You Know You're Addicted to Scrapbooking If...

• When you reach into your purse, your family scatters - they think you are reaching for that dreaded camera!
• You see something metal in a parking lot or on the floor and you go back to pick it up. It turns out to be some sort of buckle/pop tab type of thing, so you pop it in your pocket, and think - yeah, I can put some ribbon through that.
• You purchase every scrap magazine that hits the shelf, even though more than half the layouts in some are NOT your style.
• You dream about layouts or crops.
• You buy scrapbook "stuff" and have no idea how you are going to use it but think, "I will use it someday."
• When you start scanning kids clothes because they would make great inspiration for a scrapbook page.
• When you spend all day at work/school sketching layouts instead of working/studying.
• You know you're addicted when you find an awesome piece of paper and actually DRESS your child up for pictures in clothes to MATCH THE PAPER.
• You know you're addicted when your husband runs into the local eatery yelling "I need water....my truck's on fire!" And your first response is, "WAIT! I have the camera!"
• ( I can relate to this one definately as last year our little cat went missing & after 3 days we found her up a tree, paul bravely rushed to get a ladder & shinned up the tree to save her, whilst Abi shouted " Wait there while I get a picture & then mum can scrapbook it")
  
• You plan vacations around scrapbook stores or drive 175 miles to a scrapbook store.

Okay, own up how many boxes would you tick if you took the addiction test?

Taken from the website

A Scrapaholic's Confessio

(Note: CHAOS = Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome)

Bless me, Scrap Fairy, for I have sinned, I know that's hard to believe; But it's not my fault, I'm a victim, you see, Of a sickness, a curse, a disease...

They say that confession is good for the soul, But I'm not convinced that that's true. So I'll tell you my faults and shortcomings, And I'll leave the decision to you.

That scrapbooking thing has got me for sure; I start with the best of intentions! Just let me check the CK website-- Oh look! A list of conventions!

Snacking is good to help with my scrappin' Though I tend to overindulge. Cakes and cookies and chocolates galore! My bulges are starting to bulge!

Oh my! How I buy the things I don't need Eyelets and ribbons and vellums. If anyone asks, "I've had it for years!" At least, that's what I tell 'em!

A scrap room? What's that? Stuff's all over the house I suffer from *CHAOS,* you know, No one comes, no one visits, except UPS He's my very best friend, that Joe!

Buy now! It's on sale! They won't have it again! The gadgets, the papers, the glues Look at the money that I can save! How can I possibly lose???

Organization is an area where I am certainly lacking I need help with that, others say But how can I do it? I've got things to do! How can I waste a whole day?

So here I sit amongst all of my clutter Housekeeping's a thing of the past Dusting and vacuuming and tidying up What's the point??? It just doesn't last!

I have too many ideas and not enough time They say that denial is rough I have it...I know it....can't find it.... Oh well....I'll just buy some more stuff.

I know that they pay me to do a good job But this 8 to 5 job gets so stressful I need a vacation...I need to relax... And then I will be more successful!

I spend time at work doing scrapbooking things I search for a phrase or a verse The perfect layout is all that I need My addiction is more like a curse!

I tell my husband that if I should die The best thing for him to do Is to have a garage or a fire sale And be sure to include all of Y-O-U!

I guess I'm a sinner, so give me my penance And hurry! Send me on my way! I've a 40% coupon right here in my purse Oh my gosh....it expires today!

Scrabookers 12 step plan

The Scrapbooker's 12 Step Program!

by Nicole Humphrey

1. When leaving home, always vow that you won't end up at a local scrapbook store or other craft store. Repeat these words, "I have too many supplies, and I will not buy anymore. I have to use what I have. Unless of course, there is a great sale and a new product I just have to try!"
2. Rearrange all your scrapbook supplies in your area so that there is no room to put anymore stuff in without having to buy new organization.
3. Always wear clothes with pockets when leaving home in case you should end up at a local scrapbook store or other craft store - this is so that you'll always have a place to keep your hands at all times - this ensures that you will not handle the pretty papers and play with all the fun tools. Might want to keep a washcloth in there too, to wipe up any drool that accumulates from your wishful thinking.
4. Never, ever, ever, obey the request of a sales lady to "Feel free to try out the different scrapbook tools!" Crops can be bad too. That's where some of my greatest, UNUSED tools stemmed from!
5. Never make eye contact with a sales lady. Never look directly at the papers.
6. Always take your spouse or a friend with you if you can't resist going to a local scrapbook store or craft outlet, they can remind you that you don't need anymore supplies!!
7. Never pick up or subscribe to a scrapbook trade magazine. This can be hazardous to your health, and the health of your family. They may look innocent, but the magazines are full of the newest supplies and they WILL call out to you! Before you know it, you will have all those products sitting there collecting dust!
8. Do not look at all your supplies before leaving the house as they will remind you that you don't have the latest and greatest trendy stuff!
9. Don't dress poorly in hopes that store owners won't trust your check or credit card, Scrapbooker's are typically honest people and it won't work! Many of us just don't dress that great every time we leave the house because we are mothers, wives and busy all the time! This is not a good method!
10. Do not rely on prayer alone to help as, God loves memories too. After all, He is the creator of many!
11. Promise yourself that you will look at every patterned paper before buying any. This may slow you down a bit. And make the decision a little harder!
12. Never, ever touch a computer and especially not one that connects to the Internet! There are all kinds of scrapbooking websites and online stores in there just waiting for you.

If all fails, run home immediately, and create a layout using what you already have!

Happy Scrapbooking - and have a great weekend!!

Productive day

Its not very often I get a weekday off work, there is a downside however I have to work next sunday doing the annual stocktake.
I got my jobs finished early and spent the rest of the day in my craft room. I went up there yesterday to make some family birthday cards, & what a struggle that was as all i wanted to do was scrap, I have had this pile of photo's on my desk since before Christmas.

My daughter in law sent me these pictures as they are some of her favourites, I have to say kerry, where are you in the pictures?
Like most Mum's we often spend so long putting others first that we get lost along the way. So I have been thinking about this afternoon and have decided to make a whole scrapbook about me & who I am, it's going to be hard as I dont particularly like pictures of myself.

Our beautiful Grandsons & their Daddy

Scrapbooking Me

When I was scrapbooking pictures of james & the boys It made me realise there was a major problem with the beautiful pictures I had....................Mummy ( kerry ) was missing from all of them, she plays a huge part in the lives of james & the boys yet she is not in any of the photo's. This got me thinking & as I looked back over the last 10 months of my scrapbooking addiction I realised like kerry I hardly featured in any of the layouts. I decided to address the balance and at least once a month make a couple of layouts of myself.

I have put together a checklist of some of the ideas & themes I would like to cover.

1. Circle of Friends
2. Crafts & Hobbies
3. A Day in the Life
4. Faith & Me
5. Favorites
• Activities
• Clothes
• Games
• Movies
• Music
• Books
6. Favorite Foods
• Restaurants
• Drinks
• Snacks
• Desserts
7. Favorite Job
8. Fears
9. Growing Up
• Where I was born
• Where I lived
• How many houses I lived in
10. Hairstyles through the Years
11. High School Years
12. Hopes and Dreams
13. Housework & Me
14. I am Blessed
15. I am Grateful
16. The Last 10 Years (how I have changed over the years)
17. Making My House a Home
18. Man of My Dreams
19. Mum & Me
• What we do together
• What our similarities are
• What our differences are
20. My Emotions
• What makes me happy/sad
• What makes me laugh/cry
• What makes me angry
• What makes me nervous
21. People That Inspire Me
22. Pieces of Me
23. Self Portrait (a personal photo and journaling about the photo)
24. Uniquely Me (things that make me unique)
25. Vacation Favorites
26. My names (maiden, married, nicknames)
27. My Purse
• Favorite purse
• What's in it
28. My quirks
29. Who am I ?
30. What do I like
31. What do I dislike
32. What am I reading
33. How will I change over the coming year.
34. My hopes & dreams for the future
35. 10 Things about Me
36. The Chef in Me (love it or hate it)
    

Inspiration

My new album set arrived today

I have been looking at this for ages, for making mini albums & it arrived today
I cant wait for the weekend to arrive so i can have a play.
I also ordered some scrapbook planner pages & they arrived as well, so time has come to get organised.




The Three Mini Albums In This Set Are Color Coded
And Named Their Own Cute Little Holiday Names:

Peppermint - Red


Wintergreen - Green


Sugarplum - Purple


Yes, Your Gift Set Starts Off With The THREE Mini Albums Above!


A Limited Exclusive Holiday Lowercase Cookie Cutter Alphabet
And Numbers
Approximately 1" In Size


OH, There Is More!!!

You Will Also Get 18 Cookie Cutter Die In Many Different Shapes

January layouts

Here are some of my January layouts
I am beginning to think of myself as a scrapbooker & not a card maker, the transformation didn't take long, I have been seriously scrapbooking for less than a year & I already look at days out as a photo opportunity.

Free online photography course

This is a first for me trying an online photography course, I have signed up, why not join in.


Paisleepress
Develop on fridays is a creative photography 'study group’ led by Jefra Starr Linn. It’s going to consist of a post and an assignment each friday on the paislee press blog. We’ll cover a few basics but mostly dig into ways we can develop our voices and acclimate ourselves with our cameras.

It's free and feel free to jump onboard with us at any time. Jump bring your camera - whatever they may be. We officially begin on Jan 22, 2010.

the details
Lessons + assignments will post here at the paislee press blog on fridays.

Share your photos. Discuss the assignments. Make friends. Find each other and lift each other. This is about you. So we're going to have a flickr group, a facebook group and a forum for you all. You can frequent whichever one (or all three) reaches you best.

Still here

I am still here, well my body is, I have had a headache for 18 days now. On Monday I went to the Doctors after 14 days with a headache I was getting very concerned, the level of pain varied from Migraine to painful to touch my head, The Dr's gave my antibiotics to fight the virus that they think is causing the head pain, whoa I wake up Tuesday with a Migraine & cant move my head or neck......By Wednesday night I am vilolently sick & cant lay my head on the pillow.....today I have had enough day 18 & still in pain only now my ribs & chest hurt, i'm hoping that is only from being so sick, The Dr's are going to run tests starting with a blood test on Monday, but they suggested it could also be stress!! I have been through awful times in my life & not felt this bad.
So I'm here but haven't been doing an awful lot except sleeping.

yummy new dinner

I've never made a savoury crumble but this really was yummy

Braised Chicken crumble.

Serves 4

Ingredients
4 chicken legs, cut into thighs and drumsticks ( I used fillets )
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 small red onions, sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
4 tsp plain flour
1 tbsp tomato puree
700 ml hot chicken stock
200g can chopped tomatoes
1 small courgette, roughly chopped
100g peas
1 can chickpeas, well drained

For the crumble topping
200g plain flour
100g unsalted butter
2 tbsp fresh chopped thyme
2 cloves garlic, pasted
75g, roughly, dried breadcrumbs
salt
pepper

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 190°C Gas 5.

2. Season the chicken well with salt and pepper.

3. Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan, add chicken and cook quickly to brown all over.

4. Remove chicken from the pan and place in an ovenproof dish or casserole.

5. Add onions and garlic to the pan used to cook the chicken and cook until nicely browned. Sprinkle over the flour and stir in the tomato puree.

6. Pour on half the stock and bring to the boil, stirring continuously to make a nice smooth sauce.

7. Pour the sauce over the chicken legs, then add the remaining stock, chopped tomatoes, courgette, peas and chickpeas.

8. Season well, cover the dish with a tight fitting lid and cook for about 45minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

9. Make up the crumble by placing the flour, and butter into a food processor, then blitz until you have fine breadcrumbs.

10. Add the thyme and garlic and pulse together, then add the dried breadcrumbs right at the end.

11. Remove the chicken from the oven and remove the lid.
Spoon over the crumble mix, and re bake for 20 minutes, or until cooked though and nicely browned.

The ice Sculpture trail ~ Norwich

Just before Christmas we did the Ice sculpture trail around Norwich City centre, the current snowy weather reminded me that I hadn't shared any of the pictures on my blog.
So to put that right here are some of the pictures I took and a littel resume of the sculptures.

The Fencer
Gentleman’s Walk

The first record of a fencing school being advertised in Norwich was in 1751 by Mr Johnson in the Norwich Mercury. He offered lessons in the “Grand Jury rooms in the Hall in the Market - Place”, probably the Guildhall Sword Room. Fencing lessons for gentlemen were considered essential, not only for sword fighting skills which were still current in the Army, and at occasional duels, but also for posture and graceful movement.

The Skateboarder
Castle Gardens

As in many cities, skateboarding is popular in Norwich and it is hoped we will soon have our own specially designed skate park in Eaton Park

Ballroom dancing
All Saints Green (sponsored by John Lewis)

The Thatched Assembly Rooms stood on this site from 1904, until the building was destroyed in the Norwich ‘Baedeker’ Raid of 1942. It was a popular dancing venue between 1910 and 1930 and ended its life as Bonds’ furniture showroom.



Jimi Hendrix
Timberhill

In the 1960s the Orford Cellar hosted performances from rock legends Jimi Hendrix, Ginger Baker, Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Eric Clapton and Elton John, all courtesy of local impresario Howard Platt. It was the place to try out a new line-up or material before going on tour. The Orford also featured popular local acts including Lucas and The Emperors and The Continentals.

The Footballer
Brigg Street

CEYMS (Church of England Young Men’s Society) is the oldest football club still playing in Norwich. Known as ‘Church’, the club won the Norfolk Senior Cup four times between 1897 and 1902. Robert Webster and Joseph Cowper Nutchey were captain and vice-captain respectively when, in 1902, they were instrumental in establishing Norwich City Football Club. CEYMS, however, continues to thrive and currently plays in Division Two of the Anglian Combination.

Mr Pastry
The Forum, Millennium Plain

Richard Lewis Hearne, aka TV’s Mr Pastry, was the first children’s television star to have his own programme. He played a bumbling old man with a walrus moustache, in a black suit or raincoat, and with a trademark bowler hat. He was born in Lady Lane, which once crossed the site where The Forum now stands.

The Beer Barrel

City Hall, St Peters Street

The bronze doors leading to the foyer of City Hall are adorned with 18 plaques illustrating trades connected with the city. During the 17th century, the first breweries were established in Norwich. By 1836, there were 27 breweries, among them several names which were to lead the industry for the next 120 years. The depression in the 1920s and 1930s and higher excise duties marked the industry’s decline

Icy facts

• The sculptures are made from around 10 tonnes of ice.
• That's the equivalent of about 10,000 litres of water.
• Each one is sculpted with Japanese chisels made in the Samurai tradition.
• They are transported from London at -25C.
• They are hand-carved by a team of five sculptors over the course of three months.

We have snow

Whoooo we have snow, at last.
All week there have been severe weather warnings on the news & our children who are in Bracknell have been having very severe snowfall about 12" on Tuesday night & all we had was the leftovers from new years day & a very light sprinkling yesterday morning whilst I made my way to work, but this morning at least 6" had fallen.
The cats weren't too keen to go out & when they did venture into the snowy garden they only stayed out long enough to do the essential business.


Sassy the bravest of our cats ~ look at his huge tail
I went out for the bus & waited an hour & 20 minutes & the snow was falling, but no busses arrived so I phoned work & stayed at home as by this time I was frozen.

When I eventually thawed out I decided to do some scrapbooking, well 2 scraplifts actually as I loved these layouts.

The first layout was taken back in 2006 when we went on a family holiday too Brittany, we started to scrapbook the holiday when we returned but paul's Dad died 6 weeks later & it became to hard to scrap at the time, so i'm digging out the pictures & have added it too my ~scrapping to do list~


Paul in the Botanical gardens.

The Christmas portait layout is inspired by the Cover of Decembers creating Keepsakes magazine


The pictures were our self portraits this Christmas.

The not so Novice knitter

Whoo I have finished my first ever scarf / knitted garment I even managed to cast off with the help of a video tutorial, but the funny thing was none of them actually told you what to do with the very last stitch, so i tied it in a double knot. So if you ever see a trail of blue pom pom wool anywhere, I will probably be somewhere at the end of it wearing half a scarf.
When i'm bck at work tomorrow, wearing my new scarf I am going to get some more wool that matches my new coats.

Casting off

The trials & tribulations of a novice knitter

.

I can safely say that knitting has never been on my bucket list of things to do before I die..................That was until we got this beautiful new wool in at work.


To say that I am not one of lifes natural knitters would not be an understatement. When I bought the wool 2 weeks before Christmas I had to get someone at work to cast me on the 12 stitches needed, within 2 hours I had managed to drop a stitch & in frustration pulled the whole lot off the needles, It then took me a further 3 hours with the help of this video to get the requisite 12 stitches back on the needle.

Casting on


With all of the prep for Christmas & four cats I hadn't got very far with my pom pom scarf, so I took it away at new year & got nearly 30" knitted, I have also got quite proficient at picking up dropped stitches & re-casting on as when Abi saw my wool she wanted to try knitting her own scarf, the only hitch being that she is a leftie. But fortunately she is also ambidextorous & I have manged to show her right handed, tonight she has managed about 10 rows & only twice gained stitches.

The irony of this DIY accessory is I chose blue as I fancied a new coat in either blue or turquoise I had seen two I liked one formal & the other casual, but in the sales on Friday I bought two beautiful new jackets that i had looked at before Christmas & neither of them is blue! Oh well I guess I could make a second scarf, there are so many beautiful colours.

Happy new year & sale~a~Bration is here

As the year ends, don’t count what you lost. Instead, cherish what you have & plan what to gain. The past never returns but the future may still fulfill the loss.

Happy new year to you all


Sale ~ A ~ bration is here.

Well its that time of year again when Stampin Up! are still in the Giving mood!
From 30th December - 28th February 2010, Spend £45 on Stampin Up! products from their current catalogue and receive a free Sale-A-Bration stamp set of your choice.

There are three ways of earning Sale ~ A ~ Bration sets

1. Spend £45 and you can choose one of the stamp sets from the Sale-a-Bration

2. Host a £300 party and you can choose one of the stamp sets from Sale-a-Bration.

3. Join my team of Stampers and Stampin' Up! will let you choose any stamp set from the catalogue to the value of £38.95

If you have ever considered becoming a Stampin Up! demonstrator now is the time, Join Stampin Up! as a demonstrator during the Sale-A-Bration and you can choose any stamp set in the current 2010 catalogue!

If you would like to place a qualifying order during Sale-A-Bration, not only will you receive one of four stamp sets of your choice for FREE (see below) you will also receive free P&P saving you £3.95