Resolutions

I don't normally do New Years resolutions I figure why set myself up to fail BUT this year I decided to log goals I plan to aim for as much as a reminder to myself as anything.

So this year I plan to .....

1) Keep doing weekly menus and try and do some more long term planning with batch cooking and so forth.

2) Get our finances on a more even keel and sort out proper budgets as we have been doing to much random spending and while our income is good we have slipped into bad habits.

3) Get the allotment up and running properly.. long term aim to visits regularly enough I can consider getting chickens which I will not do unless one of us is going up most days anyway.

4) Get my fitness levels up another notch.

5) Get the bikes sorted and a space to keep them that is easily accessible so we start riding again (plus a child seat and/or trailer) which indirectly should help with aims 3 and 4.

6) Learn to drive the bigger manual car.. I have a manual licence but have only driven automatics since and need to relearn how to use a clutch !

7) Declutter some more - I do think we are very slowly starting to do this but with a house full of squirrels it is hard work.. in line with 2 I want to rapidly cut down the amount we spend on storage by getting rid of things we are just not going to use particularly spare furniture and so forth.

8) Move the industrial sewing machine to the workshop so Mark can use it and I have somewhere to go and work that doesn't have outstanding housework and a hundred and one other distractions !

I think thse are the main ones. I'll add to this if I think of anything else later.

Crochet doll is a hit.

I recently made this doll form a pattern in Let's Knit, though it is crocheted not knitted. He is called Dude in the magazine and I thought he would make a good present for my 15 month old nephew. One each obviously. I finished him just before Aunty Jane's party and showed him to their mum who thought he was wonderful so planned to make a second one and give them to them in January as they are in South Africa for christmas as her mum lives there.

However Treestump saw him and made a grab for him and ever since has tried to get him when he has seen him so I have given in and let him have it. After all he seems more interested in him than most toys so go with the flow. Does mean I need to make two for late January... and probaly one for Christmas as big brother wants one, wel maybe two more as he thinks the other young cousins needs one.. and then there is our friend's baby boy.. I could be making quite a few !!

Luckly he is easy to make even over a sleeping babay as all the parts are made separately and joined together so expect to see various versions of this over the next few weeks,

2 versions in one

I have two versions of the same layout for you today. Tell me which you like the most and why if you don't mind it will help me work out what works and what doesn't.

The first one is using a lovely kit by Ladybug at Digital Scrap Garden it is the second free kit this month for the Miracle gro challenge. If you like the kit she is bringing out a much bigger version soon.

The only change I made.. I always seem to make at least one, is that I re-coloured the flower to give me several shades but I tried to stay in the same colours as the kit. I like this and think the flowers give it a lovely soft feel.

The second layout uses Ladybugs paper but the elements are from Digital Scrapbook Artisan Guild who I only found this weekend. They have a digital magazine every month which just looked too good not to try and it came with several free items to use including the elements I used here. If you join as a guild member there is a monthly kit on top of that which goes with the magazine.. so far i am quite impressed as the kits are delicate and complicated and I want to do some layouts that are less bold and simplistic. I did adjust one of the frames on the bottom line to make it slanted and added the third above to give a similar layout to my first one. I also like this one and I chose the elements as they have some complicated clustering done for me but they are also harder edged,

Tell me what you think ?

Two layouts using Full Abalone

As I mentioned I've had the Full Abalone by Magick Scraps to play with for a few days and here are a couple of layouts using it.

I hope my Freeport friends don't take it too badly that I've called them pirates as I'm sure they are all upright citizens really.. For those not in on these things they are live roleplay characters who spend much time talking like pirates, drinking and being silly.. and of course wearing sunday best on important occasions !

The other layout is photos from our trip to Ireland a couple of years ago.

All in all it has been a fun kit to play with and there are many more elements and papers I haven't used. In particular there are some great metal jewellery pieces which I love and I'm sure I'll find the right photos to put them with soon.

Tell All Tuesday

so this weeks question is

When do you put your Christmas decorations up and how long do they stay up?

My answer is it depends on when we are visiting grandparents and so on, we have three sets plus various brothers and sisters to fit in so weekends before Christmas can be a bit full. The said we try to leave it to quite close to Christmas otherwise I feel it starts to get a bit old before the actual holiday.

This year the plan is at the beginning of the week Christmas is actually in as we are away for the weekends before that and Noodles will have finished school. The Tree is bought and keeping fresh outside.

They will stay up till after new year, normally as close to 12th night as possible, while making sure they come down for it ends..

Pop over to Jellybelly Jellybrain to see what everyone else says.

I've joined a Creatve team !

Mojo from Magick Scraps asked me to join her creative team which bowled me over than someone thought my layouts were good enough to showcase their kits. After a little though I said yes. I am aware that I don't have unending time but I think what she asks of her CT is very reasonable and do-able, so expect to see layouts using her kits very soon.

The first one I will be working with is her newest one Full Abalone which has some very fun elements and a lovely colour scheme. If you like the look of it then pop over to Digital Scrap Garden and buy it as it is currently 50% off.

One of the reasons I said yes to Mojo is that the DSG forum is such a friendly place and I have enjoyed doing their challenges so much that if I was going to join a CT one of their designers seemed a good idea rather than on a site I would be making an effort to be active on.

A great family get together

Last weekend was my aunts 60th birthday party. She arranged to get as many of her family and her hubbies family together in one place as possible, normally we don't met up like this. We had a great couple of days and a fantastic group meal to finish up at which there were about 80 people. At the meal she mentioned she had 11 grand nephews at the party (no girls) and 6 of those are mine and my siblings so mum wanted to try and get a photograph of them all together. Considering that includes an 8 month old, 15 month old twins and a 2 year old it was 'interesting' .

The following layout is a one of the better ones with some cut out shots from others so here is a good shot of everyone. It is scraplifted (based on) this layout.

The kit is True Blue, the papers from an add-on by Sara and the alpha from Vicki who has done the main kit.. it's a great one for boy related layouts so you may well see it again here and best of all free..

The second layout is of my mum and aunt and uses as the kit from Dee's secret garden challenge at Digital scrap garden, great colours which I thought really suited these two ladies who have always been some of the most vibrant and wonderful people I know.

Christmas Look

I've got a new blog look for christmas.

Another great layout from Allie Brown using a kit by Vicki who's blog I follow anyway.

Hope you all like it and I'm tempted to try and do one myself or possibly a header at least so watch this space.

Oh and the fish pool got paler for the winter. You can get one too from here along with various other silly but fun things.