Pooter probs

Gah!!!

The blasted PC has been giving me grief all weekend! Internet on and off, crashes, freezes and the dreaded white screen.... and now - since yesterday, a really bad problem with outlook express... any experts out there on this silly program (that I can't live without...) ???

Please contact me if you can help - I will send chocolate I promise!

**Please note - if you've sent me mail since thursday I may or may not have read it... so if you were expecting a reply and haven't had one, please mail again and I'll pick it up on my web mail**

Anyway - a very quick post before it all goes Phzzzffft on me again, and a bit of GOOD NEWS!

Yeah, yeah, I know you don't get this too often from me..... but.....

.....I made the Sketches by tamara DT :-) Yay!

See my clicky link on the right to check out the daily inspiration going on :-)

Ok, bed calls
more tomorrow
jk x

Mojo move

We've moved the mojoholder scraplift challenge to a Thursday night, so I'm a day early with my mojo layout and sketch.

This week we lifted a beautiful LO by Linda Albrecht. The style of the layout was much too girly tho, for this photo of Vin which I wanted to use, so I had to pretty much follow the sketch rather than the LO itself but I love the way it turned out.The picture is just a quick snap Erk took on his phone, which i've blown up and cropped so the quality's not great, but it's a fab pic which captures my boy perfectly, and I really love it, so I don't care. It's scrapped, and there to stay! The girls on the team did some truly lovely interpretations this week, using lots of gorgeous girlie shots so if you have a pretty picture of the girl in your life pop over and check them out.



Talking of mojoholder, we may have some exciting news coming soon... so keep an eye on the site ;-)

Had a mailing from AliE - she's inviting folks to join her on documenting 'A Week In The Life' rather like she did when she ran the class for CKU, so if you fancy playing along check it out on her blog - starts next week.

And on Creative World, we are joined this week by two of my lovely and very talented friends, Paula and Jo. They have agreed to come onboard and we can't wait to see what they come up with to share on the blog. See todays inspiration here and don't forget we have something new for you everyday :-)

Right - off camera shopping we go - vouchers in grubby hand! YAY!!!!

Later!
jk xx

It's not all bad

Not all bad by a long way, actually.

After the trauma of the broken camera saga, I decided to take the advice of you sweet girlies who told me to contact the insurance, because tbh, up til then I hadn't even thought of it.

So anyway - I did - and they were great!
Said as we have new for old, I could have vouchers for Jessops, and they'd post them directly out.

I got my vouchers today, which are for £200, and as the actual camera I broke was a fuji finepix f30, which is now discontinued, they have to allow me the updated model, the finepix f60; currently retailing for £199 - which is actually slightly more than we paid for my old one!

As far as i'm concerned as long as it performs as well as the f30 i'll be delighted, but hopefully it'll be even better with a souped up spec, and I'll have no complaints at all.

Will be back at the weekend with some sample shots for your criticisms! :-)

Other news is the cooker's FAB! I hadn't realised how dodgy our old one was, but it's a dream to cook with, other than the fact I have to watch it more and keep an eye when things reach close to boiling point.

Still using up those apples! Lol!

Oaty Apple Muffins

Ingredients - American, but I managed :-)
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice
3/4 cup quick-cooking porridge oats
1 cup finely chopped apple (about 1-2 apples)
1 1/4 cups un-sifted flour
1/2 cup soft light brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch of ground nutmeg
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Mix oats and dry ingredients together in large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg. Stir in milk, oil, and finally lemon juice.
4. Add to the oat mixture with the apples and nuts, if using. Fold until just moistened (The batter will be thick).
5. Spoon into a greased muffin tray or paper muffin cups.
6. Bake for 20 minutes in the centre of the oven or until golden.
7. Remove from tin and place on a wire rack to cool.

Lemon Icing:

1/2 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon melted margarine or butter

1. Combine icing ingredients together to make glaze.
2. Drizzle lemon icing over muffins.

Scoff and enjoy!

More soon
jk xxx

what on earth's going on now...??

Now i've lots my comments box??? FFS!

And now it's back again... of for God's sake... pmsl!

What next?

First I broke my camera... then the door of the oven went completely kaput! Gah!!!

So there is now a rather large cooker sitting in my hallway waiting for the electrician to come in later to wire it up.

On one hand i'm quite excited because i've wanted a new cooker for ages... but on the other a bit scared as I've never had electric before. I've always cooked with gas, my Mum always cooked with gas... so i've got no idea about heat conversions, lol. There may be a few burnt dinners on the horizon... hmmn... wonder if I could convince Carlo that he'd be better than me at managing the switch.....? ;-) We'll have to see.

Not a lot on the scrappy front, I'm still a bit down about the fuji to feel like doing much, tbh. I did do a tutorial on it's a creative world, on Spot Colouring in PSE, which i've popped on here too. I'm doing an 8.5 x 11 album of simple pages of our holiday this year, and this is the first. I like to keep holiday albums quick and simple with the emphasis on the photos so I can get them done quicker, which is the same reason i've chosen a smaller format. I have so many pics I want to use and I can save money by printing smaller photos too.

SPOT COLOURING IN PSE

Open the photograph you plan to work with in your photo editing program. I use PSE4, so my instructions are for that, however, most programs operate similarly, so with a little tinkering you should be able to work out how to do it if you use another kind.

Having opened your image, the first thing to do is make a duplicate copy. Make certain the two images are the exact same size, dpi etc. To do this, check in the bottom left hand corner of the photo box, where you can see, and alter the document dimensions. Set each photo to a manageable size, say 40%, and make sure the dpi is the same for both.

Make certain you have a back up of the original before you go any further, and then convert one copy to mono. In PSE, I do this by going to Enhance -> Adjust colour -> Remove colour.

If your photo looks washed out (as above) , have a play around with the levels, contrast and lighting controls until you’re happy with the black and white image....

(A much more punchy version, above)

.....then cascade your windows, so you have two images open at once. One will be your colour photo, and one will be the mono version.

Hover over your command buttons until you locate the ‘move’ tool. These will most likely be down the left hand side of your screen and the ‘move’ tool will look like a pointer with a small cross to the right of it. Click on the ‘move’ button and use the mouse to drag and drop the mono image directly over the colour image.

You can now magnify the image by zooming in, and use the ‘eraser’ tool to ‘rub out’ the sections where you want colour to show through. The ‘eraser’ is on the same tool bar as ‘move’ and actually looks like a rubber so shouldn’t be too difficult to find.

Although you do have to take a bit of care to make sure you don’t remove anything you don’t want to, it’s a really easy technique, and it’s great fun watching the colour coming up. Do you remember those old ‘magic’ painting books you used as a kid…? Well, it’s a bit like that but less messy! lol!

(Picture after technique applied)

In order to make your eraser larger or smaller, look above the image you’re working on and you’ll see the ‘eraser’ and close to it, a box indicating size. Just use this to make it small, tiny or bigger as you need – peasy!You will want to merge/flatten the completed image before saving and printing.And don’t forget to keep a back up of the original - just in case!!

(Excuse the silly play on words - I don't know what I was thinking of! )

Have a great day!
jake xxx

scared myself away....

Lol... feels like I scared myself away anyway!

Since the marathon session last week when I switched all this over to layout and stuff, I haven't been back. But plenty has happened. Not a lot of crafting i'll admit. But plenty of other stuff.

Like - I broke my camera. End of the world for me...

Did I break the big clumsy fuji S5500 which I never use...? Oh No, of course I didn't... I broke my sexy lil baby F30 which I love love love.

hmm... LovED. That would be past tense now :-(

Life is crap.
In fact it's worse than crap because we have no money to replace it, and i'm gutted beyond belief. I just can't tell you how sad I am.

Anyway. I finally managed to put together my mojo LO last night but I had no heart to do anything really, and it turned out worse than I even thought it would. There are however, some great layouts on the site. Mine just isn't one of them.

And Sandies sketch

The original by Ronda Palazzari is actually fab - very different and quite quirky. You can check out her work here

So what else?

Well, Wednesday was the anniversary of my little ma's passing away. I can't believe so many years have gone by now, and yet I still miss her everyday. This year was the first time i've gone to the grave all alone to lay flowers and it was very sad. Very lonely, and not something you really want to do on your own. But I did take a picture of the flowers on my phone to send to my sister - before I found out she hasn't yet set her phone up for multi media msgs!! So Sanna, this pic is for you.

You have NO idea how much time and trouble this has been setting it up so I could upload from phone to PC. Not something i've ever done before so quite up my own butt now for managing it at all!

Thanks to Cleo Crafts for the fantastic service this week - I love my Bo Bunny family book, maybe I'll make a start on that today and try and cheer myself up :-)




Ok, off to stamp a LOT of images - I'm hosting a stamped journalling block swap over on Craft Diner, and need to get my backside in gear. Now!

Have a happy weekend folks - no sense everyone being miserable!

Sunday bloggin... been a long old day

Phew!

Stuff like this is not easy for me..... today I have not only created a banner............ ok, ok, I know how simple it is! (mine I mean, not actually making one) , but also, I have finally.... finally.... moved over to layout from template.... and spent God knows how many hours adding in my links, and the bits and bobs that make it feel like home.

Unbelievable aggro, and at one point I almost wanted to cry, but I got there in the end. There are still a few links not yet added in, but tbh i've had enough. In fact, my face is well and truly in the butter... so i'm switching off before i go and do something rash and lose the lot. In my dreams stuff like that happens... and I don't wanna make it real.

And because of all this activity, i've done no scrapping!

Honestly, i've got my LO for CMK on the table that was supposed to be in by 12 o'clock last night! It's not even half finished... but maybe i'll manage to get it up here by tomorrow night - tho i'm far too late to qualify now. Ah well... another time eh?

I can share this LO however, as it was made weeks ago. I put it together from a sketch by Tamara, which she did especially for us at it's a creative world, and you can see it here, read all about this very talented lady, and see what the other girls in the team did with the sketch as well:-)

Oh, and while i was hopping around earlier ( before all this began) I spotted a super duper giveaway on Jak's blog. For your chance to play along and win the scrummy Christmas blog candy she has on offer, visit her here. Even when she's not sponsoring a prize, her site's well worth a visit so book mark it now and drop in when you're next blog hopping :-)

ok, that's enough from me... til next time
hugz
jake xx

PS - let me know what you think of my new style blog?
And my soooo complicated banner!

My latest LO is one I made for mojoholder scraplifts blog yesterday.

We were lifting a gorgeous page by Lea Lawson

Here is the sketch made by Sandie

And my interpretation:

I've also been busy baking, seeing as I have a glut of these beauties!

Aren't they gorgeous?

I seriously doubted the squirrels would leave us any this year... but they did - about 4 carrier bags full! We passed some to the neighbours, have some put by for Donna's lot and I'll probably take the remaining ones (after i've used all I want) into work for the cook to whip up a crumble or two for the resi's :-)

The fruits of my labour today...yummmmyummmmm!

Apple pie, anyone?

Hope you all have a super Saturday, and as always, thanks for dropping in!

hugz!

jake xxx

finally got it stuck together :-)

At last, I've finished this card!
I'm horribly late with it, but oh well...


Daring cardmakers - Make a card using their template. Not mad on it... think maybe I cut my circle too small so feel it looks a little unbalanced, but hey i'm learning so no worries. I'll send it to my sis sometime, she likes my cards... lol, bless her.

Talking of my sis, she sent me two paperbacks today:

SHATTERED - a true story about a family shattered by a tragic accident.
Synopsis
Sometimes a family's love can achieve the impossible...On 12th October 1995, Mavis Marsh answered her door to the news every parent dreads most. 'It's your son,' the policeman told her. 'He's been in an accident.' Only hours earlier, Matthew had been set for a dazzling future but, in one terrible night, a devastating tragedy altered everything. Days later, Mavis found herself standing at her son's bedside as doctors told her to give up all hope. According to them, the damage to Matthew's brain was too severe for him to recover, and the boy she had known and loved was gone forever. But Mavis and her husband, Keith couldn't give up on their only son. And refusing to accept the diagnosis, they started to work with Matthew themselves, desperately urging their comatose son to fight. For months they tried, to no avail. But then, almost half a year later, he suddenly started to respond...

Almost scared to read that one...

And also:
YA-YA's IN BLOOM - which is a sequel to the divine secrets of the ya ya sisterhood, which we both loved :-)
Synopsis
An emotionally charged addition to Rebecca Wells' bestselling and much loved previous novels, "Ya-Yas in Bloom" reveals the roots of the Ya-Yas' friendship in the 1930s and roars through sixty years of marriage, child-raising, and hair-raising family secrets. When four year old Teensy Whitman stuffs a pecan up her nose, she sets off the chain of events that lead Teensy, Caro, Vivi and Necie to become true sister-friends. Told in alternating voices of Vivi and the Petite Ya-Yas, Siddalee and Baylor Walker, as well as other denizens of Thornton, Louisiana, "Ya-Yas in Bloom" shows the Ya-Yas in love, and at war with convention. Through crises of faith and hilarious lapses of parenting skills, brushes with alcoholism and glimpses of the dark reality of racial bigotry, the Ya-Ya values of unconditional loyalty, high style and Cajun sass shine through. But in the Ya-Yas' inimitable way, these four remarkable women also teach their children about the Mysteries: the wonder of snow in the Deep South, the possibility that humans are made of stars, and the belief that miracles do happen.

And they need a miracle when old grudges and wounded psyches lead to a heartbreaking crime - and the dynamic web of sisterhood is the only safety net strong enough to endure.

So along with my scrapbooking and crafting i'm all set for the weekend!

have a fab friday everyone - thanks for popping in!
hugz
jake xx

Up again..

I'm up again in the early hours...

I don't know why I do it, because actually i'm not as young as I once was, and my poor old bod knows this, even if my brain has trouble catching on.

Thing is, I was finishing things off which is why i'm late posting: a layout I started last night, my daring cardmakers card which is 'finished' but not yet stuck down... and a bottle of very nice South African red wine - which is why my card isn't stuck down, lol. :-)

But see!
I do actually learn from past mistakes - even if it takes awhile...I get there eventually. Often Pavlovian style I'll admit, but hey...does it matter?

Big jobs are being done around the house which is good in one way, but stressful. No one really wants workmen pulling the place to pieces do they?

And other than that, there's nothing much to report. The cash flow's still floundering (SSDD) and we're muddling along - as you do, and feeling the cold.

Done a just because LO bout me and my sibling. I love her to pieces, and miss her all the time. Wish we lived near to each other like we used to, but there you go. Life never stays the same. Better learn to live with that certainty sisters...

Me and my sanna - sisters & friends.

Thanks for dropping by, sorry if I sound bit maudlin. Tomorrow will be a better day I feel, though I have stacks to do! :-)

Hugs to yas!

jake x

What Katie did...

Well... what she actually did, was give me an award! :-)

Bless her little cotton, drawn on socks, i've fancied one of these for forever...she must have known, eh..!!

So thanks kate! it's nice to know someone appreciates me and finds me funny (now I can't help but wonder would that be funny ha ha... or erm... funny peculiar....???) ;-)

So anyway the game is, that I now pass it on to some other people, but seeing as how I'm probably the last person on the planet to get one.... that might take some doing.

But I'll give it a go:

First up, I'm gonna give this award to Ana - because she's just so talented. She makes cards, layouts, jewelery, bags, anything.... and everything's lovely :-)
To Marix, coz she's my teamie, she's terrific and her blog's so mad and fun
To Ed because she's SO inventive and makes such beautiful and clever things
To Sarah because she's a love, uber talented and becuase I admire her as a person so much :-)
To Paula because she always has such scrummy things on her blog! Gorgeous food, fab photos,stash... lol!! Always something exciting to look at!
To Fiona - just look - her work is amaaazin!
And also Suzanne, because her stuff is always so fresh and inspiring totally droolable.

Ladies - thanks for making my blurfing so much fun!

Hmmn.. that still might not be enough people, but it's late and i'm tired and I can't count when I'm tired... ;-)

So! Moving swiftly on.... here's a layout which I did for a post on its a creative world tonight.I'm going to be doing some posts on there in the next few weeks where I'll share some simple scrapping tips and techniques, along with the basic principles of design - more for newbies really than the experienced scrapper, but it's something we've been talking about for a long time - I just haven't had time before. This particular post covered 'creating text in a circle' - so if you are new to the craft, and don't know how to do this yet - pop over to creative and see how simple it really is!

Jazz - my NUTTY daughter having a bad hair day.... Pmsl! Can't wait til she sees this!!



thanks for dropping by!
Hugs! jk xx

mixing old and new

I've always mixed old stash with new in scrapping but I'm making even more of a conscious effort to now that cutbacks have forced me to buy less and less. I do still love to get my one treat a month - my flavour of the month kit from Scraproom - which is basically 4 mini kits with embellies and a stamp - and by mixing these with older co-ordinating papers and bits, I can stretch it out to go pretty far.

There was a time I bought 3 kits a month - plus whatever other stash I saw and fancied. In addition, I took 3 magazines a month, and any others I saw on a shelf that caught my eye. Now I buy none. The only things I buy really are ink pads and adhesives... and the occasional stamp set if it's a sale bargain.

But i'm not hard done by!

I have a lovely friend who sends me a box of things now and again... things she says she'll never use herself... but it's like Christmas to me whenever it comes, and I use everything lol!

But let's be honest - most of us scrapbookers have enough stash to last our lifetime even if we never bought another thing! :-)

So again - here's another LO mixing old and new... Can spot which stuff is brand new - and which is ancient?

MOJOHOLDER #80

and the sketch above which Sandie did for us.

Ok, the papers are fairly newish, but the mesh is years old. The rubon butterfly's new, but the tickets years old... the journalling card came in a kit recently, but the chip flower is last years. The rubber flower very new, but the lunch money envie's ancient and the pink block the butterfly is sitting on is from a HOTP book I bought at least 6 or 7 years ago! Obviously buttons and ribbons don't date, but the chip letters are not new - and I could have given them an even more up to date look by outlining them in pen, if I could have been bothered, lol.

My point is that you can still make nice layouts/cards and projects using old stuff you have hanging around. It doesn't have to be the latest thing to hit the store!

This LO doesn't look dated to me. I don't think you'd look at it and say "look at all that old crap on there, it's boring because it's all so.... yesterday..."

Well, hopefully not to my face anyway lol!!!

So go and have a root around and see what old stuff you can combine with new to make a fresh looking layout or card. I think it's fun- and saves you a fortune in stash!

Hope you all have a fab Saturday whatever you're up today, and
thanks for dropping by!

Please say hi if you have the time - it's always nice to 'see' who's been kind enough to visit :-)

hugs to yas'!
jake xx

Whoops!!!!!!

I seem to have lost my banner.

Not actually got ANY idea how that happened.... and I didn't put it in myself either.... :-( hmmnnn.... Could be awhile til I have another one then.

Oh well.

swamped - and not just by the rain...

So there's me... positively drowning under all the things I need to do... I'm so over-stretched again it's not real. And what do I actually do?

Erm...I sit and make cards...
Oh how very me....

So for tonights post there's cards again (which got put together while I really should have been doing other more pressing things... )
ho hum... naughty chair for me, I think.

First day of school card.

This I think, is a little bit cute :-)

Now, does anyone remember those ancient bitty pads?? Anyone going to fess up to owning them once upon a time...? No?

Yes?

Well, get em off that shelf right now, and dust them down....Those papers are simply fab for cards, imo!

I did tell you didn't I, that I was going to be using up old stash, recycling allsorts of everything scrapwise, and making a huge dent in this pile of paid for, but so far unused crap...

And I am! I really mean it...

So... look out your old HOTP books - and don't look so shocked!!!
Find it all, flick through, see what's usable, and get playing! Lol! {and um... before you know it, you too can be making new rubbish to put on your blog - just like me...!!! :-) }

I feel this was always going to happen, given my enduring fixation with all things round.... it was only ever a matter of time til I tried my hand at the 'round' card.... what do you think?

sadly, it hasn't photographed well... it's wonky for a start - the waves are straight when the card's the right way up, but how do you make a round card sit correctly when you're trying to snap it? It kept wanting to roll like a runaway pancake... (even when I had it gripped in the groove of the table, grr!) I think I need tips about this... anyone got tips to share ? :-)

Anyway, it's pretty late now, and I have a day off tomorrow... If I make an early start I might even get to cross a couple of real TO DO's off my list... you never know.

Thanks for dropping in, and if you have time please leave me a comment so I can come your way and share the love!

til next time then ~ jk xx