Friday again and I am so ready for the weekend! At work we are trying to write a paper full of scientific data ready for publication and we need a few more experiments to be run and analysed before it can be finished. This means I have spent the last couple of days running 2 experiments, which fortunately have worked. Just a few more to go and that data will be complete. At home Alex continues to amuse me no end…yesterday he was singing and jumping all evening and today he has been gently playing with his garage. He is still very tired, full of cold and inclined to kick up a stink when he doesn’t get what he wants, but he has had a better report from nursery this week and came back home tonight with a chocolate cornflake cake that they made today. 
Crafting wise I have completed a scrapbook layout for this week’s Pencil Lines sketch, although I chose to alter the sketch by replacing the single photo with two small ones. These photos have sat on my desk for over a year waiting for me to scrap them, but I just haven’t been inspired as they are not the strongest photos. I am quite pleased now that this page captures the moment of Alex’s first successful attempt at pulling himself up from sitting to standing. As he was using his playpen to do so all the photos are of him behind bars, hence my problems in how to scrap this. I kept the layout fairly simple and used Penny Black and Dovecraf papers, Basic Grey and Papermania stickers, and inkadinkado and Hero Arts stamps. The title of this page is ‘First solo stand’ and the journaling reads ‘Alex first pulled himself up to a standing position on 5th Feb 2008. He was so pleased with himself, but found it hard to sit back down - a semi-controlled fall was the only way!' I would love to know what you think of this. Have a great weekend everyone.
Love,
Caro
x
Crafting wise I have completed a scrapbook layout for this week’s Pencil Lines sketch, although I chose to alter the sketch by replacing the single photo with two small ones. These photos have sat on my desk for over a year waiting for me to scrap them, but I just haven’t been inspired as they are not the strongest photos. I am quite pleased now that this page captures the moment of Alex’s first successful attempt at pulling himself up from sitting to standing. As he was using his playpen to do so all the photos are of him behind bars, hence my problems in how to scrap this. I kept the layout fairly simple and used Penny Black and Dovecraf papers, Basic Grey and Papermania stickers, and inkadinkado and Hero Arts stamps. The title of this page is ‘First solo stand’ and the journaling reads ‘Alex first pulled himself up to a standing position on 5th Feb 2008. He was so pleased with himself, but found it hard to sit back down - a semi-controlled fall was the only way!' I would love to know what you think of this. Have a great weekend everyone.Love,
Caro
x
At the end of the walk there was a bouncy castle on which Alex had a lovely long bounce and a little fairground ride on which he rode the train and loved. He would have happily spent all afternoon going round and round on that ride in the different vehicles if I had let him!
Today we have been stuck inside most of the day although we made a dash out between showers this afternoon to try and see the Alpacas at the Mayfield valley Alpaca farm. Alex calls them ‘Lamas’ or ‘Pacats’ much to my amusement. It was rather wet and windy but I am glad we went as we haven’t been for ages (since last October) and Alex really enjoyed it. 
There were lots of new born Alpacas as well as the adults and Alex spent some time getting to meet one of the stud males. 
I have been crafting again this time scrapbooking some photos of Tim and Alex taken earlier this year. This first page is very simple using just two pieces of cardstock supplemented with stickers and Alex’s creations. The title is ‘Crafting with Daddy’ and the journaling reads ‘I enjoyed the unusual sight of Alex and Tim crafting together – they had a great time with lots of smiles! March ’09.’ 
The second page is entitled ‘What fun’ and uses a mixture of stripy and spotted papers on a green background. The swirl stamps in the corner are from Hero Arts and as such this page fits with the swirls challenge on ‘Spoonful of sugar’ challenge site. The journaling reads ‘Who needs lots of toys? Alex and Tim had great fun with a few bits of duplo and the empty box!’ 
The final page focuses on a photograph taken of Alex and me last October at the Alpaca farm. The papers are a mixture of K&Co, Sandylion, American Traditional Crafts and Bazzil. I actually added different things to all the edges of the layers (inking, shading, cutting with fancy scissors, and pretend stitching) so this fits with the Daring Cardmakers challenge although it isn’t a card! The title is ‘Alpaca’ and the journaling reads ‘Alex was delighted when this Alpaca came to say hello as the rest were sheltering from the weather under the trees. Oct 2008.’
I also made a card using a Penny black stickeroo and following this weeks Sketch Saturday sketch. As usual I would love to know what you think of my crafting. Have a great week everyone.
Crafting wise I have made this little card for Tim’s cousin who recently gave birth to a little boy. The card follows the sketch from My Time To Craft and the theme of Spots and stripes from SCSC. 
As I didn’t get accepted onto the design team for the new Sketch?! Challenge site it means I can show you the layouts that I submitted. This first one is from when Alex first started to walk and is entitled ‘Walking practice’. The picture wasn’t great as it was all greys so I decided to use my first ever acetate overlay to accentuate the photo. The papers I used were mostly the free ones that came with this months Scrapbook Magazine and the foot print stamp is from Hero Arts. The journaling reads ‘Once he had taken his first solo steps Alex spent hours practicing his walking by pushing his pushchair round the park. June ‘08’. 
The second layout is entitled ‘Chocolate Bomb’. I made the white messy paper using ink dabbers to represent the messy chocolate finger prints that were all over Alex’s white top. The background paper is K&Co and the stamp is Hero Arts. The journaling reads ‘Who would have thought that a finger of Kit Kat could make such a mess and go so far. You did enjoy your first real experience of chocolate though! 21st Nov 2008’. That is all for now. I hope you all have a great weekend.
It has kept us all entertained every evening this week, especially when getting him changed for bed. Don't you just love that happy look! 
Mind you, I think Alex ate more of the bread than he gave to the ducks, but he did have fun. 
The waterfall obsession continues and everytime there was the slightest bit of a waterfall he had to stop and have a good look. 
To his delight the walk ended with a good bounce on the bouncy castle! Today it was so wet that we went to the Western park museum where he ran around and enjoyed looking at the woolly rhino and stuffed animals. We are so lucky to have such a child friendly museum so close to us..it really is a God send in wet weather. 
Crafting wise over the past few days I have made a couple of cards. This one was for Gran following the CPS sketch and using an image taken from a charity card I was sent, K&Co paper in the background and a Hero Arts stamp. 
This next card followed the sketch from sketch Saturday and fits with two other challenges as well…the black and white challenge for cupcake craft challenges and the my favourite things challenge for PTW as black and white are a favourite combination of mine and I used my favourite Martha Stewart edge punch. I used papermania background paper and brads, angel kiss flowers, and American Crafts rub-ons. The stamped image was from a swap on the CM&PC forum a while ago. Have a great weekend everyone.
I have done very little crafting over the past few days, with the exception of this scrapbook layout following sketch #142 which uses photographs taken in March when my parents came to help with lowering one of our flowerbeds so we can actually see the flowers from the dining room. The title is ‘Garden Make over’ and the layout uses K&CO and Bazzil cardstock and Angel kiss flowers. The journaling reads ‘We spent a weekend Spring Cleaning the garden. This included lowering a flower bed and to my great excitement, planting some flowers. March 2009’.
This weekend has been lovely despite that as the weather was gorgeous (with the occasional shower) and we have a new routine which means that Tim looks after Alex for an hour each day giving me that time to craft...bliss! What was even better was that we all went out to the local school fete yesterday where Alex had a wonderful time on some of the rides, 
especially liking the cars and Thomas the train. 
Tim left us there to go and get some sleep and we stayed on, enjoying the brass band and the bouncy castle before going on to the park to let Alex have a proper run around. I have to say that while Tim was there he spoilt me rotten as the local craft shop had a stall at the fete and he bought me a load of crafting goodies! 
We went back to the park again today and met up with some friends which was lovely. 
Crafting wise since Wednesday I have made some trading cards all using the Heritage papers and images from Hot off the Press and embellished with various stamps in the background and Doily lace punched borders. 
This scrapbook layout is entitled 'The Stocking Tradition' and is of photos taken on Christmas day! The journalling reads 'My brother and I always opened our stockings in Mum and Dad's bed so it was lovely to see both our boys carrying on the family tradition watched by the rest of the family. Christmas Day 2008'. 
