It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

With only days left of November, I am well and truly getting into the Christmas spirit. Kicking it off with this festive read from Mary Kay Andrews. Christmas Bliss is the 4th book in the Weezie and BeBe series but I stupidly missed out the third book - Blue Christmas. Really? What a wally. Still, another good read from Mary Kay Andrews and great for getting you into the Christmas spirit.

 

I also bought this lovely black and gold chevron notebook from Tesco (would you believe it).



They also have this cute gold notebook which proved pretty tricky to photography without getting my hand and my phone in the reflection. My phone is gold though so I let it go. Did I mention my gold phase...

I'm using the notebook to jot down any December Daily® ideas I have.

 Anyone else feeling festive?

The Story of 'The Story of Us' by Simple Stories

I loved The Story of Us collection when it was released by Simple Stories in the Summer but I thought it was way too themed for me, I had no wedding invites and no intention of digging out my old wedding snaps so as much as I loved it I didn't buy it. Until... Autumn 2014 and my gold phase. There. Is. Not. Enough. Gold. In. The. World. Who's with me?

I made it my mission to buy all the gold in the {scrappy} land. And there is a tonne of it in this collection and lots that you could easily use for projects that aren't even wedding related. I'm intending to do another blog post on using this collection in a non wedding-y way soon. But it didn't hurt when my uncle sneaked off, got married and gave me with the prefect opportunity to break out this sparkly collection.

I bought the following items from Craft Island, they are all still in stock but the stock is low so buy now if you have your eye on anything. You can view the whole collection here.

12x12 Collection Kit (you NEED this, if only to get your hands on the exclusive overlays)
12x12 Simple Basic Kit (this is a no brainer if you are a gold junkie like me it's not themed in the slightest and would be perfect for documenting December or Project Life or any layouts!)
Sn@p Bits and Pieces (there are so many bits in here that aren't wedding related; hearts, birds, butterflies)
Sn@p Chipboard Stickers (why ever not!)
Sn@p Cards (again there are plenty of cards that could be used for non wedding projects)
Sn@p Cuts (none of these are wedding themed!)
Sn@p Insta Squares (because I have a WRMK Instagram 4x4 Album Made Easy in gold and I'm not afraid to use it (and again loads of cards that can be used for non weddings themed projects)).

How can you not Love that Love chipboard..? Love. Love. Love.

This is all from The Story of Us collection along with a gold doily (where have I been, I've only just discovered doilies!) and some Prima Marketing flowers.

I popped it in a frame to give to my Uncle and his wife as a wedding gift. The frame is a Ribba frame in black from Ikea. These frames are seriously inexpensive and are perfect for 12x12 pages. I stick photo holders to the backing sheet that comes with the frame to hold the layout in place.

Anyone else going through a gold phase?

Blog Your Heart

Here are the "rules".

Here's my heart today:

1. I have a new blog template. I know, it's not deep nor meaningful but it makes me smile and this is my first blog post with the new design so I couldn't not mention it. I wanted something gold and bokeh - I think I hit the jackpot with this blog design from Shiny Magic.
2. I need to get back on the diet/exercise bike (literally or at least I would if we had an exercise bike but those things never work for me - at 4' 11" I'm just too damn short for it to be erm well em comfortable) or the treadmill, we have one of those, in the shed. I don't even have to go to a gym to use it, I can go in my jammies if I want to. But I don't.
3. I am just going to write and post this blog. I'm not going to dwell, rewrite, reread. I'm just going to hit publish. 
4. I hear people talking about being present a lot. I get it. I want to put the phone down more. Sit, talk, play with my kids, watch TV, read a book, SCRAPBOOK!!! and not CONSTANTLY have my phone in my hand.
5. I'm nervous and excited about moving home. We are moving. Well (90/10% we are moving). Not far, literally up the road. We need to move to get Noah a place at Jack's school. We need to move further away (and across a main road) from the school to get ourselves back into catchment. It's as simple and as ridiculous as that. I'm not annoyed anymore. I was. But now I'm excited about the new home we get to live in. And kinda dreading moving us and two kids in one go. We are planning to move into a rental house between selling our home and buying the new one but that's just 'a plan' it might not happen.
6. I have post office phobia same as Stephanie. I've have a parcel well no it's not even a parcel it's a gift for a friend in New Zealand that I bought at least a good 6 months ago that I've not boxed or addressed let alone taken to the post office. WTF.
7. I am reading Helen Fielding's Mad About the Boy. I love it. I know it's been slated. But I love it. I can't help talking or writing in strange disjointed manor similar to Bridge though. 
8. I have a spot on a December Daily Design team this year and I am worried that a) I won't be able to keep up and b) that I'll produce rubbish. 
9. I'm a little bit excited about Christmas. I need to curb my spending though. I am a shop-a-holic. I am terrible stash dieter and food dieter to boot.I am hopeless.
10. I have re-read and corrected the post (although I'll still have missed bits).

Thanks Stephanie for giving me a kick up the blog posting ass.

I'd love to know if you have joined in and if you have please link up on Stephanie's blog. xx

Happiness is a Bella Blvd. Collection

I've been playing with Bella Blvd's Playdate range - clouds, strawberries, polka dots... what's not to like. I started off with the clouds and playground papers for my background. I really wish I'd though about where I was cutting the playground paper as I'd have liked to have seen a row of swings along the bottom but it wasn't until I'd stuck it all down that I noticed. I just filled the space in anyway and there is one swing set showing. I love the bright happy colours and the general cheeriness of this range and I love that you can easily mix and match from other Bella Blvd collections. The clipboard clouds and pink stripe scalloped border are from other Bella collections.

 

I am a Bella Blvd. junkie without a doubt - I have Tiny Tots on my NEED list :) Do you have a favourite Bella collection?

Cutest Igglepiggle I EVER saw

Oh. That. Face.

I've been playing with Bella Blvd. All American. It doesn't need to be the 4th of July.

I started off with a 12x12 of Bazzill Swiss Dot cardstock (you know the stuff - no matter how clean you think your fingers are you STILL manage to transfer grease on to the card???). There are so many lovely patterned papers in All American collection that I wanted to use them all. I settled for eight, cut into strips and inked with Color Box Cat's Eyes Sky Grey. I added a whole load of clouds, some I punched using my Fiskars cloud punches, one KI Memories Puffies, one from the Bella Blvd. Sophisticates Clouds clipboard stickers, and one wood veneer cloud from Freckled Fawn.

I added a couple of the cut out cards from the collection, washi tape and a lot of stickers (mainly Simple Stories Sn@p and Bella Blvd (All American, Baby Boy and Everyday Bookplates)), a wood veneer globe and flair badge from Two Peas in a Bucket (Etsy shop) and some red rik rac.

Thanks for stopping by Kx

Stitched Up

There are so many lovely patterned papers in the My Mind's Eye My Girl collection that I couldn't pick just one, two or three so I picked five and made a quilt. Hand stitching all those squares (they are 2.5x2.5") is a little bit of a labour of love but I think it's worth it. It's also really simple to do (gets my vote right there) and the stitching is quite therapeutic and can be done in front of the TV (multi-tasking at its best).

 

And here is the boy version (at Jack's request - not one to see a hand stitched  layout go past him) using My Mind's Eye Boy Crazy.

 

And man, that boy is crazy :)

All supplies are from Craft Island. The massive Craft Island sale (everything is 40% off) is still on at the old Craft Island website. For all the latest news and new supplies from Craft Island take a look here: website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter.

Around Here | 26 February 2014

**Opps I forgot to publish this at the time**

Around here we are all sick. I've had four days at home. Doodle has had six days off school and Poppins has an ear infection. In both ears! We are snot machines. A lot of coughing can be heard through the night.

Around here we are closing on the sale of my Dad's house in two days. It's been a long drawn out process for a sale that should have been straight forward. It will be a relief not to worry about it and sad to say goodbye.

Around here Poppins is enjoying Cbeebies Peter Rabbit, Swashbuckle and Sarah and Duck. He will raise his hand to his head for the Swashbuckle Cheer.

Swashbuckle Cheer
Put your hand on your heart
Eye patch (eye patch)
Captains hat (captains hat)
Swashbuckle cheer
Ahoy!

Around here Doodle has discovered the TV and DVD player in our bedroom and has happy found peace and quiet to play with Turtles and Trashies and watch his favourite DVDs (Scoobie Doo, Lego, Star Wars - the snow one).

Around here I am patiently waiting on a new niece or nephew (1 week overdue and counting).

Around here I joined the Stephanie Howell book appreciation society (or so it seems) and read Mary Kay Andrew's Savannah Blues, Savannah Breeze and Jojo Moyes.

Please add a link if you are doing a similar round up post. I'd love to hear what you are up to. Kx