Its been a busy few weeks here. Lots going on work wise and hectic social life too.

Last weekend we went to Bruntingthorpe for Wayne's Aston Martin driving experience. He got the experience voucher for a Christmas present a couple of Christmases ago but because of the trouble he's had with his back he hadn't been able to use it until now. So last Saturday we all went off to Leicestershire to watch him. He had a great time and got to drive an Aston Martin V8 Vantage and also ride as a passenger in a Lamborghini Spyder. He was in his element wizzing along at 170mph! Cars are his thing and he loved every minute of it. One of my friends asked me if after driving the Aston Martin was he thinking of getting one - I wish!!!! Gotta win the lottery first.

Sunday was Father's Day we decided to spend a leisurely afternoon at Wrest Park. despite the weatherman's forecast, it stayed quite sunny and the kids had a great time playing Frisbee and running around. They were surprisingly happy to have me take their photos too!

Mojoholder challenges #66, #67 and #68 have gone live since I last posted (bad blogger!).

Challenge #66 was a scraplift of a LO by Yvette Adams. I was really pleased with my LO - not something I have been able to say very often lately. It was outside of my comfort zone but I loved the finished effect. I used a cute photo of Wayne & Lara at Southwold last month.

Challenge #67 was a challenge with a difference. We had to scraplift a LO by another member of the Design team. I choose to lift Angie. I LOVE Angie's LOs and again I was pleased with my effort. I must be on a roll! I had scrapped this photo of Lara before - It's one of my favs.

Last weeks Challenge, #68 was to lift a LO by Alison Shearer. This was quite a challenge because although I loved Alison's LO the huge photo scared me! Anyway I did the LO - and yep, I liked it! LOL. The photo I used was of Steven in Dorset - the finished effect of the photo was a total fluke. I could have tried for ages to get such an effect but it just happened by accident.

Don't forget to check out MojoHolder tomorrow night for another great scraplift idea. We've got some new design team members whose work is awesome and truly inspiring.

Nothing much to post about at the moment so I'll just show you my latest LOs.

Mojo Holder #64 was a lift of a LO by Jolene. Jolene's original LO was amazingly beautiful and was quite pleased with mine too. I used a photo of Lara taken in the snow. I seem drawn to the pile of snowy photos lately. Don't know why - 'cos we so rarely see any snow, but just love scrapping them especially with BasicGrey papers.

Last week, Mojo Holder #65 was a lift of a LO by Heather Preckel. Not a scrapbooker I had come across before but I enjoyed lifting her LO. I used photos of Lara at Rainbows.

I promised that I would show you some of the LOs I created whilst I was on my scrapbooking weekend last month. I've been a bit slow in scanning them ........ VERY slow actually, but I'll leave you with one of them and maybe I'll get to show you the others another time.

Just realised the images are a bit small but don;t forget if you click on them you can see them bigger.

2 birthdays, 2 weekends away, Steam Engines and lots of sunshine!

I can't believe that it has been well over a month since I blogged. During that time we've had two birthdays in the family, 2 weekends away, been to the Steam and Country Fair and now we're enjoying the best weather we've had for ages - wall to wall sunshine! I love summer and can never get enough of the sunshine.

Back in April we celebrate both the boys birthdays. Steven chose to celebrate his with a sleepover for some of his friends whilst Christopher chose to take some of his friends paint balling. Both events were fun - in their own way, and the boys enjoyed themselves which is the main thing.

Towards the end of April I went away on a girly weekend with a great group of fellow scrappers. We scrapped almost solidly from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon stopping only to eat, chat, eat, laugh, eat, drink ........ oh and eat some more. It was a wonderful weekend and I'm hoping that next year we'll be able to get together and do the same. I created 9 LOs during the weekend and when I get around to scanning them I'll post them on here.

The weekend before last the whole family went to Suffolk for the weekend. Apart from holidays when I was a child and day trips since. I've not really been to Suffolk much. We stayed at Dunwich and really enjoyed it. We'd heard so many people say how nice Southwold and Aldeburgh were that we made sure we visited those places and sure enough they lived up to expectations. We also went to Framlingham Castle where a pageant was being held. There were lots of photo opportunities and inspiration for LOs.

And now, we are basking in sunshine. The weather has been so hot for the last week, the paddling pool is out and we managed our first BBQ of the summer last weekend after a day spent at the Stotfold Steam and Country Fair - yes more photos were taken. LOL

Apart from the scrapping during my weekend away, I have managed to do some LOs for Mojo Holder too although on a couple of weeks I had to pass. Challenge #58 was from the the fantastic Kim Musgrove. I was not at all happy with my LO that week though!

I was actually quite pleased with my LO for Challenge #59. A scrap lift of a LO by Lauren Rhodes.

I had to miss challenge #60 which was a lift of an awesome LO by Ngaire Bartlam but managed to join in with challenge #61 from Sande Krieger.

I missed challenge #62 which was a lift of LO by Anam Stubbington but was able to join in last week with challenge #63 from Roz James.

Please do pop along to Mojo Holder to see everyone elses work - mine may not be up to scratch sometimes but the rest of the teams Los are awesome. Also, do check out the blogs of some of the girls whose LOs we have lifted (hopefully I've provided all the links) - there is some great inspiration there.

We had snow!!!!!

Yes, we finally had our first snow of the year - yippee - on Easter Sunday! It had been trying to snow for several days and eventually on Easter Sunday we woke up to a light covering. Not enough for a snowman but plenty for a snowball fight or two. I had begun to think that I had missed all photo opportunities during the last few months . We were all ill at sometime or other over Christmas so only got a handful of photos then. We had no snow during January or February (when if we going to get snow we usually would) so no photos then. And, I didn't have my camera with me when Steven got a certificate in his school end of term assembly or when Lara did her Chinese Dragon dance at her Easter assembly So this snow at Easter was a bonus. By the time we got around to our Easter Egg hunt the snow had all but gone and I guess we won't see anymore until next Winter.

Mojo #55 went live on 14th March. We lifted a LO by Jaimie Emmerton. Jamie's original LO was such a sweet Lo of her wee dog ..... Awwwww. My LO featured Steven in a thoughtful pose.

Unfortunately I didn't manage Mojo #56 which went live on Good Friday. The power supply unit of our PC decided to call it a day with a very spectacular spark and puff of smoke which left me with a half finished LO which I needed my Craft Robo to finish and even if I had finished it I had no scanner or photo software to upload it. It was a shame because the LO we were lifting was by a scrapper called Kelli Crowe whose work is gorgeous and the rest of the team came up with lovely LOs.

With the PC all mended, i was able to complete challenge #57 last Friday evening. It was a LO by Kelly Mccaleb. Here are the two LOs.

I know I keep saying it but please do pop along to Mojo Holder. We have some great scrap lift ideas coming up in the next month or so. You really wouldn't want to miss them.

Overdue update

Gosh it's been a long time since I updated my blog! I think the reason why I've not updated it is because (a) nothing very exciting has happened for me to tell you about although (b) I've been quite busy with mundane routine stuff.

Since I last blogged there have been 4 (yes 4!) new challenges on Mojo Holder.

Challenge #51 was to lift a LO by Becky Fleck. I'm a big fan of Becky's Pagemaps (I'm eagerly waiting to get my hands on a copy of her new book!) so was looking forward to doing this scraplift, but have to admit that I really struggled with it. Anyway here is Becky's LO, and here is mine featuring a swan from the Swannery at Abbotsbury, Dorset.

Challenge #52 was a lift of a LO by UK scrapper Hebe. I loved doing this LO despite all the 'white space' which really isn't my thing. Here's the two LOs - I used a photo of Lara that I took last summer and have been itching to use.

Mojo Challenge #53 saw us lifting another ukscrapper called Nattieg. Her LO was gorgeous. I used a photo of Steven taken enjoying a chocolate egg at Easter.

And finally Mojo challenge #54 was to lift a LO by famous scrapper, Ali Edwards. Ali's LO was great but has to be the hardest LO I have had to try and scraplift so far. The LO was very simple but boy did I struggle with my version! I used photos of Lara's 5th birthday.

Please do pop along to the Mojo Holder site if you have a moment. We've had a few new girls join the team in recent months and as well as seeing everyone's LO on the site you can also see a sketch of each LO to help you if you want to have a go yourself . There are also prizes from time to time for LOs posted in our readers gallery. We love to see what you've done.

FORGOT TO MENTION

We went to Audley End House last weekend to their snowdrop walk. If anyone lives in that area it's worth a trip. Audley End is closed during the winter months, but opens the first three weekends in February for the Snowdrops. We will certainly go back again in the summer when the house is open. Here's a couple of photos from our visit.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Happy Valentines Day! Hope that your loved ones have treated you well. DH sent me a lovely bouquet of flowers that were delivered earlier. I'll try and take a photo later. Last year he sent me a gorgeous bouquet of red roses and they were my inspiration for a LO I created for this weeks challenge on UKScrappers. The challenge was to create a LO incorporating a love and/or hate theme, the colour red or pink, a heart, an arrow or and a romantic quote or a love song title . This was my LO. I finally used some of the Queen & Co felt ribbon that I have been hoarding.

The next LO I did for last weeks weekly challenge. We had to use a Beatles song title, bright summery colours, 7 of something, no blossoms and were supposed to use paint. Paint and I don't really work well together so there was no paint on my LO. I used photos of Lara on her first bus ride. We took her on the Park n Ride at Dorchester last summer just for the experience of going on a bus. She was thrilled. The little bus ticket on the LO was created at http://www.says-it.com/ . It's a nifty site which lets you create your own concert tickets, record labels, etc. Well worth book marking.

It's school half term holiday here this week. It's been a week where 'Mum's Taxi Service' has been very busy! We've been to the dentist and the opticians and are having hair cuts today. Chris needed taking to and from school on two days because he went in to work on an electric car he and some other pupils have designed and are building with a view to racing under the Greenpower F24 rules. Then there was a sleep over too which he needed to go to and from. I thought school hols were supposed to be relaxing!

Since I last posted Mojo Holder challenge #50 went live. We lifted a LO by a UK Scrapper called cloclo. Here is cloclo's LO and mine.

I'm starting to get excited about a weekend I'm going on in April. I'm getting together with a group of friends I've meet through scrapping for a couple of days of scrapping, chatting, eating and laughing - there will be plenty of laughing I'm sure. I need to be prepared though with page kits to keep me occupied, so really need to start thinking about them soon or I shall be so disorganised.

Don't forget to look out for this weeks Mojo Holder challenge on Friday.

Sorry, it's been a few weeks since I last blogged. Nothing much has been happening so I've not had anything to blog about.

Mojo Holder challenges #48 and #49 went live. Challenge #48 was a lift of a LO by Aussie scrapper Michelle Grant. Here is Michelle's very stylist LO and my version using a photo of Steven. I played about with the colours in the photo a bit to try and bring out the blue in his eyes - he really does have lovely eyes.

Challenge #49 was to lift a LO by nath aka na ch on 2 peas. Here is nath's LO and my LO. I used photos of Lara at Cricket St Thomas in Somerset and BasicGrey Two Scoops papers - they are so lush!

I also managed to complete two of the weekly challenges on UKScrappers. I was really pleased how both of them turned out and they have both been accepted into the BasicGrey online gallery.

Mojo Holder Challenge #47 went live last night. We scraplifted a page by the talented Lynz from UKS. I loved Lynz' page but think my scrapping has become rather stale and so wasn't 100% happy with my LO and certainly didn't do Lynz LO justice. I love some of the LOs I see online and in magazines that use recent trends like using mainly card stock and doodling but it doesn't work for me. I'm a 100% patterned paper girl and very rarely use much cardstock apart from matting (says she whose mojo LO last week was all cardstock!) which I guess is quite old hat. Anyway, here are the two LOs.

I also had a go at the weekly challenge on UKS which was 'Wizard of Oz' themed - Use a Wizard of Oz theme, use at least 2 of the the colours red, green or yellow, use red bling for the shiny Ruby Slippers and use metal for the Tin Man. Here's my LO of the village Scarecrow Festival held in the summer.

Bug Free !!!!!

Yippee, at long last we seem to be germ free (touch wood!). The children are all back at school and have been all week, and Wayne and I are feeling much better too.

It's been a busy week with the children going to their various clubs in the evenings. Lara started Rainbows last night. She thoroughly enjoyed it and is already asking 'how many sleeps until I go again?' That means Wednesday nights are now really busy with karate, scouts and now rainbows although Steven is actually talking about giving up karate. It's a shame - he's been training for four years and now has his purple and white belt, but if he's not enjoying it then I'm not going to make him go. He seems in a real quandary though and reluctant to make the decision. Bless him.

One of my New Years resolutions was to declutter (again!!!) and hopefully make a bit of money in the process. I've started by sorting out my craft cupboard. There is so much in there that I will never, ever, ever use so I've been listing it on eBay. Last night a box of bits and pieces sold for the princely sum of £16! Not bad for a box of stuff that's just been sitting there for a couple of years. I've got some more auctions ending next week and already three of them have bids on them. I'm beginning to see pound signs in front of my eyes. LOL

Last weeks Mojo challenge was to lift a LO by Lee Woodside a very talented Aussie scrapper. I used photos from our annual trip to Norfolk last October. Here are the LOs (Lee's first, mine after)






Don't forget if you join in with the Mojo challenges and submit your LO you could have the chance of winning one of the prizes up for grabs. Go on have a go! Tomorrow we lift a LO from a member of UKScrappers.

When will these bugs go away?????

Christmas came - and Christmas went - and we were all at sometime or other over the festive season ill. Lara was ill a couple of days after she broke up from school but recovered pretty quickly despite still having an awful cough. The boys were both ill on Christmas Day with this horrible sicky flu bug that's going around, and have been up and down ever since. I have had the mother of all colds which I've still not shaken off and am fed up of being permanently snuffly, and then Wayne came down with a cold too. WHEN WILL THESE BUGS GO AWAY?

Beacuse I was ill I had to miss the Mojo challenge on 28th December but I did managed to get last weeks completed. We lifted a LO by *shanah* from 2peas. Here are the LOs (mine is obviously the second one)

Another challenge goes live on Mojo tomorrow so do check it out. We are lifting a LO by an Aussie scrapper this week.