Just a quickie

Because I've got loads to do today, have to get clothes and stuff sorted out as we're away to visit Mar for the weekend, and hopefully get to meet the lovely ladies at Just Create in Polbeth, as well as the lovely Manda from ESP.
am also popping in past Dawn to get a lookie at the new Stampin' Up catalogue, and Pamela is maybe popping round so i can get her started with a mini book of baby Emma for her mum.
So its all go!
see you all after the weekend

Yay - I got one! - Scallop Punches R Us

A wee parcel arrived today..... in fact I forgot I had ordered it the other day, the lovely Angela from Angel Crafts sent my order: 2 journalling stamps and the infamous threading water scallop punch from Fiskars, woohooooooo! Now I just need to get some peace to play with them lol
I also just wanted to say that Angela puts that wee bit extra into her packaging, the stamps and punch were wrapped in tissue paper and tied with a ribbon - freebies! YAY!
Right after I ordered the punch from Angel Crafts (and I hunted all over the internet for it) I noticed I had received an email from the lovely folks at Craft Obsessions letting me know they now had stock of the Fiskars Threading Water punch - so if you want one, you better be quick!

Decided yesterday that I didn't like a couple of the layouts I did for our holiday scrapbook - the one of Scott, Graham and the owls, and the macaw & cockatoo one. So I pulled them apart and managed to re-do the Owls one. I am definitely favouring the simpler style, the previous one was far too busy and unco-ordinated for my mathematical brain lol I do think my journalling needs a bit of work though - I seem to have a mental block when it comes to thoughts and feelings or even witticisms

I used some Cosmo Cricket - Honey Pie paper and ribbon, Papermania Secret Garden acetate (inking the edges), a journalling spot from the Bo Bunny Beau Jardin sheet, chipboard letters (inking them to give them more definition) from the K&Co Wild Saffron range and some green and gold coloured adhesive stones to pick out random owls eyes on the acetate.

I have also finally got round to making up Rachel's care package. Rachel is a lovely friend of mine who lives in Ibiza with her 3 gorgeous children. We "met" through the Extra Special Parents website and met for real this summer when we had our holiday in Port d'es Torrent. I made up a wee mini book for her as a memento of our visit (early version in August posts) and have been adding to it when the mood took me. Rachel and the kids are flying over to Wales next month to see her family, so I've also enclosed 3 Scotland woolly hats for the kids to wear when they come over. I added in a copy of Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (the book) - I believe the film is out in the cinema just now, but I'm not brave enough to go and see it because I know I will bawl. And I'll have to get some sugar-free sweeties for Aidan and Galaxy chocolate for Rachel, Ana and Emily.

Finally - rescued Willow's LO

ok here goes - have stuck everything down this time, so hopefully the little witch will keep her sticky mitts off it this time.
I have 2 questions:

1. what do you think?
   
2. and does it need a title? if so what and where?

I love these BeauJardin papers by Bo Bunny - has to be my current favourite.

I wonder if I can use any of the other colours, maybe the clover one, for that pic of Ziggy??

Bunkbeds and broomsticks

I feel I have to explain the second part of the title of this post.... Willow has been a little witch, last night she managed to break into our bedroom and decided to get a bit scissor happy with the layout of her photo and the beau jardin papers - hence the broomstick reference. After seeing how mightily pissed off I was, she spent the rest of the evening crawling... "I'm sorry mummy, I promise not to cut up your crafty stuff ever ever again" :)
So I suppose I should forgive her eh?

Graham has spent 4 hours today putting together the bunk beds for Scott's room.

I bought new duvet sets for Scott (spongebob) and Willow (Dora), and they have been read the golden rules:

1. NO JUMPING ON THE BEDS
   
2. NO BITING THE BEDS
   
3. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO WILLOW OR FAITH GO ON THE TOP BUNK
   
4. NO WRITING, DRAWING OR STICKING STICKERS ON THE BEDS
   
5. FAILURE TO OBEY THE RULES WILL RESULT IN THE OFFENDER BEING TAKEN TO THE ROTTEN CHILDREN'S HOME, NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN!
   

Yes I know that might sound a bit harsh, but hey - we'll see how long they are in terror of me (probably about 10 minutes!)

While having a break, half way through helping with the bunk beds, I took the camera outside as its such a lovely sunny day here today...

I inadvertently managed to capture a moth in mid flight while trying to take a decent pic of a bumblebee on the buddleia. And of course my handsome little cat Ziggy had to get in on the act, trying to catch  all the butterflies so I couldn't get a pic of them - so he posed rather nicely for his own profile shot...

Willow LO number 3

ok folks this will be my 3rd attempt at doing this pic of Willow justice. I bought the new Bo Bunny - Beau Jardin papers especially for this picture, I want to keep it fairly simple so as not to detract from the photo, but then I want to put some effort into it too.

So....... I would really appreciate any suggestions, hints or tips.
This is how far I have got (nothing is stuck down) but I'm not sure whether I should go for the black or white side of the Blush paper. What do you think?



I do realise the photography is pretty dreadful, but its just a draft.

I have used:
Bo Bunny - Beau Jardin: Blush double sided paper, strip and journalling spot from embellishment sheet
Fabric flowers and daisy punched from bazzill card (the large pink flower was paler than that to begin with so I inked it with Ink It Up)
pink bazzill card to mat photo

Customer Service - now officially extinct

Inspired by Kirsty's spleen venting about Carphone Warehouse, I thought I'd vent about the Belmont Vauxhall garage in Aberdeen. 
The Service Assistant obviously thinks he's a bit of a smart arse, but funny, he's not!
I got up early yesterday and had the car at the garage for exactly 8am as requested and handed over the keys. "right so, the car's been lurching when you're braking then?" he says, "yes, thats right, the brakes are binding" I tell him, in an attempt at sounding like I know what I'm talking about. "And can they possibly take a look at the clutch because the biting point is high again and its juddering in 1st and 2nd gear"....
He replies, in an exasperated 'my god, these females know nothing' voice... "we can't just LOOK at the clutch you know, without taking out the gearbox. We CAN take it for a test drive and see how it feels though" To which I haughtily bite back "I know perfectly well you can't LOOK at the clutch, you knew what I meant!"

I then toddled off to catch 2 buses home, realising that I had left my mobile phone at home and wouldn't be able to call Graham to pick me up. So I get the 1st bus to Union Street, nip into WH Smith and stock up on all the latest crafty mags, then wait for 20 minutes for a Porty bus - so that I can hang on in sheer terror as the driver obviously thinks he's wanted by the police and trying to outrun them. I have the cunning plan of getting off at the stop near Pamela's house and going round for a cuppy while I wait for G.

Anyway, I called the garage at 1pm to ask about the progress of the car. The girl on the other end of the phone informs me that they are currently working on it. So I ask what was wrong with it and she replies "the brakes!" WELL DUH!!!!!!!!  So I ask her exactly what was wrong with the brakes and she told me that she couldn't tell me until the paperwork was through and that the mechanics were out for lunch so she couldn't ask them (so they're obviously not "currently working on it" then!!) I asked if she could give me an idea of when it would be finished, and again I get the tale about the mechanics being out to lunch yada yada yada. So I tell her that we have a hire car that needs to be back by 4 and if I need it for longer thenI need to give them plenty of notice. So I'm informed that it will definitely be done by 4.

Picked Willow and Scott up from nursery and school and went home to get G and Faith so that we could all head in to the garage. Called the service department and said "Its Debbi Robertson here, I'm calling to see if my car is ready" and smartarse replied "well, Debbi, if your car was ready we would have phoned you!" so I told him - in the same tone of voice he used with me that "the girl on the phone earlier said it would definitely be done by 4". He then came back to me and said "yes it was on target for 4 o'clock, so just head up now"

G dropped me, the kids and the 2 car seats off at the garage, I deposited the kids in the waiting area and wandered off to the service dept and was served again by smartarse. He told me that it was the brakes and they had "done all the brakes all the way round" so I asked what I thought was a perfectly reasonable question i.e: "what have you done to the brakes", so I was told that they had replaced the brake pads on all 4 corners. He said that the brakes would be softer so I would need to bare that in mind for the next couple of hundred miles until the brakes bedded in. He then started to explain to me in words of one syllable, how the brake pads make contact with the metal......, but I cut him off with a sharp "yes, thankyou, I know how brakes work".
I asked where the car was parked as I hadn't seen it on my way in, and I had 3 kids and 2 car seats with me, to which I was informed that "the bays go all the way round the back, so it's out there somewhere"
So, muttering under my breath, I slope off and have to try and juggle 3 kids and 2 car seats out to the car at the far end of the carpark. A very lovely woman offered to help, and we exchanged words about how they don't know the meaning of customer service.

So, now that I have that out of my system, I'll tell you about our new wee resident in the garden. We have a Tufty!! (for those of you whose memories don't go that far back, thats a red squirrel) Graham, managed to catch him eating an apple on the picnic table on the deck - isn't he cute?

Forever Friends.......bleurgh!!!

Am I the only person on the planet that HATES Forever Friends?? I've always detested the sickly little bear before I made cards and bought them in card shops, and my relationship with it hasn't improved with time. And I'm a bit fed up with the fact that my latest stash order has taken over a week to arrive (it still hasn't arrived) because they have been inundated with orders for the FF stuff. HUMPH!

So to cheer myself up I stopped off at Asda on the way home from taking the kids to McDonalds, and bought a crafty mag, Quick Cards made Easy, because I quite like their wee templates and they have a freebie set of xmas templates with this months issue. And on the back cover I noticed a big advert for Messy Rabbit, now that kind of cuteness I can cope with...

I'm not normally a fan of Joanna Sheen, but I like this wee wabbit a lot. Joanna has even done co-ordinating backing papers, so I'll have to have a wee raid of the piggy bank and order a few bits soon.

Its a bit of a "dreich" day as we say up here, drizzly and a bit misty so I decided to take the kids to McD's out at the Bridge of Don, then stop off on the Esplanade so we could watch the waves. The sea is pretty wild tonight and the white horses are stunning to watch, I find it mesmerising. So the kids munched their way through 4 happy meals between the 3 of them and we all oohed and aaahed at the waves crashing. So thats us back home now, the girls are in their jammies and Scott is back playing Mario Galaxy on the Wii, one of his birthday pressies. And here's a few pics of him turning the grand old age of 9.

Willow making off with the biggest parcel lol

No disrespect to my mum, but I think she must have been in a bit of a hurry when she was decorating the cakes. But hey, they tasted great! with her home made strawberry jam in the middle.

Cars - argh!!

well, we were all set for school, out the door - Scott was sitting in the passenger seat with his breakfast (which was a packet of mini cookies, a ham and cheese sandwich and a banana!! well I guess thats what happens when you let them prepare it themselves lol) I turned the key and....... nothing! the damned battery was flat. Just for once the kids hadn't left the DVD player on so I was safe enough to phone the RAC. They told me it could be up to 75 minutes, but the guy called within about 10 and appeared within 20, great. So the very nice man (yes I know its the wrong breakdown organisation) charged my battery and then tested it, it was taking the charge fine but he noticed one of the terminal connections was loose so that was propbably the cause. I quizzed him about the brakes as they haven't been sounding or feeling too healthy lately, but I'll take it up to the local Vauxhall garage. I called them - (btw if you are in the Aberdeen area, I would definitely NOT recommend Belmont on the Lang Stracht, in my opinion they are liars, and their customer service is atrocious) and they said they couldn't fit me in until the 23rd September, so I asked - if my motoring plan is with Vauxhall then am I obliged to use Belmont? - well lo and behold they can squeeze me in on Wednesday!!

Right, better go take the middle madam to nursery, have a nice day x

The Umbrella Test

Seeing as the weather has been so miserable across the country - although we seem to have been quite fortunate here in the NE of Scotland with quite a bit of sun the last week. Just been over having a look at Beckie's blog and she had the Umbrella Test, so here's my result, whats yours?

What Your Purple Umbrella Says About You

When faced with adversity, you remain together and graceful.
You are very balanced, and it's hard for you to let yourself get too down.
You are brainy and philosophical. It's hard for you to lose your broad perspective on life.
You accept things as they are. You don't try to change anything that can't be changed.
On a rainy day: you should spend the day reading

The Umbrella Test

Don't you just hate it......

when  toddlers start saying more and more words??
I took Fayfee to asda this afternoon while Scott was at school and Willow was at nursery, I only really needed a couple of bits and bobs, but noticed their ladies underwear was on sale. Now, I have a collection of lopsided grey bra's because a- they're ancient, and b- nearly all of them are missing at least one wire! anyway, they had nice big ladies bra's reduced to 2 quid, so I picked up a lovely chocolate brown one with pink trim, a black one with cream trim and a cream one with tiny purple flowers and fayfee pipes up "BOOBS" at the top of her voice, so I agreed with her thinking that would be the end of it but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Fayfee then proceeded to chant "BOOBS, BOOBS, BOOBS" all the way round the shop and while waiting at the checkout, occassionally interspersed with "haha, funneeeee"
Aren't kids fun?? lol

Butterflies

We seem to have a terrible shortage of butterflies this year - last year, both the buddleia's were covered in red admirals, but this year I've only seen a couple of them and a couple peacocks. So I thought I'd better go out and try to capture them on film while I could.

Ribbon Brads and other stories

Have been on the hunt for ribbon brads - I made thank you cards for the ladies who looked after ESP for me while we were on holiday and used some of the ones that had come in one of the do-crafts goody bags. Mar was quite taken with them, and so far I had only been able to find Woodware's xmas tree and snowflake ones. But have finally managed to find flower ones on Readicut - 20 pastel and 20 brights for £2.99 which I thought were pretty good value, so I can now try them out on my scrapbook layouts - with 2 little girls to take pictures of, it shouldnt be too hard to put them to good use.
And of course I had to put in a decent size of an order to justify the postage, so I stocked up a wee bit - ordered another 2way glue pen, which I find incredibly handy and a lot more economic than glue runners. I also invested in a set of calligraphy pens so I can be a bit more creative and pretty with my journalling. And to finish off my order I decided to buy a set of scissors, which I will hide from the rest of the family - does that happen in every scrapper's house? I know my scissors are more like the fingers in the old yellow pages advert, but Idon't "let them do the walking" lol. I've never used glitter cardstock before, and I was inspired by Mar's beautiful snowflake card, to give it a try for xmas and perhaps even just everyday too.
And lastly on my list was some patterned ribbons and a large daisy punch on special offer. And I now have to start saving as Mar has decided to have a bit of a stash shopping spree when she gets her first pay packet at the end of October, and of course I can't let her do that unaccompanied :)

I thought I'd also post a few pics I took of Faith and her daddy before Graham went offshore on Tuesday. Faith has become quite attached to daddy lately, up til then she was every inch a mummy's girl. I think we have an extra special bond, as she's the only one of my babies that I have come home with and not had to leave in the Neonatal Unit. (For those who don't know, Scott was 7 weeks premature and Willow was 3 weeks premature and had to have a few operations so they were both in the Unit for 4 and 5 weeks respectively) Oops, there I go waffling again! So Graham's quite tickled that Fayfee is asking him for cuddles more often now, and of course her other love is her Singing Kettle hat :D

This was Fayfee the other day, being very industrious and building a huge tower out of all their plastic cups and tumblers - it kept her entertained for ages, who says they need expensive educational and electronic toys lol
Scott's just arrived home from his dad's with a couple of parcels for his birthday on Wednesday and a shiny new scarlet nintendo DS Lite, so I'd better go see how his day went and get the girls ready for bed.

I think I should maybe change my name to the number 9 bus - Mar pointed out to me that I hadn't blogged for 5 days and here I am doing 3 posts in one day lol

Beautiful Brides and camera-shy kids

So, we're back from seeing Lisa at her wedding and she is simply beautiful. Her mum Chris is the quintessential mother-of-the-bride in a fantastic pink outfit (thats her on the left below with Lisa's auntie)

Lisa rolled up in a stunning vintage car with her uncle

And she is looking fantastic, she even let the photographer's assistant know she "had a bit of a cheek wearing white" lol

Willow then had an attack of the "I'm shy"s and refused to have her picture taken, which made Fayfee a wee bit nervous - but she managed to stay put so long as I was beside her but just out of shot. So unfortunately I only got a picture of the back of her head, but hey ho! I'm sure I'll be able to see Lisa or Chris soon to get a copy of the official photo.

Well they do say, never to work with children or animals lol - here's Willow still being camera shy in the car afterwards.

Beau Jardin

I was having a good nosey around online yesterday afternoon for something to inspire me... Mar has been on my case again about doing the b/w pic of Willow on a black and white layout and I just couldn't find anything that really caught my eye. BUT, I happened to stumble across Bo Bunny's new Beau jardin range and its totally gorgeous so I managed to find a stockist - Craft Obsessions - and ordered their set which includes a sheet of each of the papers plus bazzill cardstock to match, plus I decided to order an extra 2 sheets of the blush, bleu (yes thats spelled correctly!), clover, journal tags and harvest papers.And they all arrived in double quick time this morning - so thankyou very much for the super service!

So I'm pretty sure I'm going to use the blush colourway (below) to do Willow's LO - but I'm debating whether I should use the white or black side, will have to go and play later...

Its 11am and Scott's away to his dads for the day and the girls are running riot in their jammies - I'm making a probably vain attempt at keeping them as clean as possible as I'm taking them along to a wedding this afternoon. My friend Lisa is getting married today and unfortunately I can't go along to the reception because Graham's away, but I wanted the girls to see her in her wedding frock and to give her a horseshoe. I know some folk might think its a bit old fashioned, but I thought it would be a nice addition for her wedding photo's. Lisa's mum gave me this lovely horseshoe to give her, thats far better looking than the dreadful silver painted plastic efforts from the card shop. According to the label it was made by Fripperies in John O'Groats and is made in white satin with tartan ribbon and lovely silver thistle buttons and pearls.

Anyway, I'll post all about it later on, and hopefully I'll manage to get some pics too.