My poor boy is getting old... he creaks around now, squeezing himself into any warm spot he can, yet he'll still flash a paw (claw!) out and have you as you go by if he feels he can be bothered... Just so you know he's still got it, see? He hasn't lost the devlish glint his gorgeous green eyes - and though he's always in trouble for being underfoot - he can still hear any movement of his food dish from 50 feet... even while in the deepest slumber!

My dear old boy looking as handsome as ever at nearly 16 :-)

Thanks to Laura G for the class.

Christmas songs... which one's your favourite?

I love all things Christmas.... Don't you?

I love the songs... rustly wrapping paper...Christmas carols, the smells.... cinnamon and pine...the lights, mince pies, the twinkly stuff, the anticipation.... and the presents!

This year the guys are coming over early. They can't make Christmas itself, coz it's just not practical. They have jobs, family out there too... pets, committments... and a home - of their own.

But we're sort of going to be doing a bit of Christmas stuff while they're here, so I hope you'll excuse me getting myself in the mood by changing my blog music to something more seasonal...? Oh, Go on....... I know you lot! Any excuse to get in the spirit of it all :-)

I'm SO happy now, coz after a year of rotten luck, we've somehow managed to find the money to buy everyone the presents they want - and still have a bit to indulge ourselves :-) The house is still a tip - but with a bit of tinsel, and a few lights, I guess it'll do... it'll pass muster for a couple of weeks, anyway.

So, tell me - it's not too early... is it?

Have fun picking your own Christmas song and getting in the mood!

Hugs!
jk xx

Lol... am I THAT transparent! :-)

Your Christmas Song Is

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town He's making a list And checking it twice Gonna find out who's naughty and nice Santa Claus is coming to town For you, Christmas is all about checking your stocking... And opening your presents like a wild animal!

What Christmas Carol Are You?

Who.... Moi??? :-)

the waiting game...

Yay! At last my little order from AMLT has arrived....!!

It's my own fault it's taken so long because when I sent the order I forgot to ask Jill to upgrade my postage to a flat rate mailer - I won't make that mistake again. It's been weeks, and there's only a few bits there anyway, a couple of sets of stamps, and some other pretty odds and ends, but still!

I have had a few other exciting parcels arrive this week, but not stuff I can have right now. Mostly Christmas presents that family have told me to order and they'll pay for :-) So, not many surprises for me on the day, but at least this way I get exactly what I want :-)

I'm going to be stuck here in the house all day today coz I'm waiting on a delivery (by courier) of something that's going to make someone else around here very very happy - I hope! Not sure the neighbours will be so pleased come 5.30 am Dec 25th... but I imagine they've become used to it over the years. From keyboards, to Karaoke machines to electric guitars they are now well used to our "sweet music" drifting through their wall...

That's how my dear elderly neighbour puts it....
"...Yes Vin, we hear your sweet music sometimes..."

Personally, I'd hardly call Black Sabbath at 400 decibels 'sweet music', but there's no accounting for taste, eh? Thank heaven's we have such lovely (deaf) neighbours!

Scissor Sisters Layouts

2 quick layouts I did today for my Scissor Sisters gallery.

I just love these pic's of Ruben - he's such a scamp and so cheeky. I wanted a fun page to show him off.

And then a very simple page about little girls... well, our newest litle girl actually - the lovely Matilda - just one day old!

2 layouts in a day! Unbelievable ..... ! Never been known... :-)

OUCH!

Well, as a family we've had more than our share of unpleasant experiences in the last week or two.... Now Isabelle's hurt herself bad, and as rotten luck usually comes in three's let's hope this is the final thing.

On Sunday, Iz and Sollo were playing a game with a magic wand... a sort of tug of war game... you get the scenario.... big brother, little sister - one wand. Anyway, Iz is pulling one way, Sollo the other - and eventually the thing comes apart... and izzy goes down with a big bump in the hallway. On her btm. OUCH!

She cried, Sollo said sorry, she had a little fuss on Dad's knee, and that was that. Til later on when the pain really kicked in - and anyone who has ever sat down hard on their tail will know this - it jolly well hurts... like billy-o.

The poor little girl is in very bad pain. Donna consulted the nurse practitioner at our surgery as Iz won't eat, can't sit, can't sleep, and generally is in real distress. She spoke with the health visitor who advised visiting casualty. They were in A&E for 5 hours yesterday, where two consultants finally decided she was playing up as there's a new baby in the house! My dd was NOT impressed with that diagnoses, I can tell you.

As Iz still hasn't slept, eaten, is on 2 kinds of painkiller, is having problems with her bowels and cries constantly,even through the night, Donna took her back to the GP today. He, fortunately, was far more thorough and sympathetic, and said she must have two weeks off school, lots of fluids, and searched for a stronger painkiller for her that he could prescribe in syrup form.

This is just NOT our Izzy. The girly loves her food, loves school, is always on the go, and is a real livewire, and she's has just been knocked for six by this pain she doesn't understand, and really doesn't want anymore of.

On a happier note, a new barbie video from her grandad this morning raised a small smile - the first since that awful bump.

Really hope this heals quickly, and she's back to prancing and leaping and singing very very soon. :-(

Amended to Add: Jon has just now taken her back to the hospital for an X ray as he can't bear to hear her crying anymore... this is so terrible, we're all worried sick now. Please everyone, send some healing vibes this way for my poor little Grandaughter. This is not right. Something must be wrong here....

Congratulations to my buddies!

Heard tonight that two of my friends, Caroline and Laura, have both made the final 20 of The Scrapbook Magazine's Scrapbooker of the Year competition!! Yay! Go them !
Go them even having time to enter!! Lol!! :-) That's a feat in itself eh? Never mind making the final few!

Gorgeous layouts, and very deserving finalists. I'm chuffed to bits for them and feeling pretty damned proud of them both tonight.

You can cast your votes here for your own personal favourites - I understand all 20 are featured in the mag this month.

Good luck girls and well done to everyone who made it this far. Congrats all!

Just to remind you all....

Christmas IS coming!

Yay!..... hehehehe!!

{have you been good....? there's still time, you know ;-) }

Clearly ok!

My class page on Carolinez forum went down ok. I always worry when people ask me to do classes for them for cyber crops or whatever that folks won't like them, or want to do them.

I wasn't at the front of the queue when they handed out confidence unfortunatley, and nothing in my life has happened to alter that since.

But I still try. If I'm asked to have a go at something, I usually oblige. And Ill give it a good shot too. 'No point half doing a job' was something I often heard as a kid. 'If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well' was another... these things sort of stay with you, don't they? Lol!

So.... I had a go, worked with the kit and put it up for consumption. I'm happy to say lots of girlies took the class and there are some smashing examples of other people's version on show now :-)

Here's the original - my Jazza - clearly beautiful.


Very wonky scan - Whooops! Sorry!

OMG! Talk about scary....!

Talking to Jazz earlier and she tells me of their most recent piece of excitement:

A 747 ( pretty big huh?) almost crashed into their house yesterday...

Let me just say, it shouldn't have been anywhere near their house at that point, but having been given clearance for landing, the SpanAir plane was so close to touching the tarmac that it's wheels were down and everything - when the crew suddenly realised a Binter (a small plane that island hops round the Canaries) was on the runway right in front of them.... and Whooooosh! They had to try and get up and get the hell out of the way!

So the plane is now screeching it's way upward heading towards the town, over beaches and roads, and suddely it's right above a sprawling residential area on the edge of the strip!

My son in law was outside and he yelled for Jazz to come quick - by the time she got there the bloody great beast was right over her house with the wheels still locked down, barely skimming her trees and roof! It would already have passed over Hayley's place a second or two before...

All I can say is thank heaven's there are no high rise buildings in PDC - There are one or two on the island, but fortunately out of harm's way.

She said they just absolutely cacked it. The noise, the wind, the huge shadow it cast, everything was shaking and rattling...the planes engine screaming... and all the people crying out and panicking... holidaymakers, Spanish, English - everyone screaming it's gonna crash!

Thank God it didn't, but the pilot must have been terrified- and I can't imagine the fear inside the plane. My son in law said the biggest investigation is now going on. He's a station manager there, and said there was NO WAY the binter should have been there at all. Air Traffic Control gave no instructions for that so obviously something went very badly wrong. Scary eh?

He's a plane nut that lad, and after recovering from the shock he said he wished he'd thought to grab his camera...

My girlie said she just wished for some new pants!

It's getting longer all the time!

Phew - how long does it take YOU to get round the blogs?
Could you all stop being so interesting please? :-)

Hmm?
jk x

Why do I.....

... visit forums....?

They just make me want things I never knew I needed. Today I learned about the Cricut. I didn't need to know about this thing coz I could never afford one in a million years, and even if I could - how would I find the money to buy the cartridges to put in it?

If it's not machinery, it's papers, stamps or other paraphernalia that's out of my reach, and knowing about them only makes me feel disgruntled if I'm already down and feeling a bit sorry for myself.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not being jealous - I know most people work very hard to pay for their purchases... I just mean if I didn't know about them, I wouldn't want them, would I? Ignorance is bliss and all that.

Becoming Real

Yesterday we started getting Real round here....

Vin's 14 now, and while he's not turned into a streetwise tearway out boozing and creating havoc, he is slowly becoming more the teenager/young adult than the kid he still was this time last year.

Yesterday we started putting things away. Things he doesn't need anymore. Stuff that he's too old for and has decided he doesn't want in his room anymore.

Until recently, most of his stuff has just stayed in there, in boxes, undisturbed and harming no one by being in the corner. Action figures, games, old toys, stuff like that. But yesterday we thought we'd get his Dad to put it all up in the loft coz he's really never going to want any of it again; but we do have other small boys in the family who one day might.

We were fine til we got to the bedtime boys, who actually, weren't even IN his room. They were in MY room, coz Vin doesn't want them in there when his mates come to stay, and they've been in there for weeks... just sitting on the side, you know... since last time.

Anyway. I suppose I started it. I had a black bag... and I started to pick up the boys to put them in.... and I couldn't.... I held those animals and hugged them. Kissed them all, arranged them so everyone was hugging someone else - as if that would make them feel less abandoned, and I even managed to get the two nut brown hares into the bag, along with Fuzz and Mutzi... but when it came to bubbear and Jose-hola... well, I just couldn't do it.

I held bubbsie's old threadbare body and looked at his squashed lopsided face and I couldn't do it. The lump in my throat just got too big and I was bawling... crying for the memory of all those nights he'd made Vin feel safe, and loved him and been his best bear. I cried into Jose-hola's skinny knitted body, and held him tight, remembering that before Vin loved him, he'd always slept on JenJen's bed in spain, and she'd loved him too. A sad old knitted Golly, falling to pieces, but someone so loved, and once so needed.

How could I fling them in a bag and put them away in a cold dark place...?

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
-- by Margery Williams, from The Velveteen Rabbit

Well, then I set Vin off... and Carlos. We looked at each other, and I slowly took them all out of the bag.

Not yet.

We don't need to get that Real yet....

The bedtime boys can live in my room for now.
Just in case the skin horse has got it wrong and they do mind being hurt....

Class page on Carolinez

My class page is now up on Carolinez forum. Everyone welcome :-)


Here's a li'l peek!
Easily adaptable using any kind of papers - the transparent circle could highlight any part of the photo you want to place emphasis on.

C'mon over and have a play if you fancy it. It's chance to get your stickles out of the dusty box you put em in a couple of years ago..... As for me ME.......? Well, I'm mad on em again.


Jakey - the stickles queen mark II rises again! Lol!

You think it's never going to happen to you....

So, our fantastic shopping trip and reunion was pretty much ruined today, by some skanky little bastard who tried to Rob my girls on the way home. Sorry to swear, but I can think of a LOT worse things to call this guy than that right now... I really can.

We'd had a lovely day. The kids have assembly on a Friday and as Hayley has no children of her own, she really loves to go along whenever she's in England to see them in school and take photo's and stuff which she then shares with Jazz in Lanza. She'd taken her brand new tiny camcorder and digi cam with her, and as a mass shopping trip was planned lots of spending money and cards etc too. Donna also had cash on her to buy Christmas presents and obviously, their phones, bags and whatever they needed for the day.

We did our shopping and had a nice lunch. Never stopped laughing all day, even though the heaven's opened on us and the sky turned black, we just trundled along with all our parcels and bags and headed for the car park. We reached Donna's people carrier first, and were joking about only just getting back before our tickets ran out. I hugged the girls goodbye, and me and Vin hurried off to look for our car, parked further away. It is a bit dark and gloomy in there and normally I'm wary, but today I was in a big rush. The bags were killing me, I really wanted to get out of the shocking weather, and get home before it got dark. The country lanes between Hemel and our hometown are a nightmare in the daytime - in the dark and with all sorts of flooding... Well, they'd be hellish, I knew.

I was aware of someone to my right, but paid him no mind. We quickly found the car and threw our stuff in and pealed out of there pdq.

Next thing, the kids are on the phone. Some guy - and Vin immediately knew it was the fella in the hoodie we'd seen - had opened up the door while they were struggling to get the pram inside, and tried to take their bags. Donna had run round but was too scared to challenge him. The poor kid's got a three week old baby with her, and two tiny kids at home! She said she thought he was going to stab her... He just stood there watching her and wouldn't move. She daren't talk to him and she daren't move away. Hayley was still trying to get the baby into the car and wasn't even aware of what was going on. Don said it felt like slow motion and she was certain he'd taken stuff and either thrown it under the next car or stashed it over the wall. But still she daren't confront him.

Eventually, some people came along and finally he sauntered off. The girls quickly scrabbled through their stuff and realised they'd just had a very very lucky escape. Caught him in the nick of time... but the next poor young Mum may not be so lucky.

What the hell is it with these assholes anyway? Never heard of WORK?

I am so angry. And their Dad is livid! I am also feeling quite quite sick with all the what if's running through my head.... You read about this stuff, you know? Some idiot with a knife - a split second of desperation - and a family broken forever.

Ladies - Please, PLEASE take care. We all throw our bags in the front seat... then run round the side and try and sort the kids/ buggy/ shopping out... we're busy, in a hurry, distracted.

Ideal targets.

But try and be aware. And if they look like they're gonna take it anyway - just let them.
It's only stuff. It can be replaced. You can't.

Off to shop!

Meeting up with my girlies today - SO excited :-)

I haven't seen Lally since July, when we had a fab two weeks together in Lanza, and spent everyday shopping, swimming, eating, lazing, chatting... whatever.

Donna, me and Lally are meeting today and we're going to shop til we drop, have lunch out and just enjoy the day. Then tomorrow she's off up to London with her cousin to see the Magic Numbers in concert, Sunday her ans Dan fly to Malta for an all Inc holiday, and then when they get back they'll visit Dan's family and maybe squeeze a quick visit back home before hopping on a plane back to Lanza to take over the care of their own, and Jazz's animals, so they can fly out!

Scissor Sisters DT Call

I can't believe I've worked for the wonderful Scissor Sisters for almost a whole year!

These gals - real sisters and busy business partners, Becky and Denise - somehow manage to combine motherhood, design work, and running their paper and sticker business really well, and are honestly the most generous and supportive people I have ever worked for in the scrapbooking industry. October Memory Trends saw the release of lots of scrummy new products - all just in time for the new DT to play with, because the 2007 DT call is out! They are looking for 10 fun and talented peeps to be the DT for 2007....and the best thing is - they welcome international applications!

....If you're interested in trying out, details can be found here

Lovely products, lovely people. Good luck!

Weird Al Yankovic

Ok.... I know i'm slow on the uptake, but today my teenage son introduced me to the hysterical delights of Weird Al Yankovic on YouTube... and I've never laughed so much in my life!

Please don't be offended at his antics - it appears he takes the mickey out of, and parodies everyone in equal measure :-)

My curent favourites are white and nerdy, headline news, and smells like nirvana.

if you fancy a laugh today, go have a look. The guy's clearly a maniac.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJehVbe7Cxs

Help!

Crikey - why is it whenever you think you have a bit of time on your hands things suddenly crop up and you have to get your skates on again and get cracking!

I thought i'd caught up a bit ... ha ha.... silly me :-)

The date for Carolines Cyber Crop is getting ever closer (Sat 9th & Sun 10th Dec) and I have classes and challenges to do for that which I haven't even started yet, never mind all my usual comittments. We've got some amazing stuff lined up for you though, with classes and fun from our hugely talented Design Team. I know you all love Maria's and Laura's work especially, and Caroline and I have put some fabby things together too so it should be a blast. Come along and play with us! Not sure if there are any kits left now as they were going like hot cakes, but you can always use your own stash if they're sold out. Why not drop by and see what Caroline has left? Be fun to see you there, so go pencil it in your scrapping diary today :-)

I've also got the pleasure of working with some very very delish products my Editor sent me this week from a fantabulously funky company who recently announced their new DT - No, not me! - I didn't even have time to enter, but they do some pretty scrumptious stuff and I kid you not when I say I was hopping about with excitement when I opened the box and saw the stash inside ;-)

Then I've got to clear the decks in here, as we have family coming to stay and need the room, so who knows when I'll have time to do that - maybe i should go and GET ON now!! Lol!

-
Have a great day all!
Happy Scrappin!
jk xx

First Christmas card!

We got our first Christmas card today..... from Snapfish of all places! lol!

Now, I'm not saying I'm a great customer or anything, but I do order a fair few photos from them, and got a lovely delivery today, complete with loads of piccies of Matilda, lots of Ruben, some of Sollo and Izzy in their halloween outfits, and a couple of other general stuff. I had 2 8x10's (one was a freebie) and the rest mainly 7x5, as that's what I usually scrap with.

Haven't had it yet but we usually get a card - and a calendar! ;-) - from the Indian restaurant too.... you can see where our money goes, eh? And when my middle DD stil lived at home we'd get one from the local taxi firm!!!! Lally would get a cab to the end of the garden those days!

As for me - I haven't even started to think about cards yet, let alone buying them, writing them or posting them. And please don't anyone expect handmade from me. For some reason people are always surprised to learn that I've never made a card in my life! I wouldn't know where to start :-)
I always think I might like to have a go... but that's as far as it goes. I think I did try to make Dolly one last year... but i'm pretty certain the card that actually landed on her mat came from Oxfam - not my own fair hands!