still here...

... I am!  Really, I am!  This year has flown past so far... and I suppose it's almost April?  We had three burst pipes in January (as part of the "big thaw") and then my cousin died (he was only 42)... and then, of course, the anniversary of my dad's death... milestones, moments (and the odd disaster in the form of burst pipes) - it's funny how, before you know it, two months have passed!  The burst pipe damage is an ongoing joy.

Erin is now 8 months old.  She's at a great age and very communicative (i.e. she says "hiya" 142 times per hour) and lots of fun.  I've been doing a fair bit of card making (albeit I haven't posted many of my creations, I appreciate; you can see some - but by no means all - on my other blog).  I've been scrapbooking more than card making, though; Erin is a great subject!  A couple of recent pages (neither of which involves Erin, oddly!):-

I've used Maya Road mists on both of these... I'm currently obsessed with misting everything which doesn't move fast enough.  There are worse vices.

We were on holiday in Crail again during February and had a great time.  I'll finish up with a photo taken on Tentsmuir beach.  As you can see, the weather was pretty good for most of the week.  The mutt had a great time and his little paws were walked and walked... he found a cricket ball and a tennis ball on this particular day and the look of excitement (and confusion - which to choose?!) on his face was classic.

 

flowers

Happy new year!  Are we supposed to be saying "two thousand and ten" or "twenty ten"...?  I keep hearing people saying the latter, but wouldn't really have thought of it otherwise, to be honest. 

I'm trying to catch up with my posting backlog... this is a birthday card made for my mother-in-law towards the end of December.  The background stamp is by Hero Arts and I coloured it with markers and covered it with Stardust Stickles glitter glue... easy to make (albeit slightly time-consuming), although I like the outcome.  I recall making the card on the first day in December when we had snow for the majority of the day, so the flowers seemed a bit ironic at the time.

The novelty of snow has long since worn off for me. It's like an ice rink around here and it's almost impossible to walk anywhere.  I don't recall having in excess of two solid weeks of snow and ice during my lifetime in this neck of the woods, so it's very alien weather indeed.  We've had temperatures well below zero every single night and the sheet ice is treacherous.  I wish it would go away!  To add to the fun, the cold water infill pipe to the washing machine in the garage seems to have frozen, so the washing machine hasn't been working for a week or so (except perhaps around 1pm some days when it thaws slightly)... it's fortunate that I have another machine in the kitchen or I'd be engulfed by Erin's washing mountain.

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.