My new Venture!

In my last post I promised you that I would update you on a new venture as time had run out on that post. It really ended up as War & Peace didn't it?! I'm sorry if I was whinging that day.... the whole (lack of) weightloss was really getting me down. I'm so glad that a whole load of you guys were there to pick me up with your comments and spur me on to getting back on track! I'm not completely there but I am working on it and am feeling a lot more positive about it all.

Anyway, I've gone off topic haven't I? Typical me! LOL.... now back to the subject.

Last May I was looking at a friends crafting blog and saw that there was a special offer on Starter Kits for Stampin' Up! which really got me thinking. I had been looking for a way to help the household finances and thought that this would be a good way of contributing while indulging my passion for all things crafty. After having a rather in-depth discussion with Himself we decided that I should go for it..... and so my new business "Stampin' Diva's" was created. Here's my business blog if you want to go have a look!

I'm happy to report that it's going quite well so far, although not really enough to contribute to the family bank account.... yet! However, it's paying a little bit so far and as I've had a fairly slow build up I don't think that's too bad. Himself is happy though as I haven't spent anything out of the family bank account on crafting in quite a while now! So that's at least a million pounds saved from the current account each month (I wish!).

The only downside - if it can be called that - is that I'm so busy making samples, swaps, demo pieces, make & take items etc. that I haven't had an awful lot for my own personal crafting lately. It's not all a bad thing though as I'm still having fun and getting to craft a lot.... just not on personal stuff. I'm hoping to remedy that soon as I have a couple of non-Stampin' Up projects in the pipeline at the moment.

More of that another day though as I've just realised what the time is! I shall have to rush off and get a couple of things done before I retire to bed. Thanks for popping by and leaving a comment. They really lifted my mood last time and I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts again!

Part 1: The girls

I promised you an update on all our comings and goings during 2010, however, it's been harder to put together than I anticipated! Firstly, I'm so out of practise with this whole blogging thing that the words dont seem to flow very well. Secondly, I wanted to include some photo's but then realised that, along with blogging, organising my photo's isn't one of my forté's so I felt the need to sort and organise first! (Procrastination, however, IS one of my strong points!) However, being the numpty that I am I somehow managed to delete almost my whole Picture folder!! So I have spent ages using various free programmes off the web to restore all those memories that I lost... and then because the programme just dumped it all in once place I've had to go through and sort it all out again! Methinks I should just have posted the update and ignored the mess on my hard-drive!

Anyway, now that photo's have been recovered and restored and reorganised and re-sorted I shall finally do this blogging thing again! Thanks for all your patience!!

So in January 2010 - which is about the last time I mentioned either of them in a blog post - Herself was 4½ years old and still at nursery. She was very much looking forward to her birthday in July and starting 'big school' in August although she was still rather enjoying nursery!

The Little One was only 16 months old and had only just gotten the hang of walking!

In May the girls enjoyed having Grandma and Grandad around for a visit from Down South. Especially as Grandad is always up for a bit of this:

In June Herself performed in the nursery 'end of year' play and did really well! Never the shy, retiring type she was very pleased to be given a 'solo' part!

As the weather improved we all spent more time out in the garden, which Himself and my Little Bro had childproofed for the girls.

We also went on holiday where Herself started learning to ride the bicycle ....

..... and so did the Little One!

In July, my pre-schooler turned 5!!

.... and so she officially became old enough for 'big school' which she duly started in August. There was quite a bit of excitement from Herself on the big day (and a fair few tears from myself!)...

Meanwhile the Little One had progressed to running everywhere and talking ten-to-the-dozen. She turned 2 in September!

In October we had a lovely (if somewhat chilly!) day picking apples in the back garden.

With all the snow bringing so much disruption in November, we ended up staying at home a lot! We tried building a snowman but the Little One didn't enjoy the experience!!

Gosh, I can't believe what a fun year we've had with our two growing girls! It has been fun, frantic and very special. I wouldn't have missed it for anything!

Finally, I leave you with this image. The Little One has been brushing up on her computer skills so she can take over the blogging from her mother. Perhaps this way you might get more regular updates!!

Thanks for your patience and thanks for dropping by! Later this week I shall be updating about my weight loss progress. It will be significantly LESS photo-heavy I promise!!

January Craft Update

I'm amazed! I have actually managed to get some scrapping and cardmaking done this past month. Wonders will never cease! There are a few things which I didn't get any photo's of; the last CJ that I did, for example. I'm working on another one at the moment, but will probably forget to take a photo again. I usually do, simply because I'm usually in a rush to get it to the Post Office. It's only after I have posted it off that I remember - by which time it's too late! The other thing I don't have any photo's for yet, is my weight loss journal that I'm just finishing off at the moment. Once it's done I shall take some piccies for you to look at.

Until then, you will have to make do with pictures of a few cards and one LO that I did this month. It's not much of an output, but it's more than I've done in quite a long time!

I made these three cards all at the same time. One for my friend's birthday and her hubby's birthday (they're only a few days apart) and then also one for my SIL's hubby who is around the same time. 

Then I also made one for my FIL's birthday which is in early February. He's a massive Beatles fan (as he went to uni in Liverpool when the Beatles were still gigging there) - and as he's turning 64 hubby commissioned me to do a card based on the song "When I'm 64" from the Yellow Submarine album. The inside of the card has the words of the song printed inside. Hubby was pleased with the results!

I somehow managed to find a few days where my Mojo returned for a bit of scrapping too, so I did this scraplifted LO. It was based on a LO that has been in my UKS favourites folder for ages! It worked really well and was lovely to do a LO about my baby girl growing up! Unfortunately I can't remember who did the original - so if you know please give me a shout so I can credit her!!

Anyway, I hope everyone out there is having a fabulously crafty time! I'm going to go finish off my weight loss journal so that I can update you all on that a bit later!

December Catch Up : Advent Calendar

 From this... 

To this...

Its only taken me two years to complete, but I finally managed to finish this advent calendar which I gave to my Sister-in-Law and her family just before the Advent season. I have another one waiting to be done for our family. Hopefully it won't be another two years before we get to use ours!

JYC Prompt 28

My favourite Christmas indulgence... baked goodies! Shop bought or home baked I don't mind which! Mind you, home baked is definitely better!

I'm still trying to catch up with all the JYC Prompts that I've missed. Its going to take some time though as I'm waaaay behind!

Revisiting....

Since having started blogging again just recently, I have been reading back on some of my old posts and marvelling at how much has changed in such a relatively short time. Its amazing to see how my perspective has changed on events, how my hopes and dreams have changed and how even small things have morphed into something completely different. This post  ,for example, was inspired by a blog prompt that was shared on UKScrappers - an event that no longer happens due to people going their seperate ways. The topic? Handbag envy... lol.

What a change three years can make! I'm still a jeans girl, but the trainers have gone out the window. Crocs, Birkenstocks, walking boots and a lovely pair of leather mules are in. My pockets are currently empty, and have been for quite a while now. Mostly because they've been well and truly been replaced by.... a handbag! Oh My gosh! Having two kids now I find I have far too many things to carry, especially as there is usually a baby who also needs carrying at the same time. So, its easier to have a bag hanging off my arm while the baby sits on my hip, the keys are carried in the same hand and the 4 year old is being controlled with the other hand. Yes, I've become SUPER-MUM! Well, not quite... What I am tho', is a mum who now does school runs and toddler group on the same day followed by baby swimming lessons the day after and various other groups throughout the week. Not forgetting the nursery open day, parent-teacher conferences, play dates, birthday parties and school concerts.

The contents of my pockets are still present... the bank cards that used to sit in my pocket now line themselves up neatly in my wallet; the reciepts overflow and the change keeps escaping - but the wallet is being used. However, wallets dont fit conveniently into pockets - so into the handbag it goes. The mobile phone has also migrated to the handbag too, except now I can never find it. Somehow it always escapes from the specially designed mobile phone pocket (which was my whole inspiration for buying this particular handbag!) and makes its way down to the bottom of the bag. And its never in the section I'm looking in when its ringing, so consequently I usually find it a few seconds after it has transferred my caller to voicemail. The keys are usually to be found at the bottom of the bag too, usually making mad attempts at scratching the mobile phone's screen or grabbing at the fabric lining of the bag in a ,usually, successful attempt at ripping it all to shreds. The one thing though that really has changed, and which really sparked the purchase of a handbag... is the PDA. Yup, I've gone all electronic. My poor mushed baby-brain can no longer cope with having to remember all the appointments on its own and I have given up and resorted to using an electronic nagging device to remember it all for me. Its very handy as it keeps all my appointments, contact details, birthday reminders, notes, shopping lists etc. all in one handy place and it beeps at me when I need to remember things. Well, it should do.... unless you let the battery go completely flat as I did last week! In which case, you will find that it loses every last piece of data you had ever entered into it and you are left with a useless lump of plastic that has reverted to default factory settings, thus making you miss one very important appointment, several birthdays and leaves you having to rewrite your whole Christmas list. Unfortunately this wonderful piece of technology is too large for pockets which means that I ended up buying a handbag... and finding that actually, I can make it work for me!  Its just all the stuff inside the handbag that overwhelms me now!!

I'm back!

Wow, doesn't time fly? Over a year ago I had a new babe in my arms, sleepless nights were in progress and we were just getting used to having a new member in our family. Now I find that we are finally more settled and I realise I haven't updated the blog at all in 14 months! Ouch. In fact, I had actually let my subscription go rather than keep paying for something I wasn't using. However, I'm back on my feet again... life is getting to be as normal as its ever going to be, and I feel the need to share it with you!

So, In order to get myself back into blogging mode, I've signed up for a class with  Shimelle (love her classes!) all about Blogging. Feel free to take part too, as its not too late yet to sign up! As part of this class we're being provided with 3 weeks worth of blogging prompts and technical know-how to make our blogs more reader friendly. I hope that you will come back and share this experience with me? I'm hoping to blog at least two or three times a week as a minimum. Hopefully, I'll be able to do more tho'... it just depends on how inspiring I find the daily prompts! 

Also, as part of my return to blogging, I'm going to be looking at the possibilities of moving the blog to an alternate site. This all depends on how much I can manage to do with this one as I would love to have a blog that looks a little more 'me' rather than having the bog standard template as provided by TypePad!

So, hopefully I'll see you over the next three weeks!

(image source)

Nearly 3 weeks ago.....

...we added another member to our family! Let sleepless nights commence!

I went into the hospital with contractions 4 minutes apart only to be told that I wasn't in labour. However, they decided not to send me home immediately as they wanted to monitor the baby. The monitoring revealed that the baby's heartrate wasn't doing what they wanted and that the foetal movements were down too. After several hours of them saying that they were going to send me home once the monitoring was done, they suddenly decided that they wanted to induce as they weren't happy with the monitoring results. Four hours after the drip was started a beautiful 8lb baby girl called Cecily Rowan was delivered. She had the cord wrapped around her neck twice, but other than that there were no other complications at birth. Our only concern was that she seemed a little sleepy and struggled to feed. This concern continued for another 2 days until they discovered that she was jaundiced. An extra two days in hospital gave them time to give her some photo therapy for the jaundice and got feeding a bit better established. Nearly 3 weeks later feeding seems well established and she is gaining weight well. I just wish we could say that she was still sleepy tho' as she has now decided to wake up and make her presence felt. 

Unfortunately most of her waking seems to be done at 5am and her sleeping is done during the day. Somehow we have to figure out how to turn that around so that her waking hours coincide with ours... but I rather think that's going to take some time!

Anyway, here's a few pictures of our newest bundle!

Mojo Convention

I recently asked a question on UKScrappers: "Is there a mojo convention somewhere? Cause mine seems to have disappeared to sunnier climes to meet up with other mojo's!" My scrapping mojo has gone. Well, actually, its not just applicable to scrapping... unfortunately my mojo also influenced my ability to type stuff on my blog too! So, my most sincere apologies to all those people who have been looking at this page eagerly for an update, only to find the longest silence in the history of blogs.

There is, happily, a very good reason for this sudden lack of mojo.... I'm pregnant! Yup, #2 is on the way and is expected on or around the 3rd September. Which when I first intended to tell you seemed ages away; but now is far too close for my liking! Unfortunately for me, lack of mojo goes hand-in-hand with being pregnant... as I found out with #1. I was doing a Fine Arts course when I fell pregnant with herself, but found it impossible to complete as I kept just staring dumbly at the paints and canvas. Now this time, my scrapping has completely stopped, my writing has stopped and all creative thought has completely failed to materialise. Its only in the last week or so that I've picked up my knitting again and made a very feeble attempt at scrapping - which has yet to be completed. Someone on UKScrappers mentioned that they had checked on here and found it quiet, so I figured I needed to somehow get typing again. Well, at least for long enough to update here!

The second reason for my lack of updating is that my PC has been packed away. We have converted the study/scraproom back into a usable bedroom and all the study stuff; including PC, books, scrapping stuff etc has all been put into storage. This is because we have put our house on the market. There is a long, involved explanation/background to this decision - but the upshot is that himself has transferred with his company to Glasgow and we are moving back up to Scotland. Himself has already started work and we are currently living with my parents while our house sells. We are hoping for an offer any day now as we have had a fair amount of interest and viewings. I'm trying to resist looking at houses here in Kilsyth until our house has been sold. I just know that if I start viewing houses I'm going to fall in love with one and not be able to do anything about it until our own house has sold. However, patience is not one of my virtues so I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be able to resist! I shall have to tell you the whole story of our move up here at a later date, but as its incredibly long it will have to wait.

Other than that, I'm afraid all the rest I have to report would be mundane, boring, everyday stuff. Our focus so far this year has pretty much been to get ourselves out of Bradford and up to Glasgow, so everything else seems to have paled into insignificance.

I hope your life is a little less hectic than mine is at the moment!

It's only a little thing....

Just wanted to say "Hey" to everyone. Haven't had much time to blog lately, it seems like January has been just as busy as December was. I had been hoping for a nice quiet and leisurely month after the manic rushing around of last month. However, things never really pan out the way you had imagined do they? Anyway, I figured I'd just catch up a little and let you know that I'm still on the planet. I have some news to share, it's rather exciting really but I'm going to keep really quiet about it today. I'll let you in on the secret tomorrow as I'm hoping I'll have a picture to accompany the post by tomorrow afternoon. I just need to get it taken. So, pop back tomorrow for some super news!!

Oops I did it again...

How bad am I at updating? Terrible, I know! Feel free to reprimand me in any way you feel inclined to! I suddenly realised how bad I was when both my Sister-in-law and my Dad both asked me when I was going to update again. Oops!

Anyway, so here I am. Its been a manic few weeks. We've been away on holiday, been to a Ruby Wedding Anniversary 'do', my parents have moved house, my in-laws have found a new house and started a new job,  my sister has graduated university and landed herself a brilliant job, had two major announcements from family members and some sadness thrown in too. As I 'speak' I'm currently in Glasgow where my parents moved to. I am staying here for two weeks - having brought herself with to spend time with 'Ouma' and 'Oupa'. Himself, on the other hand, is still at home. He's working during the day and then spending his evenings doing DIY to finish off some projects that were started well over a year ago. The only way to actually get things done is to take herself and myself out of the picture completely... as toddlers and doing DIY quickly do not seem to go hand-in-hand.

The holiday was great. We joined my parents for a 9-day camping break in Northumberland. The campsite wasn't up to much and not to the standard we have enjoyed at other CCClub sites, however, the area was stunningly beautiful. When the weather co-operated (and sometimes even when it didn't) we did loads of walking, saw some stunning castles and beautiful views, went to plenty of National Trust properties, went to Alnwick Gardens - which was amazing, and even flew some kites! Oh, and I almost forgot.... we also went to Lindisfarne... wow what an awesome place that was! Here's a piccie or two from our hols.

My sister graduated university this summer having gotten a 2:1 in her Contemporary History with Journalism degree from Queen Mary University in London. My parents, brother and her partner Alex attended the ceremony in July. Unfortunately due to limited places being made available by the university Himself and Myself were unable to attend. We were there in spirit tho' and are really proud that she has accomplished so much. During the remainder of the summer my sister applied to various companies for jobs and finally started her new job on a graduate training programme with DeLloyds, one of the top five auditing/accounting companies in London.

After only 4 weeks of working for DeLloyds she found out that she was pregnant. Wow! What a shock that was! However, it was short-lived. After 3 weeks of complete emotional rollercoaster ride, she miscarried. Everyone's initial reaction to the pregnancy was a bit reserved due to the timing of it. We were all concerned about how her employers would react, however, they have been brilliant. Our reaction to the miscarriage is shock and sadness... we had gotten used to the idea of another little body in our family. I think my sister and her man were just getting used to the idea too. They are saddened and grieving - naturally, but I know that they'll come through this time too. Our heartfelt condolences go out to them.

The other shock announcement came from my brother (the one flying the kite in the picture above). It seems that he has decided to apply to the Army. That decision has completely suprised me as I didn't think it would be the type of thing he would be interested in doing. At the moment, his application is going well and he is currently working on his fitness for the physical tests. He has to undertake endurance and strength tests and has to make a certain grade for acceptance onto the next stage of his application process. We wish him all the best for this process.

Anyway, That's about all I have to share at the moment. I will try to update more often from now on!! Feel free to email me with your tirade or post on the comments section about how disappointed you are in my updating skills!

OMGosh! I'm sooooo sorry!

Wow, I really have to apologise to all of you for not posting for so long! There has been so much going on, I've not been able to keep up with it... nevermind blogging about it!  I will attempt to catch up on all the happenings over the next few days or so.

Let's start with our camping endeavours! Our first trip I have already talked about, but hadn't gotten round to posting any piccies. Want to see?? OK....

Erin enjoying the 'tampin' - as she calls it!

My parents tent, which we borrowed

Erin feeding the goats

Mummy and Erin on the See-Saw... I think Mummy enjoyed it more than Erin did!!

I shall update on the rest of our camping endeavours in another post as it seems that Typepad is objecting to me posting so many photo's!  See you later!

Honey, I'm home!

Oh My Giddy Aunt! How long has it been??  Well, the two weeks suddenly turned into 5 weeks... mostly due to horrible plasterwork that was lurking under all that 80's wallpaper.  Yup, you guessed it... 1930's horsehair plaster!! Ugh!! What a nightmare that was to work with!  Everytime we filled and sanded one patch, another patch crumbled... we did eventually catch up with it tho'... until we put a coat of white paint on, to find sooooo many more crevases suddenly showed themselves.  We also had to have the ceiling replastered due to finding artexing hiding behind the wallpaper - (I wish now that I'd had the money to replaster the walls too).  However, all the hardwork is now finished and is soooooo worth it.  The room looks FAB!  I'll have to take few pictures later on this week to show you, but want himself to get a few finishing touches installed before I take them.  Also, it needs a serious tidy up as I've just dumped my scrapping and art stuff on the shelves... Need to make another trip to IKEA for storage boxes. Not sure himself is going to be too pleased with that idea - considering how much I've spent at IKEA just recently!

The other reason that it's taken so long is that we've had loads of weekends being taken up with other stuff... like seeing friends, going camping, visiting family, going shopping... oh and the UKS Mad Hatters Cybercrop!!

Camping
The camping was seriously good fun!  Thanks to Tim, Tammy, Sarah and Jonathan for wanting to take us newbies along.   Six adults and 4 kids in 3 tents near Birmingham made for a really great weekend.  I realised that the last time I'd been camping was 14 years ago!!  Himself, on the other hand, had NEVER been camping. We borrowed my parents camping gear, just to try it out and see if we enjoyed the experience. Needless to say, we came back from that weekend away, completely hooked! Which meant we simply HAD to go shopping for a tent the following weekend.  Managed to get a great deal, but now need to get all the other stuff... before July when we go camping with the 'crowd' again.

Oh, ought to mention that we had our 7th Wedding Anniversary during the camping weekend too.  What a day that was... we spent all day in Cadbury World eating chocolate!!  It was a great experience... not particularly romantic, but definitely very delicious!

Visiting Friends and Family
What can I say about this?? You go, you stay, you chat and eat and drink and sleep. You do a few interesting things (such as Crich Tramway Museum and a lovely old windmill) and you get to meet a new little 5 month old friend, who was just gorgeous!!  Bronwyn was born 13th December to our friends Nick and Wendy... what a beautiful baby she is!! I even got to have a cuddle without her crying too much, which only made me broody again! LOL. I think I can wait for another one, but then I see a new little baby and it sets me off all over again!

Some friends from Inverness came to visit us too, in the past week.  What a joy it was to see them.  It was lovely just to have a good chat, do some shopping and see the kids playing together.

UKS Mad Hatters Cybercrop
Oh what a fabby job was done by the leadership team on UKScrappers again for this cybercrop.  Yet again the classes were fabulous and the LO's produced were gorgeous.  I temporarily moved all my scrapping stuff down to Tammy's house where the two of us spent the whole weekend producing yummy new Layouts. The menfolk entertained themselves and our little monster for the whole weekend. What bliss! No kids, lots of scrapping, lots of chatting and lots and lots of hot chocolate to drink.  Sooo looking forward to the next one!!

Well, that's about it I think.  I shall be updating regularly again, now that I have my PC back and the room all nicely decorated around it.  Hopefully I'll see you all around!!

PS. Pictures to follow as soon as I've downloaded them all from various cameras and mobile phones!

Long time no see

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted! Much has happened, but on the other hand nothing particularly notable has happened either! Confused? Me too!

It was himself's birthday on the 19th. I keep telling him he's doing ok for a 110 year old! LOL... that doesn't impress him much.  He got loads of money which he put towards buying himself a lovely Canon 300D DSLR camera. He still has enough left over to buy himself a few accessories to go with it too.  I guess it means tho' that I will inherit his little compact that he got as a birthday present a few years back... although I'm looking enviously at the DSLR.  Perhaps I can convince him to let me borrow it?  Maybe if I get myself on a course? Hmmmm... I don't think he's going to let me touch it for a while never mind letting me take it out of his sight to a course where I might try to do wierd stuff to it!  Saying that, the poor man has yet to find the time to properly read the instruction manual. Believe me, it's a bit more complicated than our point-and-shoot compact!  Mind you, there is an upside to it being HIS camera.... it means that now I might be able to get IN the photo rather than being the one taking the photo.  Maybe I can actually start on the scrapping item known as a BOM? (A Book of Me for all you confused non-scrapping people out there)  Up to now my problem has always been that I'm the one behind the camera rather than infront of it.  Finding photo's of me for a BOM has been a problem so far!  Hopefully not anymore!

Must say thanks to all the friends and family who contributed to the camera, I'm sure we'll all enjoy the benefits even if some of us aren't allowed to use it!

On another topic entirely, there is a little discussion going on on the UKS forum at the moment about whether or not people would sell framed Layouts.  It's got me thinking... do you think people would pay to have their treasured photo's nicely scrapped and then framed to hang on the wall? Would they pay for a whole album to be done?  Would you? How much would you pay to have your memories preserved? Let me know your thoughts as this sounds like an ideal way to spend my time and maybe get a bit of pin money in.  Not sure it would be profitable enough to do as a 'career' tho'.

I'm off now methinks. I have to wake herself up or else we'll get no sleep tonight! I promise I won't leave it so long next time between postings.  I have a new LO that I want to show you anyway, but need to get a better photo of it. Perhaps himself will let me use his flashy new camera to take it?? Or perhaps not!

Getting Started

I realised today that the last 6 months have been pretty hectic and that half my friends don't have a clue as to what we've been up to. So, I've joined the ranks of the blogging army. I'm only a small recruit in this army of millions, but hopefully I'll be able to keep up! My postings will not be regular, but will happen rather as and when things happen in our lives that friends and family might be interested in.... I may also have the occasional rant or reflection. I may be proud and show stuff off or I might just bore you to tears! It will all depend on how the mood takes me... so don't expect regular contributions or even ones that make any sense!!
So here it is... my first post!! It's not much, but it's a start! I think I will have to take some photo's and update you all on what has happened in the last 6 months. See you back here soon!