ironed over the top... unfortunately it kinda melted the black image out of focus (which wasn't meant to happen) so then I decided not to melt the same image on the other page but I did manage to smear it with the iron...Duh!!! never mind it will be fine once the squares are on...lol...

I did like the effect it left, but it's not very clear on the picture.... I then butted the two pages together and used the same script stamp with Vintage Photo distress ink

I turned the pages again and butted them together so I could stamp the Frame and Love which are from the Urban Grunge set so each half is on opposite pages in Stampin' Up's Chocolate Chip..... I edged both pages with Worn Lipstick and then again with Vintage Photo...

I found this technique on Red Lead PaperWorks Everyday which they have just added to their blog.... They used it on tags so I have just scaled it up... I really like the effect and only realised after that it was a nice warm lovey theme for Valentines' month....Hope you like...xoxo