LittleBirdyScraps

Scrap Whispers Game

More layouts from moi.   I've been such a busy bunny.  This morning I managed to get outside and do some gardening - it's unbelievable how much everything has grown.  I don't have a photo, although I might take some next time I'm out there, but I'm sure you can imagine the scene...

When I moved in here, twelve years ago now, the garden was knee-deep in grass, with a pond that we didn't realise was there until the children's dad stood in it whilst strimming.  There were some plants such as tulips and roses growing in the jungle, but the previous tenant had been alone since her husband died seven years earlier.  He was obviously a keen gardener but she couldn't manage much.

So we strimmed it and tidied it up, and over the years I've planted lots of stuff including various climbers to clothe the fences.  There's a huge honeysuckle and several clematis, a lovely virginia creeper, something called a Lisii wotsit, and a lovely Zepherine Drouhin rambling rose which this year put on a fantastic display.  I've planted hollyhocks and delphiniums and grown coral poppies from seed;  there are peonies and roses, several varieties of heuchera and about a dozen different geraniums.  Out the front I planted a big native hedge which has grown to huge proportions, and I erected a fence - properly, using cement for the posts, which is more than I can say for any of the fences others have put up around this property.  There is a brick path leading to the front door and a little terrace at the end of the back garden.  The pond has been redug about three times.

But.  For two or three years now I haven't made time to to out in the garden except in dire emergencies such as when the grass/weeds were threatening to take over the house.  Having planted a high-maintenance garden, my work and my studies have discouraged me from maintaining it! So I have a fantastic collection of native weeds.  The soil is very good because I have always gardened organically and added lots of stuff to it, and the wide border in the front garden is rich with leaf mould from the trees all around here.  Unfortunately this means that everything grows in abundance, and this year particularly, with all the rain and the early warmth, things are shooting skyward.  The roses I pruned back this morning had stems like tree trunks; some of them, and the late-flowering clematis in the front garden, are blooming so high up that I couldn't see them until I cut back the monster buddleia.

So this is my project for the next couple of months.  I'm going to keep at the weeds - which is mostly what needs doing - and pester the Housing Trust to fix the fences, and make quite a few trips to the dump to empty out my poor neglected greenhouse which has been used as a general dumping ground, until it is all lovely again.

Here are the layouts, by the way!

This is for the Scrap Whispers game that's just finishing, and I used my Handmade Hannah grab box for this one.  The photos are of Daughter opening her birthday present.  Check out the heart, I was quite pleased with that!  I think something else is needed, and I might add to the page later.  Or I might not, lol.

Another one made with the grab box:

The heart is cut from some Jenny Bowlin packaging - from the crepe paper ribbon I used the other day.  Needed a couple of passes through the machine but it was a great way of using up scraps, for the wings and background heart as well.

 

 

Scrap Whispers Challenge and Pencil Lines sketches

Today on Scrap Whispers we have a nice gentle challenge to ease you back into the weekly routine!  We have all created a card for all occasions.  This is mine:

 

I used one of the few Nestabilities sets I have, and the last few stickers from a butterflies sheet. Both the little flower stamp and the greeting are from a sheet of stamps that came free with a magazine - I've used the flower a lot, it's a good size and you can stamp on the back of a piece of paper that's been sprayed or inked, then cut the flowers out.  I did these flowers a while ago and they've been stamped onto pink paper before the centres were coloured with a green (?) souffle pen.

Take a look at the other cards the DT (those of us who haven't gone on holiday, lol!) have come up with, and while you're at it maybe you'd like to try joining in with our next game of Scrap Whispers, which is signing up now!

I've also done a couple of pages for two of the past month's Pencil Lines sketches.  Quite coincidentally they're both school brother-and-sister photos!  This one is of our Scottish cousins, quite a few years ago now

I've had to edit it a bit because the scan'n'stitch program actually cut off half of two edges and although I normally just crop it down, I wanted to get the stitching in for once! 

Particularly pleased with this because I used loads of scraps - all the strips are more or less as they came out of the drawer!

And here are my two:

 

See how it's gone all super-girlie, lol, and it's got a boy in it!  It just sort of happened, honest!  I'm pleased with the flowers, although once again the edges are missing and you can't see my sewing, boo hoo!

In case I forget to bore you with it tomorrow, on Sunday we are going camping.  Oh yes.  Having completely not bothered to try and book a cottage, it completely serves me right that I am going to be sleeping on a lilo for nights on end.  Only not as many nights as I intended.

It all started out promisingly when we went into my mum's garage last week and dragged out the tent my friend gave me about mmfm years ago.  Amazingly, we managed to erect it without anyone being punched, although there was a hairy moment about half way through when my  mother was discovered peering at the gazebo poles she'd used as plant supports (thus rendering them utterly unusable for their intended purpose) and wondering if they went with the tent.  They didn't.

We couldn't work out how the extra awning bit went up, we might take it to amuse ourselves while we're down there.

Down there is Cornwall.  We thought we would go on Monday or something, but when I mentioned this to Invisible Teenager, he looked disappointed because he actually wants to keep to the arrangement we made to go out on Thursday night.  Well that's okay, I said, flattered that he was prepared to be seen with me in public, we'll go on Friday and come back Thursday morning.

Home we went, and Daughter spent the next half hour or so rearranging her week's plans.  All ticketty-boo.  Until Youngest came in and started waffling on about his evening at the local nightclub on Saturday.  Oops. 

Well, of course he doesn't want to cancel it, and of course Daughter called him all sorts of names and flounced and pranced and wailed and burst into tears.  Don't know where she gets it from.

The upshot is that we are going on Sunday and coming back on Thursday, and God help me.  The reason they want to go where they want to go, is that there is a bar on the beach.  An akshul pub, with live music sometimes.  So I will have no other adult to keep me company, and any attempt to have a sneaky fag with my pint of beer will result in Youngest giving me a pigging lecture.  And Daughter talks in her sleep, and the last time I camped with her she threw up all over the bedchamber in the midst of the night.  Bleugh.

On the plus side, I discovered that the gas canister for the camping stove - which works! - is full up.  This slightly makes up for the £100 I had to spend on getting the boot lock fixed so that we can load and unload the camping equipment without having to send a chimney sweep's boy through the back seats to fiddle about with the hook that unlocks the door from the inside....

Wish me luck, do.

Use It Up....Wear It Out....

Well, use it up, anyway.  I can't see me actually wearing any of my stash out anywhere.  Speaking of which, we had a bit of a debacle at school yesterday.  Lemme show you the LO I just finished, first:

 

I have used up the rest of the Vintage Yummy sheet with all the frames on it, including what was left of the die-cut strip.  Also one of my favourite stroking papers, the Cosmo Cricket Early Bird of which I have two sheets.  I had a brainwave and cut up a chipboard border to make the little file tabs - I was particularly pleased with that one!  And the rub-ons are from a brand new Bo Bunny pack.  I'm not great at opening packs of rub-ons but hopefully now I will continue to use this one.  Not only that, but I chopped the biggest rub-on about a bit and used it in a couple of places on the page.

As for the school debacle, I am sooooooo glad I have a day off today.  Those of you who work in a school will know how a supply teacher can make children's behaviour take a nose-dive, and how rubbish their behaviour is at this end of the school year anyway.  If you work with, or possess, Year  6 children then you will be aware that they are particularly up themselves just before they are launched into Year 7.

So yesterday they all came in wearing specially made hoodies, in a variety of colours, with 'Leavers '10' on them.  They were very nice hoodies, with the school logo on the front and the number 10 made up of lines of text containing all their names.

As soon as I saw them, I thought: 'Oh.'  Somebody did ask me later what exactly was wrong with them wearing the hoodies to school, and I appreciate that views on this may be mixed.  I think the biggest problem with the hoodies, for me, was that in my opinion - and having had four Y6 children myself, remember - I think they are quite full enough of themselves, and possessed of a sufficiently inflated ego, to make the wearing of special garments a bit superfluous.

 Also, not all the children had them.  Nearly all the children had them, but some clearly couldn't afford them.  I'm already a bit fed up with the annual hug-fest that accompanies the offer of a place at a 'posh' school.  This year a number of teachers from various secondary schools came in to talk to the kids who were going to their particular schools in September.  Only two girls are going to the local selective girls' school, yet the class teacher spent about half an hour in deep conversation with the teacher from this school, leaving the class with me.  The inference was that these girls were far more important than anyone else because they had got into a 'better' school.

All this from a hoodie!

Anyway, the children had been told by their class teacher that they could wear the hoodies to school.  Sadly she hadn't actually checked this with the head, who also thought it a bad idea and told them they could wear them at break, before and after school, but not during lesson time as they are not school uniform.  It didn't really matter what he said, because unless they were getting totally their own way a small group of girls did nothing but pout and fold their arms and wag their heads and hands, whilst ATTITUDE poured from them like rainwater from my faulty guttering (can't get out the door when it's raining).

Unfortunately, it was the same group of mouthy girls who then discovered that some mirror tiles they had decorated for sale on Open Evening, had been confiscated from the spare classroom when the class teacher found what a horrendous mess they had made of the carpet.  More folded arms, pouting, wagging, backchat.  How outrageous that someone should hold them accountable for their own actions!  And of course, while this was going on and I was trying to deal with it (only TA in the classroom), another child who hadn't taken her medication, clouted her friend for no apparent reason.  Other than lack of medication, obviously.

By the afternoon I was ready to make a big pile of the hoodies and set a match to them.  By this point the children had been asked to write a poem for their teacher, who is retiring at the end of the term.  You won't catch me shedding any tears over her departure.  She is a great big spoilt drama queen, who shouts at the children, particularly the child I support who has Aspergers and cries every day after school because the day is so hard for him.  She speaks to her colleagues like dirt and creates a huge fuss when anything happens that might inconvenience her.  The heating not working, for example, or a long-standing after-school club using the hall when she wants it.  Everything is aimed personally at her,  you understand. 

She doesn't make drinks, pull her weight in the staff kitchen,  or do anything without at least 2 TAs running around after her.  The parents think she is jolly super because whenever they are about she puts on a horrible false smile, oozing saccharine, and talks in a very bright jolly hocky sticks voice about how wonderful the children are, what little scamps, but aren't I just a natural teacher and so universally loved for my loveliness.

You can imagine, therefore, how enthusiastic the child I support, and I, felt about staying in the classroom a moment longer listening to the poems about what a wonderful teacher she is, better than all the rest, and how people were obviously going to need counselling or at least copious quantities of tissues, in order to cope with her leaving.  Later in the day I wrote my own poem, but it is a little coarse and I will not be repeating it here.

In order to avoid vomiting, we decamped to the library where I drank coffee and read Jacqueline  Wilson while he looked at a book about space.  Mostly he asked me questions about religion and black holes and the Super Mario Brothers, and we both learnt much more than we would have done had we stayed in the classroom.

I can barely wait for the end of term.  Tomorrow I fear I will have to assist in the French Cafe at Open Evening where we have berets on our heads and a moustache (I chose to have a moustache last year in an effort to make the experience more fun) and listen to the children trying to speak French as they wait on their parents.

I have a large list of things to do today, of which this isn't even one.  However, tomorrow's Blog Hop is.  Check out Scrap Whispers later tomorrow, where you should see Kelly's tutorial for making a brilliant mini-album, and our interpretations of the technique.

Hope to see you then!

Mr Brown has come to town..

My Scrap Whispers layout for this week's challenge is brown.

 

I couldn't work out why it looked so naff and then I remembered that when you're submitting stuff to magazines they always say 'not brown please' because it doesn't photograph very well!  So there you go.

The theme of this week's challenge is 'new' - and clearly the subject matter of my page isn't new!  However, I have tried to use lots of my new brads and managed to get through quite a few.  I dipped the ones at the top into embossing powder because I wanted them metallic.

 

I just thought I'd show you this card as well.  The other day I got a box full of rubber stamps that I won on ebay for 99p.  The postage was a fiver but it was well worth it as there were LOADS of stamps in there, nearly all of them brand new.  A Hero Arts background set and a gorgeous Personal Impressions tree, and some HA Christmas ones including a lovely fairy lights background stamp, still unopened.  There was also a set of flower stamps that I'd seen in the shop and really liked, and some docrafts trees, one for each season.

(I've just clicked on something accidentally, by the way, it says I've changed editors which I had no intention of doing, so if it looks different just ignore it.)

Anyway.  Also in the box were a couple of See-D's sets that I hadn't seen in the photo when I bought them.  One was a really nice 'love' set and then there was this one.  This isn't normally my cup of tea at all, since it's rather modern, don't you know.  But I love the font, and there is a great message about friends being like wine which I've used inside the card and should have taken a photo of.

So I made this card.  Everything on it is from the set, including the swirly border and the background.  I accented the little flowery things with a white crayon before inking it with what I thought was Old Lipstick - or whatever it's called - but in fact turned out to be Dried Marigold.  Not deterred, I just went over it with the Lipstick.  I learnt two things from this, and both of them were to use my daylight lamp at night.  Then I might have seen what inkpad I was using, and also wouldn't have been surprised in the morning when I discovered that the card wasn't pink at all, but a sort of peachy colour!

Still, I'm showing it to you because it rather pleased me, even though it is not at all what I normally do and just looks like it's been made with pre-printed toppers.  As far as I'm concerned this cost me absolutely nothing, so woo hoo!

May Day! May Day!

What are you doing today?  Apart from pinching and punching cos it's the first day of the month, that is.....

 

Well, come and join us over at Scrap Whispers for our May Day relaunch!  We've gone for a May Queen theme, with all the fun of the fayre....

There'll be some of this

some of this

some of  this

and a bit of this

and this!

We are also proud to be presenting a challenge from the fabulous Julie Kirk - and it's a good'un! 

Throughout the day there will be three main challenges plus some fun games to play.  You can pop in whenever you like - make sure you register in the forum , because at the end of the festivities someone will be crowned May Queen (or King...!).

We have some great prizes - take a look at our sneak peeks on the blog!

So come along and join us - it'll be all sunshine and flowers over at Scrap Whispers today!

Scrap Whispers Challenge 61

Thank you, Marit, for pointing out that I had forgotten to blog!  I am doing it now, and I will be over to yours immediately afterwards should I manage to stay awake that long!

This evening I have been cybercropping, which is an entirely new experience for me.  To tell you the truth, I'm knackered, having completed two LOs.  I didn't do them as quickly as many other people, mind you.  But my excuse is that I had nothing prepared, despite having printed out the supply lists a week ago!  I'll show you one now:

 

We were supposed to use a mini bingo card but I only had a big one so I cut it in half.  Actually,  you can see the other one too

 

This one was a bit wrong because I failed to properly understand the directions for cutting the larger frame, durr!  I was tired, tho!

Anyway, Challenge 61 at Scrap Whispers is a fun one, the last before our big relaunch next week, of which more in a future post.  We used the lyrics from 'Can't Smile Without You' by the lovely Barry Manilow (don't laugh, I used to have an album by him!) and I came up with this

 

This is my fave cousin Malcolm, again.

Okay, I have blogged, I have cropped, I have commented, I am very tired.....good night gentle reader, I'm sure I'll have more for you in the morning, including maybe some of my lovely stamps wot I bought recently!

Creaky squeaky :O

Well, hello there!  Can you hear the creaking of the blog door as I ease it open?  The rust flaking from the hinges and spiders scuttling away into the corners?

I have no excuse. 

Oh, all right then.  Every LO I've done for ages has been unshowable on here!  I have in fact also gone a bit mad making cards.  A while ago I thought I'd just clear out that section of my Expedit unit that contains card making stuff......four weeks later I've just about used up all the card blanks!

Now obviously it's perfectly possible for me to show you these cards, but I've been very lazy about taking pictures of them.  I did manage to take a couple of the Valentines and birthday cards that I made for my man, but Daughter has deleted them.  Sigh.....

Anyway.  Today on Scrap Whispers you can go and see the layouts we all did for our fun challenge this week.  And why is it a fun challenge, I hear you ask? (I've got very good hearing...)

Well, next Friday we will be relaunching the blog!  Our illustrious leader, Georgina, has been beavering away like a, erm, beaver, brainstorming and organising and making lists and naming dates....and from now on our challenges will be online of a Friday evening instead of Sundays.  We thought this would be better, so that people can get a grip on things over the weekend.

The fun challenge is called 'Glitterball' because we want you to create a page with a glittery border.  Or something.  I did a glittery border and some things:

 

There has also been some publishing going on, and I really should be blowing my trumpet a bit more.  Thing is, blow me down if I haven't gone and forgotten to scan the 'Spring Sunset' layout that was in Scrapbook Magazine.  And those of you who have the Scrapbook Inspirations book may have seen the following three LOs in the 'heritage' section

 

Fear not, though, gentle reader (assuming you're still there....): I have scheduled my blog posts now, to coincide with our Friday challenges.  I have calendar pages!  On my wall! With stuff written on them! And BLOG highlighted in orange!

Before I go, however, I will tell you about my shopping.  Yesterday was the Retro Fair at Brighton, where my man and I went for the day.  Well, some of the day, as our first stop was at Crafts U Love.  I hadn't realised that this shop was actually within driving distance of my home, until they sent me a newsletter that referred to their ex-demo sale, taking place yesterday.  Well, it didn't actually say in the newsletter that it was taking place yesterday, as that would just be plain unhelpful.  It said it was on Saturday the 17th.

So I looked it up on the AA routefinder and my man, who is very patient with crafty things, said he would take me there 'on the way' to Brighton.  Only I didn't look properly and we had to ask two postmen before we could find it.  Arrrgh.

The first postman, incidentally, assured us, in the manner of one speaking to total morons. that there were NO shops OR businesses within AT LEAST two miles of where we were standing.  The other postman, who coincidentally had the appearance of a total moron himself, nevertheless gave us flawless directions.  So.  Don't judge by appearances.  Not when it comes to postmen, anyway.

So.  When we finally got there, they had looooooaaaads of stuff!  I got lots of stamps (I'm extremely into rubber stamps at the moment, will show you some of my haul at some point, from the Netherlands no less).  I stopped myself buying some of the Buzzcraft fairy ones a few weeks ago, and was delighted to find them at Crafts U Love, ex demo of course, for half the price!

I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say I was a happy bunny.

And, honest injun, I will be back here on Fridays from now on, so don't forget me!

Scrap Whispers Challenge #59

Challenge 59 is up at Scrap Whispers, and this week we're All Dressed Up!  Make a page using your yummy stash to add a bit of glam - it can be about anything you like.  In my case I've used a photo of me at my 18th birthday party

 

My BOM is 8.5x11 so I've used some of my American Crafts cardstock prize for this page.

This weekend has been rather hectic; I've been out three nights running and needed a night at home yesterday.  On Friday there was a quiz night at school which I got roped into.  I do like quizzes but this one cost money and I couldn't really afford it, having spent it all on stash last week.  I'll have to do a Shopping post to show you what I bought!

We did reasonably well, finishing fourth out of something like 9 teams.  My favourite round was the Album Covers picture round, I knew all the ones from 100 years ago which was handy.  Bizarrely, our deputy head knew the name of the meerkat in the car insurance advert; the rest of us didn't even know he had one.  Clearly she needs to come back to work full time.

On Saturday we had our annual girlie get-together and sleepover.  Unfortunately I was a bit stressed out because, despite what I had believed to be forward-planning, things started to Go A Bit Wrong.

Youngest went to a paintball party at 11 am.  I had said to him, you  need to be back by four AT THE LATEST, at which he nodded.  Or something.  What he didn't do - and yes, I know this is blatantly obvious, he is 12 for god's sake - was to ask his friend what time it all finished.  By the time I got him back I was already running an hour late.

Earlier in the day, whilst wrapping myself round a jolly spiffing slice of chocolate cake at the garden centre, I had harangued my man over his failure to sort out his son's birthday party.  Basically, no-one apart from Daughter knew what was happening; I couldn't go and Youngest - who is very close friends with the birthday boy - didn't appear to have been invited.

My man refused to accept any responsibility whatsoever for this fiasco, claiming that he hadn't been looking when it was organised and couldn't be expected to know what was going on.  He was unmoved when I drew a complicated analogy with a situation in which his son was left at home alone while everyone else went out partying and it was all my fault.  (I'd finished the cake by now.)

The upshot of all this was that, as I flew into the corner shop to grab a bottle of wine whilst running over an hour late, I received an invitation for Youngest to go to the party in 25 minutes' time.  He was covered in paint.  Imagine, dear reader, the build-up of steam issuing from my ears.

I finally managed to deposit him, from the passenger seat of a moving car, outside the Harvester at 5 o'clock, only to receive a frantic phone call from Daughter two minutes later to say that the table wouldn't be available for an hour.  Well, tough.  There was an adult there, I hasten to add.

Anyway, the reason for my haste was that there is a shop in Camberwell that sells Promarkers much more cheaply than I can get them online.  I could get them online from this shop but I would have to pay £5 postage, which is the price of 5 Promarkers.  I thought, since it is near my friend's house, I would nip in there quick and spend a tenner.

So, 27 quid later I have 22 Promarkers and a storage wallet (it was reduced, what was I supposed to do - leave it there??).  I spent yesterday afternoon blissfully colouring in Tilda images as stamped by my new collection of stamps that I bought second-hand.  I have in fact discovered that I don't know what I'm doing, and need to buy a new ink pad.

All I need now is for my grant to turn up in my bank account and I can actually pay for some of the stuff I've already bought....

Scrap Whispers Challenge 58

This is a couple of days late, please excuse me for being too tired after two days back at work to cope with anything!

Challenge 58 on Scrap Whispers is to use the phrase 'The Long And The Short of it' as a title.

This is mine:

 

I bought a Purple Cow Creative Trimmer in Aldi the other week and used it to cut this oval.  Sadly they weren't selling a gadget that helps you line up your LOs in a straight sort of fashion - I know some people have things called 'eyes' but that isn't working for me...

See that very long, tall redhead on the right?  Well that's Youngest, that is. Legs like a grasshopper.  Some of the rugby team are really very small - they're at that age where there are huge differences in growth rates.

Today I have been making more cards, and also a couple of LOs for future DT reveals.  I must reveal some of my cards, tho - I'm having great fun rummaging through the enormous shoebox that holds all my cardmaking stuff, whilst watching cardmaking techniques on Create and Craft and QVC.  Had to laugh earlier when the presenter trying to shift huge quantities of Spellbinder Nestabilities had a Freudian slip and referred to them as 'Spendabilities'. 

Not laughing much, though, at the constant repetition of the phrase 'taking your crafting to the next level'.  My crafting is quite happy where it is, thanks.  Wonky and all over the living room carpet.

I must stop watching these programmes.  Trouble is there's not much else on, and I find them strangely soothing.  Unfortunately, whilst I usually manage not to order anything - apart from the foam-backed portrait stamps for which I'm on the Waitlist, and the Scallop Corner Chomper that only cost me £12.10 - what happens instead is that I think 'Oooh, I'd like one of them, bet I can find it cheaper', Google it, find it, erm.......buy it.

Today I found this place where they had Nestabilities and other dies for sale at 4 sets for £60, considerably cheaper than QVC and with free postage!

But I didn't buy the dies, I bought these instead

As you can probably see, the first sheet is a half one and the second a whole one, and both together cost me £11.98 including postage.  Bargain!

They also had these

Alcohol inks in vivid colours that work with St Tim's, and these

which are like Twinkling H2O's but fantastically much cheaper (and not discontinued, obviously, lol).  The same supplier sells their own watercolour solution which enables you to use these paints on shiny surfaces such as glass and acrylic.  Not only that, but when you buy one large set of these (shown) you get a smaller, 16 colour set free.

Okay, Daughter and Youngest have been indulging themselves in some sort of gay fashion shoot and keep coming in here to ask if a) they can upload the piccies and b) I can give them money for cinema, paintball parties, etc etc ad nauseum.  How the hell am I supposed to buy stash when I have children????????

Strange Kind of Magic

That title is in reference to my double LO, which I thought was kind of magic but turned out a bit strange, lol.  I'll show you in a mo.  First, it's Challenge #55 at Scrap Whispers this week - we had to base a page on our favourite children's book.   I could have chosen one of my children's favourite books, that I used to read to them, but I had this photo of the tree over the road that they used to climb when they were smaller, and it reminded me of my favourite when I was a child, The Faraway Tree.

It had someone called Moon Face in it, can't remember the rest of the characters.  But it's still in print now.  I did this with my tree photo:

Love the brown ink against that greeny paper.  I've got a Monsoon jumper that colour.

Anyway,  on to the magic! 

Today I printed out some photos of our trip to Devon last summer, and decided to make a double page LO with them.  It was going to look like this (ignore the lettering, lol!)

 

But then I ended up doing this with it in order to line up the brown strips, and it looked much better.  

Sadly, for some reason it wouldn't line up when I collaged it together, but I promise it looks much better IRL, lol! I cropped it, actually, but clearly Picasa hasn't told Windows and this is the original, sad version.

I also printed out an enormous photo of Youngest driving, for his Christmas present last year - yes, I am a tad behind - and had to use this paper for it, even tho it's not my current style at all.

 

Lookit the groovy Brad Buddies sunglasses - part of my prize, as is the American Crafts chipboard at the bottom, and the big metallic brads holding the grungeboard hinges in place.  I'll get through those really quickly.  The black and white die cuts came from my tiny stash of practice bits from the Slice.  I may have mentioned that I got a pack of about 60 bits of 8x8 black American Crafts textured cardstock, and the same in white.  Particularly good since I don't have to agonise over whether to save them for LO backgrounds, as they're too small.  I can just mat and die-cut without running out, woo hoo!

This one I did yesterday - which is when I cut into the Crate Paper Lemon Grass I've used in the Devon LO.  I really love this collection, I tend not to mix it very much with anything else, which is unusual for me. (Except the ruddy great sheet of MME Bloom and Grow, lol!)

Looking at these pages now, it strikes me that there is no stitching on any of them.  I know why - it's because I'm trying to get stuff done in quite a short time, and once I start sewing on my pages nothing gets finished quickly.  I have to say, though, that they don't feel 'real' if I haven't sewn anything on them....just realised that!

Before I go I will just tell you what happened last night,while I was sitting here quite happily reading before bedtime.  Earlier, Youngest had come in, with one of his dreadfully BAAAAD excuses for something furtive he was about to do. 

On this occasion, he asked me if I could lend him my phone so that he could video Visible Teenager 'going like that to my ear'.  That appeared to be a sort of poke with a finger.  I had no idea what he was on about, and in any case I was doing something genuinely important, ie reading, so I handed the camera over.

Some minutes later, lots of noise erupted from the direction of the bathroom.  It didn't take me long to work out what was going on.  Phrases such as 'Stand still' and 'Will it really hurt', and 'Let me squeeze your hand' could be heard. 

Now, I should explain here that Youngest has been fixated for a couple of weeks on the notion of getting his ear pierced.  He went into Claire's and was rejected on the grounds of his extreme youth.  I did point out that no-one, however tall, will pass for a 16 year old if it is patently clear that he has never had need of a razor.  Also, I should imagine and he and his very small friend spent a few minutes giggling and hesitating outside the shop before they went in, and that Youngest was a delightful shade of bright red by the time he spoke to the shop assistant.

So now he has an earring.  He's not allowed to have one at school  - he can deal with that.  He didn't go to rugby today in case something horrible happened to it.  I texted his coach who has very noticeably not texted back.  Sigh....

And Visible Teenager complained bitterly the other day that Invisible Teenager - the Lodger! - had clearly used Visible Teenager's Art Book for illicit purposes, and that when he opened it up in college the other day some weed was apparent.  Not that he's pressing plants, you understand, just that he appears to have performed some sort of creative process using the Art Book to rest on......

Sigh........