A new year a new me.

Well what a break that was. Lots of things have happened in the past two years since my last blog post, some good some not so good, but that's another story that i will tell one day.
2013 is a new year and a good way to start a new year is to clear out the old and bring in the new, so her's to a new look blog and regular posts. A new me too, i am eating healthily, and have taken up hula hooping with a weighted hoop, its fun and good exercise. I am also at university studying childhood studies with sen, and am in the second year so my life is quite full with study, but i am also taking time to scrap, craft and live life to the full.
So i hope if you read this far that you will come back again as i get back into the swing of posting, and posting pics, etc.
We are off to the Harry Potter Tour next Sunday as a birthday treat for myself  as we love HP in this house and i have read all of the books and seen all of the films at least twice.
So i am off to photograph my Christmas journal and will post pics tomorrow.
thank you for looking and come back soon
katharine

the wizard of oz

This evening me and a friend went to our local amphitheatre to watch the wizard of oz. It was put on by a local company for free, called The Film Factory.They have put quite a few films on this summer, but this is the first one i have been able to go see. There was quite a good turn out too, everyone came ready for a film outdoors, blankets, cushions and snacks.

What a great way to spend the evening, better than sat indoors watching mindless tv.!!
More people gathering, getting there places.
This was at the start of the night, not yet dark enough to start the film, so we wait for dusk. Everyone was getting ready, settling down for a good old viewing The wizard of oz. A very enjoyable evening, will go again, the next film is going to be Jaws.

tfl

katharine

Saturday is my shopping day, so as i had to pick up some stamps that kate had ordered for me from pickleberry, link to the side,i felt like a little shop.Also i am starting university in september so this may well be my last spend up for a while!!! I am doing the foundation degree in childhood studies, so my dream of being a teacher is actually coming true, thats another blog post though.
Back to the stash shop, the stamps i had ordered were ones i have been after for a long time, a big thanks to kate for getting them for me xx


The Tim Holtz paperis one i have loved from afar for too long, and the single sheet i fell in love with too,by house of three.

Next up these word sheets, AUTHENTIQUE, are lush so had to have them.

Vintage lace in lush colours, so coming home with me.

Next up a sale basket, now these beauties are soooo lovely, should of got the other one too.!!! They are by K&COMPANY and love them x

Now then i nearly screamed with delight when i saw these in the sale basket too, oh how my jyc is gonna look so full of these this year. They are The girls paperie, last years but who cares, they are lush.Now my love of american crafts thickers is well known amongst my friends and family, this also includes other chipboard alphas that i love, so it was with no surprise that these next items came home with me, they are what is says on the packet......lush. I took home two packs of each as i couldnt resist a bargain, go on agree, you know you would have done the same xx

So so nice, i have stroked these today and have them on my desk to gaze at lovingly for a day or two, until they go into one of the drawers that is allocated for alphas. xxx

On sunday we went to the new The Range shop that has opened there, well the craft section is quite good, i got a few bargains, above is a 12 x 12 pack of white cardstock for £4.99, and the a4 packs are sticky foam pads for £1.00 a pack.

I also got another pack of the kraft 5 x 7 cards and envelopes, these are well worth getting, great cardstock, lovely size too.A pack of white cards and envelopes for £4.99, and the ranges own envelopes for £1.00 a pack.

Now this was an internet order from the fantastic A Trip Down Memory Lane, another of my loves is cosmo cricket, and their kits, i now dont usually buy single sheets of paper as i only buy packs, as i have found that you have everything you need to complete lo's and mini albums. After years of buying single sheets of paper, then not being able to find a few that match, this is what i now do.

Echo park is also quickly becoming a fave too, this is my fourth pack from them and it is fantastic, i love the colours and cannot wait to craft with this.

I also ordered some 6 x 12 photo page protectors, as inspired by shimelle's blog post about continuity, i got these to slip into my albums with the idea of continuing the continuity in the albums.

Well i had better go, i have a lot to do in my last few days off, before going back to work, have six weeks really gone this fast, oh well.

tfl

katharine x

Well this is the start of my 4 x 6 photo love album. I am following along with shimelle's online tutorial and have decided to make it into an album, they are all random photos, but follow the concept of each number of photos for that month of the year. Above is january, one photo, you get the idea right ?? I am now wondering if i should have chosen the background paper to be the same all the way through, to have continuity in the album, its something i can change on a later date if i want to.

This page is a combination of a few ideas, i saw sj's blog when she made this cake and i used the idea for my class to make it as an Easter cake, each pupil made a cake and chose the colour they wanted. I can honestly say they loved making it and i will be doing this again.The cake was so big we shared it among a couple of classes and the office staff, the secretary's were chuffed to get a slice.
Three photos, i have a slight obsession with this vampire, and the twilight books.
This page was great to make, i love interactive pages.
I havent done page with 5 photos yet, instead went onto six and seven !! Also changed it a bit to suit my landscape pics.
Seven photos was interesting and works really well.
Flap opens to the left to show pics and journalling,
and to the right to show 3 pics.

Now onto something else. i bought this in a second hand shop and have an ides to fill it with scraps of paper, small items of house love. I have painted it white to give a clean base coat.

I have also been making a few cards, i love these flowers ade with old book pages, just punch out scalloped circles, stack 5 or 6 together and secure with a brad. scrunch up each layer, fix a button in middle and voilà... a flower.



Thanks for gettting this far, i wont leave it so long next time.

tfl

x

Long long time no blog !!!

Well i haven't blogged for well over a year and this is due to family issues that have taken me away from blogging and crafting.I won't go into details now but lets just say it was life changing , devastating and scary all at once. I am getting back into crafting now and am also trying to blog again, so with that in mind i thought i would start with my new craft room.Some of the family changes meant that i could knock down a partition wall we had put up and return the room to its original size, for a craft room for me. This was painfull and pleasureable at the same time, but i was excited to see it take shape.I didnt take photos along the way, shame but never mind.We painted the room, two walls blue and two white.Laminate flooring was layed, easier to clean i think.Then came the best part, shopping. I used Ikea room planner, it was great to see the furniture in your 3d room, i would advise to use this. Then actual shopping, we made a few trips to Ikea to get everything i wanted, and a few extras too !! This is a recent purchase, a 2 x 2 expedit unit on castors, i saw this in ikea and loved it, it's my new stand up unit to use my new vagabond.
This is a display shelf above the expedit.
This is my Jane Dean inspired memo frame, i have blogged about it before.
This vika Alex unit is on castors and at the end of my large long desk.
This vika Alex 9 drawer unit is at the end of a wall of units.
This vika Alex unit is at the end of my expedit desk which is attached to the 4 x 4 expedit unit.
This is the 4 x 4 expedit unit with desk attachment. I love this desk and it my sewing area.
This is a 2 x 4 expedit unit on its side which is my cutting table, holds all my cutting machines, dies,etc.
This is my desk, i saw this on the Ikea website and fell in love with this , it is a huge desk, with two vika alex 5 drawer units at each end.
These units are from the children's nursery range,i fell in love with them and got them.I love how my new craft room looks and really love being in there, creating again.

Some of the furniture i had already, a couple of the expedit units, and metal drawer units, the others are new.

Well i hope to try to blog at least twice a week, that's my new goal, so lets see hoe that goes.

Tfl

money, money, money..............................boxes.

I visited my local and new 99p shop and found these tin money boxes, they come in all different childrens tv characters, at the moment it's spongebob and high school musical. Well after wandering around with them in my hand, looking at them, thinking about how i could decorate them, i finally had an idea and so bought them. I do have a tendancy to choose an item in a shop, ( no matter what shop, it can be any, clothes, food, books etc,) and wander around said shop deliberating with myself if i really want said item, and i admit at times i have put said items back on the shelf. Well three of these babies came home with me. So here is the before.......................

and here is the after, this is my first attempt, photo taken in bad light so sorry. This is my tin for my weight watchers money. I have started my diet in ernest again and instead of going to a meeting i am doing it at home and will put £4.00 in it as if i am paying someone to weigh me. This is my plan to make me stick to my diet and i am very positve.It doesn't show it but on the front bottom is a sticker that says " you're changing right before my eyes".......which i thought was very apt. I then used my Martha Stewart butterfly punches to cut them out from some of the lush papers from the cosmo cricket nutmeg collection, also the sticker came from the pack too.I love how the butterflys go all the way round the tin. The base of the tin is covered in sticky back wood grain vinyl.......my love for this con-TIN -ues......excuse pun. lol

The next tin has a story behind it and needs a little background, so here goes, every year i save for christmas by using Park hampers and i order vouchers to buy all my presents with. Over the years ( i have been doing this for eleven years ) it has been great. You get used to putting the money away and sending it to the agent, and when november comes around you get your vouchers, as if by magic you have all this money to spend and it sort of feels like someone has given you a lovely wad of money to spend. Anyway now my son is 17 and not so easy to buy for i am not getting the vouchers this year. But i still want to save, as i won't be doing christmas this year. So here is my christmas saving tin, i will put in the same amount i used to save for the vouchers.

Sorry blogger wouldn't let me turn pic, the really great thing with these money boxes is that they have no hole and stopper at the bottom. So to get your money out you have to use a tin opener. Now that's what i call a good money box. Well i hope you like the tins, and well done for getting this far, and i need to buy more of these as i have another plan to make some for a bunch og ladies who are saving for a trip to dublin to celebrate their 40th birthday.

tfl

katharine

oooooh presents!!!

Well christmas certainly came to our house this year. I got some lovely presents this year and am so gratefull for my gifts.We also got a new small printer, a canon selphy.We were so pleased, thanks to my boyfriends mum and dad and sister and brother in law, as they got it as a joint present.

I got these today with the money that i got from my link childs family, i look after a child from the school i work at after school.

These are the presents i got from my boyfriend, plus, not photographed the wii fit plus game.I consider myself to be very lucky to have received these lovely gifts.

These were the gifts that were in my stocking, yes..... we do stockings for each other, i love having a stocking and i also love buying gifts for his stocking, finding little presents to go in it. Can you tell that i love the wizard of oz.I got a W O Z cup, tin,money box and purse. I also got a pig pin cushion that i remember seeing months ago and remarking that i liked it.I love my red polka dot pencil case, with pencils to match.

Now this beauty is my present to myself as i had some money left over from a gift, and i saw this and fell in love with it, she is so adorable, i also luuuuurve robots, especially cute ones that will look cute sitting pretty on my chair in my craft room.I am thinking of calling her robbie.

I also received lots of twilight goodies from my friends that i havent taken pics of yet, i got a metal lunch tin with flask.....mmmmm my lunch is gonna look so cool when i go back to school next week, a new moon calander, 2 robert patterson calandars, keyring, magnet and the twilight book with the apple on the cover... mine is the film cover, that was from my son as he knew i wanted it to match my others...sad yes i know.

I also got some clothes and the usual smellies...gotta love dove. Scarf and gloves set. Oh and a lovely glass mirrored picture frame with the word memories in bling.

Well that's it

tfl

katharine