Girlie Birthday Cards

This month I brought myself some super cute Unicorn Stamps from Cynthia Renard who I follow on Instagram. I'm a sucker for Unicorns so had to have them!

 Luckily they arrived just in time for both Boo's & my friends daughters birthdays, so I went straight to work making birthday cards for them. I coloured the images with my Promarkers. 

For Boo I used papers from Dear Lizzy Daydreamer collection. The heart paper is the same pattern as the cover of the scrapbook album I have for her. 

For Ava I used papers from Pink Paislee Bella Rouge. 

Me on Monday

Today I'm waving to Sian as I join in with my first Me On Monday. This weekend started with me having to work until lunchtime but in the afternoon I went to our local garden centre to check out their Christmas room. This has become a tradition of ours and every year I come back with more yummy decs, I love Christmas and if I could I'd have my decorations up all year! When we came home I sat down to make birthday cards for some up coming birthdays, I'll share the cards in full once the birthday girls have opened them.

On Sunday we had a couple of jobs to do in Peterborough and took the opportunity for a walk around the cathedral. We did have a chuckle at the old graffiti especially as they were the mans initials! After that we had a cosy evening watching The X Factor complete with our house guest. Yes it's Vern the tortoise, yes we are mad! 

Today it's back to work for another working week. I'm counting down the weeks until my mini break with Gemma to Milton Keynes, I can't wait! 

Blogtober Day 11: Spotify Sunday

My Spotify playlist is probably what you call eclectic. I have a mix of current chart songs to Bon Jovi (obviously) and even some 70s glam rock! Lately I've enjoyed listening to a band called Churches. I heard them a few weeks ago on the live lounge on Radio 1 and loved their sound.

Blogtober Day 10: Saturday Snapshots

It's finally the weekend yay! Today I've had a lovely day just chilling. I popped into town this morning to post a parcel and pay some money into Ian's account. While I was there I went to the library to rent some DVDs as there isn't a lot on the telly tonight as the rugby is on, I don't mind rugby but Ian isn't a fan. I rented Fast & Furious 7 as I've wanted to see it for ages! I've always been a fan of the films, mainly because of Vin Diesel, and had to watch this as it is the last film with Paul Walker. I couldn't tell you much about the story line tbh and I cried like a baby at the end, I knew I would! As soon as the music started I was off, and the "For Paul" at the end...I was gone! 

I was naughty though as I "accidentally" brought a large skinny hot chocolate from Costa for the walk home! 

Then I came home to happy mail yay! I ordered some stamps from a lady I follow on Instagram, I couldn't help it they had unicorns on them! How cute are they???

Now my Saturday evening consists of wine and Spotify, bliss! 

Blogtober Day 9: Flashback Friday

Today I thought I would share some more of my early layouts. 

This layout is about when I brought my old car Suzy Suu. The paper framing the layout is from Basic Grey Lime Rickey. I got the idea of using it to frame my layout from an issue of Scrapbook Inspirations, I miss that magazine. I was all about the jaunty angles then too lol! 

This layout was made for a challenge during a Twilight Addicts Cyber Crop. All the papers are from Bo Bunny. I think this was also my first attempt at distressing my paper edges, obviously not very well lol! 

 I love this background paper from Bo Bunny, it's so pretty. I added some glitter to my thickers to give a frosted feel. 

Very simple design here, I say design I basically just stuck some photos to the paper lol! Nothing has changed since I took these photos, it's still impossible to get a nice photo of the two of us together without Ian pulling funny faces. 

For this layout I used papers from MME Bloom & Grow. I brought a pack of papers from the collection and I've still got loads left to this day! 

Probably one of my favourite layouts I've made, not for the design but for the photos! These photos were taken during a picnic at the park. Ian placed some food at the bottom of a tree to entice a squirrel to come down and made it look as though Vern had come to see the squirrel. I used cute woodland chipboard pieces from DCWV Green Stack. 

Blogtober Day 8: Currently...

 1- Thinking: winding down from work.  I'm on a late shift this week so I don't get home until 8:30pm

2- Enjoying: my time to relax. My make up is off, I'm in my pj's and I'm blogging in bed! 

3- Feeling: tired, but it's Friday tomorrow so only one more 12-8 shift! 

4- Wearing: my pjs

5- Needing: a lottery win so I don't need to work another late shift again! Noticing a pattern emerging here lol! 

6- Wanting: it to be summer again! I miss the light evening, it's not much fun driving home in the dark! 

7- Listening: to the television. Ian is watching Wheeler Dealers, boring! 

8- Making: the most of my evening. Sorry, this is a very boring blog post! 

9- Eating: I've just finished a bowl of cornflakes. When I'm on lates my eating is all over the place because I don't really want to cook when I get in! 

10- Drinking: a cup of tea. 

Blogtober Day 7: What's on your work desk?

Wednesday means time to share what's on your work desk. Normally this would be what's on your craft work desk but more me I've been at work all day so I have a different desk in front of me. 

I can't share too much of my desk but these little guys keep me company during the day. I collect Momiji dolls so when I saw the lucky cat doll I had to have one. I love lucky cats, they're so tacky they're brilliant! The unicorn was made for me by my Facebook friend Emma. I'd shared a link from Hobbycraft and said I wished I could crochet, a couple of days later she messaged me with a photo and said he was mine! 

Blogtober Day 6: Coveted

Today I thought I would share what my dream crafty items would be, if money was no option these are the things I'd most like to have. 

1- A beautiful Raskog Cart

Ok I know these aren't the most expensive things in the world, and people will probably just tell me to go out and buy one, but as much as I'd love to have one (or more) I just haven't got the space for one. I love seeing people photos of their lovely organised carts and dream one day of having my own

2- A Silhouette Cameo

Again this is one of those "if I had space" items but they aren't the cheapest either. I love seeing layouts with cameo cuts on them. I think this would be great for making my own embellishments and the cut files available are endless! Also if I had one of these I would have to have a lovely new computer to use with it!

Finally 3- my own craft shed

This is the ultimate crafty dream for me. I'd love to have my own crafty hideaway at the bottom of the garden with electricity and decked out with bunting and fairy lights. I've even picked one out already, this one I saw at Burghley Horse trials was a snip at £5500! 

Blogtober Day 5: Christmas card production so far

Every year I say I'm going to make my Christmas cards but never do and end up buying them instead. But this year I'm actually having a go at making them, don't all fall over in shock! The idea came to me when I managed to locate an EK Success stag punch in a local craft shop, I had been after it for ages but only ever saw it for sale online in America but didn't want to pay stupid shipping fees! I thought the stags, or reindeer, would look great punch from gold glitter card and I wasn't wrong. 

Of course I didn't have any gold glitter card in my stash so I went to Hobbycraft to stock up. As you can see a few other things jumped out at me! 

To justify a couple of my purchases, the sweater stamp I had my eyes on last year but never brought it so when I saw one left for 50p, well it would have been rude to leave it! The sentiment stamp has been used for the sentiments inside my cards, I sat last weekend and batch stamped my cards. 

So that's my card production so far. It may not seem much to some but let's face it it's more than I've done before! 

Blogtober Day 4: Snapshots from Sherringham & Wells

My week off wasn't all crafting, not that I would have minded! We also had a day out to the Norfolk coast, heading to Sherringham before working back round to Well-next-the-sea and finally Hunstanton for fish & chips. 

Sherringham was lovely but windy as it is whenever I've been! Walking along the sea front & through the town we saw various different forms of street art, from brightly painted beach cafes to the town being decked out as if we were in World War Two with planes crashed into buildings and a pub being guarded by Dads Army! 

Wells was gorgeous. We walked through the town before taking the long straight trek down to the beach to walk along the beach huts. 

Blogtober Day 3: Wands

The final layout made during my week off was go a challenge I posted on Sketchy Scrappers. Whilst looking through my stash I noticed I had a number a shaped papers I brought when I started scrapping. For some reason I went mad and brought a sheet whenever I saw a sheet I had to buy it but then left them sitting in my stash untouched! So my challenge was to make a layout using these papers. 

One sheet I found had a ledger paper pattern printed on it. As soon as I saw this I immediately thought of Harry Potter and of Hogwarts, so I dug out some photos from when I went to the studios. 

This is one of those layouts I started one day and then left it a couple of days before I went back to it. As a result I think I lost my mojo with it so I'm not completely happy with it but it's done. 

The background paper is from MME and the others are from Carta Bella & Crate Paper. As it was Harry Potter I added some pops of black & gold. 

Blogtober Day 2: Home

The second layout I scrapped during my week off was another Sketchy Scrappers catch up. Septembers sketch was set by Natalie who created her own sketch. 

I picked out two photos I'd taken last year during my morning walk to the train station while I was doing jury duty. Being morning not people were about and it was nice to capture some photos of a peaceful Stamford. 

As the sketch was quite minimalist I opted to use a background paper with a fairly large pattern to fill up some of the white space so I chose this paper from MME. I finished by using another paper and stickers from Simple Stories, along with my favourite tiny phrase stickers from Crate Paper. 

Blogtober Day 1: The Barn

Phew bit late in the day I know but I'm here with my first blog post for Blogtober! While I was off work last week I managed to catch up on some scrapping. The first layout I scrapped was for the August Sketch over on Sketchy Scrappers. This was the sketch set by Alison. 

I was initially unsure how to interpret this at first but eventually my head saw the sketch as being in a grid format and this was the layout I made

I used a selection of photos taken during one of our scrappy weekends to Meadow Barn, including one of our guard dog Merlin (sorry Karen!)

The background paper is from Bella Boulevard and I used a selection of project life cards sent to me by Gemma. For embellishments I used some puffy stickers from Heidi Swapp, stickers from Simple Stories and Thickers from American Crafts. I plan on adding some journaling to the pink chevron card at some point.