Crafting bonanza!

What a lovely week off work I have had…the weather has been fantastic, and Alex has been in nursery giving Tim and myself some much needed time together. We have watched several films of different genres (action, drama, musical and comedy) including going to the cinema for the first time in over two years. We saw the new Star Trek movie which we both loved as it managed to capture the essence of the original 60s series. We also went out for a lovely Chinese meal for our wedding anniversary stuffing ourselves silly on BBQ spare ribs, spring rolls, Crispy aromatic duck, and chicken in Cantonese sauce with egg fried rice. Needless to say the diet is off for this week! Although we took a couple of romantic photos of the two of us Tim doesn’t want me to post them on my blog so the photo is of the table decoration at the Chinese. Tim spoilt me rotten with my anniversary present as I was given a mountain of crafting goodies including two sets of nestabilities, two cuttlebug embossing folders, some stamps, ink pads, sizzix die cuts, scrapbook album, letter stickers, a Martha Stewart doily lace edge punch and some 12x12 papers. In the evenings Alex and I have been playing all sorts of fun games including the usual rounds of cars, racing cars down ramps and into tunnels, blowing bubbles at bath-time and games of dancing, chase and rough and tumble. He is very tired as he isn’t sleeping well at the moment, but other than that is his usual cheeky fun self, chatting away to us non-stop, and to his toys and teddies when we aren’t there! Tomorrow we are heading down to Somerset to see my parents so I hope that Alex copes with the 5 hour journey. I am packing lots of toys, books and food with which to bribe him...I hope it works!The advantage of having lots of time without a 2 year old around is that I have been able to catch up on some scrapbooking. I have a mountain of printed photos waiting to be scrapped so this provided a good opportunity to start dealing with them. This first page is of Tim’s family at Christmas using Bazzil and K&Co papers with papermania stickers, and purple Onion stamps. The title ‘Christmas fun’ comes from the huge grins on the boys faces and the journaling reads ‘We had a lot of fun and laughter when we all got together to celebrate Christmas 2008’.
The second page follows this weeks sketch from Pencil Lines (#140) and uses a mixture of American Traditional, Basic Grey, Bo Bunny & K&Co cardstock. The title is ‘Family portrait’ and the journaling (cut with my new labels 4 nestability) reads ‘Our Christmas portrait 2008 was taken at our third Christmas celebration on 30th Dec when Alex had almost recovered from his illness’. The third page is the last of the Christmas ones for now and uses Bazzil, American Traditional, Sandylion, Bo Bunny and Basic Grey cardstock. The title is ‘Christmas present joy’ and the journaling reads ‘Despite Alex being very poorly we had a fun family time opening our Christmas presents in bed on our early Christmas Day. 21st Dec 2008’. This next page uses Penny Black, Bazzil and Making memories cardstock, with my new Hero Arts swirl stamps and a Dove craft punch for the leaf shapes. The journaling reads ‘Alex loved playing with all the Autumn Leaves, hearing them scrunch underfoot and throwing them round. Oct 2008’. This next page is a fairly simple one as I wanted to keep the focus on the photograph which I love. I used Sizzix die cuts for the swirls, leaves and bird and accented the bird with water colour pencils. The chipboard letters are made by Anker International and the journaling tag was cut out using labels four nestabilities. The title of this is ‘Bird’ and the journaling reads ‘Every time Alex sees a bird he shouts ‘BIRD’ and stops to watch until it has flown out of sight. Jan ‘09’.
The final scrapbook page is of this years ‘Easter Egg hunt’ and uses Sandylion and Hot off the press papers with inkadinkado stamps. The journaling reads ‘Alex found his first ever Easter Egg hunt very exciting, running round the garden looking for the ‘Shiny Eggs’, shouting with joy when he found them before giving them to Daddy for safe keeping. Easter 2009’. This layout was supposed to have Easter egg stickers added to it, but I have no idea where they have disappeared to, so they will have to be added when they turn up. Finally, I decided to take a break from scrapbooking and make a few ATCs as I owe some to people for swaps. These all used Hot off the press heritage papers and images and my new Martha Stewart Doily Lace punch and new Hero Arts swirl stamps. As usual I would love to know what you think about my artwork so please feel free to leave a comment. As I am off for the weekend tomorrow I wont be updating my blog until my return on Monday. Have a great weekend everyone.
Love,
Caro
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