Happy Halloween!...

Hope you're all having a great weekend! My nails are Halloween-ified (orange with green tips!) and the candy is ready by the door. :)

Snow Fun...

No, no snow here yet. As much as I love it when it snows, it still feels a bit early...

But I did hear from Mum & Dad that they did have snow for the first time the other day!! That is SUPER early. Another month from now would still be pretty early. It didn't stay, but still, it DID snow. Madness! LOL!

Anyway onto my "Snow Fun" and a hybrid card I made:

[Supplies used: Winter Magic - Kay Miller, Ice Capades - Kay Miller (both from Kay Miller Designs)]

Ready for some wintery cuteness? The main kit I used was this super sweet pastel coloured winter kit called Winter Magic by Kay Miller. Aren't those dressed bunnies just so sweet? I think I must use them some other time too :)

Weekend time soon. So nice :) Today I'm catching up on a journalling class I'm taking by Shimelle at the moment and also getting some house related things done (clothes washing, some general tidying etc) amongst other things.

Think we might start on the Christmas present shopping this weekend. Would love to have it done early to avoid crazy queuing for car parks and mad crowds in the shops...

Another Halloween Card...

I mentioned the other day that I was having fun making some hybrid Halloween cards...

This time I went for a Halloween kit to work with that's a bit more colourful, more cute rather than "dark and scary"...

Isn't this kit cute? I really like it! It's called Cute Spooks (very appropriate name I think *smile*) and it's by Kay Miller. You can buy it here.

As I mentioned, I was in a card making mood, so this is the card I came up with:

[Supplies: Cute Spooks - Kay Miller (from Kay Miller Designs)]

Halloween Fun...

We don't really celebrate Halloween as such. Okay we have a little pumpkin light and we get some candy in for the day, ready for the knocks on the door. And I love to make some Halloween cards - displayed in the living room they kinda add a bit of a Halloween decoration feel. But that's about it...

So I sat down and played a bit with some digital Halloween kits. Making some hybrid cards. This is one of the kits that I fell for...

It's made by Kaye Winiecki and it's available at the Lilypad. I picked a few elements from this kit to work with and a few from another one and came up with this card:

[Supplies used: Something Wicked - Kaye Winiecki, Fright Night - Kaye Winiecki, Studio Flergs (both from The Lilypad)]

I'm pretty sure this won't be the only Halloween card I'm making this week...

Winter Greetings...

Thanks for all the sweet comments that you have left for me - I really appreciate it! Seriously, every single one is so appreciated. Today I'm back in my usual trying-not-to-think-about-it-mood. Makes no sense panicking about things you have no control over... Or so I try to tell myself LOL!

So what are these "winter greetings" all about that's mentioned in the title? Well, it's not winter here but a very dark and rainy autumn day... However I have been scrapping with the most super cute winter kit ever. A collab between Lliella Designs and Kay Miller:

Isn't it too cute? And I totally love the colour combinations used for the kit too! For me it's definitely a kit I could not resist.

I had some extra fun too as I decided to make hybrid cards yesterday. Something I haven't done for ages since I got fed up of how quickly I went through my printer ink. But I had so much fun doing this yesterday :)

[Supplies used: Snow Friends Lliella Designs, Kay Miller (from SSD)]

*Sigh*...

I feel a little... deflated today. I had an appoitment at the eye hospital again. It's an ongoing battle and I suffer a lot with it, but I don't mention it too much on here because... well, let's face it, it would be pretty boring to read...

Anyway, my left eye especially keeps causing me problems (eye lid sticks to eye surface (cornea) while I sleep, and occasionally in the day time too, and rips part of it off. V-E-R-Y painful and lots of sideeffects etc). The result of todays appointment is that they recommend another operation. *sigh* They said I should go home and think about it. In either case I won't do it before Christmas (due to recovery etc) but I can't help thinking that some time in 2011, sooner or later, it's operation time again. And earlier if my pain attacks become more frequent...

An operation I really don't want to have. Not even think about. It's... terrible. And the recovery is... even worse. I've said before, that I would not wish this on my worst enemy. Which is true. It's also true that I can't find words enough to describe the pain of the recovery. But then again the pain of the frequent attacks is severly bad as it is...

So I feel a little (lot) deflated today. I'd hoped there would be no more eye operations now that both eyes have been done. Not so it seems. *sigh* Plus it takes about 6 months (!) for my sight to recover afterwards... Not to mention that I won't even be allowed to use water (and nothing else) on my face without boiling it first, I'll have to give up the gym/swimming and I won't even be allowed to wash my own hair...

I try my best not to think about these things. To take my millions of eyedrops per day (well, like 10-ish), my antibiotics etc and just get on with it. But then on days like this you kinda get reminded. Reminded that the doctors can't say what will happen, they don't know how to cure it (only how to treat it and try and keep it managable). And most of my questions get answered with "we really can't say, it's different from person to person, it's impossible to know etc".

If I think about it too much I will panic, freak out and get sad. So I avoid that. But today, no matter how hard I try, I can't help feeling a little tiny bit sorry for myself (I know I shouldn't). So tomorrow I'm going to try and have fun. Just for me. Maybe do some scrapping. Maybe play with some Copic colouring. Lots of greens and glitter would be good...

Thanks for reading!

[Supplies: Christmas Memories Page Templates - Shimelle Laine, Long And Winding Road Add-On Kit - Shimelle Laine, Long And Winding Road - Shimelle Laine (all from 2Peas)]

Some Scrapping From The Weekend...

Yesterday I did some Creative Team work for Shimelle. I decided to scrap with some fresh photos from the weekend. This is my first layout...

[Supplies: Christmas Memories Page Templates - Shimelle Laine, Long And Winding Road Add-On Kit - Shimelle Laine, Long And Winding Road - Shimelle Laine (all from 2Peas)]

On Saturday we were out driving. Heading from Liverpool in the Blackpool direction and came across a "point of interest" sign saying: Formby Point. Having no idea what it was, we just decided to follow it. It lead us to a National Trust area and a great place for forest walks and a beautiful beach. :) A perfect place for a break and a nice walk. More photos to be scrapped of this another day... :)

Christmas Album Time...

Are you doing a Christmas album this year? Have you started thinking about it yet? Maybe even got started on the basics or gathered some supplies?

It's been on my mind quite a bit lately. I recently got this Christmas album which I *might* be using...

I really like the shape of the album and also the pages it already comes with (a mix of pretty patterned papers, transparencies and felt pages). I also think (as long as I try and not really add bulky embellishments) that the binder rings will be big enough to hold 31 pages. But I'm not sure...

It's down to either using that album or to make my own covers (which I have done every year so far). It's 8x8 inches and that's a bit bigger than I normally like to work with for my Christmas album. I normally favour the rectangular format too...

I usually vary the size and format for the pages in my album. Having said that, there's nothing stopping me adding some smaller pages, rectangular pages, envelopes etc in this album...

Me thinks I need to think a bit more about this. What would you have done if you were me? What are *you* doing...? :) I'd love to hear! :)

Looking Forward To The Weekend...

Blogging early today as my parents should be arriving from Sweden in only a few hours. Sooo looking forward to the weekend :)

I guess it's pretty appropriate to blog this layout today as it's photos from a trip which we took with my parents to Germany not this summer but last. The top photo is taken in Germany at a Greek restaurant (eating outside) and the bottom photo on the ferry between Trelleborg-Travemünde.

The papers I have used are mainly Making Memories (I believe... unless I'm not remembering this correctly LOL!) some old Doodlebug paper frills and Bazzill card cut with Nestabilities.

Making A Christmas Box...

Between tidying and preparing the house for guests this weekend (my parents are coming over from Sweden to visit! Yay - I'm so excited and happy!!!) I've been playing with my new Martha Stewart Score Board for short times here and there.

Following the imperial (why oh why can't everyone use metric? LOL!) measurements to make a 6x6 inch box, I started off with two sheets of 12x12 cardstock. As it was a Christmas box I picked one green and one red sheet, deciding that the base of the box would be green.

The Score Board is really clever and it's so easy to make the lid that tiny, tiny bit bigger so it fits perfectly over the box.

I wanted the box a little more "designed" than just a plain box. So I brought out some pretty snowflake stamps and white StazOn ink.

After having used a selection of the snowflake stamps, I went around the outside edges with a pretty Martha Stewart snowflake border punch.

And here is the box all finished and put together! Since it was my first box, I just followed the instructions as they were given. I think if I was to make a second box (and I had a different coloured and/or patterned card for the base), I might make the lid edges slightly shorter so that you see the base more.

Of course I took some time to do the stamping and the border punching, which was totally extra, but if you don't count these steps this box was SUPER fast to make :)