What a week...

Easter Sunday was spent at a Christening. Eva was adorable and so happy - even when she got wet LOL. The party after was great fun, and included water fights and BBQs and lots and lots of beer....

Monday, the kids were back at school - yay - but meant I got to see 7.30am again - boo. I started back at Pilates, so felt very virtuous as exercise had been ticked off my list for the week :)

The week continued on as normal, at 100 miles an hour with various after school activities and such like. Then Thursday night our external hard drive decided it had had enough - it is less than a year old. It has all our photos on it. The last time we backed up was September 08. Lessons learned the hard way. We have arranged for the hard drive to go to a data recovery service, and hoping the money we are paying results in us getting the majority, if not all, our data back. Something we could do without right now, but like I said a lesson learned the hardway. Backing up is not an option.

Yesterday was Jemma's birthday party - we had planned to take 4 of her friends ice skating, but then found out on Tuesday that the ice rink was closed this week for curling....so a hasty rearrangement was made - same time and place, just a different activity - we took the girls swimming instead! The girls had great fun, the worst part for me was the getting dressed after - I thought that my 10 yr old was slow, but when you have 5.... We took Jemma and Tom to McD's for tea after, and then it was back home to let Jemma open her presents before she headed off to the church hall for a Guide sleepover. She is walking to the Scout camp site today to pitch tents, and light a fire to cook lunch on, before attempting the low ropes course there. She is going to be taking her Promise there this afternoon aswell, becoming a fully fledged guide. Then we are off to a BBQ with the Scout group. It is a lovely sunny day outside, let's hope it stays that way!

So, no photos to share, and not alot of crafting going on - I have done a DLO this week, but it is for Mark's military album, so I can't share or else I'd have to kill you and shred you LOL. Off to take Mark a coffee in bed, and try to persuade Tom that he needs to have some breakfast...

TTFN

xxx

Jo, you were right...

...there was no Simple at Borders :( I'll just have to make do with the May CK that came last week ;)
Monster VS Aliens was brilliant, the kids loved it - lots of laughing out loud moments! It was made better by the Ben & Jerry's fudge sundae I had too...

Today I have been mostly shopping - first it was a trip to the manic Asda's to do the weekly shop. Mark took the kids (and a tin of polish) to Cooper Park, so I didn't have the "joy" of them coming round Asda's too... I met them in town, and we went to Jimmy Chungs for a chinese buffet - and I am still stuffed now LOL. Tom was very adventurous, trying lots of stuff - Jemma had mostly prawn crackers and Chicken Maryland.... We then found a nice little figurine to give as a Christening gift on Sunday in one of the gift shops. All in all a successful trip :)
Mark decided to wash the car when we got home, and 3 and a half hours later it was gleaming inside and out... I am wondering how much bird poo will be on it in the morning though....

Tomorrow we are hoping to go for a walk at Culbin, weather permitting, and the plan is to picnic on the beach with hot chicken and fresh bread from Tesco's LOL. We'll see how that turns out...

I leave you with my LO for the weekly challenge my UKS team are setting in a few weeks time. I won't give away any of the criteria, so not to spoil the surprise, but I enjoyed doing this LO - it has a few more things on it than I usually put on pages, I really am a simple girl at heart (no comments please!)

Hoping you all have a good Easter weekend, with lots of sunshine and chocolate :)

TTFN

xxx

Favourite LOs of the year so far...

I know, 2 posts in 2 days, it's a flood after a drought LOL

I thought I would share 2 of my favourite LOs that I have done so far this year. I did them whilst on my scrapping weekend with the girls from Fraserburgh. I was inspired by an article in the March/April issue of Simple Scrapbooks (so sad that this has stopped being published, it is my favourite magazine) all about scrapping babies. I haven't really done any scrapping of the kids as babies. And not any LOs as tiny babies. I thought it was about time that I scrapped their birth stories, and also about how they came about their names. So inspired by the ideas and the LOs in the mag, I came up with these 2 LOs (I did do 4 altogether, a birth story and name story for each child, but these 2 are my favourites!)

This LO tells the story of how Tom got his middle name - he was born on St Patrick's Day, so we gave him Patrick as a middle name. The LO is a lift of a LO by Wendy Smedley in the mag.

This LO tells Jemma's birth story, and is a scraplift of a LO by Stephanie Howell - the little flower on the right hand side is a tab which is attached to an A4 piece of paper on which I typed out the whole of her story.

This is one of the cards I have made over the past few days, and is a cardlift of Tiets' card here.

The image is a Sugar Nellie stamp I bought last year, and I stamped it and coloured it in and then didn't know what to do with it... The papers are all scraps from K&Co, Sassafrass Lass and Dovecraft.

I have always admired the way that some people can put so many different papers onto one card, but I have always thought it could be a bit OTT, and as I used to sell cards, the cost of it was always in the back of my mind. But I don't sell my cards anymore, and it's taken me a few years to get over the burn out caused by making cards on demand, and now I am enjoying the process again and revelling in making cards to send to friends and family. I still find it easier to lift someone else's design though....

The house is full of sounds of children bickering, only a few days left and it's back to school for them on Monday. Tom has an ear infection, so he is a bit grotty but the antibiotics are starting to kick in now, so he should be back to normal in a day or so. We are off to watch Monsters VS Aliens this afternoon at the cinema in Inverness, I am sure I can pop into Borders after to see if they have the last issue of Simple Scrapbooks ;)

TTFN

xxx

Erm, I am still here, honest...

.... I never promised to be a regular blogger, but I didn't think I would be this rubbish....

So, what's been happening at Chez Yoo since October....

• Mark came back from the sand pit in one piece
• Christmas - a quiet family one
• New Year - another quiet family one LOL
• We spent a weekend in Applecross on the West Coast of Scotland, a la Monty (well not quite, we did stay in a cottage next to the sea but it did have electricity and running water LOL )
• I spent a weekend in a big country house with 7 other crafty girls (plus one adorable baby) scrapping my heart out
• We went to Glasgow for a few days for sledging, Dr Who, Science and IKEA
• Tom got his Lil Dragon black belt, and Jemma has decided after a year of watching, that she wants to get in on the act... now where did I put those oriental script papers....

2008's final LO count was 101, and so far in 2009 I have done 42 LOs, and my target is 100 LOs for the year. I have been trying to scrap on a regular basis, and have also returned to doing a bit of card making, inspired by Tiets and Marlene from the Sugar Nellie DT - infact I have been doing a spot of cardlifting, makes a change to scraplifting LOL. I have purchased some promarkers, although the jury is still out as to whether I like them or not, I may have to get a few more colours, as my palette is quite limited ;)

My Library of Memories is looking good, although I still haven't set up the system completely - the photo side of it is still half finished, but I am happy with the photos as they are for now. I am pleased with the album side though, and have added a 5th album, which will be home to LOs of Mark during his military career. I love mixing the sizes in the 3 ring albums :)

I finished my New Zealand albums - 2 12x12 albums, 80 pages in total :) We love to look through them, I am glad I persevered and saw it through.

I have a plan to start my next holiday album - our trip to Disneyland Paris in October 2006. I have been inspired by an album in the Simple Scrapbooks book "Albums in an evening" where I saw a disney album which showed the favourite photos/moments from the trip. I think thats the way to go for me, and I hope to do a similar thing. I have a spare 8x8 album (after emptying it into the LOM ) earmarked for it.

So that's me, and where I am at right now, still here, still crafting, still taking photos and still spending on stash!!! I would say that I'll be a regular blogger from now on, but knowing me it'll be October again before I do another post....

TTFN

xxx

Library of Memories

From this.....

...to this....

....in one evening!!

I have been wanting to incorporate Stacy Julian's Library of memories philosophy since reading her "Big Picture Scrapbooking" book a couple of years ago. Then I got her "photo freedom" book earlier this year, and I knew I definitely wanted to do this!! I was finding it hard to deal with the photo side of the plan, so decided to bite the bullet (phrase of the month) and get the LOs sorted. So I bought 4 American Crafts D ring 12x12 albums, and set about last night taking all my LOs out from their original albums and reorganising them and placing them in their new home :) So I went down from about 8 albums to 4, although I need another one already as my All About Us album is on the full side ;) I love that I can get all page sizes into the albums. I also loved looking over my past LOs, seeing how my approach has changed, and seeing what kind of things I tend to scrap - it seems that people and events are top of the list LOL. Maybe this will encourage me to look for other things to scrap - my Everyday things section is seriously lacking...

Tomorrow we are having a visit from Jo and her boys, which is always fun :) Right now I am waiting for the serviceman to finish servicing the boiler and checking the smoke alarm so I can go to Tesco to get milk and yummy stuff for us to eat tomorrow..

ttfn

xxx

I've been a bad, bad blogger....

...*hangs head in shame* - I know, I have neglected my poor old blog. It's a cliche, but time flies, and the past month has fairly whizzed by. A few things have happened though...

The Norty Crew meet in Blackpool was one of the best weekends I have ever had in my life!! The girls were all lovely, and a complete scream. We got a full days crop in a conference room in the Hilton (where we were staying), the food was amazing and the company just couldn't be beat! I have not eaten, laughed or stayed up late as much as we did in a LONG time, it took me a week to recover !!

I managed to do a board book and a LO during the crop.

The board book is a Maya Road - I cut the spine as I knew it would end up fat LOL, so used my BIA to bind it at the end. Its all done with a BG Archaic 6x6 paper pad. The poem is "Now we are six" by A.A Milne. I was inspired to do this after seeing a book using this poem on the homepage of UKScrappers in August.

This LO uses all BG Archaic range - I bought one of the purple pizza boxes from my LSS, a DO craft promotional thing, with a selection of papers, a box of buttons, brads and chipboard accents :) The title is Sizzlit Chunky font cut out in funky foam - I made my own thickers LOL.

Since then I have been in a creative downer - completely devoid from creativeness, not able to find motivation at all. Due to a few reasons I think -

• Mark left 10 days ago for 6 weeks in the sand


• I have been suffering with an unshakable cold (which spookily started as Mark departed)


• the kids are on a 2 week half term, and I am just worn out


• just looking in my cubbie made me groan, as it was a pigsty and I couldn't get in it, and I couldn't be bothered to tidy it

The lack of creativity makes me feel bleurgh which in turn makes me feel even less creative - a vicious circle I just have to bite the bullet to break.

I finally broke it this weekend. Tom has a party to go to, so I had a card to make, so I had to tidy up the cubbie. So I tidied, then I crafted - and did the card, and felt sooooo much better. I got the creative juices flowing again and it felt good.

I then decorated some candles with Christmas clip art images from PCcrafter.com.

I then got working on another board book. I had originally begun this a couple of weeks back, but nothing more had been done since. It is a book about memories from my childhood. As I sat there working, my mind began to wander and lots of suff came into my head - about things I had in my home as a child, about the sweets I loved, about things we did. I got a notebook out and started making lists, and then something I wrote made me think of Papa - my maternal grandfather. I sat and wrote 2 pages of journalling about him and I just know that its a LO I need to do asap.

For now the flood gates seem to be open, and I hope I can get back to doing pages again quickly - I haven't scrapped a proper page yet this month.

I managed to finish off my Shimelle album (a 4x4 so not "proper" pages iykwim !) and I was so glad I perservered with it, and its a smashing little book, even if I say so myself LOL.

I really enjoyed having a sketh to follow each day. I think I may use the sketches again for my Christmas journal, if Shimelle doesn't do sketches for it this year. Sometimes I find it hard enough to follow the prompt, without having to think about the page design too... I am already thinking of papers for this though - may get a co ordinated paper pack and some stickers... more stash spending... I was doing well with that until today, when I bought 4 stamps (2 journalling, 2 definition) from one site, 2 American Crafts 12x12 D ring albums and a US scrapbook magazine from another, and then Monica left a link on our team thread to a bargain on QVC which I then bought.. LOL. But in my defence, the stamps were to replace some that had been damaged in my cubbie, the albums I have been after for a while (so I can set up my Library of Memories) and the magazine is one I haven't had before. The QVC stuff was a real bargain, and if its not to my taste it'll become part of my Mum's Christmas present....

If you got this far, then congratulations!!! I know I am not the best updater in the world, but when I do update, boy do you know about it tee hee hee...

ttfn
xxxx

September

Crikey, September already....

What I have been up to so far in September -

• I became one year older
• I started playing netball again
• I joined a Pilates class - first one was last night, so far so good :)
• doing Shimelle's "Learn something new every day" class, and actually managing to keep up to date - bought a great kit from Shimelle to do this class with, and its a 4" x 4" format which is making this project sooooo much easier and quicker ;)
• making up page kits, and mini book kits to take to our UKS team get together in Blackpool next week - NEXT WEEK!!!!! So, so excited about this. And hoping and praying that Anne will be there with us too :)
• getting far too excited about above weekend, and also about seeing Amanda again :)
• trying to research some family history
• enjoying walking trails, bike rides and counting slugs with the family this past weekend :)
• learning alot about rivers courtesy of a P6 project...
• making christmas present lists - not entirely my doing or my suggestion, more like a "keeping hubby happy by making a list" list :P
• trying not to think about Mark going away in October :(
• spending far too much money on stash for my liking LOL
• did I mention looking forward to the weekend in Blackpool.... :P
• oh, and last but not least a little bit of scrapping.....

I did this one today, when I saw the BG Archaic range I knew that it was perfect for Tom - dinosaurs and orange, what more can I ask??? And to get a chipboard orange dinosaur, well that tipped the balance and that's why I ended up with the stash in the first place...

Cardstock is Bazill Kraft, and the rest is Basic Grey :) LO based on a pagemap from Becky Fleck's book "Scrapbook Pagemaps".

ttfn

xxx