The Last Day

of January - can you believe thats us a whole month into 2009 already, and I've managed to blog at least once a day every day this year. Right enough, its been a load of waffle but hey-ho.

I finally managed to get my tax return filed - bit of a panic on when I couldn't remember my user ID and had to retrieve it - but its done now phew! If you haven't already sent in your self-assessment tax return, remember today is the deadline or they fine you!

Willow's bowel washout didn't go well last night - Friday's seem to be jinxed. The water bag exploded last week, leaving me soaked to the skin, and this week the tubes malfunctioned and started leaking air so that it wasn't pumping any water into her. I only managed to get 100ml into her. So I told the lady who comes to help, not to bother coming on Monday as I won't get replacement tubes til at least Tuesday. 

Last night I finished reading the last of the Twilight books - Breaking Dawn. I'm a bit gutted now that its over though. But I really need to see the film. And I can now make a start on all the other books I got for xmas, lets see if Patricia Cornwell's latest Scarpetta novel is better than the last few.

Blog Candy Roundup

Heather has put up some gorgeous candy including Magnolia stamps and cuttlebug embossing folders to celebrate her birthday. So Happy Birthday to a fellow Aquarian.

I finally did it!!

got my hair dyed purple!

My sister-in-law (well, she's my brothers girlfriend and the mother of my nephew, so she's as good as) called me up the other night as she had a big cancellation and would have time to fit me in for a cut and colour. And the best bit was it was their birthday gift to me - woop woop.

Cath is probably the best hairdresser I have ever known, so she has put some purple flashes in my hair, and dyed the rest a rich dark brown - and the cut feels fantabulous. Its so light, and sooooooooooooooo shiny.

Unfortunately the purple doesn't show up under synthetic lights very well and daylight is next to non-existent so I'll wait until Graham comes home on Tuesday and hopefully it'll be light enough for him to take some decent pics.

The flashes have turned out quite subtle - so next time I get it done Cath is going to section off the hair on the top of my head and basically run a layer of purple underneath.

Am on a mission

You all know by now that I am a trustee of Extra Special Parents - the support charity for parents and carers of children with additional needs....? well!  Over the last 3 years I have heard so many families talking about the daily struggle they have with the education system - more often than not, if their child is in mainstream. 

Mainstream schools ARE the right place for many children with additional needs to be educated, however - very often their needs are not met and parents/carers find themselves having to fight, sometimes for years, and very often failing, to get their children the education they deserve.

As ESP has recently been awarded charitable status, we have a bit more clout and credibility and I would like to initiate a campaign to ensure that ALL children receive the help they need (in whatever shape or form) to achieve their potential within the education system.

Now, my problem is, I have no experience of anything as huge as this and I need help to get us started. If anyone out there has any suggestions I'm very grateful. 

Birthday pressies

well, I'm spoiled!!

Graham's offshore at the moment, so he sent me a beautiful basket of flowers, complete with Happy Birthday balloon and Thorntons chocolates - thankyou babes, I love you too! Plus he has told me I can take off for a weekend to go crafty shopping and has included some cash to spend.

My mum and dad gave me a crystal perfume bottle and some money (woohoo, more crafty money). My mum even made me a card - will try to take a pic later.

My chum Rachel and her gorgeous kids; Ana, Emily and Aidan in Ibiza sent over a gorgeous deep jade green chenille scarf - I'll need to buy a posh coat now to go with it lol

My BFF Pamela gave me some ace slippers, a book " Grumpy Old Couples" - think she may be trying to tell me something, some thorntons choccies (which are almost finished already - blame the kids, not me), and a Forever Friends mug. Pamela had forgotten how much I hate FF, but I actually find it quite amusing and ironic - and I love my mug.

Willow asked me to take some pics (shocking photography!) of her and Ziggy tonight - think she need to be a little less enthusiastic with her cuddles though - I have no idea why Ziggy puts up with the kids, and why he doesn't scratch them to ribbons...

Birthday Blog Candy

This is the first time I have ever offered some blog candy, and I'm doing it to celebrate my 36th birthday today. I will let it run for a week, ending midnight (GMT) on Monday the 2nd February. The winner will be announced on Tuesday the 3rd February and will be chosen by random.org

All you have to do is:

1. Post a link to this post on your own blog (you must have a blog to enter)
2. Leave a comment on this post with the address of your own blog
3. In the above comment I want you to tell me what crafty "must have" you think I should buy with my birthday money - just for fun

If you don't comply with all 3 then you will not be entered in the draw - sorry.

Easy peasy eh?

ok, so here's what's up for grabs:

a selection of 12x12" papers, 2 heavy weight embossed 12x12" papers (1 has a lacey floral pattern and the other has heiroglyphs (is that how you spell it??)

A pack of double sided die cut tags; 2 sheets of scrapbooking stickers with a love theme; a pack of papermania embossed stickers; a pack of rob and bob studio foam backed epoxy stickers - favourite things.

3 packs of papermania cardstock stickers: flowers & butterflies, flowers, ornate.

6 packs of papermania die cut shapes: 2x tags, 2x dresses & bags, birthday/celebrate and hearts

a Dovecraft Designer Template - Fairy Doors (works really well with Once Upon a Time range)

1 papermania mini album, cardmakers accents - metal pinwheels, cardmakers accents - circle clips, papermania 3d stickers - ornate flowers, papermania ribbon stickers - wedding, dovecraft designer clear stamps - spring.

And last but not least - an X-Cut Retractable Pokey Tool and a pack of 50 Papermania ATC cards and envelopes.

Thanks for looking x

It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to....lol

36 today - arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! its a wee bit more painful than 35, now I'm on the road to 40 :(

well, to "celebrate" I'm going to be putting up a blog candy later - so keep your eyes peeled.  Just need to take photo's.

Back soon, am just away off on the school run.

Tagged - me likes this one!

I really like this idea - but I'm torn between using the pics on my external hard-drive or the pics in My Pictures that I haven't sorted out and transferred over the the external hard-drive for safe keeping yet. So.......

I was tagged by my scrapbook hero Beckie Dreyer, who I still haven't met in the flesh yet - but I will make it to one of her demo's and I'm so looking forward to it.

Now, this is what I have to do:  I have to go to the 6th folder in my picture stash and post the 6th picture in that folder, and explain what it is, this is the one that it turned out to be:

This was taken on the 8th April last year in our garden - it was a beautiful sunny (and even warm) day and I had filled the kids water table with soapy water. Willow thought it would be a good idea to use her wee plastic singing kettle to suck up some of the water and spit it out. Kids eh? they have 2 rooms and a garden full of toys and they get more enjoyment from puddling in soapy water lol

So the next part of this is that I have to tag 5 more people and leave them a wee comment on their blogs to let them know.

So my 5 tag-ee's are:

1. Mar
2. Kath
3. Lainy
4. Tina
5. Judy

Have fun with this ladies, I did :)

Kath's Mega Blog Candy Fest

Check out Kath's blog candy - she's got loads of stuff to give away including 

Lots of......12 x 12 Patterned Paper

12 x 12 Matching Card Stock

Cosmo Cricket Mini Book with rings
8 x 8 Double Sided Papers
Chipboard Alphabet
Ribbons
2 x Alphabet Stickers
Chipboard Shapes
Word Album Templates
Love.....Noel
2 x Pks Funky Hand Backing Papers
Girl...Boy
3 x Paper Pads 6 x 6
Plum Pudding..Winter Wonderland...Tutti Frutti
1 x Pk Shaped Cards & Envelopes
Alphabets & loads of embellishments
2 x Rolls Double Sided Tape
2 x Pks 3D Foam
1 x Poky Tool
and
loads of stamped images which I haven't done yet
to include Penny Black and Sugar Nellies to name a few
and that is not all.........
to put everything in...... your very own
CRAFT TOTE

Happy 250th Birthday Mr Burns

Today, if you don't already know, was the 250th anniversary of the birth of Rabbie Burns, Scotlands most famous poet.

It's traditional to celebrate by eating a Burns Supper: haggis, neeps and tatties (swede and potato) - but I don't, can't stand the stuff lol

Address To A Haggis

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, 
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race! 
Aboon them a' yet tak your place, 
Painch, tripe, or thairm: 
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace 
As lang's my arm. 

The groaning trencher there ye fill, 
Your hurdies like a distant hill, 
Your pin was help to mend a mill 
In time o'need, 
While thro' your pores the dews distil 
Like amber bead. 

His knife see rustic Labour dight, 
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight, 
Trenching your gushing entrails bright, 
Like ony ditch; 
And then, O what a glorious sight, 
Warm-reekin', rich! 

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an' strive: 
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive, 
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve 
Are bent like drums; 
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive, 
Bethankit! hums. 

Is there that owre his French ragout 
Or olio that wad staw a sow, 
Or fricassee wad make her spew 
Wi' perfect sconner, 
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view 
On sic a dinner? 

Poor devil! see him owre his trash, 
As feckles as wither'd rash, 
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash; 
His nieve a nit; 
Thro' blody flood or field to dash, 
O how unfit! 

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed, 
The trembling earth resounds his tread. 
Clap in his walie nieve a blade, 
He'll mak it whissle; 
An' legs an' arms, an' hands will sned, 
Like taps o' trissle. 

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care, 
And dish them out their bill o' fare, 
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware 
That jaups in luggies; 
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer 
Gie her a haggis!

Tidy tidy tidy

I've just spent the last 2 hours gutting the room that Willow and Scott share - you couldn't even see the floor before I started. But its done now, and woe betide him if he lets it get in that state again. Scott's away at his dad's for the day. He goes to his dad for 1 day ever month - am saying no more about it cos I just end up sounding all bitter and twisted lol.

I'm taking a break for 5 minutes before I make a start on Faith's room, although I gutted it once yesterday already. I just don't know how 2 girls, who look like butter wouldn't melt, can cause such devastation. Well, that makes me one up on Iraq - I have 2 weapons of mass destruction :)

So while I'm doing that I also need to do about 4 loads of washing again, I have no idea where it all comes from - but the washing pile grew quite a bit after I found various items of clothing of Scott's shoved into spaces and under beds etc because he's too damned lazy to walk along the hall and put them in the laundry bin.

My birthday is on Tuesday, so to celebrate I think I'll do my first blog candy, if and when I get the time to organise something - watch this space.

Graham has told me that he'll give me some money and I can go away for a weekend to visit my good friend Mar, and go crafty shopping. I'm hoping he's actually serious, I am badly in need of some time away from the kids. I know that sounds pretty awful, but hey-ho. And I know this sounds pretty awful too, but I hope the kids are not angelic while he has them. I think I'd end up in the loony bin if he had a great weekend while I was away and they all behaved themselves.

Anyway, thats my 5 minutes up, so better get back to it. Hope the rest of you are having a day of rest ;)

Sugar Bowl - Challenge 2

Challenge 2 over on the Sugar Bowl has the theme - THREE, the brief is...

Please use three different design papers and three different types of embellishments on your cards! No more, no less. (by types of embellishments we mean, buttons, brads, flowers, ribbons, beads, bling etc)Of course, you can use any amount of 'plain' card stock!

My 3 patterned papers are from Papermania's new Scrumptious range - I used the creamy coloured paper with pink butterflies at the back (matted onto brown card), the hundreds and thousands pattern matted onto chocolate core'dinations on the left and right hand sides and the pink paper with lemon polka dots, matted onto chocolate core'dinations in the centre.

The 3 types of embellishment I used were flowers, a button and a chocolate satin ribbon (which I cut off the inside of a jumper - waste not want not)

I coloured "Daisy" with Letraset Promarkers, and used a Pearl Pen in Salmon to dot the flower centres. The image and the scallop circle were cut using my nesties in my cuttlebug. The cream and pink butterfly paper was inked using brwon ink and matted onto brown card. The scallop circle was cut from core'dinations and distressed using the Basic Grey file set. And lastly, I coloured a peel off with the promarkers to make it a chocolate brown colour.

Once again, I really enjoyed this Sugar Bowl challenge, think my colouring is improving a little - shame about my photography skills

I'm so tired

haven't had any offers for these kids yet........ 

I'm onto the last Twilight book, and I'm torn - I want to blast through it so I know what happens, but I want to take my time because I don't want it to come to an end.

I've been given an award :)

My wonderful pal Mar has awarded me this award - thankyou so much Mar, I love you loads. It most certainly did put a smile on my face after the crappy couple of days I've had.

So I'm passing it on to everyone who visits my blog - please take it with my bloggy hugs.

Right, I'm away through to my room - haven't decided whether I'm going to do some crafting or if I'm going to start reading the 4th Twilight book. hmmmmmmmmmm decisions decisions!!

Head like a sieve!!

Sorry, I forgot to tell you that I met Kath yesterday, I popped over to collect the Blog Candy I won a few weeks ago as I was over that side of town anyway dropping Graham at the heliport. Kath is lovely and as well as my blog candy, she had made a gorgeous wee card and I also got a bloggy bosie :) Kath's wee crafty cubbyhole is fantastic - I want one, but I very much doubt mine would ever be as neat tidy and organised as Kath's.

So this is the Fiskars trimmer, scissors and crafting mat I won, and the lovely card she made for me.

And it was a lovely clear frosty morning this morning and I managed to have a few tries at catching the sunrise over the sea - not great, but you get the idea...

3 children, 1 careful owner, free to a good home...

in fact, I'll throw in a couple of cats and a fiver ;)

Its been a bloody long day today! The kids have very swiftly moved into "yay, dad's away and we can play mum up" mode. Never mind, they're all in bed - well, in their rooms now - I just need to find the volume control and mute them.

Willow and I had a trip up to RACH today, to see her consultant. Thankfully the wee bump on her tummy is not a hernia, but I have to monitor it in case it becomes one as the muscle wall around the scar area is quite thin. He has also written to our GP asking him to refer Willow to the clinical psychologist to see if we can find out why the potty training isn't working.

I think I'm going to throw in the towel now and go to bed and finish my book. I'm so in love with the Twilight books, am now on the 3rd one and I can't devour them quick enough.

Nitey nitey

Blog Candy

The fabulous Elisabeth Bell is giving away the most amazing blog candy - you really need to check it out. 

As you probably had already noticed, I am a huge fan. Her stamp designs and illustrations remind me so much of my 2 wee girls.

And if you haven't noticed, over on the left hand side of this blog is a wee button for you to pre-order her brand new spring set of stamps from Whiff of Joy. Its a massive bargain, you save 30€!!

My, isn't she growing up??

As you know, Willow had a couple of birthday parties to fit into her hectic schedule this last weekend, and I asked Graham to grab the camera and take some shots of her as she looked soooooo grown up. She's like a mini teenager - with an attitude to match let me say!

So here is my little girl, posing....

Not sure the wellies work though :)

I also took some shots of the lido at Peterhead when I was up on Saturday, it was just after 4pm, so getting pretty dark - so they're not the best. So these are for Mar...

the above 2 shots were of the same breakwater - the first one with just normal settings, and the 2nd one at 18x optical zoom :)

Manda's Meanderings

Manda visited today - she was up to Aberdeen and stopped in past for a cuppy with her sister and niece. 

 Here's Manda today with baby Emma and her niece Ellie.

It was lovely to see Manda again. We became friends through Extra Special Parents and she is now on the management committee of ESP. Pamela came round with baby Emma as she hadn't met Manda before.

Sarah Sparkle Cards Blog Candy

Sarah Sparkle Cards is giving away some candy she says "It was my intention to do it for 10,000 hits but its a bit passed that now!"

Loads of stuff: A Dovecraft Embellishment kit that includes buttons, ribbons, brads and flowers.
Papermania 6x6 inspirations paper pad warm tones
Papermania 6x6 inspirations paper pad cool tones
5 reels of ribbon
A selection of pink die cut handmade paper tags
A selection of Tilda stamped images
Sizzix Thin Cuts Hearts#3 Die
Sizzix Sizzlits Tag with Heart

You have until the 8th February to enter

Ewonne's Blog Candy

Ewonne is giving away some gorgeous blog candy - so go check it out here. She's included Prima Felt strips with Bird, Prima Felt strip with border, 20 different Prima journaling notes, Bottle of Prima flowers, (can you tell I like Prima stuff ;o) Tulle, Trims of lace, Journaling stamp from Magnolia, Perfect Pearl Copper from Ranger, Half pearls and more….

Closes 25th January

More sugar

I forgot to tell you lately that my sugar addiction is getting worse. I ordered some more Elisabeth Bell stamps from Sugar Nellie - Penpal, Flowers and Snowflake. I also ordered something else, which I can't talk about as its a gift for someone - but I got a bit carried away - think it was the adrenaline rush lol and ordered the wrong thing. But the service at funkykits is fabulous and I dropped them an email to ask if I could change the thing for what I really wanted and they did it no problem.

I was also terribly bad and ordered a couple of the Letraset Promarkers sets - garden design and fly-tying. So I now have a pretty decent range of colours. 

Willow's off to another birthday party today - at the Foam Factory this time. And my good friend Manda is visiting from Livingston, so I had better get a move on and jump in the shower

Busy Busy

well I've had a really busy day today, the kids were all up at stupoid o'clock this morning, bawling, shouting and generally rampaging round the house. Willow had to go to a birthday party at Rambo's for 10.50am and as expected I was running a wee tad late - honestly, who has a kids party in the morning, Deby (Joss's mummy) you should be shot! 

Anyway, I got out of the town, heading along the new road which has a 40mph limit. I got about half way along and noticed the speed coppers in my rear view mirror, glanced at my speedo and realised I was doing a wee bit faster than 40mph - oh poop!!!

Long story short, I got away with a warning after being suitably apologetic.

So I arrived at the party and apologised to Deby and told her why we were late. So Deby waited til I was talking to the other mums, and she kept sneaking up behind them and saying "dinna speak to her...... she's a criminal!" lol

The kiddies all seemed to have a great time, so after I ran Willow home, had a quick cup of tea then off out again for a wee run up to the Blue Toon (Peterhead) as Recollections is closing down and I wanted to see if I could grab some bargains. I also met up with the lovely Dawn - its really nice to meet up with people you've "met" through blogging, albeit in this case very briefly. Dawn, it was really nice to meet you in the flesh, maybe next time I manage to get up to the Blue Toon we can grab a coffee.

So I managed to grab a few bits and bobs, as well as some of the few things that weren't in the sale - typical! But I did manage to lay my hands on the x-cut pokey tool. Some of you may know that I ordered this from Arty Miss back in September, and I'm still waiting for it. Needless to say I won't be shopping there again! I can now tell them to forget it - seeing as they have ignored half the emails I have sent them anyway, and they can just refund me.

Triffic News

I got an email yesterday with some fantastic news that I wanted to share with you. Extra Special Parents is now a registered charity.

Extra Special Parents is the support and signposting organisation that Graham and I set up 3 years ago for parents and carers of children with additional needs. It has an online forum for parents and carers to chat, share information and to get info on various benefits and other sources of help. We set it up because Willow was born with Imperforate Anus in 2004 and we wanted to talk to other parents who knew what we were talking about. Although we had friends and family they didn't really understand the condition or what it entailed. We thought that if we felt so isolated then there were bound to be other parents and carers out there who felt the same.

We didn't want to exclude parents who may feel the same by restricting the website to one condition, so it now caters for all additional needs from allergies and food intolerences right through to terminal illnesses and everything in between. We have information on a huge range of conditions, as well as holding details of specialist charities and organisations that support individual conditions. There is also information on applying for benefits and other sources of financial and practical help. 

Now that we have had our application for charitable status accepted we can register with HMRC to enable us to claim the tax back on donations from tax-payers and it also opens more doors for us for fundraising.

Our charity number is SC040185

My turn to moan...

* warning* - if you are at all squeamish or of a nervous disposition I suggest you stop reading now!

well progress on Willow's potty training hasn't been great - what I have discovered though is - if I leave her running around with a bare bum, she'll quite merrily go sit on the potty or ask for the toilet EVERY time she needs to pee or poo (usually about every 10 minutes. But if I put her in pants either with or without a tena pad then she'll be dirty and wet within 15 minutes, even though I ask her every few minutes if she needs to go. She'll even deny it when she has poo and pee running down the inside of her legs. She's the same with a nappy. So I'm not sure what's going on there - she seems to be aware of when she needs to go, but just doesn't bother if she has to remove clothes to do it. 

So I have emailed Willow's consultant's secretary to ask about the professional help he was on about, and have also mentioned it to my Health Visitor (I just think my new HV is ace) I also asked the HV if I could change my nappy order and stop the nappies altogether - we're not going to get anywhere with the potty training if I keep putting a nappy on her. So she's going to order me a few different pads to see how we get on.

For those of you who don't know, Willow was born with a condition called Imperforate Anus - to cut a long story short she was given a colostomy at a day old and it was reversed at 10 months old, she has also had a few other major ops in between.

We eventualy managed to get help to perform bowel washouts on her via social work. The help with the bowel washouts didn't start last week - but they were put in place to start this week. So we have had a lady out from Crossroads on Monday and Wednesday evening and she's very good with Willow. She restrains Willow while Graham or I perform the procedure, then she chats away to her while she sits on the toilet or potty afterwards. So we have one lady who does a Monday and Wednesday night, and a different lady who comes on a Friday evening - we haven't met her yet, but her boss tells me she's a bit of a softie and thinks she might get upset!!

I had to phone the surgical ward this morning though, as when I changed her nappy first thing this morning there was a bit of blood in it - just a small amount, and it was fresh blood. 

Anyway, after explaining it to a receptionist, a staff nurse, and finally to a junior doctor (as well as having to go through her history, the reason she was getting washouts, why we had stopped them, when we had stopped them, why we had started again, what we'd been doing in the meantime - dunno why they didn't ask if I picked my nose while they were at it) anyway, I got the standard - "just monitor it, if it happens again or gets worse then contact your GP" so I told them, that if it got worse I would be presenting her at A&E, not phoning a GP. I asked the junior doc if she could make Willow's consultant aware of what had happened - she told me, if she could get time with him she would as "he's a very busy man" - so I told her that I wanted her to make a point of telling him, so that he's aware of it long before I see him again in May, and just in case this does develop into a bigger issue.

Oh dear...

just got an email from funkykits to say that Pen Pal and Flowers were back in stock, so I just had to place an order before they ran out again. Argh!!! am dreading the credit card bill.

Debz is officially completely sugar coated

OMG am soooo excited. With Whiff of Joy and Sugar Nellie both releasing new Elisabeth Bell stamps in the near future I had forgotten all about the order I had placed at Funky Kits for some EB stamps, and they arrived this morning - I can't wait to pack Willow off to nursery and plonk Fayfee in front of the telly (I know, bad mummy, but what can you do? lol) so I can get stamping - am all sorted, have plenty acrylic blocks, 2 sheets of U-mount and a sheet of some other clingy mounty type stuff, oh and plenty of decent card to stamp on.

Just in case you can't make out the pic - I got Daisy, Claudia the Artist, Hug in a Mug, Rope Swing, Sweet and Sassy and Picking Apples.

So I'm all set now for whatever they throw at us for the next challenge on the Sugar Bowl. woohooo

Kath's Big Blog Candy Fest Give-Away No 5

Kath is onto week 5 of her super duper Blog Candy Fest Giveaway, so go have a lookie at all her wonderful creations and have a try.

Cards for Willow's friends

Willow has a wee spate of birthday parties to go to - I tell you, these kids have a far better social life than I do. So I thought I'd make birthday cards for her wee friends, just to be a bit different. 

For the girlie one I used one of the Lilly images from Grab-a-doodle-do which was coloured using my trusty promarkers - I also had a bash at using the new papermania glitter flock powders on the bodice and I'm pleased with how well that worked. The papers are Basic Grey Eva, the scallop circle is cut from core'dinations card. Dovecraft ribbon and an Anita's peel off greeting. Image and scallop circle cut with nesties dies.

The boys ones were Alfie images from Grab-a-doodle-do again, the green paper peeking out at the back is basic grey eva again, the striped paper is from the new papermania spring burst collection, as is the green spotty paper on the left hand card. Both images were coloured with promarkers, the right hand image also has glossy accents on Alfie's hair, although the awful lighting hasn't let me capture it effectively. The r.h. card also has purple core'dinations card, buttons from basic grey and an Anita's peel off greeting. The l.h. card was finished with 3 lime papermania brads and an Anita's peel off greeting. The images and mats were all cut using the labels one nesties.

Today was the first day of Whiff of Joy's pre-order for the new Elisabeth Bell stamp collection, so of course I had to order them - 10 stamps for 27 euros!!! And they're offering some candy - a free set for the winner.

*Edit* thought I'd add some close ups of the glitter flock and the glossy accents areas of the above cards, albeit not very good pictures

the kiddliwinkies

the blog is looking a bit dry at the moment - haven't p0osted any pics for a couple of days so I thought I'd share some pics of the pests. These were taking with my shiny new toy that I got for xmas - my Fuji S8100fd , that I have absolutely no clue how to work yet - but given time, I'll master it....... hopefully lol It has a terrific 18x optical zoom.

I love this really natural pic of Willow, the yellowy tint was because i didn't use the flash, the only light was the overhead light in the living room. But look how pink her little lips are - I promise I haven't touched this pic at all, apart from cropping it. Which reminds me, must put that on my to do list - learn how to use photoshop!

Here's a couple of Scott and Willow's mutual Appreciation Society lol - both were taken under the same light in the living room again, but with different results. 

And finally a couple of wee Faith, caught bonny sipping mummy's Diet Coke lol Can you see yet another black eye? According to Willow... "Fayfee's face hit my knee!"