Fruity fajita night....

So fajita's always remind me of my fav Friend's episode when Ross invites Rachel and Joey (the new and recently outed couple) round for dinner. He keeps saying "it's fine!" in that tone of voice which completely suggests otherwise. Then he says "the only thing that wouldn't be fine would be if you don't like Mexican as we are cooking fajitas!!" Of course it is not the same without the accents, but if you have seen it I am sure you will agree that it is soooo funny!! So during graduation weekend we went for mexican food and Laura and I opted for fruit fajitas for dessert. It was a feast of toffee, mascapone cheese, chocolate flake, pancakes and caramelised peaches and bananas. But it was surprisingly not sickly. I used lots of clashing patterns taking inspiration from this new blog I have found called Scrapjacked. The title was stamped and then thickered (my new verb!!!)

I love making flowers from paper and distressing them. I added the ribbon to give it some more dimension and make it stand out. I am pleased with the end result - my fav layout in a while.

I am looking forward to their next sketch....

Butterfly break...

So the man is away on boy's camp and I had a whole day of scrapping and Gossip Girl boxsets on the agenda. I needed some blog challenge inspiration to get my mojo going. I wouldn't normally use three panels and my stripes are usually horizontal, bit I like the effect of this. I also went paint crazy and stamped with paint the title on ripped cardboard and then edged the pics in paint too. I even cracked out some eyelets - old skool style!! Isn't that butterfly cute? I cut it out of cardstock and put it on pritpads.

I have just been to Nando's with my old housemate Dr.Anna. I had a delicious pita and it was good to catch up on all the goss!

Anniversary weekend and new hair...eeek!!!

First things first...before the cheesy pics...my new hair colour.... What do you think??? I conducted a fb survey and most people said go for it so Arne did it for me. I knew I wouldn't love it at first, but its not as bad as I thought and I don't have the awful roots I always had before. So this weekend we reached a milestone in our relationship - our first wedding anniversary. So indulge me whilst I share some cheesy pics of our celebrations...soon to be made into LO's. So here we are at Fountains Abbey in a little cave...the rain held out so we could enjoy a long walk through this national trust property. We went to this cute gastro pub in Ripon where we were staying. My very creamy and rich garlic risotto with ducks eggs on top...it was lush but I should have had it starter size as I couldn't finish it. Carrot and coriander soup - liquid nectar! Flowers and balloons from the hubby...the other part of his pressie was a slideshow which I will upload when it stops being annoying. He also got me *paper* tickets to see JLS in Jan...lots of screaming teens...I will be in my elemant! Our cute little cove of a hotel room in the historic Deanery Hotel....although I was dissapointed that our bed was just double and not king like ours at home....what were we paying for really??! So it's been a bumpy start with lots of silly squabbles - most notably over a very wobbly ikea wardrobe and my refusal to cook meat and the fact I live in a "bubble" as i never have any cash on me!!! In fact my little sister Gems told me I should make a blog of our arguments as they are much more amusing than my scrapping - ha!!! But we're adjusting. We didn't live together before we got married so there was a lot of compromising and we're both really stubborn people. But I love my baby and we loved looking through the wedding scrapbook and reading our wedding cards and guest book again and just basking in the memories of the best day of both of our lives!

Cute cupcake treats!

Well even though it was my Arne's graduation the M.I.L brought me a cupcake giftbag full of cupcake goodies...it was so exciting opening them all. They were all wrapped in lovely polka dot tissue paper from none other than Primark! These three cupcake candles were from Laura Ashley and are just too cute to burn...

These little notecards were from Primark (although I have never seen them at the shop in Leeds.) I have already used a few of them to write little thank-you and thinking of you notes. They are glittery and cute and I may just cut some of them up and use them for scrapping.

This hand cream is so cute too and smells gorgeous and summery. It reminds me of the Body shop body butters - yum!

And lastly a cupcake recipe book. How delicious does this chocolate fudge frosting look?? I have had a few cupcake flops recently - mainly as I always substitute the ingredients when I can't be bothered to go to the shops! So I will have to use my summer hols to make some successful ones!

Wasn't I a lucky lady??! And now I have six weeks of holiday stretching out before me. I have finished a layout this morning for my DT, but will have to wait to reveal it. Get yourself over there and take part in the dreams challenge as you have until the 31st to complete it.

It is our one year wedding anniversary on Sunday and so we are going away for the night to a posh hotel. There will be some anniversary style and graduation layouts on the way I promise...

Happy Friday bloggers!

Good times, good times....

Well I have had a v.busy weekend entertaining the in-laws as it was my husband's graduation. Firstly some cute pics from the Strawberry Fayre evening held with the ladies from my church recently. My friend's little girl enjoying a strawb....she is soooo adorable and makes me *seriously* broody! The strawberry spread with trifles, merengues, cheesecakes and puffs...I made strawberry and brownie cupcakes but they don't look that pretty - the icing was a bit bleugh!

This is Arne's little sister enjoying her fruit fajita at Los Iguana's in Leeds. This was our meal out to celebrate on Saturday night. Friday night we had a curry at Aggrar's and it defo deserves all its awards but Laura took the pics that night!

His official graduation pic with his family. It is a really lovely shot. It is a shame I couldn't get the day off from work, but I felt it was more about his family this day.

Obviously I can't wait to scrap all these pics. Any ideas for good graduation fodder?

Lamenting the demise of Scrapbook Inspirations...

I used to love Scrapbook Inspirations, and I know a lot of my followers did too, I used to look forward to it arriving on my doorstep every month and was even known to shout in exclamation a few times (*ahem* every month!) I would pour over each issue and devour all the delish layouts. I would often post-it note my favs and plan on using them as inspiration later. So when I had some quite dark, very red and pink pics from a fab mocktail night with my fav girlies Hester and Anna I knew which layout to scraplift. It's a Shimelle originial fro the February 2009 issue. I loved everything about her page (I tried to take a pic but it didn't come out very well) and so used it all - the shaped paper, the clashing prints, the haphazard and random font title and the two pics with little circle embellies. I am so pleased with the final product. In fact it is my fav page in ages! My fav part was making the title and I am defo gonna use that technique again.

So all you SI fans let me know if you ever scraplifted a layout from there. Does anyone know why it stopped being published? I think it was cos there weren't enough buyers....I was super annoyed cos they started sending me this rubbish card mag and I am so not into making cards at all. I think it was partly my fault for not replying to this form...but I am rubbish about forms and I think it is cheeky just to switch you to another random mag.

Hold me closer...

Totally love the song Tiny Dancer, but didn't have any cute pics of kiddies dancing. I was thinking of using the lyric "Blue Jean baby" but then went for Hold me closer...babe! A modern twist on it. These are pics of the sunset we took after a date one night. I kept the page quite simple but clashed papers a lot more than I normally would - I was going for sunset colours. I bordered the main pic with paint to make it stand out and give it texture - I also had to paint the 'e' black as I had run out as usual!!! The challenge is here. I like this layout as it is simple and keeps the focus on the pictures. These challenges help me to be more creative and to get past the wall that sometimes stands in my way!

Tropical celebrations...

So I have been having a scrap attack since I got back from school camp - I was having withdrawals from my scrap room for sure as I patrolled the girls tents in the pouring rain! So here is a little page i whipped up using the sketch challenge on Sarah's Cards. I wanted to scrap the pics of my school friends stay with me in Leeds. We went to Tropical world a butterfly and other tropical animal sanctuary. The second layout is quite unlike any other page I have made, but that is why I take part in challenges. I got the funky border put on at snapfish and then thought the American crafts embossed heart cardstock made the perfect addition to the page. This is a picture of my sisters who share a birthday in June and so always have a joint celebration. It looks a bit bare to me, but I couldn't think what else to add and didn't want to ruin it as I have done with pages in the past. It was completed for Twisted Sketches - the twist was red. Hope that your Monday wasn't too blue! Other than the sight of my classroom this morning, after a week of supply teachers whilst I was on camp, my day has been okay.

First love and a nifty website...

Who was your first love? Some spotty faced boy who held your hand in the back of a biology lesson or the man you said "I do" to across the marriage altar?? My first love was sadly not my husband (although I often wish looking back at some of the others that he had been!) so I couldn't have taken this poem and scrapped about one of the others as Arne is not keen on that!! I do have a sneaky little book with pics scrapped of all my old crushes and teen year boyfriends and I will one day show it to my daughter(s), but for now it is well hidden in my scrapping room. This was in fact the poem that Arne's sister Zara read out at our wedding. I decided the best way to get it on the page was to use one of my fav websites - wordle.net and create a beautiful word cloud with the verses. It is soooo fun and you can choose the colours and the layout. I used it as my photo mat:- I painstakingly sewed all these buttons onto the ribbon border. The photo is bordered with silver heart wrapping paper - I always stash all ribbons and wrappings for LOs. The title is a combo of stickers and lettering from an SEI set and then stickles round the edge. I wanted this page to be quite simple and to focus on the word cloud and the black and white photo from our wedding.

Ahhh what a great layout to create a few weeks before our first anniversary!

The other DT members scrapped about kids, dogs and even Twilight so I cannot wait to see what you all create. There are some cute prizes to win too - so get involved you have until July 14th! x

Doing the double...

I am not referring to Wimbledon or the world cup instead the double is my layout. I was inspired by this sketch from here and got the idea for title from the lyrics of this weeks scrapping the music challenge. I have done double layouts in the past but it always * seems * like more work, however I had loads of pics from a recent trip to my parents and so used them and am very pleased with the results. Here is the complete finished product: I stamped the title and then used some lettering to emphasise the words home and belong and it was from an SEI set which co-ordinated with the polka dot runner. My trustee Martha Stewart border punch edged the middle panel. I also stamped flowers all along the top and bottom to jazz up the kraft cardstock, I then embossed a few with glittery powder to make them stand out.

You may notice that in the above pic I added a "tail" to my L as I felt it looked funny as it was...but I am a bit tired and so didn't bother to retake all the pics.

I used a few journalling spots and a date stamp to add some details about the weekend. I also added a polka dot button in the middle of the three flowers - gotta love the polka dots!

So I urge you all to have a go at a double layout as it is great for multi photos and for stretching your supplies. My next post will be a closer look at my LO for scrap that poetry - it's another great challenge and a poem that I chose as it was read out at my wedding, so give it a go...