In Which I Attempt to Make up for Lost Time

So.

It turns out that gestating another human being is quite the time and energy hungry process.  Who knew?

However, I am officially on maternity leave as on Monday and the baby is due in just 8 days (surely that can't be right) I thought at the very least I should stop in with a pre-labour and delivery ward update.

Apart from significant amounts of eating and sleeping, we've been keeping a relatively low profile in December and January as we've had lots to do to get the house in some kind of shape which has included total renovation of the littlest bedroom and lots of finishing off of bits and pieces.  I'm not sure why my brain thinks the baby will take one look at the place and refuse to move in if the windows are a bit streaky or the tops of the cupboards in the kitchen not fully cleaned, but there is no reasoning with it.  I flew into quite the rage the other day to find I was too fat to be able to bend to reach the bottom cupboards last week which is quite the most irrational thing ever.

Yesterday was a fairly productive day for me, I cleaned the kitchen made two cakes, went to the post office, dried some washing on the line and even did some scrapbooking.  I clearly went a bit overboard though as I have spectacularly failed to move from this sofa all day, even having a snooze at 10 o'clock this morning.

These layouts I have casually scattered around are the leftovers from the GoGo Getaway - however, I do have some new things to exhibit when I get round to it and even better that, I have a fab baby scrapbooking kit which I shall be ripping into sooner or later which goes together to make up an album of the first year. 

Wish me luck  xxx

In Which I Am Too Full of Mashed Potato

I'd quite like to go and put my pyjamas on but they're all the way upstairs and me and my massive tummy (part mashed potato, part baby) are all the way down here and I can see how we're ever going to get it together so I thought I might as well share a few more layouts instead.

This just about the only layout I managed to complete between May and October this year - I'm nothing if not prolific.  I really love this picture though, but not as much as I loved the food at that place.  As a vegetarian its a joy to find a place that understands that sometimes I do want a fake meaty burger, with plastic cheese and fake bacon and don't even get me started on the buffalo wing salad (seriously, don't do it). 

And (honestly, what sort of poorly educated idiot starts a sentance with and?) this was another fab class from the GoGo Getaway featuring a tea bag.  Yeay.  This is so different from my usual style, but I really like it even if I did have to use an iron which would normally be enough to put a serious dent in my will to live.

Now I think I may have summoned enough energy to get up those stairs and if not, I may be able to find a friendly cat who might pull me up.  Either way, there's enough time for a pyjamas and a quick shower (other way round, preferably) before Miranda which I completely adore.  Thank you for the sweet comments on my last post, I do hope to get round to visiting you all in Blogland as soon as I can.

In Which I Spring Back into Life and Question the Nature of Reality

Actually on second thoughts, I might hold off on the questioning the nature of reality thing.  Just for tonight, you know?  It's late and we're all tired.  Let's just leave reality as it is for now and maybe we can give it a good questioning tomorrow.

I'm also going to spare you the traditional its been ages/I'm a bad blogger/handful of grovelling but ultimately invalid excuses soliloquy and cut straight to the chase.  It's late and we're all tired remember?

So where have I been?

Well, back in September, there was the wedding of the century - Lizzie and Jarrad had a wonderful day and all the hard work pulling together the matching invitations, favours, menus and table plan was totally worth it as it all looked amazing (if I do say so myself).  However even better that, was this:

There were times when I secretly doubted that I actually had it in me to make a wedding cake, but turns out it wasn't as hard I thought!  The worst part was the architectural aspect of it and also standing by as people walked past it the wedding watching the bouncy floorboards making the the whole thing wobble back and forth.  It all went well though, nothing fell down and everyone seemed to enjoy eating which I think really the mark of a good cake.

And after the wedding it was time for the Go Go Getaway which can be crystallised into the following points:

• Nice hotel
• Fab layouts
• Great scrapping
• Brilliant company.

To summarise, I loved it and hopefully I'll be back in March 2013 (it's all booked up for next year).  I was really surprised how much I enjoyed it actually and it renewed my enthusiasm for messing about with bits of paper, gave me lots of new ideas and even taught me some things I didn't know.  Here are a couple of layouts from my favourite classes:

This class was call 'Blooming Ribbon' and focused on making the turquoise-y flower garland - it's so pretty, I can't believe I actually made it myself!  Also a bit of a landmark event in that it's the first time I've ever used sewing on a page.  This next layout was from the 'Welcome to my Garden' class which I just loved and I even got to use one of my favourite pictures of good old Sophiekins - note especially the pebbles made of paper clay, such a fab detail.



Anyway, that's almost all from me as it's late and we're all tired but there's just one last thing that I've been working on which I wanted to share with you:

Coming to a hospital near you (assuming you live in Exeter) in February.  Eeeek.

In Which I Pretend that a Few Photographs Constitues a Proper Update

Hello there - my goodness life is quite a busy thing isn't it?  There's a lot going on at the moment and I have produced a total of one layout in about 4 months (I know, my profligacy is really quite astounding) but I like to think it's a good 'un and one day I'll get a picture of it. 

In the meantine, I've been playing around with the Photoshop actions from the CoffeeShop photo blog as recomended by SJ and they're so fab I thought I'd share a few of my efforts.  Let me know what you think.

In Which I Reveal All

Well by now I'll have fled the country in the manner of a fugitive, except for the fact I'm hoping to be allowed back in a couple of weeks without a police escort. In the meantime, here are the SBK layouts I was teasing you with on Friday.

Now all 3 of us are 30, what could be more birthday-y than a picture of each of us with our respective birthday cakes?  The rub-ons and paper flowers that came with this kit were gorgeous and I love how busy and detailed the make the page.

I've been waiting to scrap these pictures for a while, but when I saw the colours and patten on this butterfly I know it would go so well with the colour of the table cloth and combined with the pink cardstock to match Morrissey's nose, I knew I couldn't go wrong.  I used the rub-ons again on this layout to the frame the tiny bit of journalling and then drew antenna on the butterfly to match the curls - I love it when a plan comes together.

In Which I Am a Bit Sneaky - SBK Birthday Kit

Just thought I'd stop by bright and early to share a preview of the layouts I made with SBK's May kit.  It's called 'Birthday' as SBK was founded 2 years ago in Hungary and what better way to celebrate than with some fab summery stash?

Otherwise, things are a bit mental round here as we're off on holiday and have to make the place presentable for the house sitters as ususal.  All very stressful but soon enough I'll be lying by a pool in the sunshine (hopefully) with a good book and maybe a cocktail.  I can't wait.

In Which I Have an Accident and Wake Up in 1973

With the (brilliant) demise of Ashes to Ashes a couple of weeks ago, I've been feeling the need to relive the whole series from start to finish. So follwing some hasty DVD purchasing, we've started watched the first series of Life of Mars again and I'm really loving it.  Very sad that I was only alive for 3 months of the 1970s, I'd have fitted right in and I really love wearing flares.

Combined with all the walking we've been doing lately (more on that another time) and the allotment finally bursting into life, evenings and weekends have been pretty full up around here.  However, I have finally got around to taking a picture of the layout I put together a few weeks back and so I thought I'd share. 

I'm rather bored of it now as it's been sitting on the mantlepiece in the kitchen for a least 3 weeks - it may be time to consign it to an album.  I actually did a little more scrapping last night, but I'll have to keep you waiting for a couple more days until I get the all clear on the sneaky peaks of the fab SBK June kit.

I'm off to plant sweetcorn and courgettes - I shall be taking pictures as I want to use the lovely garden-y Cosmo Cricket stuff which has been sitting in the cupoboard for AGES.