A winter wonderland...

One of my best things about coming home is the QVC shop in Shropshire. Sadly, due to the snow, they hadn't had a new delivery for a few weeks. However I got all this lot for just £12!! Don't you just love all the card playing stash and the Christmassy papers. The crocodile is a fab tool which can emboss, cut and put metal borders on paper. Here is my parents garden. How gorgeous is this winter wonderland...

Check back here tomorrow for my blogs *almost* one year anniversary giveaway. I will be giving away some fab stash from the QVC and it will be open to my international friends too. So check back tomorrow and tell you friends! xx

Stranded...

So it took eleven hours to travel from Leeds to Oxford and a large part of that journey was stationary. The worst part was at 11.30 we were ten miles from our final destination - my granny's 90th birthday - and we only got there at 7pm. Ridiculous right?? So clearly I spent most of my weekend in a car and don't have any scrapping to show but I am taking part in the Favourite Things challenge and have been scanning my blog looking for me fav page of the year. Here it is: Reasons why it is my fav: * The pics were taken on a fab getaway to Liverpool and have great memories attached to them * 2010 has been all about the glimmer misting for me. * These were the first paper flowers i ever made and I am very proud of them. * It all fits together well and has been on our wall all year. What are your favourite layouts of this year and why?

Duvet day * Sniff! *

Since Friday night I have been riddled with this awful sore throat, tickly cough, aching joints and head ache and I battled through school yesterday but am now having a day off as it doesn't do my throat any favours shouting at kids all day long. So this comes from my duvet...my poor neglected blog. The funny thing is I have scrappped a lot recently but the borrowed camera is now having a few technical issues and i still can't figure out the SLR I got on ebay. So I can't share! Good news is I won this RAK from the lovely Darlene. It is coming up to my one year blogiversary and I am planning a RAK for that. So tell your friends. I am hoping to get up to 40 followers by then as my blog has hit a plateau. Here are the goodies I will be recieving - yay! In other news my sister Mara has arrived safely in Turks and Caicos to spend Christmas with my little sister Gems and her husband. I am *trying* not to get too jealous. Check out her blog if you wanna see more.

How clear is that water?? Seriously?!

However if baking is more your thing at Christmas then check out her baking blog where she has just made these delicious looking brownies - hello! Trouble is I don't even have an appetite - now that is how you know that I am sick!

So there you have it. I am still alive, perhaps not kicking, and wanted to share a few pics with you.

Like a lightbulb...

To get in the festive mood I made gingerbread cupcakes. They were a bit dry as I did my usual and didn't have all the correct ingredients but went for it anyways...hmmm..not to be recommended! I made nutella icing and then tried to rescue them by creating a cute reindeer style decoration with an m&m, peanut eyes and pretzel antlers.

Hump day almost over....

All geeked out...

So the geek party was a great success. We kept track of who the biggest geek of the evening was with our chart giving points for different activities like Articulate, Geek Quiz and bomber man tournament. We gave our guests geeky alter ego names and had a prize for the best geeky costume.

The game of the night...bomberman. Do you remember how great this game is? And addictive?

Lord and Lady of the Geek Manor! Lovin' the plaster on the glasses.

Our table of geeky treats.

A geeky first kiss...

And last but not least (for the party pics) the hosts - Melly and Arnold.

And whilst I am in the middle of a mega post I thought I would include this Shimelle inspired layout I completed of our Christmas Krispy Kremes.

Lots of border stickers, ribbons and stamping.

So there you go...what did you all get up to this festive weekend?

A snowy quest for geekiness...

Well I am now on snow day number three and ashamed by my lack of scrapping. :0 Actually I have done some scrapping but it's for my DT so check back here on the 10th for our Ho ho hop there will be loads of chances to win prizes. I had forgotten all about my little photo printer and *thought* it was broken, but clearly not so I printed off one of the pics from this weekend and got going straight away. I was inspired by the dvd cover of Love Actually and wanted my title to be something like - my family actually love London...but it didn't work out that way and so I went for this instead. Using up some of the dregs of my AC kit. Off to Harrogate later but will have to restrain myself inm TKMaxx. The backing paper reminded me of the underground and I studded it with loads of mini brads. I used this weeks sketch from Twisted Sketches and the ribbon is my take on a frame. Wanted to snap it in the snow, so here you go... I don't know why I look so glum in the snow... Tonight is Arne's belated birthday and so I made these pacman and mario inspired cookies. I used lemon juice instead of water for the icing so they are a sweet and sour treat. The party theme is: geek!

Here is the pic and mix pot for the occassion...

Are these drinks geeky enough?

I am planning to play guess the celeb geek picture round, Articulate, table fusball tournament and a quiz to get what percentage of a geek you are. Any other ideas for geeky games??

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

Our head made a bad call today and got us all in to only send everyone home an hour later. But instead of being able to snuggle back into bed or get my scrap on instead we had a three hour commute on a normally 15 minute route. Ridiculous. So if any of you fellow Brits are also snowed in here is a challenge to warm the cockles of your heart: I went with the line about toil and trouble and got to scrap this pic I have been wanting to scrap for a while. I was very pleased with the purple and orange colour scheme and the scalloped border. I then paper pieced a pumpkin and heat embossed black sparkles round the edge.

Last night I ran a scrapping class at my local youth club and the girls were very excited about brads and glimmer mist. I think it's a fab hobby to get into and I only got into it when I was 15 by one of my youth club leaders who spent six months of the year in America and brought us over lots of stash. Now it is more readily available and the techniques are more sophisticated - I die when I see my early attempts!

Holidays are coming...

So before I tell you all about my exciting, stressful and festive weekend I will share a page I completed last week for the Sarah's cards blog. It was quite an easy layout to put together and I got to use some of my new stash. The journalling is written in gel pen and is better irl. So this weekend saw me London bound for a festive jaunt with my mom and sister. If we gloss over the part when I was stranded at Kings Cross station for three hours and got home at 2am then it was a fab weekend. Here is my wish list from Urban Outfitters:

I have been lusting after these ear muffs for ages - but no-one has got the message yet! :(

We stopped for many hot choc breaks to warm us up.

Loving this pic of the elfs outside of M&S. All the shops on Oxford Street had outdone themselves and there were lots of promotions and freebies and displays and spectacles to behold. It was a merry lark! This pic will defo be scrapped soon...

As you can see lots of other shoppers had the same idea as us on this one...

I did really well for myself and did a lot of my Christmas shopping and even got myself a sexy black dress for my staff Christmas do. Spittlefields market was one of the highlights, when you are next in London check it out as it has loads of fab stalls with unique items and quirky little trinkets and things...It was great to catch up with my family and as for the delays..I met some cool people and chatted the evening away. Not bad. Not at all bad...

Thankful for Gems and shopping...

My little sister Gem's posted this cute photo collage of the two of us on her blog. She also did a gushing entry about how grateful she is for her family now she's moved away. These pics have me craving for the bleach bottle...what do you reckon readers - do blondes have more fun?

So couldn't resist the challenge over at The Studio to scrap about shopping. I have been keen to scrap a pic of my Gems recently, since she moved to a tropical island I don't get to see or speak to her much. This pic is of her standing at the smallest street in Brugges. We went away with our hubby's, but managed to ditch them for a morning and do some proper shopping without their watch watching or tutting. We had a fab time gossiping and buying what we wanted. I have just got an AC kit from TKMaxx and so this layout features lots of me new stash, including spangly thickers and a cute little rosette. Love it!

Mexican madness...

My regular readers will remember the fancy dress Mexican pics. I finally got round to scrapping it. Here is a close-up... I had neglected my poor mists for too long and so fished them out again. I went for the colours of the Mexican flag and glammed it up with the glitter thickers and lots of cute little embellies. I made it a celebratory layout with balloons and an explosion of colour.

Enjoy!

She's so lucky, she's a star!

As promised here are a few of the layouts I have been working on recently. The poem over at Scrap that Poem is about gratitude to mother earth. I thought of these pictures we took of the gorgeous autumn colours. I love my leaf brads that my sister got me and used as many as poss. I kept the layout quite plain for a change and let all the colours and textures just speak for themselves! So get on over to the blog and have a go - it's a great challenge and there is a fab prize up for grabs. In the same vein was the theme for the studio challenge which was: lucky. I immeadiately thought of these pics of how much Arne spoilt me for my birthday. I even used some of the tsash I got for my birthday including the ribbon and rhinestones. Check out the huge box of chocs in the main pic! Wow!

The journalling is all about the party he threw for me and what we did.

I combined the layout with the use of circle journalling and polka dot cardstock.

November seems to be the month for gratitude! It's always good to count your blessings...

One year old and wiser too...

It's birthday fever in our household in Autumn and today is his turn... Looking like his'n'hers in our new purple tops. I went crazy at Debenhams 25% off sale and even got a mini cupcake pan I have been after for ages. Here is the cheesy birthday candle pic...

This carrot cake was made with a little help from Betty Crocker. I added pineapple and coconut to make it a tropical version. Despite following the cream cheese icing recipe to the letter and letting the cake cool down the icing still melted a bit - but it did taste yummy.

I got him a very good quality meat cleaver from Debs, may seem like a strange pressie but he has been after one for a while as he fancies himself as the next Jamie Oliver. I also got him a hoody and this cool board game called Nab It which is like scrabble with a twist.

More posts to follow with some scrapping - I have been running on empy after ofsted last week and was too lazy to post them!

An Inspector Calls...

So there was rather stressful announcement Monday lunchtime...Ofsted were coming Wednesday and Thursday to inspect our school. Cue panic and hysteria. Ridiculous late nights, lack of sleep due to stress, a mini heart attack everytime someone walked past my door, the most resource heavy and detailed lessons and lesson plans. They came to my Year 8 lesson and I came out with a good, although I usually get outstandings I was happy enough. Our school came out with a 'good' overall, which we were delighted about! Yay! All the hard work paid off. So this explains my absense from blogland. I am turning this post into a tribute to school. Here is my food (or home ec for all you statesiders) A few weeks ago I finally got hold of Libby's pumpkin pie filling and played with pumpkin cupcakes and decided they were my best ever and most moist cakes. Here is the recipe - good old Martha Stewart! The edible glitter didn't look very good on the cream cheese frosting, but would look better on chocolate frosting. I made some with swirly icing all nicely piped on, but forgot to photograph them. Also in half term I came across this pic of my friends and I at St.Georges. We liked to do random photo shoots at lunch time and this pic was taken in the changing rooms. Here is a close-up of the pic:

IRL the gold stamped title stands out and looks great. The backing 'paper' is actually fabric I picked up for a bargain at the Harrogate Scrapping Fair thingie.

Last, but not least, a tribute to our least fav lesson - science!!! However, we both really enjoyed out last visit to the Glasgow Science Museum and I have been keen to scrap these pics since then. I used this sketch from Twisted Sketches as I love circles and it fitted well with our hats and the fun feel of the page. I used bright colours and cute little mosters cut out of cardstock.

I think the paint border brings it all together and gives it a tactile feel.

So the bells gone it's break time...I am thinking one of the choc chip and peanut butter cookies I just whipped up in my sisters kitchen aid and an episode of Gossip Girl Season 3 I just got...

What are you doing with your play time this weekend?

Keep the Faith...

So hitting the double...glad that scrapping the music extended their challenge for another week as I was keen to get involved. I love Bon Jovi and listened to his music a lot growing up, plus my faith is a big part of who I am. I was also interested in the challenges on Mission to Create: Deborah: use an item from the $ store (the butterly stickers) Jocie: use a tree (it's in the pic!) Nicole: rolled paper pieces (see the top) Vanessa: at least 3 butterflies (stickers and rub ons) Karola: twine (stapled on) I like the dreamt effect of the backing papers contrasted with the purple and brightly coloured butterflies.

My fav glittery thickers stand out nicely on the worded backing paper.

The journalling is all about how perfect and peaceful the Inglebrook Waterfalls are.

I am pleased with this layout and was glad to get back to some scrapping!

McFlyday Friday...

Get on over to scrapping the poetry to join in the lastest challenge using Robert Burns' poem - Love is red, red rose...