Big Blog Challenge Farewell

Today is the last day of the challenge!!!!! I have really enjoyed playing and getting to see blogs that I would of never known existed!!!! But I must say a little of me is relieved that it is over!!! 50 blogs a day to keep up with is alot!!!! We didn't have to post a comment on every blog each day, but I couldn't not, as I would feel it was bad manners not to, and what if everyone picked the same blogs to post a comment as I did, then those others would be getting no comments!!!!

There are definitely some blogs that I will be keeping up with as these ladies are funny, inspiring and lovely people!!!!

I will be leaving my blog open, it was never closed on purpose in the first place, so if ya wanna comment feel free to do so!!!!!

Thanks for commenting on my blog and I hope each and everyone of you have happy lives and get some of those dreams that you want!!!!

Helena
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BBC - Copy and paste a great e-mail!

I think this has to be the best e-mail I have received so far!!!!!

Hi ya Helena

Thank you for sharing your awesome work with us. We would like to publish your GEORGE MARTIN layout in a forthcoming issue of Scrapbook Inspirations Magazine. Please bear in mind occasionally we run out of space & the readers gallery is the first to be cut I'm afraid.

I need you to confirm that you would still like your work to be published and if you can meet the deadline, that it is your own design and has not been submitted to any other magazine immediately. I also need you to complete the attached sheet and return it to me via email by 31 August 2007.

We prefer work that has not been displayed in online galleries but if yours is online please remove it immediately. It may be put online after the magazine has hit the stands.

Please post your original layout by recorded or special delivery, this should reach our Bath office by Thursday 30 August 2007 (Royal Mail permitting):



Your original layout will be returned with a complimentary copy of the magazine that your work appears in. This will not be until 3-4 weeks after the magazine has gone on sale.


Thanks

CJxx

and the best news was that it did manage to get published, click here if you want to have a look!!!!


As this is the last post for the Big Blog Challenge, I would like to say it has been a fantastic, crazy, hair pulling, deep thinking, fun!!!!!

I have loved looking at the other players blog, which I will be checking in from time to time, not to the extent that I have been for the challenge, or in a few weeks I wouldn't been able to function!!!!

So thanks all you lovely ladies for sharing you blogs, and leaving some wonderful comments on mine!!!!!!

And a special mention for the lovely Hostess Tiphini, who has done a fantastic job of getting the challenges together and given out RAK's!!!!!!!

XXXXX

Lazy Town Photos

For all who don't know Lazy Town is a children's tv show, that has become huge, obviously or they wouldn't be doing a tour!!! Sorry about the u-tubes but thought you might want to see what I have to put up with, lol








But basically Stephanie (the heroine), Sportacus (the hero), Pixel, Ziggy, Stingy and Trixie (the sidekicks) try and outwit Robbie Rotten (Baddie) in the storyline, by been good, healthy, exercising, having good manners, etc!!! The show is actually not that bad, and the morals in the story lines are very good!!!!

Anyways here are the photos!

Doesn't Aimee look cute in her Stephanie baseball cap!!!!

Sorry the photos are so bad, but with no lighting and stage lighting, oh and maybe the fact that I wasn't supposed to be taking photos, and didn't get the time to focus or anything like that, might have something to do with it!!!!!

I don't understand why we couldn't take photos when you can see videos of it on U tube, I think this would actually be my only grip about the show, other than that Aimee loved it and I thought it was a good show!!!!

Oh the poster is arrowed where it has been signed!!!!

TFL
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BBC - Leave love on 5 blogs

Phew another easy one!!!!!!


{Daily Anecdotes}

ValAnn's Thoughts

Trumpet Boys Make My Heart Sing

There is life after nursing school

The Butterfly Garden

I have so enjoyed this challenge!

BBC - Where I was born!

I was born in Cork City on 14th December 1972, my parents brought me home to a town outside the city called Mitchelstown!!!!!


Click here if you want to see some pics of Mitchelstown, oh better mention that it is in Southern Ireland!!!


Click on the map to see a bigger image, I have arrowed the city and the town.


Short and sweet I know, what can I say I don't remember it, lol
TFL
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BBC - Take a walk and post photos

I am going to cheat with this!!!

Chloe, Aimee and myself took a walk in August last year to feed the local ducks and swans, well I walked they cycled, lol!!!!





TFL
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£5 Scrap Challenge!!

I have started a £5 Scrap Challenge over on the Paper Paradise Forum, click here to check it out!!!!

Would love you to play if you can!!!!

There will be a lot more competitions and challenges on the forum coming up!!!!

Why not register and become a member and join in on some of the fun!!!

Click here to go to Paradise!

And click here to see the Website!

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Paddington Bear's 50th birthday teddy bear picnic

Today Paddington Bear turned 50!!!

Great Coates Foundation Stage held a birthday Picnic for him!!!! Paddington Bear is also helping a charity to raise funds for premature baby units! So at the school there was a £1 entrance fee for teddies, name cards, guess the weight of the cake, raffles, etc!!! We are hoping to raise £150 for the charity!! All the money hasn't been counted up yet!!!

Aimee won a chocolate Teddy Lolly Pop from Thornton's, mmh love their chocolate!!!!(Sorry Sue you didn't win anything, but thanks for the donation)

Unfortunately I can't post any pics of the children (Data Protection Laws), but I have posted some of Aimee and the cake!!!!! (this is why there is no photos of Lazy Town, due to me taking photos at the event and editing them to bring in tomorrow!



The children loved the day and had a great time, even though it rained while we were playing a game, but we quickly moved it into the school hall!!!!!

We had Jam Sandwiches, Teddy Bear Shaped Crisps (Pom Bears), Teddy Bear shaped cookies, hot dogs, tomatoes (a lot of the children love tomatoes), sweets, juices, and Teddy bear buns that the children decorated themselves!!!!!

I would like to say thanks to the Foundation Staff, the volunteers who helped make this a fantastic day for the children!

TFL
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Lazy Town

I took Aimee to see Lazy Town today!!! She loved it, I thought it was a good show too, very much audience participation!!! Everyone up and dancing!!!!

I got Aimee a Stephanie baseball hat and the brochure!!!!

Me been me, managed to get the cast to sign her poster from the brochure, needless to say she is made up!!!! I will post some photos another time!!!

BBC - Enter an SB.com Blog contest!!!

This is the one I entered, yeah I know easy peasy but no one said it had to be hard, LOL

Blog

All Entries Kels's Blog Favorite Blogger OK - lookie here... I need more FRIENDS (and I'm willing to BRIBE you) (39 comments, 622 views) Monday, 23 June 2008 Here's the deal - I like competition, especially FRIENDLY competition :) As many of you may be aware, Jill (our founder) and I, like to go back and forth to see who is more "popular"... all in good fun of course! LOL! So, it's that time again - I've LET Jill get WAAAAAAAAY too far ahead of me in the "friends" count, so I'd like to recruit more friends. I know you're out there! The BRIBE is this: I need 1,000 more friends before the end of June! I will award TEN AMAZINGLY-STUFFED PRIZE PACKAGES (to include some heidi swapp, basicgrey, american crafts, and daisy d's product - among other spectacular things) to TEN random people that are on my friends list as of June 30th! If you are already my friend - you're automatically included in the random drawing. If you're not already my friend, PLEASE view my profile page and click "add to friends" under my bio. Do it before June 30th and you'll be entered into my random drawing :) I love meeting new people, so c'mon! ADD ME!

BBC - 25 of my favourite things

OOOh this is gonna be long!!!!

These are in no order as I will write them as I think of them and I am too lazy to go back at put them in order!!! And like all women I change my mind, think I have edited this about 5 times already, I am not saying all these are always going to be my favourite things, but for now they are :)

1. My DH
2. My Girls
3. My family
   
4. Photography
5. Scrapbooking
6. Jon Bon Jovi
7. Spending time with my firends
   
8. Working with children
9. Puppies
10. Babies
11. A beautiful sunny day just sitting and thinking
    
12. Shopping for stash
13. Chocolate
14. Coca Cola
15. Seeing beautiful places
16. Reading books
17. Watching a good film
18. Seeing my girls enjoy life
19. Receiving something from a friend just because ....
20. Taking long walks
21. Seeing new places
22. Dreaming
23. Creating
24. Having fun no matter how simple it is
25. Joining Scrapbook.com, being part of a forum Paper Paradise and creating a blog.

There you go!!!!
TFL
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Fairy Day

As I was commenting on some photos in SB.com one of the players Cjy posted that today is fairy day and added a beautiful piece of journaling!!

"I want to say Happy Fairy Day to all of you. June 24th is Fairy Day.

Whatever your favorite theory, Fairy Day is a time for all of us, fairy kissed or no, to honor and delight in the fanciful, the mystical, the ethereal in our lives. Throughout mans history, Midsummers Day has been known as a time to revel in the magic of nature. It is one of the few “in between” times, when the veil is drawn thinnest and crossing between the worlds is at its easiest. This day, the longest of the year is known for odd things happening to unwitting mortals, victims of the fairies playful games. It is at this time that fairies may be seen, dancing round rings, or that mortals with the desire and a pure heart may meet a fae out walking in the woods"

Quote from: Fairy Day site

BBC - Tell how you celebrate birthdays

Well DH and I don't go all out for our birthdays! We get each other presents and cards as do the girls!!! We order in an Indian meal, and that's about it!!!!! That's just the way we are!!!

For the girls
Aimee last year had two parties!!!! One was with family in a beautiful sea-side town called Whitby, where we found out that her great granddad's family came from!!!! Okay we hi-jacked the event!! A alot of DH's family got together to celebrate his cousins 60Th birthday and it was decided to have it there and have a bit of a hunt for some family roots while we were there!!! As Aimee's birthday was in 2 weeks time, we decided to have her family birthday there!!!!! She told me later that she wants to do this every year and it was the best party she ever had, she got to go on a tourist boat, eat fish and chips, play in a children's jungle gym, have a birthday cake in the grounds of Whitby Cathedral (we had no choice they locked the dining room up earlier than we thought), and she did this with most of her cousins, aunts and uncles and her Nana June who was over from America!!!!




Chloe's will be a disco with her friends as she is turning 13 this year, help!!!!!!!! As it hasn't happened yet I can't write about lol!!!!

TFL
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BBC - Say what I want

Oh gosh there is so much that I want to say!!!!

I think the thing that bothers me most is children!!!!!

I love children and I love been around them but ...... as they are growing up they show no respect for anybody or anything!!! They don't have the same fear of been told off as I did when I was their age, I would be terrified if I thought anyone was going to tell my Mum and Dad anything bad about me!!! I respected my elders not to the point of been weak, but as they have been in the world longer they deserve respect!!!!! I would never think about defacing something for the "fun" of it, terrorising other children or older people!! I would never swear and answer back to a person in uniform eg policeman, fireman, etc.

I think children know now that people are afraid to say too much in case they end up in court!!! They don't have any fear of anything!!!!

My girls are better than that I hope myself and DH have tried to bring them up with the same values and principles that we had!!!!! So far I think Chloe would be scared for the school to contact me and tell me that she was misbehaving (I don't hit my children but they are punished by grounding, TV and computer restrictions, and so on). I know my girls are no angels and have their moments but I hope they come across as generally well behaved!

Okay I think you get the gist of it ..... I could go on and on in this subject!!!

Thanks for taking the time to read my rant!!!!!

xxxx

BBC - Fantasty Perfect Day!

I would wake up to breakfast in bed, and allowed time to snuggle a bit more, then I would have my Fashion stylist pick out clothes for me to wear! Then I would have a long shower with power head spray!!!!! I would then get my hairdresser to fix my hair!!! Dh would fly me to the biggest scrapbook store there is in the world (does anyone know where it is???), and give me a credit card with £10,000 to spend!!!! We would then come back and have lunch and take the girls out for the afternoon, probably Disney Land Paris!!!!

After that I would have the rest of my time to spend scrapbooking in my craft rooms!!!

My chef would cook dinner and the maids would tidy up afterwards!! I would sit down with DH and spend some time with him, I then would go to each of the girls!!! Aimee would get a story, and a little chat with Chloe about girly things!!!!

It would be back to my craft rooms then to make layouts, that would wow everyone and win every single challenge that I entered them into ........................ I would then wake up with the alarm clock ringing for me to get up and get everyone ready for work and school!!!!!!

TFL
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Father Quotes

I found these quotes on Mix-on The Memories Blog, (TFS xxxx) and I wanted somewhere save to keep them, what better than my blog!!!!

• "I've had a hard life, but my hardships are nothing against the hardships that my father went through in order to get me to where I started." - Bartrand Hubbard
• "By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong. " -Charles Wadsworth
• "I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection."- Sigmund Freud
• "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. " - Mark Twain
• "The older I get, the smarter my father seems to get." - Tim Russert
• " I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work fifteen and sixteen hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example." -Mario Cuomo
• "Be kind to thy father,
  for when thou wert young,
  Who loved thee so fondly as he?
  He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue,
  And joined in thy innocent glee." - Margaret Courtney
• "Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance." - Ruth E. Renkel
• "To be a successful father . . . there's one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don't look at it for the first two years." - Ernest Hemingway
• "A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father." - Gabriel García Márquez
• "It is a wise father that knows his own child." - William Shakespeare
• "All fathers are invisible in daytime; daytime is ruled by mothers and fathers come out at night. Darkness brings home fathers, with their real, unspeakable power. There is more to fathers than meets the eye." - Margaret Atwood
• "The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother." - Anonymous
• "To her the name of father was another name for love." - Fanny Fern
• Fathers, like mothers, are not born. Men grow into fathers- and fathering is a very important stage in their development." - David M. Gottesman
• "It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was." - Anne Sexton
• "A Man's children and his garden both reflect the amount of weeding done during the growing season." - Anonymous
• "The greatest gift I ever had Came from God, and I call him Dad!" - Anonymous
• "A father is a guy who has snapshots in his wallet where his money used to be." - Anonymous
• "He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it." - Clarence Budington Kelland
• My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We're raising boys." - Harmon Killebrew
• "One father is more than a hundred Schoolmasters." - George Herbert
• Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope." - Bill Cosby
• "It is not flesh and blood but the heart, which makes us fathers and sons." - Johann Schiller
• There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself." - John Gregory Brown
• "My father was a statesman; I'm a political woman. My father was a saint. I'm not.- Indira Gandhi
• "You know, fathers just have a way of putting everything together." - Erika Cosby
• "Father, whom I murdered every night but one, That one, when your death murdered me." - Howard Moss
• "Small boys become big men through the influence of big men who care about small boys." - Anonymous
• "To her the name of father was another name for love." - Fanny Fern
• "If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons. " - James Baldwin

BBC - First day of summer

Was horrible, it rained!!!!! Got the kids and myself ready for school! Chloe to the bus and Aimee to her school, I came home and I ironed, Blah!!!!!! The got myself ready and went to work!!!! Ran around after kids for 3.5 hours! Aimee and myself walked home and managed to stay dry and not get wet!!!!!!

Chloe came home and she also managed to stay dry!!! Cooked dinner, Dh came home! We ate and around the kitchen table and everyone said what kind of day they had!!!! This is usually my most favourite part of the weekday where we are all sat together having a conversation!!!! After dinner the girls went to their rooms to do whatever!!! I came on here!!! Dh played his computer games! After about 1 and half BEDTIME!!!!! Aimee first, then Chloe! Dh and myself usually have some time to talk then I go crafting or browsing for a while and DH goes back to his game! Then to bed!!!

Well that is what I done on the first day of Summer!

TFL
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BBC - Photograph something Yellow, Orange or Red!

I have photographed my roses!!!!!





TFLxxxx

BBC - Animal Time

I know some of you have already seen this post but for the challenge I decided to use it again!

It was posted on the 3rd March 2008!


Here's the story! Most of you knew that we adopted a kitten a few weeks ago and called her Angel! Angel never settled into our family, she wouldn't interact with us, stayed on the window sill, or on a chair, and kept trying to get out the door, (she hadn't got her second injection and wasn't spayed so we didn't want to take the risk and let her out just yet) wouldn't let us pet her, or show any affection. She also kept attacking Aimee, would walk by Aimee take a swipe at Aimee or try to bite her, she actually cornered Aimee and wouldn't let her pass!!! Aimee woke up one night terrified and screaming "The cat is going to get me"!!! I was taking rubbish out to the bin when she dashed out the door and over the fence before I knew it!!! To be honest I was relieved that she had gone! But she came back with an injured leg, she couldn't put any weight on it!!! Soft-hearted that I am, I took her back in but rang the RSPCA to ask if they could take her and re-home her!!! They did thankfully, I explained why we couldn't keep her and not to re-home her with a family who has small children. The girls were heartbroken, even Aimee, but I couldn't have her attacking Aimee like that! The RSPCA will ring me in a few days to tell me how she is, and I have a phone number to ring them!

Edited to say when the RSPCA rang me back they said that her leg was fine, and that an old lady who had just lost her cat (she had it for 15 years) toik Angel, and actually kept the name we gave her and they are getting on fine!!! I am happy to hear that she got a good home!!!



DH and I got to talking, well how much more trouble would a puppy be .... you can see how that conversation ended!!!!!

This is Skye an 8 week old West Highland Terrier puppy!

And just a few more for sharing!!!!




TFL
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BBC - Revamp goals

My goals were to

• get more scrapbook pages done - check (I already have more done then I did last year)
  
• Finish my college course early - check (finished a month ahead of time)
• Sign up for the next level - check (I will start in September)
• Get a dog - check (we got a West Highland Terrier)
• Take more photos - check (Ya don't want to see my hard drive)

I really don't set a lot of goals for myself!!! To be honest I just made these up, lol. But these are things that I had thought about during the year!!!!!

I have this one goal:-

I want to train this Clematis to be a pillar, so when it is fully wound around the bamboo sticks it will look like a pillar, we are getting there!!!!

TFL
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BBC - Pick a scrapbook challenge, finish and post it!!!

I have picked a challenge that Lazy Kay on the Paper Paradise forum hosted for June!!! She picked a sketch challenge!!! Thank you LK!!!

Here is the sketch by Becky Fleck.


and here is my effort, I have turned the sketch on its side, and sorry it's some of those photos again!

I am really liking this page, I love how it seems that it is 2 pages in one!!!!

The jouranling is very simple "Chloe and Aimee, 10Th May 2008, near the Willows Library, Grimsby. A sister is a forever friend"

I am not really a brand girl, I usually just pick what I like!!! But I ordered this set from SB.com, I won a voucher in a competition, this set was on discount, ya know me try and get my money's worth! I must say it was very easy working with papers that already match!!!!

Nearly all my layout has been created using

The Pheobe Range by Basic Grey!!!
I have also used rub-ons by Basic Grey (Wholy Cow) , both black and white!!!!
A little pink rick rack.
3 butterflies that used to be hair grips, lol!!!
I also used black staz-on,
Olive Pastel and Blue Lagoon ColorBox Fluid Chalk Inkpads
Brilliance Pearlscent Orchid Dew Drop

This page is made up by layer, cutting, sticking and rubbing lol!!! All edges in paper and photos have been inked! A really simple page to complete!!!

TFL
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BBC - Sunrise/Sunset

This is a quick one

Sunrise

Sunset

I took these photos a few months ago, in the area of where I live!

There you go!!!
TFL
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Rushmoor Park

A family day trip was arranged through the school and the Extended schools project on Saturday 14th June! We were going to visit Rushmoor Park, about an hours journey away from us! Again the day wasn't great lots of heavy showers - BLAH!!!! but we were lucky, we were inside when the shower came, and we were just getting on the coach to go home when it rained again, the rain kept away for the rest of the day, we even managed to picnic sitting on our raincoats on the grass!

We were treated to a birds of prey demonstration, the children were allowed have a little owl land on their arms, and of course Aimee was the first to say she wanted ago, I swear that child has no fear!!!!! I thought the display was fantastic!!!!! Then we went and saw some more of the animals lots of chickens, rabbits, swans, ducks, geese, guinea pigs, budgies, pigs, cows, sheep, lambs, ducklings all the usual animals!

The children were also treated to bottle feeding the lambs!!!

Towards the end of the day, we decided to go back into the little animals, rabbits, guinea pigs, and rats, bad move, as Aimee stuck her finger into the cage and got bitten, (as I said she has no fear and she had gotten used to touching the other animals, even though she was told not to put her fingers in, more for the fact that I can't stand rats!!!) OMG the amount of blood that flowed from the cut was frightening, the staff managed to get the bleeding to stop and put a plaster on it. When we got home I brought her to A&E just in case and I wanted it checked out properly! She has been put on a course of penicillin for a week 4 times a day! Aimee was fine once the shock had worn off and the bleeding stopped at the hospital, were we spent over 2 in a half hours, she was brilliant let the nurse give it a good clean and put the plaster on. We have to go to the doctors in 3 days for them to remove the plaster and take a look at it!!!! and don't believe that she won't put her finger back in a cage, cause I can nearly grantee that she will. LOL

Even though she got bitten when she was asked she said she still loved the day and had a fantastic time!!! We all did!!!

Here are some of the photos I took!

WARNING THERE ARE A LOT OF PHOTOS!!!!

Do you remember the FIRST KISS post!!! I don't think the little girl would of kissed this one, lol!!!

The bite!!!!

TFL through all the photos!!!!!
xxxxx