and another hectic week in my life lol!

Had my niece staying last week, as my brother treated his wife to a jaunt in Rome to celebrate her upcoming 40th birthday.

They had a fab time with beautiful weather, while the kids enjoyed going out with their grandad in the day, bowling and outdoor swimming galore! It really helped me too, as it meant I could get on with stuff in the house and bits of work that needed doing.

The studio is much tidier, it had gotten really bad in there, lots of bits that had no home and needed sorting, and were just piling up in my 'to sort' pile on the floor. I chucked a bin liner of stuff out, and did silly tedious things like popping chipboard shapes out of the sheet and throwing the negatives away as it was taking up far more space then necessary.

Paula has asked me to take some pics for her fabby new project Crafty Storage I promise I haven't forgotten you hun, and will get on with it as soon as I can.

Spotted my stamps being used for the first time here on Anna's layout. Thank you hun :D

Lots of scrapping in progress: ATF goes live with its next challenge tomorrow, with another brillo guest designer :)

Got a commission from scrapbook inspirations too, so need to get that finished.

Got mightily pissed off with a blog slagging off uk scrappers (as in people not the forum- although a fair bit of bitching about that too). Basically if you won best of british (which I did) or have anything published (which I do) and if you get paid for it (God forbid), or were a member of a private forum (which I am), or on a design team for anything (yup, me again shoot me now) than the mud was slinging in your direction. I had my say, and it was not deleted (and rightly so) as I work damn hard at what I do. And most of all I enjoy what I do. I do not make layouts just to get them in magazines, that is a totally seperate part of what I do. All the layouts I make that end up in a magazine are commissioned...they say 'will you do xyz for issue # whatever and we will pay you £whatever' why the hell would I say no? Paid to do what I love? Bloody right I am gonna say yes!

When I see the faces of the people who are in the published layouts when they see the mag, well, that is an added incentive to do it and a total bonus imo.

Anyway, enough moaning, gotta add some pics from my week right?

My niece decided to take a bath rather than a shower...I had bought some nice original source sorbet shower gel...well two thirds of the pouch later she decided to turn on the jaccuzi! The result...a buried yeti in somewhat human form...(popped a shape over her face as I don't want her bath pics to have her face in on a public blog- she doesn't belong to me! I know it looks odd but you get the idea)

A cutsey lil bug I found in my raspberry plant...

And a gorgeous sunset just begging to be snapped so I can remember the glorius weather we've had this week when it is all dark and miserable in the winter!

woooooooooooooooooooo

this week has been so frantic- actually the last few weeks have been but I couldn't tell you the most exciting part.

The postman arrived with this ...

My designs are now available from stamps away stockists *yay*

There will no doubt be more to come, it has taken me a long time to be brave enough to get some doodly designs across to the manufacturers!

I am tres excited, and a little scared and embarrassed too. I had lots of really wonderful support over these, and am glad I bit the bullet and did it! (my grammar is so poor today!)

Got to go out in a sec but will leave you will this weeks ATF layout

ttfn -x-

today was a sad day in my little world. I ventured into town with one goal. To buy my first anti wrinkle product :( (shouldn't pull that face cos it'll make em worse lol)

Yes as I was putting eye make up on earlier I noticed the first little lines...so on my mission I went, and came back armed with eye cream and night cream. I'll beat the blighters! LOL! To make it worse Mart was looking at my passport the other day (I'd had it out for ID at an appt I had) and I can't believe how much younger I looked just 6 years ago! Still the sun is shining :D



Water is all on and sorted now, so that is a big relief, although we have enough bottled water to keep us going for months I reckon!



Fab news- ghost whisperer starts again on tuesday (9pm on living tv) cannot wait, seriously love this show!



MUST get hold of some new basic grey, I am smitten with periphery so will have to go shopping soon- although now I have to budget for the ageing process my stash fund will be cut *snort*



Nowt exciting been happenin, so a cutsey photo of simba swinging in for a smooch then spotting the camera and posing! Dontcha love the delicately positioned foot on my face?!

Phew- busy old week here!

Well the water is kind of back on- nearly two weeks of no water was getting rather tedious! I have never been so excited about flushing a toilet! We still can't use it for drinking, food prep, washing up, brushing teeth etc (although as of this w/e we can if it is boiled and cooled) so still relying on boiled water from the bowsers, or bottled water.

Daily trips to go out and collect bottled water, lugging containers of water back from the bowsers, recycling water as many times as possible, trudging to the bottom of the garden to collect water from the butts to flush the loo (and typically this new toilet is sealed so we couldn't fill the cistern).

Things are so much easier already. It's amazing how quickly you get used to it. I am of course slightly concerned of going to someones house and forgetting to flush the loo, or looking for a bucket to sling water in the pan! LOL!

Then of course, 20+ kids for Jasmine's birthday party last saturday! We got plenty of bottles of water for drinks, managed to get everything done. Quite a few didn't turn up which was a shame, but unbelievably the sun shone through. We have a standing record for Jasmines birthdays, she has had beautiful weather every single birthday of her life, and a party in the garden each year. With all the rain so far we really thought it would lash down, we had a metal framed gazebo in case of showers- but nope, beautiful weather and a great time was had by all...

we decorated the gazebo, and with it's pointed roof it looked almost like a fairy castle.

We had a few teary (nice) moments- Jasmine opened her pressies from her uncle- and they were all psp2 accessories and games...well bless her, they won't work with her original playstation, but 'don't worry Uncle Jon- it's ok and it doesn't matter' accompanied by a big hug. Bless her heart. Cue blubbing from me and Mummy. Then she opened the last pressie from Jon, which contained a pink slimline psp2- I think it took a while for it to sink in what it really was, and she was over the moon.

I asked Jasmine if she thought Jon would buy me a pink psp2 for my birthday, and she said 'oh I'll buy you one, I've saved my money to buy the big snow white doll, and Mummy bought me that for my birthday so I can spend my money on you'...I told her it was loads of money and she told me it was ok, she would save all her money- cue more blubbing from me!

Love that girl SO much!