The Pink Princess

I blogged a few weeks back about my niece KP's new furry baby Tinkerbell and thought it was about time I made her a minibook recording her first few weeks with the family.

With me forcing every little bit of creativity at the moment, in the hope that Mojo comes running back to save me (sadly I still do not have the urge to create, I just know I should be making things) I found making this minibook really hard going. Nothing seemed to want to go together, everything pink I picked up didn't match the book and I gave up on it a few times, throwing it back into my project box and walking away from my table. I haven't felt this un-creative in a long time. I'm hoping it's just the demands of a new job and the knowledge that we are approaching a busy time of year with the dogs as they are all due in season soon and two of them are to be mated, once the puppies arrive I rarely find the time to craft. So back to my minibook, My niece is a real girlie girl and loves anything pink, so this little white dog has pink blankets, a pink bowl, a pink collar and lead and thus the minibook had to be pink. I had to really dig through my stash to find this much pink PP and embellies as it isn't my most favorite colour.

The papers are all K&Co from a pad of papers I bought a few years back. I have covered most of the primas with either glossy accents or sparkles. I used a few LYB stamps and loads of MM mini ledger alphas. The photos are all quite small as most of them are copied from facebook.

I'm loving these little dew drops that I bought from Sarah's cards last month. they are so sweet and stick down really nicely with a little Glossy Accents. My scalloped circles are cut using my SU punch and of course all the edges of everything are inked I use colorbox chalks for edging as I find they dry the quickest.

I was going to post it up but we are due to travel up in a few weeks for my eldest niece Lilly's wedding and she will be getting JackJacks AtoZ album so I would like to take a little something for KP as well

Exam results day

Today is the day I have been waiting for!!!!! as some of you readers may know I re-sat my Math and English GCSE's this year (too lazy at high school) I found it really hard trying to fit the studying in around working and running a house......... and crafting ;) I passed my English back in January this year and have been waiting to find out how terribly I did in Math, It's really not my strongest subject. I sat the lower paper as I was only looking for a pass and I was pleased I made that choice as this paper was hard enough (for me with my adult non-functioning brain) so 11am arrived this morning and work let me have an hour off to go and collect my grade.

I waited in line with all my old year 11 students worrying a nail, I had snagged earlier, down to the quick so that it bled (yuck) and when my time came I collected the dreaded brown envelope........................................

I passed :) BIG smiles all around!!!!!!!!
It's only a C. but it's the highest grade I could have gotten on the lower paper and it's a pass!!!!!! and I'm very happy with that! I can now say with pride I have GCSE's something I have not been able to say for the last 15 years :)

I want to thank my lovely friend Michelle who sat through both these exams with me, shared study guides and spent afternoons wading through past exam papers with me to make sure we understood all that 'odd' math talk :)

I'm really proud that so many of my "difficult" students also did so well! many of them thought they wouldn't even be able to sit through the exam and they have all done really well. Not masses of (school required) A* to C's, but for my kids who are the ones on the rough end of life, some really good grades, that will help them get the places they so need and want in college. WELL DONE guys! I'm really proud of you all!

As for taking any more exams....... well I think that's me done for a while I found all that revision cut into my crafting time far too much :)

WOYWW?..... The return of Mojo???

So is she back or not??? If I was to be honest I would say No.
Although I have done a little creating I'm still not really in the mood for scrapping or crafting of any kind, I only managed this LO because my friend was staying and she wanted to do a few more LO's for her album (T only crafts when she stays here with us).

My crafting space is a little squooshed and messy here but it's because I only had half the desk to work on and wasn't able to spread my stuff out like I normally do. I have a mix of PP's here as I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with this LO. Here's the whole table as you can see it's not really large enough for two to scrap at but we managed :)

Here is T's crafting mat and area, she is in the TA's and I talked her into making an album a while back of all the adventures she has with the TA. She takes loads of photos but had never done anything with them. Now she has a nice 8x11 album to record her memories.
My finished LO is for Shimelles SLYMI week 34
use the sketch.

in the end I used mainly October Afternoon PP's, two sheets of bazzill and some OA dye cuts. I stole the photos of my sisters facebook account :0) (she did us sport mode for the swing shot).

If you see my Mojo...........

Please send her home.
She has gone away and I don't know where she is :(
I miss my little crafting inner self and I am sitting here at my craft table surrounded by lovely things and nothing ........ not a thing is being created :(
It's late now but I will have a blog hop tomorrow to see if I can find her

Paige the Collie Dog rescuer

I did my good deed for the day on the way home from work today. I was driving out of a small village (well two streets really) called Havenstreet on the Island, I noticed all the traffic was really slowing down and saw a Collie and two cyclists on the road about four cars ahead of me.

Normal for me I start ranting (to myself) about stupid owners (meaning the cyclists) letting their dog run on a busy road and not taking more car of it. The dog started to lose speed and was falling away from the cyclists when I realised it was nothing to do with them just chasing them.
It was still a few cars a head of me when it realised it was in the wrong place and lost. At this point it started to run across the lanes of this quite busy country road. Everyone was at least slowing down but no-one made any sign of pulling over to catch it.
So me being the mad dog lover I am stopped in the middle of the road jumped out of the car (bare foot as was wearing flipflops and can't drive in them) and started flagging down all the cars coming towards me.
Thankfully the dog ran straight over to me and happily let me drag her into the back seat of my car. She was totally shattered and quite worried. "Willow" as I now know she is called had her phone number on her collar and a very worried mummy at home waiting for her.
She had been scared by some banging coming from a neighbours garden Jumped the Garden gate and run off. She was a good two miles from home when I found her and I doubt she would have found her way home without some-ones help.
I just pleased I was able to return to her mummy safely and unharmed.

New Job - part time

I started my new job today and although it was a little slow and I felt mildly like a spare part ;) I think once I have settled in and know what is needed of me, also once the schools start back and things get a little busier I will really enjoy working for ISS. the ladies there are very friendly and made me feel very welcome.
It felt quite naughty leaving everyone else working when I left at 2pm but those are my hours :) so happy days me thinks I will enjoy being a "part-timer"

SLYMI week 33

This week the challenge is scrap a square in a square.

My plan was to do a 12x12 LO but unfortunately I started sewing the photo to it's mount before I remembered I need to trim the photo to 3.5" so a quick jig about and a few inches trimmed of the cs we are left with a 11/8.5" LO. My aim was to complete lots on mini LO's by using up stash left over from yesterday's wall hanging and the sewing was inspired by a LO on 2peas. I printed out the lyrics to "Oh I do like to be beside the seaside" on some Kraft copier paper, screwed this up and then smoothed it back out again before smearing it with stickles. the large heart is cut from heavy duty card, covered in PP and inked, this also has a good smearing of stickles. All my papers have been sanded and ripped (after sewing, then I have inked all the edges.
I have to go and dust now as my crafting space is covered in a fine layer of paper dust :(

Island Love wall hanging

I thought after yesterdays success with the card making I would continue with the no LO's idea and make a wall hanging. I wanted to use the photos that we had taken at the beach on Sunday and try to use a peaceful theme to go with them.

The panels range from 15cm to 6cm in length but they are all 7cm across.

I have used the back of a note pad for the basic panel (really thick card) covered with some beautiful MME paper, I inked the edges of each panel in VersaMagic "Wheat" making sure I got loads onto the front of the panel I then ran a colorBox chalk in "Prussian Blue" along the very edge of the panel.

I had another bash at the distressed cardboard pieces and I have to say I'm loving all the ripping and inking that goes with this technique. All the flowers that I used I have coated in Glossy Accents or Stickles (hoping this will help increase the life of the hanging).

I wrapped some ribbon around this panel before sticking the photo down, used some more of the dewdrops I got last week from Sarahs Cards. All the pieces of string are from clothes tags I really need to find a roll of string while in town this weekend, I love the rustic look string gives to a craft project. The finished project

WOYWW?

I'm not much of a card maker anymore, I started on the road to scrapping by making some cards but it's kind of drifted away from my craft table and I tend to make the odd card as I need it (if I really have to) although since buying a few copies of Card TrendsUK I have been slightly more inspired to make some. Today I opened this months copy and worked my way through it taking inspiration from as many as I liked.So on my desk today you can see the mag open, my newly decorated table bin (it had a nasty label on it so I covered it with pretty papers) a mixture of tools and my off cuts tray (also pictured below) as you can see is overflowing and really needed a good sorting through. I have managed to use loads of scraps and snips today and made about twenty or so cards. I have left most of the cards without messages so I can add them as I need them as you can see most of them are Kraft cards and a few I have made using my SU card.

4 films = 3 LO's

As much as I'm enjoying my time off work during the summer holidays, I have to say I will be pleased to return to work next Monday. I'm starting to feel very lazy and although each day I'm doing housework and sorting the dogs other than this I'm doing nothing more than watching a few films and creating a few LO's and taking afternoon naps. It is lovely to have to time to do this but I feel I'm not actually "Doing" anything and need to be back at work!
Today I watched four films; The Women, An American Haunting, Constantine and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen while these played on my computer I created three LO's and a birthday card.
I (Heart) Wish Balloons

I've had this photo printed out for a while but haven't really been sure what to do with it. It's a little blurred (as it was a night shot with no flash) and the colours are so so bright I was kinda stumped there for a while for a good colour to put with it. I chose to go with teal and black to try and tone it down just a little.

The heart is a chipboard K&Co that I covered added rub-on's and then glazed, I also glazed the i in wish and most of the prima flowers. I added MM ledger alpha's to the frame, which is a favourite mask of mine. I made it by tracing around the bottom of a journal block on four sides and cut out onto card stock, the centre is then just cut out, for the photo. I normally cover with PP and ink the edges.

STAGS R US

This LO is for Trav, I wanted to keep it plain and simple without any fuss and frills. The lads had a Blues Brothers themed day of shooting, golf, comedy and beers for a Stag Day in June. I used Fancy pants Kraft papers a sheet of plain Kraft Cs and a sheet of dark blue Bazzill. The bottom two layers of CS have had the middles cut out to use on different projects and to help with keeping the thickness down. I traced around a dye cut shape for the journal blocks and pricked holes all around the edge. I used ledger alpha's again for the journaling.

WITH YOU

My last LO for the day was a "lift" from ST magazine (Aug 2009- pg 34). I haven't ever used cardboard on any of my crafting projects before and have seen some amazing results on other peoples work so I thought I'd have a go. I really enjoyed this technique all that ripping and inking was really fun. I inked both the prima's that I used as they were a little too cream for the LO

A lovely weekend in the land of the giants!

On Thursday evening my lovely Step-Sons arrived on the Island to stay with us for a few days. Both now reaching well over 6ft they tower over not only me but their Dad as well now :) on Friday we walked down to Cowes to see the fireworks that close Cowes Week. The fireworks were the best I have ever seen at Cowes Week and we all enjoyed a couple of beers and some yummy takeaways. Unfortunately on the way home we got a punchure, Trav ever the wonderful Hubby changed it in lighting speed and we managed to make it home just before 12.30.

Me with the boys, Trav with his boys
Me with Trina and Dave, Trav with his boys

After the crop on Saturday (the lads wandered down Ryde seafront for an ice-cream while I was cropping), we decided not to waste another lovely sunny day, so drove over to Compton to spend the day on the beach with friends.

We stayed all day and enjoyed the water and the sun. all of us are feeling a little "pink" today even though we all had a good covering of SPF15

My last photo of the day as the sun was starting to set over Tennyson downs

The lads are off back to Oxford this evening and I will have to spend all day tomorrow tidying the house and finding odds and sods that they have left. Hopefully I might get time for a little crafting?

Wight Craft Circle Crop

After a few false starts this morning, I finally managed to get the the centre and spend a little time with the WCC girls. I had a very productive day and completed three LO's and gave a class after lunch on a minibook.
my first LO is of me and of course the beautiful JackJackit's an 81/2x11 size LO I like to add these into my album in amongst the 12x12. I used just one piece of October afternoon PP and a new bloom from here, I then added some of these fab little dewdrops also from sarah's cards they are stuck down with a little glossy accents. The paper used on this LO is something I bought loads of ages ago, I used some and then got bored with it so it's been tucked away for well over a year to be revived for this LO (there's still loads of it left so I'll just hang on to it for a bit longer and it might come in handy in a few years ;) another one of those lovely big blooms and some dewdropsAfter doing the mininbook class I put this LO together while I waited for Trav to come and collect me. This is my last day at High school with all 50 of my students. we spent the whole day the beach and a great time. I wanted to make this LO to remind me of the FAB times we all had during our ASDAN lessons. They are such a great bunch of kids just so mis-understood by most of their teachers and bored by most of their lessons. fingers crossed for good weather on Sunday as we are off to the beach for a BBQ!