Lazy Dynamics

* * At 3 months * *

2012-01-08T11:00:00.000Z

I can't believe that this small one is already three months old!

And here is her monthly photo to prove it!

At three months she is :

* Holding her head up. She has got good neck control and strength but doesn't seem close to sitting up herself yet, though if you hold her on your lap she will happily sit up and watch the world go by.

* Making lots of noises! She is very entertaining to listen to as she talks to herself in her play gym. She squeals and squeeks and is generally very cheerful. She loves to smile and squeal at people though we haven't heard a real giggle or laugh from her yet.

* She farts in bed and makes us laugh. She sleeps in her cot and goes down to bed well after her bath at 7pm. Her night wakings are random and can be anything from none to maybe four times through the night. Over Christmas we even had a couple of sleeps all night through!

* She is wearing a mixture of 0-3 and 3-6 months clothing. My preference is to put her in tops and leggings, I found a couple of bargains in the sales and am always keeping my eye out for cute things.

* She has a little bit of cradle cap but it is very mild and seems to be going away with a little oil treatement.

* She loves her baths and has graduated into the "big bath" she really kicks and splashes away. We started baby swimming this month and she was totally unfazed by the whole experience. I love it and added another fab activity that we do together.

* She cat naps mostly. Three naps of about 30-45 minutes each day. I am trying to get her to extend these to longer naps so I can get more things done! Though she is flexible and will now nap in her cot, her pram and the car seat.

* * October Document 2011 * *

2012-01-07T20:37:00.000Z

Ok... I know it's January of 2012 but I am still catching up with 2011. Here is my document 2011 for October... it was a gloriously busy month as it was the first month with our newborn daughter at home.

So October was full of so many "firsts". I documented her first bath, her first ride in her pram, first introductions and first trip to the seaside.

I recorded how our lives have changes with a small one in the house and how she just seemed to fit right in, as if she has always been here.

I used a mixture of 4x4 photos and smaller ones so I could fit a couple of pictures into one of the page protector squares.

October also saw a trip to hospital for myself (nothing too dramatic, just a random infection under my thumb nail that I had to have surgery on!) and also her first halloween!

In October we also did her first baby photo shoot... so some tiny baby photos were my focal point page.

So now I just need to get November and December sorted so that I can start my 2012 project!

I have decided that my plan for my 2012 album is this....

* I am going to use project life Style A page protectors. I have a couple of these to start me off but need to buy a bigger pack when they hit Amazon UK.

* I am going to stop the calendar and the focus pages and just do a double page spread using the above page protectors. I enjoy making the pocket pages the most and love filling them with loads of photos.

* I am going to create one double page spread a month. I love how project life folk create a double page spread each week but I already know that is just going to be impossible for me to keep up with. These small babies don't take care of themselves! :)

* But I am going to add smaller page protectors inbetween the double page spread if I have a busy month and want to include more photos. I am planning on cutting down a couple of my left over WRMK page protectors that I have been using this year to make them 8x8, and I will also use 6x12 AC protectors too.

* I am going to use my new Selphy printer (which I totally love FYI) to print my photos as and when I need them to help stay up to date. Though will continue to use photo box for big orders.

* I am going to keep taking photos and I am going to continue to love this documenting process!

* * My little Santa baby * *

2011-12-13T16:30:00.001Z

This little girl is certainly keeping me on my toes. We have settled into a good routine that seems to be working for us and she is sleeping well at night and for that I'm thankful! Though if anyone has any tips on how I can convince her to nap in her cot in the day I would be most grateful!

She sleeps in her cot wonderfully at night but not in the day! She much prefers to nap in my arms or in her pram!

I'm so excited for Christmas this year, it all seems extra special with a small person in the house! Not that she has any idea that it's Christmas! We have bought her a couple of token gifts but nothing crazy, I just know she is going to be spoilt rotten but her grandparents so we have kept her gifts simple and bought more commemorative "first Christmas" things!

I am keeping up to date with my Christmas journal, that is now a combo of December Daily and Journal your Christmas! I tend to scrap for an hour or so after the baby has gone to bed, the light is not very good then but I will endeavour to take some pics of my progress so far in the day time!

Yesterday we took these Santa hat pics. At 11 weeks she has just started to hold her head up and if I lie her on her tummy she can hold herself up for a few minutes! So my photoshoot was short and snappy! But I grabbed a couple of pics that I'm happy with! It appears the trick to photographing this baby is to pick a good moment, she was in a great mood throughout but I still didn't manage to actually capture a smile!

Can't wait to get these printed up and added to my Christmas journal.

* * Blogging over at Sarah's cards * *

2011-11-28T16:44:00.001Z

In November I scrapped with some Studio Calico supplies for the Sarah's Cards blog.

Check out the full layouts and my post on how to use repeated elements across several pages to speed up your scrapping. All over at the Sarah's Cards blog.

* * oh sassafras how I will miss you * *

2011-11-24T19:38:00.001Z

I was devastated to hear the news that Sassafras were closing down as scrapbooking manufacturers. They have long been a huge favourite of mine.

Though I was less sad when I heard of their finale box sale! Direct from Sassa they were offering random boxes that they promised would be full to the brim of Sassa goodies but each would be different & there was no definite supply list. This looked like a perfect opportunity to get my hands on some good old Sassa stash!

My box arrived today.... It was beyond awesome!

There was about an inch of paper, all new (ish) ranges & a ton of stickers and embellishments! Totally worth the money! The box was $80 including shipping!

I think I can safety scrapbook Sassa for a long time yet!

* * Journal Your Christmas 2011 Preperation * *

2011-11-23T11:29:00.001Z

It's almost the end of November (yikes!) the last two months have flown by! My little one is 8 weeks old today and I literally can't believe it! I swing between feeling she has always been part of our lives and still hardly believing that she is ours and that she is here!

But with her two month birthday looming... I figured it was about time that I sorted out my plan for Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas. I really want to complete an album this year and document Abigail's first christmas. I didn't bother last year and the year before my attempt was a bit half hearted, but I love my 2008 album and I adore my 2007 album. So this year I am going to try really hard to create an album that I love again.

In a stash busting mission I went into the loft and dug out my RUB box of Christmas stash and I was delighted to find some old favourites stashed away in here that will all be making an apperance again this year. I hope that some 'vintage' october afternoon, cosmo and even some love elsie will help to inspire me again.

Small formats seem to work better for me with these ongoing daily projects. So this year I am using a Paperchase kraft folder. It is A5 in size and was a bargain at only £3. I bought two pack of page protectors for it (also from Paperchase) so half the inserts will be A5 in size and the other half are two 6x4 pockets. So I hope that I will be able just to slot in a photo after Christmas on any days that get too busy.

I will be following the prompts sent by Shimelle but also adding in a mixture of daily activities and just stuff that we get up to over the Christmas period, so you never know I might even create more than one page/pocket a day!

So having dug out my old stash I defintely did not need any new papers. Which is fortunate as I have not been taken by any of the Christmas ranges this year. I like the bright Bella Blvd range (reminds me of some of the great old KI memories ranges) but otherwise it seems that a lot of ranges are going for the classic muted green/red colourschemes and Christmas for me is brighter than that! I love the bright pinks and aquas much better!

Though of course I couldn't not do any shopping!!!

So here are my little "top up" purchases!

I bought some tags/pennants from Elle's Studio. I love that so many of the tag sheets you can now cut yourself which means that the price is really low. I ordered direct from the States, just made sure that my total order was under £15. Took about 2 weeks to arrive though, thats the only downside.

I also found some gorgeous bits from Ormolu, including their Christmas flair badges and the comedy named Christmas flappers!

Some bright washi tape from Washi Tapes UK (I might use some of this for Christmas wrapping too!)

And finally some fantastic tags from a great ebay seller at the Little Candy Co. (I also bought some lovely packaging bits from her for Christmas wrapping, great postage rates!)

I have been putting our night time wakings to good use and aside from these goodies I have also bought all my Christmas presents in the middle of the night thanks to my iphone. I don't know how people coped with night time feedings before the dawn of internet shopping and iphones! So sharing my excitment with you all!

The other thing I wanted to share with you is this...

It is actually an embroidered badge that I had made up for my Ranger unit. (For those of you who don't know, I also run a Ranger unit, part of Girlguiding UK) We always do a Christmas camp/event and this year I had these badges designed for our event.

I had some extras made as I thought that other groups might be interested in them, but then I also figured that they have a cute potential for Christmas albums!!! I had added some to a tag that I am going to use for my front cover... the badges are 10cm wide and can be stuck, sewn or stapled to your projects! I think that they are gorgeous and have some cute details on them.

If you wanted to grab one then I have listed them on ebay HERE.

They are just £2.50 including free P&P, please message me via ebay if you are interested in more than 10 as I can do you a discount rate. (Maybe if you are also a Guider and are interested in some for a Christmas event!)

* * September 2011 documented * *

2011-11-17T20:23:00.001Z

Over the last couple of week's Abigail's nap times have become more predictable and now she will happily nap in her pram rather than in my arms. All of this means I have been able to grab a few minutes scrap time over the last few days, so I have taken the opportunity to finish September document pages.

Obviously September was a HUGE month for us... spent mainly waiting for our daughter to arrive!

She wasn't born until the 28th of the month so the first side of my pockets were dedicated to the days before she arrived. My last pregnancy photos and my baby shower photos. Also our first wedding anniversary and the sad goodbye that we said to my father in law.

But then the next page is totally baby focused! whoop!

And of course my focus page this month could not be anything else!

Documenting the very becoming of a family.

Abigail is now 7 weeks old and is now smiling and babbling away all the time. She is in bed by 8pm each night and she wakes up normally once during the night and then maybe an additional 5am wake up. She is well and truly into her 0-3 clothes now and all her newborn things have been packed away : ( She loves her cot mobile and her vibrating rocker chair.

* * At One month * *

2011-11-04T09:00:00.000Z

Already one month old...

Right now you ...

Weigh around 10lbs 2oz
You are starting to maintain eye contact more and more now
You have a gorgeous smile that you give us very occassionally.
You don't really have a routine yet
You sleep well in your moses basket at night, just waking up for nights feeds every 3 or 4 hours
You do the loudest farts and burps! You are a very windy baby.
You are starting to find your voice and you make more and more sounds each day.
You like your vibrating rocking chair, you do not like your baby swing
Your favourite thing is to dirty a fresh nappy as soon as we have changed you. The record is 4 nappies in one changing session!
Your hair is growing
You love bath time and this is Daddy's special time with you
You are out of your newborn clothes and have graduated into 0-3 sleepsuits, though they are still too long in the arms and legs
You are just perfect and a real joy to love and care for

* * Learn Something New Everyday FINISHED * *

2011-11-03T12:37:00.001Z

It's November but I figured the excuse of giving birth at the end of September is a good enough excuse for this project to be a little late!

But it's finished now! * yay * As it happened I was on maternity leave throughout September and used Shimelle's kit to create the album in advance and this made a huge difference to my ability to actually complete this album. I used the Pink Paislee 6x12 album that Shimelle included in her kit but I wanted to use American Crafts 6x4 page protectors. They were not quite the right size, This post describes how I prepared my album & adjusted the page protectors to make them the perfect size.

September was a month of real highs and lows. We said sad goodbyes and joyeous hellos. We laughed, we cried, we cuddled. We lost one member of our family and welcomed a new one.

Documenting all this was sometimes difficult and I often used used one or two sentences each day to summarise my feelings. In a way creating this albun was a helpful distraction and I'm pleased that I got it finished and that all the feelings and emotions of a rollercoaster month have been captured together.

There are not that many photos in album but I'm ok with that. I added some tags and documentation where I could but mostly it's just embellishments and journalling, I guess sometimes we forget that we scrapbook to remember and preserve memories and sometimes this can be done without having a kodak perfect photo to go with those memories.

Of course... the best bit about September was welcoming her into this world !

* * Official birth annoucements * *

2011-10-19T18:00:00.000+01:00

All now written and posted... so I can reveal Abigail's official birth annoucement cards!

My super talented friend SJ designed these for us and I had them printed up as cards at moo.com. They have served a dual purpose as birth annoucements and thank you cards for all the super cute presents that have been arriving in the post and in person for this little miss.

I don't think that I ever blogged about the fact that I made the giant floor cushion that she is sleeping on!

This was one of my crafty projects that I embarked on during my (pre-baby) maternity leave and it was thanks to an awesome pin that I came across on pinterest. The full project tutorial can be seen here.

The cushion is made from half a jelly roll, I used 'Just Wing it' by Moda fabrics that I found on etsy. With some pink fabric for the back. I think it took about two days in total as the process of making the top of the cushion was quite time consuming, though not at all complicated.

I attempted piping for the first time and although it's not perfect, I am pleased with the results and it was easier than I thought it would be. The cushion turned out to be bigger than I expected so to keep the costs down instead of buying proper stuffing I bought two tesco value duvets and pulled the stuffing out of those for the cushion!

In the middle of the cushion a fabric covered button pulls the whole thing together and it has found a great role in providing miss Abi with a comfty resting place! Though it's also big enough for a grown up to sit on and adds an extra seat to our living room.

I have decided that as she finds the cushion so comfy, it's the perfect set up for her weekly/monthly progress shots!

I hope that we will be able to watch her grow over the next year using the cushion to compare her growth!

So here she is... week one...

And already grown so much by 2 weeks old!

Today she is three weeks old and we did her last weekly photo shoot... from now on we are committed to monthly sessions. Exciting times!

* * and the winner is! * *

2011-10-18T12:22:00.003+01:00

The winner of Shimelle's class pass is...

CONGRATULATIONS Naomi!

Please email me at laurabuckingham (at) hotmail (dot) com and I can get your class pass sorted for you! Sorry if you didn't win this time... but you can always sign up to the class here

* * Pretty Paper Party Giveaway * *

2011-10-17T12:16:00.000+01:00

Firstly... a huge THANK YOU for all the wonderful comments about baby Abigail. We think she is pretty awesome and so far life with her in our famly has been a real joy. Today we are having our first day totally on our own. No visitors, no family, just us all day till Daddy comes home from work. And so far, it's been great. We had a lovely cuddle in bed this morning, didn't have to rush to get up, we wandered to the shops and the post office and now she is fast asleep on my lap giving me time to write a quick blog post!

Today I have a giveaway for you! * whoop * it's for Shimelle's brand new class "Pretty Paper Party"

Here are the class deets :

There are online classes for everything these days, and Shimelle has been teaching online scrapbooking classes for years - but she's decided it's time to kick it up a bit and go from online class to a four-week online party, and you're invited. Pretty Paper Party is the party to attend if you have a collection of paper stacked up for a rainy day, if you have more scraps of paper than you know what to do with (but you know you don't want to throw them away!) and if you've ever put a piece of paper back in your stash because it was just too special for the photos at hand. Through printable prompts and tutorial videos, Shimelle and dozens of special party guests will share beautiful and innovative techniques you can achieve with the paper you have already collected.

I have been invited as a special party guest and have contributed a layout for the class... and here is a sneeky peek...

The party actually starts today... so let's get this giveaway going so the winner can join in as soon as possible! (though of course, with any good party, you can always arrive fashionably late!)

To enter the giveaway : All you need to do is leave me a comment on this blog post... as the party is all about paper... just tell me your favourite paper collection of all time!

The closing date : noon tomorrow! lets get this done in 24 hours! So that's 12.00pm on 18th October!

FYI : If you have already signed up for the class you can still enter the giveaway as if you win then you can have your class cost refunded or gift your free place to a friend :)

* * Almost two whole weeks old * *

2011-10-11T20:07:00.001+01:00

It's odd to think that this time two weeks ago I was in hospital, I was in labour and I was getting so close to meeting this girly for the very first time.

Already it feels like she has always been here.

She is so very easy to love and that makes being her mummy all the more awesome.

She has been sleeping and feeding well and we are slowly getting to know each other. Today Sj came to visit and we took some piccies, I love them. Now I just need to find time to upload them, order them and of course... start to scrapbook!

* * Dear Mummy * *

2011-10-07T19:07:00.001+01:00

Dear Laura

This is a letter from your 29 year old self, 9 days after you gave birth to Abigail and 9 days after you became a Mummy. I want you to remember a few things about those first 9 days, there are a few things you need to remember about her birth and the time you spent in hospital. There are some things that you need to never forget.

Remember that first moment that you saw your daughter, hardly being able to believe that the bump that you had carried for 9 long months was finally gone and a tiny baby was there instead. Remember the feeling of relief that you felt that she was safe and unhurt. The feeling of relief that your long, hard labour was over and that your pain had ended. Hearing her first cry brought a tear to your eye as you knew this meant that she was ok and safe. Remember watching from your bed as Will helped her to get into her first clothes and feeling as if you might explode with pride as he carried her over to you. Gazing at him and hardly daring to believe that he was holding your daughter, the child that you made together. Remember feeling that you were in a sort of dream world as she was placed beside you in your hospital bed and looking down at her and hardly being able to believe that you had created and grown someone so beautiful.

Remember how quickly the whole process appeared to be over and finding yourself in the hospital ward. Remember feeling scared and sad that Will had to leave at 4am and knowing that he could not return until the following day. Remember hoping that she would feed and sleep ok and that you would be able to do it. Remember hoping that you could do it and be a Mummy to this tiny perfect person.

Remember holding her in your arms, remember being memorised by her tiny body, her perfect fingers and toes and her wonderful smell. Don't forget how wonderful she looked and how it felt to hold her warm body against yours, gazing down onto her and still finding it hard to believe that she was here, she was yours and she was just awesome. Remember how she fit close to your body and that together you seemed to mould into each other and were still together, still felt as close as when she was inside you.

Although you will probably remember the frustration of having to stay in hospital longer than expected, don't forget the wonderful opportunity that this stay gave you to get to know your daughter. There were no distractions, no television, there was nothing else to do except bond with her and stare at her and be close to her.

Remember watching your husband with your daughter and thinking who wonderfully lucky you were to have him. Remember how he hold your hand physically and emotionally throughout labour and the most difficult day of your life. Remember waking up on the hospital ward at 6am and watching the sun rise over London. Don't forget scooping your baby girl out of her hospital cot and snuggling her next to you in the hospital bed, breathing in her smell, stroking her back, watching the faces she made and counting down the hours until 10am when Daddy came back and you could spend another day as a brand new family of three.

Don't ever forget how besotted you both were with her, how you would turn to each other and wonder at what a great time waster she was. Remarking that you could sit and stare at her all day, wondering when her novelty would wear off. Remember pointing out her faces to each other, capturing countless images and videos on your mobile phones and thinking out loud about how all the cliches are actually true and that she really is a piece of your heart.

Remember the relief when you were finally discharged and given permission to go home. Don't forget packing up your belongings at hospital and getting ready to introduce your daughter to fresh air and the outside world for the first time. I am sure you will remember being slow on your feet and having to take your time, don't forget the surreal feeling of happiness and relief when you finally got home and all crossed the threshold into your new lives.

Never forget how tiny she was in those first few days. Remember already starting to worry that she will grow up too quick and you will forget about her tiny days. Remember holding her in your arms as she slept and promising to her that you would treasure every day, that you would never let any harm come to her and that somehow you and her Daddy would do your best to make her life amazing, happy and healthy.

* * We are home * *

2011-10-03T19:48:00.000+01:00

We came home on Saturday, yipee !

It's truly wonderful to have her at home.

We are getting used to each other and finding our feet as new parents.

Thank you so much for all your lovely wonderful comments on my last post.

More photos soon!

* * introducing ... * *

2011-09-30T08:37:00.001+01:00

Baby Abigail

She decided to come join us on Wednesday 28th September at 12.12am weighing in at 8lbs exactly!

She is super awesome and we love her so much!

We are still in hospital as after a fairly horrific labour she was born by c section. I'm sure I will share more details about the drama soon but the important thing is that the end result is so worth it!

Hopefully we will be home today!

* * American Crafts over at Sarah's Cards * *

2011-09-24T10:26:00.000+01:00

Today is my first blog post over at the Sarah's Cards blog

Go check it out for some ideas on using the awesome daydreams range by American Crafts and incoperating cards and envelopes into your layouts.

Here are a couple of sneeky peeks... but the whole post can be seen here

Today is also my due date!

Whoop!!!

Though I don't think that baby got the memo as she is still very much still in situ! I must admit that its a very weird feeling. All these months I have looked forward and counted down to this date and now it's here and nothing is happening or has happened it's quite an anti climax. It's like having an advent calendar for Christmas but then Christmas Day arriving and being told... oh actually it's not today after all... but it will be soon... we are just not sure yet... but hang in there... you will get your presents soon!

I am feeling ok and I am not at that desperate stage just yet. I am looking forward to meeting her and seeing what she looks like but I am happy to give her a few more days.

* * Week 39 * *

2011-09-23T09:57:00.000+01:00

Week 39

Due date tomorrow

Still no baby

* * Another belly bump layout * *

2011-09-15T11:22:00.001+01:00

A quick blog post to share another bump layout with you. I don't think I will end up with one for every week, but I think I will have enough of the story documented.

This is week 34.

* * Baby quilt mark two * *

2011-09-14T17:33:00.001+01:00

I think I should re-name my maternity leave to "crafting leave" as it has been wonderful to have empty days ahead of me to sew things and scrap things and generally spend time on pinterest and making pretty things. Obviously the second the baby comes this will all end for ages.... so I am making the most of it whilst I can!

So after my first baby quilt went well... see the blog post about that here, I wanted to try something new. As the baby's room is woodland themed, I found some cute Moda fabric called "wee woodland" and bought a couple of charm packs from an etsy shop.

And I tried my first ever "hourglass" quilt. I found some awesome tutorials on line that really helped, for this quilt I used these instructions... here. I found her instructions and step by step photos so helpful.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I just worked the pattern out randomly rather than trying to stress too much about what colours would go where on the quilt and I think that it looked ok in the end. I then edged and backed in some matching pink and turquoise fabric from the same range and then edged with some cream bias binding.

I love the rounded corners too, so easy and so cute. Again a great tutorial to see how to make them is here.

And as I had a few scraps of fabric left over I thought I would make a matching pillow to sit on the rocking chair in the baby's room.

So that was my project for today...

Nice and simple and probably took just over an hour to make. Thank goodness that my machine does one step button holes! That does make life much easier!

Tomorrow I might scrapbook! Unless the baby decides to arrive!

As of tomorrow I will be entering the single figure countdown to due date!

* * Surprise baby shower * *

2011-09-13T10:18:00.000+01:00

Firstly thank you so very much for all your kind words on my last blog post. We are taking each day as it comes and so far all is well.

Due to all the sadness associated with my FIL I decided that I didn't want a big baby shower. Somehow it just didn't feel quite the right time for a big celebration. So I didn't plan anything and I didn't ask anyone else to plan anything. But as it happens my wonderful friends felt that they wanted to do a "little" something for me and bump and yesterday I was invited to a mini surprise baby shower!

And it was wonderful.

There was just four of us. Hosted by the fab Shimelle and organised by SJ and Leanne. I am so lucky to have these girls in my life. They baked cookies and bought us gifts, including this most gorgeous quilt that Shimelle made for us. *love it*

But what I loved most of all was the table that was beautifully set up with a sewing machine, a suitcase of pink fabrics and a basket of threads. We spent the afternoon decorating our own onsies for bumpy. It was a fantastic way to spend a Monday afternoon. We chatted, ate lunch and crafted cute baby things.

Here are a couple of the finished articles that we made. I can't quite believe that soon we will have a tiny person to dress in these! I have now just 11 days until my scheduled "due date" though we all know that your "due date" is just one day and I only have a 5% chance of actually having the baby on that day! Every night I go to bed thinking "oh I wonder if tonight will be the night" but no signs yet!

To keep you up to date with the bump photos... here is week 38... where I am wrapped up like a Christmas present. Though baby might be more of a birthday present. Baby is due on 24th, my birthday is on the 25th! So maybe!

And week 37. Eyeliner is my friend! Though I did discover that brown wipes off much easier than the black eyeliner I used last time that I wrote on my bump and had to spend ages in the bath scrubbing it off!

Thanks again for all your well wishes xxx

* * Sad news * *

2011-09-10T13:57:00.001+01:00

I'm sad to say that I lost my father in law this week and my husband lost his daddy.

We have great family and friends around us and we are well loved and supported. We knew this day was coming but knowing that doesn't make it any easier to cope with. We had hoped that he would live to meet his granddaughter but, sadly, that was not meant to be. We know he is now peaceful & no longer in pain.

We will all miss him so much.

* * August Document 2011* *

2011-09-06T02:50:00.000+01:00

Maternity leave so far has been great. The hubby has gone back to work and I am free to craft and create all day long (in between some housework, laundry and tv watching!) Knowing that this is all too soon going to be coming to an end I am taking the opportunity to get up to date.

Starting with document 2011...

So here is August... done...

Using some Studio Calico scraps before my next kit arrives. August was a really lovely busy month. I started my maternity leave and hubby was off for the summer holidays so we had a glorious month of spending loads of time together.

As usual I used one of my KI memories calendar pages to document what we did and when and then into my 4x4 page protectors for documenting the everyday in August.

We completed our NCT childbirth classes in August, they were a mixture of hilarious giggles and scary realisation of what is about to happen to my body! I am glad that we did them though. To be honest I wouldn't say that I actually learnt a great deal that I didn't already know. (I have been reading pregnancy books since the day I first peed on a stick) but he hasn't. (typically) so attending together meant that we are now both informed and educated and hopefully this will come in useful when "the day" finally comes.

My maternity leave has also seen us starting to get organised for baby, we bought an extra freezer and then spent a couple of days batch cooking in order to fill it!

I went to Leanne's hen party where we ate cupcakes, made cards and marvelled at all the small details that they had created for the day. Personalised love hearts!!! srsly.. i know!

The baby bump photos have continued so they obviously feature in the pockets alongside the other baby prep... pram arriving, quilt making and nursery designing!

We also had a couple of days away at the beach, a photoshoot with friends and I got a fancy new iphone4. (which I am loving the camera on!)

August's focus page could only be one thing... the wonderful wedding of Leanne and Kevin.

All the scrappy girls together....

My album is already looking pretty full and I need to cram another 4 months of scrapping into here yet!!!

* * One Year On * *

2011-09-05T10:48:00.001+01:00

On the 4th September last year I was busy getting wed....

It was a fantastically brilliant day and I can't quite believe that it has already been a year since we became husband and wife. A friend of mine recently added some wedding photos to facebook that I had not seen before and it was amazing, it was like living the whole day again from a new perspective. I adore our professional wedding photos but I also love the images snapped by our guests that have popped up over the last year.

If you have found your way here from Shimelle's blog... then hello! And if you haven't seen Shimelle's blog today then head on over for a little insight into one of my crafty additions to our wedding last year!

Here are just a handful of the hundreds of photos that I have from our big day... you can read the full story here . Being able to go back through my blog and read about our wedding preperations and how I felt in the days straight afterwards has been great. Bizarrely I have never been the sort of girl to keep a diary but somehow this blog is into it's fourth year!

So Sunday was our first year anniversary and as tradition dictates... paper was the theme of the presents! We agreed that with a baby due in less than 3 weeks (srsly... yikes!) that we would keep it simple and not spend loads of money. Plus I am always one to favour a well thought out small gift then a ridiculous and/or expensive one that you feel you 'ought' to give.

So thanks to photobox I made him this...

A photobook of our first year. It's only about 30 pages long so I added in one or two photos from key moments and points in our first year together. Just one wedding photo features and this is the one on the first cover. Other than that, we have a few honeymoon pics, photos from weekends away with friends, Christmas, family fun days (in the snow and shine) and of course a few bumpy photos found their way in there!

I added in some words and the book reads like a story. I hope that one day I will be able to share this with our children. I am going through a strange way of paranoia at the moment that I take so many photos and something awful will happen with my computer (and my back up drives and photobox and flickr and facebook and everywhere else that I keep photos online) and this makes me so thankful for scrapbooking as it means that I actually print my photos and should the internet just die on day at least I will have these prints to look back on.

Though since I started scrapping I stopped printing photos just to add to photo albums. So I think that I might make more of an effort to create photobooks. This is the second one that I have made. The last one being made for valentine's day last year and they are so lovely to have on a book shelf to look over. Maybe it's the baby on the way that is making me feel this way, or the fact that I am addicted to pinterest and have seen some super cute photobooks on there! But I think that I might try and create a family photobook every year and build up a library of photobooks for our family. Maybe seperate ones for holidays and special events? I have been looking into blurb for making these as it seems to be better value than photobox and has way more creative control over your pages. If anyone has used blurb or has any links to cool photobooks then link me up!

Anyway... I have gone off track. He bought me this for our anniversary...

A family calendar. Now I realise that for a lot of people this would be a proper yawntastically dull anniversary present but not for me! For me it just proves how well my husband knows me and that is the best present that I could have recieved. (Plus it fits the paper theme so thumbs up for him there!)

This is an Organised Mum weekly planner and it starts from August this year and goes right through to December 2012 and I love it. It has space for up to 6 family members... though we will only (shortly) need three. It has a tear off shopping list and to do section (srsly... what's not to love!)

I do love to be organised and I love my new pressie. I love the fact that very soon we will be adding in a brand new family member to this calendar. I love the fact that my husband saw this and thought of me.

I have loved our first year together. We have had some great times and some tough times but I am so happy with him and I know that we have a great future ahead of us.

* * learn Something New Everyday 2011 * *

2011-09-01T10:59:00.005+01:00

So tomorrow marks 37 weeks - which means that the 5 week countown to baby can offically begin and all being well the maximum that we will have to wait for our baby is 5 more weeks. Though could be sooner that that, we could have our baby by the end of this month. Yikes.

Week 36 photos done... another beachy session. This time at Bracklesham Bay. With the sun low in the sky we took some silhouette photos with the waves in the background.

Last November we took photos in almost exactly the same place... though in November I was able to stand considerably closer to my husband and the sky was prettier.

Bearing the bump in mind I might be about to engage in some very wistful thinking in setting myself to complete Shimelle's Learn Something New Everyday album project this year. But I figured I might be waiting a few more days yet so better to have something to take my mind off the baby countdown.

Yesterday I sorted my album. I got Shimelle's kit with the yummy Amy Tan AC goodies and set about making it mine.

I filled the album with 6 page protectors. I used American Crafts 6x12 page protectors that I had in my stash at home. This album is a Pink Paislee 6x12 album... which would make you think that the AC page protectors would fit in... but they don't. Helpful.

So I actually started my project by adapting my page protectors to actually fit my album. I wanted to use one full size 6x12 page protector for the opening page and then 5 divided 6x4 page protectors for the rest of the album. All were too big. So I chopped about 3/4 of an inch off the right hand edge and then sewed them back up again with my sewing machine!

So I ended up with page protectors that fitted in my album! yay! But the pockets were now 4x5 inches instead! A bit of an odd size but I think it works ok.

And unless you look closer I am not even sure that you would notice that the page protectors have been changed. Win, win.

Thus the opening page was also slimmer, but that was ok. I created my title page plus a sort of introduction page... I think I might leave the journalling here until the end of the month and do a "sum of" of the month.

In a desperate bid to make this album achievable I have half scrapped all my little pockets in advance. I emptied out my kit on my dining room table and then cut 30 5x4 pieces of paper and then using the scraps and loads of the Amy Tan stickers and die cuts I layered up my mini pages.

Most of them have journalling space, so on a busy day I can just select a page that works and scribble on some journalling. Though I am also hoping that I will be able to use my instax camera to add some photos throughout the album too.

Today I have a midwife appointment. Hopefully I will learn something exciting about baby bump progress!

* * Bump week 35 * *

2011-08-25T09:07:00.003+01:00

Week 35

Where is the time going?

* * A wonderful wedding & some sewing projects * *

2011-08-24T12:41:00.003+01:00

So far I am loving maternity leave... so much time just to get on with craftyness. Obviously as soon as the baby actually arrives this will all be over but so far I am loving having the time to scrap, to sew and generally make pretty!

This weekend we all celebrated at my friend Leanne's wedding. It was a beautiful day and we all had a great time. I will leave her to be the first to share some photos with you all and no doubt you will see some photos appearing on scrapbooking pages very shortly. She also had the holy grail of all wedding favours for scrapbookers... a photobooth! whoop! So these are on the top of my "to scrapbook" pile!

But until then... I wanted to share my latest crafty projects with you. This time a bit of sewing.... I made my first 'proper' baby quilt. Though obviously as small babies can't actually have quilts this will be used as a playmat.

I cut my own squares out of a pile of fat quarters that I bought from this wonderful etsy shop, fabric shoppe, I used a fabric range called "Hoo's in the Forest" from Riley Blake as I loved the tiny deer and trees.

The quilt has been edged and lined with a heavy weight linen fabric which is gorgeous and makes the quilt lie flat on the floor really well. It means that it is stiffer than bedding quilts and less easy to wrap around you as a comfort blanket etc but works perfect as a playmat. I have quilted a couple of times but on this occasion I used a fabric basting spray to fix all the quilt layers together and it was sooo much better than pinning/tacking the layers together. Everything held good as I ran it through my sewing machine and there was nothing to unpick afterwards! win!

I edged the whole thing in red bias binding and actually quite enjoyed sitting in front of the tv hand sewing all the bias on at the back.

The back of the quilt is quite plain but I am ok with that. For my next quilt I might brave diagonal quilting!

We also had the news last week that our friends gave birth to their twin girls. They were born early at 33 weeks but thankfully they are doing great and looks like the whole family will be home sooner than they thought which is great.

As I was in a crafty mood I wanted to make them a gift. Plus as they were both around 3.5lbs when born I really struggled to find any good prem baby clothes in the shops. So I bought a pack of plain white vests from Mothercare and crafted my own.

The couple's surname is "Mathers" hence the "mini Mathers" slogan on the baby vests. I hand stitched the lettering onto a couple of scraps of fabrics. I stitched free hand as I couldn't find my air vanishing fabric pen... but if I could have found it I think I would have written the letters out properly first... but as it happens I think this looks quite cute.

Then I cut the fabrics to 4 inches square and basted it to a scrap of wadding. This whole patch was then sewed onto the vest.

All done : )

Next on my list of crafty things to make for the baby are :

* Triangle quilt with diagonal quilting - in progress though need more fabric

* A cot valance

* Add matching fabric to the black out blind in the baby's room

Looks like today I will be placing a large fabric order!

* * Bump update : Week 34 * *

2011-08-18T16:49:00.002+01:00

We have just got home from spending a couple of days with my folks by the seaside... which meant that this week's bump photos could have a bit of a different backdrop! And thanks to the excellent positioning of some breakwaters...we grabbed some couple shots on self timer!

This week we have also managed to....

* Order our pram and car seat! (whoop!) It will be arriving in "up to 5 days"

* Put up the last few wall vinyls in the baby's room (I promise I will share the room pics soon)

* Almost finish our NCT classes, which means that my birth plan has been thought about but not written yet!

Baby is very active especially first thing in the morning. It's like I wake up and then baby wakes up. Trouble is that baby likes to complete several complex yoga exercises before she starts her day! Which means that my belly is stretched and moved and pulled around before I have even left my bed in the morning!

I am loving my bump but it is starting to get uncomfortable. I wonder when she will arrive. It's now just 5 weeks till my due date, but as you are considered full term from 37 weeks, in theory I could have this baby anything from 2 weeks to 7 weeks time. Either way... it doesn't seem very long away now!

* * New DT news * *

2011-08-15T22:07:00.003+01:00

Some exciting design team news ....

I have just joined the wonderful Sarah's Cards Ltd Design Team!

Read more about the other new team members on their blog here

I'm so excited to be joining the DT and I can't wait to get scrappping for them!

Also.... thank you so so much for the responses on the Sassa papers, I have now found both of them and I can't wait for them to arrive so that I can add them into the baby's room!

* * Any sassa hoarders out there? * *

2011-08-13T16:28:00.003+01:00

Blog readers.... I need to know if any of you are Sassa hoarders???

I am on a bit of a mission to find one or both of these old Sassa papers....

Does anyone have either of them lurking in long forgotten stash? I would be willing to pay for them and postage etc if anyone has them and wants to see them go to a new home.

I really want to add them to frames for the baby's room as I think they would look super cute and would work so well with our "woodland theme".

p.s. full nursery room reveal is on it's way... but the room is not quite done yet!

If anyone can help then I will love you forever! Please email me at laurabuckingham (at) hotmail (dot) com

(fingers crossed)

* * Shimelle's Scrappy Weekend * *

2011-08-13T13:19:00.004+01:00

Over at Shimelle's blog she is hosting a weekend of scrappy challenges and giveaways and as I have Saturday to myself (and a new Studio Calico kit that needs to be chopped up) I am indulging myself in some scrapbooking.

Yesterday I completed the sketch challenge....

And then this morning my hubby left for a day out at cricket and I set up stash in the front room. I wouldn't normally scrap in here and tend to use the dining room table but today I wanted to enjoy a 'how I met your mother' dvd marathon whilst I scrapped, so front room it was.

The first challenge for today was to use this layout and composition as your starting point for your layout... so this is how it started...

And this is how it ended up.

I am making the most of scrapping some of my bump photos and am slowly building up a pregnancy album. I already feel sorry for baby number 2. There is no way that I am going to be able to do all this for the next bump! lol!

And then challenge number 2. This one made me think a little bit more. The challenge was to use one piece of paper to embellish your page. I am not a huge fan of hand cutting and I tend to veer away from papers that are very heavily patterned and I purposesly tend to lean towards papers that have smaller patterns and are more suited to be used as background pieces.

But I had this piece of Sassa paper in my Studio Calico kit this month.... and this seemed like it would work.

I chopped it up horizontally and then used all the strips to embellish my page. I scrumpled some up before I added them, some got stuck down flat, some were cut along the design of the paper, some were border punched and then a little bit was even punched into butterflies.

And this layout was born. Using just the one sheet of patterned paper (the only extras were some cardstock that I mounted the photos on, my letter stickers and a row of tiny bling)

And week 31 was documented.

And now my front room looks like this!

* * Document 2011 : July * *

2011-08-12T14:18:00.004+01:00

As stated in my previous blog post, completing the July edition of my Document 2011 was on my to-do list and yesterday I got it all finished. It always surprises me how long it takes to complete this set of four pages. The mini squares seem to take me ages to prepare and scrap but I always love the way they turn out so it's worth the time and effort.

Continuing the theme of the album, the first page is a KI memories calendar page. Admittedly these are not that interesting to look at or read at the moment. Though I figured that in a few years time they will probably be quite interesting to look back upon so I'm sticking with it. I might change the format again for 2012 though.

I used loads of my new Studio Calico kit for these pages. I adore those Sassa letters, they are the perfect size for this project. They are bold and big enough to stand out but small enough not to overwhelm the little squares. Alphabet win!

July was a busy month and pocket page one features my friend's hen do, which included a London picnic and dirty dancing live on stage. (Confession time ... I have NEVER watched dirty dancing the film!) I think I just missed that phase of my youth when everyone else was watching it! I have tried to watch it a couple of times whilst I was away at University but I just never got past the first half hour. I guess as I didn't have the nostalgic rose tinted glasses, I was mainly like "this is an old rubbish film" so finally in 2011 I saw the stage show! I have been reliably informed that it is quite like the film. I enjoyed it. I might try and watch the film again now.

July also marked my last week at work before leaving for maternity leave, my 7th month of pregnancy and 4 days that my husband was away. This was the longest time we have been apart since our wedding day, so I sent him a bumpy message! (Any excuse to play with thickers lol!) Of course I missed him, but wow the house was tidy for those 4 days!

Pocket page two was also busy with exciting things.

I saw Billy Elliott with my Rangers and Wicked with the scrappy girls.

My friend Becky then got married in the most gorgeous West Sussex country barn. It reminded me of our wedding and it was gorgeous. It rained in the morning, so much so that the poor girl had to be ushered into the church under several umbrellas. But it didn't matter one little bit and the day brightened up so we could enjoy the most amazing BBQ sat outside in the courtyard.

I had a mini baby shower at Rangers in July. It wasn't really a proper baby shower but we spent the evening playing silly baby shower games which the girls seemed to enjoy. Some that they seemed to enjoy less (tasting baby food anyone?)

I did get a couple of gifts from the girls and their families and I have included this cutest little cross stitch in my page. Made by one of my youngest girls, she is 14 and quite a new member but she is a very crafty one and clearly a girl after my own heart. I loved this card so much that I wanted to make sure it was kept forever.

And finally... the BIG event of the month...

The wedding of my sister-in-law. This was an extraordinary wedding. They went from engagement to wedding day in a flat 3 weeks and they pulled off the most awesome day.

The reason for the whirlwind is sad, my FIL is very poorly & we all wanted him to be around to attend the day. I am so pleased that he did, he walked her down the aisle, he attended the ceremony, listened to the speeches and even came along for part of the evening do.

The whole family rallied together to help pull the day together. My SIL remarked that she felt like she was getting married "by committee" as we all pulled in favours from friends, played to our strengths and worked together to get everything done. I rallied friends to sort the photography and the stationery for the day and it worked out so cute.

We all had a wonderful day. The bride looked beautiful, everyone was smiling, we ate amazing food, we laughed, we cried and we were together. It was beautiful and the day deserves to be scrapped a whole lot more. I am so lucky that these guys are my family.

* * Various works in progress * *

2011-08-11T08:50:00.002+01:00

So far maternity leave is going very well as I am getting on with lots of crafty type things... which means that currently there are several works in progress sitting around the house.

Firstly a baby quilt... or play mat type quilt that I attempting. We are going for a cute woodland animal theme for the baby's room and I saw this super cute Riley Blake fabric at Fabric Shoppe and decided that it would be perfect for the little one.

The squares will end up 3x3. The plan for the quilt is 100 squares, so 10x10, then I am going to border the whole thing in about 2 inches of white and then red bias binding.

This is the second quilt that I have ever attempted and the last one went a bit wrong when I sewed the top to the wadding, so this time I have ordered some basting spray to see if this helps to keep the layers taut and with any luck I will end up with less wrinkles.

So yesterday I finished the square sewing and now I need to wait for my spray and white cotton fabric to arrive from ebay. So that's on hold for a couple of days now. Though I must say, cutting the squares is probably the longest part of the job. Especially as I tried to get the little deer and hedgehogs to sit in the centre of the squares!

Secondly... there is document 2011... the July edition...

I have worked out my photos and what will be going in which square. This is normally the way I construst my 2011 tiny pocket pages. I order a load of photos from the month, gather all my tickets and other memorabilia and then lay it all out and work out what I want to include, try to balance out the squares and then once I am happy with that I start the actual scrapping.

I completed that progress a couple of days ago... but I have been waiting for this.....

The latest Studio Calico kit arrived on my doorstep this morning... so now I am ready to scrap! I like to use a different kit or collection for each month of my document 2011 so that the whole album looks varied and different. So this morning... this is my crafty project.

Baby's bedroom is also a HUGE ongoing crafty project at the moment.... it's not quite ready to be shared with you properly yet... but here are a couple of sneak peeks to go with...

I have been using pinterest to gather ideas and influences... so for some idea of what look I am going for, you can see my board here

Last week I made a trip to Ikea with my SILs and bought up a stack of frames... to create a photo wall in the baby's room. Of course it was not so simple as that. First I had to come home and cry after trying to nail about 12 nails (of various shapes and sizes) into the wall to have them all bend/break or only go about 1mm into the super hard brick walls that we have in our house.

Of course thanks to my super pregnancy hormones I was disporportionally upset by this turn of events and was in floods of tears, thinking that my dreams of photo wall cuteness were over! Thankfully my hubby was not so easily defeated and we ended up putting raw plugs and screws into the wall to hang all the frames on! Making the job slightly more tedious than it needed to be... but the arrangement is looking cute.

I need to find things to fill the frames over the next few weeks.... I am thinking a couple of my favourite bumpy photos but also some art prints/fancy greetings cards etc.

The other wall of the room featured my beloved expedit unit... it used to be filled with crafty goodness... but will soon being a new lease of life as a hybrid baby wardrobe/chest of drawers. I bought some lovely pink boxes from Ikea to fill with clothes, but of course they needed a bit of crafting first...

The labelling begins... This project is quite time consuming and it takes a couple of hours to complete each box, plus it is quite hard work as the boxes are plastic lined, meaning that I first have to punch through all the holes for the embroidery and then drag a heavy needle through with the thread. I love the result but I can't face completing more than a couple of boxes each day. I think I have about 4 or 5 more to complete and then this project will be done.

This next one has been a 'work in progress' for about 18 weeks and that's ok as it's meant to be an ongoing project... my belly book. Seriously if you are pregnant (or planning to get pregnant) then get this book as soon as you can. It is a gorgeous way to record your pregnancy, you can find it at Amazon here and it's only £7.35.

If you have been following my blog over the last few weeks, you will know that I have been taking weekly bump photos and every 2 or 3 weeks I do a photobox order and add the photos to the book. I am so pleased that I have kept this up to date and now only have a few more photos to take!

My latest photobox order should arrive today, allowing me to complete weeks 30 to 32 in the book. Though I have already done the journalling, I just need to add the photographs now. So I should be able to tick that off my "to do list" today.

And my final ongoing project... is this... a little cross stitch that will be a birth annoucement piece. This has been perfect for sitting in front of the tv with in the evenings. Again it's a time consuming process so each evening I try to complete an hour or so and get another little piece done and slowly but surely it is taking shape.

This will be on addition to the photo/frame wall above. I am aiming to get the design finished before baby comes and then I will add her name, weight etc all below at some point afterwards.

Speaking of baby...she is my most important 'project' that I am working on at the moment...

* I am 33+6 - which means that today I need to make sure that I take my weekly bump photos

* Baby's head has engaged. She is 2/5 already. I told my NCT lady this and she freaked me out by saying "ohh that's early, make sure you pack your hospital bag" - but everything I have read online and in my stack of pregnancy books says that it doesn't neccessarily indicate that early labour will follow. But I have packed my hospital bag (just in case)

* NCT classes started last week. I'm not sure what I think of them yet... I think they are useful to attend as a couple and my hubby is learning lots. I am meeting other soon to be mums and I am now starting to freak out about the actual birth of this baby.

* Braxton Hicks are now in full force which is great fun! : )

* Due in 6 weeks time...

* * Document 2011 : June * *

2011-08-01T17:26:00.006+01:00

I have now finished work and am on day 1 of my maternity leave! whoop!!!! It's feels really strange and probably has not quite sunk in yet. I am 32+3 so for a lot of people I have probbaly finished work early (though my Mum disagrees and would have had me stop at about 12 weeks! lol) but the days were started to get me down, I am starting to feel out of breath more easily and to be honest I really wanted some time at home to nest and relax before baby comes, so I am happy with the decision I have made.

I got some goodies from my work mates.... a photo frame, cute cuddly and a couple of polka dot baby outfits!

Then this weekend I celebrated with a day out with the girls... In fact it was a belated birthday trip out for SJ and we all went up to London town to see Wicked, the musical. This was the fourth time I have seen this amazing show, but it is amazing so I didn't mind. Plus my 4 showings have been spread out over the last few years so it's lovely to have a refresher!

Alongside our musical outing we also did what any good group of scrapbookers do when they visit London... we stopped by the Japanese photo booth and took some pics! This has no real purpose other than providing us with some funny photos to add to our July Document 2011 albums, that and who doesn't like to see photos of girls with tashes!

LOL, it was like being a teenager again and pooling all of our pocket money for some cute photo stickers. I have very clear memories of when those fancy photobooth machines first arrived in shopping centres, not the passport ones but ones that gave you a sheet of stickers instead and you could add in fancy backgrounds etc. Good times.

So... since I de-cluttered and started creating the baby's room my scrapping has been relegated to the dining room table... and annoyingly now I have to unpack and then pack up my stash everytime that I want to create something. This means that I tend to scrap in longer periods and will settle down for an afternoon of scrapping rather than just grabbing an hour here and there.

My current scrap space...

Obviously.. that has all been packed up and is lovely and tidy now. (Seriously though it really is) Though I did get my hubby to sweep the floor as bending down with the dustpan and brush is more hassle than it is really worth!

But this weekend I caught up on my Document 2011 album and got June scrapped...

Firstly my calendar page...

And my pocket pages....

Here you can see...

Starting to nest - Sorting out home in preperation for baby

Starting to earn some extra pennies - Starting to work as a Phoenix rep... website pimp is here... check it out if you haven't already!

Dinner with my folks and play time with our nephews

And bump weeks 24 and 25

Followed by...

Bump weeks 26 and 27

Summer fayre and making damp dampers at Rangers!

And then the highlight this month was an easy one... In true gleek style... it was our day out to the O2 to see some of my favourites in actual real life! whoop!

I managed to get a few pics of the stage during the show but they weren't great quality so I used Picasa to create two identical photo strips, one in colour and one in black and white, I layered these up with the ticket, a journalling card and then just a whole bunch of patterned papers and stickers, held together with some tape and my tiny attacher staples. Finished with a flick of green mist!

And that's june... documented!

* * An afternoon of scrapping * *

2011-07-27T20:43:00.002+01:00

At the weekend I settled down to a joyful afternoon of scrapping and I got stuck into my latest Studio Calico kit. I am still loving those Sassa alphabets, they just work so well for me. I think I have them in all the colours.

I did a couple of layouts for my pregnancy album, weeks 27 and 28. I have to make sure that I scrap these within a couple of weeks of the actual time we took the photos as everything is chnaging so quickly that my journalling will be out of date otherwise.

I am loving having a big belly bump at the moment and am enjoying wearing tight tops that show it off. I have been lucky to not be afflicted by the random stranger touching your bump thing which people keep telling me will happen, but so far so good!

And last of all... a photo from last weekend. This is me and my old University housemates... almost 10 years after we first all met and lived together in our halls of residence. We were all randomly allocated to live on the same floor and we all become good friends, we moved in together in our 2nd year and then again in our 3rd year.

Since then we have all got on with our jobs, our home, our lives and to some extent gone our seperate ways but every few months there is an occassion for us to get together and meet up. Either a wedding or a hen do or a birthady party and it's always like we have never been apart. I can always rely on these girls for a good night out, a laugh and of course we will reminise over the years of drinking toffee vodka, eating mostly pesto pasta and playing "guess the tv guide"*

* this was a particularly entertaining game that students enjoy and it mostly went like this...

Student 1: "ITV, Wednesday, 4pm"
Student 2 : "Deal or No Deal"
Student 1: "Correct"

Except it wouldn't have been deal or no deal as I don't think that was invented then... but we knew A LOT about the tv guide, so this game was winning.

That was almost 10 years ago... I hope that doesn't mean that I am getting old? It still feels like just a couple of summers ago.

And finally... I am 31 weeks plus 5 days... so another photo shoot was required...

In the safety of my own garden I was happy to get some flesh out! The baby is super active.. I can lie on the sofa in the evenings and watch my belly moving around like a lava lamp! It's very odd and kinda weird, like cool weird, but still weird.

Can't quite believe that in 10 weeks time we will (almost certainly) have a baby! yikes!

* * Week 29 and 30 * *

2011-07-21T19:49:00.003+01:00

Only 1 week left at work and I am literally counting the seconds until I finish. I am totally over it in my mind and am ready to leave. To be honest I could power on for a couple of weeks longer but I would much rather stop struggling on and start sorting out the house.

We have a long list of jobs that need doing before this baby arrives and it's not just the baby's room. I have got it in my mind that I want all those little DIY jobs finished around the house, like the curtains in the front room that are hanging off the rail or the fresh coat of paint that is needed in the hallwall. So I am looking forward to getting all of this sorted before bumpy turns into baby!

We have celebrated two weddings in the last two weeks... so my last two bump updates are pretty dresses! Neither are actually maternity dresses but simply cheap maxi dresses that are suitably stretchy to accomodate my belly!

Week 29 was at my sister in laws wedding. An AMAZING event organised in less than two weeks! She literally went from proposal to Mrs in three weeks! They did awesome. They had a civil ceremony at a registery office and then a wonderful afternoon at the family home followed by a reception at a classic car musuem. Random but cool!

And then week 30 was at my old uni housemate's wedding. They had a GORGEOUS wedding in West Sussex, an amazing country barn wedding with the BEST wedding food that I have ever had. It was the most amazing BBQ and I say that as a veggie! We had stuffed mushrooms, corn on the cob, hallumi kebabs, tomato and mozzarella, cous cous and potatoes. It was stunning!

So... I have been super busy helping with the family wedding and attending the West Sussex wedding... but I have found time to scrap too! Though the weather is so rubbish that I am waiting for slightly better light to photograph my layouts. I will try to get that done tomorrow. This weekend I have some time to scrap and am planning on getting my June Document 2011 pages started.

And finally... I am placing my last phoenix card order for this month. The order will be completed by 5pm tomorrow (Friday) so if you would like to order some pretties this month... please ensure that you order is completed by 5pm.

You can check out all the cards via my website HERE

The cards are stunning quality and there are some really gorgeous designs in there! If you order 10 cards then they are just £1.20 each! So it's the perfect opportunity to stock up your correspondence box and get some birthday cards stocked up foryour friends and family.

So... try it out today! Order a selection of 10 cards and I promise that you will love them.

I am happy to offer my blog readers an introduction offer for all new customers that have found me via my blog. P&P will be FREE for your first order (normally £3) You can select your cards via the website and then pay via paypal (or cheque or bank transfer yif you prefer)

whoop... perfect chance to buy!!!

* * Bump update : Week 28 * *

2011-07-07T17:06:00.003+01:00

My favourite bump photos so far!!

Week 28 and getting big!!

A couple of roads away from our house there is a pub... well it was a pub and then it closed down and it got boarded up all around the outside. Now I think it's mostly an empty building... well empty except for the hippies that appear to be squatting there.

But you know.. they painted some cute stuff on the boarding so we took advantage of that for this week's bump photos!

* loves *

Shame the boardings were in shadow and it's right by a main road... but we snapped a couple of photos, so I am happy.

I think this would make a cute venue for some coupley maternity photos... just need a passing photographer to help us make that happen!

Thank you for your support (and orders) with my new phoenix cards.

I got my first box of goodies in the post this week...

The cards and jotters and postcards etc are so lovely in real life and I got to have a good nosey through all the cards that were ordered as I matched them up to orders!

I am going to placing another order by the end of the week... for delivery next week!

So if you are interested then you can order via my website here - You can pay by paypal or cheque

* Seriously the products are so gorgeous so stock up on your birthday cards now! *

* * The day we saw GLEE * *

2011-06-26T21:35:00.002+01:00

This weekend has been awesome!!!

On Saturday I hung out with SJ and we ate lunch at Wagamamas... SJ had never been before and I was all like "oh geez you country folk" and dragged her in for some hot soya beans and soem gorgeous veggie goodness!

Then thanks to my amazing sister (thanks Lucy) we enjoyed one of the my best Christmas presents EVER and went to the O2 to see GLEE!!! Live on stage!!!

Like actual Glee!!!

The real life people from Glee! I saw them with my very own eyes!

It was truly amazing!!! Mostly I think because we had fantastic seats... the O2 is massive... like super massive.. but we had fab seats. We were at the stage end and right in line with the stage so we had a great view of the stage and a great view of the giant screens! Plus we didn't have to stand up like everyone in the 'stalls' area which was good as at 6 months pregnant I was knackered by the end of the day and was glad I didn't have to stand up for ages!
The songs were brilliant, the glee stars were brilliant, they sang all my favourites and I loved every minute!

Then to top it off... my sister in law got engaged last weekend... and her wedding is in two weeks time!!! yep... not next weekend but the weekend after!

So today we sat in the gorgeous heat of the garden and talked wedding plans. It's super exciting and lovely. Now I just need to find something to wear! I have ordered a couple of options that I hope will arrive this week... if they fail then I will be last minute shopping next weekend!

* * A new venture * *

2011-06-20T17:19:00.005+01:00

So in the efforts to raise some extra pennies for the baby I have started a new venture... I am now an Independent Phoenix cards trader and want to use this blog post to tell you what that actually means!

Basically its selling all kinds of pretty cards and stationery to people who love cards and pretty stationery as much as I do!

It works in a couple of ways... you can order directly through my website... which is HERE

or you can order via the brochure (more on that later!)

Phoenix is a company that sell the cutest cards that you won't see in the shops, I have included a few images of my favourites here... they have loads of birthday cards and awesome ones for kids.

Check out the bunting on the shaped pirate card and the flowery details on the princess castle card!

They have cards for all occassions, birthdays, anniversaries, good luck cards, new baby cards, new home cards.. everything and more.

Plus they do the coolest range of thank you notes, postcards, party invites etc, but more on those another day!

Cupcake stand full of cupcakes!!! I am going to send this one to everyone I know... what's not to like?

They obviously love cupcakes and butterflies as much as us scrappers as this is one of my favourite cards... cupcakes with pop out butterfly wings!!

And the best bit is that they are cheaper than the cards in the shops (and better quality!) They are just £1.50 each or £1.20 each if you buy more than 10 cards.

Don't just take my word for it, have a look at the cards on the website and see what you think!

Or if you prefer to shop the old fashioned way... then email me... phoenix.cards.laura (at) gmail (dot) com,,, and I will post you a brochure with all the designs in!

Thanks for the support everyone and I promise this blog won't turn into a big Phoenix promo all the time... but seriously you will love these cards, they are super cute!

Ok... promo over... any questions let me know...

Tonight... I am off for pizza with friends. I am going to try and ignore the fact that my bump is hurting (thank you Braxton Hicks) and the fact that it is raining... oh and the fact that everyone else will be drinking wine tonight and I am the designated driver! :(

* * Happy Father's Day to Everyone * *

2011-06-19T19:10:00.003+01:00

I'm not sure on what the exact rules are on father's day if your baby has not actually been born yet, but I wanted to mark the day in some way... so I had a complicated 20 minutes sorting out this... Firstly I had to stick thickers to myself then I had to try and take photos of my own belly. More difficult than it sounds! The thickers part was not too bad... I added a couple of kisses with eye liner and then I nipped down to the garden to balance my camera on our patio table and then took about 50 photos, a mixture of self timer pics and just stretching my arm out to reach the shutter button!

I ended up with a couple that I was happy with and then photobox did an awesome job of making it into a card for me... for just £1.50

My hubby was suitably chuffed so that was lovely!

Our day was a bit bittersweet though as his Dad went back into hospital this week and we had all expected him home by Friday but alas that did not end up being the case so we had a quick hospital visit instead of the family lunch that was planned :(

So busy with family stuff means less time for crafty things so I have not scrapbooked anything at all lately. Another :(

But I have kept my weekly bump photos up to date...

Week 25...

And week 26 ... (taken today)

So far I am loving being pregnant but there are some new developments that I am not so keen on...

* Leg cramps - Getting this in the middle of the night or 5am, leaving me in total agony and a wonky leg all day! My hubby also loves being woken up by a screaming woman clutching her calves!

* Not being able to be comfortable AT ALL at night. It seems as soon as I lie down to sleep, my baby is all like "oh party time" and the massive kicks start!

* Having very limited clothing options that work for work. I have a few maternity bits that I can wear... on repeat... I just hope that I don't loose my mind to boredom over the next 6 weeks. I refuse to buy any more than I need to.

* Trying to save every penny that we can to ensure that I can have 12 months off on maternity leave. This will mean 2.5 months totally unpaid next summer, so trying to scrimp as much together as we can now to tide us through this.

Though on the other hand I am loving...

* Baby kicks - I have started to be able to actually see my belly moving when she kicks and wiggles around... that is pretty awesome.

* I love people noticing that I am pregnant, I get seats on crowded tubes and I love hearing people say that I am "looking well" and (so far) people have generally kept their hands off my bump. I totally don't mind friends and family grabbing the bump for a feel and so far I have not had any strangers reaching in for a feel which is good!

* Being able to treat myself to dougnuts, ice cream, egg mcmuffins and chocolate - all in the name of "baby wants it!"

* * Bump update : Week 24 * *

2011-06-07T20:15:00.002+01:00

I really had to bug my husband to go out tonight and snap a few photos for this week.

He was all like "so why are you taking photos every week anyway" To which I replied "erm... do you not know me but at all?" And then I added "Because I am only going to be pregnant a couple of times in my life and I want to remember what it was like, I want to document my changing shape and our growing baby.. and to scrapbook obviously!"

And then he was all "we will have enough photos for a flip book at this rate" and I was like "exactly! that would be perfect!" He debated if we really needed photos of this week, mainly because the cricket was on I think. I told him that I needed to do this week's photos by Saturday or we would be on to the next week and that we couldn't skip a whole week just because he fancied lying on the sofa.

So in the end, after muchos nagging, he finally agreed to be dragged to the nearest bit of grass for some quick photos. As it happens he redeemed himself by coming up with the bump shadow on the tree concept so all is forgiven!

Thank you for all your comments on my last post... I wanted to answer a couple of your questions...

* Sarah's Cards stock the American Crafts albums that I showed you in my last post and they have some gorgeous patterns in at the moment. Check them out here

* In my document 2011 album go my divided pages, the calendar page and my one focus page for each month. So each month has 4 pages. Last year I found that this resulted in a very full album! Any other pages that I scrap from the same month go into a different album of just regular scrapbooking!

* * May Document 2011 * *

2011-06-05T18:25:00.002+01:00

There is nothing like a batch of gorgeous new albums to help you get organised....

and today this pile of layouts actually found homes and have been organised into these lush AC albums. Which means that I have finally found a home for my Document 2011 layouts. I choose the turquoise polka dot album for these and then this weekend I made a further dent in last month's Studio Calico kit and made my May document 2011 pages.
Almost 18 months after I started this monthly project with document 2010 I am still loving it and have not got bored yet. I guess each month is always a little bit different with different pieces of paper being collected and documented. I am trying to be better at collecting as a go along rather than trying to scrabble together momentos at the end of the month.

As always the first page is a calendar break down of the main things that I have done this month... obviously only interesting things are included... the everyday dull stuff like work is left off!

This month I took loads of instax photos which look super cute in the 4x4 pockets!

I included some tags from baby clothes that have been bought for us, a wrist tag from a climbing event with Rangers and the usual mixture of small and larger photographs.

Plus... I was a good scrapbooker and asked for two "baby on board" badges from my local tube station... one to wear and one to scrap! Obviously I didn't tell the ticket booth attendant that... I just mumbled something about wanting one for my work coat and one for my regular coat! lol!

Lots of bumpy photos this month as the baby grows and my belly gets bigger. I am taking weekly bump photos and am loving looking back on these already. They are all being added to my belly book which is already bursting at the stems but I am up to date and think it will be gorgeous to look back on.

Our highlight this month was getting our 21 week scan done and seeing our little girl kicking and wriggling around in there! All checks and measurements were good so we continue our countdown to the big day... 111 more days (in theory)

This month we seemed to spend a lot of time with family, which was great. My father in law is still not very well and we now know that he is not actually going to get any better and it is a matter of time now. I don't want to dwell too much on this sad news but it is terribly sad and I am trying to be there for my husband and do what we need to be doing together and for his family.

So May has seen lots of time being spent with our families and the little people in our family. Sharing laughs and giggles and enjoying good times together.

And of course my focus page needed to be my weekend with the best ones... my scrappy girlfriends....

These girls are totally awesome, they are good friends to me and when you share a love of scrapbooking, photography and cake... its a match made in heaven!

* * Bump Update : Into week 23 ! * *

2011-05-21T16:49:00.002+01:00

Just a quick post to share this new photo....

And a little preview of our baby!

I am 22+1 and baby has been scanned and measured and she is looking just mighty fine! All looked well and we can continue the happy countdown!

* * A peaceful weekend * *

2011-05-15T19:15:00.002+01:00

This weekend I hit bump week 22... meaning that I am now officially 21 weeks plus 2 days and I have a scary 18 weeks of growth yet to come! I am well over the "bump" (lol) of half way and am on the descent to the big day... (which I am still refusing to actually think about but that's a story for another day!)

We popped over to the park for my weekly bump photo shoot and another location will add to the album that I am hoping to create at the end of all of this. I think that I might do a photobox photo book of all the weekly photos to keep and look back on.

I am starting to need full on maternity clothes now and feel much more comfortable... I am keeping tabs on ebay for some bargains and am currently loving mama and papas clothing so I am hoping to pick up some bargains over the next few weeks. I found this top in their sale this week for just £5, yay!

I can really feel our baby kicking now and sometimes she surprises me with a super hefty one! Though no one else has been able to feel them yet so currently it's a wonderful little thing that just me and baby can share.

Trying to describe baby kickings has been difficult but the closest description has been... think of holding your hands around a tiny frog and then feeling it jump against your hands... that's kinda what it feels like!

I am starting to find sleeping more uncomfortable but I have one of those wonderful maternity pillows in the shape of a giant letter C. It literally takes up the whole bed! lol! But I can nest in the middle of the C with the pillow around my whole body, it's lush. Though this weekend slept over at the in-laws and I really missed it. My hubby seems to like it too and quite often I will get out of bed early and he will nick the cushion to nest in himself!

Thank you for all the comments and recommendations for camera bags on my last post. I decided to go with a crumpler in the end. Firstly because it's called cupcake (yay) and secondly because it seemed to tick all the boxes that I needed and looked cute!

I found mine from Bristol Cameras and it arrived on Friday and I love it! I can fit in my dslr plus my current collection of two lenses, plus my instax mini (with spare film) plus my gorilla pod and even my charger and the extras like remote control etc. So it's literally perfect. Plus it will work for actual storage in my house and means that my camera will always be ready to go.

Though... one more camera question if anyone can help... my screen has a small scratch on it

(* wails * ) - this may have been the reason I decided to get a proper bag too rather than just carry it around in my handbag! The scratch is tiny and it doesn't affect the functionality of the camera but it's bugging me... any ideas if I could fix it? or make it look any better? I have ordered a screen protector to put over the screen to prevent any more mishaps but this one is still stubbornly there!

* * Last few layouts from the weekend * *

2011-05-12T17:41:00.000+01:00

Here are the last two layouts that I have not yet shared with you from our girly scrappy weekend, these two didn't really fit into any category so they are just here on their own...

A mushy love one of me and him. We recently went to a friend's wedding (Hi Cathy if you are reading) and it was so lovely to sit as a guest and watch our friends get wed, it brought back loads of wonderful memories of our own wedding and we got all loved up all over again.

Then I moaned about not being able to drink while he drunk all my share of red wine too and then I drove us all the way home from Sussex to London and after about 10 seconds he was fast asleep and I was bored all the way home! But all in all it was a fantastic day!

And then a family layout of my and one of our cute cute nephews...

Yay for gorgeous weather and being able to play out in the garden in the paddling pool!

So after busting loads of stash at the weekend... a new box arrived for me to lust after.. my latest Studio Calico kit. This month I treated myself to one add on and as normal I put them all together in one big mixed up pile ready to scrap with.

Hopefully I might get a moment to play with this over the weekend...

My favs are defintely these pins and flags...

I got two stamps this month... one is this 6x4 newsprint stamp and the other is a row of numbers. I am selling both of them... you know me... not much of a stamper... so if you would like to buy them then please drop me an email on laurabuckingham (at) hotmail (dot) com

The background one will be £6 and the numbers £4 and I will post them off for free for you.

The newsprint one is awesome.. but I know it would just sit in my stash unused... so its much better to go to a new loving home!

These have now gone to new homes! Thank you x

* * Bumpy layouts * *

2011-05-08T10:08:00.000+01:00

So... although I am not going to commit myself to a dedicated pregnancy album, I figured I would scrap some pregnancy layouts and then with any luck I will end up with enough for an album without really trying! Lol, that's the plan anyway!

After last weekend I am already three layouts up...

From about week 14 I have been taking weekly bumpy photos... they are all different, different clothes, different settings... perfect for not getting bored of scrapping the same 'sort of' pics!

Firstly week 17! Just starting to really look preggers and not just lumpy!

And then a jump to beach week 19 photos....

Feeling flutterings at week 19 ...

And one of "us", reflecting on the fact that it won't be just "us" for very much longer...

Just a few more months to go...

p.s. I can feel the baby kicking now! Yay!!! It's a wonderfully weird feeling!

* * Wedding Album Update May 2011 * *

2011-05-07T14:23:00.003+01:00

Over our last scrappy weekend I was able to complete another few wedding album layouts to add to our ever expanding album. There is no co-ordinating colour scheme or design, they are just all indivdiual 12x12 layouts that just happen to all be about our wedding. Scrapping our album this way takes the pressure off and means that I don't get bored restricting myself to anything in particular. But last weekend it seems that I used a lot of reoccuring products on my pages. Like the Sassa paper flowers, the bright coloured buttons, grey bakers twine (lush), my new mini Jillibeans tiny kraft alphas and my Martha Stewart starburst punch!

They were all my "go to" products this weekend!

I love the indivdiual photo booth photos. If you read about our wedding last year you will remember that we had a photobooth at our do and it was the best thing ever!

Everyone went home with a black and white photo strip of their apperances and these were so cute to scrapbook. But in addition to these strips (which I also scanned in from our guest book so that i would have copies of everyones!) We also paid £50 for a dvd of the images and these images came as individual photos and in COLOUR! Making that disc a fab investment for a scrapper! Its weird how the photos looked different in colour and took on a whole new apperance when viewed in isolation from the strip photos. So now I have double the amount of photobooth pics to scrap! yay!

Though of course it's not all about the photobooth (though that was one of the best bits obvs) and I scrapped one of the professional pics last weekend too. Which reminds me that I have not shared our actual wedding album with you yet. We collected this a few weeks ago and it is the most wonderful HUGE leather bound gorgeous old fashioned proper photo album! It will be so gorgeous to look back over in years to come. I will take some pics and share with you soon!

Until then... it's just scrappy pages...

Love these birds that I cut from a sheet of exclusive Studio Calico paper that came in our last kit. That's one of the cool things about subbing to the SC kits, the exclusive papers that you can't get anywhere else. In fact in our May kits, which are due to arrive any day now, I ordered extra as the papers are super cute (and have butterflies on!)

And finally... another photobooth picture... me and the girls... though the journalling is about our wedding rings!

See the sassa flowers are back! lol!

oh and the buttons!

Good news for this week... I treated myself to my first dslr after our wedding so I figured I should also treat myself to a "pregnancy" present too! (any excuse!)

So it made sense to start off my lens collection and get something, other than my kit lens, to use on my camera... and so this arrived....

A 50mm 1.4 lens... and I love it... I have only had one quick opportunity to try it out but at our nephew's Saturday morning mini rugby play in the park I did some experimenting... keeping my camera on manual (yay me) and I do love some of the results. It's super quick and I'm loving the blurry backgrounds.

Perfect to catch a bit of action! Hopefully I will have the chance soon to try out some more portrait type photos with it. I think it will be perfect for some baby photos. It's good in low light too which will be great.

Though I think I may have caught a bug and am now looking at what my next purchase to save up for will be... I have my eye on a zoom lens. Probably 55-250 to add some range to my kit lens. Plus it's a good price for me so win, win.

And lastly... I ticked over into my 21st week today. So that makes me 20+1... that must be half way right??? Only 140 days to go... and the bump looks like this...

I need to get into some more maternity gear... else I will just stretch out all my other t-shirts at this rate!

One more thing.... now I have two lenses... I need a camera bag. I am looking for something non-black,non-rucsack, non-ugly... that can fit camera, couple of lenses and maybe gorilla pod as well. Pleas link me up if you know of anything that might work???

* * April Document 2011 * *

2011-05-04T18:03:00.002+01:00

Firstly thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post... so excited!!!! I am so impatient so could not resist finding out as soon as I could!

Over the weekend I cracked on with my April document 2011 pages and continued with the calendar page for this year. It's not 'quite' finished as I want to put the whole page on a piece of turquoise cardstock that I don't have yet! But no doubt one will turn up in a SC kit soon so I will just add it to my page when it does arrive!

Used some of my new favourite thickers and some new JB pennant stickers...

April saw LOTS of fun stuff going on!

The month kicked off with my old Uni friend Cathy's hen do. We had a brilliant day in London playing typical hen party games and then we went onto Volupte which is a burlesque show/bar/resturant type venue in London!

We also had lots of family time in the gorgeous warm weather, we played with the nephews out in the garden, we had the paddling pool and the sprinklers out and I took a LOT of photos.

We spent a weekend at Bracklesham, took bumpy photos and helped with the Easter Egg hunt and bonnet parade!

With a bunch of friends we played dino golf... seriously sounds lame but it was amazing... jurassic crazy golf... what's not to like? Then we went onto a bar... (at which I nicked a business card to add into my pockets)

This month I made much more of an effort to collect "stuff" and have added in a Sussex postcard I bought, the score card from dino crazy golf and I used even smaller photos to fit everything in. I created a college in Picasa and printed four pics to a 6x4 photo.

The second page features two weddings... firstly my aforementioned friend Cathy married Brendon in the most gorgeous setting in Hastings, East Sussex. Her wedding was full of gorgeous crafty touches... the wedding reception was in a gorgeous old prep school. It was like something from Harry Potter. The wedding breakfast was served in the school library, which sounds like it might be weird, but it wasn't... at all. It was a gorgeous old fashioned, vintage library with wooden shelves from floor to ceiling, filled with gorgeous old books. Oil painting adored the walls and it was gorgeous.

The second wedding was of course Kate and William's wedding! lol! I included a flyer from our street party for this one!

The side includes some more bumpy love photos and a little sneak peek of our nursery so far...

The walls have been re-decorated, baby gifts have a home to go to, new flooring looks lush and now I'm itching to add some more furniture and "cuteness" on the walls. A proper update on this room soon!

Finally my focus page was our Easter weekend...

More gorgeous thickers on this page..

Phew... nothing like a weekend of scrapping to get you back in the blogging mood!

* * Belly update * *

2011-05-03T18:07:00.004+01:00

I loved finding some different backgrounds and seeting for bumpy photos last weekend. I think only scrapbookers would look at an odd bluey grey door and think "ohh perfect for photos.. let me change into a tshirt that will work with that!" Being away with other scrapbookers means that I don't have to convince anyone to take my picture, I don't have to bug my husband into mini photo sessions, because other scrapper just "get it" and happily help! So this weekend I ended up with some super cute bump photos. I am nervous and excited about my expanding size and I am looking forward to having a whole collection of photos at the end of my pregnancy. I did think about taking one photo in the same spot every time, but actually I think I prefer the different settings. Plus I didn't really have a good spot or wall in my house that has good lighting, so I figured I would purposely go about making them all different instead!

So the wall and the door pics fit right into that plan!

Aside from having scrapbooking fodder, I have another reason for the continual bump photos and it is because of this book... the belly book... (FYI.. you can find it here at Amazon)

I LOVE IT so much. It's a bargain at £7 and is the cutest little journalling/scrapbook book to record your pregnancy in. I did toy with the idea of keeping a diary throughout my pregnancy but I am rubbish at doing that everyday so that never really started. But this I am sticking to.

I guess it's sort of like a baby book in that it has room to stick in congratulations cards and most of the pages have various "prompts" that you can fill in throughout the book. It is an American book, so there are a few words that we don't really use in our vocab but that is easy to overlook.

It has three sections for you to record your thoughts and feelings in and has pages such as...

* How you felt when you first took your pregnancy test

* What cravings and aversions you have been having

* Thoughts on baby names

* How it felt to hear baby's heartbeat for the first time

And of course pages to record your hospital visits and add your scan photos in!

But the BEST BIT is that there is a page for each week and a space for a bump photo. My only criticism is that it starts at week 1... which is weird as you wouldn't even know that you were pregnant then. Plus I didn't start taking belly shots till about week 12. So my first few weeks show photos of the pregnancy test, of me/him before we found out and ultrasound photos.

But then after week 12 I have included a bump photo and then some journalling about what is going on for me that week. All the photos I have used are square (perfect for iphone instagram photos) I really really love it so far and am all up to date! (yay) This week will be hard to pick just one bump photo to add though!

I think it will be wonderful to look back on in years to come... not just with this baby but it will be kinda cool to compare any future pregnancys with this one. So I would seriously recommend this if you are expecting or know someone who is!

Oh... and speaking of bump photos.... did I share this one with you yet???

* yay *

* * Scrappy weekend away with the girls * *

2011-05-02T09:19:00.004+01:00

This weekend was our lastest twice annual scrappy getaway with the girls... We hired a fancy cottage in the country and I spent all weekend away with my most wonderful group of friends. We scrapped, we laughed, we drank wine (well I didn't but the others did) we caught up and we had the most wonderful time.

We have had several weekends away now, maybe 4 weekends over the last couple of years and in previous years we have hired out a YHA youth hostel, but this year we decided to step it up a gear and we upgraded to a gorgeous holiday cottage near Reading. Sadly I didn't take any photos of the house itself, but it was gorgeous. We had a wonderful scrap space, a lounge to escape to in the evenings and thanks to glorious weather all weekend we could also make the most of the countryside to walk and of course take photos!

We found a card in our house detailing a local walk... so off we went...
And of course if you take 11 scrapbookers away for the weekend, there will be plenty of cameras and lots of photos taken! I think as a group total we took over 800 photos on this one walk alone! I took my dslr but also my instax mini for some fun tiny photos!

A new venue meant new opportunities for group photos! I have several group photos from years gone by printed and hanging on my wall at home and I am looking forward to adding this year's addition to a frame!

You can also be sure that if you follow any of these girls blogs that these photos will all be appearing on several layouts soon! And if you don't follow these girlies.. then please let me suggest that you do. They are all awesome scrappers (and other crafts) and their blogs are fun too. Let me show you where they all live...

Leanne, SJ, Rachel, Shimelle, Chloe, Sally, Natalie, Jen, Katherine

I was so excited to meet these tiny ponies on our walk. The footpath led right through their field and there was about 12 of the cutest tiny ponies that your eyes ever did see!

So of course we stopped for some photos... which led to a couple of interesting bumpy looking pics!

I am 19+2 weeks now, so into week 20!! yay! I took a few maternity shots over the course of the weekend but I will share these in another blog post.

I am collecting a series of bump photos and hope to create some sort of photobook once baby arrives with a collection of photos throughout my pregnancy and these pony ones will fit right in!

They really were very friendly and made me wish for a pony!

And now for the scrapping! Maybe not drinking wine actually helped to boast my creativity, I would normally average 10 layouts over a weekend like this but this weekend I rocked out 14 layouts!! So I am super pleased that I busted A LOAD of stash and have a lovely pile of layouts to show for my efforts.

I won't bore you with them all now and as I don't tend to ever have time to scrap during the week I will blog them throughout this week.

Firstly some speedy scrappy of photos taken last weekend...

I have not made a commitment to scrapping a dedicated pregnancy album and several pregnancy layouts and info has and will be included throughout my document 2011 album but I figured that if I end up with enough seperate maternity layouts then I could put them all into one album. That way I am likely to end up with a pregnancy album but I won't have to stress about "having to complete one". Not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, but it makes sense to me!

Then some even speedier scrapping as I scrapped some of the instax photos that I took that afternoon for instant scrappy glory!

All weekend I had friends, tiny photos, scrapping and photographs, what more could a crafty girl want in a weekend away?

It looks like the next weekend will be in November so with baby due in September I am sad to think that I will need to skip the next one. But we might pop in for some baby cuddles instead!

* * Maternity beach photos * *

2011-04-27T17:24:00.000+01:00

In the efforts to photograph and document my pregnancy I decided to take advantage of our Easter weekend at the beach for something a little different.

This is week 19 and the bump is getting bigger. I swear that during the night or late evening I can actually feel it stretching. I know that's ridiculous and is probably just tiredness but I do feel that every morning I wake up at the moment I feel much bigger than the day before!

My poor hubby is as tolerant as he can be with me and my continual demand for "bump photos" I don't think he quite understands scrappers even after all these years!

I have started to be able to feel the baby moving around in there, not quite kicks yet but defintely movements and flutterings. Can't wait till I can feel something a little more definate.

Breakwaters make perfect resting place for a camera on self timer!

And we ended the day with a couple of super cute silhouette shots against the setting sun. No doubt we will be back here in August so it will be cool to replicate these photos when I have a much bigger bump!

I'm already starting to feel big so I am slightly concerned about the next few months and the size that I am going to get!

But every week that goes past is a week closer to meeting our baby which I actually can't wait for! Patience is not one of my virtues!

* * March Document 2011 * *

2011-04-26T09:05:00.001+01:00

I know that you can hardly believe your eyes but this is two posts in as many days, strike while the iron is hot and all that!

March 2011 documented and I am up to date so far! yay.

My new aim is to try to use up as much of my Studio Calico kit each month as possible, so this features a lot in this installment. March was a little more exciting than "staying in February" and so there was more bits and pieces to include in my pockets, more photos to add and generally a little more lovelyness going on.

We got our 12 week scan and all was well meaning that we had past that magical week that everyone countdowns until the announcement of impending parenthood can be made!

I breathed out a sigh of relief because almost the same day we could finally go public and tell people I had popped right out of my normal clothes and some emergency jean shopping was needed. In true scrappy style I keep the tags and added them into my document 2011.

I always try to include some info about what we have been doing at Rangers each month too. March saw making our own bath bombs and lip balms so that was included, as was making peanut butter brownies and meeting tiny donkeys at the farm with Sj and her family.

We had a couple of congrats cards in the post, so one was included here and the other were added to my "Belly Book" more about that later. I also saved the census envelope and documented that too. This was the first time I have ever done the census myself, last time being away at Uni, the time before that being a small person and the time before that being not born yet! So that was exciting for me, I think it's the geographer in me. (random fact : my first degree was in Geography. True Story)

I also like to save business cards or napkins from resturants etc but I missed the oppportunity here so added in the receipt instead. Though in hindsight I think it might be more interesting to actually see what we ate and what we paid for it in years to come.

And finally my focus page for the month. It couldn't be anything other than our baby scan. 12 weeks in and the baby had already grown so much from our first 9 week scan, we could see tiny arms waving around in there! It was awesome!

Due date 24.09.2011 and the countdown can begin!

* * February Document 2011 * *

2011-04-25T16:50:00.002+01:00

Catching up with some blogging. I know I have been awful lately and I am not quite sure why or what that is about. I have been scrapping so have some layouts lined up to show you but first I thought that I would share my most out of date stuff first! So here is February 2011. I am loving continuing Document 2010 into 2011 and I have been busy today organising my photos for scrapping April. I seriously can't believe that we are almost done with April already. Time is flying past this year so far!

Document 2011 is continuing with the updated and new format for 2011. I am using a KI calendar page for each month and I am using it as an actual calendar documenting the main events that have taken place that month. I figured this keeps the album looking different from last year and keeps my interest up. In case you didn't see it at the time, my 2010 album can be seen in full here
My pocket pages are all going to be this 9 square 4x4 format in 2011 and I love the fact that this means tons more photos are included each month, it is also a pain to find enough photos each month. February was particularly difficult as I was hiding from being pregnant! lol! I figured the easiest way to avoid unwanted enquiries as to why I wasn't drinking was to avoid everyone all together! lol! Though this was easier in February when there was not much going on anyway and it was cold enough to stay in and do nothing!

So my February pocket pages are not very interesting to be honest. Though of course baby's first photo had to make an apperance in there! We actually got an early scan at 9 weeks. I was going to visit my parents to tell them our news but I wanted some more reassurance that there was actually a baby in there and that all was well. So we paid for a private scan and got to see our little baby a little earlier than normal. The scan was so worth it though!

Other noteable things to document in February were getting our new sofas, doing some little home improvements and the process of sharing our little secret with family.

I do try to include tickets and postcards and little bits and pieces wherever I can, so in February's pockets there are cinema tickets and some post from Thailand. Firstly if you haven't seen Paul then you must do. It is so laugh out loud funny. I love Simon Pegg (who doesn't) and even though I think that I missed a lot of the Sci Fi references (limited movie knowledge) I still loved it and laughed anyway!

And cute post from Thailand reminding us to save the date for a friend's wedding later on this year. Not in Thailand unfortuntely but in the equally lovely West Sussex! lol, you can't win them all!

And my "focus page" for February is not done yet. I wanted to scrap our valentine's day cards but I have put them "somewhere safe" and I am yet to remember where that someplace safe actually is!!! But that's the plan so when I find them I can catch up!

* * Massive crafty clear out * *

2011-04-20T10:39:00.004+01:00

The baby's room is well and truly almost re-decorated! (yay) My husband has worked really hard (and after I emptied the craft stuff out of the room) he re-painted the walls, added a dimmer light switch and on Friday we are having the new flooring installed. Which means that we will be able to start thinking about furniture. It also means that we will have a place to start to dump all the baby bits that we have started to accumulate and is currently piled in our kitchen!

So in my last efforts to move some excess craft stuff out of my life I have done one final ebay upload... sorry for the pimping but figured a couple of you might be interested. Everything is listed as starting at 99p and the postage is actual costs.

I have huge lots of brads, flowers and buttons!

And HUGE LOTS of patterned paper! I have filled three pizza boxes with 100 sheets of patterned paper. Mostly old collections but would be fantastic for anyone starting up in scrapbooking and wanted to boast your stash at a really good price!

You can see these here, here and here

There are also some albums to be found, 6x6, 8x8 and calendar album

And then 6 pizza boxes full of 50 sheets of cardstock! Perfect for any crafter, these would retail at around 50p+ per sheet, so £25 a box and they are starting at just 99p too!

These and all my other items can be seen here!

There are also some thickers and some other random crafty things like shrink art packets and tiny boxes to embellish! lol! After this, I think I am well and truly cleared out and only have a tiny bottom of a wardrobe worth of stash left but I do have a clear bedroom that is ready to be made into a baby's room. So it's all good!

* * Bumpy * *

2011-04-18T18:01:00.000+01:00

The bump is growing. Week 17 is onion week. Random.

* * Making space * *

2011-04-10T20:30:00.003+01:00

As this continues to get bigger I realised that our two bedroom house isn't so... work started on clearing out the scrap/craft room/now needs to become a nursery.

I had the day off work on Friday and I am not quite sure what came over me as I was out of bed by 8am and didn't stop until gone 8pm... but I worked super hard and cleared out the whole room!

I was super strict.... I had a huge pile of "stuff to donate"... My friend Katy runs a scrapbooking club at her school so I started to make a little pile of stash for her. I was ruthless, anything that I had not looked at for 6 months was gone, anything I bought in a sale but had never opened was gone, thickers packs that were half empty were gone. I needed to make room and being sentimental about stash was never going to cut it.

It turned out that we have more storage in our house than I thought we did, we were just not using it very wisely. For example, we have fitted drawers and wardrobes in our bedroom and loads of these drawers were just half filled with junk. We had three drawers that held not much more than sunglasses, lightbulbs and old phone chargers! So I re-organised all of that and made much better use of our space.

Meaning that by the end of the day the spare room was almost empty! Some stuff went up into the loft, some stuff was given away on freecycle, I sold most of my clear stamps, my desk was dismantled and it was a great feeling to de-clutter and reorganise.

I realised that I had hoarded too much stash for too long. This was mainly because I could. I had the space so have never needed to be brutal before. I have been able just to keep everything, sometimes for several years! I had soo many packets of thickers and I knew that I would never ever use some of them again. There were fonts I don't like anymore, colours that I wouldn't use and plain old packs with no vowels!

I had folders full of coloured cardstock that I had got with kits and not used... the fact that I had not used it for years made me realise that I am very unlikely to use it in years to come. I guess necessity is the mother of all invention... I needed to clear out and cut back and so I did. This is the pile of goodies to go to the scrapbook club! I am sure that they will love it! It will certainly do much more good than being sat in my house not being used!

So what did happen to the rest of my stash....

It found a new home in the bottom of one of my wardrobes!!!

I am planning to get a 2x2 expedit unit to squeeze in here to make it more organised and less of a jumble. I figured I will scrap on the floor of my bedroom or on my bed. Or take a kit down to the dining room table and scrap there. I figured as I get a monthly kit now and am loving that, I aim to be a bit more of a monthly kit scrapper and at the end of the month decide to keep any stash that I haven't used or if it won't fit back in my new cupboard then I will get rid. Maybe I need an ongoing "to donate" box to keep me focused!

Now my husband has no excuse not to use his time off work to re-decorate the spare room! win!

ps. thanks for all the interest in my ebay stamps! I hope they enjoy their new homes! If any of you are after a bargain priced wii and wii balance board... then have a look at my latest listings. The consule and board start at £10 and loads of games all at 99p. Have a look here All in the aid of project "clear out for the baby!"

* * Apple week * *

2011-04-04T19:34:00.004+01:00

A few friends have started to use pinterest and not wanting to be left out, I have joined in. Though to be honest I am not really too sure what it is all about. It seems to be a site where you can save links to cool images that you find all over the interweb. Fancy.

If anyone knows any thing more about this site then please do enlighten me!

My friend Jen linked me to some super cute maternity photos. You can see them here and here. As I am sure lots of you that are pregnant or have been pregnant will know, that throughout your pregnancy various books and websites like to relate your baby's size to pieces of fruit and vegetables.

So it seems like lots of pregnant girlies use this as the perfect inspiration for baby bump photos.... and I wanted to be in their gang!

So week 15 and the baby is as big as an apple!

I'm not sure if I am quite bumpy or just chucky looking. Someone told me today that if they had not known then they would have just thought that I had been on the pies! lol! I am trying to convince myself that I am looking more full of baby than full of chocolate. Though I have not been exactly easy on the chocolate, so maybe it's about 50/50! lol!

Really it's just an excuse for some cute maternity photos. I hope to do a few more as the bump gets bigger though might skip the more boring weeks! Week 16 is onion! lol!

If you have any cute links to maternity shots then link me up... now I can "pin" them on my maternity pinterest board! yay!

2011-03-31T19:55:00.000+01:00

I am slowly coming to the realisation that in just 6 short month's time there is going to be a baby living in my craft room! Which means that it actually needs to stop being a craft room and start becoming a baby's bedroom between now and then!

So tonight I started my clear out and started with the stamp sets that I never use!

I have listed all of these sets on ebay and they all have a 99p starting bid, so please have a look and bid if you fancy expanding your collection. Some are new and unused and some are black with ink... but they all stamp awesome still

This set of three love Elsie stamps can be found here

This set of five sets (including Autumn Leaves, Love Elsie and KI memories) are here

Another mixed lot of stamp sets (including Autumn Leaves... mostly unused, KI and Love Elsie) are here

This is a bit of a random set of individual stamps, including several from Scarlet Lime kits (including an awesome woodgrain one), two Prima background stamps, two pink paislee stamps, a Love Elsie stamp and a cute robot set from Kat designs. All starting at 99p here

And now for some Studio Calico stamps... some of these are much sought after!!

There is a lot of used stamps... all the ones above that are here

And a lot of brand new, unused stamps... all the ones below for sale here

And then a HUGE lot of Scrapagogo stamps... a mixture of used and unused.. all in one lot that is here

And finally some Paper Source stamps that I have never used! Can be seen here

Sorry for the ebay pimping... but I needed to create some space and I want to buy some thing cute for the baby with the ebay funds! * yay *

* * Thank you so very very much * *

2011-03-31T08:57:00.002+01:00

Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments on our baby annoucement post. Good luck to everyone else who is expecting at the moment!

Firstly... my sister now reads my blog... so just like to say "hi " to Lucy!

This morning I am quickly fitting in a tint bit of blogging before I leave for work, so I don't have any interesting photos to share but I did want to share a couple of baby bump facts. More so that I have a place to remember them to be honest. I had good intentions to keep a pregnancy diary but that kind of sort of hasn't happened!

Today I am 14w+6 and I felt baby flutters for the first time! As I was lying still in bed this morning I felt several flutters and like the feeling of bubbles popping in my belly. It was a wonderfully lovely and weird feeling all at the same time. At first I thought that it might be my imagination but after staying still and concentrating more I am fairly confident that it was baby rather than wind!

My baby bump is very noticeable now and I am defintely looking pregnant. Yesterday I wore maternity jeans for the first time! I am slightly worried about the size of the bump at this stage. Several people have told me it is because I am short (5'2") so have less space for the baby to grow into so the only option is out! I'm also slightly worried about the amount of clothes that I am going to need to get/buy/borrow to get me through the next 6 months. I might start wearing my husband's stuff!

At 13w+2 we heard the baby's heartbeat at home for the first time. I bought a "Angelsounds" doppler from Amazon and every couple of days it's nice to listen to the strange swoshing beating sound of our baby.

Baby is as big as an apple this week! I have an awesome iphone app that gives me updates in terms of fruit and vegetables! When we first found out baby was smaller than a poppyseed, then we went through...appleseed...small pea...blueberry....raspberry...green olive...prune...lime...plum...peach...lemon... and now apple!

* * Some good news * *

2011-03-25T17:43:00.003Z

Finally I find time to get back to blog land and share with you the reason that these beautiful flowers were given to me...

My real document 2011 focus page... not the kinda fake one that I blogged a few weeks back and one of the reasons that I have not been online so much lately...

It's all down to this little bean...

I'm pregnant! * yay *

We are both thrilled at the prospect of being parents. Well thrilled and terrified all at the same time. I am 14 weeks in and baby is due the day before my birthday on September 24th!

All is going well so far and I think I am over most of the tiredness that seems to come with the first few weeks.

I am excited for...

* Starting to get a little baby bump. Though less pleased that my clothes are starting not to fit and I'm still too small for maternity clothes

* Documenting this journey with my Document 2011 album

* My Mum sending me little parcels in the post every couple of days with tiny babygrows in and other things that she just "couldn't walk past"

* Choosing and veto-ing LOADS of baby names

* Thinking... "oh wow.. this time in 6 months...."

* Maternity leave from work! I am hoping to leave at the start of August and have a whole year off. Well 13 months actually as I have some annual leave to get in there too. Though I am not looking forward to the financial burden that this is going to bring.

* Using the baby as an excuse to... pig out, buy a new camera lense, treat myself to new make up, get my husband to wait on me and pretty much most things!

* * Finally a little scrapping * *

2011-03-14T21:36:00.002Z

Thank you for all your kind comments about my father in law. He came out of hospital today so he is feeling better now that he is back at home.

I had today off work so have finally found a moment (inbetween housework and de-cluttering) to photograph my lastest few layouts to share with you. These have all been completed with the February Studio Calico kit. I have bought two add ons for the last couple of months and am determined to keep trying to use them up before the next one arrives so that I don't stock pile too much stash!

Firstly an October photo of me and him. The perfect shot to go with those cute Sassa banners!

And then digging through some older summer pics I found these beach ones of my hubby and his nephew, so added them to some bright cardstock and felt all summery again.

And finally another wedding photo to add to the ever increasing album (yay)

I hope to get back on track with the blogging lack soon.

L x

* * Absent with Family stuff * *

2011-03-04T19:21:00.002Z

hello all...

This isn't a proper blog post... just a little note to say that I am still here.

My father-in-law is not very well at the moment and he is in hospital. He has been for a couple of weeks. So I am really tied up with family things at the moment. Going to and fro between various family members, hospital visits and generally making sure that we are available at the drop of a hat.

Everything is ok, it is just blogging has taken a little bit of a back seat. But I have scrapped a bit, even took some photos... hopefully I will get a spare moment over this weekend to blog about them! I hope normal service will resume shortly.

* Wordless Wednesday * *

2011-02-16T19:34:00.000Z

Thank you ChezSucreChez... a little something to make to brighten up home

* * Photobooth friends * *

2011-02-15T19:16:00.002Z

This month I treated myself to an add on with my Studio Calico kit and as I am already loving the sneaks that are being shown for the March kits so I figured I better get scrapping and using the kit up... so used another wedding photobooth strip and got another page ticked off the wedding album list *yay*

and seriously check out the Sassa flower!!!

I loves it!

I hope you all had a great Valentine's day? We decided to do cards and small presents. Which worked out kinda ok but we were very unromantic about the whole deal I must admit.

Firstly we bought our valentine's cards together! He has a slightly bad habit of not being the more organised bear in the woods, normally resulting in a rush card bought at the supermarket the day before. Not surprisngly this normally resulted in a pretty poor quality card. Well not this year. I wanted something a little more fancy. So one Saturday we were both in John Lewis and I used the opportunity to ensure that this year would be the year that I actually got a card that I wanted. So I pointed out the selection of cards that I approved of... stating that I liked "all of these ones....and none of these ones" I stated that I wanted one with "wife" written on (for our first Valentine's day as Mr and Mrs) and wow, with all those close instructions, he picked a good one!

We did have some surprises though as I took both of them to the tillpoint and requested that the cashier didn't show the cards to me and requested that he whisked them into a bag sharpish and then we paid and left! Unromantic item one done!

Secondly... our gifts were not wrapped this year. We kinda just ran out of time and after work on Valentine's day we were both standing in our kitchen, fumbling around, looking for scissors and tape before admitting that actually why bother... we shut our eyes and swapped gifts.

I bought him a cookery book he wanted (Jamie's 30 minute meals) and he bought me.....

.... a cheese grater! Seriously!

Not only a grater.... it was a grater that we had seen before in the shops (a fancy mircoplane one) and he had lusted over it. (I know its weird, but he loves cooking and kitchen shops are his mecca) but anyway... we had seen this grater before and I said "nope, no way, don't like it, don't want it". This was mainly as its a box grater and on one of the sides, it has one of these death trap finger slicers that just creeps me out a little, so I was quite happy to stick to our regular (works perfectly fine) grater.

Turns out that this was not ok with him and as a thank you, he bought me the death trap grater that I hated for Valentine's Day! Cheers hubby!

* * I am back in the scrappy saddle * *

2011-02-11T17:42:00.002Z

I am feeling so much better now... thank you so much for all your kind comments and well wishes. I was helped on the road to recovery by a parcel of goodness being delivered this morning by Studio Calico. Yay. The postman arrived at 8am this morning, I rushed downstairs in my dressing gown, said thank you very much and ran back up to bed to upwrap this parcel of goodies... and this is what it contained...

The main kit and one add one. Plus some extra card, some white Mr Huey and two JB ink pads! whoop! Check out the awesome Sassa vintage brooches. (love) and this inspired me to do some creating today and gave me some enthusisam to complete my first few pages of my document 2011.

A couple of my friends have decided to do something a little bit different for 2011, rather than have the first 12x12 page as an envelope collecting page. Jen has decided to make two focus pages instead. Leanne is using a mixture of a calendar and envelope and I decided to create a calendar/diary type page and use the KI memories papers that my friend Jackie found for me a couple of months ago.

I just added in some of the key events and things that we did this month to the page and jazzed it up with some paper, embellishments and, my new favourite, mist! I must admit that January was pretty low key and with two weeks of sickness in February I am afraid that next month is going to be even less interesting! oh well, that is actual life I guess! I made this page with the very last of my January Studio Calico kit, I am determined not to hoard my kits and to try and use them up throughout the month before the next one arrives and attempt to keep my stash purchasing down thanks to this.

I love the 9 square page protectors for the details pages, but of course last year I only had to find 12 things of interest, now it's 18! But I managed to fill all the gaps. I used a mixture of 6x4 photos that I cut to size and some instagram photos that I had printed. I was worried that these would be too pixelated at this size but they are fine, so that works for me.

I also included a couple of these adorable KI memories pockets that came in my last SC kit. They are 3x3 and the perfect size for adding little bits of paper, photos and in the case below, some business cards picked up from pubs on nights out in January.

January was all about playing with our Christmas new toys (an ipad for me and a guitar for him) having drinks with friends, cake for birthdays, receiving cute thank you letters, adding some pretties to our home (adding wedding photos to the walls and buying new sofas) and I also had space to document the fun that we had at Rangers last month. (biscuit creating and wii dance night)

A couple of people have been asking what pens I use to write on my photos... well the same pen that I use for EVERYTHING! lol. American Crafts Precision Pen 0.3. They are just so perfect for me and I buy them by the box! They work lovely on photos... just give them a moment to dry before you add to a page protector. And for white pens, I use two different ones. Firstly the Uniball Signo white pen which is great on paper but can be a bit 'hit or miss' when you use it on photos. So these paint pens can work really well as an alternative for white ink.

And finally my 'focus' page for January... just featuring a photo of my feet and some new years resolutions. Nothing too dramatic. Try to read more, learn more recipes, take more photos, document the everyday... the usual stuff that you can rely on scrapbookers to make resolutions about! lol!

Tonight : Chinese and Hustle is on telly! win!

* * Poorly sick * *

2011-02-09T15:54:00.001Z

Hi all

I have been away from blog land and the scrap scene for a few days as I have been poorly sick. I am currently at home recovering from a chest infection. I am getting and feeling better but have not done much and have not really had the energy to blog.

But I am feeling much better and hope to have something to share tomorrow.

L x

* * Messy Scrapbooker * *

2011-01-27T08:45:00.001Z

Anyone who knews me and has seen me scrap will not be surprised that the floor of my craft room normally looks like this...

I have got into a weird habit of scrapping on the floor rather than my desk at the moment, I think I like the space. When I say I like the space, I mean I like the fact that I have more room to spread out my rubbish and offcuts! This is why kit scrapping totally works for me. I'm lazy. I like everything to be in reach and I hardly ever think "ohh I have the perfect embellishment for this... let me go hunt for it"

Nah... I am much more likely to think... "I probably have something better somewhere but here is a scrap of paper sitting next to my trimmer, that'll do!"

So when I get my Studio Calico kit, I sit down (on the floor with it) spread out the contents over the floor and then just pick up whatever I see and scrap with it. I use the trimmer scraps... if you sit next to me at a crop then I will most likely use your trimmer scraps too. It is not that I am a frugal scrapper. I'm not at all. And once I am done for the day I will quite happily bin any off cuts that I don't think I will use. I don't SAVE scraps. But I will scrap with them if they are lying in front of me. Does that make sense?

And I think this is what helped me this month use up my Studio Calico kit and means that I can shop more tonight when pre-sales go on sale! Im hoping to grab at least one add on kit, some extra Sassa goodies, more vanilla cardstock (great basis for wedding album pages I have found) and maybe another Mister Huey spray after my first successful taster session this month!

My fellow subbers... what are you after tonight?

14 layouts later... I think I have scrapped enough to shop!

Almost at the end of the kit... this layout was a scraps one... some strips of patterned paper and working out what title I can make out of the remaining letters on the alphabet sheets!

A quick chance to scrap the start of our Paris mini-moon... champagne at St Pancreas. Feels like an age ago... but it was only a couple of months. Time really does fly... we won't have much left as newlyweds at this rate!

* * Wordless Wednesday 3 * *

2011-01-26T19:13:00.000Z

I figured maybe completely wordless Wednesday doesn't quite work all the time... so every now and again I might just include a couple of words of context for you.

Such as...

Sunday afternoon. On the tube. South Bank bound.

* * Totally got my scrap on * *

2011-01-24T18:18:00.003Z

Another couple of layouts from the ever bountiful Studio Calico kit! Though I have got to the point where I am starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel as it were! With this layout I ended up using the waste from the Sassafras chipboard. But with Sassa you can always rely on them to create pretty packaging and this makes the waste just too good to throw away!

So I popped out the couple of remaining chipboard flowers and then used scraps of paper (just lying around on the floor, the messy scrapper that I am!) and used bits and pieces to fill the spaces and show through the flower holes and then I added a couple of chipboard pieces and button back on top and then used the whole sheet like a bit of patterned paper... stretching out the kit that little bit more! Plus I think it looks cute!

This was a quick "do it yourself hold your camera at arms length portrait" that we took one morning on our honeymoon in New York. We are in grand central station, not that you can really tell that from the photo. I like the square format again... I must try and get some more square pics processed.

And another one ticked off for the wedding album.... the "you may now kiss your bride" moment...

I journalled about the fact that I made him practice our wedding kiss! I didn't want it to be too long or too short, or too soppy or too unenthusiastic. I wanted it to be perfect and just right. (Can you tell that I was planning this wedding for 20 months and got a tiny bit obsessed with all the details!)

So we would stand in the kitchen and do a mini rehearsal, I made out that it was all about getting the perfect wedding kiss but also it was a great excuse to have a few minutes of snog action with my fella!

Anyway... turns out that when the actual moment arrived, I just forgot all about that, all about the practice runs and I just dived right in! I couldn't wait to kiss my brand new hubby and didn't care who knew it!

* * Wedding Album Update January 2011 * *

2011-01-23T10:42:00.001Z

Thank you for all your comments back on this post, here is my updated list of pages I would like to include in my wedding album

* The dress (one done)
* The cake (one done)
* The details... the favours, the flip flops etc.
* My bridesmaids
* Having a man of honour. (one done)
* Hearing the speeches
* Remembering the vows (one) (two)
* The photobooth (one done)
* The dancing
* The menu and the meal
* Our wedding song and dance
* The groom's men

* Our flower girl (one below)
* Our photographer (one done)
* The flowers
* The something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue
* Getting ready with the girls at home
* getting dressed and the final moments before the ceremony
* What the men wore and why
* Chatting to guests with courtyard drinks

* My Grandad (one done)

* Starting a new beginning (one) (two)

* The timetable of the day (one done)
* Some thoughts from the groom

* Me and my Dad walking to service (one below)

* Favourite photos of our guests

* Morning after our wedding day

* Having a new name

* New family group photos

* The readings and why we choose them

* Our witnesses

* Our bridal cottage

I still have a lot of scrapping to get done!!!

But here are another couple ticked off the list!

I adore this photo of my and my little cousin who was our flower girl. She hates having her photo taken so what worked a little better was having a couple of shots without us looking directly at the camera.

And this page was inspired by Fay (thank you for the suggestion!)

My last moments as an officially single girl as my Dad walked to my the ceremony. I am truly dreamt of this moment since I was a little girl and I am so happy that I could be walked towards my new husband by my Dad. He was fantastic and helped reassure me that no one would be able to see me shaking or hear the pounding of my heart!

Both layouts are with January Studio Calico kit. (My total count for this kit is around 14 at the moment) Can you tell that I am determined to do some stash busting and get this kit used up before the next box of goodies arrive!

* * Another couple of layouts * *

2011-01-22T14:31:00.003Z

Saturday afternoon and I have stuck glee season one in the dvd player and am enjoying being lazy on our sofas, surfing some scrappy sites and have a moment to share some more layouts that I made last weekend with my January Studio Calico kit.

Firstly a couple of photos from our Paris mini moon...

Just 6 days wed so being husband and wife was still such a lovely new novelty!

And I am sure you have seen this photo on a couple of other sites in blogland. I think I might be the only scrapper in our gang not to have scrapped this photo yet.
Back in October, me and a few of my scrappy friends got together for a weekend of cropping and we always fit in a little photoshoot at some point over the weekend.... well what else would you expect from scrappers! We went away over Halloween weekend and were thrilled to find a couple of cute pumpkins waiting for us. The perfect companions for a group photo!
I love the birch tree paper that I used for the background and it seemed to fit well with the design and theme of the page. It's a Studio Calico exclusive. Love it.

* * Wordless Wednesday 2 * *

2011-01-19T10:15:00.002Z

* * and then I did mist * *

2011-01-18T09:54:00.001Z

Everyone has been raving about misting, especially the new SC Mister Hueys and as I bought two colours this month I figured I should finally over come my fear of mist and try some on my pages. I think I have been wary before as I have tended to mist at the end of a layout, or in the middle of creating something and then when it didn't go right, or the way that I wanted then I would end up all annoyed and my layout would be ruined. So to overcome this problem, when I first opened my SC kit this month, I choose two sheets of cardstock and misted them. Before I even thought about what photos I would be scrapping or what the layout would end up looking like.

I started with spraying just a corner of one piece of cardstock in green and then I used that as the base for this layout.

I added a 6x4 photo (of my amazing Grandad) and then a few bits of embellishments either side. With both these layouts I found that I didn't need to use much patterned paper as the misting added so much interest that I could use the misting, where I would normally use patterned paper.

This is another layout to add to my wedding album and journals about the fact that I am so glad that my Grandad was there to enjoy the day with us, he baked and iced us our wonderful wedding cake, he looked great 'suited up' and he even stayed up dancing till midnight!

The second bit of misting was a little more ambitious. I used a couple Jenni Bowlin butterflies as a mask and used the yellow sunshine Mr Huey. Again, I only added a few extra bits and some journalling straight onto the cardstock to create another wedding layout.

This one about us, the start of a new beginning and being excited about what the rest of our lives hold together. Ok... a bit lovey.. but the wedding album has to include some slushy journalling right?

In other news ::

I need to do more stuff in January. I am worried my document 2011 will be rather dull at this rate. So far I have two sets of cinema tickets (Harry Potter and the Kings Speech - both awesome) a photo of our new sofas that we hope will be delievered by the end of February and lots of scrapbooking!

Before the end of the month, we have a Sunday dinner club with friends, some engagement drinks and birthday dinner. So I must remember to take my camera and snap away. Much to the annoyance of my non-scrapper friends!

* * Falling in love with stamped titles again * *

2011-01-16T21:07:00.003Z

So I scrapped my little heart out this weekend and with my pile of Studio Calico stash and I was obviously in some sort of scrapping zone as I sat on the floor of my scrap room and made ten layouts! * yay * This means that I can add even more to my Studio Calico basket next month!

I did mainly wedding layouts, but this little honeymoon one crept in as well and it turned out to be one of my favourites.

And yes... the title was totally inspired by last week's glee episode which I happened to be watching being re-played whilst I scrapped.

Stamping a bit of my title felt good and made me think that I should do it more often as I loved how it looks (especially when mixed up with letter stickers!)

And then... by some weird coincidence, a newsletter from Banana Frog popped up in my inbox announcing a 50% sale and I thought it would be rude not to swing by and have a look around.... and then, these sets just somehow ended up in my basket!
I bought Budmo Jiggler (in large and small, reduced to £7.50 and £3) and the cute De Louisville set at just £3. Saving myself a few quid... I will aim to use these in my next SC marathon scrapping session!

* * New stash is a fab incentive to scrap all day long! * *

2011-01-15T19:27:00.006Z

A few scrappy parcels have arrived at my house this week and this has totally inspired me to get my scrap on today!

Firstly some page protectors to set up my document 2011 album. Thank you to all those who commented on my blog post to help me find these! I managed to pick up 2 packets which is plently to get me through the year. These We R Memory Keepers page protectors have nine 4x4 pockets, so this will help keep my 2011 looking different to my 2010 one and the square pockets will be perfect for including some hipstamatic or instgram photos!

If anyone else is looking for these, then I believe that 'a trip down memory lane' have some on order, due next week!

ohhh.. for those of you who wanted to know the album that I used for my document 2010 album... it was an American Crafts 3 ring album and if you are in the UK, then Sarah's Cards have them in stock here.

I must say a huge thank you to my scrappy friend Jackie, as it was thanks to her that these were also delievered this week...
They are the gorgeous KI memory calendar pages. I got one in my Studio Calico kit last month and I used it for the title page for my document 2010 album. I fell in love with them and then I found out that they actually come in 12 different colours and in various shapes. Jackie found a US shop that had them in stock with good shipping, so even taking into account shipping from the US and then UK shipping from Jackie to me... I got a set of 12 for £12. An investment I think. Can't wait to get scrapping with them!

And of course this box doesn't need any introductions!

*WARNING - I will not be held responsible for anyone that succumbs to subbing with Studio Calico after this post..or any other subsequent post that I may create! *

Studio Calico box delivery day is always a cause for celebration and this month was no exception... as a couple of extra found their way into my box!

I know that this is weird as I'm not much of a messy scrapbooker, I don't tend to use paint or mist or other such messy things but Mister Hueys work for me. I think it is because they dry so quickly so I can add some impromptu misting to my pages without the hassle of having to wait for ages whilst it drys. Win.

The main kit this month is gorgeous and it feels like it was super packed this month too...

But I still had some firm favourites amongst this little stack of goodies... I have always loved KI but these pockets are super cute... little 3x3 pockets that will be perfect for January document 2011, so they are reserved for now!

Two alphabets is always a winner and of course I love almost everything that Sassa create but these letters are lush, the perfect size and I want them in every colour under the sun!

Amongst those little extras that I mentioned finding their way into my box included this whole add on... the extra embellishments I just had to have... especially those Maya Road resin flowers!

So all together that was quite a stack of stash that I had to play with! Which is the reason that today (whilst he was out running around a football pitch) I made 7 layouts!!! All with this SC stash and all but one of them were for the wedding album.

At this point I need to say thank you to everyone for your ideas of pages to include in my wedding album, you had some awesome ideas and I scrapped some of them today!

This was my first one... (I will blog the others over the course of this week)

I never really use square photos on my pages and the only reason I have this one is because I ordered a load of 5x5 photos to add to frames in our front room. I ordered about 15 for 9 frames, and this was one of the ones that didn't make the wall but made the album instead! I like it so I think I will try to make more of an effort to order photos in different sizes in my next photobox order.

This layout is all about why we choose the wedding photographer that we did and how thrilled I am with the photos we ended up with. Another page of the book and another fact of the day documented.

Tonight we are mostly sitting in, drinking wine and watching 'how I met your mother'. We got the DVD box set of seasons 1-5 for Christmas and we have almost finished the final season! We have watched a lot of episodes since December 25th!

* * The plan for the wedding album * *

2011-01-14T19:11:00.000Z

Of course I want to create a wedding album, I have tons of lovely photos and now I am just faced with the task of trying to match some of them with pretty papers and embellishments but more importantly to journal some of the important details of the way before it becomes a distant memory.

In terms of content, I plan to include a least one page journalling the following :

* The dress (one done)

* The cake (one done)

* The details... the favours, the flip flops etc.

* My bridesmaids

* Having a man of honour. (one done)

* Hearing the speeches

* Remembering the vows (one done) (in fact two done)

* The photobooth (one done)

* The dancing

* The menu and the meal

* Our wedding song and dance

* The groom's men

* Our photographer

* The flowers

* The something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

* Getting ready with the girls at home

* getting dressed and the final moments before the ceremony

* What the men wore and why

* Chatting to guests with courtyard drinks

and of course the honeymoon(s) are completly seperate pages in themselves!

And in terms of the actual scrapping... there is no plan! Well the plan is that there is no plan. I am going to scrap in any colours I like, using any stash that I like, as I think that the most important thing is to enjoy it and love the results.

So here are the newest two entries to the wedding album...

One about the timetable of the day. Both these pages are simple and that helps to get these pages completed quickly. I dug out some older stash for these and it turns out that my old friend letterbox is just perfect for wedding layouts. I love re-discovering old stash and falling in love with it all over again!
I also did a page that was "off plan" and not in the orginal list above but this one talks about our time together before the wedding and the fact that we got wed just two days short of seven years together. So I journalled about that and the fact that the 'counter' is now back to zero as we start to celebrate time together as Mr and Mrs.
Though I quite like the idea of sneaking in a butterfly on all my layouts! This one was even simpler than the last and I must thank Miss Shimelle for some inspiration from her blog post on stash stretching
What have I missed?

What other must haves pages should feature in the album?

I would love to hear from those of you who have been married a little while... what would you like to have recorded from your day? What obvious things have I forgotten about?

Any feedback mucho appreciated!

* * Photobox - I love you * *

2011-01-13T18:59:00.000Z

Obviously I love photobox .... who doesn't! I love that they delievered my giant boxes of wedding photos and that they all looked awesome... and it was in about 24 hours too!

So I decided to try out some of their other products and for Christmas presents I got a couple of these made... and I was so pleased with them that I thought I would share. I swear I'm not on commission or anything, but I know that us scrapper like a good photo product and I can really recommend these!

Over Christmas they were doing a 2 for 1 offer on their diaries and calendars and I ordered a couple for family presents. They are about A5 in size and you can select a photo for each week. I went through my hard drive and picked some family photos from throughout the year and had the diaries made up.
They printed up really cute and they went down a storm at Christmas. I'm so tempted to get one made up full of wedding photos but think that might be overload a tiny bit!
So if you are on the fence about these then I say 'go for it', they are gorgeous.

* * Wordless Wednesday 1 * *

2011-01-12T10:55:00.000Z

* * Wordless Wednesdays - starting tomorrow * *

2011-01-11T18:39:00.004Z

Starting tomorrow I am going to try and see how I get along with a bit of a blogger new year resolution and start posting Wordless Wednesdays.

I am going to join in with all those other bloggers out there who (on a Wednesday) post a recent photo on their blog and then they stop. No words, no explanation, no journalling, just a photo. A snapshot of that person's life, a recent event, a new photo that they haven't shared before. A photo that doesn't need any further explanation. It just is.

Wordless Wednesdays.... starting tomorrow.. but before then....

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH for all the gorgeously lovely comments on my Document 2010 album, I was overwhelmed with your kind words. It's so wonderful that so many of you are out there and reading. Thank you blog readers xx

* * First proper wedding photo scrapped * *

2011-01-10T10:57:00.003Z

Just before Christmas we got all of our professional wedding photos, you can see more here. After I had finished "ohhing" and "ahhing" over them all, I set up a giant photobox upload and about 12 days later when it had finished I did the biggest photobox order of my life! I ordered every single one in 6x4, a few A4 sized enlargements, some 5x5 pics for a frame set in our front room (more on that in another post) and I created some collages in picasa and printed them as 8x8 prints so I would have a stack of different sized smaller photos.

I also ordered sets for both our parents and got them delievered directly, which they loved. So finally I could get around to actually scrapping some of them and thus I bring you the first official photo scrapped....

I love those black swirly words from KI memories, once again thank you Studio Calico for bringing such lovelyness into my life. I journalled about the day and stressing about the day. Not what the day would be like, but the thing that all brides worry about but can't control...the weather! I journalled about the fact that about a week before the event I was checking the weather forecast every day and I swear it changed every day from sunshine to pouring rain! It was dramatic couple of days and I swung between saying "oh I really don't care what the weather does" to being like "everything will be ruined unless the sun shines all day"

Turns out that I didn't really need to worry as the weather was just perfect on the day.

* phew *

* Document 2010 completely finished * *

2011-01-09T16:47:00.008Z

It's been a whole year in the making and it is finally done!

My album for Document 2010

Over this weekend I completed my album ...

(you can see my pages from January to November on a blog post I created a few days ago, have a look here )

I used a stack of 2x2 photos from my iphone taken throughout the year as my opening page, coupled with large and bold thickers and I'm really pleased with it as a starting page to my album.

The concept of the album is simple and a huge thanks to Shimelle for designing such a wonderful project. Each month you create 4 pages. Page one features an envelope that you can store additional photos in, tickets, receipts and any other pieces of paper and bits and pieces that you want to keep from that month but that don't quite make it to your actual pages.

For december I used a gorgeous KI memories 12x12 pocket that I got in last months Studio Calico kit. I tend to use either one kit or one collection of stash for each month and normally it is my current new favourite range. Before December I had every intention of completing journal your Christmas, but work was just so crazy busy that I couldn't do it, but I did buy some christmas stash. So I used it here instead. Mostly it's Echo Park's range 'Everyone loves Christmas' - They have a point! :)

Then pages 2 and 3 are really divided page protectors and your 'page' actually features six 6x4 sections, I tend to use a mixture of 6x4 photographs plus smaller ones on mini scrapbook layouts. Most months I will also add in some other bits and pieces that I collected throughout the month, like cinema tickets or business cards/napkins from nights out etc.

December was no different and I scrapped snowball fights, snowman building and two sets of birthdays.

It was our nephew's 1st birthday on 17th Dec so I added in a few pics of that family event plus some journalling. I also added in some journalling circles etc that I bought from Elle's Studio for JYC but never used. :(

Plus some fabric brads.... I think basic grey. This album is huge and bulky as it is so I should have probably scrapped Decembers with mainly flat embellishments but nevermind they look cute!

On the other side I journalled a lot about Christmas and added in some present opening photographs, date night at the London Eye on the 23rd and a cute greetings card that was in our December SC kit.

The final page of the month is a "feature" page detailing one main event from that month and with December it had to be Christmas. We spent the Christmas holidays travelling between both sets of parents and families and trying to see as many people as possible. So my feature page shows a photo from both side of the family using the ever cheerful Echo park again.

And finally I decided to create a closing page. I kept it really simple and just sat down and journalled. I wrote a summary of the year and wrote down all the awesome things that have happened. All of the events we have attendings, the good times that we have shared and all the key moments to remember.

I reflected on the fact that I started the year engaged and planning my wedding and ended it as a Mrs. I started as a student and ended it with a first class degree. Will started it half way through his post grad and finished it one term through his first teaching year. We travelled to Paris and New York, we welcome new members to family, we became godparents and I finally got to go on the London Eye!

I must say that there is nothing more satistying than seeing a huge album full of layouts, a completed project.

I even scrapped the album window!

And in 2011 I am planning on doing it all over again. Today I bought some We R Memory Keepers page protectors that have different formations that just the 6x4 divided pages. Ideally I would like just to use the 9 square pages, but I have not been able to find these for sale anywhere. I bought a mutli pack that has one included with 8 other formations, so I will use those if I can find a pack of the 9 square ones. Please let me know if you find them for sale anywhere.

ETA :: Thank you so much Naomi - I have now bought myself some from Capture the Magic!

* * More Wedding Photos * *

2011-01-02T10:33:00.000Z

300 professionals photographs of our wedding....

I have a LOT of scrapbooking to do now!

Did I mention that our photographer TOTALLY ROCKS !

I am so pleased and in love with all of these photos. I could spend hours pouring over them and remembering every single detail.

{heart}

All credit to Simon John. Thanks for being awesome!