A little sneak......

of Aprils challenge over at Scrapology......can't wait!

Mellow Yelllow

Hello there :)
I hope you are having a lovely weekend so far?
Here is another one of the layouts that I made at our retreat last weekend. Once again it is heavily inspired by the wonderful work of Gabrielle Pollaco
Chloe is absolutely obsessed with the colour yellow....she just ADORES it! So I thought I should really make a layout for her and her fave colour.
I de-saturated the photo to remove all the colour except for the yellow squishy ball. I have used a mix of bits and bobs paper wise, some is October Afternoon, some Fancy Pants and not sure what the other was as the tab had already been removed.

I made the large ring by cutting around the edge of the circle with a Martha Stewart Corner punch and then added crystals, flowers and punched out leaves and then popped a length of beaded lace along the bottom ( yellow of course!). On the top corner I used half a filigree square that I had and popped it under some blossoms.

The little alpha stickers are My Little Shoebox and the word YELLOW is using AC Thickers. The beautiful yellow butterfly is by Prima and was part of a lovely prize that I won from Tracie Hudson ( Thanks again Tracie)

I printed the butterfly off on the laptop and then Stickled it and popped its wings up on foam pads for a little more dimension.

I have to say I REALLY enjoyed making this page and I am really pleased with the end result....and more to the point...so is Chloe :)

Our Baby is 11 today!!!

Where HAS that time gone????
It doesn't seem all that long ago that she was playing in her fairy ballerina outfit and posing in the lounge for photos with Lauren...looking like this ( aged 3)

and just look at her now!( unfortunately today she is actually off school, at home poorly bless her, NOT a good way to celebrate your birthday eh!!)

I often catch glimpses of the young lady that she is turning into....and i LOVE what I see. Chloe, you are a beautiful, compassionate and warm hearted little lady....you have filled our days with so much laughter with your antics...... and tears of frustration at times, but I wouldn't change a single thing about you my little Pickle.

As my daughter you may well outgrow my lap....but you will never outgrow my heart.

i love you sweetheart.....have a wonderful birthday and I hope you get everything you could wish for.
Love Always....Mummy....xxxxxxxxxxxx

'Smile please' and a fabulous weekend away.(photo heavy)

I have just been away for our annual retreat with a group of very lovely, talented and inspiring ladies....not to mention the fact thay they are really good friends. We have scrapped, made cards, eaten, laughed and laughed some more...till we ached at times and it was absolutely brilliant!
Between us we made 69 layouts,18 cards, and various mini albums....so not a bad weekends production. I thought I would share my creations over the next few days.

here is my first one. 'Smile Please'
Its based on a sheet of Kraft Bazill which I laid a fancy doily on and sprayed using 2 colours of Cosmic Shimmer Mists ( gosh I just luuuuuurve those things!)

I then took some cream lace and some pale pink chiffon roses( from a £1 hairband from Primark...don'tcha just love a bargain!!) and laid them on some newspaper and sprayed them to co-ordinate with the background colouring.

Now, not wanting to waste the now pretty newspaper, I placed a torn section behind the photo and used the rest to punch out some flower layers using various size Retro flower

punches....and a half pearl for the centres

I then sprinkled a few pearls and crystals about and printed out some butterflies and stickled them and added a few prima flowers. Then finished it off by shimmering the AC thickers title.

oooops, I forgot to say I embossed some gold mirri board, painted it with cream acrylic and then buffed the paint back off when it was dry to create this distressed border.

I am really, REALLY pleased with the results of using the newspaper....it would have been a shame to just throw it away. And yes, I do know that the newspaper isn't acid free and isn;t the best thing to put by my photo....but you know what? I don't mind too much...I am sure it will last ok in my album for a few years :)


Here are a few shots from the weekend. As you can see we were busy beavering away and here are some of the girls looking at our results. Believe me, if you had seen the tables about half an hour before this photo was taken you could hardly see a bare inch of space....the whole hall was overflowing with totes and stash till it came out of our ears LOL.

I will leave you with a few photos that I took very early on saturday morning. Lynn and i went for an early morning walk in the gardens....it was frosty and very pretty ( and VERY cold on sandal clad feet LOL)

The frost on the monkey puzzle tree was amazing, such large crystals.

I think this will appear on a layout at some point :)

What a bizarre ice formation....looks almost like a horny/horned ice slug LOL!

Have a super day whatever you are up to!

Warmest wishes Anita..xxx

A Birthday Bouquet with a difference!

Yesterday(21st) was my Birthday( yes that's right...I was 30!he!he!he!)and after having the most wonderful weekend away with my lovely crafty friends( which I shall blog another day) and being given the most beautiful cards and wonderful gifts, I came home to my lovely family and was presented with this!
Can you imagine being given something that looks this good AND tastes divine!!!!
Once again my amazingly talented Sister has excelled herself ( thank you so much Hun (((hugs))) ) . This bouquet was all wrapped in pink tissue and cellophane and stood in a vase....and its all sparkly and glittery too!

The cakes are on long stems and some are vanilla sponge and some are strawberry flavour ( apologies for the difference in colour between the photos)
Aren't they absolutely fabulous? And don't they just look too flipping good to eat! Thank you sooooooo much Dooey, you are such an inspiration to me....aswell as the bestest kid Sister in the world ;)

And aswell as giving me something that was sweet.....she also gave me something savoury too!!!!!!

My absolute FAVOURITE things........ SPROUTS!

Love em!.......xxxxxxxxxxxx

Happy Birthday Jill!

Today is a very special day :), its our lovely friend Jill, of Cardinal Colours, birthday.....so here is hoping you have a very special day Jill and an extra special weekend ;)

Here is the card I made for Jill, hope she likes it :)
After seeing these fancy edged circles on a few blogs I really wanted to have a try at making them myself, I was pretty sure I knew how to and had a play( which worked :D ) and I also scouted about and found various instructions all shown the same way. Basically all you do is cut whatever circle size you want and then go all around the edge with a corner punch ( preferably a Martha Stewart one) being careful how you line them up and 'Voila'!! No big secret, no hard job, but you get some really lovely page embellies to use. So I just made a small version and created this card.



I then just added some blossoms, bling, punched leaves, ribbon, a glass pebble and a sentiment...oh yes and a butterfly that I Stickled and then sprayed the whole card with some Crafters Companion Spray and Sparkle. I popped some silicon under the butterflies wings to make them stand up
So....once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JILL......hope its a good one.......Lots Of Love Anita...xxxx

Casino Night.

Tonight our eldest has gone to a friend's 16th Birthday party....her parents have hired a hotel in Eastbourne and also a casino to set up in the large function room for the guests to enjoy. Obviously they won't be allowed to gamble their own money, but will be each given a supply of chips to bet with and at the end of the night whoever has the most will win a prize.

She was so excited about going tonight and I have really enjoyed curling her hair for her....until the tongs broke( the holding arm just pinged off!!!), so I am now nursing sore fingers as I had to finish the job properly and ended up having to hold her hair onto the barrel myself (eeeek!!...and....OUCH!!!!)

I think she looked really beautiful in her silver/grey satin dress....I think its only the 3rd time she has had chance to wear it....just a shame the photos are not great. I had to take them quickly in the rain unfortunately.

Her boyfriend came along to pick her up and take her to the party...... and Muggins here...I mean Mum's taxi, will be collecting them and some other friends late tonight and taxi'ing them all back home safely to their front doors.

You can't see in the photo, but she has some gorgeous black 'killer heels' with peep toes on.....bet she doesn't think them quite so gorgeous later on....when she can hardly walk in them and has to peel them off he!he!he!.....those were the days eh ;), I remember them still.

Once Upon A time.....

Saturday saw our monthly crop at Cardinal Colours....and I had big plans for making 2 layouts and a couple of cards.....well, I only ended up in making one layout,it took forever with lots of faffing and playing around....but you know what? I LOVE it!

Its based on only 2 sheets of cardstock( unheard of for me LOL) The back one was a bright yellow and I sprayed it up with 2 colours of Shimmer Mists. The front sheet was a sheet of Bazzill Bling, which I wet under the tap and then scrunched up in places before allowing to dry.

The photo is of me and our youngest girly, Chloe, when she was 20 mins old....my! how the time flies!!!

This page is soooo sparkly in real life, with lots and lots of Shimmer Mists and stickles and bling. I used my MS punch for this corner which I Stickled and added a gold filigree finding and some paper roses.

The title was cut on the cricuit in black bazzill and then Stickled( gotta love those lovely little bottles of sparkliness eh ;) )
The doily in the background and the chipboard swirls were all given a liberal spraying of Shimmer Mists( my new addiction I think :) )

I made this embellie by using an embossing folder on some mirri board, painting it with cream acrylic paint and then when dry i rubbed as much off as poss.....I LOVE it!

I popped another gold filigree finding under this torn section and finished the page with the addition of lotsof blossoms....some handmade and some bought ones and also printed out some butterflies and Stickled them before adding them to the mix.

If you haven't yet tried Shimmer mists I can highly recommend them....the only problem with them is....just which delightful colours do you choose?

Warmest wishes Anita..xxxx

D is for Dimension...over at Scrapology.

This month over at scrapology we have the pleasure of scraplifting one of Gabrielle Pollaco's breathtaking layout. I have long been a fan of hers and it was such a thrill that she agreed to let us lift her beautiful page. I made each of my flowers by hand, using my EK Success retro flower punches, wetting and then scrunching them up and then when they were dry I sprayed them with some Crafters Companion Spray and Sparkle. The patterned paper I used is by Prima and the background die cut sheet is an old Creative Imaginations paper that I sprayed with several colours of Cosmic Shimmer Mists ( i LOVE them!) I also misted the doiley.

I edited the photo in my Roxio programme and imported Chloe onto the toadstool after adding some wings to her. There really is a lot of shimmering and glitter on this page :)

this is the stunning original by Gabrielle, if you have never been to her blog before...i am telling you now you really MUST go and visit.....its a joy to wander through.

this is the sketch of the layout that we worked from.

Pop over and see what beautiful pages my fellow DT friends have made, they really are fabulous.

Warmest wishes Anita..xxx