Tuesday 31 August 2010

Scrapping with I Did It Creations: Challenge 6

This fortnights challenge is "Books" over at Scrapping with I did it Creations. Just make a scrapbook layout - any size, any style, but it must involve books.

I made a page about Zack dressing up as Charlie bone for World Book Day. I tried to make it look like a book in the same style as the Charlie Bone front pages are done.

Have you seen those cute little mice & books in the bottom right corner? They balance the page up nicely and give it its "triangle" for the eye to follow round the page. They were part of our DT challenge and are one of the Stitchy Bear images, who is also sponsoring this challenge, kindly donating a $5 voucher to spend on their products. I coloured them in, as usual, with promarkers.
I added foam pads to the back of the books to make them stand out, on the page.
I took a tag from my stash pile and inked it up with purple and gold ink to make it match the page better and added a tassle so it was a bit more bookmark like. I the wrote my journalling on it.

So hows about joining us over at Scrapping with I Did It Creations, & if your stuck visit the other members of the design team for inspiration (follow the links in my side bar)

Monday 30 August 2010

Summer Fun - Week 5

The holidays are now passing fast, but theres still time for lots of fun.

1. Attractions a bit further a field
My brother & his partner kindly took us to Bridgenorth Festival Party for the day. The weather was fabulous and the kids enjoyed the rides (my pocket didnt, everything was soooo expensive). We took a picnic with us which we had while watching some of the performances & waiting for Justin Fletcher (aka Mr Tumble). Unfortuantely the field was too big for 1 man to stand in doing stuff (it was very hard to see him even at the front) and in normal clothes the kids barely recognised him .. so we went off to the rides again. Zack did get to hold a bird of pray & a Tarantula though.
Afterwards we went looking around Bridgenorth, at the very crooked castle, in the gardens, the kids played in the bandstand and Kai made a little friend. They climbed trees, & ate kebabs from the local - very nice - kebab shop. We also went on the Cliff Railway which made me shudder, lol.

2. Scrapbooking
Zack finished off his Scrapbook pages and wants to do more in the future.

3. Off to the city
We took the children to Birmingham to go to the Sealife Centre. This was Kai's first train journey. Though he enjoyed it I think he was a little disappointed that it wasnt like Thomas the Tank Engine.
As it was quite a long journey I packed crayons and a pad for Kai, and a quiz book for Zack which kept both of them quiet.
When we got there it was raining, and we were told that the queue into Sealife was an hour & a half :-O There was no way my 2 would wait patiently to go in, so we went for a bite of warm food and to dry off instead. We had a little look round and got the kids a box of Jelly Bellys each. This kept them busy on the way home trying to guess the flavours.
We have promised to take the kids back later in the year, and arrive MUCH earlier to hopefully beat the crowd.

4. Fabric Painting
While in Brum the kids were given a free cotton bag from Microsoft with colouring goodies in it. I immediately decided the bags would be lovely to draw on.
The next day I put newspaper inside them and set the lads free with some fabric pens and fabric paint. It kept them busy for quite a while, even though the colours they had to use were limited.
So now theres only a week left, what have you been upto?

Blackberry Mess

My apologies for the lack of posts lately, I have been suffering from migraines so have been avoiding monitors as much as possible. But without further ado, my recipe for blackberry mess.
Ingredients
Blackberrys - as many as you want
1 pint double or whipping cream
4tbsp icing sugar
8 meringues (bought or homemade)
4tbsp water

Method
Upto an hour in advance of serving simmer up a small handful of blackberries with the 4tbsp of water until the juices flow and you get a lovely sauce - leave this to cool down.

Whip up the cream into peaks, then whip/stir in the icing sugar.
Crumble the meringues into chunks and stir in. Taste the mixture to see if its sweet enough, if it isnt add a bit more icing sugar & taste again.
Fold in your remaining blackberrys gently, if you stir too much then you wont be able to taste the cream.
When ready serve and pour the sauce over the top.

You can add other fruit as well, or try with totally different fruit.

Saturday 21 August 2010

Summer Fun: week 4

This week has been fairly peaceful with Zack cracking on with painting his room and Kai playing with his trains and farm animals.

1. Blackberry picking
Blackberries are in season at the moment and it doesnt take us much of a walk to find quite a nice lot of them. I told the kids to wear long sleeved T-shirts to prevent them getting stung by nettles or their arms scratched so Zack goes one better & wears a thin polo top.
2. Local Animals / wildlifeWhile picking blackberries we kind of got very distracted by 3 horses in a nearby field. All were very tame and were happy to be fed grass the kids pulled up for them (remembering the "keep you hand flat" rule). Everytime we went back to blackberry picking the horse in the photo would neigh loudly to call us back.

3. Blackberry Mess

Because of being distracted we ended up not picking many blackberries (we shall return another day for more) but there was enough for them to make Blackberry Mess (like Eton mess but with blackberries instead of strawberries). Oh my word it was YUM!! I shall post the recipe on monday for anyone who wants to try it.

4. Chalking Outside
While the weather was dry both children enjoyed using chalks on our slabs (thanks Carmen for the idea), as did I. I found the big chunky chalks lasted a lot longer than normal size ones which lasted about 2 minutes.

5. Trampolining / Photo fun
Most days both Zack and Kai go on the trampoline (even in the rain) but this time I took the camera out and told them to jump after 3, as they jumped I pressed the button to take a photo then showed them the result. We did it lots of times with them jumping in different ways to catch them mid-flight. Some of them look really funny with the faces they pull without knowing when they jump.

6. Carrot cake
We did a bit more cooking, making carrot cake this time. We made one large one & six muffin sized & it was so lovely & light. Kai got upset because he wanted to eat all the raw mix and not cook any of it whereas Zack was surprised you couldnt taste the carrots at all. I explained to Zack that it was an old way of sweetening food that dated back to the greeks but was reintroduced into the British diet with war rationing.

7. Gluing
Kai wanted to do some gluing so I got out some boxes I'd been saving for just such an occassion, along with empty loo rolls, pie tins, sequins and pasta shapes. He made a lovely robot (with a tiny bit of help to make it stick properly) which is drying nicely ready to paint another day.

8. Scrapbooking
While Kai was doing that I got Zack making a scrapbook page we'd talked about for a little while (he didnt want to build anything out of boxes). I showed him a few layouts & talked to him about looking at the photos, stickers, paper etc and jotting ideas down on paper before finalising a page. Also about putting paper etc on top of each other to check the colours go.
He designed a great sketch which you can see the start of his layout above. I got him to hand write the journalling so that when hes older he can see what his handwriting used to be like.

Thanks to Nicky & Carmen again for your wonderful links. Please dont be shy peeps, add your links & let us all see what you've been upto this summer holidays.


Friday 20 August 2010

Pose

I used this sketch from Scrap and Stamp to create this...... I wanted the backing paper to look camera film but in keeping with the dotty theme I had going. The dots reminded me of a camera lense, or the dots you can get before your eyes as the flash goes off.
I added a few more dots by adding card candy in the top right and bottom left to add a bit more interest and lead into the centre.

I had run out of 'S's so I stamped one, then cut it out, (I wasnt brave enough to stamp it straight onto the page) I think it works quite well :)

Thursday 19 August 2010

Wonderland

I have been forcing myself to Scrap lately to try and get my mojo back, I think my mojo is linked to my moods & my moods are linked to the weather. Lately the weathers been a tiny bit better so I have been feeling a tad more crafty. I've been looking around for ideas & prompts as I go along when I came across the latest EtsyInspired Challenge. It was to make something inspired by the etsy shop Lovers Dovers .. well those gorgeous costumes just yelled at me to make a Wonderland experience, especially as I'd got photos from trips to Wonderland (a local theme park). It truely was a labour of love and got me all excited.

The cards are from a mini pack of my sons that I guessed would have cards missing so I offered to buy him a new set next time we were shopping if I could have his incomplete set.
The cheshire cat is combining 3d decoupage with paper piecing.
The caterpillar is made up of circular pieces of card. I added a bit of glossy accents to his antennae and monicle to make them stand out a little more.
I painted white thickers red except for the last letter to represent the cards painting the roses in Alice in Wonderland. I destressed them a little as it is a rather old book now, lol (plus I was enjoying playing)
Unfortunately I did the page without thinking of how the photos were going to be placed and it took me AGES to figure how to put them but along with the journalling I think they worked in the end.

I would like to enter this into the Etsy Inspired Challenge,
And the Studio Challenge as I've used 10 different types of paper (11 if you count the cards)

Monday 16 August 2010

Flowers

Theres a lot been going on over at Scrapping With I Did It Creations behind the scenes. Our main sponsor, I did it Creations, has joined up with Stitchy Bear to become Stitchy Bear & I Did It Creations Crafting Boutique ... & they even have an end of summer sale on!!

Not only that but Scrapping With I Did It Creations is having a Design Team Call, if you would like to join us gals on the Design Team to do Scrap pages, either digital or traditional please email Jeanette at: jeanette_wtrs@yahoo.com with Scrapping DT in the subject line.

So on to this fortnights challenge, and the theme is flowers. We were given some gorgeous digital sheets by Stampin Dragon Designs who is this fortnights sponsor (& is also kindly offering 46% off in the end of summer sale) called Gentle Waves.

Well, flowers brings to mind my garden which I love so I did a 2 page layout using one of the green digi sheets - green for the leaves, then a brown bazzil sheet I had to mount the photos on, brown for soil.




I added some little 3d decoupage bugs I had to pretty-fy the page up a lil (or should that be pretty-fly **groan**)


Please come & join us over at Scrapping with I Did It Creations with your flowery layouts before Aug 30th for a chance of winning $5 coupon to spend on your choice of Stampin Dragon products.

Saturday 14 August 2010

Summer Fun: week 3

Boredom is starting to slowly creep up, the kids havent mentioned it but Zacks actions are starting to show towards the end of this week that next week I shall definately have to do more projects.

1. Painting
We did painting in the garden with rollers, stamps and sponges. Neither rain nor sun was going to stop us (we continued painting even in a quick shower of rain). For more photos look here.

2. Blowing Bubbles

We spent ages in the garden blowing bubbles using a bubble gun and 2 bubble swords I bought in poundland (most places its 1 for 99p, on poundland it was a set of 2)
(More piccies here)

3. Climbing The Wrekin & a Picnic
The Wrekin is a local attraction, surrounded by the most amazing views. The views are so wonderful that its actually what J.R.Tolkien based the Shire on in Lord of the Rings. All 3 of us walked to the top and had a picnic just before we reached the sumit. Zack was amazed by the views and enjoyed climbing the trees whereas Kai enjoyed collecting pinecones, the freedom and trying to climb trees.
(more photos and a links to info on The Wrekin here)

4. Marshmallow Muffins

We got the recipe from Alys blog, Life's Laundry. Hers look much nicer but that could be to do with Zack misunderstanding the recipe, he though 3oz sugar meant 30 ounzes, oops! So I had to scoop quite a lot of sugar out the bowl & I think a bit of the baking powder went with it. They still tasted gorgeous though and go even more amazingly with custard poured over the top.

5. Painting...
..of the room is still going on, though we've had a few mishaps, such as the paint tray being spilt all over the floor (thank goodness for cheap laminate flooring), paint covered clothes being dropped onto clean clothing (luckily only a bit of paint went on them and I spotted it quick enough to scrub off).

Please use Linky Tools below to show us any activities you've been upto this week with your children.

Friday 13 August 2010

Sing...

For this layout I used the sketch over at Creative Craft World, Sue's Challenge

I started off by using some thickers on the sheet and then spray painting (literally with spray paint) over them, heavier over the letters and letting it fade out a bit, then removed the letters leaving the word "Sing...". It wasnt very clearly so I highlighted it slightly with white gel pen.

I cut out 2 musical notes, exactly the same except one was in black, the other in red, then overlapped them. I used the round part of the note to add my journalling in white gel pen.

I added the 3 photos of Zack, and found the page looked rather bare so I coloured in some peel offs with red & black marker pen, then stuck them on in a triangle shape.

I finished off by using the outline of a peel off of a microphone and using it as a mask, colouring it in with the red marker pen.


I would like to enter this into...

Sue's challenge over at Creative Craft World
Sunday 1st August challenge over at The studio challenges
Crazy 4 challenges C4c50

Wednesday 11 August 2010

Want to try wednesday

This Wednesday its more of a what I WANT wednesday. I want more of this....

Please come back sunny days, I want to go blackberry picking, I want to go to a nice sunny beach, or play in the park without getting wet. I think this lack of sun is also getting to peoples moods, so many people are feeling down atm (myself included) but I'm wondeing if its because its been so grey lately.

The weather doesnt normally stop us from doing things though, such as on monday we were painting on paper in the garden, it began to rain but I told the kids not to worry, they'd have to have a bath after anyway so a bit of rain wont hurt, it was warm anyway.

What are you guys wanting this week?

Tuesday 10 August 2010

The bells 'r' gonna chime....

...well, probably not as I want a castle/ruin setting but anyway, lol, ...

Kate over at Make My Day UK has done a FABULOUS mood board for my wedding.

To curb the anger & wrath of any relatives and friends who want to know why they havent been invited yet its because a date is not set yet, we have other priorities for our money before getting married, such as getting me driving, being totally debt free etc etc Though myself & Ryan have discussed ideas.

Kate has got me down to a T..
I LOVE how the bridesmaid dresses match the wedding dress, something I hadnt considered. The bouquet is perfect, just the colours I was after. I want a mad hatters tea party now, lol, this is where Kate shows she really knows my style, OH & I want to get married on Samhain (halloween) & plan to have a fancy dress party .... I bet Kate's brain would explode with so many ideas for that one. The mismatched china & teapot idea is FAB, not only would it look great as a mad hatters tea party but with donations from family, friends, and freecycle it would also save a bomb on glass hire.

Thank you so much for my mood board Kate, I think you have encapsulated my style perfectly and have given me a lot to think about :) xx

Please hop on over to Make My Day UK & follow Kates journey from the beginning into the wedding business.

Celebrate Life

Frosted Designs set the challenge to do a page that "celebrates life", I thought a page for Kaidys naming ceremony would be perfect.

Some of you who read my other blog will already know, but for the benefit of those who dont..
Kaidy was born 10 weeks premature, she was in the intensive care unit for a while, all wired up and having everything done for her. She grew well & was released from the hospital. Shortly after it was discovered she had Hydrocephalus (water on the brain), she had to have brain surgery to have a shunt fitted to drain the fluid. She already had a small amount of brain damage that caused her mobility problems in her one hand so they used this to drill through to attach the tube. This has possibly caused more mobility problems with her one leg but was obviously necessary. If her shunt is banged she has to be rushed to hospital with her notes within 20 minutes.

For such a little baby she has been through so much, but you'd never know it to look at her. She is always smiling, and is chirpy as anything, so it was nice to celebrate her 1st birthday and her naming ceremony.

Not only that but family came that we hadnt seen for years, including Grandad Alf. In the photos you can see 4 generations of the family.

As you can see I used a lot of different dotty papers, I think this will be a theme for Kaidys pages as when she was born my brother, her dad, said she was just a little dot, and the name stuck.
The pictures are inorder they were taken in, and as the main subject I put a large photo of Kaidy.

I used a photo for the title, this was on the wall behind where the ceremony took place. I cut it out and put it at an angle to make it stand out a little bit more.

Saturday 7 August 2010

Summer fun - week 2

Week 2 & my children havent uttered the B word yet (bored)!!! I think the main reason behind this for my eldest is .....
1. Decorating
... his own room. I let him have some imput in the colours etc (it was decided to have it white to make it look bright & big, with 1 pale grey wall, and have accesories to add colour that could change as he got older). & with a lot of guidance on how to paint, e.g sand first, clean up, paint thin layers allowing to dry properly imbetween etc. Even with as much covered as possible he is still managing to get paint everywhere, such as my step ladder ALL over his clothes etc, (luckily they are old clothes) but thats part of the fun & its not really hurting anything.

2. Paper shapes
While Zack paints I''ve been supervising Kai with scissors. They are specially developed for very young hands, with rounded edges etc, and as hes not usually allowed scissors so was very excited about this project. He's enjoyed cutting shapes out of coloured paper. We keep these in a tub and he now uses them to make pictures and colour on.

3. Playscheme - making a costume out of scraps
Zack has been going to play scheme for a couple of hours each day this week and the one day he came home looking like this...
They could help themselves to a large pile of off cut materials, cardboard and string to make a costume. He made himself a ninja turtle outfit. He enjoyed making it though was a little embarrassed walking home like it, but he couldnt undo the knots. Kai loves it though and keeps wearing it.

4.Borrowing Games
I dont like my children spending too much time glued infront of the box but I do think a limited amount of time playing video games can help with hand to eye coordination, strategies and problem solving - also keep fit if you have certain games on the wii.

We are very lucky that we have quite an extensive list of games we can borrow from various places including trusted family and friends. Zack also will take his games into Gamestation to trade in when hes bored of them (I'm not sure if you need an adult to do this, my OH works there so would act as Zacks adult accomplice)

5.Salt Dough
I made up some play dough for my children to play with, its as simple as

1 cup of salt (this can a cup of any size, not the american "cup" measurement)
3 cups of plain flour
1 cup of water.
Mix them all together until they form a ball, if too wet/sticky add more flour, if too dry add a little more water.
I have a draw full of cookie cutters, which you can see on the floor, which Kai had fun with, whereas Zack prefered to do his own model (based on the mario you can see)

When finished I put them in the oven on 160C for 30 mins (less for thinner designs), If you dont want them to get the odd crack on the surface you need to bake for longer at under 100C. You can also leave it to air dry but this does take a day or 2.
They are all ready for painting now
6.Baking
We made Blondies this week by following Karens recipe over at Country heart & home. I omitted the nuts due to having a child under 5, and didnt add raisins as OH doesnt like them. It looked a lil plain without these in so I decided to make it 2 layers high by adding a white chocolate ganache (melted white choc mixed with cream)
It was fairly simple for the children to make (Zack did the measuring and melting part, Kai helped with the mixing) and everyone thought it was delicious!!! I have to admit, with the children being kept so entertained, and having lost a bit of my crafting mojo at the moment its me whose feeling bored :-O

Thank you very much to Carmen & Nicky for adding their links to what they've been upto last week, how about you join in this week and share with us what you've been upto.

Friday 6 August 2010

Ivory

The first Creativity Boot Camp prompt was Ivory, this made me think of my Moms wedding dress. I had printed out a photo of my Mom & Dad last year & hadnt got round to using it but it was perfect for this prompt.

I added chipboard onto & behind the photo to make it look like it was on an easle or similar.

I then added swirls onto the background sheet with a pearl coloured 3d fabric paint (I find this gives a great 3d effect). I also used this on some white thickers spelling out "Newly weds" to give them an extra sheen

I took apart some fake white flowers, relayered them and added fake pearls from a bracelet in the centre, then attched them on to the sheet.
Having then stuck the photo on using foam pads to raise it I wanted to add some journalling so I took a thickers chipboard white frame & stick some vellum on the back. I wrote my journalling on it & then put foam pads behind the frame so I could stick it down without it showing through the vellum.


I think the monochrome effect of the page really makes the photo stand out.

Linkwithin

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