The Album Cover

So I have done some scrapping already this year, but I can't share any of it yet as it's hush hush lol!
Instead, I'll catch up on some layouts of last year that I haven't put on here yet.
Don't you just love that yellow polka paper - definately one of my favourites of 2009!

Tranquility

Taking photos underwater is so hard to get right so I was pleased with this shot on holiday earlier in the year! It's all fairly self explanatory really lol!
I used papers by We R Memory Keepers, letters & badge by American Crafts, stickers by Scenic Route, flowers by Prima and journalling spot by Elle's Studio.

So I started work in A&E a couple of days ago and am loving it so far! It's a total change to ward work, completely different way of working, but it's great. It's a good job I'm enjoying it because I don't have a day off for another couple of weeks lol!

Being the on-call for general surgery the alst week has kept me busy, so I haven't had time for blogging, but thats all done now and I have finished general surgery whoop whoop! I'm pleased to move onto something new - surgery is not the career I want, and although everything is useful and interesting to a degree, 4 months has been plenty lol! I move onto A&E now and I'm quite excited about it - I think I'll quite enjoy it! Before that I have a few days off, so I'm making the most of it, although the list of household jobs is growing ever longer and the pile of washing is slowly taking over the spare room!

Still working my way through all the layouts I've done recently - here's another one for you :)

Best girlies

This is a layout about another of my favourite groups of girls - my school friends. We spent a weekend up in the Yorkshire Moors back in June, and went for a lovely (and exhausting!) walk down to a stunning river & waterfall. At the bottom we had a little impromptu photo shoot and came away with this lovely group shot. I used lots of October Afternoon 'Cherry Hill', along with some Doodlebug glitter cardstock & scallop edge, AC Thickers 'Chit Chat', My Minds Eye mini alphabet, AC 'Letterbox' chipboard frame, Prima flowers & gems, Sassafrass flower & Creative Imaginations label.
This page and the one below go together really! The second page being documentation of the 'out-takes' lol! Only three of us are in the picture & you can just see our heads, but for some reason I just loved this photo and had to scrap it! I used Bazzill swiss dots cardstock, AC 'Blue Skies' papers & badge, October Afternoon journalling stickers and Prima gems.

Sarah's Cards Lovelies

I spent last weekend with this bunch of lovely ladies - the Sarah's Cards gang - in a barn in the middle of nowhere! It was a fantastic couple of days, despite me having a nasty cold, so thank you girls for the laughs & the inspiration. A couple of weekends ago I had another scrappy weekend away with my lush girlies so I have lots of layouts to share over the coming few days :)

You can see work from all of the design team over at the Sarah's Cards Blog, and at the moment we have a challenge for you! Take part in the sketch challenge and you could win a £10 e-voucher fvor the shop! Why not give it a go?

Here is my layout from the sketch - yup, I used my blog post from the other week to make this page!

Explorer

This is my 'I haven't been playing in the cobwebs, I promise' look!

Sarah's Cards August Kit

Once again Sarah has managed to create a kit full of lovely summery goodness. Once again it is full of papers that I would not have necessarily picked off the shelf, but once again I love them! 'Naked' Thickers are so versatile, you can make them blend in with anything you like - I've painted them and glittered them, but you can also ink them, cover them in paper, distress them, glaze them.... the list goes on!! Anyhow, here are my layouts with the August kit!

The Quest!

This layout is about the quest for a new and original group shot, and how difficult that can be to achieve especially when you go away with the same group of fabulous girlies! We are going away again in a few weeks time, I wonder what shots we'll come up with next time! (Suggestions welcome!)
Another layout using one of the gorgeous journalling tags from Scrap 'Em @ Folksy (see link on the right there ------->). I also used American Crafts papers, badge, thickers & ribbon, Bazzill cardstock & gems, Prima flowers, My little shoebox letters & Dymo tape.
Thanks for stopping by!

Introducing..... Mungo

Here he is, the second of our pair of kittens. Mungo is a friendly little chap, but does like to have his crazy moments and cause trouble!
For this layout I used making memories papers and notepaper, K&co butterfly, Prima flowers, american crafts Thickers, and the journalling spots are from my sister's new shop - Scrap 'Em - check it out!

mmmm, cupcakes!

This layout is in the latest Scrapbook Inspirations sketch challenge - a fabby page by Shimelle was the example and I made this cupcake themed layout! These were my birthday cupcakes and they were tres delicious. I used the gorgeous February Scrapagogo kit, I loved this kit so muhc, the colours are right up my street and so many pretties in the box!

It's party time!

There's an awesome inspiration party going on over at Shimelle.com and I've been invited to take part!

I got to play with some gorgeous printables from Shimelle's upcoming class on 2 peas - Go to Press . I created this layout with a set on the theme of crafting. So easy to use, and they'll go onto pretty much anything you can put through your printer! I popped some calico through and hey presto a lovely, crafty style title for my page. Of course a huge benefit of something you can print out is that there's no limit - you can use them over and over, and if you make a mistake no problem, just print it again! (This is particularly useful when you have 2 mischevious little kittens pounching around!)

Introducing.... Daisy

So it's probably time for some kitten photos! The two of them came home on Monday and have been casuing havoc ever since lol! They are utterly adorable and such fun, it's a wonder we've got anything done this week. They are not actually brother and sister - there's 4 days between them as they have different mums - that confused the vet alright! I'll introduce them separately.

Firstly here is Dasiy, she's the quieter of the pair but she has her moments of insanity!! She's incredibly multi-coloured - her main coat is a mixture of black, brown and ginger, and she has a myriad of colour down her tummy. She also has the cutest little white tip on her tail and one tiny while toe lol!

Finally finished

Here's a layout I started making at the GogoGetaway at the beginning of June, and have only just finished! I am so not good at finishing half-done projects once I've left them longer thana day! This one was just missing the flower centre and butterfly - thats all, yet it took me about 6 weeks to complete lol.
Note to self: complete layouts as soon as they are started, otherwise it's likely never to happen!

Sarah's Cards' gorgeous June kit has been with subscribers for a little while now so I can share the layouts that I did with it. These weren't papers I'd have picked off a shelf in a shop, so when I first opened the box I was a little sstuck as to what to do with them, but after playing for a little while I found them to be really versatile and to suit a whole range of photos.

GoGo Getaway!

So this time last week I was at Scrapagogo's gogogetaway for a weekend of fun! I had a lot of laughs with the girls, stayed up late & woke early, scrapped lots and took not a single photo!

I was nowhere near as productive as Leanne or Laura with their super duper page kits, but I am pleased with what I did do.

This layout is on yummy dotted swiss cardstock, which I think Shimelle managed to convert many people to over the course of the weekend! Since making this layout I have realised that this is in fact not a tram, it is a cable car d'oh! Still, I don't mind cos it's pretty and i like it, and 'san fran cable car love' does not have quite the same ring to it!


I used Leanne's gorgeous Martha Stewart butterfly punch to make little butterflies from some yummy Hambly overlay and scattered them accross my layout - prettiness!


My favourite photo from my cousins wedding in March this year, with more butterflies!

This layout was Fiona's class on the Saturday, which was using Pink Paislee fascinating range - I wasn't completely sold on the papers at first but I like the finished result. I totally stole the little dots on the letters idea from Laura and SJ next to me!

Yet more butterflies here (I think I used them on 95% of my layouts this weekend). Some funny photos of me and him from Bhav and Neema's wedding in April this year. I used some of the yummy new Scenic route and gorgeous Prima Scribbles.

And finally, the much anticipated new Cosmo Cricket Early Bird papers - perfect for the vintage look! This is an old photo of me from 1989. The layout tells the story of the t-shirt, I modelled it for the BA in flight catalogue lol! I used lots of SJ's fab journalling spots (which can be found here) on this layout and embellished them with some stickles. Of course, the almost obligatory butterfly on this page too!

I have a few more partly finished pages to share (butterfly count: 2/3 pages) when they get completed, and also Shimelle's mini book which I absolutely adore (partly because it's scattered with butterflies!) and have almost finished.

I apologies for the somewhat butterfly heavy post lol!

Working the twighlight shift this weekend, time for some lunch and then watching the beginning of the tennis before I have to leave for work. Here's hoping no-one is ill and I can watch Murray win!

Early birthday present!

It is not my birthday for another 8 days but michael gave me my present early! This was partly because I had to help him choose it - he wanted to get my a new camera lens but wasn't sure what I wanted so we went shopping together. I got a Sigma 70-300mm lens and love it!
These are just some random snapshots I took of the new plants in our garden - these are from the other end of the garden so the zoom is pretty good! They are just handheld and it was windy so I was pleased with the sharpness of them.
Hoping to get up close and personal with some of the many bird visitors to our garden soon! We spent 12 horus gardening on Saturday and the garden is looking so much better. Mum and Dad bought up loads of cutting from their garden and so we filled up the two empty beds. I can't wait for it all to grow now, I'm very impatient lol!

I have also been doing some scrapping -

I did this page about being 24 years old, and included the journalling from my last blog post! I used lots of yummy cosmo cricket girl friday along with loads of little bits, a lovely new prima scribbles flower and my new heidi swap butterfly mask - so loving butterflies right now!

This is a page that has been sat on my desk half done for several weeks now, and I finally got around to finishing it! This was made using the gorgeous Gogo Feb kit - yes I am still working through my honeymoon pics!

Finally I've been trying to make some cards with my kits too - I do enjoy making them but never seem to get around to it! I am making some thank you cards in anticipation of my birthday lol! I kep this very simple - just some circle and butterfly punches, a few pearl gems and a rub on!

April kit layouts

Apologies again for my severe lack of blogging, life is pretty hectic at the moment and the days & weeks are simply flying by!
Hoping to get some more house pics up soon - we are gradually getting stuff unpacked and into a home of some sort. I have decided that even if it is in the 'wrong' place it's better than in a box!

The April Sarah's Cards has been winging it's way around the country and is going down well with subscribers - I loved the colours in this kit and there are lots of really fun elements like the cute little owl! I created these layouts with the kit this month.

Sarah's Cards Feb Kit

I can now show you my designs to go with Sarah's Feb kit - such a fun mixture of colours and patterns from Pink Paislee - perfect for fun summer photos!I had great fun with this kit, and subscribers are coming up with some gorgeous pages too. One of the most usable parts of the kit was the Prima tape - this stuff is genius, I love it!