So I've been a little busy.....

Hey followers!

Well a lot has happened since my last post!

November 2012 I found out I was pregnant! Very exciting news and something Mark and I have wanted for a very long time!
January I found out the pregnancy was viable and could start getting excited.  It was amazing seeing a little baby on the screen when I had my first scan!

I then waited for what seemed like forever for my 20 week scan where we found out we were expecting a boy! Just what I expected too! :o)

We then had a 28 week 4D scan because they looked amazing and we wanted to see what our little chap looked like in Utero!  He was and still is a thumb sucker!

We went and got a Bump shoot done at 36 weeks.  I got my hair and make up done before.  I thought it would be the last time in a long while before I got to do something like this again! I was right!

Photography by OneLifeStudio

July 21st 2013 baby Zachary Reginald Lee was born 6 days overdue weighing 8lbs 2oz and 54cm long!  No wonder I could feel his legs in my rib cage!!

I had a beautiful hypno water birth with gas and air and was in labour 8 hours from start to finish.  I got everything i'd planned and couldn't have been happier!

Zac is now just over 5 months old and is the complete love of my life! It's been hard but I am loving being a Mummy!!

Obviously my crafting has taken a firm back seat.  Plus this little monkey stole my craft room ;o)

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and I hope 2014 is a happy one!

Squiggles Stamps Challenge - Create A Scene!

Afternoon everyone!

 

I bring to you yet another exciting challenge from Squiggles Stamps Blog - Create A Scene!

 

For the challenge you just have to make a scene, nothing else. You can use any Squiggle stamps you wish. You can use any background you might have, as long as the main image is from Squiggles. :o)

 

 

 

As you can see from the close up of my card, I have used the lovely Picket Fence which is currently on sale for 40p and Raggy Pony which is also on sale for 90p from the Squiggle Stamps Shop.

 

 

Recipe

 

Square Card Blank

Nitwit hearts background paper

blue, green and yellow background paper

Magnolia Background stamp (can't find this anywhere online anymore - sorry!)

Picket Fence

Raggy Pony

Promarkers

Glitter Pen

Papermania Sentiment sticker

 

Please head over to the Squiggles Stamps Shop and have a look at the digis that are now on sale and don't forget to join us in this challenge over at Squiggle Stamps Blog !!

 

Squiggles Stamp Challenge - Punches and Dies

Hi everyone,

It's a fresh new challenge over at Squiggle Stamps Blog. So please head over and have a look at the rest of the DT cards and the rules to take part in the challenge!  

The theme for this challenge is Punches and Dies and here is what i've made following that theme...

Recipe:

Square scalloped card by Papermania

Backing papers by Making Memories

Paisley Embossing folder

Rounded squares cut out using Craft Robo

Light Gold ink pad to enhance embossing

Squiggles Stamp Fairy Wishes digi

Promarkers

Sakura Pens

Martha Stewart Butterfly punches

Gems

Liquid Pearls by Ranger

Sticker Quotes by DCWV

I hope you will join in the fun over at Squiggle Stamps Blog and why not pop over to the Squiggle Stamps Shop and go grab yourself the stamp of the week - Cherry Tree Swing, at a bargain price of 99p!

Congratulations to a great friend.....!

One of my best friends has just got engaged! She has wanted this for so long and her now Fiance has finally asked her!

 Congratulations Heather and Ben!!

So, I obviously couldn't wait to make them a special card for the happy news, and here it is!

I saw this image and though it was too cute not to use. This digi is from Prairie Fairy Designs and called The Proposal.  Isn't it just perfect?!

I love easel cards.  They are great for special occasions and I love to decorate the inside with pretty matching papers with added quotes/messages.

Recipe

Elegant square card

Making Memories Background paper

Image - The Proposal

Promarkers

Sakura Pens

Clear/Purple Diamanté

Anita's 3-D Gloss Finish for glasses

Gromit with pearl

Quotes by DCWV

Hot Foil Wizard to personalise

I also received a wonderful surprise through the post from Heather last week!  

And of course I jumped up and down with total excitement and said 'YES'!

Squiggles Stamps Challenge - Colour Board!

Hi everyone!

I am really excited about my first DT challenge over at Squiggle Stamps Blog!  I do hope you will join in the fun!!

This weeks challenge theme is 'Colour Board'.  You are to use the colours on the board below for your creation.  Please visit Squiggle Stamps Blog to find out more and enter the challenge!

This is my take on it:

For this card I used a lovely Squiggles Stamp called Cupcake Girl.  Isn't she cute? She is a bargain price of £1.79 and you can get her straight away as she is a digi!  This challenge has lots of lovely girlie colours to play with, so you should all have fun with this one, just like I did!

Head over to the Squiggle Stamps Shop to view lots of other georgeous stamps!

I look forward to seeing what you all come up with.

Thanks for popping over to my blog.



Fifty Shades of Grey

Hi everyone,

Who else has read Fifty Shades of Grey? Did you enjoy it? I stalled and stalled, didn't want to be a sheep, but eventually caved and read the trilogy within a week because I simply had to find out what all the fuss was about!!  I couldn't put it down depsite finding it a little repetative and not all that well written in places!!   I did find myself thinking that a lot of what was written was very english, despite the characters being american. An american would not say half the phrases written!  Did anyone else find that? Any american friends wonder what the heck something meant?
However, I'm now looking forward to seeing the film when it eventually comes out!

Who do we think should play the lead parts? Jessie Pavelka or Matthew Bomer or takes my vote for Christian Grey. Swoooooooon!

I think for Anastasia Steele it's a bit more tricky!! I think Lilly Collins would suit really well. I am not sure Emma Watson is right for the part, but thats just my personal opinion!  See what I mean with the pics below?  I just can't see it!

So, onto the point of this post!! My sexy card! ;o)  Oh yes, we have an Anastasia Steele like digi here.  A massive thanks to Krista of Saturated Canary who designed this digi for all us Fifty Shades of Grey fans out there!  This image is called Grey Tie.  I think it's great!  I've been trying to practice 'glossy hair' on my images lately (more to come!) and this was probably my 10th attempt!!! No jokes!  I did not find it easy, but I think I have finally got there.  I am pretty happy with the result anyway.

I had to buy myself some naughty handcuff embellishments for this card.  It would be rude not to! ;o)

Recipe

Promarkers

White Square Card

Embossed card with damask design

Freebie Papers - Red and Black patterned

Saturated Canary digi - Grey Tie

Handcuff charms - Ebay

Heart Charms - 99p Store

Diamantes - Ebay

Right now, I have no idea who I would give this card to, but someone might like to buy it!  I just really enjoyed making it!  It's not my usual style.

Just to finish off, this really made me laugh, and is relevant to my subject......!

...yeah, good luck with that one, love! haha

Have a fab weekend everybody and thanks for popping by! :o)

More garden fun..!

As some of you will know, I have tried my hardest to become a 'gardener'. This does not come naturally to me! I kill most house plants just by looking at them! BUT, so far the garden is actually blooming! I am very proud! :o) The front of our house had a pathetic little strip of grass which was useless, and I have wanted to dig it up for years, but never got round to doing it, until now! I unfortunately forgot to take a before photo, but i'm sure you can image from my description what it looked like! Rather than grass it was a mass of 3ft high weeds most of the time, which seemed to come back and multiply no matter what I did to them! SO, this is what Mark and I spent a whole day doing during this nice summer weather we currently have here in the UK (although it now seems to have gone again!)

We had some beautiful lavendar plants at the end by the footpath which the bumble bees and butterflies loved, but I think I got a bit carried away with the pruning last year and one of them died, so this one looked a bit lonely by itself.  I did think about rescuing it....

 

..but I didn't like them all that much as the smell of lavender isn't my favourite scent, unfortunately!  I also couldn't get the thing out of the ground for almost 2 hours, and ended up having to hack it to death thanks to the roots having grown into the pavement and concrete!  I had a work out, I can tell you!

I decided to trim it down in the end, and this is what I got out!  Quite an achievement that required a lot of muscle!

I will be putting some nice pots which my grandmother has bought us for our first wedding anniversary on the slate chippings, so hopefully that will look nice and I will post a picture once i've done it for you to see!

 

We have also been busy in the back garden again!!

Just a reminder of what it did look like, in case you have forgotten..

It now looks like this...

As you can see, the decking now looks rather shabby! We only painted it 2 years ago, and the paints supposed to last 5 years, but nevermind!  We decided to sand it all down on Friday and clean it up, and then oil it! 

My gorgeous hubby hard a work!  I had to take over in the end as he had to go and do some work.  I think he was grateful to get out of it! hehe

This is a much better look, don't you think!?  I've always hated that dark brown paint! :o)  This is just after I had finished sanding it all down.  We then had to get some decking cleaner and scrub it like mad and then pressure wash it all off which took forever and the garden was a mass of bubbles!

Me, hard at work with the pressure washer!  It was fun at first, then after the first block I was about ready to give up!  It wasn't too much fun watching the gigantic spiders come out from underneath it, as i'm sure they wondered what on earth was going on.  I am not a spider fan, they freak me out compleatly!  I am ashamed to admit that I did blast them with the washer.......and they did go for a small flight!

So, all that is left to do is oil it now!  I hope the rain goes away soon! We have a family BBQ in a fortnight and we are hoping the garden will be 100% finished by then!

Fingers crossed, anyway! :o)

Keep Calm Notebook

I decided to have a mess around with some notebooks I had lying around and came up with this design for my friend Heather who is a teacher! She's a very pink person too, so I hope she will like this and it will be of use to her in the classroom!  I thought it was rather on trend! :o)

Without the protector over so you can see the bling!

With protector cover, but you can just about see the bling!

Recipe:

Notebook

Ribbon

Hotfix Crystals - pink and clear

Keep Calm poster from Google Images

Yellow Card

 

As I have a Craft Robo, I have created a template especially for these notebooks so I don't have to holepunch each individual hole for the spiral edge.  So much easier! I like to replace the front page that the notebook comes with and use my own pretty card, as it's usually paper that it comes with, so wouldn't last very long.

I have fixed some hotfix crystals to the beginning letter of each word which took quite a long time!  But I think it was worth it for a subtle bit of sparkle.

Exciting news!

I recently applied for a DT position over at the Squiggle Stamps Blog and I am SO pleased to announce that I got one of the positions! Major squeeeeeeeee!

I can't wait to join the team and I hope all my blog followers will hop over and take a look at Squiggle Stamps Blog and take part in the challenges from time to time!  There is also a Squiggle Stamps Shop  which carries a unique range of cute and whimsical stamps designed by a talented team of illustrators available as Digital Stamps so why not pop over and pick a few you like to join in the next challange?  Everyone is welcome to join in the challenges...no rules except to have FUN!  If you do use one of Squiggle Stamps images, you have double the chance of winning - please do 2 link entries (one to your blog and another to the actual post).

I'd like to say a big thanks to the Squiggle Stamps team for picking me, I am so grateful.  I know this is really going to be a good thing for me, and will get me back into the swing of crafting which I desperately want to do! :o)

Also a big congratulations to the other 2 girls who also got a positions!

To celebrate I will be putting together some BLOG CANDY in the next day or so, so please pop buy during the week and enter!

Hope you all had a lovely sunny weekend and got the BBQ's out FINALLY!! UK summer is here?? Well, maybe I won't get my hopes up too much yet! ;o)

First time with Sunflower plunger and icing..!

I made this cake for my husband Mark's grandmother who was celebrating her 94th Birthday a few months ago now and haven't gotten around to posting about it until now!
I have got into cake decorating after going on a cupcake decorating course just before christmas with a neighbour and we had a blast! So off I went to Hobbycraft and bought a load of cake making tools to play with. This is the result I got when using the sunflower icing plunger!

I actually dyed the icing myself too, so I could get the right colours!  It was messy fun!
I layered the sunflowers up and curled the edge of the petals, as well as painting on some dye to make them look more life-like!  I had a few little misshaps when curling the petals, so thank goodness for icing glue! haha

I let the sunflowers dry before putting them on the giant cupcake as they just flop otherwise....tried and tested!

I used my craft robo to cut out a case to put around the edge too.

Marks grandmother was thrilled with the cake which apparently tasted great too.  It was a lemon cake filled with lemon fromage frais.

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out!  It was horrible cutting it, that's for sure! All that effort and then its gone! But it's worth it!