Thursday 30 June 2011

slight improvement :-)

having a really good nights sleep helped :-) and even though i'm still coughing and wheezing i actually look a bit more human today LOL

Wednesday 29 June 2011

today......

we should have been on a land rover safari around balmoral estate, instead i am sitting on the sofa coughing merrily :-( i did at least manage a trip to argos to go and buy some more storage for my craft room, am building upwards now so i can save floor space for more stash LOL and i'm going to have a nice spend on pretty stuff to make up for not buying myself anything nice whilst on holiday LOL

Tuesday 28 June 2011

calamity debs

that's what it feels like at the mo, we went on our holidays on saturday staying up in the middle of nowhere near alyth in angus in scotland, the first calamity occurred when we pulls up at the caravan site and i goes to check in, turns out i had the wrong dates and we should have been there the week before :-O i couldn't believe it and i have no idea how it happened :-O very kindly they said that since the van we were booked in was vacant that week we could stay :-) so we got all settled, i started feeling really poorly mid afternoon, lots of coughing and feeling very breathless but just got on with things but by the sunday morning i was really feeling ill, we went out for the day but by mid afternoon i was in hospital in blairgowrie having been sent by nhs direct to be checked out, came away with some antibiotics and instructions to take my inhalers up to 10 puffs four times a day and whenever necessary as well as taking paracetemol to reduce my temperature and take away the pains in my head, back and sides, monday dawned and i was knackered as i'd spent the night sitting up trying to stop the coughing and the wheezing but i soldiered on and we drove along to stirling to go and see the newly refurbished palace at stirling castle, hadn't even got out of the car and i started feeling breathless so took my inhalers and off we went, i was okay going round the inside but once we were outside my breathing got worse and worse until i was gasping for breath, my inhalers weren't touching it so went to hospital were they put me on a nebuliser which got me sorted, by then though i just wanted to come home and be poorly at home, so when they let me out of hospital we drove back to the caravan site, packed up and left early this morning :-( along the way i managed to drop my camera on the floor in stirling castle and it broke open, i clipped it back together but it's not focusing properly so that'll have to go into the shop to be mended too :-( but at least i'm home and only 5 minutes from a hospital if my chest flares up again rather than the 45 minutes from a hospital we were up in alyth

Thursday 23 June 2011

two of this weeks efforts

the weekly challenge and this weeks play along with scrapfactor :-)

Saturday 18 June 2011

i do love the weekends

had a lush long lie in this morning then a quick breakfast before heading upstairs to scrap the afternoon away, i managed 5 lo's 2 of which finished my march holiday album so i printed out some photos from when we were away in jedburgh and have decided to do an 8x8 album of them so i got another 3 of those done :-)

these two are the only ones i've taken photos of yet, the first one is the weekly challenge the second one is a lo based on one of the classes over on a trip down memory lane, they are having a cyber crop this weekend, so i've done a couple of the classes and saved the rest to do later :-)

am now enjoying a delicious crabbies while watching crap on the telly :-)

Tuesday 14 June 2011

today

was one of the days when i remember why i love my job so much, the kids all played beautifully in the yard with not a toy in sight, just some water and soil, a big tray of material and some old milk crates :-) then someone added water to the digging place we have and mud pies were created with lots and lots of mud LOL they did eventually all scrub up to a reasonable amount of cleanliness so that was a result LOL hoping for more of the same tomorrow :-)

Sunday 12 June 2011

a mini a month challenge

i've been taking part in the a mini a month challenge over on karens blog but the past two months there has been no more posts and no news from karen :-( i was really enjoying doing the challenge so i suggested to the rest of the amam group that until karen gets back to us (hoping that is very soon karen) we should keep it going with one of us being a guest designer each month......... so i volunteered to be guest designer for this month so here we go..........................

we are going to make a 6x6 mini book with apertures in the pages and a fold over flap closure :-) just like the one above ^^^^^^^^^ :-)

you will need 2 pieces of cardboard 1 at 6x6 inches (all my measurements will be in inches, i don't do this cm malarkey LOL) and 1 at 6x12 for your covers, to cover your covers you will need 2 pieces of 6x6 for the front and 2 pieces of 6x12 for the back, and for the inner pages as many pieces of 6x6 double sided paper you want. i started off by making my pages, i stuck 6x6 pieces of pp together to make them stronger and ended up with 7 pages, then using my craft knife and some square punches i made various sized apertures in each page, arranging them so you get a little sneaky peak of the page underneath through each aperture :-) i then turned my attention to the covers stick you cover pp to the outside of the front cover and put to one side, taking the 12x12 piece of cardboard cut it to 1 6x6 piece, 1 6x1.5 piece and 1 6x2.5 piece and stick them to the outer 12x12 pp like this when you have done this trim off the excess pp. next choose two buttons you would like to use as your closure and sew them onto your front cover and the flap of your back cover like this, leave a long tail on the button on the flap, you will be using this to tie the two buttons together to close the book, i stuck the thread to the inside of the covers with lots of double sided tape, to make sure it stayed put, then put your inner cover pp's on, bend the back cover at the gaps in the pp's using a bone folder to get a nice crisp fold :-) the next step is to place the photos on each page, i tried to arrange mine so there was a little view of the photo on the next page on the page in front, i then decorated and journalled in it before using my bind it all to bind the pages together, if you don't have a bia you could always use book rings, ribbon or string to bind your book. so here it is the finished book, i hope you like it and fancy giving it a go, i've never wrote instructions on how to do something before so i hope you understand them, let's me see your books when they are finished as i'd love to see them :-)

Friday 10 June 2011

just a quickie

been a very hectic week at work and i'm knackered but at least i have my crop to look forward to tomorrow :-) here are a couple of layout's i've managed this week :-) the weekly challenge and the monthly house challenge over on uks
for the weekly challenge you had to use 6 patterned papers and amongst other things you had to journal about something you were looking forward too or expected, so the journalling on mine says "i expect not to get this wet in scotland in three weeks time" LOL i used a photo taken a few years ago on a summers day in inveraray, and yes we got soaked LOL
the monthly challenge was to follow a sketch and add some jewels :-) i took a little bit of liberty with the sketch but i think i might get away with it LOL am loving my new cordless hot glue gun which i used to stick all the flowers and leaves in place, possibly the best tool i have bought in a long time :-) hopefully i'll have a few more to show you tomorrow :-)

Sunday 5 June 2011

make yourself comfy this may take some time LOL

i've finally got round to taking photos of all the lo's i've done recently so i thought i would share them all on here rather than trying to remember to put them all on uks 3 at a time LOL actually there is one i can't share with you quite yet as it's my example for the weekly challenge my team is setting over on uks this month sometime, will have to keep you in suspenders for that one LOL

this first one is my go at the weekly challenge set by jo bee, it had to be a 6x4 photo, use punches and have some history to it, so i used this photo of the peony rose in the garden, one of only two plants we still have left in the garden that were planted by my mam before her death, 25 years ago. it's a beauty and flowers better and better every year :-) this one is last weeks challenge over on uks set by the crafty magpies, the title is because you had to use a quote as part of the challenge and i found this on one of my embellishments :-) the swans were on windermere and i love the light on the water in this one :-)this next one is one of my faves of the lot, it's a sketch challenge that the bloss of our team (yes that's her title as her uks username is heatherblossom LOL) puts up every monday, i don't get a chance to do them very often as i don't take my lappy upstairs but i loved this one :-) pp's are crate paper and the photo was taken at ambleside in the lakes, we had this photo taken in the photo booth at the world of beatrix potter in windermere, thanks to suzy for using her phone to find out the correct spelling of mr mcgregor :-)another one of ambleside, this time from the windermere lake cruise, this is a scraplift of rachel w's lo in the dt booklet that came with the sarahs cards kit i used to make the lo :-)this one was using an old sarahs cards kit and is of derwent water, we had planned to go on a trip on the boat you can see but when we got there it wasn't going due to "mechanical problems", when we rang to book on the trip two days later it turned out the "mechanical problems" were actually someone had forgot to renew the boats cruising liscence LOL this next one is of me and dad on the ullswater cruise, i wanted to call this one f***ing freezing cos i was LOL but the ladies at the frozen north crop decided BRRRR! would be a more polite title LOL there's a bit of a story to this one, the photo was taken at thirlmere, where there is a view point to visit, i set off along the disabled path figuring it would be a nice flat walk which it was until it turned into a scramble up a rock face LOL thought i would keep going and got to the top then thought how the hell do i get down safely with a pair of crocs on my feet LOL well i managed it but by the time i got back to the car dad was panic stricken and was ready to diall 999 to call in mountain rescue LOL not that he had any idea where we actually were LOL
the next two were done from classes over on the sarah's cards blog, this one is by rachael and used webster's pages, i normally avoid these like the plague as i just don't know what to do with them but after having two classes on how to use them now i think i might be after some more :-) i didn't have the same papers as rachael used but i love how it turned out :) the other one is from lou's class and was to create your own backing paper :-) lots of inky messy fun and i really enjoyed it, they are both nothing like my usual style but something i think i'd have a go at again :-) next a quick piccie of the remote control fire in our lodge, the journalling is in the little envelope and tells about how dad thought having a remote control fire was the height of decadence LOL the rest are of various holiday shots that i took when we were away in march, love the fact that, at this rate i might actually be finished that holiday album before i go away on the next holiday LOL any way hope you have enjoyed looking at these, i'm off for lunch, roast lamb is calling LOL

Thursday 2 June 2011

how hard can it be...................

...........to get a boring up lighter lampshade???? well surprisingly difficult as it turns out :-( i have a set of very old spotlights in my bedroom, have had them for years and there has been one of the lights has been out for ages, well a couple of nights ago another of the bulbs went out, dad tried to get the bulbs out tonight but we cannot get them to budge so i decided i might as well treat myself to a new light fitting, all i want is a ceiling rose with wire and bulb fitted (£2.49 in argos thank you very much) so i decided a nice up lighter shade would be perfect as i don't want to be hitting my head on a the shade every time i go passed, so i've searched and searched until i finally managed to find a lovely cream coloured one with clear acrylic beads on it :-) hopefully it won't take too long to arrive LOL