Well, its getting very boring starting every blog post with an apology for my lack of blogging so I'm not going to bother anymore! (And really, apart from my mum, who reads it anyway? Hello Mum!)

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out....

I had a load of piccys printed from our holiday in Tenerife last week so I managed to do a LO on Sunday with one of those - showing one of the lovely tall ships we saw in Los Christianos. I used Basic Grey Periphery, Heidi Swapp and MM chipboard alphas and Technique Tuesday stamps on this one.

I am still trying to use the pretty stash rather than just look at it!

Ha, ha, yes, don't panic, I'm still here - just completely failing to update my blog on any sort of regular basis!

Next up - yes, I know I have scrapped this photo before, but I like it, and this version was more for Banana Frog. I have used some Rouge de Garance paper and Banana Frog stamps (Funky Flowers, Teen and Tiny Teen), as well as a little bit of bling on the flowers.Another one for Banana Frog, my neice Jessica concentrating on her new PSP on Boxing Day! I just used some plain cardstock on red and black, and then the centres from the Banana Frog Build A Bloom set to create all the little circles. Some of the circles are embossed and some are raised up on little sticky pads. I used BF's Tiny Teen set again for the title.Last but not least, a set of three cards that I created with Banana Frog Build a Bloom, Teen and Tiny Teen stamps, and some very old MM card that I found in the stash pile! Unfortunately they haven't scanned particularly well, but it is too dark to try and get a decent photo of them instead, so it will have to do!

Have still been managing to use the stash with another couple of LO's....My neice Georgina getting a bit confused with which way round you point the camera - used lots of Basic Grey Recess and some Heidi Swapp chipboard on here.And here are some shots of my mum on Boxing Day! Have used K&Co paper, and lots of nice bling with my bejeweller on this one.

And here is a lovely LO that my Mum has done - here's what she said about it...

"A beautiful Xmas card our eldest daughter sent us, 2007. The Prima flowers are part of my xmas presents from my youngest, and the crystals with bejeweller from my grandchildren. Oh and my son bought me a digital photo frame, and my husband a Canon Selphy Printer. Am I a lucky lady or what?!"

I love that little cluster of flowers, and Mum is far braver than me actually using the scalloped cardstock - so far all I have managed to do is stroke mine!

I have another half finished LO on my desk so hopefully inspiration will strike with that one soon...

It feels like aaaages since I have done a LO. I have decided that I am going to stop saving my stash for that "special" layout and just bloomin well use it! So here it is - I have used lots of Basic Grey Mellow, some K&Co chipboard letters, and the Molton Brown ribbon that came wrapped round the gift set I got for Christmas...

So I think that is my New Years Resolution (better late than never!)

USE THAT STASH!

Now that the big day is over I can show you a few things that I made. This was the first time that I had ever made any Christmas cards (I am so not a card maker!) but I was quite pleased with how these turned out. I used Katie Pertiets Holiday Trees digital brush set to create a template for the Craft Robo, and then cut the trees out of metallic cardstock and embellished them with some lovely shiny pearls using my bejeweller. I then stamped the Christmas greeting using some little stamps from the Banana Frog Retro Baubles set, and embossed it. I used some Basic Grey Figgy Pudding on one of the cards too... I also made two Birthday Books for my Mum and sister. I used a calendar template from the web and prettied it up with a nice font and some cool brushes, then created a little birthday listing too. Put them all together as a 6x6 book with the Bind It All, and then stamped and embossed the front cover, added the 2008 cut from black card on the Craft Robo, and a few bits of bling on each!
I think they liked them!

Yes, you may have spotted that Day 10 is missing - the reason is that I still haven't bought any wrapping paper, and as Day 10 is about wrapping gifts it will have to wait!

I have also been trying to make the pages a lot simpler as I was sat here till gone midnight on a couple of occasions trying to make a fantastic page, and then I got a grip and realised that I was just making work for myself!

Day 8 was purely photos - I used a template by Jen Caputo and then printed it out and fixed to cardstock, with a few buttons added on.

Day 9 - Traditions

Again, I went digi! Printed it out onto the cardstock then used some glitter embossing powder and some crystals and my bejeweller to embellish. Journalling reads -

Tradition No.1 We always open our presents as soon as we wake up! Every year, no matter how much I say I am going to have a lie in, I am always awake by about 7am, and then we make a nice cup of tea and sit down stairs opening our pressies. We take it in turns to open presents – one for me, then one for you! And we each pick which one the other has to open next!

Tradition No.2We always, always have a tree (although there have been some years where I didn’t want to – Ste always talked me round!). We also seem to have caught the Christmas light bug, we have bought quite a few to add to the collection this year! I love decorating the outside of the house too. We said that we were going to buy something new to add to the outside of the house of the house every year and we seem to be keeping up with that so far!

Tradition No.3 We take it in turns with Kev and Claire to host Christmas day – it’s their turn this year! On Boxing Day we all go to my brothers house and enjoy a second Christmas lunch with all the trimmings, and get to open more presents too!

Cant't believe it's the 10th Dec tomorrow! I really need to buy some cards / presents / wrapping paper etc! Must do that soon....

Here's Day 7! I went with the shopping theme, journalling reads as follows -
Shopping. In theory - I love it! Am quite fond of shopping in general, but going out and buying lots of lovely gifts for people - fab!
In practice - Oh deary me. The Trafford Centre in December is NOT a pleasant place to be! Particularly when it is the 7th December, I haven't bought any pressies yet and nobody will tell me what they want! Organised, moi? Nope, you must be thinking of somebody else!

I used some BG Figgy, a MM noteworthy journalling thingy, and a clothing tag (can you believe I have a box of things like that just in case they come in handy?!)

I used some BG Figgy Pudding and some crystals, the numbers and the title were cut on the Craft Robo.

Journalling reads -

I always used to have an Advent Calendar as a child (although I don’t remember being lucky enough to have one with chocolates in – in fact, did they even make them with chocolates in when I was a child?!) but in recent years, not so much. Having worked in retail for years our Christmas countdown used to start about mid September, and I was usually totally fed up with it come December! The closer it got to Christmas the busier and more stressed out I would become….
Still no advent calendar this year, but I am enjoying the countdown much more. I’m now working in a place where it actually gets quieter at Christmas, which is a nice change!
We do have a couple of things that I suppose have become sort of countdown traditions over the years. A visit to one of our local garden centre’s which has the most amazing Christmas displays and we always buy some new decorations or some lights. And then the Tesco “Christmas big shop” also means that the festive season has well and truly begun.
Maybe this journal may become a future countdown tradition too!

Day 6, our prompt today was about Christmas memories, good ones and bad ones! Here's todays...

The cards with the journalling on pull out from behind the scalloped card.

Journalling reads -

The good - I remember when I was a child, waking up really early, and calling out “Is it time to get up yet?” Eventually we were allowed out of bed, and had to wait at the bottom of the stairs for Mum and Dad to come down before we were allowed into the living room to open our pressies! They were always arranged in 3 big piles for me, my brother and sister, and we fell on them and started tearing off wrapping paper in our haste to get to the toys inside!

Then, later in the day we had even more presents when we would exchange gifts from under the tree - I was always Santa's Little Helper, giving the presents out round the room!
Every Christmas since I met my husband has also been amazing! We still wake up really early on Christmas morning, giggling like schoolchildren and saying “Do you think he has been yet?” before going downstairs to open our pressies!

And the not so good - I can’t quite remember the year…I think I was 21 or 22? I had just started working as a relief manager for the licensed trade and was in my first ever posting. This particular pub had just changed over from tenancy to be part of the managed house estate and was very much a “locals” pub. I took over about the second week in December, I knew that the pub was going to be open for Christmas Day lunch, but we had a chef, so that was OK. Christmas Eve I came downstairs to find a note through the back door – the chef had quit! Aaaargh! I rang my area manager, who in his infinite wisdom decided that I could manage to cook a 3 course Christmas lunch for 40 people on my own. I just about struggled through, but I vividly remember peeling sprouts till gone midnight on Christmas Eve, and ringing my dad on Christmas morning to enquire how to cook roast potatoes! I still shudder when I think about it….it was not a good year!

Thanks for looking!

I thought I wasn't going to manage this today (I nearly didn't! Look at the time, its 20 past midnight!).

The tree is from a digital kit by Sandy Krieger, printed onto white cardstock and cut out, with a teeny little crystal in the centre of the star.

Journalling reads:-

A blanket of snow on the ground, a beautifully decorated tree, delicious food (that cooks itself!), all my family together. Just some of the things that would make my Christmas perfect!

Yep, it's me again! Day 3 and todays prompt was about Christmas cards. I found this one a little bit more difficult, but I'm happy with how it turned out! I used some Blonde Moments Festive Feast paper and a couple of Christmas cards that were hanging about from last year, some MM glitter letter stickers and some buttons. I used the digital notebook paper for my journalling again, and you can find it here at Designer Digitals. Journalling reads:-
Well, I started thinking about making my own Christmas cards back in October. I thought how wonderful it would be to give handmade cards to all my friends and family, and imagined their delight to receive them.
It’s now the 3rd December, and, well, I’m still just thinking about it. The trouble is that I am not really a card maker. I scrapbook mainly, and have only ever dabbled in cards (my sister is the card maker in the family) so I always think that any cards I make look decidedly amateurish. So it looks like I will be going down the route of bought Christmas cards again this year!
And as for posting them – well, that’s a job in itself! You wouldn’t think that it would be such hard work to stick a few cards in the postbox, but apparently, yes it is. I even remember one year that they didn’t get posted till AFTER Christmas, but I think I managed to blame that one on the Royal Mail.
So – note to self. Must buy cards. Soon. And then must write them, address them and actually post them. How hard can it be?!

Thank you for the lovely comments over the last few days too!

Two blog posts in two days? Surely the internet will collapse from the shock!

Text reads - Christmas – the season of long boots, jeans, and cover everything up big wooly jumpers. I’m definitely in favour of the weather on the clothing side of things, but as for actually being cold, well, it’s not really my thing. We tend to have the central heating cranked up to maximum at this time of year on a 24 hour a day basis…
Still, I can’t deny, I think I would find it a bit odd to be warm at Christmas! As much as the idea of lazing round a pool, sipping cocktails on Christmas Day might appeal to me, in reality the weather helps to make the season what it is. The cold, crisp days, when the sky is a brilliant shade of blue, and you can see the frost on the trees, these are the days when the best thing to do is snuggle up on the settee watching a good film on the TV with a nice mug of hot chocolate.
And the snow! When you wake up in the morning, and you can immediately tell from the quality of light through the bedroom curtains that snow has fallen overnight. Peeping through the curtains and seeing the perfect blanket of snow lying on the ground early in the morning, before anybody has walked on it and cars have turned it to slush is definitely a magical moment!
Of course, two hours later, when I am trying to get to work through the traffic chaos that the slightest bit of snow causes in this country, and I am cold, and wet, and my boots are ruined…..well, it does lose a bit of the magic then if I’m being honest.
But first thing in the morning? Perfect…..

Text reads - I declare my intention to Journal my Christmas! I want to write something down every day, and create a little bit whenever possible. I hope that by taking a little time every day to remember, to creat and to write I will keep my Christmas alive and well! I may meet others taking the same journey. I may share my work from time to time. I may remember just why I loved Christmas in the first place, and that may be a very magical moment indeed!

I have also created the cover for my journal, but I will post that when we do it in the class....

I've found the Banana Frog stamp!

I bet you will all sleep easier tonight, won't you?

....where in my craft room would you be hiding?

Grrrr, I can't find one of the stamps from my Banana Frog Tropical Garden set. I have looked EVERYWHERE in this room. I have even gone through the bin in case it has somehow ended up in there, but no luck.

No doubt it will turn up in about a months time in the most ridiculous place you can think of, like in the fridge or something. Or the boot of my car. Or under my pillow. You get the idea....

I've been very bad at updating my blog recently, sorry! I keep getting told off! I thought I would have a bit of a play around this morning, so I have designed myself a new blog header, updated my Slide with some more recent layouts, changed my blog template, and generally just had a bit of a change! What do you think? I'm quite pleased with the blog header!

I used some of the lovely Pink Martini Orange Creamsicle papers from Banana Frog, and the circles from the Banana Frog Build A Bloom stamp set.

What else....oh yes, I am famous! Ha, not really, but I have got my picture in the local paper today. I went to a Chocolate Evening hosted by my sister Tracey (*waves* hi!) at Thorntons on Thursday evening which was part of the Bolton Food and Drink Festival, and had a fabby time tasting lots of different choccy's, doing a rather testing quiz, and icing a chocolate plaque (which is SO not as easy as they make it look!). Oh, and tasting some chocolate. And did I mention the chocolate? Here's a few pictures....

I had a brilliant day yesterday at Cucumber Cottage Studios "Scrapool 07" in Lytham. I was really pleased when Julie asked me to teach two classes, sadly she had been let down at the last minute by the original tutors for the day, so it was all a bit of a mad rush to get sorted! Still, it all turned out great in the end, I was really pleased with how the classes went, and I think that the group enjoyed them too.
The next class was with CherryArte papers, and we did some stamping and glittering, and used lots of bling too! Here are the LO's - again we had two different kits to choose from....

Then we finished the day off making a lovely minibook with BamPop papers - I have my kit here for that one and I can't wait to get started! Will post piccys when I have done it!

So, all in all I had a great time, met some lovely people, and hopefully will get the chance to do something like that again in the future!

And a big thankyou to Julie and everyone else for making me feel very welcome!

Here we are again! Have got a couple of LO's for you that I did for the Banana Frog DT gallery. The first one I made with Polar Bear Press paper, Banana Frog Teen lower case stamps, a few buttons and my corner rounder....piccy is from our wedding back in 2000.

And this one uses Pink Martini papers, and the circles are from the Banana Frog Build a Bloom stamp set (I lurve those stamps!). The paper is lush too - lovely and bright!

I got a lovely surprise when I got in from work yesterday - a new camera! My fantastic hubby had got me the new Sony T200 digital compact camera, and let me tell you, it is bloomin lovely! 8.1 megapixels, 3.5 inch touchscreen, and all sorts of clever things like smile detection and what have you! Its all shiny and pretty and I wubs it! Look.......(and yes, it is black!)

I am a very lucky chicken!

I thought I would show you my latest LO for a DT competition. The brief was to only use cardstock and basic tools, and my Bam Pop stamps were just right for this one!

Goodness me, I have been neglecting poor old bloggie again haven't I? So, what have I got to show you......

This was one of my entries into a DT comp, and considering I finished it with only 10 minutes to spare I'm pretty happy with it! And I LOVE this sign that we saw in a shop window in Celebration - every store should have one! The challenge for the next round is to complete a LO using only cardstock and basic tools, no patterned paper or embellies, I've still got my thinking cap on at the moment for that one....

And here's another piccy for you....seven years ago today! Happy Anniversary Chicken! (my goodness, don't we both look TOTALLY different LOL!) Check out the couple on the top of the wedding cake, yep, its Mickey and Minnie! Very fitting for our wedding at Disney's Yacht and Beach Club at WDW, Florida....now you know where the Florida obsession started!