My A-Z encyclopeadia of an ordinary life is finished!

Today I have just finished my A-Z Encyclopedia of my Ordinary Life and I am very pleased with it.

It has taken me much longer than I thought it would - I had a weeks holiday in February and hoped I would get it done in that week - but it took me that long to work out the sizes of paper and decide on colour scheme, which patterned paper to use and order it.

I used Centre City Designs paper (East Village) and am really pleased with my choices 
- I think it all goes together really well and is restful on the eye. I used blue Bazzill cardstock as the base paper for each page and choose the pink /salmon card stock and the blue to match the colours in the patterned paper

I had so much paper to cut up:- first cut 26 pieces of white card, then Bazzill  pink/salmon cardstock in 2 different sizes and then the patterned paper- 4 different types in 2 different sizes again. This album is based on an idea from Cathy Zeilske,
but her album was 11 x 8.5 cm so took me quite a bit of practice 
to get the sizes right for my 12 x 12 pages.

Then I had to choose which  words to use - 
X & Z were the hardest and just as hard was finding or take photos to go
with those words. 

The journalling was actually this was the easiest part and often I wrote 
more than I could fit in and had to make some quite drastic editing.
You can see how much better I got at journalling as the album went on -
the first few pages were quite lame but further on the journalling became more heartfelt.

Exercise, exercise and more exercise

I really must do more excercise - well actually start doing some at all.

I have lost again!

Another 2lb - so not far away from my 3 stone target now

I love this scrapbooker's style

I have recently discovered Jolenes blogg - when she became a member of  pencil lines design team. I just love her layouts - I can tell her work straight away. I would love to be able to do such frilly work - but mine is much more linear.

Here are some of her super lovely layouts -

in your eyes


bubble fun


playground fun

I have lost again

A fab evening tonight as I lost 5lb at slimming world this week. I am so pleased and was hoping I would have lost as I have been very good this week and  am starting to feel a bit slimmer now - in a relative term that is!!

I could not stop to body image as we wanted to go out for a meal to celebrate their birthdays then driveJessica back to Norwich for her uni resits. I am sure if I could have stopped I would have been slimmer of the week - especially with a 5lb loss, but I did get my 2 1/2 stone loss sticker so I did not leave empty handed.

We had a nice meal at the cottage Indian restaurant - I usually have a huge Byrianni but was very good and had a chicken tika with salad. I also had 1 poppadom with onions. I have not checked how bad these poppadoms are but I have got to live in the real world and have got to learn to live with family occasions. I did not have any birthday cake though.

Had a dreadful journey down to Norwich - it poured with rain all the way and was dark - we did not arrive until midnight and I was knackered. I dropped her off at Uni this morning to hand her essay in ( a resit ) and then she was going to the library to study. I really hope she passes her physiology exam this time as she does love being in Norwich and has no idea what else to do with her life. It is not a forgone conclusion as they dropped 3 girls last year.

Before I left for home I called into The Range and bought her a mirror for her room and so of course had to have a look at their craft stuff and ended up buying some DCWV papers and quote stickers. I bought 12x12 Far east papers and a mat stack in the same papers and 8x8 glitter stack - this is really lovely - i must try and get hold of a 12x12 of this.

Better journey home except a slow bit a Birmingham - but then when isn't it slow at Birmingham! I like driving by myself because I can have my own music own and sing as loud as I want - this time it was Wicked soundtrack.



I love this music and am desperate to go and see the show - I am dropping some subtle hints for a birthday present in November - they don't seem to be working yet

2 more birthdays

it was Jessica's and Liam's birthday today - Jessica was 19 and Liam -15.



Jess wanted a new phone and went for a Samsung D900i in bright pink - as she is a girly girl. As you can see from this huge pile of presents - she also had lots of other presents as well. Lots of baking things as she is such a good cook and as she is moving into her new house with a lovely kitchen - she can keep all the other girls supplied with cakes and biscuits.



Liam did not have as many presents in his pile but just as much money - if not more - was spent on him. He had an external hard drive for the computer - we already have a 500GB one - but he wanted one of his own as he downloads so many films and music etc.  A Bench jacket, trainers and socks, and undies and toiletries.

We ate out a our local Indian restaurant before driving Jessica back to Norwich in the evening - she plans to celebrate her birthday with all her Norwich friends on Thursday night - after her re-sits.

rain, rain & more rain

We were so lucky with the weather on our holiday