Ooops sorry!

Ooops, sorry! And thank you to Sarah for pointing out that I had put the address in wrong! My new address is http://sarasandberg.typepad.com/time_for_crafting/ - I hope you'll pop in and visit!!!

I have moved!!!!

Hi there!! I've moved! You'll find me now at http://sarasandberg.typepad.com/time_for_crafting/ - see you there!!!

Thank you Sally!

This card was made to say thank you for the gorgeous Altered Book Sally sent me! The instructions on how to do this are in Issue 6 of the Time for Crafting Online Magazine, available at www.timeforcrafting.co.uk - you can see Sally's altered book at http://www.timeforcrafting.co.uk/sally.html

Where's my bounce?!

My get up and go has got up and gone! I know when it went, just not where it went! My bounce left as I stood on the bathroom scales this morning. And it turns out - it didn't weigh anything!

Scrabble Card

Here is proof that it is worth buying crafty bits 'just in case'!!!! I found these scrabble pieces reduced at Craft Central years ago, and knew they'd come in handy one day!!! This is a card my Mum asked me to make for a friend from her scrabble group. I took a photo of her scrabble board, printed it onto white card, splodged a Versamark pad all over it, then chucked Crystal embossing powder all over it, which when heated gave the board a lovely sparkly look! Mum gave me the instructions for how she wanted the words to be!

If anyone should need a scrabble board background, you are welcome to email me and use my photo.

Sunglasses Template!

The theme of the Art Raffle http://www.ryan-kesler.com/swaps/ArtRaffle/index.php this month is Summer Sun! Well, I've completely forgotten what that is! But for summer sun, you have to have sunglasses, so I used the template from Issue One of the T4C Online Magazine

http://www.timeforcrafting.co.uk/magazine.html

Christmas Photo cards

I was just reading a post on Christmas Photo cards, and started to reminisce about my own efforts over the years! I don't have a photo of last years - I took a photo of the three of them close together and made it into a bauble, but here are how the cards changed through recent years! Most recent through to oldest;

This is my favourite one! Holly is only balancing on her knees on the photo, but it looks like she's jumping. I felt people might be getting bored of seeing the children every year, so did a dog photo instead! It's supposed to show them having had the carrot left out for Rudolph and knocking over Santa's sherry and eaten his mince pie! This year was really hard - I needed the extra layer, and couldn't get JoJo to hold it in the right place!!! So I had to do a cut and paste job in the end!!! Good job we didn't have Sammy then, or I'd have had to do Peace and would have had no chance of getting the photo!!!
I took a picture Nicole had done at school, and popped pictures of the children around it. I was trying to get away from posed looking at the camera here, so created a scene.This one was when they were really litte! Max must have been about 3 - he loved that dinosaur bath robe!!! I had only just discovered playing with photos on the computer.

So now I just have to decide what to do for this year!!

Latest project

This is my latest addition to my website, a card that won't do a Bambi Splat!!! It you'd like the template you can find it at my www.timeforcrafting.co.uk website. It is decorated with alcohol inks on acetate, and stamped with trees from the SU Lovely as a tree set. You'll also find tips on using alcohol inks at the website.

Five Days to go!

It's a beautiful view from my kitchen window today - a lovely crisp morning. I should be taking my camera and the dogs for a walk, but I'm wimping out until it's warmer!!

Last night Holly was at a party from 7.30 - 9.30, so I decided to hit M&S after dropping her off. It was a good time, no crowds, and I got freezable bits and pieces for Christmas, as well as lots of other yummy stuff!! My new chest freezer was delivered on Tuesday, (that's the shape of it, it's not a freezer for freezing chests!!! Although it would if you leaned in too far!!) and it's aready stuffed with yummy things!

The dogs are in festive spirit too! I hope you are all non-stressed and ready for Christmas.

Still Christmassing!!

Well I'm glad to have got this project done - it's been in my head for ages and I've been wanting to get it out!! It's more fiddly than the Starflake, but it's worth the effort!! I've put the instructions at www.timeforcrafting.co.uk in the Christmas project section if you'd like to have a go.

Let's get Christmassy now!!!

It's time to get Christmassy now Halloween and Fireworks are over!!! I have adapted the star book to resemble a snowflake, and so given it the name Starflake!!!

If you would like to make one of these, I have put instructions in the Christmas section of www.timeforcrafting.co.uk

Scary Fun!

The Children and I went up to London to do a craft table at Sidley's company Halloween party. Although there were 175 children at the party, luckily there was so much for them to do that they didn't all arrive at the table at once!!! The table was 8 metres long, and I had to sew the plastic table cloths together to cover it!!! The projects went really well though, thanks to Holly, Nicole, Max and Zoe, who were fantastic with the children and were absolutely brilliant.

In fact the scariest thing that day was driving through the middle of London!!!!!

They're Here!!!!!

They're here!!! How fantastic is that!!! The Kwik-Thread is such a useful tool, and once people own them they will love them. Not only great for threading ribbons and fibres, but the handle is a bone folder. Go to http://www.kwikthread.com and order yours now!!!!

They were nearly here!!!

Today was Max's first day at Wildern! It was just the year 7's today, so he didn't have his sister's bossing him about!!! He said he wanted to catch the bus home, not be picked up (because he wanted time to spend with his girlfriend!!!), so off he went with his bus fare, and his mobile phone as I was sure he'd need it!! He is so much in his own world, I could just picture him sitting on a bus heading in totally the wrong direction!!

While Max was at school the girls and I headed for town - I had put off the school trousers shopping trip to the last minute! 3 hours later we had successfully bought them and we got home - there was a phone message to say that a delivery company had tried to deliver my craft tools but been turned away!!! I quickly tried to ring my contact, but his phone was on answer phone, so I could only leave a message and wait for his call.

As time ticked on, I realised that Max should have arrived half an hour ago. Now, should I go out looking for him and risk missing the call, or stay for the call and hope Max turned up sometime? Of course, being the good mother I am, I stayed for the call!! After a while the girls convinced me that I should go and look for him, and they would ring my mobile if the call came. As I drove up the drive, there was Max with a huge grin on his face!!! He'd gone to see the teachers at his old school, which was why he was so late!!! Lesson number one of big school - turn your phone on when you get out so your Mother can ring you!!

So where were my Kwik-Threads? Well, apparently they had been delivered to another road of the same name! A little old lady had refused to accept them! And so they will be delivered again here on Friday. FRIDAY!! My tools will be here for real on Friday!!!

Nicole!

Holly made a pottery likeness of Nicole, and as you can see it's captured Nicole perfectly!!!!

Question of the day - how many minutes after insisting on having a go cutting the grass was it when she mowed the power cable??!!!

Big news this week - the craft tools are in the air and will be here in a few days!!!!

Listen to this!

I was just clearing out my outlook folders and found this one I sent to my sister who is an e-bay addict (oh yes you are!!!!!). In the black box at the top of the page is a very small button called 'play' - click on that, turn the sound up - and this bit is very important - read the words and sing along!!! http://www.geoffellis.com/ebay.html

Exciting news!

A double dose of exciting news this week! Firstly, Holly had her braces off, and is now sporting a beautiful metal free smile!!! Doesn't she look lovely?

More exciting news - I see in the paper this week that trouser waistbands are set to become higher up! I really think these fashion designers are having a laugh at our expense you know - for years they have put us in low cut trousers that only the skinny could wear without masses of flesh overflowing from the top. They even convinced some to flash the top of a G-string over the top!! Now we should all be in maternity wear, with tops flowing from under our boobs, and to top it all, they are finally giving us a higher waistline to our trousers - but unfortunately miss the waist completely and shoot straight up to the same area our tops are flowing from! Barmey, I'll have to wait another few years to buy fashion!!!

Even more exciting news - my new craft tool will be here in a couple of weeks!!! I can't wait to tell you all about it - I'd better get that website up and running!!!!

Here at Last!!!

Well, after chatting to each other on messenger for all these years, we have finally met each other for real! I was slightly worried about Linda's visit, as extreme weather (of the bad sort!!!) and mishaps have followed them wherever they have gone on their UK tour!!!

And true to form, our first day together was a wet miserable day - but we are British, and rain doesn't stop us, so we still went for a walk in the forest, and showed them the countryside! Of course we finished off in a lovely pub for a nice meal!

Luckily the next day was gorgeous, and so we jumped into action! We went to Gunwharf Quay, and followed the millenium walk to Southsea. The millenium walk is a trail of rope embossed paving slabs, that leads you round interesting sites and ending up at a funfair - it was a lovely walk. I'm not sure who had more fun at the funfair, the kids or Alby!!! Actually, I think it was Alby!! Unfortunately, time flew too fast, and today they have left to move on for the final leg of their tour before returning home.
They must be absolutely shattered!!! But only a couple of weeks and Linda will be back in her box in my craft room chatting away again!!! Let's hope it's not another 6 years before I get to see her for real again!!

New Zealand Baby News!!!

I thought I'd better put 'New Zealand' in rather than just Baby News as a title - I could just picture my friends spurting their coffee all over the screen at a title on my blog called 'Baby News'!!!

Here's a welcome to Xyon Manaia Charles Hart!!! Alby and Linda's first grandchild!!!

Fun with Year 6!

It's been a hectic week! On Tuesday I went into Max's school to make Memory Books with the Year 6's. It's their fun week, and Tuesday was their day at school doing fun things. I had suggested the idea to Max's teacher, but did question my sanity last weekend when I found myself punching holes in 130 board covers!!!!

The children did the books in groups of about 10, and we had such fun doing it. They were as good as gold, and really enjoyed using the Sizzix machine and paper punches. It was just a shame that with only one Sizzix machine they didn't all get a go - but I'll be going back in to make sure they all get a turn!

I took some paint and sponges in so that they could make their own background if they wanted - some did get carried away and what did look a nice pattern ended up as just a dark mush!!!! They had fun doing it though! Here's my Max cutting away - unfortunately I can't post pictures of the other children here. Sign of the times!!!

As you can see, the finished covers look great! Inside they are going to have pages with titles such as 'My Favourite Teacher' 'My Moste Embarrassing Moment' etc etc. Then some blank pages for their friends to sign, pages where I will print off adress sheets so they can swap mobile phone numbers and e-mail addresses, and finally at the back we shall make a pocket page. I have given the teachers lists of the children's names, and the idea is that they write something they like about each child next to their name. I will then cut those sheets into strips, and put the strips in their pocket at the end of the term, so they can take it home with a pocket full of nice things to read about themselves!

My reward for doing this with them was a day in Chessington with them all on Thursday - the weather stayed dry and we had a brilliant time!

Forum Friends

This weekend has been a bit surreal! For years I have chatted to friends on the Cards Inspirations forum - and this weekend I met some of my favourites! I chat to Linda Hart who's in New Zealand several times a week on messenger, we sit there with our webcams on showing each other what we are making, and nattering away! (unfortunately for Linda her evening is our first thing in the morning, so the view on her webcam is not a pleasant one!!!)

This weekend it was as if I had been granted a wish, and the little lady on the computer screen could step out of it for two days to play - after which she had to go back in the computer screen!

She looked just like a real life version of the MSN Linda, spoke the same and everything!!!

I thought it would be really emotional meeting her in person after all these years, but it wasn't at all because she's the same as she is on webcam and we know each other so well!!! It was fab to be able to give her a big hug and see her in real life, a real treat of a weekend. Liz Gale came to stay here on Friday night - what a nice lady!! Completely mad, really good fun and lovely!!! We drove up to Cirencester on Saturday morning, where we met up with Linda, MizGeorge, AlisonG and Flo (Sarah) and the lovely Su Naylor at the Stamp Bug for a day of workshops. As I write this Jane Pinder must be lying in a dark room somewhere!!! She gave us a fantastic day, we had such fun, and her workshops were just brilliant. We played with art moulds, caught in crystal, stamping, friendly plastic - lots of fun things!! It was not a quiet day for Jane, I think she realised what she was in for when we were nearly approaching lunch time and still on the introductions!!!

And of course it would have been rude to be stood in the Stamp Bug and not to have bought anything!!! Have you ever been there? It is fantastic, so many stamps, so many lovely things. I bought Jane's new book which looks very exciting, and I can't wait to explore it - and a few other things sort of fell into my shopping basket too! Jane did workshops, lunch, till - the lot, and smiled all the way through! I wonder if she just locked the door behind us and crept into her dark room there?!!

After a lovely meal Linda, Liz and I went back to George's for a sleepover!! What a great time we had! We discovered the Wii games console, and how me managed to play tennis, table tennis and golf without breaking anything or knocking each other out I don't know!!! It was certainly a weekend I will never forget!

Weekly roundup!

Well it's been a busy week this week. I did Tori's wedding thank you cards for her, which took longer than expected. I used a photo I had taken at the wedding and played around in PaintShop Pro.

I've also become obsessed with building my website!!!! www.timeforcrafting.co.uk I spend all my time thinking about what I am going to do next there!!! In fact we are going out to dinner tonight, and I have to paint my nails (which I haven't done for zonks!) as my fingernails are covered in butterscotch alcohol ink - which isn't a good look!!!

The camera course is going well when the weather behaves!! There was finally a dry evening before the first picture had to be in. I wanted a good silhouette shot, so got the children bouncing on the trampoline. I got this shot from it; The photo got some lovely comments from others on the course, but it was agreed the picture was a bit 'busy'. I think next time I'll take the safety net down and get Holly to jump higher!!!!

The final shot I took was this one, which looks like a very pensive Holly - she's actually muttering "Mum, can you hurry up so I can go in now!!!".

Learning to use my camera!

Here I am! Back again! Hopefully internet and computer willing I can carry on blogging again!!

Today I signed up for a Photography Course which I heard of through UK Scrappers. Jesper bought me a fab camera for my birthday, and so hopefully by joining this course I'll be forced to work out how to use it properly!

So our first assignment it to take a self portrait, holding a piece of paper with our name on. As my camera didn't come with a remote control thingy, I tried to do this using the self timer button. So I had to put a chair where I was going to be, focus on it, push the button and when the beeping started, shoved the chair to one side and lie in it's place, holding my paper. The dogs, of course, thought this was great fun!
The first try had them both jumping on my head, the second shot was going so well, until JoJo just calmly walked in front of me and stayed there looking at the camera!!! So I'm off now to shut them away and have another go!!! Wish me luck!

Splodgy fun!!

We had another fun day with Anthony on Saturday. We were shown a lovely abstract painting of sun, beach and sand, and then let loose to create our own masterpiece! As you can see, everyone had their own style. We were all thrilled when we got home that we had managed to create these little masterpieces!!!!

Max's is here on the left, with lovely sunset and reflections in the sea. Nicole's lovely textured sea is gorgeous - and took a while to dry!!!

Holly's painting puts you right on that hot Carribbean beach!

And I painted Jesper and me walking on the beach with the dogs (if you are wondering where Sammy is, he's in the water!!!!)

And the next big piece of news is that the following successful testing, the order has been placed for my new tool! How exciting!!!! (and a little bit scary!!!)

Eye eye!!

Well, I've got my new glasses! Although they are only reading glasses, it took ages to choose the frames! I was very conscious of what the girls would say when they saw them! Max probably wouldn't notice I was wearing glasses!!! After a while of choosing frames, I asked the assistant if he was bored yet, and he said "no, you're fine" in that distant way with a glazed look in his eyes!!

I had to pop something to Holly at her school today, and who should I bump into but Anthony, the artist we worked with on Saturday! He leapt out of his nice warm building, and said he wanted me to finish the painting I'd started!!! Oh dear!! I watched him go pale as I told him I'd actually cut the bit I'd done out of the canvas with a stanley knife and put it in my memories box!!!

Had a lovely chat to Caroline on the webcam today - she managed to show me the deep snow they have over there near Geneva. It's so lovely to be have this modern technology so that I can chat to my overseas mates. I did do some work too - honest!!!!!

More painting!

More painting today, but this time the fun sort!! Holly, Nicole, Max, Rosie and I went to Wildern school to take part in a Still Life workshop, run by Anthony Kawalski. If I'd seen his website before I'd gone, I'd have been far too scared to attend!! He is so amazingly talented.

Here's Holly and Max - Nicole had left to go to gym by the time I remembered my camera!

Rosie really enjoyed the session as she doesn't get to do art at school any more.

It was amazing that everyone involved in the class produced a completely individual piece of work in their own style. Here you have Holly's on the left, Nicole's in the middle and Max's on the right.

I ought to show you my attempt - in fact this is less than a quarter of the canvas - I didn't get round to doing the vase of roses next to it!!! When I showed Jesper he was most unimpressed and said "is that all you did?"!!!

It maybe all I did, but I had a lot of fun doing it!

Building, building everywhere!

If the left side of your house looked like this;

and the right side of your house looked like this;

it's only natural that you should wake up one morning and decide to decorate the kitchen. Well, it is for me anyway!!! I painted the kitchen a gorgeous bright turquoise a few months ago, and although it's lovely when you are in it, when looking at the kitchen from the sitting room the colours clashed. Every evening when I looked through to the kitchen and saw the sitting room colour fighting with the kitchen, it really bugged me, so it had to go! Now Jesper hates the mess of all this work, and if he'd known I was going to decorate, it would have been the last straw! So I was on a mission to get it done before he got home. And I did it!

and fortunately he liked it!!

Twenty minutes before school started this morning, Max decided his hair was too long, and he couldn't possibly go to school with it looking like that, so he asked me to cut it!! I hope our hairdresser forgives me!!! Max was happy though.

This was him after the cut, so I guess it was a bit long!!!

Fantastic weekend in Dreden

What a fantastic weekend we had in Dresden!! We were staying with friends we made through Rock Challenge, a dance event that the girls love taking part in at Wildern School. Here are most of us - Max is taking the picture and Heiko is somewhere, but not here!!!

The internet is such a wonderful thing, when we realised we were flying into Berlin, we googled and discovered lots of interesting facts that had passed through our heads unnoticed when we were at school!

Heiko, Kathrin, Verena and Valentin live in Moritzburg, which is just outside of Dresden.

It is a lovely place, and as soon as you enter it you can see the lovely castle. As you can see, it was getting dark when we walked round it!

Heiko is a History teacher, as well as a music teacher, so in our trip round Dresden on Saturday we our own enthusiastic tour guide. It was such an interesting visit. All the buildings in Dresden were destroyed in the war, and during the time of the Berlin wall, were left in ruins, many buildings covered in scaffolding. It wasn't until the wall came down that renovation work properly began. We visited one fantastic building that holds the crown jewels and saw photos of the ruin it was 20 years ago - it is now fully restored and resplendant once more.

There is a church in the centre of Dresden that has become to symbolise the restoration. Fire caused it to implode during the war, and it's restoration was recently completed. People were encouraged to help it's restoration by buying a brick - Heiko's father had bought one of the bricks, although we didn't spot which one it was.

I don't know if you can see, but amongst the sand coloured stones are some dark ones - these were the original stones that have been rescued and used in the exact places they came from.

We climbed to the top of the tower - the seating for the church was a bit like a version of the Albert Hall, circular and in tiers going up the building.

From the top we could see the building where the girls took part in Rock Challenge last year.

And when we got back to the bottom, there was a part of the church that had been left where it had fallen, to remind everyone of the fantastic reconstruction that had taken place.

We were especially touched in the evening to be shown Kathrin and Heiko's box of memories of life in East Germany while the Berlin Wall was in place. As Heiko says, it was a very different life, but a happy one. One point he made was that although they couldn't travel freely, no-one around them could, and so no-one felt they were missing out. In fact they enjoyed the land and space they had. We felt very honoured to be given such a real life account of the things I had read on the internet.

Heiko is such a talented musician - we had a sing song on Saturday night, which I think was cut short once he heard our singing! He told a fab story of when he went to see an Eric Clapton concert shortly after the wall came down. He had been trying to work out how Eric Clapton had achieved the sound on his guitar in Tears From Heaven, and had spent hours trying to recreate it. When he went to the concert, he took binoculars, which he used to study Eric's hands during this song! It was then he discovered the secret - the sound is achieved by three people playing guitars!

What a lovely family, and what a fabulous weekend they gave us - one we will never ever forget.

As disorganised as ever!

Today was Jenny's birthday party. As organised as ever, I was finishing the card half an hour before Holly had to be there!! We had to get the present on the way there, as Holly didn't think what I had was a good idea!!! We were sat in the car just down from Jenny's house wrapping the presents and putting them in a gift bag!!

My excuse is I was looking after my two little nephews yesterday! Quote of the day is from Daniel, age 2 1/2 "No Auntie Sewa, I'm a farmer, and farmers don't like cuddles"!!!!! "And they don't like kisses eeever"!!!!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!! I hope you have had a good party time. We had a lovely Christmas here, and the festive season ended with our New Years Eve party. We had the usual games - here's the musical chairs pictures;



Unfortunately I can't show you the pictures of the musical hats game, or the threading the key through the clothing game as I was far too determined to win to stop and take photos!!! The keys were placed in the freezer beforehand, and I made sure I wore an outfit that the key could drop down without touching flesh!!! It seems that our guests now choose their outfit for the party by it's ease to thread a key through!!!

And so the first day of our year was spent picking millions of bits of confetti and streamers off the floor, and counting the minutes til bedtime!!! Again!! I can't think of any better way to start a year! Happy New Year!

The spirit has arrived!!

Christmas spirit that is!!! And what a day it's been. I hosted a tin swap that had a deadline last weekend, so the poor postman has been shoving little jiffy bag parcels through the letterbox at a time where he's already getting busier!! On top of that, I ordered 8 ink cartridges from 7 Day Shop - and they each arrived separately in their own little jiffy bags too!!

Normally with swaps you just pop the item in a different envelope, but as it's Christmas time, and these tins are really special, I thought it would be nice to wrap them so that people could put them under the tree and open them at Christmas if they like. It has been just amazing having the tins arrive - they have each been of amazing quality, and are just pure delight. Don't just take my word for it, go see for yourself!!! www.sandbergdesigns.co.uk/page5.html

I only just had time to post the info on the Talkcrafts forum, where the tin swap was from, when it was time to dash to the school to watch Holly in a performance. It was the school Christmas concert, and Holly's enrichment group were doing a song in it. I have to admit, I was thinking there were places I would rather be going to! But what a pleasant surprise we had! The thing about going to watch the children when they get to secondary school is that the performances are suddenly of a supreme standard!! It was an absolutely fantastic night, the talent we saw was amazing - a few singers would have made that X Factor final for sure!! And as for Holly!! How embarrassing that I didn't know she could sing like that!!!!

Hopefully I'll get the cards finished tomorrow!!! I'd better order a turkey too!!

If you don't want to know, don't ask!!

So there I was, getting ready to go on our night out!! Stupidly, twenty minutes before we were going to be picked up, I showed Jesper my outfit in that 'Ta Daaaaaaa' sort of way!!! What do you think? I asked. Big mistake!! My hubby doesn't do 'well, it's 20 mins til we go, she obviously loves it so I'll say "Lovely!!"'

"I like the skirt, but not the top."

OK. My hair is dripping wet, and obviously needs to be dried, I have no make up on - and now I need to find a new outfit!!! (This top is an old favourite!!) Sometimes I have the confidence to say "well I love it!!" and just carry on (and funnily enough a few weeks later I'll wear the same outfit and DH will say how much he loves it!!) but other times I am sort of agreeing inside, so have to wear something different!

So, 20 minutes later we were picked up, my hair was done, make up on, different outfit (I didn't ask what he thought!!!) and the bed was hidden under the clothes I had flung out of my cupboard while finding the perfect top!!! We had a really good evening with the office crowd - although it was a bit of a shell shock queuing for a taxi at 1 am with a lot of young happy people in the middle of town for half an hour!! To think we used to be like that once!!!

The Advent Hunt clue for today proved to be a bit difficult. "It's a bit smelly in here" seemed relatively easy to me, but apparently there are a lot of smelly places in the Sandberg house!! I caught the girls discussing whether it could be in the black bin outside!!!!???? It was a looong time before they found it in the washing basket!!! Max then said that it wasn't smelly in there - and I suppose he is right, because when they put their clothes in there after wearing them for two minutes, they aren't smelly at all!!! "Well it should be!" was my response!!!

Who wants a photo card??!!

Each year I create a Christmas card based around a picture of the children. We have lots of family and friends abroad, and it lets them see how the children are growing up. I wasn't going to do a photo card this year, but then the lollipop lady told me that she has kept them all, and as this is the last year for Max at St James, I thought I'd do one last one!!! Here's the 2002 Christmas card we did.

So, the new craft room became a photo studio today!! The children leapt around and I snapped them, and created the 2006 card.

Now to print and put them together - 80 of them!!

Tonight is the office party. I remember the days when I could take ages to get ready - a long soak in the bath with a glass of wine!! Now it's cooking the children't tea, a quick dash under the shower and mad panic slapping stuff on my face before flying out the door shouting the kids bedtime instructions to my Mum! Actually, I should really shout Mum's bedtime instructions to the kids, I'm sure she'll be asleep before them!! Watching X Factor and Take That won't be the most exciting viewing for her!!!

The children are enjoying the advent hunt - todays clue was "I'm all of a spin when I'm in here" and I was itching for them to hurry up and find them in the tumble drier so that I could get on with the washing!!

Crap Mum!!

What is the the most important thing on a child's agenda when December approaches? Of course, it's opening their advent calendar window. So after pinching and punching everyone this morning for first day of the month, they looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to produce their calendars!!!! And guess what I had completely forgotten about!! Strangely I had bought one for my nephews, but not my own children!!!!

So as soon as they'd gone to school I dashed to Sainsburys. The only ones left were Dr Who ones!!! Now, I knew my girls would not be impressed if I presented these to them when they got home!!! An alternative was needed!! I spotted three little blank plastic pots stuffed with jelly sweets which were an ideal size, and grabbed the 3 for 2 mini chocolate bar offers as fast as I could. Once home, the first task was to empty the boxes, and if I ever see another Christmas shaped jelly sweet, I'm sure I'll be sick on the spot!! OK, I could have saved them for the kids, but ho ho ho!! I quickly decorated the little boxes, and devised a plan that would make these pots a much better alternative to a calendar!! Each day I shall put a little something in their box and hide them, leaving a clue on the windowsill. This will make it a mini treasure hunt too! For instance Meals on Wheels will mean they are in the hostess trolley!!!

If you're wondering how the craft room is looking - it's nearly finished and fab!! I get such a lovely feeling when I walk into the room!! Any excuse and I pop up here!! Holly sent me an instant message from her bedroom to say Daddy was home yesterday!!! I'm waiting until it's tidy before I take a photo for you!!! That day might never come though, so tomorrow I'll take a picture whatever!

Health

This was my breakfast today - I've got a stinking cold so thought I should have some vitamin C! You know how to tell if it's a cold or flu - if there's a £10 note on the ground outside if it's a cold you'll go and get it, if it's flu you won't. Well for me, I got a phone call saying there's a Per Una sale on - and I was out of that door like a shot!! Also, feed a cold, starve a feever - I've definitely got a cold!!!

Yesterday I cracked on with painting the den - one coat paint, what's that all about then? One coat, if the coat under it is the same colour and was painted less than 5 months ago!! I waste so much time stepping back and looking at my work, wondering if I actually will get away with one coat!! Of course I don't!!

I had a bit of a shock last night, and am in somewhat of adilemmaa. A month ago Jesper joined the family up for a family membership at the health club. There are lots of clubs the children wanted to join in, and Jesper already uses the gym. So last night, there I was cooking the dinner and slurping my glass of red wine, when the phone went. It was a lady from the club, wanting to know how come I'd been a member a month, and only signed in once!!! (that once was when I met the family for lunch after their gym session!!!!!) Stupidly I mentioned being slightly scared of going in the gym - they all look far too glam and skinny in there!!! Later there was another call - from a chap in the gym, and before I could utter the words "but I don't doexercisee" I was booked in for a introduction gym session!!!! Oh no!! I don't even own a track suit. I don't even own a pair of trainers!!!!

Meeting a fab gal!

This is my pile of ironing!!! I thought I ought to tackle it as I've been out to play today, and am going out to play tonight!!! Unfortunately though, the iron is under that lot!!! I stupidly put it on the counter, and then gradually put things for ironing on the same counter, which over time grew to be a mountain!

But I had such a fab day, I don't mind! I started my journey in bright sunshine, the perfect weather for a long drive. This worried me slightly, as you remember the last long journey I had where everything was going well turned into a disaster!! So I was somewhat relieved to head straight into a traffic jam! The journey took a good two hours, but I arrived in Cirencester and there was George with a great big hug!! And little Elinor looking gorgeous in a lovely bright pink dress! George is one of the most interesting people you could meet. She has been to amazing places, and done amazing things, and I just love hearing about her life!

And to top it all, George has bought a house which has to be the most interesting house I've ever been to as well!! After a quick stop off at Paper Arts I was taken for a tour of it. If beams could talk, what fantastic stories you could have round the lovely brick fireplace every night!!! The character of the house overwhelms you from the minute you walk through the door!! Just think, those beams have seen centuries! A lovely windy staircase, corridors and rooms on different levels, an absolutely amazing place!! And what will be George's craft room has such character - and a birds eye view of a wonderful bakery that is exactly opposite her front door!! I did suggest to George that she install a pulley system so that they can pop her cakes in her basket without her even having to move, but I don't know if she'll do it!!

Of course it would have been rude to walk past the bakery without going in, and so we just had time to stuff a panini before I had to go to be home to meet the children from school. Luckily George had a delivery of craft stuff sitting on the kitchen table with some lovely things in which we explored, and which I shall be ordering myself later!!! Her stash is the thing dreams are made of!!! So thanks George for a great day!

Fluffy screwdrivers at the ready!

You knew it, I know!!! The chest was too big to get up the stairs to the den!!! I had to take it apart, bit by bit - balancing the top on my head at one point!!! Thank goodness for the fluffy screwdrivers Helen gave me! Each bit had to be carried up the stairs piece by piece, as well as all the drawers, and my legs are cream crackered now!!! It also means I've had to replan where all the cupboards are going, but the new plan is much better.

So, very slowly, I'm getting there!!

Pinch punch

The first day of the month is very popular in this house. For the children it's because they get to run screaming down the stairs first thing in the morning pinching and punching everyone! For me it's because I get to see the pictures of our groups ATC's online, and then wait expectantly for the postman to see which ones I will receive. (For those of you who have absolutely no idea what an ATC is, it's an artist trading card - people make them and swap them with each other, like pokemon cards but more fun!!!)

This month is even more exciting for me, as I took part in a canvas swap, and the deadline was for today so I am waiting to see more pictures of lovely work. I had such fun with this challenge. I like to go beyond the flat, so cut a hole in the middle of my canvas. However, what I was planning to do wasn't possible, as I had a pleasant surprise. Behind the canvas the wood sloped down towards the middle, which was the perfect thing for a 3d picture. So I painted the slopey wood black. A lovely stamp I have been itching to use from the Stampington company was perfect for the oriental theme, and I stamped it on part of the canvas I had cut out, and then cut out another image from vellum, and mounted it slightly proud of the canvas to give it depth. I stuck this in the recess, and then sewed fibres round the edge of the outer canvas to frame it.

I so enjoyed playing with this - painting with my fingers and destroying things are just up my street!

I need to get something off my chest . . .

. . my plan chest that is!! It was all going so well – I was on my way to London to pick up the plan chest I had won from e-bay – via Ikea!!! (Why do we say 'won' as if it's free,?!!). Everything was going well - too well! I'd left on time (unusual!) I'd remembered my Ikea blue bag for my goodies (unheard of!) there was a car parking space right by the door (no, it wasn't a disabled spot!) and Ikea was really quiet!! The restaurant was deserted when I went for a sandwich, and the checkout queues non-existent.

Now this is all unheard of for an Ikea trip, so I just knew that something was going to go wrong – I never have incident free times like this!!

The Sat Nav knew exactly where we were going to pick up the plan chest – I'd never have found it by myself – although when Sat Nav said we were there I had to phone them as I couldn't see where it was!! No problems, it was one of those run down old buildings, and I was directed round the back to the car park.

This had all run far too smoothly.

The car park was one of those squashed affairs. I could see a drop to my left, with 2 parking spaces below, I followed the road round carefully dodging a lorry sticking out to my right. And that's when I heard the crunch - and felt the car drop down! I hurried out to look, and found that the road going round went down a drop too, and the passenger side of the car was sitting on a ledge, and the front wheel was spinning in mid air! OMG! I knocked on the door of the building, and a man looking and sounding exactly like Manuel from Fawlty Towers said "oh yes, it 'appens all the time. You need to see Jim round the corner." So I rushed round to Jim, who told me he'd be round soon with his fork lift truck!!

Horrified, I saw the vision of my not even one year old car being hoisted by a dodgy looking Jim in a forklift, and said no thanks, I'll call the RAC!! An hour later RAC man arrived. Fortunately the car had not been damaged at all, it was just a matter of getting it off the ledge he declared. But there was no room to get a vehicle round the front to do it!!! Aha – I knew a man with a forklift truck!! So I persuaded poor RAC man to come with me to see Jim. Jim was in a huff at my previous rejection, but was persuaded to help us. He told the RAC man how he usually did it (!!!!) and the RAC man made sure it was done properly. A few minutes later, my car happily had four wheels on the ground and RAC man checked everything was fine - not a scratch to tell the tale, so all was well.

It was then that we discovered the chest didn't fit in the car!!! Manuel, looking very relieved that he didn't have to lift it in, was disappointed with my brainwave of unscrewing the sides to make it fit!! But he went along with the plan, and before long I was driving back to Southampton in my plan chest! Well that's what it felt like anyway.

Scary Fun!

First I tried to put the children off their food serving them dead mens thumbs for their tea!! The house was in darkness, lights were banned, and lots of ketchup made these very convincing!

They were starting to get spooked already, so when I crept outside and knocked on the window with a scary mask on, they leapt out of their skins!!!

When buying the doughnuts to hang from strings for the 'eating them with your hands behind your back game' I bought the ones with chocolate on the top - not thinking of the consequences of this!!! Max was the clean one - you should have seen the other boys!!!

But luckily a good dunk in a tub of water was on hand!!

Followed by a face full of flour as they fished for smarties!!

I'd like to say that all this activity wore them all out, and that they were tucked up in bed soon after . . . the girls went next door to Natasha's for a sleepover, and the boys were locked away in the den, where the mischief continued for a lot longer!!!

Hmmmmmmmm

I took the children to the supermarket today. They each chose a little pumpkin each to carve out next week, and I chose a big one to do an idea I've seen on the Craftsbycarolyn forum.

I looked at Nicole and said to her gleefully "I'm going to do something really yucky with this pumpkin!" "Oh no", she said, "not pumpkin soup" !!!!!!!

Crafty Move!

Well, it was a good plan - although it was really just accumulated mess, not a plan at all!!! - but filling up the study with my craft things has given Hubby the idea that I should have the children's den as my craft room - above the garage and out of the way!! Fantastic!!! Not for the children though!! Well, it will be, because we will brick up the garage, and that will be their den!

So . . . minutes after this decision was made, I was off ordering kitchen cupboards from B&Q before any change of mind could be made!! And I got a map chest from e-bay which is brilliant. So I have some cupboard putting together to do - I can't put them in the den yet as the children are planning a scary sleepover on Friday! Let me pass you a tip - don't do Halloween games and fun too well, or the children expect it every year!

Time for a change of image?

Today I took the children to the Swan Centre (local shopping place) and negotiated how long they could go off wandering by themselves. Claire's Accessories, New Look and Boots means this takes some negotiating to get it down to an hour!

So, there I am, an hour and a half later, propped against a pillar waiting for them, when a lady tapped me gently, and pointed to the little Magic Roundabout Merry-go-round that was near me - and asked me how much it was to go on it. I didn't click at first, and moved her child out of the way to reveal the price list and coin slot, and told her the price wondering why on earth she couldn't see that herself!

And then it dawned on me - she thought I was a bloody fairground attendant!!! Time for a new look I think!!

It's only fair as I posted a piccie of Jamie yesterday that I post one of my nephew Daniel today - as you can see, he's a little charmer just like his brother!!

New Blog

Well, I'm trying out a new blog now!! I'm hoping that I'll get round to posting more pictures using this one!

Today is my nephew Jamie's first birthday, so Happy Birthday Jamie!! And tell your Mum to hurry up and get that webcam up and running, so that we can see you!