Arrrggghhh the Mayhem!!!

It's always a great thought isn't it......buying a house that you need to do up. One word of advice.....DON'T!!!! ;o) we've only just started the renovations and its already annoying us. Baring in mind I think the most annoying thing is getting the right, reliable tradesmen in. Hopefully we're now on a winner and things will progress more smoothly.

Our lovely lounge room is the current focus, we got a wood burner out in just before Christmas, then went into a 'seasonal lull'. It took until April to finally get the motivation to strip down the rest if the lounge.....and what a mess!! The worse thing was our chosen plasterer went away on hols so we've had to have this mess of a lounge for 2 weeks.

Poor Kenny and Nyota, they are both missing their afternoon kips on the lounge and quite frankly that was the only time they were out of my hair so I'm missing it too!!

The plastering starts today......

Puppy School!!

Plenty of months have gone past, christmas has been and gone, we're also well into 2013!! I'd like to be able to say that we've almost finished redecorating the house but of course......we've barely started!!

The biggest change to our lives has been the addition of our 4 pawed furry little Girl whom we've named Nyota.

Shes now almost 5 months and last week she graduated from Puppy School!!! We were so proud. We also had a little play on some of the agility equipment which she really seemed to like so that might be something to look into.

The biggest laugh of the day though was finding out Nyota has a hidden talent which definitely needs to be nutured...she likes skateboards!!

Long overdue catch up post!

Well its definitely time to catch up! Loads has happened since my last post, probably too much to actually write so I'll just post up  lots of pics instead. First things first....we've  moved!! It was a slightly stressful experience,  but when does a move ever go smoothly?!

It's taken a little while but the house is feeling much more like home now. We're supposed to start stripping the wall paper straight away but the thought of turning this place into a mess once more is slightly nauseating. 

I managed a weekend off from unpacking and went on a scrapping weekend away with 'The Scrap Cafe' A whole weekend of scrapping, catching up with old scrapping friends and making a couple of news one as well. I managed 3 layouts and a little canvas mini book so had loads of fun.

First layout was to create a layout using "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."

Something old - very old cardstock,

something new - new patterned paper

something borrowed - I used Debbies roller thingy tool  to rub the very large rub on transfer.

something blue..... my nieces eyes

Next was a sketch challenge from page maps.

















And my last layout was to use
* 2 tags
* 3 ribbons
* 4 patterned papers
* 5 buttons

And for this layout I used the cutest photo of our God Son Jonty having a bath

Lastly HALLOWEEN.....as it was our first in our new house we decided to make an effort. We amused ourselves with some pumpkins ;o)

I think they ended up looking pretty amazing, especially seeing as it was our first ever pumpkin carving. We stuck a 'scarey' spider on the roof with 5 foot legs and put red cellophane over a flashlight to get some mood lighting. We expected a fair few trick/treaters as this village is larger than where we last lived but never imagined how many we actually got! Trick Treater Total before the rains set in.....98!!!!

Gorgeous Stash Prize!!!

Well you've probably noticed that I haven't blogged in months. Probably because we've been running around like a chook with it head cut off!!! Been very busy buying a new house and trying to organise everything that goes along with it. More about that when we get the contracts signed.....fingers crossed.

I've had an amazing bit of crafty luck this week, winning this lovely stash of papers from 

Its from My Minds Eye, Sweetest Thing Honey Collection and as you can see gorgeous!!! Will have to plant Kenny on the couch with some MotoGP to watch so I can get some time to myself to scrap. Thanks so much Jacqui for my lovely prize!!

Last Twisted Sketch

My very last Twisted Sketch Layout...... very sad to blog that Anam has decided to close the Twisted Sketches website, which means I'll no longer have those design team deadlines to meet therefore I'll be having to scrap under my own steam!!! Maybe in the not to distant future I'll try and get on another design team but for now I get the impression that the next couple of months may be quite busy for Kenny and I so scrapping might have to take a back seat???

Have a look at sketch on the website here......

The twist was 'Thanks' and here's my layout.......

Twisted Sketch # 154

Had to whip this one up in a hurry as I had let Jubilee fun take over! Have a look at the sketch here....

This weeks 'twist' was cloth! I got my little piece of 'cloth'  from Marks and Sparks!! In their furnishings section they had a display with free fabric swatches at a very convenient 5 1/2 x 3 inches. I was very controlled and only took 4 different swatches much to the amusement of my friend ( a non-scrapper) ahhhh civilians, they just don't understand!! ;o) I made another little layout for Samurai's puppy album

Twisted Sketch #152

Well I'm SUPER late posting this layout but here it is another super sketch from Twisted Sketches, have a look at it here......

The 'twist' for this layout was mother which I'm guessing most people would use as the topic of the layout. I wanted to do a layout about my two best friends having become now become mothers but was waiting for a suitable photo to be emailed from Penny......which I'm still waiting for Pen - you slacker ;o) Anyway deadlines were due so I finished the layout just using the photo of Caroline with her gorgeous twins. I'll have to do another layout with Penny and her 2 boys later on. Might do a mirror image 'blue' or 'green' version of this layout for that and put them into the album as a matching double layout.


Here's my layout

Twisted Sketch #150

I can't believe we're in May already!! This year seems to be flying by. This weeks sketch from TS is lovely!! I've got a couple of interpretations floating around in my head so I've got this sketched marked to use again. Here was my interpretation for the website.....

This weeks twist was 'flower' a nice simple twist to incorporate Have a look at the original sketch here:

Shimelles: Challenge 12 - One Photo Twice

Well managed to squeeze in one last little layout in this weekend before Shimelles crop challenges closed. It was interesting though, trying to pick a photo to print out twice on the same layout!

Anyway I printed this one out of Samurai when he was a puppy having a snooze, nothing much changed over 13 years, boy did that dog LOVE his sleep!!! Really miss his snoring, gotten used to it over the years and am finding it harder to get used to the silence in the house.

Have a look at the challenge here

And this is my layout, I even dragged out the old sewing machine and made my own pleated ribbon!

Shimelles Challenge No. 7 Use a Pocket

Shimelles "Put it in a pocket challenge" inspired me to scrap this photo and to be able hide the journaling. Have a look at the challenge here
This photo has lot of meaning to me and was quite difficult to scrap, for one its just a lovely photo but most importantly this photo was taken on the last day that we were a family, our last walk in the forest together before Samurai passed away. So to even look at this photo fills me with tears.

I used an upcoming sketch from TS which I'll blog about next week when its released. I'm pretty happy with the result, combining Shimelles challenge and Twisted Sketches sketch has inspired me to produce a layout that really means a lot to Kenny and myself.

My hidden journaling if you can't read my handwriting says:
" I'd wish you were still with us and this hadn't been our last lovely day together."

Twisted Sketch #146

Another layout to add to my Antarctica album, if I ever get around to picking an album to put all these layouts in!!! Once again some brilliant inspiration from Twisted Sketches, have a look at this weeks sketch here:

So from that I created this layout

Twisted Sketch #144

My next 8.5" x 11" layout inspired by this weeks Twisted Sketch! Funnily enough the twist was 'weather'. What a laugh....did I have anything inspired by the term weather????  How about a blizzard photo :o)

Have a look at the sketch here...

And here's my layout!

Twisted Sketch #142

Now the fab thing about going to a crop is that I can really concentrate on using a Twisted Sketch. I was initially grabbed by the sketch first off but after a very slow start things started to come together. I even managed to win a challenge at the crop with this layout. This weeks twist was 'GREEN' if you look carefully at the photo I'm wearing a green fleece :o)

Have a look at the sketch here

My interpretation: