SQUEAAAAL! Rocking My World Friday!

Click the piccy to play along :)

Very quick post because it's Manic Central here but just had to pass on my shriek of gleeeeee!

First of all...
It came, it came, it came! After Amazon telling me they couldn't get a hold of it! (I so knew they'd do that!) I emailed the publishers and demanded (OK, grovelled for) an explanation and was told it had sold out in the blink of an eye so they were rushing a second printing through. I've sat watching Amazon and up went a listing price again, so I cashed in some vouchers and was told it would arrive mid September... but... it's heeeeere! Oh it's here, and it's beautiful, even more so in the, er, flesh so to speak! I can't remember being so excited to get my grubby mitts on a book. Expect a review and lots and lots and lots of drawings.

Next up, talk about omens - I'm taking this as such a good one. Look who has been spotted hopping around the new area...

Many of you will know of my love of crows and this is a silver one! Even Craig, the bird man, says he's never seen one before. You can't really tell from the pictures as they were captured quickly on a mobile phone but he is a real stunner.

Finally (told you it was a quickie) I have to mention the girls and how amazing they have been in amongst all this chaos. OK, they may not have fully appreciated the de-cluttering. (Understatement of the century) But their general attitude and effort in pitching in has been fabulous. Craig also, for being the bloke he is, staying positive and upbeat in the face of stuff flying at us in all directions lately. Quite a lot of it poopy. I may moan about my family of Monsters but I'd never change them for all the tea in China... well, maybe if there was a tea crisis I'd loan one out. I loves my tea I does! Being Mummy Monster is a pretty brilliant thing I have to say :)

And - I may not say it every week. But you lot rock my world... all the time. You know who you are, the people who come back time and again to comment. Who make me laugh, email, tweet or facebook me with links to dirty books, with clips and cartoons that make me laugh or just with a gobful of lovable abuse and an ear (pair of eyes?) for me to whinge and rant at! I appreciate each and every one of you! As soon as I get more straight this end I'll be catching up with you all. Big hugs!

Now be off with you to Virginia's ya big lugs! I've got stuff to do and stew and dumplings to scoff!

Thanks for stopping by! Mwah x

Gauche Alchemy Aprons

Hi all,

GA is asking whether you'd like a piece of Gauche. Well would you? Check out their post today to see the aprons they are thinking about stocking in store - they need your input.

This is my favourite design - beware, I threatened to pose wearing it... and not much else! Ahahaha! (Prolly means I'm blacklisted now *g*)

So, please do pop over and let us know what you think of the designs.

Thank you as always for stopping by :)

Gauche Alchemy Design Team

I really can't believe a whole year has passed since joining the Gauche Alchemy design team. An amazing time has been had playing with their delectable, quirky stuff and being let loose to ramble away on the newsletter. So it is with great sadness I bid them adieu...

*sniff*

*loud nose trumpet*

*wipes away a tear*

Nah...

I'm STAYING!

I'm still on the team! NyanyanyanyanyaNYAAAAH! Woohoooo! Still writing the newsletter and two articles for the blog a month. I feel I've grown so much in confidence and changed a lot both within myself and my arty craftiness over the past year, a lot of that is down to the Gauche DT experience :D So thank you very much ladies for your infinite madness wisdom in keeping me on and assigning me to my baby! (The newsletter!)

The rest of the new team have been announced over on the blog today - want to meet them? Hop on over and say hi! Lots of new and exciting things are happening behind the scenes - keep your eyes peeled people, keep 'em peeled!

Can I just say for the record... WOOOHOOOOOOO!

I thank you and goodnight. (Well, morning actually.)

Rocking My World Friday...

Click the pic to play along :)

Happy weekend people :) Are we ready for a wet and rainy Rocking Your World Friday? (On Saturday.) Good - then I'll begin.

Firstly - the house is a complete state. Total chaos, I mean... much more so than usual. The whole house is getting packed up and blitzed. I tell you what - I blimming hate it but (she says quickly before this disintegrates into a whinge fest) I know the outcome is going to be insanely worth it. What better chance will we ever have to completely have a fresh start, clean slate and declutter on such a large scale? No, exactly so we are currently at the - it had to get a squillion times worse before it got better stage of the operation... Craig has virtually no hair left and my nails are gone. Gone. Gone. But the Rocking part of this is that I can see the rainbow through the clouds - I can. I'm still tearing my hair out and running round like a crazy thing - my feet have spontaneously bloated like over excited puffa fish... but I glimpse that rainbow...

Also, I have been seriously bringing my craft supplies down, anything that I haven't looked at in a few months is being packed up and donated to the Brownies. I soon wont have the luxury of hoarding stash that I wont be using so everything has to earn it's place on my shelves now. I tell you what - I've rediscovered some cracking stuff in my supplies. So that's made me happy - being strict and sorting out my stash.

I've decide to ramp up my book reviewing so when I am settled again there will be much more reading and then reviewing than there has been of late - I've allowed the PC to sneak in and steal my time away again. No more. With all this change comes a rota which will hopefully keep me in line. Housework - what to do on what days and thus freeing me up to draw, craft, paint, read and review. Plus I am going to try and do the majority of internet stuff when the kids are at school or in bed - don't want their lingering memory to be of the back of my head. I'm going to go through all my art and craft books, review those and any future ones I get too... I'm very excited at the prospect of getting organised and getting stuff done rather than drifting along in a muddle.

Phoebe has achieved pupil of the year in her class - at assembly the teacher said she was an inspiration not only to her class but the whole school. Very big rocking moment right there. That's the third time she's won pupil of the year :)

Lastly - it's just stopped raining here! Hurrah! Apologies for the lack of photos this week but it really has been absolutely crazy! Hope you've had a good week and if you fancy joining in then head over to Virginia's and link up :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Rocking My World Friday...

Oh my word, it's been manic this week - simply madness! In a good way, don't get me wrong! I'll be posting about our biggest rocking moment of the YEAR in a few weeks. Suffice to say - serendipity is a strange yet wonderful thing. My stu-stu-studio will soon be no more, we will for the foreseeable be broker than broke and yet... I am the happiest person you could meet at the moment! The start of a new adventure for our family - if you have me on your Facebook - you know what I'm rambling about - if not I may not be making much sense. But it's all good. Trust me.

Before the previous rocking moment happened I decided to bite the bullet and finally treat myself (thanks to Caz and her commission!) to this...

Amazon is telling me it will take 2-3 months to deliver and the last time that happened they eventually said they couldn't get a hold of the item so am having all fingers and toes crossed that doesn't happen this time. You know how long I've been lusting after this beauty!

Next up, my big sister was down from Scotland this week - it was lovely to get the chance to catch up with her over a cuppa. But she also came bearing a gift from my niece...

Can you guess what it is? She's been hoarding the shedded skin of her adult bearded dragon, baby bearded dragon and two skinks! Unknown to me - as a surprise! She thought I would love to have a play with it! And you know what? I'm seeing mermaid tails! Can you imagine? What a fun, thoughtful and totally unexpected gift!

A couple of lovely surprises this week in the mail. The first was this package from the fabulous and gorgeous Cameron.

My picture doesn't do this little ACEO any justice - it's even more beautiful in real life and I will be framing it!

Then I found out I won Vivienne's giveaway of this book. So chuffed, after her review it was high on my wishlist...
Remember the box I made in the Jane Dean class a couple of weeks ago? Well, Jane told us the rose that we stained with alcohol inks came from a Primark bracelet...

So, finding ourselves near a Primark this week, I thought I'd just take a little look... They still have the bracelets!! £2 for this little beauty and you get eight of those flowers on there for that!

I really must make a habit of checking out their jewellery section! Bargain or what?

And finally... a picture where I am not wearing ugly plastic shoes. This is apicture is of my gorgeous (to me) kitty shoes. They are old and tatty and falling to bits and I've worn them all week - you know why that rocks my world?

...because I can't get them on my feet when they are swollen! Which means I've had pain free tootsies this week - I'd like to think it's not the ugly shoes last week that helped but I have a sneaky suspicion it might be...

How have you been this week? Why not stop by Virginia's and play along?

Thank you as always for stopping by :)

Owly Canvas

My very first ever commission is now in the hands of Royal Mail so I thought I'd share it here too. The brief was that it would be for a craft room, the new owner likes red and would like it roughly 10 x 10 inches - which it is.


Really hope it fits the bill. I'm trying not to chomp my newly grown nails while I wait to hear.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Edit: She liked it, she liked it! Woohoo!

Sisterhood Of The Travelling Sketchbook - May

This is my entry into Stephanie's sketchbook for May.

The quote: "Be like a flower and turn your face to the sun" is attributed to Kahlil Gibran. I thought it fit with what May meant to me. After that horrible, horrible winter we've had I absolutely loved the explosion of colour that seemed to happen over-night. In particular poppies and daisies growing in abundance everywhere, up through cracks in the pavement - along the motorway.

Materials used:

• The face is a photo I have altered and liberally painted and crayoned over.
• Lyra Aquacolour crayons
• Acrylic paint
• Perfect Pearls Mist (Sunflower Sparkle)
• Alpha stamps and my most used stamp ever - that blue floral bit round the edge - a Tim Holtz but I forget the name, am sure Helen will know.

June sketchbook will be posted soon. Thanks for stopping by :)

Rocking My World Friday...

I'm late! I'm Late! Oh wait... that's nothing new.

This was one of those weeks I really thought... shall I post? Can I even think of anything to post? We've had a pretty stressful time of it this week - some poorliness in the family which we've all been worrying about. I always wonder whether I should be posting happy posts at times like that - is it crass or unfeeling? But no, I really am going to try no matter what from now on to find the positives in each and every week no matter what as it really, really does make the difference. Positive mind, positive soul eh? I may be late - very late on some occasions but I'll be here.

First up - at the beginning of the week I randomly found one of Ruby's old baby booties under our dinner table. Not a clue how it got there. Don't know where the other one is but it gave me such a smile. This was one of my favourite things we ever got her as a baby - we got them even before she was born I think - even Craig fell in love with them. I'll have to do a scrappy page of her charging around in her walker wearing them. Will have to put this one away safely... wonder if the other will turn up again!

My brick cactus has had a couple of babies! For someone who can kill a plastic plant at 20 paces this is momentous indeed. Not only has my cactus never died since Craig's Mum gave it to me... it has now produced offspring! Very proud indeed. And yes - it is perfectly OK to love and be proud of a cactus.


These bliddy awful shoes. I swore I would never ever ever buy this style of shoe. I think they are so ugly and don't understand the craze there was over them. However - the craze has now passed (I think?) and my feet and ankles keep swelling up... so these arrived at my door this week. Under much muttering sufferance. I hate to admit it. They are so comfy. And the only thing that doesn't give me blisters all over my feet when they play up. Still ugly though.

Do you see who had to get in the picture too? Yeah - tiny tootsies with purple nail varnish pretty much rock my world too!

Not so long ago the nursery had a Project Runway day and the kids designed their own t-shirts. Come the day of the show, who was the only kid who refused to even put hers on, let alone walk down the catwalk? Yep. I joked that they obviously hadn't put enough M&M's in her changing room. However, this week we finally got her in the t-shirt and took some pictures for the teachers to put in her scrapbook -  all the kids have one showing what they've been doing all year at school...

We were chuffed to finally get the pictures but this one in particular - this one I love. The stuck out proud chin and smug smile... is the image of my Mum. This picture just made my day :)

Also this week I was really lucky to win this gorgeous book. When I got the email to say I'd won I was expecting a thin little thing. It's HUGE! And gorgeous! I love it - can't wait to try out some of the techniques inside. I'll definitely do a review.
What else. Ooh yes, Phoebe coming first in one of her races at sports day. We wont go into detail about a certain stupid Mum who thought that as it was a nice breezy day they wouldn't need suncream and so, are now sat typing with burnt boobies. No, we wont mention that to much. Very proud of the Pheebster though. It has been noted that she sat surrounded by boys the whole time. No, we wont dwell on that to much either.

Well, look at that! I got a post after all. How has your week been? Why not drop by Virginia's and tell her how amazing she is to have started off this whole process each week :)

Thanks for stopping by!