Boxes, Little Boxes.

Fred loves boxes, any sort of boxes!
My crafting stash ones provide a great climbing frame and adventure playground all in one - great til he slides off on a stray piece of 12 x 12!!?
But this weekend we have been fighting over these - tissue boxes, as I nurse a snotty cold and Fred and Barney fight over who gets to steal the box and who gets to climb inside it!!
Harry of course isn't the slightest bit interested in the boys antics, and prefers to watch from under a cushion as he quietly nibbles the sofa!!!

As the rest of the country is slowly getting getting festive with pre Christmas snow, I thought I would share this warming Autumnal LO. It has been cold and grey here today and bloomin' freezing! I am thinking about putting some decorations up, despite the fact that I am not really having Crimbo this year, but not sure which ones I can get away with that my little elves won't munch and ruin for me!

The next few weeks are going to be very busy,  and I wont be here much, but I do feel quite full of festive cheer, so will probably make the effort!  Still can't share my exciting news, but probably will do so in a couple of days time!! It will more than make up for not having a proper Christmas this year!!
XXX

Go Go Go!

Hello all.  How are you in this cold / snowy weather?
I have to admit that I am still in my PJ's again!!! Yes I know, lazy moo, but in my defence I didn't finish work until 4am this morning, so have ruined my day off by having to sleep thru most of it!!!
Looking out on my patio it looks very very cold and frosty and I can see some of my lovely potted plants have suffered with the frost. Mr Squirrel is looking for nuts in the grass but I haven't thrown them out yet so he will just have to be patient!!!

So, what's new? Another busy week, which included a baby shower, some very exciting travel news and a panic about some required rat sitting! Next Sunday I have to go away for work. It's a BIG trip and I will tell you about it later but I need to organise a visit to GrannyWen for some long term rat care - not sure how she will feel about that as it will involve more than just talking to my boys thru the cage - she will have to get them out to play or they will go nuts!! I can see the panic in her face now and she frets in case they wee on her carpet!!!
:)
I also need to contact the people I need to visit on my trip and organise where we are going to stay - and plan how to sort myself out as we get back on the Friday and then I go on another little weekend away - Lille and Bruges Christmas markets on the Saturday morning!!
It's all go go go here in the rat house, co's then I am back at work and then back to Grannywens for an early Christmas weekend and then back to work as I am working over Christmas and New Year - oh gosh - I am exhausted just thinking about it all!!!

Harry who?

Just a quickie today as I am off to work this afternoon for a late shift! I haven't been up long as I had a really bad nights sleep - my doorbell was rung repeatedly at about 1 am and eventually I had to get up to see who was there - supposedly a pizza delivery guy who got sent away with a HUGE flea in his ear! Seriously - you don't realise how odd this is - my flat is tucked away, off the main road and even my postman usually forgets it there - so how did this delivery man find it?? It was all very odd and my suspicious detective head wonders if it really was a delivery guy - I only heard his voice on the intercom, and he was a bit odd, so I sat up for a bit waiting for him to try to break in the back door!!

on a lighter note........

Here's a quick LO I made on Sunday - couldn't resist with all the current Harry Potter hype about at the moment - sorry!

Have a great day xxx

dot.com.christmas

 I need to share these with you.
 Yes, I know, gasp, I appear to have made some Christmas cards already!!! Bit early for me and not my normal style either, but make them I did!

Several weeks ago (sorry, it's taken me a while to find the time) I was sent some crafting goodies to play with by the dotcomgiftshop.  They sent some decoupage shapes, ribbons and 3D toppers all of a Christmas theme, and this was what I came up with yesterday.

 I have to say that I am quite pleased with them, and the Basic Grey Eskimo kisses papers were just the right colours to go with the toppers. I used green backing papers out of the Papermania range for the olde world style cards, and some sentiments from craftwork cards.

They also sent this cute set of nesting boxes - had to find a co-ordinating set of papers to cover them with and the Papermania - Secret Garden pack seemed ideal.  Now I am going to fill them with craft goodies to tidy up the Zone!

Thanks for stopping by.
Sarah xxx

Pyjamas at lunchtime!

Yippee!

It's the weekend again already. Not sure where the week went, it started out being really hard work but all of a sudden here I am, in my PJ's catching up on blogland and heading back into the Zone!

 This LO was by far one of my favourites from the Getaway - and there are still more to come............ It was from Lorraine's class, and I thoroughly enjoyed the idea and all the cutting out that it entailed. Making the little stepping stones out of paper clay was inspired, and I think you will agree the finished item is stunning! (Even though the photography isn't - it's so dull and dreary here today!!)

I had a fab night out last night, with my great chum Megan at one of our favourite haunts - Browns, Shad Thames! We consumed many yummy cocktails and enjoyed lots of nibbles including their fab baked Camembert  - mmmm yummy! As we walked back to the tube along the Thames it looked so pretty - it was all lit up on a delicious cold misty night, and we thought how lucky we were to live in this city - such a great place and so magical! Sadly we were a little too pickled to photograph it!!
xx

Oh me, oh my!

At the GogoGetaway, if you haven't already heard, this super fabby talented lady joined us for fun, frolics and photographs. 

BIG Yaaaayyyyyy for Kirsty Wiseman!!!!!

She took some super pics of yours truly and made me look real perdy!!!

I lubs them a whole BIG lot!!

This is me, now, at nearly forty!

Me having had a mostly horrendous 2010 but now recovered and functioning and raring to go.

I likes how I am now and know what I can deal with and cope with and it has made me stronger!!
As I chase Fred and Barney out of mummy's papers for the umpty millionth time and watch them nearly fall off the sofa into my cup of tea, I smile!
 I like my little old life, what I do and who I do it with! I like my mini spur of the moment adventures, and my futile attempts to find time to scrap them and the people I have met along the way.
Life is good!
Yesterday I touched a boys knee and I liked it!
Who knows what tomorrow will bring - bring it on.
xxx

Oh the weather outside is frightful!

So I am having a cosy idoorsy pyjama Sunday today.
It is cold and grey and wet outdoors and the boys and I are all snuggly and warm, (well they are asleep inside their tent) after a late brunch of toast and soldiers, coffee and fruit juice. And yes, they all had toast corners too!
I've been in the Zone, loafed on the sofa watching rubbish TV and enjoying all the new Christmassy adverts, and have had a great relaxing weekend - just what I needed after the last few weeks activities and before the next few weeks begin - it's scarily not long til Christmas you know, and there is lots going on in my world!

I also thought I would share two LO's today, the top one is from one of Sam Ball's classes at the Getaway which seemed somewhat apt today, being Remembrance Sunday,  and the second is another I made whilst there, although not one of the classes. You can't see it but I can tell you the leaves are crackled accented to within an inch of their lives. I can't seem to help myself when it comes to Squirrels, this little chap was in Dulwich Park, but my little chums in my back garden have reappeared too and are busy munching the nuts I threw out for them this morning!
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
xxxx

What a difference a

........................a day makes!!

A day of not having to get up at sparrow fart, a day where I get to eat at meal times, a day where the phone doesn't ring off the hook - oh today has been wonderful!!!

My germy cold thing is still lingering but I feel oh so much better today and haven't od'd on medication to kill it - just lots of cups of tea, some manuka honey and vitamin c - bliss!

The flat looks considerably tidier, the washing has been done, heck I even cleaned the bathroom and hung the new shower curtain that has been patiently waiting for about 4 months!

Fingers crossed the new Gogo kit will be delivered by a smiling postie tomorrow, and I can spend the rest of my weekend immersed in it and my new crackle accents? Now that would just be perfect!

My LO today is one made using a kit I won at the Getaway. Fabby photo themed papers and embellishments - perfect for someone who loves her camera as much as me. You can only just see it but there is even some acetate type film strip - gorgeous! Just to add to it and with my new found joy at glossy accents I also went round all the edges of the printed film strips on the paper so it looks more real. The photo was taken by Grannywen's friend on our day out in September. I love the way it looks all sepia and dreamy, perfect for this page!
Whatever you are up to, have a great weekend!
xxxx

Lazy Sunday afternoon.......

Not for me!!
I have just got back from work and am trying desperately not to be ill and to stay awake til 9pm for Downton Abbey!!
Hope you've all had a great weekend, mine has passed fairly uneventfully for a work one but I just feel really cack! Am trying not to let a raspy sore throat turn into anything worse.

Here is another LO from the Getaway except that I have altered it quite a bit upon returning home as I didn't like the one we made (sorry Sheena). We learnt how to make waterfall cards (useful later for cards) but we used it as a place for hidden journalling on the LO and I just thought it looked too bulky so pulled it off and just used one of the journalling shapes instead. This is now much more my style but will use what I learnt on something else so it wasn't wasted!

The photograph is from my walk on Hampstead Heath (hi Brenda) back in September. Gosh that seems like a long time ago now........... I showed it to Kirsty Wiseman and she didn't believe me that it was a random old man on the heath and not my grandad or someone I knew!! I tried to explain that all my photos are either scenery or ratties but I'm not sure she was convinced!!?

Anyway am off now as I think my lamb casserole is burning in the oven.
Toodlepip!
xx

Not for the feint hearted!!

I am not usually one to be concerned over nothing which is why the following tale should not be treated lightly. I also lived in a haunted pub for three and half years and despite the strange happenings going on there was never terrified in the way that I was on Friday night!!!

To set the scene........I was at my first GogoGetaway, thrilled and excited to meet old friends and new and nothing in my head other than layouts and new stash and the hope of winning spare class kits!!!

I went to bed quite late - about 12ish and although I didn't get off to sleep straight away due to the noise from a party and people smoking and chatting in the nearby fire exit, the bed was comfy and I was fine and cosy!

I had a hideous dream, I was in a room and one by one the other occupants disappeared and I knew had been horribly murdered. I couldn't move, I was paralyzed with fear and knew I would be next.  As my turn came to be taken away I was aware that I felt suddenly freezing cold and thought about getting an extra blanket from the wardrobe. I then heard, or screamed,  or dreamt I screamed a name and woke up instantly.
I was absolutely terrified!! I put the light on and lay in bed with my heart pounding in my chest! I realised that I was no longer freezing cold but a normal temperature.  It was about 3.30am. After about ten minutes I had to leave the light on whilst I tried to go back to sleep.

The following morning when I told the other girls they scoffed at me somewhat, and asked me if had known that a Paranormal Group had stayed at the Hotel the previous night?
No!

That night when I went to bed I googled the name that I had heard  - Mary Kelly - and was very shocked to find that she had been murdered in a very brutal way in 1888 and was in fact Jack the Rippers last victim!!! I did not know this but it fitted with all that had happened in my dream!! I had never heard this name before though and don't know anything about her.

How spooky is that?

Now I don't know why Mary Kelly would be in Cheshunt of all places - a bit of a long way away from Whitechapel where she met her brutal end, but then I don't know about these things! Maybe the paranormal group were meddling in those other realms and she was inadvertantly caught up in the spiritual summons? Who knows - all I know is that it freaked the hell out of me and I know the bits that I dreamt and the bits I didn't, and I have never been so scared in all my life!!

Theobalds Park where we stayed is well known to Ghost Hunters, and it was nearly Halloween, but I have no idea why this happened. The following day I spooked myself when I went to my car and thought someone was sat in it in the dark as I had left the seat forward when I unloaded the previous day - it was dark and I ran back indoors giggling at myself but spooked nonetheless!!

How was your Hallows Eve???
Night night!
xx

All treats and no trick!!!

Hello peeps! Hope you are all well?
Apologies that I've been away for so long but I have been really really busy doing stuff and of course working and so there has been no scrapping time, my internet played up so no blogging either, and of course when you are so busy doing stuff there is no time to stop and tell anyone about it all!!

Until this weekend that is!
I have returned from my first GogoGetaway here

and I have to say it was absolutely fab!!
I met so many lovely people, made some super new scrapbook pages and generally had a scraptacular time! I did have a rather spooky halloween style experience, but I will save that tale until I have scrapped it!

The old part of the hotel was stunning and quite spooky too, and the lovely Kirsty Wiseman did a little photo shoot of me and some of the others in here which I can't wait to see the results of. She also had her own spooky moments in the boardroom with some of the ladies, but nothing to do with Lord Sugar and no-one got fired!!

My LO today is from the Getaway - everyone was given a little treat box full of goodies and also a template for making one yourself. Obviously I have no-one to make a goody box for so I used mine to make this, using a photo I had taken the previous weekend while out and about with Grannywen!

Oh so much to share with you I don't know where to start...............will have a look back over my last few weeks for you over the next few days. It's gotta make a change from moaning about work and rat stories???
xxx