My 1st minibook

Well I finally did one! I've wanted to make a mini book for ages and thought I'd do this for OH's mom who lives in Bali. She hasn't met Eefie yet so this will keep her up to date with progress right from the 1st scan. I'm not showing the actual pages on here coz she sometimes looks in but this is volume 1 and covers from the first scans up to about 6 months. Its done on 6x6 and some pages are single, some are double LO's.

I've now started one for Molly Moo which I'm going to love coz its PINK :D

Thought I'd also post this little slideshow. Eefie has always hated "baby food" and as soon as he knew about finger foods then forget spoon feeding him, he doesnt want to know. Still I persist and try him every now and then with a nice jar of baby food, here's the reaction lol!

One photo, three looks

Thought I'd show you these photos (for the scrapbookers amongst us!) I've learnt a lot about photography over the past year and want to learn a LOT more. This is to show you to always look twice at photos. Some might seem pretty unremarkable at first glance and you may overlook its real potential, look at parts of it, baby photos particularly parts of the face or a hand for example.

This is the original snap I took of Boo & Eefie at Lake Bala which is nice in its own right but somewhat unremarkable.

This one has been cropped which throws the focus immediately onto Boo & Eefie and I've just switched it to standard greyscale.

Then this one has had minor changes and looks sooooo much better than the original :)

The light and shadows are more defined and the photo produces a lovely atmosphere.

Molly Moo's 4d scan

(Yes they checked again and she's still a girl lol!)

This time she performed and didnt hide herself, we think she looks just like Eefie, has same nose and face shape. We're not sure about the lips though!

And now a change of style :)

The good thing about swaps and challenges is that you're often pushed to create something outside your usual comfort zone.

Stace asked for "Pink, fluffy & preferrably playboy"

She wouldnt let me do a magnolia on the grounds of them being "too cute" humph! So had to have a think about this one as Zoe is her Bezzie! Got some naked chipboard letters and wanted them glossy black so had a root and found some silver tinsel embossing powder which is black with silver flecks. Nah I thought, I want pink flecks so got out some hot pink glitter & mixed some into some black EP. When it was heated the pink disappeared and in its place was a dazzling array of colours! Basically kaleidoscope embossing powder in that it changes colour depending on how much you heat it. I did 2 layers of that and 2 layers of UTEE to make it really glossy. The playboy bunny I made by printing a template off the net and cutting out one then another in reverse. Its a spinner card so that the bunny spins round hense why its double sided. The embossing on the card is cuttlebug divine swirls :)

Next up is a card I made for my good friend Sylvia off the yahoo group. The stamp is from a plate by simple expressions called The Orient (Available from http://www.katyscorner.org.uk/) and it's embossed in moonglow midnight obsidian EP. The background to the stamp is made with moonglow starburst stains and gesso.

This one's a tad out of focus sorry. I cut off 2/3rd of the card and added a panel of acetate then a strip of matching paper at the bottom. The images are peel offs I've coloured with sakura souffle and added stickles glitter glue over the top.

Recent Magnolia creations

I've made quite a few cards lately but not had time to upload. Time, now there's something I could do with a LOT more of, couldnt we all!

Lets start with this one. I'm doing sketch challenges on our yahoo group and this was my effort. More mojo the better eh :) Its a Magnolia (quell surprise!) and is tilda in the rain. I've used various types of flowers, crystals & buttons. Quite happy with this one!

Next is the same stamp but I did this for the monodramatic swap on our group hense why its all pink!

And again the same stamp but I wanted to project a really bright card, a contrast to the stamp as the message was that life can rain sometimes but sunshine will always come :)

This one's a shaker! I cant do shakers so avoid them but thought I'd have another go and it appears to have got there in one piece lol!

And finally this is for the Embossibilities swap (dry embossing) I used the cuttlebug divine swirls on the bottom 2/3rds (DCWV pocket full of posies paper) and the large flower is a bazzil bling :)

Back from Holidays!

We thought we'd have a little holiday before LO is born. Our next chance would be the end of May and that's cutting it a bit too fine for my liking so we went over Easter instead.

My favourite place is Snowdonia in Wales (its a large area in North/Mid Wales, UK) and my most favoured part is a little fishing village called Barmouth. Dont know why but I've always liked it and have camped there often with DD. Started off on Good Friday and to avoid the traffic we were going on A and B routes rather than the motorways. Boo was travelling down on his motorbike and I drove his car (coz its bigger than mine)

Got about 60 miles in and the car cut out. I managed to flag Boo down and pulled over. There was no water in the car and when we put more in it leaked everywhere. I got the "I've had this car 10 years" lecture and what have I done to it???!! It was absolutely freezing cold, the baby was getting grumpy and I was major league p1ssed. Eventually got to a garage to do a patch up job and Boo then realised that actually HE'D caused the fault by overfilling the water+too much pressure+dodgy pipes = holes blown in pipes = water coming out lol lol lol!

Eventually after 6 hours we made it to the site only to be faced with one of my big phobias - a bridge! I can drive some bridges but this was something else. It looked like a normal footbridge over a railway line and only just big enough for one car. I was squeeling going over it!!

Checked in and got the keys so off to find our caravan. We'd asked for a "Sea View" caravan and well I think they delivered. Here's the view we had. Just hop over the rocks and you're on the beach! Fantastic!

DD & EEFIE
Boo had met up with a couple of his biker mates so DD & I unpacked and got settled in. Eefie decided he wanted to explore then made himself comfortable...

Later on that evening the power went. That was the start of MANY times over that weekend. Apparantly with so many people turning the electric heaters on at once it was causing power cuts all the time. Yer coz it was FREEZING!!! Its actually quite cozy sitting in front of the gas fire in the dark with nothing to do but talk!

We went exploring the area in the week, swimming, walking on the beach, drives round the mountains and I managed to get a Smoking Dragon again woo hoo!

http://www.smokingdragons.co.uk/?q=shop&filter0=3

The weather was a LOT better than expected, clear blue skies most days. All in all apart from a wobbly start it was a lovely week :) I saw snow on Snowdon for the first time, the RAF were doing flight training so we were getting free airshows, we visited Lake Bala, Porthmadog, Harlech, Tywyn, Aberdovey & drove through lots of other places.

(I now have no mobile as my little monkey sneaked out of bed and pinched it then sneaked into the en suite and posted it in the loo!!!

Here's some pics of the week.

Sunset from the caravan

BARMOUTH VILLAGE

3 MEN AND A BABY :)

EEFIE AND HIS DADDY

EEFIES FIRST GO OF A RIDE ON THINGY!

HE LIKED THEM SO HAD SOME MORE GOES!

EEFIE & DADDY AT LAKE BALA - WHAT A CUTE PIC!!

ME, EEFIE & MOLLY MOO!