Scrapping Fun...

I finished book 1 yesterday afternoon and have already started on book 2. I must have been bitten by the Twilight bug...or should that be Twilight vampire?

I can't believe we're half way through week 9 in Cathy Zielske's Big Picture Scrapbooking Class. It ends on Christmas Day - 12 weeks in total. I don't want it to end LOL! I'm enjoying our 3 weekly assignments and the long slide show that she does for us every Thursday is something to really look forward to. Not to mention her funny bonus videos that we get most weeks. I'll be sad to see it come to an end.

This is a layout done for the class. I really enjoyed doing this one. Not only did I get the chance to scrapbook some silly photos I took when mum & dad visited once, but I also had some fun playing with supplies. I stamped the flowers with black StazOn ink (they are designed by Mindy Terasawa for Autumn Leaves) and then I got out my watercolour pencils and my water brush and had some fun colouring them in :)

Digi Sales, Books and Rug...

Just a little update from me :)

Books. Twilight. I've been reading. Lots. LOL! The 3rd and 4th book in the series arrived at nine this morning. The 2nd book (which I ordered before the others) is due to arrive in the next 1 1/2 hours. It's a good job as I have less than 100 pages left in the first book. Froggy - thanks for the comment you left with info on the series, how many books etc - very much appreciated :)

Black Friday Sales...there are lots of great sales around in the digital scrapping world today. Lilypad is having a sale with 30-50% off. And Sweet Shoppe is having 40% off storewide. Not to be missed if you're into your digital or hybrid scrapping :) I've been making a little Christmassy bookmark:

[Supplies: "Merry And Bright" by Kate Hadfield & Kaye Winiecki (the Lilypad) , "Border-Line" by Lauren Grier, "DJB Smarty Pants" by Darcy Baldwin (both SSD)]

Right, I'm off to do some more sewing on my rug. Want to get it ready today if I can so I better get going...

Oooops...

So. Twilight. I read about 150 pages yesterday. And then ordered the second book! I read a little bit more today and just placed my order for book 3 and 4 (is that the complete series...does anyone know please? Or will there be more books?) All three books should arrive tomorrow :)

How did that happen...?

Reading, Sewing and Journaling...

I'm busy, busy, busy sewing on my Christmas tree rug today. Still have some hope that I might, might get it done for the weekend...

I've been seeing this book recommended on lots and lots of blogs I read now for...a good year I think. So tempting. But I have resisted as I know normally I like "realistic books"...anything to do with ghosts, magical creatures, aliens etc...well it just does nothing for me, I just don't enjoy them somehow. One exception: Harry Potter - which I totally love! So anyway, this "Twilight" series of books have been popping up on blogs nearly weekly for me and yesterday afternoon I spotted it on Amazon for only £2.95. And I thought it was worth a gamble. It turned up this lunchtime and it's currently lying on the bedside table teasing me. I have to say, reading on the back...well I think it might be something for me after all... Fingers crossed :)

Today I have started to think about my Christmas Journal for this year. I have done one for the last 2 years following Shimelle's great class. What size to do...? I'm pretty sure I want a rectangle format rather than a square format. Nothing too majorly big. Maybe 7x5...maybe a little larger. We'll see... Are you joining me too? :)

The Answers...

I know I have been really bad with replying to questions. Nearly every day AFTER I have made my blog post I have remembered that, yet again, I have forgotten the questions - sorry!

Max - asked me a while back about why I was selling my Bind-It-All when I love it so much? I have made a little graphic that explains it:

Yep I sold it to buy the pink version 2. And no, I know some people have/are buying this just because it's pink but I have not. I'm a green girl not a pink girl ;) I wanted it because I wanted to be able to punch holes through thicker covers. I loved my blue BIA very much and I was sad to see it go...I might even prefer the blue colour to the pink...

Next question was from...

Marja - who asked me how I embossed the whole 12" length of paper on this layout with my Cuttlebug. And yes I do get the marks from it pushing in the previously embossed section too - I don't think you can avoid this. What I do to remove it, the best I can, is this: I start by embossing a section at one end. Then very carefully line it up (I think I overlap one "pattern row") and keep embossing the whole piece. Then I take an embossing tool (you know...with little "balls" at each end?), put my piece carefully into the open embossing folder (the side where the pattern goes inwards) and then use my embossing tool to carefully push these "flattened" sections back into shape again. Hope the explanation makes sense :)

Then another question from...

Kelly - she wanted to know if I had any tips for working on the big rug as she's just bought a tree skirt kit too (I'm making mine into a rug and not a skirt...if anyone is wondering about the word swap). The best tips I can give is to read the instructions properly before you start. Sort your beads/sequins into little sections in a box or something (to make them easy to work with) and most of all, cut out each piece AS YOU NEED it..otherwise you will lose track on which piece belongs to which number etc. Good luck & have fun :)

And finally...

Kat - wants to know if it's a Bucilla tree skirt that I'm doing. It is indeed. :) You can see part of the packaging in the first picture in this post. It's called "Gingerbread House".

(Layout/text etc is very straight in reality! LOL!)

This is yet another layout make for the BPS class. I just did a quick funny one with some photos that mum & dad had e-mailed me the same morning. Sorry about the photo...I just hate taking photos of layouts with white backgrounds. I always get this gradual weird shading making the background cardstock look anything but white LOL!

Rug Update Plus Another Card...

I'd like to get my Christmas tree rug ready for this weekend if I can. I spent this past weekend working quite a lot on it and have just taken some updated photos. The gingerbread house is in the middle of the rug and one side is completely finished now. Yay :)

(Sorry that the photos have funny lighting. It's really rainy/dark here at the moment and flash photographs were the only option...)

I still have all the large motifs to do for the second side though. It will certainly be a battle to get it ready for this weekend...we'll see if I can make it or not...

I've also been playing with this super cute "Itty Bitty Robots" kit by Mindy Terasawa at the weekend and came up with this hybrid card. Great for a little boy's birthday card I think :)

Right, I'm off to play with some ideas for this year's Christmas card...please wish me luck LOL!

Card Sunday...

Hope you're all having a great weekend :)

Just a little quick post. I've been having a card Sunday LOL! I saw this kit (Ice Capades) by Kay Miller and totally fell in love with the snowmen. Impossible to resist :) And I came up with this card:

Don't You Just Love It...

...when everything is organised in your scrap space? You feel so "light" and happy. :) I never really have my room in an extreme mess or anything...but I do have 2-3 "hot spots" where things tend to pile up. I can't really do too much about it as my room is so tiny (I stretch out my arms and I can touch the opposite walls - no joke). Storage is very limited. Anyway, if I don't put new stuff away when I get it or stuff when I have it out and use it...it tends to create one of these little "piles" over time.

As of this morning I would say I had 3 of these "piles of stuff" and it's been bothering me for days now so I got down on the floor and dealt with the stuff that I had leaning against the door. I had to be ruthless and throw some old stuff so I could fit everything in. Anyway I'm rambling...LOL! I got two piles cleared and it feels soooo great :) I have one minor thing to deal with...my window sill where I just piled some old packs of Heidi Swapp chipboard and some developed photos as I was scrapping the other week, for lack of other space, and then it's all good again :)

Got this layout to show you too. Done for the Cathy class. I loved the look of the sketch when we got it, but as I started to scrap I wasn't sure...not until I started playing with some stamps and rub-ons and it suddenly worked a lot better. I have found that I love Cathy's style, but for *me* to be happy with what *I* do I need to take it just that step further and add a little more :)

Thanks...

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who left me birthday messages yesterday :) I had such a great day :) We were supposed to go out for a nice meal in the evening but both of us are suffering with this weird stomach bug this week. We just took one look at each other last night and almost spoke at the same time. We were both suggesting to push the meal to another day and get a take away instead...we even had thought about the same place LOL! So that worked out great :)

Oh and I got another birthday present yesterday when Ross came home. Something that had been delayed in the post. More stuff for my Cuttlebug :)

These mini embossing folders work great with some scalloped round and square punches that I have - super cute:

Swapping subject totally, today is the release day at the Lilypad and on Wednesday I was working with Kate Hadfield's new collab kit. With my "old" printer acting up, and me not feeling too great, I decided to go for a digital layout.

[Supplies: "Funky Junky Home For The Holidays" by Kate Hadfield, Michelle Godin & Rachel Young, "Glitter Swirls" by Jenna Desai, "Artist Edges Painters Tape" by CD Muckosky, "Vintage Petal Pops" by Amy Wolff, "Petal Pops" by Amy Wolff (all from the Lilypad)]

...and for those of you who read my blog yesterday you might remember that I was hoping for some things to turn up with the parcel guy yesterday. Well he arrived about 30 mins after me blogging - yay:

Happy Birthday To Me...

I have been totally spoiled today. Beautiful cards and presents in the morning. Perfume, books, games etc. Remember this...?

In terms of crafty stuff, I got a new combo cut/emboss die for my Cuttlebug:

...and a brand new shiny printer from my parents. My old one has had me tearing my hair out for months now. It keeps splattering ink in random places. Then you clean it and do you think there's anything to clean? No. Spotless. LOL! So a big mystery. But it's been very frustrating while trying to do hybrid work. No good when you print something only to have to throw it in the bin. So this was VERY needed :)

And I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that the parcel guy will turn up later today with my new Tim Holtz Distress Stickles:

...and a Scor-Pal, as they were both posted yesterday. *fingers crossed*

Not Sure What To Call This Post...

Tricky to come up with titles for post sometimes. Especially when there's nothing major you're writing about but just little bits here and there...

I finished my class and got that sent off yesterday so that feels good to have that done :)

I also managed to sew a little more on the rug yesterday evening, so nearly another candy cane done. Yay - there's still hope to get it done in time.

This morning I'm trying to catch up on the Cathy Zielske BPS class. We get new assignments tomorrow so I want to be up to date if I can. I have just finished a single 8.5x11 layout with some pretty October Afternoon snowy papers. I still have a double layout to go...but this requires quite a bit of photos, nearly all in different sizes so I have kinda put it off hunting for those. I need a total of 7 photos from the same event or at least that go together and that I want to scrap on the same double spread. I guess I better deal with that after I have finished typing this...

And talking about the class by Cathy, here's another layout that I have done for it. I really struggled with this one. Like really. I hated it. It just didn't work...nothing "stood out" and everything just blended together into a mess. As I was just about to give up, my eyes fell on this "place photo here" little text stamp by October Afternoon and suddenly I had an idea. I stamped this all around the photo arrangement to create a border and did my journaling block with the title. Suddenly it was like everything worked and had got the definition it needed. So it just proves it no matter how much you dislike a layout leave it for a bit and come back to it. You CAN rescue a layout that seems hopeless :)

Update...

Today I'm mega busy working on my new class for A Trip Down Memory Lane. As I was taking photos of my work in progress for the class a little earlier, I thought I might also take some photos of my Christmas rug and show you the progress since the last photos :)

I have finished all the little tiny bits now. The sequins and "candies" which are spread among the larger motifs...

Last time I took some photos I had just finished the house. Since then I have done the gingerbread man, the tree and the big candy cane. I spent quite a lot of time on this over the weekend as I really want to get it ready in time for putting up the tree. Still doubtful, and I will need to work a lot/fast if I should make it...but I have some hope so far...

Okay I'd better get back to my ATDML class, I have instructions to write, photos to edit/pick and a supply list to sort out...

For sale: super cute Sassafras chipboard

For sale: These are all brand new Sassafras chipboard packs. I have a few of each so just ask away if you want them and I will let you know when I have run out. (Please read the WHOLE post if you're interested, so you see all the details - thank you ) They seem to sell for about £3.99 in the UK, so I thought I'd ask £2.50 per pack...

Fawnd To You: *** SOLD OUT ***



Happy Place: *** ONE LEFT ***



Hog Heaven: *** THREE LEFT ***



Woodland Whimsy: *** ONE LEFT ***




£2.50 per pack. Buyer pays for postage.

UK 1st class P&P:
1-2 packs of chipboard £1.00
3-4 packs of chipboard £1.50
(anything else, please let me know and I'll get back to you)

Payment by PayPal only please.

I will normally post the same day or next day, depending on when I receive payment etc.

If you want to buy one/some pack(s), please leave your e-mail addess in the comments section and I will get back to you asap. First come first served and all that :)

Thanks for looking :)

Stories In Hand...

This is what my desk looks like right now LOL! I signed up for the "Stories In Hand" class by Jessica Sprague a while ago when the registration opened. But then I was a little late in getting my album so I never got the chance to get started on this until Friday when it turned up. The class involves a LOT of cutting and printing so I'm very busy with that at the moment...

Finished...

I did it, I finished my little Christmas project! I actually wasn't sure whether I'd get it finished for the blog post today as it took a lot longer to make than I first thought...

Here's my finished advent calendar using a cheap baking tray and magnets. The principle for this is that you remove all the magnets (all the little date squares) and store them on the back of the sheet. Then on the 1st of December you add the first square to the grid and so on, until you have added them all and it's Christmas.

The tray calendars that I have seen so far have all been based on a 5x5 grid and counting down to the 25th of December. This didn't really work for me as I celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December. Time to think. After a while I came up with the plan of making the 24th square double the size. Just like the bought cardboard calendars that you can get in the shops, that quite often have a bigger opening for the 24th.

I used the "Christmas Dreams" and "Jolly Lil Friends" kits by Mindy Terasawa at Designer Digitalis to create it.

I'm not sure how well it shows up in the photos but there's lots of yummy Stickles glitter involved etc :)

A Little Project...

I've been told that my album *should* arrive today - yay (...she says quietly not to jinx anything LOL!) And in the meantime, while keeping and eye out for the parcel van, I'm working on a Christmas project which has been very popular in the scrapping world now for a good two years. I started off with this yesterday afternoon...

And then I have been doing a little bit of this...

I'm not finished yet so no photos of the finished project yet - sorry! I'm going to try and work on it a little more today so we'll see if I can get it ready and take some photos for tomorrow. No promises yet though :)

Liberty - you asked about the "calendar bit" on the patterned paper in this post. Yes it's a stamp. By October Afternoon I think... Let me just hunt in my stamp box... Right, found it, it's called "Mailroom" and the code is ST-318 and it is indeed by October Afternoon. Hope that helps :)

...and you know what, just as I was hunting through my stamp box, I got interrupted by a knock on the door. My album is here!! It might not be lime green, but a chestnut brown will work just fine too. :) So a big thanks to Jeannette once again, I'd almost given up hope on getting one!

Thank You Jeannette...

What a day it was yesterday. I was trying to source the American Crafts 6x6 album that I wrote about in yesterday's post and it proved to be a nightmare. After trawling though 10 (!) pages worth of Google searching/shops and checking every single one (!) it quickly became obvious that it was not a case about getting a green album...or even a blue at a push...but about getting ANY American Crafts 6x6 album at all.

Then I found a black one. Yay! Site showed 2 items in stock. Placed my order and was soooo relieved. Until a few hours later when I suddenly had a WorldPay refund (=confused) and then a few minutes later a mail from the shop saying that "sorry they don't have the item". I was very disappointed. And I really hate it when shops charge you and then "discover" that they don't have something...it just really gets on my nerves LOL!

Anyway, in the meantime Jeannette posts a comment saying that she's found a site with the albums (even if not in the right colour) so off I go on a hunt. They do indeed show as "in stock" and I quickly order a chestnut/brown one! I don't really want to say "yay" yet...not until I actually have the album in my hand this time LOL! But a big THANK YOU to Jeannette for the link - you probably saved my day trying to get this album :)

Right, I'm off to watch this week's slide show by Cathy Zielske. Thursday means new week for the class and a new great slide show by Cathy. I'm leaving you with yet another page (I've been Cuttlebug-ing!) I have done following one of her sketches for the class. A page about when mum & dad came to visit:

Desperately Seeking...

I need help by you great blog readers please. I'm desperately seeking an album and I can't find it anywhere in the UK no matter how long I have been searching :(

Has anyone seen this around anywhere please:

American Crafts D-Ring 6x6 album in green/lime. I'd go for the blue one at a push.

Please...anyone? I'd be so very grateful for any tips! Thanks in advance :)

I Enjoyed This...

Time for some more from the class by Cathy Zielske. I really enjoyed this layout assignment as it gave me a chance to use some old photos which I thought really suited the layout design. These are photos from the house where I was born and grew up in Sweden. So many, many nice memories! :)

Oh and yes, the text is blurred at the end of the journaling. I thought it would be very nice for the future (when you might start to doubt details) to put the address and phone number on the layout. But that's of course not something I want to have all over the internet LOL! So apologies for the blurred-out last few lines.

I still have the whole of this week (Thu last week to Thu this week) to catch up on in class. All I have managed to do so far is to put two photos on my desk. Not much in terms of getting the assignments done, right? *Need to find some time*

For Sale: Bind-It-All...

*** NOW SOLD - SORRY ***

Okay, I have never sold anything on my blog before so this is a first. If you're interested, please read all the post to the end so you see all the information - thanks :)

For sale: Bind-It-All machine with accessories. (From pet and smoke free home) This is what's included:

The machine :) This has been used and very loved by me. I take extreme care with everything I own and this literally looks like new :)

...I mean I have even kept the original clip that goes on the front etc :)

...and the machine will come in the original box (told you I look after my things LOL!), protected by polystyrene etc :)

...it has the original CD and instruction booklet with it.

...and the handy size guide for measuring your wires and for setting the machine to the correct wire sizes.

I will also include something which you do not normally get with the machine but you have to buy separately. The handy spacer bar. This is used when you use your smaller wires so that you get the pages cut correctly. I'm adding this in as a bonus.

Please note that, just like when you buy a new BIA machine, it does not come with any wires.

Now to the important information:

Payment is by PayPal ONLY please.

Cost: £30 + P&P

If you want to buy it, please leave me your e-mail address in the "comments section" and I will contact you asap. If more than one person is interested, I will of course go with the first person who's posted. So don't delay if you want it.

Depending on the time of receiving payment, I will either post the same day or next day :)

Thanks for reading & please let me know if you need any more info :)

Stepping Away From Christmas...

Loving Christmas, it's hard to not go for things Christmassy when you're picking among digital kits to use and some have yummy Christmas items amongst them. For my third project for the Lilypad BYOC I decided to step away from the Christmas items. Instead I decided to go for one of those general greeting cards which can be so handy to have a few spare of at home...

[Supplies: Fuzzy Wuzzy Alphas - Amy Wolff, Happy Happy Joy Joy Paper Pack - Amy Wolff, Graphies - CD Muckosky, Festive Sparkles - Jenna Desai, Just Pieces - Kaye Winiecki (all from the Lilypad)]

Hope you're all having a great weekend! :)