* Saturday *

Woo hoo.... it's Saturday, it's the weekend and it's half term holiday!! Happy Days!

And I actually scrapped last night!!!

I'm trying to use up some of my older stash before I order more.

This layout uses some Girls Paperie papers and flowers, Fancy Pants Roadshed, Jeni Bowlin chipboard and a few others bits that have been in my stash for a million years!!

The photos were taken last December on a walk along Highcliff Beach. H spent nearly the whole time "rock climbing" along the rocks and pebbles on the beach. H's name is blocked out on the journal tag.

So, Saturday evening is curry in front of the TV for us! Whatever you have planned this weekend I hope you have a good one!

* MIA *

Sorry I've been missing from Blogland for a while. Life has just taken over and crafting and blogging have had to take a back seat for a few weeks.

The re-plastering work in our lounge took most of last week, the new door and radiator were fitted yesterday, now it's just the painting, flooring and skirting boards! Fun!

I plan to clear the dust off my craft desk and resume normal craftiness very soon!!

* Wordless Wednesday *

Sunday Afternoon walk on the beach.




I first saw this on Laura's blog ... the idea is every Wednesday to post on your blog a photo of the week with little or no words alongside it. Like it!!

* Christmas Journal *

Hey Bloggers .... it's Friday ...so glad the weekend is here!

I know the end of January is almost here but I'm still on Christmas and making my pages for my Journal. I'm determined not to give up on it, I didn't finish it in 2008 or 2009 but I do love looking back at the pages that I did do, so to have a whole complete journal will be awesome.

Anyway here's the 4th:

This page is about advent and documents how the "Young One" opens the door and eats the chocolate before breakfast, despite my protests that it's breakfast first!!

The 5th ~ Craft Fairs We went to see a friend who had a stall at a craft fair and on the way home stopped for dinner at a lovely little country pub and I got some fab pictures of the swans on the lake in the grounds with the snow laying on the ground.

6th December ~ As we put our tree up on this day I wanted to scrap this. Love this pic of the "Young One" hanging the decorations!

And the 7th, not entirely happy with this one so may re do it.

Have a great weekend whatever you have planned!

* Slow Progress *

Hello Bloggers!


Hope your Monday has been good!

Update on the lounge....Unfortunately the wallpaper stripping is not making as fast progress as I would like. I didn't get much done in there last week as everyday life (and a fast approaching deadline for submitting my tax return!) got in the way but this weekend we got a fair bit done.

Apart from a family birthday outing on Saturday afternoon to the New Forest (more on that another day) we spent most of the weekend stripping the paper and did quite well, just the last few bits left now!

Here's the Before Pictures .....

Oh how I hate that fireplace.... it is horrid, don't you think?!!

Love that my cat had to get in the pic!!!


This is the only room we have done absolutely nothing to since we moved in over 5 years ago so this makeover is well over due.

* And so it begins... *

I mentioned back on this post about how I want to decorate our lounge this year ....well, we decided there is no time like the present so .... this afternoon we have packed away all our CDs, DVDs & books into boxes....taken down photographs and got the dining area ready to become the lounge for a few weeks or however long it takes to finish the lounge. A few weeks is a bit optimistic, no doubt it will probably be a few months, we are very slow when it comes to renovating & decorating!!

We have one of those long, lounge/dining rooms. It used to be two rooms but the previous owners knocked an archway through and made it one big room. Tomorrow we are going to move the sofa and TV into the dining area and put up some sheets or something across the archway. Then the wall paper stripping can begin!! We'd love to rip out the fireplace and skirting boards too but still not finally decided if our budget will stretch to a new fireplace.

Note to self: Remember to take some before and work in progress photos!!

Hope you are having a great weekend!
Sarah
x

* Journal Your Christmas 2nd & 3rd *

Remember way back at the start of December when JYC started and I showed you
my page for 1st December here and I blogged about my determination to keep my 2010 album simple? Well, as the run up to Christmas just got crazier than ever before I decided not to even attempt to scrap but to take lots and lots of photos and keep notes in a little notebook that I carried everywhere with me, jotting down what we did each day and my thoughts on the daily prompts.

So now that we are well into January and school is back, life has slowed down a bit and I am finding a little time each day to sit down with my photos, my notebook full of my scribbles and making my JYC.

So here's 2nd December ... Weather:

And 3rd December ... Cards

I do have a few more pages finished so will photo them when the light is a bit better and show you. I'm trying to resist buying new stash and using up all my old Christmas papers!

So, how is my challenge to spend less going? I'm doing quite well with making myself stop and think "do I really need to buy this?" Even my Asda grocery bill was less than normal!! I did, however have coffee and a chocolate pastry in Costa Coffee today but it felt justified as I had some upsetting news first thing this morning & needed cheering up!

Right, I'm off to make tea .... I'll be back later this evening for some blog hopping!