Coming to the end.....

This can only mean one thing: Back to school packing! Tuck bought, clothes washed, shoes polished etc etc. I am NOT looking forward to the journey tommorow! The normal two hour journey is expected to take 4! Bring on the i-pod and a lot of new songs! lol! school should be fun though cos we are allowed to wear casuals as it is so snowy and cold! I have an exam first morning back which is a bit of a downer but it's only modular so if all else fails I can do it again in the summer!

On a brighter note i have finished the knitted monkey!

isn't he cute! I had great fun making him and he was very easy!

Another thing i am really looking forward to is this:

Larkrise to Candleford. I watched the last series avidly and can't wait for the new one on sunday! It should be brilliant.

Anyway back to school tommorow so blogging will take a bit of a backseat, I am still here though and comments are still welcome!

Thanks for stopping by

Loves xxxxxxxxx

The Studio January challenge

Happy thursday!

Hope you have all had fun playing in the snow. This post is for the January challenge at The studio. The challenge is to create a layout with 3 photos, using lots of white space and about something you fear.. if you haven't entered yet do cos it's great fun! Well..this is my layout:

There is such a lot to say about this that I thought I would just take you through the story of making it...bare with me!

Story behind the photos: This page is about The boy and the serious amount of medication he takes because of his asthma. Honestly it scares me so bad. I have never had to take daily medication so seeing someone I love take several inhalers and pills each day is just out of my radar and as a result I freak over it far more than he does ( he is so laid back it's unreal!) journalling reads.."I think I am more scared of your asthma and mediaction than you are. I know you will be fine but seriously, 3 inhalers and pills each day freaks me out!"

To be honest I never, ever scrap with a lot of white space and when I started this layout i found out why...flip is it difficult?! So basically this layout could be how white space freaks me out! But..after serious juggling with page elements I came to this. I wanted to keep a minimal colour scheme and the pictures to stand out. Sorry they are such bad quality but cos of the snow there was no way the pics would arrive in the post n cos of going back to skl, this had to do! You know what I found the hardest? Getting the page to link. Cos of the huge amount of white space I had to make sure the Title looked like it belonged to embellishments hence the leaves and the paper at the top left. Looking at it now though I am really happy with how it turned out. I loved using a long title for once and I loved dabbling with the paint and ink!

I know the pics are awful so here they are how they were supposed to come out if the printer was working grrr....

Sorry but just looking at the amount of meds he takes freaks me out! This is the reason I try and stay away from him if I am ill (much as it annoys me!)

Sorry bit of a long post! Still lots of snow here which is making me happy! Enjoy your day, thanks for stopping by

Loves xxxxxxxxx

Happy times from my corner of the world

It's SNOWING!!!!!!!!! yay! I woke up this morning to a blanket of snow inches deep! I was in shock! As I finished a lot of my work yesterday, today was my day off and I have enjoyed getting bright red rosy cheeks and cuddling up in my room to scrapbook. Snow days are the best! Feeling loads better today but am decidedly bunged up grr.....anyways, how about a few piccy's?....Our washing line! This made me laugh!

we've given up on a freezer.

we have done a lot of walking

and baked a delicious spiced pound cake. Perfect on a cold day spread thickly with butter.mmmmhh!

we've done a lot of competitive wii playing on wii sports resort (awesome game by the way!) But I think Theo has the best plan! He wasn't happy to be woken! Lol!

Thanks for stopping by, Have fun playing in the snow!

Loves xxxx

Flower Tutorial

Hi! Woke up this morning at 12!!!! I know I'm a teenager but 12 is too late for me! Especially as I had work to do grrrr... didn't feel too great, kinda headachey and coldy, BUT I got my essay done wooooh wooooh! and have finished reading Tess of the D'urbevilles which is the book I was set to read over christmas. Downside is that I still don't feel too great but blogging isn't too stressful lol! Anyway enough of my woes, a tutorial as promised...

I have been making these for ages cos they are just sooooo simple and really cute. I use them on scrapbook pages or sometimes attach a safety pin to the back and they work quite well as a funky extra on a bag!

You will need:

42cm length of Pretty material about 4 inches wide

28cm of net or co-ordinating material about 4 inches wide

Big button for the middle

cotton and a needle

Strong glue

Get your longer strip of material and fold it in half wrong sides together. As you can see it doesn't need to be neat! The reason I fold it in half is because that folded edge becomes the outer edge of the flower so it will be lovely and neat and won't fray.

Start sewing along the raw edge (the one that isn't folded) use a simple running stitch, try and make the stiches long and even. A good rule of thumb is the smaller the stiches, the tighter the pleats. After each stitch give it a gentle pull and it should gather up pretty easily and form naturally into a circle shapeWhen you have sewn to the end of the strip, you should have a gathered circle rossette. you should now have two open ends. Put one end into the other and sew up the seamsYou should have something that looks like this. You now need to do the same with the smaller strip of material. I used netting so had to be careful not to rip it by pulling each stitch too tight.You should end up with something like the above...

Now attach the smaller rossette to the larger one. I just used a simple running stich again

Voila! It should now look like this! I attached a big button in the middle with glue but you could just as well leve it plain. On the cat page on the previous post I just left them without the netting middle or a button. If you want a smaller rossette just cut a smaller strip of fabric! If you want to attach it to a bag just add a safety pin to the back.

Enjoy! Thanks for reading
Loves xxxxxxxx

A few layouts

I thought I'd put a few layouts on my blog today. These are ones I have done over the last few months but just haven't got round to photographing! This was page made just expressing all my feelings about a close friend moving on to a new college for sixth form. I experimented with hand sewing and lots of little detail as well as a lot of

paint!

A page on my brother turning thirteen. I had never scrapped a picture this big before and found it quite hard as my style is usually so busy, however I love how it turned out!

Our cute little kitten! She was playing with a glue stick! She takes after her owner! ha ha! I really experiemented with ink and paint on this page and just had a play around with the effects.

one of my most recent pages. The background of the picture was very distracting so I layered newspaper up to calm it down slightly. I had great fun distressing this page with tearing off the top layer of the paper. I wanted to create a vintage and girly look and loved the explosion effect I managed to create. I also ripped and curled the edges of lots of the elements.

Sorry, this isn't the best picture! I hardly ever create double layouts, but had so many lovely pictures for this page that I had to. As a result, the page is simple but pretty, documenting our amazing picnic for a friends brithday.

Just a little look into my scrapbook, he he! Please check back tommorow cos I'll be posting a real quick tutorial on how to make these simple rossettes. They look cute on bags or make them small for a scrapbook page!

Thanks for reading! Happy Monday

Loves xxxxxxx

Just to stop by..

Thank you to everyone who left such lovely comments about my last post, It was such a great encouragment! I will probs do a proper post tommorow as I have been away at The boys house! he he! We had a wonderful relaxing weekend together, just enjoying spending time with each other. Brought along the camera as well...scrapping never ends! ha ha!

The only decent one of the two of us! Lol! Self timer was being funny grrr...Yeah I know it's blurry but it's that look that makes my heart skip a beat. He so incredibly caring and lovely. I am very lucky! Oh n the playing the guitar. That makes me very happy! Lol!

Anyway hopefully a longer post tommorow! Thanks for reading!

Loves xxxxxxxx

New year thoughts

I'm not one to make new years resolutions cos I fail within the first week anyway, but this year I was really inspired to make one from reading this: They are so inspiring with a little passage from the Bible each day and thoughts on it. Well..yesterdays was a question.. who first introduced you to christianity? I've been a christian really since I can remember because of my family, but one person really stood out. They changed my outlook on being a christian...This girl. She showed me that being a christian isn't just about reading your bible, it's about practically demonstrating your faith to others, whether that's telling them about Jesus or just smiling and being a friend. Her whole life and attitude just bursts with the love of God and through her you can see just how incredible christ is. This girl has made me think, made me try and look at how I live so that people will look at me and say that I truly am walking with Jesus. Through her example I am inspired to show Jesus to others.

So. That is my new years resolution. This year to show my faith in a practical way. I guess this is the first step.. to all who are reading this and are unsure about faith or don't know Jesus, i challenge you to question it. Pick up a daily bible reading, a great free on is "The word for today" which also includes free podcasts you can listen to each day. Think about it.

Sorry this is quite deep but it's something I really wanted to express! Thanks for reading!

Loves xxxxxxxxxxxx