Cherry blossom disaster ......

I usually take some photos of the girls under some cheery blossom trees look here, here and here to see past photos.

Anyway the Cherry blossoms that I go to take the photos at, were very late in blossoming, and they didn't look as beautiful as they usually do! The council have recently done some work in the area around the trees and I am wondering if that is what caused them not to blossom as good! On top of that, the morning was beautiful perfect for photo taking, we went to Church and in space of an hour the day had changed! We decided to go for it anyway but didn't turn out so good as the wind picked up and it started to rain, very disappointed. I have been watching the trees and they have now lost most of their flowers, don't think I will get any better this year :(

Anyways here are the photos that I did manage to get, even if there was no beautiful display of blossoms!

Happy Easter

Will you look at all this!!!!! And Tracey can you spot the "special treat", that had to get pride of place!!!!!



Horrible mum, "No chocolate until after Church" and MY mum saying "go on leave her have a little"!!!! As if, and as if I was allowed on Easter Sunday to have some chocolate before Church!!!!


All dressed up in the pretty dress Mum brought for Aimee, Aimee loved it!!!! Though you wouldn't know in this picture, she was actually finding it hard to smile, due to the sun in her eyes, lol!!!!


much, much better



And lo and behold, I managed to get a few shots of Chloe too!!!!




Yep, chocolate time, and notice she changed her dress so she wouldn't get any chocolate on it, chance would of been a fine thing!!!! Lovely chocolate chops in this one!!!



Poor bunny has lost his head!



And May I wish you all a happy Easter!

Another step to prefection ....

Chloe finally got her train tracks put in today!!!

Look how dainty they are, when I had mine the minute I opened my mouth all you could see was metal, enough to nearly set the metal detectors off at airports, lol!!!!

Still look really pretty to me Chlo!!!!

Mum
xxxx

Happy Birthday!

Chloe turned 14 today!!! Good grief how time flies!!! Happy birthday and I am so very proud of you!!! She asked her dad today if she could get her navel pierced, she has been asking for 2 years, I have mine done and see nothing wrong with Chloe getting it done, but Steve has been dead set against it! So it was a shock for both Chloe and I when he said yes! So I am taking her to town on Saturday to get it done!

Oh btw Ruth made her a fantastic card/book you can see it on her blog here! Chloe also received a beautiful Love-Link bracelet from Ruth and Mark! And all the other scrummy gifts and presents that she recieved, quite the spoilt girl she was!

xxxx Love you lots Chloe xxxx

Chloe's Altered Frame

Well I couldn't make one of Aimee and not Chloe! Again Tracey kindly gave me this frame too! I have used most of the same techniques as I did on Aimee's (which can be seen here). Chloe didn't want pink but more of a vintage type frame!

Sorry about the reflection on the photo, didn't realise until I uploaded the photos a little while ago.

The distress ink that I used was Walnut Stain, for some reason I was hoping for a much deeper wood type colour, but this mishap works great with all the elements that I chose, I think!

On Chloe's I have used a Bazzill flower, instead of the handmade cabbage rose that is on Aimee's. The flower was too red so I toned it down with some distress inks, layered a Prima flower, then layered a copper flower charm (I snipped off the ring), a beautiful pearlised button, some beading and a self adhesive pearl in the middle!

Again I have made my own bling swirl and I have also used a doily, which I very lightly inked with distress ink (in places, lol).

I used a Prima Cherry Blossom Vine on Aimee's but I couldn't find another type to fit in with the idea that I had for Chloe's frame, so I made my own, still used prima flowers though!! Again I used lots of charms!

Look at divine gold brocade trim, mmmmh fell in love with it when I saw it! It is much deeper gold IRL.
The butterfly is K and Co

This pic shows the cracking in more detail!

And isn't this the most divine trimming .... I have actually picked this trim up at the shop about 10 times as it is a little pricey, but I gave way to temptation in the end! lol

Shopping List
Paper - Prima - Iron Orchid Designs - Cavalier Collection - Smoking Jacket - I am sure this is from a previous kit made up by Tracey
Inks - Tim Holtz Distress Inks - Walnut Stain, Shabby Shutters and peeled paint
Crackle Paint - Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint - Walnut Stain
Flowers - Prima Artful Collage Flowers
Rose buds
Bazzill Basics Paper Flower
Leaves - Bazill Basics Paper Leaves
Pearls - Mark Richards - single self adhesive pearls and clusters
Crystals - Mark Richards - Self Adhesive Crystals
Trims - gold brocade trim and velvet, beading, sequined and lace trim
Charms (including copper flower) and chain
Button
K and Co Butterfly
All these were bought at Tracey's Shop Running with Scissors

Extras
Paper Doily - Sainsburys
Flower stem - from charity shop bought flowers, stripped down

TFL
Helena
xxxx

My Cherry Blossoms ...

I took these photos two Sundays ago and only now have the time to edit and upload them! I love these trees and took photos around the same time last year and got some beautiful shots of the girls so I have tried again this year! Poor Chloe wasn't feeling her usual self, so didn't get too many of her! Aimee ... well Aimee is Aimee!!!!

If you don't want to watch the slide show, you can click VIEW ALL IMAGES and it will bring you to a page where you can see them all one by one, that is if you have loads of time to kill and are feeling brave .....

You might think that I make them pose all the time, well I don't. I get them to pose for some of the shots that I WANT and then let them do whatever and I just snap away ... bet you can't tell which ones I wanted them to pose for and which ones they done naturally!!!!!!


Ahem a little confession here .... the dress that Aimee is wearing my Aunt sent to her for Easter (along with loads of other pretty clothes), even though the dress label is the right size for her, it was a little tight, I asked her to wear it for Easter Sunday to go to Church, which she did!!! I WANTED her to wear it again for these photos, I pleaded with her and she did, Bless her, on the condition that she was allowed to take it off again straight away!!! Bad scrapping mum!!!!!

If you have seen my last post, you will have already seen one of my favourite shots of the day on a layout!


TFLxxx

Make a Wish!

This is how the pages are going to look in Chloe's album and now for the close ups, lol

This photo was taken on Chloe's 13Th birthday and I love how it turned out! I also love this paper, I decided just to add the title and the frame around the photo and stickle the design, as I didn't want to cover it up, but wanted to add some ummph!!!

This page looks alot better when it is beside the first page, I have hidden journaling under the photo, about how poor Chloe was too poorly to have her birthday sleepover. I have added black stickles to make the swirls and flourishes stand out a little more.

A close up of the frame work! I cut out the middle, cut a frame and wrapped some ribbon around it, then made a bow and tied a star/flower charm onto it! I then glued this down on to the paper and added some crystals for some more bling! I then folded some of the paper back unto the frame

A close up of the star/flower charm

Some close ups of the glittered flowers! If you click on the images you can get a better idea of the stickle work.

Recipe

Bo Bunny Press - Beau Jardin Collection - 12 x 12 Double Sided Paper - Beau Jardin Blush
Ranger Ink - Stickles Glitter Glue - Black Diamond
Ranger Ink - Stickles Glitter Glue - Crystal
Cyrstals,
Ribbon
Star/flower phone charm
Staz on Jet Black inkpad
Prima journaling block stamps

I've got a teenager .... help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chloe turned 13 today!!! I keep saying it doesn't matter cause she has been having teenage strops since she was nine.

Chloe had to wait till she came home from school to open her presents. I'm mean like that lol!
She got a new mobile phone from us, a Mario Brothers DS game from Aimee, lots of vouchers and money from Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts. And a special birthday phone call from my mum and dad!

It was Chloe's choice for tea, she choose MacDonald's for herself and Aimee, no surprise there!!! Dh and I had an Indian, MMMHH!!!

Chloe then blew out her candles on her cake!

Happy Birthday my beautiful young lady. xxxx

Little Shop Of Horrors! part 2 ....

Okay so I rushed this, but the photos weren't great anyways! And I hadn't time to take a better photo of the layout.
Over on the PageMaps Blog there was a sketch challenge that had to be in today!!!


I used Paper Paradise's June's Scrap Kit that Tracey Jackson put together, take a look at the layouts that she created HERE!

I used the green cardstock, matted some brown PP, which I cut in half before gluing down, as I wanted to make a pocket to put the shows programme into!
Then I cut a strip of the green paper, I stuck this to the left half of the brown PP and raised it all up on 3D Foam Tape and matted the photos on to that.

I glued down the photos and using green embroidery thread hand stitched a line across the top., Next I punched 10 circles from the leafy PP (the extra circle is for the pull on the programme.

I then used some vines from the leafy PP and hand cut out around it, and glued down the side and across the top, as it was looking very bare and boring! (which I lifted from Tracey's Cheeky Monkey Layout, Thanks Hon)

From some of the left over green photo matt paper I wrote the first verse of Little Shop of Horrors!

For my title I used an actual ticket from the show. I also manged to get another ticket, which is glued on to the back page of the programme. I stapled the verse and the ticket onto the layout.

I used a flower from the kit and added a brad and some Pearl stickers.

All edges are inked with black.

Stash List

• 1 sheet of green Bazzill cardstock
• 1 sheet of EK Success Inspirables Range double sided patterned paper - Life Circles (I used the brown side)
• 1 sheet of EK Success Inspirables Range double sided patterned paper - Beauty Stripes (I used the green side)
• 1 sheet of EK Success Inspirables Range double sided patterned paper - Life vines (I used the leafy side, lol)
• 1 Bazzill Wings Bloom
• 1 Papermania Pearl Brad
• Some Crystal Stickers Pearls for the petals of the flower
• White Sakura Glaze pen
• Glue pen
• Color Box Cat's Eye - Lava Black
• Green embroidery thread

TFL
xxxx

Little Shop Of Horrors!

Do ya remember it, I certainly do!!!! Chloe's school put on a production of this yesterday night and tonight. I went to tonights production and I really enjoyed it, the kids put on a fantastic show!

Loads of credit has to go to their music teacher, as they have put all this together in 12 weeks!!!!

Chloe didn't have a big part (none of the year 7's did the main cast was made of the higher years) she played one of the homeless people outside the shop!

Here are some shots that I manged to get, I so hate trying to get photos in this type of light! Oh to be a professional photographer with the £1,000's worth of gear!!!! LOL









And now I can't stop singing ....

Little shop,
Little shoppa horrors.
Little shop,
Little shoppa terror.
Call a cop.
Little shoppa horrors.
No, oh, oh, no-oh! .....

TFL
xxxx