Feeling sneaky!

Oisin and I went to see Bolt (again!) today. It is just sooo funny. Go see it if you need to be cheered up, or would just like a good laugh:) 

I'm so excited about going to CraftEire this Friday. It should be a great couple of days and I can't wait to see everyone and scrap to my hearts content! 

I also have a few sneaks for round four of Scrapbook Apprentice. For this challenge the theme was stitching and the Boho Chic style. 

Love-ly day

Hope you had a nice Valentines day! We decided to go out on Friday night for a meal and a movie thinking it wouldn't be as busy as Saturday night. We had a gorgeous dinner but the movies we wanted to see were both booked out ... maybe everyone else had the same idea as us?? So we decided to rent a few movies, go home, light the fire and cosy up ... just me, Dec, Ben & Jerry :) Then on Saturday evening I had another gorgeous dinner, cooked by my wonderful hubby ... and he even did all the washing up! What more could a girl ask for :)

I only managed to do one card (Valentines) and one lo this week. But I really love how this lo turned out ... it could be that gorgeous map patterned paper from StudioCalico! I also decided to add a little bit of stitching ... now that I've got the bug! 

Snow and stitches

I can't believe it has been a week since my last post. The weeks just seem to be passing by so quickly. The snow has been crazy ... I can't remember so much snow since I was a kid. Last Thursday I decided to go to the Dundrum shopping Centre and thought I'd be fine as the snow seemed light, but when I came out afterwards ... it was like a blizzard. There was deep slush and snow on the roads and everyone was driving at about two miles an hour and I thought I'd never make it to the other end of the M50!

Anyway, I finally finished my los and cards for round 4 of scrapbook apprentice (I'll post a few sneaks next week). They seemed to take me ages this time and even though the papers were pretty, they were totally not my style. What I did love though was that I got to try stitching. I absolutely love the look of stitching on a page but never do it myself as I struggle with a sewing machine (can't use the foot pedal ... though I'm sure if I thought about it hard enough I could find a way around that!) and even though I have one of the mini machines, they are not very versatile and don't reach very far into the page. But I did do lots of hand stitching and used nice new stitching templates from PaperMania and have to say, its definitely something I'll be doing on los in the future.

The lo below is a Christmassy one I did a couple of weeks ago with some lovely BG Wassail. Thought I'd post this one as all the snow makes it feel like it should be Christmas :)

Round three and silver linings...

Firstly, a big thank you to everyone who voted for me in round two of Scrapbook Apprentice. Voting has now begun for round three  and if you would like to have a little looky, just click here! For this round we were not allowed to use any patterned paper which was certainly a challenge, but I think I was pretty happy with how things turned out. 

Thought I'd post a layout I did last week at a crop at the lovely Elisa's house. I'm really looking forward to doing her classes at CraftEire which is in less than 3 weeks!!!!! Yipee!!!

I've had this photo of Oisin for ages but never seemed to have just the right paper, but this kit from StudioCalico was perfect (with the addition of some very cute PaperMania small brown letter stickers). I don't know if you can see it too well in the photo but I outlined the edge of my cloud with some stickles to give it a silver lining!! :) 

Monday musings...

We had a long weekend this weekend as Oisin had no school on Friday, and boy was it great not to have to get up early three days in a row! I used to be great at getting out of bed in the mornings but am finding it a bit more of a challenge these days:) I didn't have a very productive scrapping week last week and had the same lo on my desk the whole time ... which isn't good as it was one I was working on for round four of Scrapbook Apprentice. The week before, I got five or six los done (the week I was sick!). My mojo has just up and left!

Anyway, here is a Christmas lo I did the week before last. I used some tags for the title that I got in a kit a few months ago that I thought I'd never use. The photo is not great but I love it :)

Sneaky, sneaky!!

Thought I'd post a few sneak peeks for round 3 of Scrapbook Apprentice. Hopefully you'll get to see them in full at the start of February if I get through round two! 

I had a great time on Saturday at Laineys crop and even managed to get a layout completed (despite all the chatting:) I always feel inspired after seeing all the wonderful creations by so many talented ladies. 

This lo was one I did last week with the December StudioCalico kit. I remembered to take a photo of Oisins letter to Santa this year and couldn't wait to scrap it! The title was done with gorgeous stamps exclusive to StudioCalico and I just love this font. In hindsight, I think I should have stamped each letter individually, so that they looked 'joined up'... but hindsight is a wonderful thing:)

Jinx

I think I jinxed myself the other day when I said I thought I was getting better. The next day I felt awful! So I'll say nothing about how I feel today!! Because I haven't been getting out this week except for school runs, I did get to do a few lo's. The photo in this lo here is from a trip we took to the Botanic Gardens last September. Oisin had a go at trying to lift some of the 'art' on display ... it did actually look like that before he touched it though !!! :) I really wanted to use some of my fruit and veg paper and chipboard stickers from the BG offbeat range so the journaling is about Oisins fussy eating. And if anyone has any suggestions on how to get a five year old to eat their veggies, please let me know! 

On the road ...

... to recovery. I managed to pick up a bit of a cold over the weekend but am feeling a bit better today thank goodness. Thought I'd post up one of the los I did last week. I did this one with last Octobers StudioCalico kit which I have used for my last six or seven los (and still have buckets of it left as I got three add-ons that month!). I really REALLY love this kit but have packed it away for now so I can dip into some of my other kits which I haven't had time to even open yet as I have been so busy with scrapbook apprentice stuff.  This is an older photo of Oisin which I love and had wanted to scrap for ages ... and I had great fun doing it as I finally started using my threading water punch and got to try out my newly acquired Hero Arts basic Alpha stamps :) I tell you, I'm like a kid in a candy shop when I get to play with scrappy stuff!!!!

Lip service ...

My lips (or at least a photo of them:) are gracing the pages of Scrapbook Inspirations this month! I did this lo a few months ago about my lipgloss obsession (though I think I did post it here before :) 

And since I have my projects all finished and posted for round three of Scrapbook Apprentice, I finally had a good run at doing some of my own los. I started this lo at Annamarie and Laineys Christmas party but didn't get back to it until this week. The photo was taken on Sanibel Island while we were on holidays in Florida a fee months back and as I was writing the journaling, I was reminded of something funny Oisin said. As Declan and I were talking about the first time we were in Sanibel, which was before Oisin was born, Oisin said " Stop talking about that! Stop talking about things before I was born. Stop talking about the old days!!"

Round 2 and thumbs up for Santa!

Well I made it through round 1 of the Scrapbook Apprentice competition! Yay!! And thank you to everyone who voted for me. And it's starting all over again as the los and cards for round 2 are now up on the Creativity Life blog and voting has begun again. Just click here to take a look :) We got some lovely stuff to work with for challenge 2, although I have to say I was a bit afraid of some of the strong colours when I saw them first. I really liked how the card shown on the blog turned out (my first acetate card!) and was pretty happy with my lo's (though I think I preferred the one not shown on the blog).

 I have actually already finished my los and cards for challenge 3. And it really was a challenge as we got quite a small kit with mostly cardstock ... no patterned paper allowed! I think it was the first time I ever did a lo with no patterned paper. The cardstock was core'dinations though, which I have grown to love over the last few months!!!  

And of course Santa has been and gone since my last post. He got a major thumbs up this year from Oisin (and me :) We had a great Christmas and are still enjoying the festive season ... and not having to get up early for the school run! 

Hope you all have a wonderful 2009!