Cheeky!

Alex is on cracking form at the moment, tired but mostly happy and good fun. He has come back from nursery every day this week absolutely filthy having played in the soil/mud in the garden. He then proceeded to tell us all about it and wanted to go straight outside here to play with the watering can. We have actually been enjoying the dry weather in the evenings and spent most of the time outside which has been wonderful. He likes to sit on the grass and have a ‘picnic’ for his tea! He has also learnt a new phrase, namely ‘I don’t know!’ which he uses all the time, often accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders and a cheeky grin. Crafting wise I have made a scrapbook layout of Alex’s first go on a bouncy castle following this weeks sketch from Pencil lines. This also fits with the Scrap and Stamp challenge of distressing as the big circle has been torn out (by tearing round a plate!) and the edge of the entire layout has been distressed with ink. This also fits with the Daring Cardmakers theme of Tartan it up as the paper used for the circles is a yellow tartan! The cardstock/papers I have used for this are Bazzill, Papermania, Cosmo Cricket and American Traditional, and the stamps are Inkadinkado. The title is rather un-imaginative (Bouncy Castle) and the journaling reads ‘Alex had his first go on a bouncy castle at the Highland Fling Fair in Graves Park (May 2009). Initially he sat and bounced gently up and down with a bemused grin on his face, but before long he was charging round the castle to shouts of ‘CRASH’ and squeals of laughter’. I have also made another vintage ATC for a friend who liked the last one so much that she requested one as similar as possible. I hope you like it Dee! I have also made an ATC for a competition on the theme of Autumn, but as it is for a competition I can’t post it here. Have a great rest of the week everyone.
Love,
Caro
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lovely weekend

Alex and I are finally recovering from our colds, although poor Tim is still in the thick of it. This has meant that Alex has generally been in a better mood and we have had a lovely few days. Yesterday we went over to my parents-in-law in Kenilworth and had a lovely time playing with the whole family who were all there. Alex loved playing on the mini quad bike, while his cousins messed around on the stairs. Then for some reason all three boys decided they wanted to play with calculators (budding accountants?!). Then after a delicious fry up lunch we played out in the garden with this enormous tube, trying to walk on it, or balance balls on it. The boys also played with various balloons which screamed or flew across the garden accompanied by shouts of laughter. Alex particularly liked playing with the watering can and getting wet (no surprises there!). At the end of the day we tried to organise a family photo, but only succeeded without Ben and Pete, who stayed firmly behind the cameras. Today has been a usual weekend day with jobs, including shopping and then a trip out to the park in the afternoon. Alex has generally been very happy and great fun to spend time with which has been nice. Crafting wise I have done very little this weekend as I have been scanning in some of the photos from my childhood so that I can scrapbook them. It is an on-going project which will take hours, but I am glad that I have started. The actual crafting I did manage to do today is this Christmas card following Unscripted sketches #25. This is the first time I have found this site and I was very impressed by the selection of cards and scrapbooking projects displayed. I will definitely use it again. I hope you all have a great week ahead.
Love,
Caro
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Friday already!

Work has been manic this week as lots of projects have come to an end resulting in loads of paperwork and statistical analysis! At least most of the data is interesting which makes it exciting and fun. I am glad that it is the weekend though as I am ready for a break from number crunching. Alex is keeping me highly amused with his little sayings and games. This morning as he waved me off to work he said ‘Bye Bye lovely Mummy!’ which was just too cute for words, and this evening he was playing one of his favourite games of lining his cars up in long rows across the landing before then either pushing them all around or choosing a particular car to play with. Crafting wise I made this card for my friends little girl who turns 2 on Saturday. It uses one of my favourite stickers ever. That elephant is too cute for words. This fits with the SCSC of ‘one for the girls’ as it is truly pink and girly. I also finally got round to making a card for this weeks CPS challenge. I am not too happy with it really, but Tim liked it. That is all from me for now. Have a great weekend everyone.
Love,
Caro
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Still full of cold!

I hate colds - they just get in the way of so many things including sleep. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a moaning blog entry, I just had to get that out of my system! Apart from the cold life is pretty good at the moment; Alex’s cold is clearing up so he has been on good form this week. We have had some hilarious games in the evening racing cars up and down our kitchen and extension, seeing which one would go the furthest etc, dancing round the room, singing and playing chase. The current favourites have to be the ‘Daddy squash’ game where Alex lies on the floor and Tim squashes him with his feet, or the ‘Mummy tickle’ game where Alex lies on the floor and I tickle him, either with my feet or hands. Both are greeted with squeals of laughter and shouts of ‘not fair’ – a phrase he has picked up from me as that is what I say when he tickles me (I am very ticklish!). This evening however, he was shattered as he didn’t have his lunchtime nap so all he wanted to do was watch television, hence the rather serious expression of concentration in this photo! Crafting wise I have made a card for this week’s 3D challenge on crafty cardmakers. All the examples were of decoupage, but I just don’t have the patience for lots of fiddly cutting out (my scissors are pretty rubbish which doesn’t help) so I decided on a different take. The edges of the card were made using tapestry stamps and the shape was cut out using Nestabilities.
The 3D elements on this card are the pot which was rounded on a glue pot before being stuck down and the flowersoft where the wires have been coated in PVA glue before adding the flowersoft to them. This is a close-up to show the 3D aspect of them. This is actually a retirement card for my mentor who retires next week. I hope she likes it.
This is the inside of the card with the retirement message in it. I have also made this ATC which seems to fit with about three challenges (a) Vintage for the Quirky crafts forum, (b) Shabby Chic (lace, buttons, charms and torn & distressed edges) for the Daring Cardmakers challenge and (c) Distressing techniques (inked and torn edges) for the Cupcake craft challenge. I must say that I really enjoyed making this ATC as the lace was made by my Gran, and the button came from my Mum’s button box. I stamped the background paper with music in butterscotch and then with the swirl (Purple Onion) in cranberry. All the edges are in cranberry as well.

Finally I made this scrapbook layout of Alex feeding the ducks following the 15th September sketch from Stuck?! Sketches. The layout also fits with the colour scheme of blue and green from this week’s Scrap and Stamp. The blue background paper is from Fancy Pants and has quite a lot of texture and splash marks on it, but I added some swirly stamps and inking through sequin waste effects round the edge of the green panel (Basic Grey paper) to add to the feeling of water. The title is Feeding the ducks and the journaling reads ‘Alex is so sweet when we go to feed the ducks. He crouches down at the water’s edge and says ‘Hello Ducks!’ in a very cute voice. He isn’t very good at feeding them though, preferring to eat the bread himself’. look forward to your comments. Have a great rest of the week.
Love,

Caro
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Colds again!

Sadly the whole family has a stinking cold which has meant that this weekend has been hard work as none of us has been up to doing much. When Alex is this tired and ill he tends to get in a foul mood which doesn't help. That said we have had a nice time doing lots of different things at home. Alex and I cooked flapjack together (the oats went everywhere...what a mess!). We then played out in the garden with his bubble machine which he loved. We also went to the park where he went on the fair ground ride and then played hiding round the rocks in the playground. Today Alex wanted to go to the museum so despite the beautiful weather we headed there for an hour this afternoon...I figured that we had played outside for most of the rest of the weekend so it didn't matter. He had a great time playing with the weighing scales in the butchers shop and then enjoyed banging the eskimo drums near snowy the polar bear. All in all we had a wonderful time there...we are so lucky it is so close. Crafting wise I have continued making Christmas cards. This first one followed the sketch from CPS for this week and the theme of 'faking it' from PTW. The fake bit is the lace edging cut with a hole punch. The next card followed a sketch from Friday Sketchers and used plain card stamped with hero arts snowflakes, then free paper from a magazine last year as well as my new embossing folder. This next card was really simple, mainly using the embossing folder and not a lot else! The final card used my nestabilities as well as the snowflake embossing folder, papermania stickers and ribbons.

Finally I made another Cluedo ATC this time of Colonel Mustard in the Billiard Room with the spanner. As usual I would love to know what you think of all these. Have a great week everyone.

Love,

Caro

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New car!

We have a new car! It is a ford focus estate and is really nice to drive so I am really pleased. The best bit is that the handbrake works properly and it doesn't sound like it is going to fall apart everytime we go over a bump...a huge improvement on the last car. Alex is still going through his 'Mummy phase', insisting that it has to be me who gets him dressed etc and if Tim tries to help Alex has a complete fit and refuses to co-operate. Apart from that, and his stinking cold which he has generously given to Tim and I, we have had fun outside the last two evenings, playing with his sandpit, cars and wigwam.

This week I actually succeeded in making a page for the pencil lines sketch (#152) by Anna. The title of the page is 'Merry-go-round' and I have used papers by Cosmo Cricket, Bazzil, Basic Gray and Sassafrass lass in a colour scheme designed to reflect the bright colours of the merry-go-round. The journalling reads 'Alex loved the music and the idea of the merry-go-round and was very keen to go on it until he realised that he would have to sit still. However, after the initial wriggles and cries of 'Get down' he settled into it and enjoyed himself, shouting 'Whee!' as we went round. May 2009'.

I have also made a card for this weeks Sketch and Stash Challenge. This used my two new Cuttlebug embossing folders and my new snowflake brads. The image of the houses in the snow is coloured with chalks and highlighted with a sakura stardust pen and pearl glue although the sparkles don't show up very well in the photo. I would love to know what you all think. Have a great weekend everyone.

Love,

Caro

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Car chaos!

This has to be the strangest week ever. I am back at work full-time, but in my lunch breaks I have been car shopping! I can’t believe that we have actually found a new car and taken it for a test drive and put a deposit on it, only to discover that our old car only cost a relatively small amount to fix! We have decided to go ahead with the new car anyway as we don’t think the old one will last for much longer, but I think that Alex will find it very strange as he doesn’t like changes. We hope to collect the car tomorrow and get rid of the old one and the hire car on Friday so for one night we will have three cars at our house! Poor Alex isn’t very well and so is extremely tired and getting upset about the strangest things including what clothes he wants to wear. He is also going through a Mummy phase where I have to do nearly everything for him or he throws a tantrum…I hope he comes out of this one soon! We have had some fun playing with cars etc, but he is really too tired after nursery to do a great deal. My poor Gran has had another accident, this time tripping over a rug at my parents house and breaking her dominant arm just below the shoulder. It is such a shame as it has put her recovery back emotionally and physically, so I made her this card using the CCC idea of swirls and pearls. I can’t take credit for the idea of overlapping the two inkadinkado stamps as I saw something similar on the CM&PC forum and loved it. I have added pearls, a butterfly and the sentiment which was made with my JustRite stamps. It is such a simple card to make but so effective and I would love to know what you think. Have a great week everyone.
Love,

Caro
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Holiday part 4...the end!

Well our holiday has come to an end and unfortunately not in a good way...Alex is really ill with a very bad cough and our car has died. It seems unlikely that we will be able to get it back on the road so we may have to try and buy a new one which we can't really afford at the moment. However, we were determined not to let it completely ruin the end of our holiday so we hired a car and yesterday we had our last day out at Eureka in Halifax. This is a children's museum where Alex could wander round and push buttons, swing levers and wind handles to his hearts content. We had a fun time although Alex was very tired because he has developed a nasty cough so hadn't had much sleep. Alex's favourite parts were the shopping trolley and the two igloos, one where he climbed in with me and one which we built and he knocked down.

Today we had a normal weekend day with shopping and a time in the park, while also spending some time looking for cars on the net. We need a mid range estate car so they are not easy to come by..we will have to see what we can find and/or afford. I have done a little crafting in the form of some more stamp only ATCs. These two had a brayered background in Adirondack Butterscotch and Cranberry and then I stamped over the top. For these two I heat embossed the central images and then used my tapestry stamps for the edges. Finally I made a scrapbook page for this saturdays Stamp and Scrap challenge which was a great sketch. I used K&Co, Hot off the press and The paper Company papers, Doodle bug design alphabet stickers, JustRite and Purple Onion Stamps, and various rub-ons, stickers, buttons, charms and old coins from my stash. The title is Exploring our local museum and the journalling reads 'We are so lucky to have Western Park Museum so close to home as it means a great trip out when it is wet. Alex loves the freedom to run round and explore, opening drawers, crawling through tunnels and generally having fun!'. This layout also fits with this weeks Kaboodle Doodles challenge of using Charms on your creations...I decided the only way you would be able to see the charm would be for me to do a close up of some of the layout - that little bird is cute! I would love to know what you all think. Have a great week everyone, it is back to work for me tomorrow.

Love,

Caro

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