A Bit On the Side!!

As well as the main classes on offer at the retreat, we also had the opportunity to book on to some extra mini classes taught by the fabby Vanessa from Craftyness.

I opted to take her Starbook and Lariat Necklace classes - and love them both to bits!!

I can't wait to make another Lariat (you should have seen us all at the retreat in them - the ordinary holiday makers at the hotel must have thought we were all members of some secret society waltzing around in our strings of crystal beads!)

Although I had some technical difficulties with the star book (due to generally not listening to the folding instructions carefully lol!!) and thought it was going to be absolutely knickers by the time I'd finished, I now absolutely love it and think they'd be a great alternative to greeting cards. The eclectic style Paper Artsy stamps and German Scraps (the gold embellishments) we played with were really fun. We even painted up all the decorative paper and tags that we used - they looked a bit naff at first (hence the thinking it was going to be pants) but it was amazing how the stamping over them totally transformed them!! Fabby!!!

Minibook Madness!

Yes indeedy! I have a veritable banquet of minibook loveliness to share with you this afternoon, as taught by two of the fantastic Scrappers Unlimited team at the retreat!!

First up is the ultra-talented Ambers' oh-so gorgeous Basque Book. You may remember I got her scrummy box and planner in the swap :) I'm not usually a minibook fan - I like all my projects stored nicely in my albums, however when I saw this little scrummy bundle I couldn't resist the opportunity to learn how to make such a gorgeous little book from scratch, including the covers and spine. Fabby! It's got ten pages altogether, but to save old blogger from a meltdown I've just chosen two of my favourite :) We used a Cropadile to make the holes in the covers - I'd not used one before and to be honest, if I can do things in a simple way without the need of expensive tools I will, so up until now a good old punch and hammer has always sufficed. Buuuuuut, watching the Cropadile go through the thick board like a hot knife through butter was amazing - I loved it (sad I know!). After the class I toyed with treating myself to one all weekend, I played with other peoples' Cropadiles in the crop room and spied that there was only one left in the shop. Yep, I did agonise over it, but in the end decided it was something I could wait to ask for as a pressie sometime. So you can imagine how chuffed I was to get one as part of my prize for the Box & Planner challenge! I spent all Sunday evening mooching around the house punching holes in random objects (again, I do know this is sad!!). It's amazing - so far nothing has been too tough a challenge for the pink handled beast. It even easily sliced through my really thick work diary cover (whoops, forgot that technically that it's my employers' property and they can recall it at anytime! Might thread some ribbon through it though - it would look ever so pretty! Imagine explaining that one away to the Chief Exec!!). Not yet tried setting eyelets with it - hey, that's a whole extra days worth of playing there!!!

The second mini book at the retreat was taught by Fiona, the unrivalled queen of stamping and altered art! And when I say mini - boy do I mean it!! The finished project measures about 2"x1". Incy wincy I tell you!! This was such a fun project to make!! I'd never tried shrink plastic before, and for a time during the shrinking process I thought I'd never want to try it ever again - I knew it gets all crinkly and folds up on itself, but I seriously thought that my cover was going to resemble nothing more than a screwed up ball of plastic by the end of it, and it took both Fiona and Sue to hold it down and unfold it with sticks as I applied the heat!! But the end result is gorgeous and I'm just dying to get my hands on some shrink plastic to make some more as weeny presents for the special people in my life lol!!
I was unsure about what the journaling should be, but a strange thing happened which provided the ideal solution - isn't life just grand like that?! In general conversation I told my sister that two lady birds had landed on me within a couple of days. She, being chief of all things superstitious, told me that this was supposed to be lucky, and asked who it had landed on next as they would supposedly be my true love. I laughed because they'd each flown off pretty much into obscurity!!
On Sunday we spent the afternoon in West Wales, with my sister and her family and also taking our little nephew Harrison. Whist we were sitting eating a well deserved icecream, I turned to Lee and noticed a little Ladybird sitting on his neck. I had time to take a photo and make everyone look, before it flew up and landed in my hair!! My sister immediately reminded me of the old wives' tale she'd told me earlier that week - and hey presto - my journaling was born!!
I will point out though that the ladybird did not fly back to Lee, but again flew off into obscurity! Thus proving that whilst I am Lee's true love, he is not necessarily mine lol!
Just joking of course!! Anyway, enough waffle - here's the incy wincy book!!

All about me!!

I love all psychology-type things, and took this personality test today! I thought the results it gave me were really cool, it described my personally to a T, so if you want to know all about what makes me tick, read here and here! Best of all, my fellow "INFJ" personality types include Mother Theresa, Ghandi and Martin Luther king - so if you have any global, social or economic wrongs to right - I'm your gal!!

Try it for yourself - I'd love to hear what personality type you are and if you think it's an accurate description of how you perceive yourselff !!

xxx

Challenges :)

Ok, so you've seen my efforts for the Box & Planner and Badge challenges, so I thought it would be kind of logical to finish of showing your my other challenges before showing you what we got up to in the classes!!

The first challenge I took part in was "The Naff Sticker Challenge"! We had to take a pack of erm, shall we say, dated, Karen Foster Stickers and make something boootiful with them. Well, my little secret is that I was going to scrap this picure of Griff with these papers anyway, but when I found this almost co-ordinating pack of cat stickers in the naff pile I was secretly quite smug about the whole affair!! And amazingly, I was voted second place :)
The second challenge I took part in was the Goodie Bag Challenge set by The Scrapbook Magazine. We each had a welcome pack on arrival, which contained these papers and the burgundy and blue cardstock and were challenged to use them in a LO. I wasn't too fussed on the papers, but they mached these photos I'd taken along perfectly - so whipped this page up quickly. I don't even like the finished result, but am glad to have two more photos from an ever-growing supply scrapped and finally broke into the Fancy Pants Biggest Ever Chipboard swirls I had for Christmas, and only used a smidge of the papers!! But by some bizarre and astonishing twist of voting fate I won second prize again.
Here are my final two entries for the other challenges I took part in - there were six challenges all together but finding the time to fit everything in between classes, chatting and eating chocolate was impossible!! I think these are my favourite LO's I made over the weekend.

I'm loving the 8.5x11 size - it feels so quick and satisfying compared to 12x12!

This was a last-minute £5 challenge, I spent a massive £2.40 including the black ink lol!
And this was for the Black & White Challenge set by Scrapbook Inspirations:
More pics to follow tomorrow - classes up next!!!
xxxx

Honey, I'm Home!!

I'm back from the Scrappers Unlimited Retreat!! Had the most fabby and amazing time - I've been gushing on and on about it here there and everywhere so I'll try not to repeat myself here, but Chrissie and "The Team" were fantastic, Rachel was a great buddy, everyone was so welcoming and friendly - I can't believe I was ever worried about going. It was fab to get to know people even better, like Nicola, Eileen and Sian, and even better to finally meet people in the flesh like the super duper and fabby Tina (you really are one of the nicest peeps I've ever had the pleasure of meeting - love ya loads!!), Michelle, Chris and Gill, Sarah and Jakkii (bit loopy those two) and Juliet, Flick, to name but a few (I know I'm missing loads of people out!)...........I feel so scrummy inside to have met so many talented and amazing new friends and hope that we all stay in touch :)

I feel a MASSIVE sense of personal achievement for going there all alone and finding the courage to pick myself up out of my seat and go and speak to people I've never met properly or at all before rather than just staying in my own spot minding my own business (I'm not that great at socialising unless it's with peeps I know). But I must say, I wouldn't have been able to do it if each and every delegate had not been do darn friendly and welcoming! Thank you, everyone for that - it means so much. It's given me a little boost of confidence in that respect and I hope I can draw on the experience should I start a degree later in the year, the social aspect of which I'm terrified of!!!!!!!!

The classes were amazing, the Manor hotel was gorgeous, and it was just fun fun fun :)

The only down side now is that teeny weeny part of me hopes I won't get into uni in September now so that I can afford to go to the next retreat in the Autumn lol!!!!! Hehe!!

So all in all it was totally fab, I even won a few prizes and had a little blub before I left! I'm such an over-emotional wuss at times!!!! I think only Chrissie saw me blubbing – but I guess the secret’s out now!!!

Right, I did say I wouldn't go on and on didn't I?! Well, I have oodles of photos I want to share with you, of the classes, challenges, peeps and hotel - I had over 160 pics to sort out last night so I'll upload a few every day over the next week or so.

Today I'll start with the pre-retreat challenges!! As some of you know - due to my general unorganised lazy-bummed character, and the fact I worked six 12-hour shifts last week, I left both the box & matching planner and my name badge until last minute. But what I will say for myself is that when I do do something, I put my heart and soul into it - and these two projects took precedent over sleep last week! And, to my amazement, the hard work paid off as I came first place in both challenges. It was such an amazing feeling :)

Now, be warned - I did say I have OODLES of pics lol!!!!

Here's my badge:Here's my box and planner. Unfortunately these pics are the best I've got - and they are pants of the largest and frumpiest variety I'm afraid!!! As I was up until 2 am finishing it I had to take rushed pics in the morning before I left for the retreat - the light was poor and I've got a sneaky suspicion that I had my camera set to landscape rather than macro! Doh! Oh, and another thing was that I got on the motorway to leave and suddenly had this realisation that my box was still sitting on the sideboad at home!! Good job I turned around and went back to pick it up eh?!!! :)
Planner cover: Intro page:Examples of pages:I was absolutely chuffed to little itty bitties to hear the announcement that I was to swap boxes with Scrappers Unlimited team member Amber - this girl is MIGHTY talented with a capital MMMMMM- wait 'til you see the pics of the class she taught! It is fabby fabby fabby!!!! And her box and planner were nothing short of magnificent either!!
See - lot's of piccies - and there's plenty more where they came from lol!!
It's nice to be back - will catch up with everyone soon xxxxxxx

Howdy!

Hello!

Just a little note to say howdy doody really - I'm working six nights on the trotty trot trot to ensure I have the time off for the retreat next week (so excited!!) so I will try to get recent some photos up if I have time over the next few days between slaving away and catching some zzzz's :)

Had a great weekend last week when my aunty Jean and Uncle Bob came down to stay for a few days and meet little Ellie. Will post pics soon. Have also been a busy bee making the most of this darn fine weather we're having at the moment by busying about in the garden....we've got some lovely new plants for the balcony, including a palm tree and some strawberry plants. They are ALREADY flowering so it's looking good for delicious juicy strawbs come the summer months!! There's talk about getting a Decked area too, it all depends on how the sums all add up but it would be lovely!

Making good headway with the dratted NVQ and have whizzed through two units already. I'm such a swotty botty! It's harder than I thought it was going to be though and I was quite infuriated by it earlier this week. Poo bum. Still, writing essays has been a good excuse to sit out in the garden in the sunshine!! Thanks for all the lovely messages and emails of encouragement and reassurance I've had about the impending uni interview xxx

And the final news is that it was weighing-in time again on the Paul McKenna System on Wednesday - and the good news is that I've now lost a total of 13lbs!! And it feels as if I've hardly made any effort! It's coming off slowly, but surely, and you can't get better than that. Gotta love it!!!!

Speak soon my buddies xxxxx

Can I get a "whoop whoop"?!

I've got an interview for the teaching degree!!!!!!!!!!!

It's not until May.........so I have until then to pick all your brains on what to expect, what to say, what NOT to say, any buzzwords, what to wear.....................the list goes on!!

So pleased I've even got as far as an interview! Big hugs to you all who supported me to at least give applying a shot xxxx