hogmanay!

Well... it's Hogmanay and I can't believe it has been so long since I last posted!  On that basis, I thought I should sneak a post in quickly before it becomes 2010.

Erin is now six months old and 2009 has really flown past for me in a bit of a blur, to be honest.

I've had a cow banner and some matching bits and pieces designed for my blogs by V K Design Company.  Veronica is great to work with and I'm really pleased with what she has created for me.  I installed it myself, so it's still a work in progress... but I'm almost there.

I've got some things to share, including my (currently very unfinished) December Daily album.  I haven't been able to do any work on it for the last two weeks as I've been so busy... hopefully I'll be able to find some time to work on it at the beginning of January.  I managed to find time (just!) to make some Christmas baubles and mini albums of Erin for Christmas presents, so I'll share those too.

Meantime... an advance "Happy New Year"!

good friend

As the heading would suggest... a card made for a very good friend of mine as a thank you card.  First off, I have to say that this is NOT my design!  I saw something very similar on the internet whilst browsing once, but unfortunately I have forgotten where I spotted it.  As soon as I saw it I knew I had to make a version of it... it's so pretty.  I think the card I saw had more white (literally layers and layers of white, which was lovely - it made such an impact!) and white ribbon with glitter on the base layer. 

As usual, I've gone overboard with brown sponging around the edges of everything... and I don't think the original had that at all (as I say, it was just white - and perfect for being white!).  This is the first time ever that I've knowingly tried to copy another card; I'm not very good at copying stuff - I just make whatever comes into my head.  I just loved it so much that I had to copy it and I had to share...  We've had non-stop torrential rain all day today and no daylight to speak of, so I'm afraid the photos are a bit dark again.

Lastly... happy halloween!  Here's a photo of Erin in her pumpkin outfit... I'm afraid this photo isn't very good either; it was taken on my 'phone and I can't be bothered to upload the decent photos from the camera at the moment!

three weeks

Three weeks... a scrapbook page of Erin when she was three weeks old.  I love this black and white photo of her; she was staring intently at a cuddly toy and frowning because she wasn't sure what it was.  She frowns at anything new!  As usual, I've distressed everything in sight with as much ink as possible (and I've used lots of stamps too, but you probably can't see much of the detail terribly well in the photo... which was taken yesterday during the darkest day ever!).

I made this layout for a Cocoa Daisy challenge.  It's a bit like a scrapbooking game of Chinese Whispers... the first person is given a layout and told to "lift" it and so on and so forth until the last person (which was me, as it turns out).  I quite enjoyed doing it as I don't normally work from sketches - I actually find it more difficult than just creating something from my head!  It's always interesting to see how the different pages translate and how people use a sketch in their own way.

halloween treat bag toppers...

Classic: today I woke up to one of the most grim days ever in terms of weather... really dark, raining heavily - a typical Scottish day, really.  I then read on the internet that October is to be a "heatwave" month... one of the warmest on record.  This week, in particular, is to be very warm "as far north as Glasgow" (and I quote).  Is someone having a laugh?  It's around 2pm here at the moment and it's like the middle of the night - almost no daylight whatsoever! 

Anyway... here are some of my Halloween treat bag toppers.  I've stamped the kids' names on the back in black ink surrounded by some more stamped orange stars.  They were easy to make, but I think they look quite effective. The base cardstock is Pumpkin Pie from Stampin' Up! and I've distressed everything with black ink.  The photos aren't the best, I'm afraid... did I mention that we have no daylight?!

Erin has a pumpkin outfit for Halloween and Marley has a Scooby Doo outfit... I couldn't find a matching pumpkin outfit for him. 

september mini book...

This is my mini book made during September and vaguely based on Shimelle Laine's "Learn Something New Every Day" concept... I started off in the right way with the front cover (got the title right!), but thereafter the similarity ends.  It doesn't bother me that I didn't follow the format... I genuinely didn't think I would, to be honest.... I just wanted to do a September mini book with an entry for each day. Some days contain "learnings" (this reminds me so much of coaching I had at work when we had to write down our "learnings" at the end of each session!), but most entries just contain a note of something or several somethings that I've done that day.  Most entries have photos, but not all of them.

I've still got a few bits and pieces to finish off in relation to the last four entries (when I was on holiday in Aberdeenshire and didn't really have time to do the entries on a daily basis), but aside from that I'm pretty much finished. I quite enjoyed it to begin, but almost sawed my head off by the end of it... I have a very short attention span!  I'm pleased with the finished product, though, and I think it was worth doing. If nothing else, Erin will be able to pick it up in years to come and see what her mum was up to in September 2009 - that was my overriding interest when I was making the entries (rather than the "learnings"), as I think it's probably information that she would never gain knowledge of otherwise and it might be quite interesting for her (in an odd way)!  I'll seriously consider doing another book next September!

You probably can't see it in the photo, but I've "drawn" around the front (and back) covers with lime green Stickles.  The covers themselves are chipboard which has been painted black outside and misted brown and bronze inside. The front inside cover has a clock image done with a clock mask and mists.  I've used distress inks - mainly browns and greens - and other inks/stamping (particularly autumn stamps and leaves) almost everywhere.  There's newspaper on the front cover too.

I love the this photo of Marley on the first page after the tags etc on the inside front cover.  The frog on the opposite page is one of those window sticker things which my brother obtained from some fast food place and was going to throw in the bin on the 1st of September... hence it made it into my book under the entry for that day!  I cut a mini page protector in half and stuck the frog to the back.

Every single page started as a plain white page.  Each page was inked around the edges with beige ink, stamped with green leaves and then drawn around with a black pen.  I used that as the core of the book and then worked from there.  I've also inserted ledger-style brown straight-edged pages between each of the scalloped pages.  I stamped the date in the top left or right corner of each page. Some days have two or three pages, but most have just one page.

I've used this green transparency to mark the half way point between the entries for 15th and 16th September.  The first half of the book is by far the best and I'm really pleased with it. The last quarter is pretty dull, to be fair... you can tell that I had lost interest!  However, I refuse to spend much more time on it... recently I've decided that it's a waste of time to keep trundling on with something you're bored with.  I've just got a few missing bits to add to the last few pages and I'll call it a day at that.

sad

I am officially the saddest act ever... I'm waiting here with excitement for my new tumble dryer to be delivered!  I mean... how sad is that?!  Long overdue, though... ours is broken and utterly rubbish.  I do have some photos to share, though, including this cute one of Erin with Dolly the Mamas & Papas doll... her favourite doll (so far).  Lovely and sunny today - a proper autumn day.  It was nice yesterday too, but I think it's to rain tomorrow.

Got some nice scrapbooking stuff in the post this morning, including these lovely little kraft coloured envelopes... can't wait to use them.  I think they'd be good in a mini book.

high five

Marley did a hysterical thing today... I'd been hyperventilating waiting for the UPS man to deliver my Stampin' Up! order... he eventually appeared at 3.30.  Marley is trained to do a "high five" either when you say "high five" or when you hold your hand out flat at a height... it involves him slowly jumping up (not aggressively; he gently stands on his back feet - a bit like a dog-meerkat) and putting his front paws on your hand and then quickly jumping down again. Unfortunately, the poor mutt thought the UPS man wanted a high five when he held out his hand with the signature machine!  Marley gently put two paws on the machine and went back down to sitting position waiting patiently for a reward for his efforts. I swear I had tears running down my face and the UPS guy was in hysterics (probably made his day, I think!).  I wish I'd managed to catch it on camera. 

Amongst other things, I got two lovely packs of paper... one blue-toned one and one Christmas set... think I'll use them to make cards, though, rather than scrapbook.

I got Erin a pumpkin Halloween outfit from Sainsbury's yesterday... cute matching pumpkin slippers too.  I also ended up buying a pumpkin t-shirt (it was only £2.50 and I couldn't resist) and some funky autumn-coloured tights.  I haven't bought baby clothes from Sainsbury's before, but they had quite a few nice things. I also couldn't resist some Russian doll vest/t-shirts... loved the colours and they were only £8 for 7... which seemed like a bargain.  I put one on her this morning and they look even better than I expected (and the quality feels pretty good too).  I have a serious baby clothes addiction, I think... between that and craft stuff. The end product is that I'll be walking around like a tramp and Erin will be dressed beautifully (and I'll have enough paper to wallpaper my way around the world at least twice).  I just need to get Marley's halloween outfit and then I'll be all sorted. I'm having real difficulty finding a pumpkin outfit for him, so it's down to a choice of wonder woman, scooby doo and tweetiepie (found on the internet).  I have a feeling that he doesn't want to wear last year's spiderman number again.

mini books

I've decided that I'm working on too many mini books at once. I mean... look at this pile!  I chucked the one I'd been working on back on the pile this morning and heard the thud... and immediately thought it merited a photo.  Disaster.  I need to get some of them finished and moved out of the "to do" pile.  I get bored working on one thing, you see... but I think it can be suffocating to have too many on the go at the same time (with the result that I get nothing done).  I don't seem to have much free time nowadays either (babies take up a lot of time - but I'm not complaining!), so that makes it twice as bad.

I managed to make four identical cupcake birthday cards last night (well... I finished them off this morning).  I needed three for October birthdays and I kept a fourth as a sample for my Stampin' Up! sample folder.  If you're interested in more info on how to make them, click here.  I was going for the autumnal look!  Autumn is by far my favourite season.

It isn't raining today, so that's a result. I suppose there's time yet!  (Black clouds were looming, but seem to have passed by without incident).  I've had to put the heating on twice today, mind you, but it looks like quite a nice day aside from that... and we've even had some sunshine!

I'm absolutely starving, so off to get some food. I don't seem to be eating well with Erin on the scene. I feel as though I'm running from one disaster to another and don't have time to make any food!  I suppose it will just take me time to adjust; she's three months old now - time flies!

Gardenstown

We were on holiday last week in a place called Gardenstown on the Aberdeenshire coast... not our usual type of holiday, but it meant we could take the mutt with us and I think he had the best holiday of all!  Gardenstown is roughly four miles from Pennan, one of our favourite places.  It's midway between Banff and Fraserburgh.  We really like the area; my mum's mum was born near there in a wee village near Huntly.  We rented this cottage and it was fun, but very remote - no mobile 'phone signal (i.e. a bit of a shock to the system!).

I managed to attend one of Melodee Langworthy's classes whilst I was up there. The Simply Create shop in Alford had arranged the classes and I attended the Halloween mini book class... I've completed the front cover and the bare bones of the pages.  Now all I need to do is find some silly outfits for Erin and the mutt to enable me to take lots of Halloween photos to fill the book! 

new blog

A new blog... and the first post! I've created this blog to supplement the existing one. The other blog will become my Stampin' Up! blog, whereas this blog will be my repository for everything else... all of my ramblings, non-Stampin' Up! cards and scrapbooking photos etc which used to be contained on my old blog.  I've been meaning to separate the two for a while, but just haven't had time.  This blog is effectively my day-to-day blog and I've carried over my lovely cow banner (created from a photo I took of a cow on the Isle of Skye.... just love cows!) and changed the banner on the other blog.