Woo Hoo!

Alex is finally out of nappies and doing really well!  We are all so pleased and he keeps running round the place saying 'I'm a big boy now!' in a very proud voice.  He has finally shaken off the virus he had and is back to his usual cheeky, funny, happy self so we are having a lot of fun with him. 

The other reason for the Woo Hoo is that I have won two prizes this week.  I won an ATC competition on the CM&PC forum with this black and white ATC, and my entry for the Scrap it with a song challenge last week also won a prize.  I can't believe it and I am so thrilled and honoured.

Crafting wise this week I have made another scrapbook layout for the next Scrap it with a song challenge. The song this week was 'Girls just want to have fun'... well with a small boy in the house that wasn't going to work so I have incorporated the 'just want to have fun' phrase into my journalling as follows: 'Given the slightest opportunity, Alex and Daniel just want to have fun and who can blame them when it is such good fun as this. April 2010'.  The layout was made following the latest sketch from Practical Scrappers and also fits with their eyelet challenge.  It also fits with the Crafty Angel 'favourite stamp' challenge (mine are easily the Inkadinkado swirl stamps),  and the Crazy challenge 'distress' theme (I distressed the edges of the layout and the papers on it). Apologies for the flask glare...the weather has been so awful this week that I couldn't get away without using the flash.  Have a great rest of the week everyone and thanks for looking.
Love,
Caro
x

Under the weather

I don't think that Alex is very well at the moment, the poor little thing has been extremely tired, easily upset, wanting to go to bed in the middle of the day and falling asleep almost instantly.  Despite that we have managed to have a nice, if more gentle than usual weekend.  Yesterday I needed to go to Mothercare in Sheffield to buy a few things for Alex so we combined it with a treat for him - a tram ride!  Needless to say he absolutely loved it, chatting excitedly, looking out the window and was especially impressed with the pitch black tunnel that runs under University roundabout. 

Today it was very wet and miserable, complete with thunder, but the weather did clear up enough in the afternoon for us to go to 'Our Cow Molly' which is an icecream farm in Dungworthy.  They were having a fete to celebrate opening their new ice cream parlour so Alex was able to ride on the barrel ride

across the very bumpy field,

and then bounce on the castle with his friends, Andreas and Santi, who we met there.

He didn't want to try the ice cream so I ate it instead while we looked at the new born calves.  So cute!

Crafting wise I made a Summer themed card using the shell stamp from Crafty Individuals that came free with this months Craft Stamper.  The card is based on an example shown in the magazine except that all the pieces of card originally started out white...I decorated them using various shades of distressed ink.  This card fits with the summer themes from CCC, OCC and PTW.

I also made some trading cards for a texture and teddies swap on the CM&PC forum.  All of them are dry embossed (using my Cuttlebug) so fit with the Meljen's theme, these two also fit with the Bloomin marvellous theme from Bee Crafty and one of them fits the 'pearl' theme from DCM.

The final ATC followed this weeks Sketch Saturday Sketch.  I hope you all have a good week ahead.
Love,
Caro
x

War wounds!

Poor Alex came home from nursery yesterday with an amazing collection of bruises and a spectacular scrape on his arm from a ‘bump’, as he called it, on the nursery climbing frame. He wasn’t bothered by it in the slightest by the time I collected him, but was fascinated by his scab and wanted to know what it was all about – a scientist in the making do we think! As far as he is concerned he has had a very exciting week with his first ever bus trip due to our car being in the garage overnight...he was very excitedly telling everyone that he was going on the bus – announcing it to complete strangers at the top of his voice! This photo is of him pretending to play the clarinet on a straw.

Crafting wise I have been busy over the past couple of days making a card for a friend who is part of a lunch club at work, hence the café theme of the card. This card follows the sketch and stash sketch for this fortnight and uses up a lot of old and neglected stash – the background paper (K&Co) was from the first ever 12x12 paper pack I bought back in 2005 and the toppers were a prize I won about 2 years ago! This also fits with the least and most favourite colour challenge from Crafty cardmakers… I like most colours, but really struggle with the dull grey end of the spectrum, so the grey background to the little scene I have made with the toppers and the slightly greyish overtones of the background paper are my least favourite and my favourite is red! The card also uses various metallic things (mostly incorporated into the toppers) so it fits with the Metal madness theme from Magical Crafts.

I have also made a scrapbook layout following this weeks Sketchy Thursday design. I decorated the basic grey background paper using stippling effects in distress inks, stamping two different leaf patterns (Crafty Individuals) in two colours of distress inks, stamping little dragonflies (Hero Arts) in another colour, punching out two size of flowers from the basic grey contact sheet (waste not want not!) and cutting out some insects from an old book I rescued from a tip. The big flower is a mixture of prima (the bottom layer put through my Cuttlebug) and punched flowers and so counts as a handmade flower for the Scrap and Stamp challenge. The page is entitled ‘Insect’ so fits with the wild things challenge from MTTC. Finally this page was made in response to the Scrap it with a song challenge.  This weeks song was I hope you can dance and the line I chose to depict is incorporated into my journaling (in italics), which reads ‘You spent ages watching a tiny little insect crawl along this piece of wood – I hope you never lose your sense of wonder in the world around you’. Have a good weekend everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

Bank holiday fun!

Well we had a wonderful bank holiday Monday with a mixture of necessary jobs (the weekly shop), crafting and playing. In the afternoon, while Tim had his nap, Alex and I went to Abbeydale Miniature Railway where we had a lovely time riding on three different trains. Alex thoroughly enjoyed himself despite having to queue up for the trains and was especially pleased that we got to ride on a diesel as well as the steam trains. This was us on the smallest train there.

This photo was taken at arms length while the train was steaming along…two happy people having fun! It was a lovely afternoon and as such I didn’t want to come back to work where I am currently trying to write a grant application.

Crafting wise I made this card for my nephews 3rd birthday this week. He, like Alex, is really into Postman Pat so I used that as the theme and followed this weeks Unscripted sketch. The papers are from the Nanas kids set. As the card is about postman pat I am entering it for this weeks Lots to do ‘Mail art’ challenge – I am sure this isn’t quite what was meant, but there you go!! This will also be entered into the Simon Says challenge of ‘male card’ (I have to confess that I haven’t even thought about Father’s Day yet!).

The second card was made in response to a request from work to make a card for one of the ward sisters. I found it very hard to make this card as it was for someone I know, but I know nothing about her interests, clothes she wears etc as she is always in her nurses uniform whenever I see her. I do know that she is always very neat and elegant looking so I went for an elegant card for her. This is a complete break from my usual style and I still can’t decide whether or not I like it! The card fits with Spoonfull of Sugars celebrations challenge as it is for her 60th Birthday and with CCT no patterned papers challenge. Comments are most welcome.
Have a good rest of the week.
Love,
Caro
x

Fun!

We have had a fun bank holiday weekend so far despite the less than ideal weather.  Yesterday it was tipping it down, but that didn't matter too much as Alex had a party to go to at Jungle Mania, an indoor play area.  He had a wonderful time spending the whole time charging round it with Neve, a friend from nursery.  When it was time for Matthew's birthday tea, they got all the kids from Matty's party to line up at the bottom of the slide and march round the room to the sounds of 'Bob the builder'. Alex thought this was wonderful and he and Neve danced round together holding hands before sitting next to each other.  It was so sweet seeing the two of them together.

Today we decided to take a chance on the weather as although it was very windy it wasn't actually raining, so we went over to Cannon Hall Farm. I love going in the spring as there are lots of new born creatures around, including this donkey which was born yesterday,

this little llama which was born last weekend,

and lots of baby goats, sheep and piglets.

Alex loved feeding the goats and sheep, and putting food down for the pigs and cows

and then had a great time on the adventure playground, finishing off with a slide down the really big tunnel slide with me!  It was a great trip out.

Crafting wise this weekend I have only had time to make a scrapbook layout for my design team entry for Quirky Crafts which goes live this evening.  The challenge is Girly Girl, which as I am not, and never have been a girly girl I found a challenge LOL!  I ended up scrapbooking a photo of me aged about 9 on a rare occassion when I was wearing a dress and had neat(ish) hair!  The page is titled Portrait and uses Hot off the Press papers and Prima flowers.  The journalling reads 'A professional photographer came to our home to take our photos in Summer 198*. I remember my mother curling the ends of my hair so that for once it would look neat - I also removed my glasses'.  Just for the record I had been wearing glasses less than a year at that point and they were the huge ugly plastic NHS specs and I hated them!!  I actually used the PTW sketch for this layout, the stamp something recipe of ribbons, bow and tags, and the page also fits with the ribbons and bow theme from creative craft, the SCSC 'buttons and blooms' and the 'its a girl thing' challenge from The Crazy Challenge.  I hope you all enjoy bank holiday Monday. 
Love,
Caro
x

Food!

We said goodbye to a work colleague today and her leaving do was an 'international food' bring and share lunch.  We are a mixed bag of races in our labs so it was really good fun trying Persian, Saudi Arabian, Indian, Italian, Greek, French, Spanish, Mexican and British foods, both savoury and sweet. 

I didn't have my camera with me, but managed to take these photos of the different foods on my phone. 

I have to say that this week has been really tiring so I am so happy it is the weekend, and what is better - it is a bank holiday weekend! Lets hope that the weather surprises us and turns out to be nice!  We haven't anything special planned, but I hope we will get to do something fun.  The weekend has started nicely with fun games in the garden followed by playing with trains.

Crafting wise I have made this scrapbook page for the Scrap it with a song challenge.  This weeks song is 'Child of Mine' and I chose the line about childhood memories to base my scrapbook page around as this layout is of my 10th Birthday party and I have shared my memories of the day.  This page also fits with this weeks Practical Scrappers theme of felt, fabric or Tule (I used felt stars), Scrap and Stamp 'birthdays' theme (my stamps are stitching round the central panel and a little present), A Spoon full of Sugar 'celebrations' theme and the page follows this weeks Sketchy Thursday's sketch.
I hope you all have a great weekend. Take care,
Love,
Caro
x

Mid-week blues!

I don't know why, but I am exhausted this week and am now missing the sun which disappeared yesterday. It was lovely while it lasted and I want it back please!!  Alex has loved being able to play outside every evening - this photo was taken in the sun on Monday - so we either have sand everywhere from the sand pit or a soaking wet boy from playing with the watering cans.  All good fun.

Crafting wise I needed a new folder for my trading cards...the original one is bursting...so I covered a lever arch file with stripey blue wrapping paper and then added some sparkly swirly mulberry paper decorated with peel-offs and a cuttlebug embossed butterfly, using tiny white buttons for the butterflies body and head.  Therefore this folder fits with the 'swirls and flourishes' challenge from Lots to do, the 'butterflies and buttons' challenge from Pollycraft and the 'outside the box' challenge from Pile it on (I think that this is outside the box for two reasons; it isn't a card or scrapbook page but an altered item, and the butterfly is flying outside the bordered area).

I have also made this sympathy card for a friend who sadly lost her husband to cancer this last week.  The card follows this weeks Friday sketchers sketch and the colourscheme of Grey, black and one other (in my case it was purple) from CCC.  I hope you all have a good rest of the week.
Love,
Caro
x