Ally Pally!

Yesterday I got up at ridiculous o'clock to catch the 7.20am train up to London to go to the Big Stamp And Scrapbooking Show at Alexandra Palace.



I had a great day looking round all the stands, watching demos and enjoyed numerous coffee stops!!

Do you wanna see what I bought??

Lots of lovely new papers...October Afternoon, Cosmo Cricket....

Some fab new alphabet stamps from Creative Expressions (love these and spotted 2 other stamp journal sets from CE I'd like!), an EK Success Border Punch and a few new embellies.

Quite a few stands were demoing stamped images coloured with promarkers. I used to make a lot of cards like this and watching the demos made me really want to get my promarker pens out again and do some colouring in!! Got meself a new Lillie of the Valley stamp to get me started off again. As soon as I get chance I'll be getting my pens out and getting started on some Christmas cards!!

It was a long day and by the time I was back at Waterloo for the train home I was shattered...

........but loved it and can't wait for the April 2011 show!!

Right, off to bed now as I have another early start tomorrow with a 1 1/2 hours drive to a course for work!!

* One More Sleep .... *

...Until Ally Pally!! Yay!
I am seriously excited to be going to the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show at Alexandra Palace tomorrow!!
I have been away on a course with work this week, so I'm more than ready for some "Me" Time! Not looking forward to the early start to get the 7.20am train up to London though.
I don't have a lot of money for stash shopping but will get a few new bits and hope to see lots of demos and get some inspiration!
Anyone else going?

* Happy Sunday *

Happy Sunday Bloggers!!

Thank you for all the get well wishes for the "Young One" . She is now a lot better, after a visit to the Doc on Friday morning. She is now on antibiotics, so hopefully will soon be 100% again!!

I haven't got anything crafty to show you, sorry!! But thought I would share some photos I took in and around Christchurch as I know a few regular readers have mentioned they like to see photos of the area I live in. A couple of weeks ago I decided to make the most of my day off work (I had been working a lot of overtime!!) so ran round like a mad thing doing laundry and shopping in the morning so that I had the afternoon free to take my camera out.

This is just a few of my favourites...

The castle ruins alongside the river

The "Ducking Stool" ~ like used in the olden days to punsih naughty villagers!!

The beautiful gardens at the Red House Museum!

Sometimes it is a walk in the sun in a garden like this, with hardly anyone else around that is just what I need when life gets too fast!!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, I'll be back later to visit all your blogs!!

* My First WOYWW!! *

From time to time I check out What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday but as Wednesdays are manic here, I have never had the chance to take part, until today. My daughter is off school poorly so I had to take the day off work to look after her. I was blog hopping and as I read Julia's blog who created WOYWW I realised I could participate. Yay!! I grabbed my camera and took a pic of the dining room table where I had been crafting this morning.

I had brought a selection of papers and stash downstairs so I could craft whilst the poorly one laid on the sofa. I finished the LO I had started last night, which you can see at the back and starting choosing papers for the next one. I'm taking a break from LSNED for a few days to do some 12 x 12 LOs.

Close up of the "Giddy Up" Page which documents Hannah's first pony ride!

As you can see from the state of the table I am not a tidy scrapbooker, not tidying away before starting the next one. I just work amongst the scraps of paper and bits everywhere!!

Right, must go and make dinner!! Look forward to visiting your blogs to see your work desks!!

* LSNED & First day at school *

I have finally found a few minutes to sit down and blog my first couple of pages for LSNED. On the 1st Sept we woke to find the tooth fairy had visited during the night. As I watched Hannah run to check her little teddy to see if the tooth was gone and if there was a coin in it's place I could sense her anticipation. Her delight and excitement at finding a shiny £2 coin just made my heart melt. I learnt that " I love it when the tooth fairy has visited our house"

It was my Dad's birthday on 2 nd September. As it was the school holidays still, Hannah and I had arranged to see him in the afternoon but had made no definate plans as to what we would do or where we would go. The sun was shining so Dad said he would like to go to the beach. We spent a lovely afternoon building sandcastles, paddling and generally enjoying each other's company.

I'm keeping up with the class well, getting a few words down each day, but the creating bit will have to wait until I have a little more time. But that's what I love about this class, I can do it in my own time.

I can hardly believe it's Friday already and the first week of term has just flown by. Hannah has settled into Year 3 really well, enjoying her new classroom and new class mates and getting used to her new teacher. This is the first time she has had a male teacher!

All ready for school on the morning of 1st day of term!

New Shoes!

Note the socks already falling down! Lol!

Right, I'm off for a round up of all your blogs. If you do pop by my blog, please leave me a message so I can come and visit you too!

Have a great weekend!

* Getting Organised!! *

Learn Something New Everyday started on 1st September. I have been taking my little notebook with me everywhere and jotting down a few sentences each day, inspired by the daily prompts. Rather than focusing on lessons learnt (although I'm sure I will learn lots over the month!) I am just trying to get down on paper my current thoughts and feelings on life and document my day to day activities. I will create a page for each day, some with photos some just journalling, but will be working a few days behind the prompts as and when I can get my photos printed.

Today I got myself organised to start on my first pages. I have sorted out some stash and put it all together in a little basket, along with some stamps, inks, punches, papers and tools. I cleared the mess that is usually my craft area and laid everything out so I'm not hunting through my stash each time I sit down to a page.

I have prepared some bazzill for my first few pages, trimmed to size and you can see my photos on the table which I got printed today....so I''m all ready to go.

In other news, I swapped my shifts at work this week so I could spend today with Hannah, as our last day together before the new school term starts next week. We had a lovely day shopping for birthday presents and stopped for coffee and pastries in our favourite coffee shop, Cafe Nero! Yum!

I have the evening to myself as D has gone out with some friends to watch football. H is tucked up in bed so I'm going to eat lasagne and chips and then get my first few LSNED Pages done!

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely evening!

* Tooth Fairy Magic *

The tooth fairy visited our house last night!! Oh the excitement and joy of finding a shiny £2 coin this morning!! Magical!!

Having been wobbling and wiggling her two front teeth for what seems like weeks and weeks, one finally fell out last Thursday and the other just popped out yesterday morning. So last night it was carefully
placed in teddy's little bag in readiness along with a note (in her best handwriting) to the fairy...

"Thank you for leving me pocket money

and taking away my totth" xx

So now the "Young One" has a rather cute, "gappy" smile!!

The £2 coin??! That was soon spent on a new book this afternoon. My little bookworm can't get enough of books and reading at the moment, but hey that's another story!