Water Fun...

Well the weather could have been a bit nicer this bank holiday weekend, but hey... Let's scrap something summery instead to keep a positive feeling going...

[Supplies used: Island Paradise - Kate Hadfield , Splash-Tastic! - Kate Hadfield, Apron Strings - Gina Miller, Blocked Brushes 2 - Gina Miller, Soho Afternoon - Gina Miller, Simple Singles Template Painted 3 - Gina Miller (all from the Lilypad)]

Oh and something fun! A few weeks ago I signed up for a new BPS class. It's called "A Bakers Dozen" and started this Thursday. So far we're just gathering supplies without actually knowing what we're going to do with them - and you know what, it's rather fun!

Normally it's the type of thing that I wouldn't bother with, I'd just grab some stash when we'd actually get down to the scrapping. But this time I have decided to follow the prompts and do exactly like instructed. It's a bit "difficult" for me as I'm a person who wants to know all the facts... so to do something without knowing why or what for is a little challenge. But a fun one :) We'll see where this end up... :)

Lake District...

Every month at the Lilypad we have a great guest designer and for May that was definitely true once again. The talented Creashens is the guest designer of this month.

I especially love her Torn Bits photo frames and when she released another pack this week (available from today) I really couldn't resist scrapping with them.

[Supplies used: Machine Stitches - Anne deJong, The Stationery Story - Amy Wolff, Torn Bits 3 - Creashens, Blocked Brushes 2 - Gina Miller, Soho Afternoon - Gina Miller, Paint Rubs - Lauren Reid (all from The Lilypad)]

I made the layout on Wednesday but since the Torn Bits 3 pack was not released until today, this is the first day I can post it on-line. I picked a few photos from last weekend's Lake District trip for my layout and enjoyed making this a lot :)

Wishing you all a great weekend - and a great bank holiday weekend (yay - extra long!!) for those in the UK :)

Excitement...

My iPad is here!!! Aaaaah - soooo excited! And even a day before the official release too - however that is possible?! LOL! I'm off to register, sync and have fun... :)

Summer Lovin'...

Well I guess that was it for the "summer" weather this time. We went from 25-26 degrees & sun at the weekend to 10-11 today. Some rain in the morning today but mainly dark boring clouds. I so wish it would have lasted a little longer. But let's hope it returns soon again instead :)

In the meantime I grabbed these cute summer kits (to try and keep those happy summery feelings going a little longer)...

They are by Lliella Designs (available at Sweet Shoppe Designs) and come in a boy and a girl version:

I ended up doing a layout this morning which I think is very different from my normal style. I didn't really plan for it to be (I NEVER know how something will turn out when I start to scrap and I NEVER have a plan at all LOL!) but it's definitely different for me. Kinda more like a picture/painting look than a "normal" scrapbooking page. It was definitely fun to do something so different.

[Supplies used: Beach Kids (Bundle 1) - Lliella Designs, Beach Girls - Lliella Designs, Beach Boys - Lliella Designs (all from SSD), Simple Singles Template Painted 3 - Gina Miller (from the Lilypad)]

Want to know something I'm really excited about? I got an e-mail at the weekend that my iPad had been dispatched!! So excited!! And something else... it looks like it might (it's scheduled at least - so fingers crossed!!) be delivered already on Thursday even though Friday it's the official release day in the UK. We'll see what happens, either way, I'm super, super excited... :)

The Perfect Weekend...

We had the perfect weekend. Everything was just right, the company, the weather, the food, the places... ideal! :) I think I might have mentioned it about a month ago... My parents were due to fly over from Sweden and we were to spend a weekend in the Lake District with them...

...only the Icelandic Volcano decided to erupt and cause all planes to be grounded. So Mum & Dad had to completely cancel their trip and re-book everything. I was so disappointed back then. In hindsight it might have been a blessing in disguise...


...because the re-booked for this weekend just gone and we got the most amazing summer weather. 25-26 degrees and sun. The best weather this year by far!


We spent an amazing 2 1/2 days in the Lake District and I took hundreds of photos. I've literally just downloaded them all onto the computer and just quickly picked a few for this blog post.


Having only briefly spent a few hours in Kendal before, going to the Lake District and actually having time to explore it by car was great :) Definitely a place we'd love to visit again :)

Yay For Warmer Weather...

Finally it's becoming a bit warmer. About time :) Let's hope it lasts...

Anyway this is just a quick post for today as I want to take advantage of the warmer weather while it's here.

This layout was done for Shimelle's cybercrop. For this challenge we were supplied with a sketch to use and I really loved it as it was very "me". I have done very similar layouts in the past already as I really love this look. The photo is of my sister and her family, taken by Dad. :)

Seafood...

Kate Hadfield released a great underwater themed kit today with the most amazing fish doodles (you can get it here if you're interested)...

I knew I wanted to scrap with it straight away. But what photos to use? I've never been whale spotting or (fortunately!!) never met a shark. So that was out. The next obvious one was to work with some aquarium photos. Which I have. But they are old and not so great so that quickly became my backup plan. But what else could I scrap about while using these doodles? Then I spotted the doodled crab and a thought appeared...

Yep I decided to scrap my love of seafood! Yum! I had some great crab and crayfish photos which went perfectly with Kate's doodles. :)

Completed...

Right... here we go... *drum roll* The final layout is done...

Not the final layout ever or anything. Just the final layout which means that I have caught up on Shimelle's Something From Almost Nothing class. And it feels great! Even greater that it's the second class within a week which I have picked up and finished off even though it would have been easy to give up. If you have some unfinished class lying in a corner gathering dust, I really recommend for you to grab hold of it and try and finish it. The feeling of having it completed is so good :)

The prompt for this final page suggested to use a transparency somewhere on your page. I cut a Fancy Pants transparency in half and layered it over my blue Bazzill cardstock and then built my layout on top of that. The photo isn't the best as it was totally impossible to take a photo of the layout without getting something reflecting in the transparency. But hey...!

This Is A *Good* Week...

I'm so on a roll!! *excited smile* A roll to complete projects which "should" have been finished already. Earlier I posted about this class which I sat down and finished. And to accomplish that was such a great feeling that I decided to tackle another such project while I was on a roll.

I never quite got to finish Shimelle's latest class (Something From Almost Nothing) which was run about a month or so ago. The last two prompts came just as I'd had my two lots of surgery and I was totally unable to even sit up or use a computer. So naturally I couldn't finish my last 2 layouts while the class was still running. But armed with good feelings from finishing the Jessica Sprague class the other day, I went straight onto this class. I have one more 6x12 page to do and then I have completed the class :)

It Feels Great...

You know when you have this project... And for some reason you don't quite finish it... Something comes up and you can't finish it on time... And then it kinda lies there on a shelf and the longer it lies there the more stressful it becomes and the more it troubles you that you have not finished it?

I finished one of those yesterday afternoon!!! Yay!

A while back... In February or March I think it was... I took an on-line tablet class by Jessica Sprague. Something happened the last week of class (which I can't remember at the moment - typical!) which made me not being able to do that last week as the class was running. Over the next week or two I caught up on 6 of the 7 days worth of assignments. But one was left. The BIG layout assignment of the week. I never had the time to sit down and watch through lots of video segments while following and making my own layout. So it's bugged me ever since. I just wanted to get that ONE "little" thing done so I had completed the class.

And above is the evidence that I have now officially finished the class. And it's such a *GREAT* feeling too :) Not only the finishing-feeling but also I'm really pleased that I sat down and took the time to do this as I learnt some pretty cool techniques too :)

Sometime it's sooo worth doing those things that it's easy to put off or give up on completely...!

Birthday Card...

I've been playing with some pretty digital goodies by CD Muckosky this week :) If you're wondering, these kits are available to buy at The Lilypad.

To make my card I used one of the cool divided tabs from the pack above...

And also loads and loads of flowers from this pretty kit! I really love the leaf sets she's made with the cute coloured stripes across them :)

[Supplies used: Marked Alphas - Amy Martin, The Stationery Story - Amy Wolff, Divided - CD Muckosky, Groovy Garden - CD Muckosky, Paint Me Happy Paper Set - Rachel Young (all from The Lilypad)]

I also added a few other bits and came up with this hybrid card in the end. Grattis means Congratulations in Swedish and I think it will make a nice female birthday card for someone.

I Really, Really Can't Wait...

Last week the UK prices were finally revealed...

On Monday it became available for pre-order...

And on May the 28th it's released...

As soon as the presentation video was released back in January, I knew I wanted it. Well actually I knew way before then, hearing all the rumours earlier etc. So I went on a mission to see if I could get enough money in my PayPal account to cover an iPad 32GB. And after a lot of Ebay'ing my "iPad fund" was ready already by the end of March. Since then it's been a long wait. Finally on Monday I could place my order.

And now it's just, what seems like a very loooong time, to wait until the 28th.

I'm sooooo excited!!! :)))

Summer?...

Anyone seen summer about? The sun is shining here at the moment (so I have already taken the chance to go out for a morning walk) but the rain clouds are coming in fast and it's supposed to rain most of the day here :) And 10 degrees in May isn't really fun is it?

The layout above was done for Shimelle's cybercrop a while back. Photos are from a short vacation to Germany with Mum & Dad in summer 2008 - we had a great time :)

Looking forward to the WW meeting tonight. Pretty sure I will stand more or less still but I'm very happy with this as I had a mega loss of 2 kg last week (about 4 1/2 pounds). So even doing that over 2 weeks is pretty good.

I'm back tomorrow with some news of something I'm really looking forward to...

Wales...

A few weeks ago we booked a night at a spa hotel in Wales, for last Saturday. We sat off early on Saturday from home and had a very nice but very, very cold day in Wales. We got to the hotel early and spent an amazing hour and a half in their hydro pool, sauna and steam room. Just what we needed after a cold afternoon out :)

I have finally got all the 434 photos downloaded from the camera and here are just a few of them. The first few are taken as we drove from the hotel through Snowdonia on Sunday morning. All are taken through the car windscreen at speed. I really thought they would just turn out to be a blurry mess so I'm rather pleased that they are as good as they are.




On the way home we stopped and visited a place called Bondant Garden. Really beautiful and great for a nice long walk. My parents had been there a few years ago when they visited Wales and recommended it to us. They really weren't wrong. It was so pretty there!













We really enjoyed our little mini vacation and have decided that we must do something similar very soon again. :)

Love...

And my hybrid card making continues this weekend... :)

This time I have used this cute collab kit by Kay Miller and SMJ Designs. I guess it's originally a Valentine's Day kit but seriously it's never the wrong time to tell someone that you love them :)

This is the card I made. Unfortunately the light is terrible here (what a cold and wet weekend it's been - brrrr!) so they photo isn't the greatest...

[Supplies: Follow Your Heart - Kay Miller, SMJ Designs (from Kay Miller Designs)]

And this is the cute kit that I used. You can get it from Kay Miller Designs. A great place to shop if you ask me :)

Now can someone please tell the weather that it's supposed to be MAY and that we'd like some sumery weather please :)

Another Birthday Card...

I've been playing with making more hybrid birthday cards. Again a Swedish one...

[Juju's Garden by Lliella Designs (from SSD)]

Allie from Lliella Designs have released yet another cute kit. And see ---> birds! Love those birds :) So I just had to do something using that kit. If you're interested you can find the kit here.

This Kit Is So Cute...

As I have said earlier, I have been playing a bit with making hybrid cards again this week. It's ages since I have had the time to sit down and do that, so it's made me really happy. :)

First up was this super cute kit by Kay Miller...

Sweet, eh? :) If you can't resist it just like me, it's available here. Go on, you know you want to LOL! Those pandas are just the cutest. I'd love to have them as digital stamps too - that would be so great :)

Anyway, so what did I do? Well I find that the most common cards of all that I need (and never have any pre-made!) is Swedish birthday cards. So I decided to change that and hopefully I'll be able to make myself a few to have ready whenever needed :)

[Supplies: Beary Berry Sweet - Kay Miller (from Kay Miller Designs)]