MERRY CHRISTMAS

It is now officially christmas day over here (and I guess it has been for 6 hours now over in England)anyway.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all of you that have read my blog this year.

Christmas

Well, my exams are all over and so far out of the results I have got so far I have passed. Now all I need to do now is to get ready for christmas!!!!

I managed to take some pics of 2 out of 3 of our christmas trees and some of the christmassy things we have around our house.

Is it really that long since I posted on here???????????????????????? Things have been mad at college, I have 1 week to go and then I am finished!!!! Just thought I would let you know that I fine but just too busy for blogging at the moment.

It is -16C here today so very very cold!!!!!

Is everybody ready for christmas? I haven't even written my christmas cards never mind sent them and I am afraid I will have to BUY them this year as I have no time left to make them! Anyway gotta dash things to do. Take care

Happy Halloween

I thought I would come and say hello!!! I have not vanished off the face of the earth! I have just been so busy with college work that I have not had time for much else lately!!!! I can't remember the last time I ventured into my scrap room and did some scrapping! It is such a mess that even if I had some time to scrap it would probably take me a couple of hours to tidy up.

So its Halloween!!!! I just love it. The boys have their costumes ready and we managed to carve a pumpkin last night, I bought some fab stencils that I was unable to use as the pumpkin had started to rot! so I had to turn the rotten bit into the mouth and make do with it. We put up a few decorations and went to Michaels to buy some more as they were on sale at 50% off and I can't resist a bargain! I can't quite believe that I walked out of there without buying a new punch that I had in my hands!!!!!! and I had a coupon too!!! It was the new Martha Stewart embossed owl. I will have to go back and get it as I can see myself using it quite a bit, that is when I get time!!!!!

Anyway gotta dash as clothes to wash, rooms to vacuum, food to buy Oh and homework!!!!


Have a great Halloween and don't eat too many SWEETS (candy).

Bear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As I was driving off the drive this afternoon to go to college guess what I saw!!!!!!??????? in our garden!!!!!!!


A BIG BEAR

I had to look twice!!!!! I couldn't quite believe what I saw, now this was not a little teddy bear!!! but a great big bear. Only 5 minutes earlier I had let the dogs out to do their thing before leaving, had I come across this big bear at the time I have no idea what I would have done, pretty scarey when you think about it!!!! I am also not sure what the dogs would have done either!!! which really worries me, I think and hope they would have backed off, but knowing Milly she would of probably stood there and barked a lot, where as Murphy is normally very timid I think he would have probably done the same! I am so glad I was in the car at the time!!!! but it is such a shame I did not have a camera.

As I went down the hill I saw a lady walking her dog and told her not to go up towards our end of the road as I had seen a bear, she was not bothered by it at all, infact she told me that she had heard about it roaming the neighbourhood recently!!!!!!!! I guess coming from England this is not normal to me and she was not fazed by it at all. Anyway I am still worried about letting the dogs out, I guess I will ahve to be on my guard.

Check this article out:
http://www.rivervalleynewspapers.com/articles/2008/10/02/outdoors/zbears.txt

Woodpecker

Have you seen what this little thing is doing to the side of our house!!! not only that, on a saturday morning when we are trying to have a few extra minutes in bed he insists on waking us up. Apart from squirting a hose pipe at him, does anyone have any ideas to stop him wrecking our house!!!!

More candles, this time using Penny Black Stamps.

student of the month

I have just got back from school. Out youngest son was nominated as student of the month. Talk about a proud mummy moment. I am so proud of him and he is doing so well at school here and being rewarded for it too.

Candles

I have just discovered how easy it is to stamp candles, well not actually stamp on candles but using stamps to embelish candles.

On my travels surfing the internet, I have often seen beautifully decorated candles and often thought about having a go! But, I never got round to doing it. Anyway tonight I thought I would have a little play. I had a candle that was starting to look a little old and grubby, so thought I would give it a go and at least I would not be ruining a brand new candle. So I stamped my image onto tissue paper, coloured it in with pencils, positioned it onto the candle and then wrapped waxed paper onto the candle and started heating it up with my heat gun. You can tell if it working or not as the image changes colour as it melts into the candle. I then took the waxed paper off. I was absolutely amazed at how neat it looks, I will certainly be making more of these very soon. Infact my mission for the morning is to go and buy some candles!!!!!! Guess what I will be making for christmas gifts this year!!!! Anyway I will hopefully get some done and post some pics very soon. If your reading this and have done this technique please leave me a link to your blog so I can check your candles out and leave a comment.

Forever Friends

I had a few minutes to spare this lunch time so thought I would have a little play with one of the new stamps I bought, Does this take you back to the 80s when Forever Friends were all the rage? I just love these bears and I am so glad that they have made them into stamps. They are so cute.

I forgot to post these on my blog!!!! Look what dh had delivered to the door the other day!!!! It was such a surpise, I had no idea who they were from when the man knocked on the door!! It wasn't my birthday or anniversary so was wondering who sent them!!! Well it was dh just to cheer me up a bit, as he knows what a hard time I have been having lately. How sweet is he.

Hi All

Sorry for not posting sooner, I have just been so busy!!!! infact I feel like I am drowning at the moment! I have so much to do and so little time at the moment, so scrapping/stamping has taken a little bit of a back burner for now. Saying that I did manage to buy some new stamps the other week, all the way from England!!!! Jenny I am sure you can guess which ones I bought!!!! Anyway when I get a bit of time I hope to upload some pics of them and hopefully get some cards made with them too (is that wishful thinking).

Take care all and keep popping back as I will post something sooner rather than later this time!!!

Sorry not been a good blogger this week, I have so much to do and so little time!!!!

Anyway I do have some good news to share I submitted some layouts to an online magazine Scrapbook News and Reviews and they are publishing 4 layouts of mine!!!!!!!! YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I subscribe to the Cricut newsletter by email which is known as the CHIRP. Anyway, to my surprise my Tigger Door Hanger was mentioned as one of the highlighted threads on the Cricut Message board!!!! You can find it here . Anyway got to dash as I have to go to college!!!!

Coupons - ENJOY

Fall Page

I tried to get this layout side by side in blogger but it was not playing!!!! so have done it this way and as single pages so you can see what it looks like when they are put together.

This layout came together in minutes! The paper is so gorgeous that I didn't want to cut it up so instead just tore the edges of the paper and inked them, then cut out a circle and photo mat, adhered it to the paper, then added some blossoms and this time leaves!! adhered them to the paper, added buttons with tied raffia in the centres to the flowers. For the 2nd page all I did was cut some strips of paper then added the leaves which I stamped with flourish stamps and adhered them to the paper. Such a simple layout to do, but I love how it turned out.


I have had another busy weekend, so I have not managed to get my other mini album finished as yet, but as soon as I do I will post pics for you to see. I have the perfect picture for this layout but as the Kodak machine was not working at the shop I was unable to print it out and put it onto the layout before posting it on here.

Wow

I am really surprised I have had over 500 hits on my blog since last night!!!!!! WOW But not many comments!!! Come on people don't be shy, leave a comment and say hi and then I can check out your blog too and even if you don't have once its still nice to hear from you. I love reading what people think of what I make , GOOD or BAD, constructive criticism does no harm and if its good that's even better!!!!!!

I went to Michaels last night, only because I wanted to spend my coupon!!!! they had some nice halloween papers in, think they were K&CO, maybe I should do another Halloween album!!!! Did anyone use the coupon? and what did you get?

I also went to Hobby Lobby and went a bit mad in there!!!! chipboard was 50% off, along with wooden stamps so I had to buy some House Mouse stamps oh and stickers were on sale too so I bought some thickers alphas, now when they ring them up are they counted as stickers or chipboard! I was a little worried that they were not on sale as I bought quite a few packets!!!! but she rung them up as 50% off. I absolutely love HL sales!!!

I am hoping to do some more crafting tomorrow, so will probably post some pics by the end of the week as I am a little busy until then. I am hoping to do another album but this time it will be much much smaller!!!

Okay gotta run, whatever the weather hope your having a great day.

Sam
xxx

Michaels Coupon 40% off valid until August 30th

Here is a link to the Michaels coupon.

Hope someone can use it. http://www.michaels.com/coupons/081908/coupon.html

Halloween Chipboard Album

This is the latest thing I have been making. A little early but I thought I would make a start as I am going to be busy in the next couple of months going to college!!!!

All the die cuts were cut with the expression using the Paper Dolls Cartridge. There is so much more on this cart than you see on the back of the box, it is one of my most used carts! So if you haven't already got it GO BUY IT!!!!!!!!!!!

The album pages are made of black chipboard and cut with the accucut die at the LSS. The title "Trick or Treat" are thickers alphas which I then inked with white chalk ink. If you want to know anything else let me know and I will be happy to help or leave me a comment.

If you click on the picture you will be able to see the detail much easier.

TFL

Sam.