Journal

Nope, still can’t move my car, so it was up to Morrisons (where people were battling for parking spaces and the “parent and toddler” spaces were up for grabs by anyone who could get it one. Inside was not much fun either – I wished I had got some video footage but it was pure madness and I just wanted to get out of there! Once we were done, we loaded up the sledge so I could bring it home.

Now on to Journal/Pogo stuff   {click on Read rest of entry}

  Read the rest of this entry »

This was the view from my window at work when it started snowing on Tuesday. I was excited, I loved snow

This was me and Gareth walking to get to work (Pictures taken on my mobile phone). Gareth had to walk a distance to get the bus as it wasn’t doing the full route as our end of the bus route is pretty trecherous, then catch the train to work, and today was his first day back since beng sent home at 2pm on Tuesday and taking 3 hours to get home when it only takes him 20 mins in general.  That pic is of the little back road that our Cul-De-Sac joins on to. That is just a big sheet of ice – not very many cars are getting up this way! In fact a young girl got stuck and it took a couple of us to try and get her moving again and it wasn’t easy!

I, on the other hand, stupidly thought I could walk to work. It’s 3.3 miles and on a good day will take just over an hour. I got so far walking and the paths were so icey I nearly slipped several times. I wanted to cry, turn around and go home. But one thing kept me going: Everyone was soooo friendly. Nearly every single person I walked past wished me a Good Morning. Everyone is pitching in helping each other, and giving way etc. I was approaching a very slippy crossing (which I had no right of way) and I turned to see a big truck heading towards me, not wanting to take the chance I waited but the guy stopped and ushered me across.

I got about 2.5 ish miles when I was really lagging and a work colleague spotted me and picked me up. Much to my relief – only to then realise I had the walk home, but she took me to the nearest clear main road, so I had only a short walk.

Today I ache in places I had forgotten about.

Yesterday was a nice surprise as we had a bit of snow and a couple of people were sent home. This morning the alarm went off and I headed straight for the curtain to see a heck of a lot of snow. My parents couldn’t get their car out and quite a few of my neighbours came out took one look at their car and headed back inside. One van tried to get in our cul-de-sac and it took a while! I phoned some colleagues and spoke to my boss and in the end decided on a snow day!

There’s just something about snow that makes everything look so pretty   I leave you with this image of my brother’s snow man in his garden:

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Xmas I’ve had such an amazing day, hanging with my family – this is the first time in around 10 years that we’ve spent it all together and had xmas dinner on xmas day and not New Years day lol!  The most amazing present has to be the Pogo! I will write about it very soon, as it’s just wonderful for journals

I can’t believe that Xmas is less than a week away. Nor that it’s been almost a month since I last posted… Seriously, if you decide to handmake a ton of people presents… give yourself plenty of time! I’m just finishing up the last lot this weekend – such relief! LOL!

(Click pic for credits)

I saw New Moon yesterday and it was absolutely FAB!  Such a great atmosphere in the cinema and I seriously want to go see it again I think I’ll have to go take my mum lol! People “Woooo”‘d when Jacob took off his shirt and a huge round of applause at the end. Seriously LOVED it, I will type a post tomorrow when I have time with a cut so as not to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it   Hmm, I think I need to twilight my blog lol!

I can’t believe it’s mid November already lol. It’s also going to be Oliver’s first Christmas so Stewart got his decorations out last week! HAHA! Love it   I’ve been feeling very Christmassy. I got all my Christmas craft magazines out and have been sat reading through them – such fun! We’re trying to tidy up a little in the front room ourselves, to remove clutter to make room for our tree (which is HUGE!) I also decided to go out in the garden and rake up all the leaves, which took me ages, but the garden looks better. And the lovely task of picking up the poop of all the cats in the neighbourhood who have chosen my flower bedding area which I got ready for Spring, as a big kitty litter box. Mum suggested tea bags and Olbas oil, so I’ve done that and hope it does the trick!

I will be going to Hobby Craft on Friday I should imagine   I’m off to New Moon and the cinema is nearby so I can pop in then, so I shall be starting my quilt next weekend I hope LOL!

LOL, I think I may need help. While I’m also having fun bookbinding currently, and coming up with some ideas for handmade presents for certain people, I really REALLY want to have a go at a Christmas quilt. I don’t know, something about the idea of snuggling down on the sofa watching TV, and reaching to the back of the sofa where a handmade patchwork quilt is laying and wrapping it around me is… well… lush lol.

So I do think I’m going to take my Aunt’s £5 off when you spend over £25 voucher will be put to good use by buying Christmas fat quarters, batting and some backing fabric   It all started on Sunday after I decided my current journal needed a nice bag to go in. With a pocket for emphemera and pens and coloured pencils lol. So I eyeballed the whole project and my sewing machine was playing up but even after I finished that attrocity (but it does the job and I made it myself) I held it in my hand and with the stuff I put in between the lining and outer to reinforce it, it feels like a thin quilt and I was like: “HEY! That’s a good idea…”

Also, I purchased my New Moon ticket for Friday 20th as I have booked the day off work, and as much as I would have loved to have caught the midnight viewing, it is just physically impossible for me to stay up late and as much as I love New Moon I just don’t think I could do it, so I’m going to the second viewing instead which is around midday. Awesomeness   I have my veil, borrowed from my cousin Sarah and disco is all booked for the wedding. I’m on a roll!

I love books, and as you know I love journals as well, so when I stumbled upon Karla Dudley’s workshop “Journal 3 Ways” I was intregued… and then I saw the journals we would be making and the fact that there were cool downloads as well… That was it. I was sold.  So all images you see contain brushes and papers designed by Karla

The first journal (I still have to cut the edges so they’re level)

Then after I finished that one, I just had to make another using some lush paper I had left over from “Express Yourself  DIY”

Week two was the Perfect Bind method. I honestly didn’t think about binding books this way. But having said that, one of my favourite books (Cathy Zielske’s Clean and Simple Scrapbooking part 2) is bound using the perfect bind method… and several pages have come away from the book through excessive use lol. Although I’d say it’s not my number one, I had a ton of fun doing it, it looks just lush and I only lost 3 pages after binding

And like a completely numpty, I put the covers on the wrong way so the book is back to front… DOH!

I seriously want to do another one of these   I’ve got the book binding bug now, and I’m seriously going to be making a few more things!

There was no contest when I decided on which template I wanted to use to carve my pumpkin this year I wanted something pretty simple as this is only my third ever pumpkin, and my second using a template, but as I was soooo proud of my witch last year, I had to at least give it a go!

Template from here: http://www.pinkraygun.com/2009/10/10/free-pumpkin-carving-templates-twilights-jacob/. Although Gareth says he prefers my witch from last year, and he just doesn’t “see” Jacob in this one. I don’t care. It took me about 2 hours from start to finish.

And I also decided on doing a paper haunted house, after seeing a few on a website and thinking how cool they were. Apart from the pumpkin, I have no halloween stuff here, so the paper house would be fun, so again I chose a nice easy one

Download and instructions here: http://www.haunteddimensions.raykeim.com/index301.html

Sadly the lighting is terrible in here. This is why we can’t play with Neville this evening. Nev is our virtual pet, as seen here:

We saw an advert for EyePet and curiosity got the better of us. So we got a copy and played with it for aaaaaaaaaaaaages lol!