Happy Birthday to My Mum and happy halloween to you all!

Hello there....Happy Halloween to you all, I hope you have all had a suitably spooky evening so far.
Today also happens to be my dear Mum's Birthday....so HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you, you very special and much loved lady...you mean the world to me, Dale and the girls and obviously also to Donna,Ian and the little ones xxxxxxxxx

Well yesterday Donna and Ian held a wicked halloween Birthday party, so i thought I would share a few....actually LOTS of photos with you....so be prepared to be scared....be shocked...be horrified lol, but also be prepared to laugh....cos I think you will...I just hope you won;t be bored with them all......you have been warned!!!

so first of all let me set the scene with Lauren and Chloe's Pumpkins.....

Doesn't this make just the most divine family portrait?

The cutest little witch at the party, brewing up some magic for us all...

I was strangely attracted to this fella, i just wished he would clean his teeth a bit better....made me feel a bit queasy!

He even scared the young un's!

Here is Big Bones and his sidekick Lil Bones....

Me and my girly....she really needs to learn to apply her make up better don't you think?

My Sister made thia super birthday cake for our Mum....and all the little pumpkin biscuits round the bottom too.....delicious!!

Lauren and the birthday girly....love her necklace that she made from the little ones Hama beads.

the *Other* family Portrait! As you can see, they are a fine looking bunch too ( especially the teeniest,tiniest one!)


Good looks ( and teeth!) run in the family....who could resist a pair of hotties like these eh???

Right, thats it ( are you still awake or have your eyeballs dripped into the keyboard lol)....I need to climb the wooden hill and get some sleep....after having a lovely week of lay ins I have to revert to getting up at 3.30am in the morning....booooooooohooooo! But only for one day...then I have the rest of the week to enjoy again he!he!he!

Catch you soon

warmest wishes Anita..xxxx

Birthday Wishes to you Karen!

Blogger was being a real swine to me last night for some reason and I was unable to get on here and post Happy Birthday to a lovely friend...Karen
Karen is an amazing scrapper and also make the most beautiful cards too. I have known her for several years now, originally as a team mate on our team on UKS, The Blossom Babes and now we are also DT teamies over on Scrapology

So Karen, I hope you had a really lovely day yesterday and that you were thooroughly spoilt!

here is the card I made for Karen. I used some scraps of Echo Park papers, Wild Orchid Crafts Cherry Blossoms, CC birthday greetings, Prima Eline crystals and pearls....and of course the gorgeous image, which was very kindly gifted to me by my super lovely friend Lynn
( thank you so much Hun) I think its a Kraftin Kimmie, but I don't know which one, sorry.

Meant to say, its an easel card.....and I coloured the image with Promarkers.

Here are a couple of close ups

I hope Karen got the card ok and that she liked it :)

Enjoy whats left of this evening......I am sat here,with the house smelling of freshly de-brained pumpkin!!!!! Chloe has scooped hers out and carved the face and I think that Lauren will do hers tomorrow....I HATE the smell of Pumpkin.....bleurgh!!!!!

Carrots, cream cheese and cupcakes!

hello there. I hope you have had a really lovely Sunday? Mine started off with a lovely lay in till 8ish this morning....then I took our youngest to a boot sale and we found a couple of bargains :)

then I came home, cut Dale's hair and then started baking......and baked....and baked....and BAKED!!!

To start with I made a huuuuuge round carrot cake( normally make one in a loaf tin, but fancied a change) and then topped it off with a cream cheese/icing sugar/vanilla extract frosting. But I ended up making too much frosting, so then I had to make up another mix of carrot cake and I made some carrot cake muffins too LOL.

Then I made lots of cupcakes( over 30 in the end)....they were all vanilla sponge inside. Some had hollowed out centres and were filled with melted marshmallows( totally inspired by the lovely Zoe

and others Chloe had asked to be just plain inside but with different colours!!!! So we had swirly blue and pink buttercream on the outside and yellow and green in the sponge mixes inside. Then there was another batch that was plain vanilla sponge inside and swirly cream and pink on the outside.

My lovely, kind and super duper cupcake making sister has just given me a fantabulous icing/piping set of nozzles etc....and it made SUCH a difference and I was literally jumping round the kitchen with glee as these look like proper cupcakes( and I was quite chuffed he!he!he!).....and not the sad offering I have been used to making LOL, so thank you Donna if you read this, you have made my weekend Hun (((hugs)))

so now I have got to make lots and lots and practice them so they will be lovely........

A Fabulous Prize....and it could be yours!!!

Just check out this absolutely gorgeous pack of papers( very generously donated once again by our lovely friend Jill at Cardinal Colours, they could be winging their way to you. All you have to do is pop over to Scrapology and enter this months scraplift challenge .

This is the beautiful layout that is the scraplift for this month, its been created by the lovely Lynn Biermann

Please do pop along to her blog and have a look, you will not be dissapointed!

Here is my version of the scraplift and the technique which was die cutting or/and punching. The rest of the Scrapology girls have created some gorgeous layouts, come along and have a look.

We hope you join in with us, who knows...it could be YOU who wins! You have until Oct 29th to enter ( contact details on the blog) and the winner will be announced on 31st....Good Luck!

Warmest wishes Anita.xx

Wonderfully Windswept.

that's what she is!
I have had these photos of Chloe knocking around for quite some time now and wasn't sure what to do with them. Whilst I was sorting out some bags the other day I cam across the left overs from The Indie Girl class at Cardinal Colours retreat last month and thought i should put them to good use. I added a sheet of Echo Park and I am not sure what the other one is, sorry. I did some dry brushing with acrylic paint and also distressed the edge of the inner square.


I had a couple of big clear buttons and so I glued some of the Sassafrass paper to the back of them to make them co-ordinate. I used some scraps to make the spiral roses and then finished off the page with some gemstones and flatbacked pearls

I absolutely LOVE these photos of Chloe, she is so very cheeky and I really think you can see it in these pics....maybe it should have been wickedly windswept instead lol...

Warmest wishes Anita..xxx

Cousins, conkers and layouts!

Good evening :). i hope you are having a lovely weekend so far? We have been out shoe shopping for both of the girls today, they both needed new school shoes........already!!! Gosh, we have only just gone back to schhol it seems and they have both worn through their shoes....kids eh!!!!
Anyway, I have a couple of layouts to share.
The first one is using some older Scenic Route papers( yummy!) a little bit of Basic Grey, lots of brads, some AC thickers, a blossom, buttons and a butterfly cut and embossed with my sidekick. I punched some holes and threaded raffia around the edge of the layout and drybrushed cream acrylic paint all around the edge of the layout.

A couple of close ups to show the layers and all the brads and bits and bobs.

This layout uses papers from My Little Shoebox and is all about a 2 storey house we bought for Lauren when she was small and it lives at the end of our garden( I just love the little bay window!)

A little close up....love that cheeky grin lauren!!

A couple of weekends ago I took Lauren, Chloe and 2 of their cousins out for a couple or so hours. We went to a couple of playgrounds and the pond. At the first playground there were some Horse Chestnut trees and the kids all went round cracking open the conker shells and built up a little stash pile.

Oliver was fascinated by the teeny, tiny, little brown conker case that was growing out the top of the other one.



Proud of their haul of conkers ( even though some were still on the creamy side so not really ready yet.)



Just *TYRED* of hanging around......( yeah...I know...pitiful joke lol)


Ooooh yummy mini muffins! Can you spot who didn't get one....he!he!he! ( no children were hurt or intentioanlly upset in the making of this blog post!)


Right, just off to get ready to go and see the town fireworks and procession....enjoy your evening whatever you are up to.
Warmest wishes Anita..xxxxx

Yummy Candy! And it could be yours!

Will you just check out this delicious selection of christmas goodies.....and they could be winging their way to you...yes YOU!

All you need to do is pop over to the Scrapology blog, become a follower and leave a comment.....The winner will be drawn out of a 'hat' and announced on next Friday evening - 22nd October. If you have a blog, please add a link to this blog candy and this month's challenge.

......and this gorgeous selection could be yours.

Obviously we really hope you visit us again and that you feel the urge/inspiration to join in the monthly challenges....they are well worth a look and there is the added bonus that there is a super prize on offer for the challenge winner. so........what are you waiting for....come on over :)

warmest wishes Anita..xxx

All About Me......

Evening all :)

I had totally forgotten to blog this layout that I made at Cardinal Colours Retreat last month, it was a fantastic class by Lovely Laura and I soooo enjoyed being able to take part in it ( thanks Jill.xx)
Laura's style is wonderful and she is a great teacher, she is full of enthusiasm and I have to say it rubs off on people. She encouraged us...nay...instructed us to use up as much of the embellies as possible ( which I found hard I have to confess, I try to stretch my stash as far as it can go normally lol)I believe I am right in saying her motto was 'Use it or lose it'.....I think I need to do that more often


We used some delicious Sassafrass papers from the Indie girl range and matching embellies, really lovely to work with. I also added some bling and some big clear buttons that I backed with some of the left over scraps.

I pinched some of the petals to give them a 3d effect

The photo was taken by Chloe in August 2006, just after I had my 2nd tattoo done. I really don't like having my photot taken and feel much more comfortable being behind the lens....however, if you place a camera in the hands of a child, it makes you feel more comfortable being the subject for some reason. I really like the photo too (thanks Chloe for managing to capture me without my 6 chins lol)

I really do love this page, I just need to get my butt in gear and do the journalling on it....now THAT is something I have a real problem with....journalling.

Pumpkin Posse

Today we have been to our local Pick Your Own. Sharnfold farm is not far away from us and each year we trundle down there to visit the pumpkin patch and take our annual photos. This year the harvest hasn;t been quite as good, but there were still quite a few to see luckily. Normally there is a huuuuuge great big display of the various pumpkins, squashes and gourds

at the entrance to the shop and grounds.....today there was a nice display, but not as many as usual by this time.

Even though a lot of the pumpkins have already been harvested there were still plenty out in the field and the kids have great fun running round the patch and checking them all out. I wasn't quite so brave as I had sandals on and was scared incase there were any snakes, lizards or other nasty things about.....not to mention prickley trailers, nettles and sludgey mud....yuk!

These two little herberts make quite a double act don't they!

Nooooo Josh! You are supposed to eat the lovely soft squishy part of the pumpkin....NOT the prickly leaves eeeeewwwwwwwww! Bless him...anyone would think his Mummy doesn't feed him!

My very lovely ( not to mention very talented) kid sister....complete with her gorgeous brood.

My favourite lil pumpkin in the whole patch! ( quite the regal wave he has going on there eh! LOL)

Oliver was so chuffed to find the largest pumpkins in the patch. Doesn't he look proud.


I thought Chloe looked nice and comfy perched between these 2 pumpkins....huge aren't they?

Holly was having fun finding the various different types of pumpkins and squashes( not sure what this one is....anyone know?).....hasn't this young lady got THE most beautiful eyes?

Chloe and Holly both found some ladybirds....unfortunately Holly's one flew away before I had chance to snap her. So this one became the entertainment for a few minutes....

he!he!he! I just LOVE Chloe's little freckles....especially over her nose....bless!

And to finish with, just take a look at this gorgeous, cheeky, handsome little fella....gosh i just want to take him home, snuggle him up and keep him....he is just SUCH a ray of sunshine and I love him to bits! Have you ever seen anyone soooo adorable?

I think I must be the luckiest Aunti....xxxxxxx