Wednesday 29 April 2009

Here we are again!

It is Wednesday and already the week is getting out of control. Work is manic as I am trying to undertake edits to the review, edit and submit another paper, write a grant and run some experiments with my masters student. Completely hectic and mad, but at least it isn't boring. Alex has been great fun to look after this week, cheeky and mischievous, but entertaining nonetheless, with only the occasional grumpy patch. This morning he had us in stitches walking round everywhere on his tip-toes, and this evening he was running round like mad giggling his head off. He still likes watching me do the Wii fit exercises, especially when I run round the island following a dog, telling me to 'run fast mummy'. This evening the weather was nice so we popped outside for a little while and he wanted to water the plants!
I have managed to do some crafting over the past couple of days in the form of this scrapbook layout following Pencil lines sketch #132. I think this is a great sketch as you can make it as simple or as complex as you want. This photo is one of my favourites of Alex and Daniel together, taken at a farm last October. I have used a complete mix of papers and cardstock - Making Memories, Penny Black, Rusty Pickle, Bazzil basics and a freebie. The stamps are from Purple Onion and Stamps Away and the tractor image is a clip art image. The title is 'Tractor fun!' and the journalling reads 'Alex and Daniel loved their time sat on the tractor, turning the steering wheel together. It was a piece of small boy heaven!'
I have also made a card for my Godsister's wedding next month. This followed the sketch from Friday Sketchers and has hand drawn stitching round two of the layers and inked edges on the other layer so it fits the cute card Thursday challenge. The middle layer is embossed with my cuttlebug hearts folder and I have used sakura star dust to highlight the veil and parts of the wedding dress. As usual I would love to know what you think of my artwork. In the meantime have a great week everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

Sunday 26 April 2009

Sunny Weekend

On the whole it has been a lovely weekend with nice weather. Yesterday Alex was in cracking good form so he came with me to the supermarket where he sat in the trolley and behaved beautifully. We then spent some time out in the garden and then Alex kept telling me he wanted to do the steps and see the dogs i.e. he wanted me to do some exercise on the wii fit. Half an hour later I was exhaustedly doing some jack knifes when he decided to sit on my stomach making the whole thing a LOT harder! Probably good for me in the long run, but exhausting.
In the afternoon we went to the park and had a great time climbing on every climbing frame, although ‘Beg Ted’ had to come too making things a little more tricky. Alex was quite upset this morning and we could not work out why. He wouldn’t eat his breakfast and just wanted to cuddle. However, after about 30 minutes of sitting on my lap he perked up and started to draw and play with stickers and then decided that it was time for my work out while he had some toast! I was hot and exhausted by the time I had done three runs and two lots of stepping, and then 20 jack knifes with him sat on my lap. This afternoon we went to the Botanical Gardens for a change, and although Alex missed the climbing frame we made up for it by climbing some steps… …and seeing a squirrel My nature photography this weekend is of one of the flower beds in the Botanical Gardens
and some of the flowers in my garden…yes I am still excited that I have flowers in my garden! These are little and cute but will eventually grow to become a complete carpet of flowers given enough time and water. Crafting wise this weekend I have been trying to catch up with my scrapbooking. This double layout is of my nephews Christening last June and is un-imaginatively titled ‘Daniel’s Christening’. I used Bazzil cardstock as the base and then strips of ‘Child of God’ and a couple of the scripture notes from the Amazing Grace collection by Flair designs. I accented the page throughout with little gold cross peel offs, and the journaling reads ‘ Daniel’s Christening was a beautiful family service and he behaved wonderfully with only a small squeak of protest at nearly being drowned by the vicar. After the service we had a lovely family time in the garden, enjoying nice food and sunshine. 1st June 2008’. The second layout focuses on a photo of Alex and me taken in January 2008 and is called ‘Dinosaur Story’. The striped papers were chosen as Alex is wearing a stripy top. I actually followed an old sketch from pencil lines (#95) for this and added dinosaur stickers and Purple Onion flourish stamps. The journaling reads ‘Alex has always enjoyed story time and the Dinosaur Story has always been a firm favourite’. Finally I made a card following this weeks sketch from Cupcake Craft Challenges. I really liked this sketch and used my Penny Black Stickeroos as the central panel. I would love to know what you all think and in the meantime have a great weekend.
Love,
Caro
x

Friday 24 April 2009

Its the weekend!

I am so glad it is the weekend. This week has been hectic, but I have actually managed to write a complete first draft of the review. It is too long, but that isn't too much of a problem and while the professors edit it I can sort out the reference list and draw the figures and tables. Phew! Meanwhile, at home life has got a little more interesting as Alex can now open the doors to all the rooms. Not too much of a problem when we are closely supervising him, but it means he can't easily be left on his own for too long anywhere at the moment as some of the doors open directly onto our stairs. Tim, bless him, is in the process of fitting head height locks to the important doors to help keep Alex safe. It will frustrate Alex no end, but at least he will be safe. We have been enjoying the nice weather in the garden and Alex can now climb his slide safely by himself which pleases him no end.
I have done a little crafting in the form of this simple card for my nephews birthday next month. The stickers are from Penny Black...I just love the expression on the lions face! This card also fits with this weeks secret crafters Saturday challenge to make a scene.
I have also made my brother's birthday card following the CPS sketch and using the theme of boys toys suggested last Friday by Daring Cardmakers (I'm a bit slow!). As this card contains metallic elements it also fits with the my time to craft theme for this week. The papers used on the card are K&Co, and the stamps are from xela and tanda crafts. Thanks for looking and have a great weekend everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

Wednesday 22 April 2009

Mid-week!

I can’t believe that it is Wednesday already! This week is going far too fast for my liking, although I am liking the nice weather – it’s just a shame that I am stuck inside at work trying to write a complicated review article rather than outside enjoying it. Alex and I have had fun outside in the evenings with it though…getting soaked and mucky in the sandpit and playing with his car before coming in for bathtimes, whereupon I get soaked again! While Alex has his evening snack after nursery I have been continuing to exercise on my Wii fit to his amusement. He particularly likes it when I do the jog as there are lots of dogs which run round the island too. I hate jogging so it actually forces me to do it which is no bad thing as already within just over a week I have lost 5lb.
Not so much crafting this week so far as I have been trying to juggle a bit of everything…cooking, looking after Alex, and getting fit as well as the crafting. I did however, make this card for a friend’s birthday. I followed the sketch from this weeks Friday Sketch and the theme of cupcakes from this weeks Cuttlebug Spot challenge using my favourite swiss dots embossing folder for one of the layers of the card. I mostly used K&CO papers, with the cupcake cut out of some wrapping paper! Have a great rest of the week everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

Sunday 19 April 2009

A new obsession?

I think the title of todays post fits both with myself and with my small boy! Alex's new obsession is definitely a large plastic lorry that I bought him in the charity shop yesterday. He thinks it is wonderful and wants it to go everywhere with him, which as it is so large is completely impractical. It was the first toy he asked for this morning (Biddolly - translation 'Big Lorry'). My new obsession is the Wii fit. Tim gave me one for Easter instead of a chocolate egg. I have wanted to get fit again ever since giving birth to Alex, but do not have the time to go to a gym so this seemed like a good plan. I have to say that I am hooked...it is the greatest of fun as you can do different things on it depending on your mood. Alex loves it when I do the step exercises as he steps onto and off a towel when I am stepping onto and off the board and claps his hands.
The weather has been gorgeous this weekend and we have spent a lot of time outside, both in the park and the garden. In the park Alex had a great time playing on and under the climbing frame...
...and then decided that he wanted to go and explore the rough playing field next door. By this stage he was getting tired and hungry, but still happy. I even managed to mow the lawn and do some weeding this weekend, most unlike me! It is nice to have a garden that is fun to look after now, thanks to all my parents hard work. Alex loves being out there, playing with his sandpit and his various plastic toys. He is currently learning how to safely climb up onto his slide.
One of our flower beds is full of colour at the moment, winter pansies, red and yellow tulips and some little daffodils. The other flower bed, which we planted a few weeks ago is also begining to come to life...I will buy some bedding plants for it next month to give a bit more colour over the summer.
I have only done a little crafting this weekend in the form of this scrapbook layout entitled 'Grubs Up'. I have used a mixture of stripy papers on top of the blue Bazzil cardstock, as Alex was wearing a stripy top in the photo. I then splodged large amounts of acrylic paint over the centre of the page before layering the photo on top. The Ready Brek symbol was cut from the cereal packet, but I am still undecided as to whether or not I like it. The journaling block was cut out using my scalloped circles nestabilities and the journalling reads 'Alex decided the best way to eat Ready Brek was to drink it from the bowl. Fortunately the bowl was almost empty, but despite that the mess was incredible! July 2008'. Sadly my Great-Uncle passed away on Friday and I wont be able to get to the funeral as it is in Southampton, so I made this card for my Great Aunt. I tried to keep it simple and elegant using the cuttlebug embossing flower on white card, then highlighting bits of the embossing with a sakura stardust pen. I then printed the text on the computer and added ribbon and flowers. Finally I made a birthday card following this weeks Sketch Saturday sketch. The papers are all K&CO, the ribbons are Laura Ashley, the butterfly is cut and embossed on the cuttlebug and then highlighted with sakura stardust and pearls, and the flowers are Angel kiss. Both cards also fit the Cute Card Thursday theme which is floral fantasy as they both feature a multitude of different flowers. That's all for now and I hope you all have a great week.
Love,
Caro
x

Friday 17 April 2009

Finally feeling a bit better

I am finally feeling better after two days of feeling totally rough. Yesterday I was still off work and slept most of the morning, although not well. In the afternoon I felt a little better, but was still unable to concentrate much, although I did manage a little crafting with frequent breaks. Today I went back to work and dealt with all the different students and then attempted to make progress on the review article I am writing, which was slow going, but at least I made progress. I have to say it is turning into a bit of a beast and may need severe slashing after the first draft, but we will see how it goes. In the meantime Alex has definitely decided that he is a typical two year old…we are having screaming fits (dare I say tantrums) over the strangest things! Today we had the screaming abdabs about whether or not a light was switched on. It is hard to say no to a child who is screaming the place down, but we don’t want him to get the wrong message, i.e. that screaming means that he gets what he wants so at times we have to ignore the yells and stick to our guns. That said, most of the time he is a happy fun little boy to be around. His new word for today was ‘mixic’ which means music so we have had music on and been dancing round to it this evening. Crafting wise I have managed to make two scrapbook layouts. This first one is entitled ‘Laughing on Daddy’s head’ and uses Basic Grey, Sandylion and Bazzil papers and cardstock, the Purple Onion Fluorish stamp, stickers from and letters cut out using the Cuttlekids Tadpole Alphabet. The journaling reads 'Alex thinks being on his Daddy's head is the funniest thing in the world!'. I was a bit concerned that the photos weren’t very big and would look a bit silly on the large cardstock, but I think it works OK. The second layout is based on one from Stuck?! and uses a mixture of Bazzil, K&Co, Making Memories, and American Designs papers and cardstock, the leaves were embossed using my Cuttlebug and cut out with a craft knife, the flowers were Angel kiss and a free one from a magazine, the title was cut using the Sizzixs Alphabet Mango Tango and I distressed the edge of the page using a green ink pad. Sadly the photo doesn't do this one justice as the colours are a bit more vibrant than this. As usual I would love to know what you think. Have a great weekend everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

Wednesday 15 April 2009

Bank holiday

Don't you just love a sunny spring Bank Holiday Monday? We had a lovely day filled with outdoor fun. Alex just loves his new sand and water table and spent ages splashing happily and pouring water everywhere, then going 'splat' with the sand.
He also loved every minute of playing with his car and tricycle. He has now learnt to say 'bicycle' and was very proud of himself sitting on the tricycle and telling me that he was 'siddon bicycle'. I am convinced he is learning a new word a day at the moment.
We went for our customary trip to the park which was great fun as he made friends with a little girl who was telling us all what to do. He is also getting better at climbing onto the big climbing frame, which is a little scary from my point of view.
Alex also finished up the last of his thankyou cards which again involved him enthusiastically turning the handle of my cuttlebug and then shoving stickers everywhere. Sadly it was back to work for me yesterday, catching up on some admin bits, doing some paperwork etc and starting to write a review. However, in the afternoon I started to feel really rough; fluy, achy and shivery and didn't make it into work today.
Although I haven't felt up to crafting today I did manage to do some on Monday and made two layouts, both based on Pencil line sketches. This first one is loosely based on sketch #128 and uses hot off the press papers, stickers from the local post office (Purple peach ltd) and Purple Onion stamps. There are actually two titles (Butterfly farm and Day Trip out) and the journalling reads ' We had a lovely trip out to the Butterfly farm at North Anston. Alex especially loved the birds, including a crazy rooster who pecked his pram, and the fish. He didn't really show much interest in the butterflies. June 2008'. The second layout is based on this weeks Pencil Lines sketch (#130) and using K&Co papers throughout with a Purple Onion Swirl stamp. The title letters were cut using my Cuttlebug and the journalling incoporates the title into it and reads 'Alex loves playing and spending time with his GRANDMA and he thinks she is wonderful. Bishops Hull playground. July 2008'.
I have also been making use of the flower fairy chipboard stickers that came free with this months CM&PC magazine. This first card follows the sketch from Card positioning systems and fits with the Papertake weekly challenge which is to use pastels and I used the cuttlebug to emboss the blue card.
This second card follows the sketch from My time to Craft and I embossed the green paper strips. This card also sort of fits the cupcake craft challenge which is to use only one layer of cardstock other than the background and the image...my layer is the green which is split into two! I would love to know what you all think of these different crafting projects. Have a great rest of the week.
Love,
Caro
x

Sunday 12 April 2009

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Everyone! It has been a lovely weekend so far, despite being rather grey and cloudy the weather has stayed dry and so Alex and I have been outside most of the time both days. We went for a trip to the park each day and Alex has learnt how to climb up the big climbing frame and then go down the tunnel slide with me chasing close behind in case of accidents! He discovered a little table and chairs in a corner of one of the climbing frames and spent some time sat there. He also made friends with a 3 year old boy called Sam yesterday and the two of them spent a good 20 minutes passing a ball to and fro, playing really nicely together.
Yesterday afternoon I set up Alex's new sandpit (his birthday present from my parents) which is a table with water on one side and sand on the other and sits on a little patio near the gate in our garden. No surprises that the water was the best bit and went everywhere. Alex thought it was wonderful and played with it for ages, even progressing to playing with the rather soggy sand (having poured water into it!)...he was absolutely filthy when he came in and had to be stripped off immediately.
We went to church this morning for the family Easter service. Alex loved the worship and danced and clapped his hands with everyone else. He was well behaved during the sharing of the peace...not exactly shaking hands, but doing 'High fives' with everyone! However, it was during the sermon that I was totally embarassed. The vicar started the sermon by throwing chocolates to the congregation so Alex walked right up to him and held out his hand for one before wandering off very happy. He then went and sat on the step next to the vicar while he was speaking...the vicar calmly said 'Alright mate' and then carried on, which was fine, until Alex then started to run round the front so they opened the creche room for us to go into. I was so embarassed! This afternoon I set up an Easter egg hunt for Alex in the garden. There were 10 eggs in total which were big enough to be seen easily and they weren't exactly hidden as I didn't really think Alex would get the idea, but he actually really enjoyed finding the eggs and giving them to Tim. It wasn't until later that he discovered that the eggs were chocolate and then asked for 'cotchut' continuously while he ate his cottage pie. He was allowed one egg after he finished his meal which he loved. Alex and I have done some crafting as well this weekend and Alex turned the handle on the cuttlebuug to cut the shapes out for his thank you cards, applied the glue to the shapes (and everywhere else!) and stuck the stickers on, so we can say that these are indeed his creations! I have also found time for some scrapbooking. This page followed sketch #129 from Pencil Lines and is entitled 'My cousin'. The photo was taken last year and the papers used are a mixture of Basic Grey, Bazzill and K&Co. The doodling was done using a template which came free with Scrapbook Inspirations magazine ages ago and the journalling says 'Alex and Daniel looked like two wise old men as they sat quietly together watching the older children play after Daniel's Christening. 1st June 2008'. This second scrapbook page is also from a Pencil lines sketch (#126) and uses Hot off the press papers and Bazzil cardstock. The title is 'Tea Cups' and the journalling reads 'Alex loved his ride on the tea cups; giggling and smiling all the time. I on the other hand felt sick! September 2007'. Have a great bank holiday monday everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

Friday 10 April 2009

Great start to Easter!

I love bank holidays! Work yesterday was completely insane and busy, but at least my experiment worked and I knew that today would be fun, which it was! We decided to brave the wet weather and head out to Cannon Hall Farm which is about 40 minutes drive north of us. Although it was rather crowded with other people we had a lovely time feeding and stroking the animals. Alex thought the cows, pigs and goats in particular were wonderful. He wasn't too sure about feeding or stroking the animals himself saying very firmly 'No' when i suggested it, but he certainly liked looking. He then had a lovely time on the adventure playground before we decided it was time to head for home while eating his lunch in the car.
This afternoon we had to play indoors as it was chucking it down so I got his new paints out and we had a very messy time playing with the sponges and paint. He thought it was wonderful to be sat up at the table like that. Just as well we were given a good table cloth for Christmas! Unfortunately the blue paint stained everything in sight, including skin, so we may have to ban the blue and use just the other colours until I can find some non-staining blue.
Here is one of his paintings from today. The rest I am going to turn into cards as he owes several people some thank you cards...stickers will probably be involved somewhere!
I have managed to do a little crafting of my own these past couple of days making 6 more ATCs using the images of fluorescently stained cells. Each photo is different as is each background. I have also started scrapbooking again using the latest sketch from 'Stuck?!'. The title of this says 'I DON'T WANNA' and I used a mixture of Penny Black, Bazzill and Dovecraft papers. The journalling reads 'Alex made it very clear that he did NOT want to come inside and go to bed. August 2008'. As usual I would love to know what you think. Have a very Happy Easter everyone.
Love,
Caro
x