The postman was good to me this week...


Lookie lookie...I got my new kit from Docrafts for my demo next week in Inspiring Ideas. Lots of lovely new bits 'n pieces. Really love those floral foam stamps and metallic embossing powders. They also have a great new range of pearl and crystal brads which are yum! I'm going to be busy this week!

Went to see a production of 'Chess' last weekend in the NCH. The divine and talented Mr Peter Corry was worth the trip alone :-) Great to see the Glasnevin Musical Society stepping up the gear a bit - with their untypical and very realistic (!) performance of 'One night in Bangkok!' Dont think Ive ever witnessed pole dancing in a classical musical society before LOL! It was a great show - well done to all involved! Speaking of GMS - the Gilbert and Sullivan performance in the NCH a few weeks ago will be on the 'wireless' next Monday night at 9pm on radio 1. Fame at last! :-)

The kids had fun this week making hand prints from clay. Lucy made a bit of a mess of hers as she moved before the gel set. This is a great little kit I got ages ago - they turn out so realistically..






Have been busy scrapping this week - got some challenges done. This was my entry for Scrapwest last weekend. We had to choose our fav colour and describe what it means...To see the other girls work - click on the Scrapwest link on the right hand bar...

Eva has been sick all week with an ear infection - spiky temps, vomiting and just lolling around for days. Thankfully she came good in time for her ballet exam today so it was all fine in the end. As a result I've been trying to keep the little people occupied while we hung around the house. Lucy likes alcohol inks and you can see that she has a natural ability for it ;-) She loves when you throw in the blending solution and watch it bubble. I'll make crafters out of my girls yet!
In fact Eva made me this card during the week accompanied with a hand fashioned necklace made out of pipe cleaners and plastic string to say thank you for minding her while she was sick...t melted my heart (WUB!). Sometimes I wonder why I gave up a perfectly good pensionable job to stay at home and mind my two monkeys but these moments make it worthwhile...Don't you just love kid's phonetic spelling (ur datr)!

Got out to two crafty events this week ...more like escaped as fast as I could! Interesting bead class on Tuesday at arc angels - will say no more on that subject ;-)! Tonight went to Annamarie's class in Whitehall and we did a fab LO using the new Phoebe Basic Grey. It's really lush - got to see the new collections up close and personal. Gotta get me some!

More Temple St Dramas this weekend...

We're keeping the national health system bouyant with our trips to Temple St hospital :-) Friday night, settled in for a nice crafty evening. Carrie and Linda called over and we made some altered items, did some cj's and had a nice glass of vino. Just at midnight Eva woke up screaming with a pain in her head and her temp was up to 40.6. She had a fall earlier that day in school - her teacher told me she had fallen backwards from a chair and landed on her head but they had just icepacked it and she seemed fine afterwards. It gave me such a fright as she was really unwell when she woke up and she even asked for medicine and a doctor.

I rang a taxi left poor Carrie holding the fort as Ed was away overnight. When we got into Temple St there were so many people waiting I was in shock - maybe 50 or 60 filling three waiting rooms and a corridor. I overheard people saying they had been waiting 4 and 8 hours and all around me babies and kids were vomiting and covered in rashes (nice!). Don't ask me why but the gods were on my side as I was called in after an hour and brought straight to a bed. She was monitored for 5 hours and eventually discharged at 6am with a diagnosis of a viral illness. They did enough neuro obs on her to confirm that it was nothing to do with concussion and just a coincidence that a viral bug should hit her on the same day. Anyway she spent yesterday vomiting and a is a little brighter today but still in bed being waited on hand and foot. Fingers crossed thats the end of it and the rest of us don't get it!

Anyway as we are having a quiet weekend I'm getting some alcohol inks work done and maybe get started on some circle journals which are mounting up at a phenomenol pace. Here's the entry I did for this weeks Scrapwest on Friday night and a frame I did for a client during the week...

TFL

Happy Valentine's Day (aka Happy Hallmark Day:-))

I hit the shops early this morning to secure my pack of 'guaranteed tender fillet steak' from Marks & Spencers, knowing that the world and it's lover will be eating in or dining out tonight. My assumption was correct as there were rows upon rows of men hovering around the red card section and the naughty and tasteless underwear section of M&S. It's always funny observing men on the 14th Feb - looking all awkward and embarrassed paying for their purchases. One guy in particular must have spent ten minutes playing with the pop up bit of the card he had picked out -typical man... more interested in the engineering function than the sentiment.... I'm sure it's intended recipient is over the moon with it right now:-)

Anyway being a hopeless romantic myself I made dh a present which I can't show here right now as it is also doubling up as my Scrapwest project. Ye will have to wait til the weekend to see it....However this is what I did last weekend for the title of 'Family'.



My two girls both made sure I had a delivery from them for Valentine's day - Eva made me a card and signed it 'Eva - I rote it myself' (bless) and Lucy made me a lovely parcel of marshmallows dipped in chocolate with a big jelly on top in montessori. I would have photographed it to show here except she ate the lot when I left her alone for a minute (bless!!!). I told dh not to bother with Tesco's wonderful offer of €95 for a dozen red roses - instead get me some stamps (the rubber/craft variety) haha! So off I go now to cook my 'guaranteed tender fillet steak!' Bon Appetite everyone....

It's all in the box...



Wow what a day - jam packed from beginning to end.... Set off at 9am for Eva's very first girls brigade competition. We had to sit through 18 re-runs of Daniel O'Donnell's 'Sweet Sixteen' as each team perfomed their little dance routine. Eva had practiced for months for this and did us all proud - giving it socks. Her team didn't win but that's ok as we had done the drill of 'it's not about winning it's the taking part' blah blah but she seemed to be ok with that. However another team (my SIL's) won the whole thing so everyone's happy...

Then it was a quick dash out to my class/crop in Cabra. We had a large group today which was great as we had a special presentation to make to Caroline who just got married a month ago. First we presented her with an 'explosion box' of little photos of the wedding day which is what we made in the class today...

Then we revealed the big secret we have been harbouring for a month - emails, photos and layouts have been flying back and forth and I have been terrified of me or anyone letting the cat out of the bag. The lovely crafty girls of craft supplies from all over the country (Cork to Tory island!) kindly agreed to each do a layout of the wedding photo I sent them and we presented Carrie with this Italian leather bound album of all the LO's. This is going to be a long posting so pull up a chair!

In not so chronological order we have...

Lainey




Maggie May/Mary


Jackie (the two non-scrappers allegedly!) Wow ladies what telepathy!!!


Lainey


Isobel/Lebosi


Noelle DLO (from Tory:-) look at that matching crochet!)


Donna/Dublin girl


Audrey



Jackie C


Elisa


KateG



Lainey

Tigger/Janet


Bronwen


Ruth/Ringo


Lucy/Louise


Karen/Karvaloo


Krafty Kate



Lainey

Eva



Lainey DLO


Mireille


Tracy & Marian (& Julia:-))

Lainey DLO


Kiki

Evonne Reidy


Coco/Corina


Caroline O (Cork)


Annamarie was involved too so we will post a photo up asap.

And here's the album it was all presented in and Caroline's great reaction to getting it. I know she is absolutely thrilled to bits with it and is in awe of all the hours or work that people put into doing it for her. Just want to say thank you so much to everyone involved - you are all fantastic!
If I have missed anyone's LO sincere apologies - just let me know and I will pop a photo up...

Having one of those weeks - where you cant wait for the weekend because the week is finally over:-) Tuesday night Ed closed the ensuite door on Eva's fingers - yikes! You should have heard the scream - you just knew there was going to be trouble. I was half afraid to look in case there was a finger missing but thankfully two of them were a bit squashed. She insisted she couldn't bend them so Ed took her to Temple St. After an hour he texted me to say she was moving them perfectly - now there's a surprise! He decided to wait it out to be sure so one X-ray, 2.5 hours and a 2 minute consultation (not to mention €50) they were home again with no breaks or fractures to report TG.

Then yesterday, it's snowing and I run to pick up Eva at school. I parked the car on the main st where the school is and go get her. Then when I try to start the car - nothing happens, nada, zilch! 30 minutes later I'm still trying and in the meantime Eva is having a meltdown wondering how we are ever going to get home. So I ring the garage I normally deal with (a mile away) - they agree to take the car in but I have to arrange my own tow company at €97 (for 1 mile!). Just as I'm trying to arrange that - guess what - yep the phone battery dies. Finally I get myself sorted by using the school phone and Mr charming from the tow company arrives to take the car away while I bundle the kids into a taxi -and it's still snowing btw! This was all finished off with Eva spilling an entire box of Special K all over the kitchen floor just as we got home - gotta love those kids of mine :-) Needless to say I was tucked up in bed by 10pm last night with a hot drink for my sore throat.

Thankfully today is a better day...cos it's Friday.

T'was a lovely crispy Spring day today - the type I love when the sky is blue instead of a mulshy grey.



I had a lovely relaxing weekend - hair appointment, browse around Inspiring Ideas and TK Maxx with no kids running in opposite directions and then a spin out to Malahide and the farmer's market (yummy breads and dips). Yesterday we took a trip over to the Phoenix park to give the girls a run on their newly acquired skates - they were hilarious as they havent quite grasped the hang of them. Ed spent most of time with Lucy on his shoulders - skates 'n all!



Had fun taking some shots of the kids without checking the viewfinder first - I'm quite pleased with the results - will definitely scrap this one...