February 2010

February was a funny month for us. It started off with the birth of our nephew. What should have been a happy time was marred by us being told that my own pregnancy was no longer viable and having to face up to the ordeal of surgery. So the rest of February was pretty much written off for me.

The kids had a busy month though, including lots of birthday parties (so there were some opportunities for photos).



The papers are from a kit from February 2009. I can't believe that I've not used the woodgrain paper before and wished I'd spotted it sooner so I could restock! I've stuck with a similar format to my January layout using the same stamps and journalling cards.



I used a Studio Calico stamp to make the lines for my jounalling. I've had the Maya Road envelopes for a while now and it seemed a perfect place to pop a little letter about my feelings about what had happened to us.

It's time I sorted out my March layout now!

One for her and one for him...

I'm doing okay so far with recording our week. I'm taking a relaxed approach: not getting too stressed and not feeling the need to photograph and write everything down. I've been saving receipts and labels to include in my pages too.


In the meantime, these are a couple of layouts that I found on my computer and I haven't shared.

The first one is all about how Evie was so looking forward to being four. I don't normally do birthday, Christmas, event-type layouts but I wanted to record how excited she was about having a party and being a big girl. She was so proud of her birthday badges!



This one is pretty self explanatory: some observations about Oliver when he was 14 months old. Including how one of the first things he could say was 'Peppa Pig': Evie's viewing habits have a lot to answer for!



Thanks for looking :)

A week in our lives...

Back in October 2008, I joined in with Ali Edwards' project to record days in our lives. At the time, I couldn't commit to seeing it through a whole week, so I did a day a week instead for a few weeks. Some of my layouts are here: http://littlemissscrapper.blogspot.com/2008/10/day-in-our-lives.html and http://littlemissscrapper.blogspot.com/2008/10/day-in-our-livespart-2.html. I love looking back and seeing how much our lives have changed.

Tomorrow marks the start of Week in the Life 2010. I've spent a bit of time thinking about how I'd like to record what happens this next week and I think I'm going for a thematic approach rather than just recording chronologically as before.

So, these are some of my headings for the week (which may evolve!):

• timings/routines
• meals
• places
• people
• things we say
• tv programmes
• books
• music
• activities
• clothes
• products
• our home
• weather
• news
• shopping

I think doing it this way will mean that I don't feel the need to constantly take photos of every little thing but instead, focus my pictures more. I'm going to include the diary pages from my Logbook to write down my notes about the week too.

I also saw a link to this the other day and thought it would be a great thing to do next week too: What's in your bag?. I'm also plan to do a 'What's in my wardrobe, cupboards and fridge' pictures too.

Anyone else playing along?

Learning & Growing

This started out as a single page layout whilst I was at a crop at the beginning of the month. I knew that I wanted to document some of the things that Evie has said and done so far this year which have really impressed me, so I left the journaling off as I wanted to use some of my notes from my Logbook and also print out my journaling.


Once I started looking back in my Logbook though, I realised that there were loads of things that I wanted to include and knew that I wouldn't be able to make it all fit on the page, so I set about making another page where I could add the journaling strips. I based the design on a mirror image of the original and tried to make some the the elements flow across both pages.


I've never been a double-page girl but I've recently enjoyed the design aspect of making the two pages work together and having lots of room to work with. So here is kind of what it looks together (but without the weird shaded area!)



Some highlights from the journalling:

We never fail to be amazed at the things you say and can do right now. We think you are really clever!

• On the way to nursery you counted all the way to 99 on your own
• You were using my laptop to play on the Disney Princess website but the sound was turned off. You didn't need me to help you though as you knew exactly which icon to click on to turn it off mute
• You used a ruler to draw a really straight line when we were playing school together
• Evie: we have to blink everyday, don't we? Mummy: yes we do. Do you know why we blink? (not expecting you to know the answer) Evie: to get the dirt out of our eyes!

Thanks for looking :D

The ones with the long titles...

When I was putting layouts away recently, I noticed that Oliver's files aren't quite as full as Evie's and so I've been making an effort to fill in some gaps and complete some more layouts about him.

These 3 layouts have a couple of things in common; they're all about Oliver and all have long title work. I've just noticed that they all have three photos too that tell a story in sequence.



This one tells the story of when I first spotted Oliver playing properly with Evie's dollies. It was one of the cutest things I think I've ever seen him do. Preparing the food in the kitchen, then feeding her and finally dragging her 'caveman' style to bed. I did this layout at the Sarah's Cards Retreat using up things from the class kits including that large acrylic heart which I stapled into place.



'The amazing climbing Oliver' explains how he learnt to climb before he could even walk. He's so fearless too and would stand up on all manner of things around the house such as the ride on train in the pictures, which he'd often drag into position in order to climb onto an even higher surface!



Oliver is also known as the 'boinger' or 'boingy'. It's a daft name that he aquired when he was about 5 months old and has stuck. We think it describes him quite well. 'Boing' happened to be a favourite word of Evie's at the time and then he was bought a 'Rainforest Jumperoo' for Christmas and his love of boinging around in that earnt him his name. This is the sort of thing that I want to record and remember and had to do a layout about it.

Thanks for looking :)

Using up old stash part three...

Having really liked the effect made from using the scraps of circles to make a border around a page, I had another go, but this time using roughly cut rectangles from old bits of papers which I then machine stitched into place.

The photo mat is a page from a MM notepad and the journaling card is by Jenni Bowlin. I finished the page off with some ricrac which I stapled onto the page, some Hambly rub ons, thickers and MM tiny alphas along with some hand stitched cross stitches.



The journalling reads: 'he said 'Nunny'! Finally, Oliver has a word for Mummy at 19 months old. You don't know how happy that makes me.' Everyone else in the family is called by their name apart from me until recently. He's even been able to call the dog 'Charlie' since he was about a year old so it was a special moment when he came back from a visit to Grandma and Grandad's house and called out 'Nunny!' when he saw me.

Everything on the page are things that I have had for years and it feels good to be using it up.

Using up old stash part two...

Here's another layout using up some old things. The photo's an old one too from last July when Oliver first experienced playing on a beach.


I played around with using a sunburst chipboard shape as a mask and sprayed with some different colour mists, which I then put through my 'ribbler' to create a corrugated card effect which is under the photograph.

There's lots of machine stitching again and staples, pretty standard for a layout from me right now. The frame over the photo is a die cut which I added some different coloured gems to to match the colours in the papers. I tried to choose papers and ribbons which remind me of the beach: warm yellows and a hint of red and cool blues.

We're at the seaside right now for the Easter weekend. We all went on the beach yesterday afternoon and Oliver loved it again and wasn't at all phased by the waves splashing towards him. It's far too cold for paddling but I just know that he is going to have loads of fun when we're on holiday later in the year and love being on the beach, just like his sister does.

Hope you all have a lovely Easter!