Tuesday, 28 February 2012

Another layout using my pretty Picadilly papers! No apologies for that because I am still loving them! I wanted this page to be greenish to represent the great outdoors and to kind of extend the photo, but even so, it turned out VERY green! Well, there were lots of fields and open space in France!!! Love this photo of the three of them chilling out on the bench - we had been told that the lake was about a 15 minute stroll from the house we were staying in so we set off on the day we arrived, only to find that it was more like an hour walk - and an hour back!!! This wouldn't have been a problem except that we had had to get up at silly o'clock in order to get the ferry, and then a long drive to the house ... needless to say, we all slept extremely well that night!!!

Friday, 24 February 2012

As threatened, here is another layout made with my lovely Picadilly papers:

This layout was started at our last crop which also, very sadly, turned out to be the last crop due to not enough people attending. A sad day. I love how these papers can make a lovely bright vibrant layout, and also, like this one, a more subtle and calm layout.

Morris was completely fascinated by the huge Stag Beetle in our garden! He watched it for ages, and even stuck a paw out and batted it. The beetle was very brave too when faced with a big hairy orange beast and was up on it's hind legs battling! It was hilarious to watch, and Hayden managed to get a couple of fab pics of the action.

Wednesday, 22 February 2012

Wednesdays are one of my favourite days of the week! Wednesdays are the day that I try to keep free for crafting. Having a family, it doesn't always work out that way, but I try to do all the dreaded housework and ironing at the beginning of the week so that I can craft guilt free. Today it all worked out well! After a lovely long dog walk in the forest with friends, I came home, made a coffee and headed straight into my Crafty Corner. There, I was joined by my lovely friends Emma and Daphne for an online crop!!! It only took me 5 hours or so, but I managed to complete a whole layout - maybe it took me so long because I was enjoying all the chatting as much as the actual crafting!

I apologise for the poor photo, the light here is terrible today, but Emma insisted that I had to blog this layout today since we had done it together!

So, as you can see, I have used my lovely Basic Grey Picadilly papers again, and am delighted to report that from that pack, I have only three sheets that have yet to be cut!!! This is the fourth layout from this collection, and I'm not bored with it yet! So be warned ...

Sunday, 19 February 2012

My lovely friend Louise had her 50th birthday a couple of weeks ago. Now I love Louise to bits, but she isn't the easiest person to buy gifts for :( So, when I stumbled across this pin on Pinterest, I knew that I had to give it a go!

I obviously needed to draft in some help in the form of Louise's daughter Lauren who could sneak relevant information from her Mum's address book, and then we sent emails, made telephone calls and asked as many people as we could think of to write us a memory of Louise so that we could fill 50 envelopes ...

In the week before Louise's big day I was panicking as I didn't have enough memories to fill all the envelopes, but I needn't have worried as two days before, I had an influx of memories ... and ended up having to double up on quite a few envelopes!!!

I bought a tin with the words "Big Love" (thought that was appropriate) that the envelopes just fit in:

and wrapped the gift:

I also made 36 cupcakes for the surprise birthday party, one batch of coffee, one of chocolate and one of vanilla (with pink icing):

Since I knew that the surprise party was taking place, and Louise obviously didn't, I had left my card with Lauren to give to her on the actual day of her birthday (another Pinterest inspired card ... don't know what I did before I discovered Pinterest!!!)

The best news of all though is that Louise had a lovely day, and really enjoyed her 50 Memories, some of which made her laugh out loud and some that made her well up and some that were so lovely that she just smiled. I was happy that I had managed to pull it all together for such a special friend.

Monday, 13 February 2012

I just wasn't going to get away with hoarding my new papers any longer - Daphne and Emma were insisting that I actually cut them up and use them (can you imagine?!) So, that is exactly what I did - it must be a record for me to use some new papers so soon after receiving them!

Basic Grey have always been my favourite paper brand, although I haven't been so keen on their designs for the past year or so, but I really like Picadilly! It's quite bright and daring for me - and then I chose orange as my background (maybe I had a fever!) but, do you know what? I quite like it ;)

I've just packed up all my bits for our crop tonight, and all I'm taking with me is Picadilly, so be warned, there might be a few Picadilly pages coming up!!!

Thursday, 9 February 2012

It's been a while since I managed to actually do a layout, so was delighted when I managed to squeeze some time in yesterday, after a lovely day spent with friends, to do just that! I knew what picture I wanted to scrap, and had fully intended to break into and cut (yes, actually cut, shock horror!) my new Basic Grey Picadilly papers but they just weren't right for the photo (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!!!) Instead I found some papers in my stash that are very old, but I thought that they worked, and were boy related.

The papers in question are Crate Paper Zoom Collection, and although from 2007, I still really like them, despite what some people may think (and you know who you are!) Loving the huge chunky wooden button, and just loving the photo and the little boy that Hayden was - now a nearly 15 year old 6' 2" teenager!

About Me

Hi friends and family! I'm Carole, married to Phil since 1991 with two children, one dog and one cat. We live in a lovely part of the world, on the south coast of England. I love most things crafty, especially papercrafting, sewing and cooking! I am very lucky to be able to do most of these things on a regular basis.