All Tidied Up

My craft room is now tidied up again after the weekend, there really is a carpet on the floor! I am still really tired today and so glad I don't work on a Monday.

Here are another two layouts from the weekend, and my first two for my Rome album. The first was a class by Mystik Nat and was to use decorative scissors.

The second was a class by Shimelle and was to use a picture that was BIG. This picture is of a statue of Marforio at the Capitaline Museum.

What a Weekend!!

Gosh what a wonderful weekend I've had! The cyber crop on UK Scrappers was fab. I managed to do a total of 11 layouts and a bookmark - I'm exhausted!! Even though my team (Hearts) didn't win we had a fabulous time. Clubs won, in case you're interested. There were so many great classes that its hard to choose a favourite, so I'm not even going to try. Over the next few days (hopefully) I will share with you what I made. This was a class by Deb, one of my team mates on UKS and I thought it was great. Photos are of Andrew and the stickers are 7 Gypsies.

It's Official - I'm the mother of a teenager!!

Yes, its true, I'm now the mother of an official teenager, as opposed to a pre-teen. Today was John's 13th birthday. Gosh where have the years gone! It seems no time really since he was a babe in arms, then a toddler, then going to school for the first time, now he's a teenager and boy do we all know it sometimes!!! Looking back I now wonder what I got stressed and worred about when he was having toddler tantrums - but I suppose you always worry and stress about your children. We had a lovely tea tonight and he still blew his candles out!

The cyber crop has started on UK Scrappers and this is my layout for the first class. It is another photo of John's visit to Legoland last summer. The paper is Basic Grey Black Tie.

This is a photo of my cyber friend who sits on my craft table during cyber crops.

Mad Hatters Tea Party

Only 4 days to go now till the fun and games start on UK Scrappers with the Cyber Crop. One of the pre-crop challenges was to take a photo of a tea party. I managed to persuade the children and Gordon to take part in this and they all decided they wanted to wear hats!

I spent the weekend finishing my assignment for OU so now I can do some scrapping. There are a couple of other pre-crop challenges I would like to try and get done before the weekend.

No Fear

This is the LO I prepared for my workshop on Wednesday. It is of John the first time he tried abseiling, Im not too sure that the words No Fear are entirely accurate, as I think he was terrified!! The workshop was an Introduction to Scrapbooking, so I didnt want to do too complicated a layout, everyone really enjoyed themselves and hopefully I have converted a few more people to this wonderful addictive hobby. The papers are Junkitz.

I have finally finished my assignment for OU which is due to be posted Monday, so now I feel I can join in a bit more with the pre Cybercrop happenings on UK Scrappers. This is a Do Not Disturb sign for my door for next weekend, this was a team challenge.

A Day of Queues!

Our second day in Rome just has to be called The Day of Queues! We went to see the Vatican Museum and St Peters Basilica. We arrived at 9.15, thinking that we would be reasonably early, no chance! We had to wait in a queue for 2 hours, in the hot sun, it was not much fun. This picture only shows one side of the building, the queue went right round another 2 sides!!!

It was well worth the wait though, and we took our time and had a good look at all the rooms and then finally arrived in the Sistine Chapel, which was amazing!

Then we went round to St Peter's and, yes you've guessed it, stood in another queue, thankfully not as long this time. It was also amazing.

By this time my feet and legs had really had enough and we still had to walk back to the hotel. I even had to stand in a queue every time I went to the toilet - why do they never have enough Ladies toilets.

Although I was really shattered it was a fabulous day and you couldnt really go to Rome and not see the Sistine Chapel and St Peters.

The Colosseum

I have been really tired since coming home from holidays and my legs have been aching, but today I finally feel a bit better, so have got round to updating my blog.

The first place we visited in Rome was The Colosseum. We got there nice and early so didnt have to queue for long. It is such a marvellous place to visit, we spend hours going round it. To imagine the atmosphere and what it must have been like to be in the tunnels waiting to be sent up to fight to your death.

After that we went to the Palantine Hill, which is where the elite of Roman society had their houses. I can see why they would have chosen to live there, it was lovely, you got a super view and even in the heat of the day there was a lovely breeze blowing. Some of the colours of the flowers there were super and there was even an orange tree.

La Dolce Vita

What a fantastic holiday we had. Rome was wonderful. The weather was fantastic, it is really lovely to be able to walk about without jumpers and jackets, even at night it was warm enough not to really need a jacket. We walked everywhere!!! I think we managed to pack in most of the major sights. I am really tired today and my feet and legs are aching - but it was worth it!

My absolute favourite has to be the Trevi Fountain, it was spectacular, even more so lit up at night. And yes, I threw a coin in - so maybe one day I'll get back again.

I'll share some more of my photos with you over the next couple of days - I showed them to my family today, not realising how long it actually takes to go through a slide show of 500 photos.

My sister and mum had a great week with the kids, they all enjoyed themselves and got up to all sorts of fun things - so a big thank you to them, and now you've done it once Karen the next time will be even easier!!!

Easter Monday

I suppose the sun can't last forever - its raining here today. I finished this mini book for Jennie's class on the Design Collective. Its a fab idea and Im sure I'll make more of these as presents for people. I have used Blonde Moments Spring Fling paper. Photos are of our Easter day activities yesterday and I'm feeling really pleased that I have actually scrapped them already!

Need to get a move on and pack my case now as I'm off to Rome tomorrow with Gordon until Saturday.

Happy Easter

I hope everyone has had a lovely day. We have enjoyed our day. After church we decorated our eggs then went out into the garden to roll them and have an Easter Egg hunt. We also managed to make some Easter bonnets this morning (well Andrew and Mum made one each). I have been really good and not actually had any chocolate yet, but will probably make up for that tonight.

I hope to try and scrap the photos we took today into the Design Collective Mini book class, I have made the book, its just waiting on the photos.

Mad Hatters

But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
0h, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

The madness is happening on UK Scrappers the weekend of 27/29 April when the next Cyber Crop is being held. A whole weekend of fun, scrapping and madness! There will be lots of classes and challenges and I don't even have to leave the house - I'm really looking forward to it! I have been put into the Hearts house, the other houses are Clubs, Diamonds, Spades. I had better get a move on and finish my OU assignment so that I can spend lots of time scrapping that weekend.

Light

Yesterday was a good day, took the kids to Kirroughtree Forest Park. There is a super play park there, they played for ages then we went for a walk through the trees. It was a really good day. Today was also really sunny, so Gordon took the boys golfing all afternoon while I did some studying for my OU course.

I have fallen well behind with the photo prompts from herspace:myspace, but I have managed to do this one for Light.

Big Ben

Here is my first LO from the Design Collective classes. We got 3 super looking classes this week. This one is by Kirsty Wiseman. I have used Basic Grey Hang 10 paper. It is another LO for John's London album.

I have been busy shopping for clothes for my trip to Rome next week. I finally managed to get a pair of shoes, couple of pairs of trousers, couple of tops and a cardigan. Now I remember why I really should be going on a diet as it was difficult to find clothes that fitted properly and that I liked. I am determined to go on a diet and get more exercise when I come home from holiday. We will probably walk about so much while we are there that hopefully I won't put any more on!

Managed to get the children to help with the housework today, we blitzed the place! Only have a couple of rooms still to do - the drawback of having a large house! Then we can relax over the weekend.

Sunny Sunday

A lovely sunny day here today. I should really be out in the garden and not in here on the computer. I wanted to upload this LO that I managed to complete yesterday at my monthly crop. It's another LO for John's London Album, this time of his visit to Legoland.

I didn't actually get much done yesterday at the crop, too busy talking! The kit was a Maya Road book, which I have painted but that's all. I think I am going to use it for some photos of our trip to Rome next week, so it will get finished sometime!

I really need to go and do some gardening now, I hate gardening and we have a large garden. I am going to cut back some of the bushes etc to see if I can make it look a bit tidier. Might try and rope in the boys to help, although that is often more bother than its worth.