Still here....

I am still alive and kicking, just that life in general takes over and time flashes by without you realising. I have been crafting in the process of making another batch of Christmas cards at the moment. The only scrapbooking I've done is when I go to my monthly crops. Nothing to show I'm afraid as I haven't taken any photos. Doesn't stop me from adding to my paper crafting stash though! Just placed my order with Create and Craft for a Mickey Mouse die from their gorgeous new range of Disney Dies. I'm looking forward to see what others they bring out in the future.

Well lots to do, cards to finish.

              Janina xx

My Ally Pally Stash Haul.......

Saturday it was an early start leaving the house at 6.40 am for our annual trip to Ally Pally . This year I drove Liz's car but  en-route we picked up Lynda and Sue.  We stopped at our usual stop off point at Enfield to refuel on a Costa coffee then it was the short 10 minute journey to AP.  This year I took part in two makes and takes one being with Paper Artsy, thoroughly enjoyed doing these and will do more next April. We had a lovely tiring day and left when the show was shutting up shop for the day at 5pm. Next stop McDonalds at Chelmsford. Finally got in at 8.15pm, so one long day. Here's my stash haul......

As you can see I like Inkylicious stamps. I was pleased with what I bought, now I've just to use it all! Good thing it's my weekend off from work..........
Our next stash spend will be at the Thetford Sincerely Yours Show in September.

   Anyway from a wet Suffolk.

                    Janina xx

Where's the Time gone??

Goodness I last blogged in November, where has the time gone? Life is busy, worked more shifts at work over the past couple of months and as I work 12 hour night shifts days roll into nights etc.
Ollie has got bigger and more of a hooligan, here he is.....

It's like having a way ward teenager in the house, he looks for mischief and the more you tell him no the more he does it. LOL. He's now 7 months old and not overly big,  but he is cute.
Haven't done much crafting since Christmas apart from an 8 x 8 album for my daughter with photos from Uni.. Tomorrow I'm off to a Stampin Up card workshop with a couple of friends so am really looking forward to that.

Any way have a great weekend.

                           Janina xx

Meet Ollie....

Meet the new addition to our household.....Ollie who is approx 14 weeks old now. We got him last week and he's already made himself at home and got his paws under the table. LOL. Isn't he gorgeous!?

This one he kept trying to catch the arrow on the screen.
Sadly our stray cat Gus died in September, not sure how old he was as he turned up on our doorstep 9 years ago and never left and he was around 5 or 6 years then.
It's been 23 years since we had a kitten in the house but it's lovely, he's so funny.

                       Janina xx

Summer Hols begin today........

Goodness where has that school year gone! Mind you Emily finished her first year at uni on May 5th. I always loved the school holidays and could quite happily of seen the summer holidays last longer than the six weeks, now all my 3 children are adults (24, 22 and 20).
Anyway since I last posted I have been busy scrapping and here are my efforts......

These first three are of Emily and my visit to London in May while on the Shaun the Sheep Trail.
This next one is of Emily and her boyfriend Sam.

On Saturday I went to the monthly crop at papermaze.co.uk and this layout was the crop kit designed by Vanessa......I did slightly alter the design.

It's of Candy Shaun who was at Covent Garden.
I've also been busy designing the monthly crop kits for the Bramford crop and have managed to get well ahead of myself and design the kits from now until October.......
Andy and I have got two weeks off work in August and I have managed to get tickets to go see....
Warhorse in London, I can't wait as wanted to see this for well over a year but tickets are few and far between for the times we could go.
Well it's coffee time and my craft room needs one serious tidy up................

                              Janina xx

A Grand Day Out......

Sunday Emily and I spent the day in London sight seeing and Shaun the Sheep spotting, while Andy and Tim spent the day at Lords Cricket Ground watching a great days cricket England playing New Zealand in a test match.
We had a fun day wandering around the city finding the lovely painted Shauns and seeing places on all of our many visits to London we'd never seen.

Shaun in Covent Garden.

 Leicester Square.

Carnaby Street.

 St Pauls.

St Pauls.

At the Tower of London.

This famous Liberty's of London.

 St Pauls.

The Shard.

We saw 27 of the 50 Shauns dotted around the city and stopped by Lords Cricket Ground, Covent Garden, St Pauls, Carnaby Street, Oxford Street, The Shard, Wet Dock, Globe Theatre, Leicester Square, Tower Of London, Tower Bridge as well as a couple of Neros Coffee Shops to recharge and give our aching legs a break. We started at 10.30am in St Johns Wood and finished at 6.30pm in Leicester Square where we met up with Andy and Tim for an evening meal at Pizza Hut. All in all a grand day out.........excuse the pun(Wallace and Gromit!)

                                       Janina xx

My Ally Pally purchases........

Saturday I spent the day at Ally Pally. I picked Liz up just after 6.30am and then picked Lynda and Sue up from Tescos on the way. It was a good drive down, apart from the 40 mph speed limit on parts of the A12. We arrived at 9am after our usual food, coffee and toilet stop at Sainsburys Enfield. We had a great day all buying lovely goodies, here is what I bought.

Next photo apart from the stamps I bought from Anna Marie Designs, she has such yummy stuff on here stand and her demos were very good too.

The Creative Expressions stamps are designed by Lisa, that lady is so talented I thoroughly enjoyed watching her demo on the Creative Expressions stand.
Then today I nipped to Di's Crafts and Candlelight and treated myself to these.......

They colour up so lovely. Now need to go on a stash diet and use up what I've got.

                          Janina xx

Look Who's a Lucky Girl.......

Yes it's me. I'd only been saying at the end of last year to friends  can't understand why Sizzix hadn't brought out an A4 size die cutting machine. Then at CHA in January they launched the Big Shot Plus. Well I just had to have one to keep my smaller Big Shot company and yesterday thanks to Once Upon A Stamp mine arrived.

So once hubby goes off to work and I've done the hoovering I'm off to have a play.
It's the Wherstead crop on Saturday, the first for Emma, Liz and myself to be organising so  need to get my stuff sorted to take to that.....at least I've all day tomorrow as well to get my butt into gear and be organised for once in what I take. I normally just take several bags of stuff with me and think what to do on the day, makes for a far less productive time spent scrapping.

Well must go lots to do.......

                    Janina xx

Baby it's cold outside!

Well not as cold as it is in Scotland so really we're lucky here in Suffolk. Having said that I'm COLD!
I love to see the snow, nothing better than leaving off work at 8am and walking through Christchurch Park when we've had heavy snow fall during the night, it looks so beautiful and untouched.
Anyway I've got some layouts to show that I've done in the past month. The first is from last months Papermaze crop kit designed by Vanessa, the rest are my own designs.

This is my daughter Emily and her friend Hannah in fancy dress (Emily's the one on the right).

I just had to take a photo of Camels when we visited the Magnavat Waterfalls near Said Turkey.

This one was taken on board ship looking towards Marmaras Turkey.

And finally this was my DT piece of Get the Cover Look for issue 87 of Scrapbook Magazine out now, using the freebie papers with the mag.
It's the Bramford crop this Saturday and next Saturday will be the last monthly crop at Wherstead as my dear friend Karen Curd and her husband Paul are onto pastures new and a new career for Paul. I wish them well but will miss them both.
I'm on holiday in a couple of weeks, I have almost two weeks off....whoopp......I intend getting some much needed crafting done.
Anyway time to go the hoovering awaits!

                     Janina xx

I treated myself......

Yesterday I took a look in our local TKMax and found these so decided to treat myself to them.

A lovely desk top spinner and desk top storage, both in wood. The one on the right is approx 12" wide so not a bad size and looks great on my craft desk. The spinner was £9.99 and the other was £12.99.
I'm trying to sort out my craftroom, it's slow going I might add. I'm getting ruthless to in selling stash I haven't used or probably won't use. At the moment I've sold lots but doesn't look like I've made any dent in it!
My aim also in the next few months is to use up what papers and cardstock I have before buying more.........trouble is it's the Papermaze crop on Saturday and Vanessa has 20% off everything! Ugh!!!

        Janina xx

Last Crop of 2014.......

It was the Bramford Christmas crop yesterday and hopefully an enjoyable day was had by all, with everyone going home with a prize. The day had some sadness to it as one of our ladies Linda, sadly passed away in November of cancer. Her wish for her craft stash was to be sold, giving the ladies at the crop first choice and all monies raised to go to the charity of Linda's choice Wolverstone Wish. Our ladies did us proud Linda and raised £450 on the day with hopefully the remainder of the stash selling next month. Our ladies felt sad going through Linda's stash but were pleased with the goodies they bought.

This stunning blue Orchid was kindly given to me by two lovely ladies who come to our crop and who over the past 6 years come to know and class as 'friends'. The photo does not show you the true blue colour it is utterly stunning. A big thank you to Sue and Dawn for this, it now sits in my lounge for everyone to admire.
My Christmas shopping is almost done, just two gift cards left to get tomorrow. Everything is wrapped and delivered....even better. My time this week is limited as i'm working four night shifts. Tomorrow Andy and I are off to see the final installment of the Hobbit, which I'm looking forward to and as Emily's home from Uni for Christmas it's a KFC for tea for us all.

Well my friends I'd like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and here's to a good 2015. xx


                 Janina xx

Scrapology Blog Guest Designer.....

I recently was asked to be a guest designer for the November sketch challenge on the Scrapology blog. Lynn emailed me the following sketch.

For several days I looked at the sketch trying to decided what I was going to do with it. I decided to use chevrons instead of the hearts on my layout and this is what I come up with.

It's of my daughter Emily who for the past 8yrs has been a cast member in the Ipswich Gang Show and Chris one of the other cast members. This is them at the after show fancy dress party......this year the theme was Disney characters. Sadly this was Emily's last year as she has now gone off to university at Kingston Upon Thames. I was really pleased how this layout turned out and as I used scrap pieces of paper it was really cheap too. Take a look over at Scrapology to see what the rest of the DT have designed.

Thank you Lynn and the other DT for asking me to join in this month's challenge, I was honoured.

               Janina xx

Autumn is upon Us......

Did you remember to alter your clocks at the weekend? We did though I don't think that extra hour made any difference. It's been my weekend at work, so lack of sleep my head is fuzzy! Back in tomorrow night, Tuesday and an extra on Thursday night.
Saturday is the Bramford monthly crop 9am-5pm, so hope to see some of you there. The crop now has a FB page to.......Bramford Monthly Crop....pretty inventive name if I do say so myself. LOL.
Emily has been at Uni in Kingston for nearly 7 weeks now and loves it. It seems strange without her here and I certainly think the cat has missed her, he perked right up when she came home for one night last week.
In September Liz, Karen, Nancy, Emma, Beryl, Tracey and myself went away for a long weekend to School Farm Coattages, Cratfield, Suffolk on a crafting retreat. We had a great time, scrapbooking, cardmaking, chatting, chilling, eating and just enjoying each others company. I was quite productive and did around 7 layouts, here's what I did.

 Most are photos from our cruise last year, I've almost finished scrapping those.
Earlier in the year I gave away my old sewing machine and have been umming and arhing for months about getting a new one. Well as I've a birthday on the horizion and because Create and Craft had a good deal on one I'd had my eye on I went for it and here it is.

it arrived on Friday but as yet haven't had time to even look at it. My lovely new toy.................Andy might at long last get his work trousers turned up, the ones he bought about a year ago and still sit waiting for me to alter, think he'd forgotten about them!
Last week I took the bull by the horns and , yes wait for it, started my Christmas shopping. Bought a few bits n pieces for Andy and the kids. It's a start.
Well lots to do.

                              Janina xx

A new Adventure begins..........

Today my daughter Emily starts her 3 year degree working with young children and young people at Kingston Upon Thames University. So proud of her as she got top grades in her recent exams to gain her place. Saturday we packed the car, it was jammed packed we couldn't get nothing else in and headed off to Kingston. Pleased to say the Uni is in a lovely area of Surrey and only 9 miles from London City centre, so an excuse for a visit to have a girlie day shopping in London! She has halls on campus and has a two minute walk to lectures etc. We helped her unpack alot of her stuff and then took a visit to the local Asda, which was a two minute car journey up the road................well would of been if we hadn't missed the turn off, got stuck in traffic and was about 5 miles out of London before we could turn off and turn round.....ha, one stressy husband. Fresh food shop done, Emily would no be ok for at least a couple of weeks food wise. She's now got to learn to cook and use a washing machine and iron. LOL.
This week I will get in her bedroom and give it a good clean and know it will stay that way until Christmas when she comes home.! We will miss her.


                    Janina xx

Oh dear, naughty me !

Sue Wilsons new Christmas dies hit the market this week and I just couldn't resist some of them. There's still a couple I might just have to have.

Anything to make Christmas card making a tad easier! Well that's my excuse.
Andy and I are on holiday for two weeks..............it's a stay at home one this year, doesn't seem possible this time last year we were on a cruise and today we were in Alanya in Turkey, visiting Said and the Magnavat waterfall and it was very hot! The past few days we've been decorating our hall/stairs, tomorrow we shall finish the papering and put everything back.
Tuesday we took a little drive out to Cratfield too see where myself and 6 friends are staying at the end of September for a crafty retreat.......the place looks lovely. We then went onto Aldburgh and had fish and chips sitting on the sea front.

Next we took a two mile drive along the coast to Thorpeness.

The House in the Clouds to the right of the picture is a converted water tower.

Poor horse looked totally cheesed off. !
To round off the afternoon we treated ourselves to this...............

Scrummy it was too.
Along from Thorpeness on the beach (ha, I mean pebbles!) we found the clam sculpture.

If ever in Suffolk both these places are well worth a visit, you can find them off the A12 in between Woodbridge and Lowestoft.I have some new photos to scrapbook at last!

Anyway, hope you're having a lovely bank holiday weekend even if it is a little chilly.

                            Janina xx