She makes stuff...

Crikey! How hot????

The weather has been just blummin gorgeous over the past few days hasn't it? Let's just hope that it's a sign of things to come all summer long! I love the sunshine. I think I'm designed to live in a much hotter climate than dear ole Blighty!!!! To feel the sun on my face is a sheer joy!
Right it's been a good few days since my last post. Work has been utterly manic and then there was DT layouts to finish and gardens to tidy. But it's all good :-)
Tomorrow sees the Bellaboo June kit go on sale and I've been carving up the kit to make layouts and the starts of some cards. Here's a few lil peeks of the layouts.....

Lots of stitching on these layouts which I love!!! You can check what the kit looks like here!

I've made a start on tidying the garden this weekend. The front garden was in a dreadful state with weeds galore... including thistles... OUCH!!!! Its now a weed free and tidy space. My front garden is teeny weeny and as its north facing i struggle to find plants that will survive in the shady clay soil. So I've decided to put down some membrane and cover with cobbles. A few pots and maybes a nice little sculpture should work well out there :-)
The back garden however is a complete suntrap! It was landscaped over 2 years ago and is really flourishing. It's a small courtyard garden with beautiful limestone (cost a bomb!!) paving and higgledy piggedly borders crammed with all manner of plants... and weeds!!! I made a start and managed to tidy almost one border this weekend. Given that I also blitzed the front garden and had a crop yesterday this is good going!!!! Am hoping to get it finished over the next week inbetween work so I know what spaces need to be filled with annuals. Its getting there!

Yesterday was our monthly crop day. I LOVE our crop! Hazel was a complete star and organised a raffle and bingo. We loved it!!! I even manged to keep up with the bingo! am not the best and 2 cards is usually my limit never mind 5! I even managed a layout too. Have lots of stuff in progress on the scrapping front. There are never enough hours in the day....

Til next time... x

Weeds?

My garden is a tip! I haven't had 2 mins this year to get out and tidy and plant up my pots. I had all good intentions yesterday to make a start but got waylaid with other jobs. But for all that its sadly neglected its still looking pretty! The geraniums and veronicas are in full bloom... and so are the ...ahem ...buttercups!!!!!

These creeping buttercups drive me nuts! They have the most resiliant root system and spread like mad. I thought I had got them all last year... clearly not! This year they are adding colour to the water feature. And I actually quite like them. They are not staying though... come this weekend they will be no more and hopefully my little courtyard will be looking a lot more orderly... well without weeds!

Last saw a new Pencil Lines sketch go live with myself as the guest designer :-) I was delighted to have been asked (and a little nervous!!!) as its one of my favourite inspiration sites. Anna kindly provided me with a fab sketch which was a joy to work with.

I love sketches like this that are not too prescriptive but give you a great starting point. Normally when I work with a sketch, the finished product bears no resemblence to the sketch whatsoever!!! But that, I guess is the whole point. To inspire.

I love this photo, taken by Anita, of my boots. These boots have history. I hunted high and low for a pair of boots that 1. I could actually walk in! 2. Were very comfy and 3. Were a snug fit. My calves are pretty thin and often when I try boots on they look like a pair of wellies... which wasn't quite the look I was going for!!! So I found these babies in.... Kefalonia! On holiday and mooching through town one night we came across this fab shoe shop and naturally I was just sucked through the doors and forced to try them on! And like the glass slipper, they fit like a dream.
I LOVE THESE BOOTS! I also love the song by U2, Get On Your Boots...it fitted well and a layout was born. I used new Scenic Route, Hambly overlay, Prima blossom, Riff Raff chipboard swirl, thickers and a few brads and crystals. The notepaper was made using a Stamping Up punch that I've had for ages but never used (because I couldn't work out how hahahaha!)

Right I guess I should make a move as have work to go to and scrapping to do beforehand. Hope you all have a fab Bank Holiday Monday... is the weather as nice as here???

Back soon with some Bellaboo sneaky peeks... x

Late night cropping and shopping!

Wow what a busy week!
I can't believe that its Sunday already. My list of things to do is HUGE even though I've done so much this week. Work has been mad busy but good fun. We've been sprucing the place up a little bit to make it more cosy for the residents and the result is great! The place really needs decorating... badly!!! So until that happens (we've been told in the next few months) we went out and bought lots of lamps, ornaments etc to pretty it up. Its amazing what you can do on a budget of a couple of hundred pounds! 3 lounges now looking very cosy and inviting.... so much so the residents don't want to go to bed!!!!
So work all week and then friday I picked Angie up and we headed to The Scrapbook Shop for a late night crop. It was the first visit since they moved to bigger premises and for some reason the sat nav decided it would take us through the centre of Durham (in rush hour!!!) to get there! NOT GREAT! However after much hyperventilating and a little swearing we got there. WOW the shop looks great! Loads of room and heaps more products... which is always good (or bad for my bank account!!!). So I had a little spend. Well not so little actually... ooooops!

A few (!!!) sheets of paper, delicious Prima blossoms, an album, crystals and some ribbon. The wooden letters spell HOPE and are for a wall art project.

I received my very first Bellaboo DT kit on friday morning so I took it along to make a start. It's a fab mix of products. New My Mind's Eye (swoon!) and a HUGE bag of buttons and In Stitchz templates... embroidery floss.... the list goes on! Its on sale 1st June so grab yours quickly as I really don't think they'll hang around for long. You can check it out on the Bellaboo blog!

So back to the crop... we scrapped, chatted and ate pizza! It was lovely to catch up with Darcy (we talked Facebook Farm Town!!!) and meet new people. Can't wait until the next one!! I even almost finished a layout which is a miracle as I am rubbish at crops. Seem to spend more time eating and chatting then scrapping :-)

Today I have my fabby friend Gillian over for Sunday lunch :-) So I need to have a quick tidy round and go shop! I'll pop back throughout the week with layouts as I have lots in progress and not much finished. Til then..... x

A bottle of wine = 2 paracetamol and a fuzzy head the next morning!

Yes last I drank WAY too much wine and am suffering this morning!!! The occasion? Celebrating being accepted onto the Bellaboo Design Team!!!!! I am totally over the moon at the news and can't wait to start playing with Cleo's gorgeous kits! I've got pretty lazy in the scrapping department of late, with all the changes happening in my life, so this will get me back on track. I have a zillion photo's to scrap and my mojo is kicking in again.
Once my head is feeling more normal (well normal for me anyway ;-)) I'm heading up the stairs to tidy the craftroom. It looks like someone has thrown in a grenade and then legged it!!!! I have a couple of projects to make so must clear some space. I'm going to overhaul the storage in there eventually so need to start sorting and organising.
The blog is getting there... I'm slowly but surely learning how to add stuff! Typepad is completely different to blogger which I pretty much knew my way round. So bear with me until its all finished!
Right I need more tea!

x

I have a new home!

Yes I decided, after an eon of being frustrated by the lack of facilities on blogger, to take the plunge and get me a typepad blog! So now I can have galleries.... and stuff! Not sure what the stuff will be just yet but hey ho, I can do stuff if I want to!!! Bear with me whilst I get the layout and header sorted, it may take a while hahaha!
So what's been happening in Maria land since my last blog post? Lots and lots! Life has been so busy that there has been little time to blog it all. Which is good. Work is keeping me very busy and I'm loving it! I was really nervous about making the move back to nursing but it couldn't have worked out better really. I love my job... now how many people can say that?
On the scrapping front I've been pretty busy too! Last week I was teaching at the Scrapajack retreat in Stratford, and boy, did I have a blast! It was fantastic to meet up with Jak and Debs, old friends and lots of new ones now!!!! I've spent the week moping around and missing them all... badly!
I taught 2 classes.

This class looked at using chalks (yes remember those???!) to create a soft background and stamping. The photo I've scrapped is of my friend Kim (who just happens to have the most amazing blue eyes) and was taken by Anita Mundt last year. I used My Mind's Eye Bloom papers.

And the second class involved lots of inking, using ribbons, doodling and paper sculpting! This was quite an intense, 2 hour long class but all the ladies did me proud and produced some of the most amazing layouts :-) Again I used My Mind's Eye (you gotta love their stuff!) Penny Lane, Tiny Dancer papers. Photo was again taken by Anita of myself and Kim.
One of the things that really stands in my memories of the retreat is LAUGHTER! And boy did we all laugh, and laugh, and laugh! Even when I dropped a bottle of wine on my toe and broke it we laughed (don't worry, the wine survived and the toe is healing well!) Here's a few pics (a mix from Annie and myself) of the laughter... coming to a scrapbook layout near you real soon!!!!!

This pic, I think sums up the whole retreat nicely!

Kisses anyone?

Don't you point at me!

Did someone say "rim,rim???"

Oh I loves these two....

The very lovely Michelle and Cleo!

Such poseurs!

Pinny Girls!

Everytime I look at these pics I smile at the memories, and I guess that's what scrapping is all about.... preserving memories :-)
Right I'm off to fiddle with this layout and make a header! Til next time when I have some VERY exciting news to share ;-)

Maria x