Crafting Again

Well that's the first full weekend of 2017 over with.....for us it was a nice relaxed one at home. We have both been a little under with weather with various coughs, colds and sinus problems so it was nice to stay home in the warm and just chill out.

Last week one of the guys I work with asked me to make him a birthday card and exploding/photo box for his girlfriend so this weekend was the perfect time for me to play in my craft room and produce the goods. The theme was pretty and girly and I think I achieved that on both the card and the box. As yet there are no pictures in the box, I will add these at a later date as my colleague wants to let his good lady pick which photos to put in. I am looking forward to hearing what she thinks about it although I am pretty sure she will love it as I know she likes all thinks pretty, girly and sparkly. The flowers that are on the lid are all from Wild Orchid crafts and the two large pink flowers in the box are Prima.

The card is 8x8 and I used a Lilli of the Valley pre coloured card as the image, I layered up some cardstock and paper and then added some ribbon, gems, metal corners and a die cut sentiment to finish it off. I used to have quite a collection of ready made cards but my stash is almost depleted now so I think I may spend the next couple of weekends making some more so that I always have a stock of cards ready to go. If you are a card maker do you make yours as you need them or do you keep a stock that you can dip in to as needed?

I also started trying to organize a travel planner for our USA holiday. I bought a leather binder from the sale in Paperchase and then I bought and downloaded some travel pages from Etsy. The plan yesterday was to sit down and get it all printed, trimmed to size and punched so I could start filling it
in. I managed to print and trim however the portable Filofax A5 hole punch I bought was worse than useless - it only punches one page at a time and because you have to really squeeze the two sides of it together to make it punch it scrunches up your paper around the holes leaving it looking a ragged mess. Thankfully I found a better quality one on Amazon that is currently winging its way to me so hopefully next weekend I can get going again. Feeling frustrated by not being able to set up my planner I plonked myself on the sofa with a cuppa and the laptop and did a little craft shopping with Paper Maze. They had a little sale on so I snapped up some lovely scrapping papers and Heidi Swapp planner bits, looking forward to those arriving now, been a long time since Mr Postie bought me a pizza box.

I went to Weight Watchers last Thursday for the post Christmas and New Year weigh in, I knew there would be a gain which I was expecting to be around 4-5lbs. I was rather pleased and surprised when I found out that it was only 1.5lbs! Am back on track now so that should soon come off and then I can get on with the task of losing that last stone to get me to my goal weight.

Thanks for stopping by my little blog. Leave me a little comment below and a link to your blog and I will pop over, have a read and return the compliment.

Love and hugs, Jane x

Easter 2016

Evening all, hope you are all well and that you have all had a wonderful Easter. I cant believe its now Easter Monday and that the holiday weekend is almost over. I have to say that its been a pretty good one here with us despite the days prior being full of emergency dentist visits and head colds (both of which I hate having to deal with!).

Good Friday was spent shopping at Bluewater where I treated myself to a new top from the White Stuff sale, some blue suede Converse and a pair of jeans. Afterwards Tom decided to treat us to a bite to eat and after much deliberation we opted for our favorite which is tapas. We used to have a great local Spanish restaurant but sadly they closed a few years back and as yet we haven't found anywhere to rival the food, service and atmosphere that we used to get at Rebatos. However last year we tried Tapas Revolution which is located in the Bluewater shopping mall and we were pleasantly surprised. The food is really good and the service is great too, there is only a certain amount of atmosphere as you are in the middle of a shopping mall but it does the trick now now when we need a fix of all things Spanish. We came home and spent the evening watching our old Vegas DVD's whilst trying to decide on where to go next year on our American road-trip. At the moment we are torn between doing Tennessee or Route 66.....think there will be lots more research and investigations needed before we can come to a final decision.

On Saturday we did a little bit of food shopping and then chilled out for a few hours at home as we were off to Toms sisters house for a evening of Mexican fun. It was a good night, we all had sombreo's and fake mustaches to wear and Linda had cooked up a whole load of chili con carne, nachos, fajitas plus there were tequila slammers and margarita's on tap. Luckily as Tom was driving we managed to avoid the alcohol,however the same cant be said for the rest of the guests...I am sure there were a whole lot of sore heads yesterday morning. We left them dancing around the conservatory knocking back shots of whatever they could find!!

Easter Sunday came far too early for my liking, who's idea was it to put the clocks forward this weekend???!!. We had my family over for the day so I prepared a nice big buffet and made some chocolate Easter cupcakes. I used to bake a lot but had kind of given up till I was given a Kitchen Aid a few months ago. Since them my passion has been re-ignited and I am happy spending time in the kitchen baking up all sorts of things. Below is a picture of the cakes I made. I even experimented with some molds to make the little fondant flowers and dog.

Today has been a much more sedate affair. After a little lie in I have spent the most part of today in my craft room. I made two cards, one for a friend who is getting married tomorrow and one for our new neighbors who came to introduce themselves on Saturday. I had a little tidy of my room, put some layouts away and managed these three below.

This one is for our Vegas 2015 album and the pictures are of our room in the Venetian Resort and Casino. The papers are from the Bo Bunny Star Crossed collection.

The next one features a picture of my friend Sarah and I last year in Trafalgar Square, just before Christmas. Sarah came to stay with us for the weekend and join Tom and I on our annual walk around London to see the Christmas lights. It was a lovely evening that was made even more entertaining by us seeing hundreds of people dressed up as Santa (most of whom were very, very drunk).The papers I used for this are some very old SEi ones, they have been in my stash for years and years......yay to me finally using them!! I added some gems and a Prima swirl to make it sparkle a little.

Finally the last one for today is a picture of my lovely little Daisy dog. The papers and embellishments are all by Prima, to be honest I wasn't really sure about these papers at first but I really like how this has come out.The 'Princess' title which fits perfectly with the page is another old item, its a Jolees embellishment that I picked on one of our first trips to Vegas I think. 

So that's it, Easter is almost over but its another short week for us this week as  we are off to the New Forest for a few days. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Jane xx

Another Weekend Over

Boo to the weekend almost being over, I am so not ready to go back to work tomorrow. Wish the lottery win would hurry up and come in!!

Its been another fairly relaxed one here for us. On Friday night hubby went out with some of the lads from work so I had a couple of girlfriends over for dinner and drinks. I made a chilli con carne and I managed to point almost everything, including the drinks. I think I may have dipped into my weekly points slightly but on the whole I managed to stay on the WW track which I am pleased about. It was lovely to see the girls too, we had a good old natter and catch up.

Yesterday we took a drive down to Ashford to do a little shopping at the outlet village. We really like it there but it can be very hit and miss at times. Luckily this visit was a hit for both of us, himself got some casual canvas type shoes from Ralph Lauren and some jogging bottoms from Nike and I got a long sleeve top and coat from Superdry. We also got some new knives and scales for the kitchen and as is usual on an Ashford visit I got some new Yankee candles. As soon as we got home I started on a little re-arrange of our kitchen which is predominately black and white, however we (or should I say I) have recently decided that it needs a little pop of colour so I have added a few red bits and pieces to brighten it up a bit. I had planned to craft a little but time soon ran away and after a lovely dinner of chicken fajitas we curled up to catch up on the new ITV drama Lucky Man followed by the film called Everest. I can highly recommend the film, such a great story full of determination, courage and bravery.

Today has been a stay at home and craft kind of day, despite a bit of a lie in this morning I managed to escape to my room fairly early on. I made two cards, one for a friends grand-daughter who will be 18 in the week and the other for a 60th birthday.

For the 18th card I used a topper that I have had in my stash for ages, think I got it from Ally Pally many years ago. I used some odd bits of card stock and Basic Grey paper and then just added a sentiment from Craftwork Cards, some ribbon and a few gems.

The second card I made is for a special friend who is about to celebrate her 60th birthday. We are going to a surprise tea party that is being held in her honour next weekend which I am really looking forward to. For this card I used a Lili of the Valley printed postcard, I added ribbon, gems and some paper flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts. The little butterfly was punched using an EK Success punch that I bought on holiday in Vegas last year.

I also completed a layout I that I started last weekend. I was inspired by my friend Sarah's work, she creates the most beautiful layouts full of bling, butterfly's and blooms (you can see her blog here). The papers I used are from the Websters Pages Sunday Picnic collection as is the pink voile flower on the right hand side. Both the butterfly's are by Prima as is the crystal swirl on the left, the swirl on the right I did myself using a Bazzill template and a load of gems from my stash. before everything was stuck down I fiddled a bit and decided that it needed a little something more so I added the lace and ric-rac. I think I am pleased with the end result......

So here we are the last day of January, that means we are another month closer to Summer - yay. I cant wait for the warmer weather to arrive! I have already noticed that the evenings are starting to stay lighter just a tiny bit longer now. Anyone else feel the same as me or are you loving the cold, wet Winter months?

Anyway hope you have all had a great weekend, thanks for stopping by.

Love and hugs, Jane xx

On a scrapping roll!!

Well here I am again with some more layouts for you to see...these were all created at the Kingshill crop I went to last Saturday.

The first one is of Tom and I at the famous Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. The papers are all from a Studio Calico kit, the little flowers are Prima and are from the stash I bought while we were in Vegas last year. The only thing I have not yet added is a title, not sure it actually needs one, what do you think??



The next layout is of Scarlett, I took the pictures last year when I got my new camera and wanted to have a play with it. I am not sure where the kit/papers came from. It could have been from Gottacraft or from Creative Craft World. The flower and the bling swirl are Prima and are from my stash.



The last layout I have to share is a double layout and is one of the Basic Grey kits that I get from Crea8tive. As usual I have followed the sketch but tweaked it slightly to fit with my pictures.



Thanks for stopping by and I hope you like what you see. Please feel free to leave me a comment and if you have a blog of your own leave a link and I will pop by and leave a comment for you. It really does make a girl feel good to know that those who stop by like what they see.

Love and hugs, Jane xx

Scrapping Weekend

Evening all, hope you have all had a lovely Easter break, I know we have. Its been a wonderful relaxing weekend, although we have eaten far too much, still back to work tomorrow so that should get us back on the straight and narrow!

I managed to spend a few hours in my craft room this weekend, I didnt achieve vast amounts but I did a few layouts which I thought I would share with you.

The first one is of Scarlett and Daisy, the picture was taken last year. I used a very old sheet of We R Memory Keepers paper which I cut into a scalloped circle using my Cricut Imagine (yes I know I actually used my Cricut!! lol). I added lots of bling around the edges and a few stickers that have been in my stash for ages, I think they worked perfectly with this page.



The next layout is of George and Scarlett and was done using up some old scraps of Christmas papers. Again I used my Cricut to cut the circle. The little bit of bunting was cut from a Christmas Embellishment and the 'Merry Christmas' was from an old My Minds Eye kit.



The last layout I have to show you is of Daisy and her favourite teddy bear. She has had this bear since she was a baby, it has no eyes or ears and is threadbare in parts but she adores it! You will often find it tucked beside her when she is curled up sleeping. I think these papers are all by Simple Stories, they are the end of a collection pack I bought past year. The letters are Doodlebug and for a little extra bling I added a Prima Swirl.



I hope you like what I have created, if you do please leave me a comment and a link to you blog so I can pay you a visit.

Thanks for looking, love and hugs Jane xx