Friday 27 September 2013

Relieved smiles!

I have a lot to smile about this week so I am entering Annie's smiles and Rocking your world Friday as usual.  Last weekend we went to my in-laws and Alex challenged his Grandpa to a game...can you tell who won a point!
The three cousins had a great time playing football, making dens
and playing hide-and-seek.
Yesterday at Beavers Alex got to go weaselling (crawling through narrow spaces in rocks) and had a wonderful time...don't you love the look on his face. He enjoyed himself so much he has asked that we go back at the weekend.  Alex was also awarded the headteachers 'Learning Powers' award today for good and hard work.  This is a major achievement for my little boy who struggles with concentration.
Finally (and without a photo) I am smiling about how well the beginning of my new course has gone.  It has been nearly two years in the making but I am now course lead for a new Masters course and the first cohort of students started this week.  It was somewhat nerve wracking, but all has gone well so far.  That is all from me for now. Have a nice weekend everyone.
Love
Caro
x

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Scared and excited! (WOYWW)

Well I am both scared and excited as it is Wednesday that I will get to meet the students who are going to be taking the Masters course that I designed! I will be giving the first lecture on Friday so can let you know how it goes then.  All this explains why my crafting desk, which I am entering into WOYWW as usual, is looking very work heavy (the blue booklet is the new course handbook)...I was working from home on it today (I confess I am typing this on Tuesday as I wont have time tomorrow).
Here is how it looked this morning with one young man playing with my Dylusions spray inks before school...probably not very sensible, but a lot of fun! The desk is protected by a thin piece of MDF that lives slotted down beside it ready for messy work. Does anyone know how to unblock a spray nozzle on a dylusion ink? - one of them is blocked and I have only used it twice.
This is the desk cleared of all work, this evening with my smash book open waiting for me to print out the next set of photos...I have about 200 to choose from so it may be a while before I decide which ones will be printed for the book.  As you can see I have a mug of tea to drink while I browse through them all.
As part of organising my crafting space I sorted out the tray at the back of my desk to make it more useful and now have all my paints in there ready to play when I get a minute.
I have managed to make a few more pages in my smash book...this one is of our wedding anniversary earlier this year...we went on a steam train ride.
I couldn't resist doing a double page spread for my dinner on board SS Great Britain (it was such a wonderful evening) and with the dark background paper I just had to use gold embellishments to mimic the colourings of the ship. That is all from me for now.  Have a great week everyone.
Love
Caro
x

Friday 20 September 2013

Sports Day smiles!

It is Friday and time for Annie's smiles and Rocking your world Friday. As the title suggests my smiles come from Alex's sports day. The children were split into groups of 6 and then competed in 9 different activities.  Now, I should explain that Alex has a degree of DCD as well as concentration issues so for him this type of day is a challenge.  What made me smile especially was that he listened to the instructions, concentrated and joined in properly with each event.
Not only that but he got two 2nds and three 3rds out of the events.  Needless to say he was thrilled as was I.  That's all from me for now...have a great weekend everyone.
Love
Caro
x

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Trying to catch up (WOYWW)

As the title of the blog post says, after a busy summer where relatively little crafting was achieved I am now trying to catch up with my smash book, which is a pictorial journal through our year. As a result the main item on my desk today (my entry to WOYWW) is my smash book in the process of generating the Father's Day page.  You can see my distress inks, the stencil I used to make the background of the page, my trusty mug of tea (half drunk), the pens I use on the smash book pages as they don't leak through the pages, glue and stickles and a general mess. 
Although I can't yet show you the finished page, here are two other pages I made this week.  This first one is of a trip to Kingsbury Water Park with my best friend and her children. The background was again made with distress inks and a mask.
As was the background to this page, which documents the arrival of the climbing frame.
As well as the smash book I also made a card this week using white on white...not something I have done very often, but I was quite pleased with the result.  That is all from me for now.  Have a great week everyone.
Love
Caro
x

Friday 13 September 2013

Smile with friends!

It is Friday and time for Annie's smiles and Rocking your world Friday. My smiles this week come, unsurprisingly, from the antics of Alex.  We went out to the park with two of his friends last weekend and the three of them had a great time on the assault course,
and turning their tongues a different colour with ice lollies, before they all wanted to do different things making us chase in all sorts of directions across the park!

Alex also made me laugh with this conversation:
      Me: I've hurt my little finger
      Alex: do you have a thorn in it
      Me: No, it is an ache around the joints
      Alex: Could it be arthritis
      Me: I hope not...surely I'm too young for that.
      Alex: maybe smearing it with snot will help!


And on that note, I will leave you, wishing you all a very happy weekend.
Love
Caro
x

Tuesday 10 September 2013

Ouch and WOYWW!

Why ouch?  Well surely this photo says it all...Alex tripped over the foot of someone at school while playing football and bust his glasses and scraped his nose in the process.  Not only that but he has been on antibiotics for a weak with an infected cut on his hand so he is really in the wars.  Oh, and you see that scratch on his forehead?  That is from being hit in the head by another pupil with a tennis racket. That isn't counting the scraped knees and elbows either...!
Anyway, it is Wednesday and so time for WOYWW.  Here is my desk as it was on Tuesday evening (it hasn't changed much since then), sadly lacking tea which I have just finished.  On my desk you can see my smash book with the background to the next page already inked up (I did that on Monday evening) and the photos printed out ready to cut out and add.  Apart from that there is not a lot going on...you can see the church notice sheet from Sunday, some small rubber stamps and glitter glue that needs putting away and that is about it.
I have actually had time to do more crafting this week, which is great...this is a digital page I did of our explorations of Chatsworth gardens. I generated it very simply using photoshop (I am no digi master) and then printed and stuck it straight into the smash book.
The next page is entitled 'Maid Carolyn' and is of my archery adventure back in June with the ladies from church.  The little article at the bottom is a piece I did for the church magazine on it and yes, two of those arrows in the bulls eye are mine!
Finally I made a card for a friend who retired from work using Lavinia stamps and distress inks. The sentiment was made with JustRite stamps.  That is all from me for now.  Have a great week everyone.
Love
Caro
x

Friday 6 September 2013

End of holiday smiles!

It is Friday and I am back into the swing of things with  Annie's smiles and Rocking your world Friday. My smiles this week come from a few special trips out to celebrate the end of the holidays. This first one was a trip to Twycross Zoo last Saturday especially to see Valley of the Dinosaurs. 
Alex loved it and we spent a happy hour looking at every animatronic dinosaur they had before moving onto the various animals. 
Our favourite animals were the Gorillas and the various babies (Gorilla, Bonobo & Siamang) who came running up to the glass putting their hands up to Alex's...
so cute, but so fast I didn't manage to photograph it.
Our next trip out was on Tuesday, the last day of the holidays where we went to Gullivers Kingdom at Matlock...this is Alex on the chairlift up to the top of the hill.
There aren't many photos from that trip as I went on the rides with him which made photography rather challenging, but this one was taken at arms length on the log flume...before the wet part!
Finally Alex was very excited to be going back to school on Wednesday and here is the photo of him looking all smart in his uniform.  That is all from me for now.  Have a nice week everyone.
Love
Caro
x

Tuesday 3 September 2013

Back to school! (WOYWW)

Well we have been enjoying the last few days of the holidays here with treat outings. I collected Alex from my parents at a service station near Birmingham on Saturday and we went to Dinosaur Valley at Twycross Zoo on the way back (more photos on Friday, but this is a favourite).
Yesterday was the last day before going back to school so we went to Gullivers Kingdom at Matlock Spa where we went on pretty much every ride (I felt rather sick after the pirate ship, but Alex went on three times!).
However, as you have probably come from Julia's you didn't come here to see what we have been up to but rather my desk so here is my entry for this week's WOYWW.  It is looking a little tidier this week, but there has been some actual crafting as well!  To the left you can see my smash book with the latest pages open and resting on it is the church magazine, which contains a photo of me and a friend and will feature on one of my next smash pages. Most of the massive pile of stamps that have been sitting around since our holiday at the end of July have now been put away with only three remaining and for some reason a skeleton leaf - I have no idea what that is doing there! As usual there is my trusty mug of tea, a mass of cables from my laptop and my phone.
Here is one of the pages from my smash book...a double page spread of the time my parents came to stay with us for a weekend.
The next page is one of some soft toys that an extremely lovely (and somewhat mad) on-line friend sent me and who live on the back of my desk (except Headstarterpus who was adopted by Alex) - can you spot them in the photo of my desk?! 
Finally this is a layout of Alex's first zorbing adventure which uses the actual words on the page itself and needed no embellishments. That is all from me for now...more on Friday!
Love
Caro
x