Half term highlights...

To combat the back to school blues I will share some of what my half term looked like...

Baked some blueberry scones

Went to a certain Swedish furniture store and indulged in my fav treat

Along with some tasty donuts from a certain America donut place

I think The Belgian looks hot here - but then I am bias!

Did some crafting on a onesie - I shared this earlier in the week

Impressed myself with my chevron creating skills

Ate at So Bar in Knaresborough getting two-for-one using our new free trial Tastecard - fellow Brits sign up now!

Creating his 'n' hers lamps on our bedside tables - Homebase were selling these Habitat lamps at better than half price.

Did some more crafting for the babies nursery - I will share a DIY for this later in the week.

Picked these up at Ikea as well for the nursery - we are thinking of a 'feature' wall of pictures rather than painting

In other news:

• Saw Beautiful Creatures on Orange Wednesday - not usually our cup of tea but we enjoyed it
• Had our 20 week scan and all is well - we are Team Yellow and waiting to find out
• I am totally loving Pink's new song with the guy from FUN
• Watched Nashville for the first time today and think I could really get into it - always been a closet country music fan
• Found Paige's blog through Shimelle and have been having a real nosy around - am totally inspired by her use of hearts, confetti and layering

What have you guys been up to recently?

Diy chevron cushion cover

So earlier in the week I declared my intentions to actually do some crafty projects this week.
When I started to think about the fun of designing a nursery I started scanning pinterest.
I was in love with this cushion from Etsy  and this is partly what inspired the yellow and grey colour scheme
and the elephant theme.
But it was made in America and this equals large postage costs so I thought I'd have a go at creating a chevron pattern myself.

1) First I brought a yellow cushion cover for £3 at Ikea.
2) I created a chevron pattern with masking tape. Most blogs and tutorials advise you to use electrical tape as this eliminates the chance of the colour bleeding, but I found that masking tape worked fine. Also you a-types out there would definitley bust out a tape measure - but i just eye-balled it and the end result (pictured below) is accurate enough - so long as you don't look at it too closely!
3) Using grey fabric paint purchased at Hobby Craft and the sponge applicator (pictured at the bottom) I applied a generous layer of paint trying to go with the grain of the fibres on the pillow cover.
4) I had to wait patiently for the paint to dry. The Belgian found this very difficult and I had to swot his hands away many times.
5) Peel back when you are sure it is dry.
6) Stand back and check for any small errors - I then corrected these with a small paintbrush.
7) I then ironed it with a sheet of paper over it on a low heat. I should have ironed it first and would advise this to be your first tip.
I still need to buy a pillow to go in it and a rocking chair for it to rest on. I might do a smaller plain grey one and iron on a yellow polka dot elephant. I will do a photo shoot when its all ready, but for now you get the impression!

Stamping on fabric...

Playing around with my amy tan stamps and a onesie. Do you like?

Pinning Projects to Paint...and other things!

It's no secret that I have been having a crafty drought these past say four and a half months.
I think there are many reasons - mostly relating to the baby growing in my belly.
For instance:

• feeling too sick and lethargic to do anything more creative than channel and web surf
• barely having any photo's from the last few months
• especially lacking pictures of Christmas - where I was being sick a few times a day
• realising a distinct lack of storage space and rapidly accumulating scrap albums
• trying to clear out my scrapbooking room - ready to transform into a nursery

However the nursery is giving me some creative yearnings and I have spent the week pinning craft projects that I hope to work on over this half term holiday.
I will post the top four here to share with you all and to commit myself to completing at least two!

1) Firstly since we don't want to find out the sex of the baby we have decided that colour scheme will be yellow and grey with polka dots and a jungle theme. I loved these spray painted and decorated zoo animals over at Spearmint baby and think this would be a fun project and would look great displayed on the window still or book shelf. With yellow and grey accents of course.

 

2) For me the most ambitious project (since I am useless with a sewing machine) and the one I will probably save for nearer to the birth when I may be able to get some direction from the lovely textiles teacher at my school. I love this honeycomb material - any ideas where to source it in England? Elephants and giraffes are going to feature most heavily in the decor. The tutorial is found here at Sew 4 Home.

 

 3) I love this shadow box idea from Our Day by Design. I have ordered some elephants punched out in greys, blues and yellows from ebay - cheaper than the actual Martha Stewart punch which is £15. I just need to get the shadow box - I seem to think that Ikea stock these quite cheaply? Am I right? 

4) And lastly the project I will be tackling first I think is this animal painted canvas - here is the youtube link. I brought the supplies yesterday and have printed the pictures off ready to roll.  I think I might make the silouette with material and have ordered some grey and yellow fat quarters off ebay this morning. So it may look more like this...

How cute is this? From here.

So there you have it. I do pin a lot, but I also try to actually make some of the things I pin. Hopefully I will have some projects to share with you all by the end of the week,

The Precious Little Wriggler...

So I am a bit late joining Sian's storytelling Sunday party, but I thought that the theme of sharing your precious would work well with my exciting news (that I hinted at last week).
My 'precious' is my 12 week scan pictures.
It's been a bumpy journey getting there.
I was pregnant last April, but sadly lost the baby in June - a week before our scan was due.
I struggled afterwards with anxiety and sleeping at night.
For a while life was pretty hard.
So when I fell pregnant in October I took some convincing that it was true.
So I couldn't quite believe it when I saw the little heartbeat at eleven weeks.
I am due the 10th of July.
A summer baby.
I have been very sick, tired and constantly nauseous.
But it will all be worth it when we get to meet the 'Little Wriggler.'
This is what the doctor dubbed the baby when it wouldn't stay still during the scan.
In fact my husband said it was doing jumping jacks in my belly!
This suggests that it will take after him.

Layout mainly completed using Amy Tangerine goodies - my first actual layout in four months!

 Here I am at four month's pregnant....

with a rapidly expanding belly that is getting trickier and tricker to conceal from the kids that I teach at school!
I hope that my story brings hope to other couples who are trying for a baby, or who have suffered from similar setbacks.
I found support and inspiration from complete blogging strangers who shared their stories and one in particular who helped me to admit how I was feeling.
Now that the sickness is subsiding I hope to blog more.

Memory Monday: Pie Charts and self timer fun...

Now those of you who knew me in school would know that pie charts and fun were never two concepts I connected. Apple pie and fun maybe...but maths - shudder! A strange trend to hit scrapping in 2012, but one I was keen to have a go at.
This page uses lots of American Crafts and especially Amy Tan. I created the pie chart with cardboard and scraps of paper - embellished with an Amy Tan stamp and a Studio Calico wooden camera stamped in black ink.

The memory is of our trip to Barcelona August 2012. When there are just two of you on holiday, you always have the drama of trying to get a picture of you as a 'couple' and in Barca you have to be aware of pickpockets and people liable to run off with your camera.
So we turned to the slightly hit and miss method of self timer. With the camera precariously balanced on some rocks. I like this pic as it is a fun angle and I think shows the energy and fun of our trip.

Back next week with some exciting news and an actual layout that I actually created yesterday (after a four month scrapping drought!)

Me right now...

Digging: Les Mis
Drinking: ginger beer and strawberry smoothie
Eating: Almond Magnums
Listening: Eddie Reymayne singing Les Mis
Wearing: PJ's and a hoody
Reading: A really sad book, but I can't think of the title now...
Feeling: relaxed
Weather: was snowing now slush
Wanting:another snow day
Needing: a good back massage
Wishing: I had more energy
Thinking: I need to start listing some stuff on ebay - we had a big snow day clear out
Enjoying: Don't Tell the Bride
Loving: Almond Magnums

Memory Mondays: Summer days in London town!

As snow flurries (not enough to close school!) try to make an appearence I long for long summer days.
Full of possibility.
Full of light.
Still, sometimes, full of rain showers.
So the memories and layouts I share this morning are about a week we spent in London during the Olympics.
The above and below layout is of this bike stimulator they had on South Bank during the games. You had to cycle to power a traffic light-o-metre and then the Olympic rings in the middle of the Thames would turn into a water feature.
The problem was that it was mostly kids going on it.
And they can't pedle that fast.
One boy got bored and just abandoned his bike mid-cycle.
So my husband, encouraged by crowds of exasperated mothers, hopped on and really gave it some welly.
It took some puff and he abandoned his coat halfway through as the light seemed stuck on amber.
Then the old ladies in the crowd were chanting, "Come on Wiggins!" At him!
Finally a small fountain appeared as the light turned green.
My layout is entitled 'Come on Higgins!'

The second layout is taken on the same day on the giant chair ride at South Bank.
It was a great view of London from the top.
My sister, who loves a bargain, was most delighted to find a 50 pence piece left behind on the seat for her.
Classic Mara!

Did any of you get involved in the action along South Bank?

Memory Mondays: Pad Thai in Thailand!

So in the back end of 2012 I ran a mini series (albeit a bit hit and miss) called Messy Mondays and some of my favourites are here and here. I was trying to think of a new idea for 2013 and have decided that my word of the year will be: REMEMBER.
One of the main reasons that I scrapbook is to capture the memories. I have been ill a lot recently and so have been revisiting some of my old diaries and love to look back at the funny little stories and memories from my teens and early twenties - usually about which boy I was crushing on and what he'd said to me and what he'd worn to a party. Actually I liked to make little sketches of the outfits I wore to big events and these are funny to look back on.
So Memory Mondays will be all about the story behind the layout.

This layout is all about my love of Pad Thai Noodles when I visited Thailand, back in 2007, with some friends.

The journalling reads:
"They were a total steal at only 20p and they were made fresh right in front of you. I liked mine with egg, extra chilli and peanuts. Here Cassie and Emma are enjoying their night time snack."

I busted out some old stash and used lots of stickers and my amazing travel themed washi tape with lots of passport stamps on it. I also used a title, sub title and a little journalling spot to explain the 5 w's behind the layout.

Storytelling Sunday: Pick your Precious!

When we were first married we were visiting an American friend of ours living at the nearby base. It was December and they had a massive tree full of all sorts of muli-coloured and shaped ornaments. Some of which my mother would have deemed 'tacky.' I grew up in a house that had colour co-ordinated trees - a new theme and colour scheme each year. But as my American friend and her kids pointed out their favourite ornaments on the tree I began to see the appeal: each of these treasures told a story.
A family holiday to Disneyland.
Grandma Ruth's first bauble.
A skiing trip to Whistler.
I wanted our tree to tell a similar story.
And so (even though Christmas is over for another year and I spent an hour yesterday wrapping them all up in tissue) my precious is our growing collection of Christmas tree decorations - each with their own story.

 We painted these gingerbread men on our Three Year Anniversary trip to Howarth last July. My regular followers will be aware that my husband is a very loyal Club Brugge supporter. Not very festive, but hey ho...

 Next up is our personal fav - a camper van from California. Two summer's ago we spent an amazing three weeks road tripping round California. Now it wasn't quite in a camper van, but we picked this up in a store in Julian all the same.

Lastly another of my favs. Can you guess where we got this? I like that it has the the spiritual side of Christmas as although we are not Catholic - we definitely celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.

We weren't even going to get a tree this year - as we were away visiting for most of the holidays, but then I found my bag of treasures and knew that we could not resist the trip down memory lane. Every year we build up a few more and I can see it becoming a favourite family tradition.

Linking up with the lovely Sian over at From High in the Sky. A great new idea for the new year...feel free to pick your precious and join us. It's a bit like show and tell!

Messy Mondays: A washi taped up gift of a page!

 Festive greeting blogland! Have had winter sniffles over here and zero motivation to blog despite huge piles of layouts still to be featured. Was motivated by Glitter Girl's latest challenge over at 2peas using 6 by 6 albums to embellish. Those who are my 'regulars' will know that I love a bit of 6 by 6 action on my layouts.

Check out some of my previous pages using 6 by 6 pads here, here and here.

This layout uses lots of Studio Calico and has a funny story behind the title - see below for more details.

Firstly though I used washi tape to separate out the four papers from my SC 6 by 6 pad - I think that it looks a bit like a birthday present.

I have had lots of fun playing with the Studio Calico mistable cameras. I used my Mister Huey mist and then outlined in my black sharpie to make it stand out.

 

Now for the story behind the layout: Do you ever remember very random things? I am one of those people who can still something that my Year 4 teacher said when I was seven and I only have to see a film a couple of times to have memorised a lot of the lines from it. For example 10 Things I hate about you or She's Like That.
So...circa 2009 Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills did a phone in where you had to say "Chi-no!" or "Chi-yes!" Depending upon your opinion of the humble chino as a fashion option.
Now I don't whether its down to five tousle haired tweenie boy banders but suddenly chino's are di-rigour for more than your grandad and so the Belgian jumped on the band wagon and I snapped a blurry pic on my phone.
So the obvious title for my layout was "Chi-yes!" because I think that for him its a good look.

So there you go...what is your verdict? Chi-yes or Chi-no?

Storytelling Sunday: The one with the drunken monkey...

 Picture a dark night in January. In Leeds. The student bit - Hyde Park. One minute you are walking home from a social event chatting away to your housemate. Next minute you are on the side of the pavement wondering how you got there and what happened. The undercover policeman who just happened to be there fills you in that you were hit by the front of a car and flew five feet into the air and landed on your head.
My housemate, Cal, was busy wiping my blood on her jeans as she knew that I hated blood. I got rushes to A&E and they glued my head back together. I was due to start my second teaching practice and had to postpone it a week, whilst I got myself back together.
The above and below pics were the sight that greeted me when I got back from going to my family home for a few days. This monkey is my travelling monkey and has been everywhere with me including my symester studying in America. I thought that it was hilarious and made me feel like everyone cared about me.
The placard reads: Bad accident don't wanna talk about it!
The other special thing about these pictures is the hand knitted rug that was made by my South African gran. The sad things is that I no longer have it as at a picnic is was put into the wrong car and i never saw it again. So I am reminded of the kindness of my gran too.
Here I am looking a bit worse for wear holding the flowers from my mom:

Well I knew that it would make a great story one day. Even if it was a bit scary at the time!
                                              _______________________________
                      Linking up with the lovely Sian at High in the Sky for Storytelling Sunday