Another Crazy Cyber crop almost over

...and as i don't think i'll get a class done in the next half an hour it's pens down (or rather craft knife in this instance) and sit back and wait to use UKS whilst the server goes crazy with people uploading the last of their layouts!

I've loved every minute although i didn't get all the classes done (how does ANYONE do that?). All the prep paid off though and i did so much more than last year. I managed almost everything on Friday apart from one challenge and that still involved going to bed at 3.30 am, but Saturday really threw me as i had to pick Pete up from the airport and his flight was delayed by an hour. Going to bed at midnight last night i knew i wouldn't be getting up in time to do or upload any more of yesterdays classes by the noon deadline today..but i did manage to get two of the classes done and uploaded by todays' deadline. Picking a favourite from the weekend is quite tough cos i managed to get a lot of out most of them, even the ones i didn't like (shrink plastic urrghhhh!)i learnt not to hold shrink plastic whilst using your heat tool on it (yes i am THAT stupid) and that wrapping tiny flowers around wire could cause scrappers to go insane especially after only one can of diet coke and an empty cigarrette packet (apologies to Emily who now thinks her mum is a complete monster).

I do love the first class i did which was the king and queen of hearts layout at the top. I'd never thought of using a doiley (thanks to lesley for providing the necessary) as a template for inking which is silly really cos i'm sure we did something like this when we were at school. I guess i just loved the photo too but i love scrapping in black and especially with a splash of red in there.

I didn't think i'd enjoy the second class which was a tag book key ring thing with a kit from Artbase but i'm really pleased with the result and i know that Freya is going to love it as it's a pressie for her with lots of pics of her and best mate shannon. I also managed to get a digi class in which used a template and papers and embellis i'd downloaded from Shabby Princess. I'm really getting to grips with the digi although i've got so much to learn but it's fun sometimes just to have a go and see what happens. So that's it for the weekend...last day for entries to the scrap it challenge tomorrow so anyone still interested in winning some lovely goodies including a lippy chick flop book...you don't have long to email me your entry...details if you click on the April scrap it link on the top right hand corner of this blog. Good luck and i'll be back on Tuesday to let you all know who the lucky winner is and what the challenge is for next month....Happy cropping!

Can anyone spare me a few hours please?

Cos i really need them. Not going to bed til gone midnight and getting up around 7 (although yesterday that happened to be 8.30 in a blind panic), non stop and yet i can't squeeze everything in. It is so manic all the time and my list of things to do seems to be getting longer...as does Petes list which i'm sure he'll be chuffed to bits to see when he gets home on Saturday NOT!

Weather is shoddy at the moment, we certainly didn't get the hot weekend that everyone else seemed to get. Well not a long update but as i'm up to my ears i'd better get moving on...leave you with a pic from Crealy of Freya and Natasha. Something tells me Freya thought she was on a Rodeo bull!

Good morning!

I've had a nice relaxing calm weekend, did nothing and enjoyed every minute of it...well i did a fair bit of stash sorting and organising for the impending Alice in Wonderland Cyber Crop on UKS. But other than that i chilled with the kids really.

So excited that the CC is this weekend coming. Are you doing it? I must admit that i loved the last one, even though i was pretty green with what i was doing but i certainly learnt a lot from the last one. It taught me that i spent FAR too long deciding on photos and papers (still do when i do a layout)which means you're always fighting an uphill struggle. By the time i'd picked out what i was going to use the next class was generally up. I know you don't have to do all the classes but i certainly want to do them all even if it means i don't get them all done in the one weekend.

With that in mind i gathered together the kits i'd prepurchased...plus put together kits from my own stash for the others and put them all into individual baggies with a label saying what class they were for, what time and day the class is on and what extras i needed to do the class that i couldn't put in the bags including what photos to print out. Never let it be said that i can be a bit anal when it comes to organisation! I've worked out that i find it easier to pick the pics once i know the papers i'm going to use rather than the other way around. There are a couple of class lists that seemed a bit too specific so i think i'll wait til those classes go up before i decide exactly how i'll adapt them.

I also used a tip i'd picked up from one of the extras info that came to my inbox from the Design Collective. It was a suggestion on organising your stash scraps into coloured baggies. Well it sounds simple and i can see it's going to be another time saving tip which when i scrap, is much needed. So my stash is almost completely organised (even made up pizza boxes with occasion specific things on like christmas, halloween, wedding and valentines day) so i'm going to finish that off today.

Got my sub copy of Scrapbook Magazine the end of last week and just wanted to give a big shout out to the wonderful Sarah who had her layouts featured this month. Her work is fantastic and even better in real life. WE're off to Tracie Hudsons in two weeks for Braunton Croppers and i can't wait to catch up with the both of them and also meet some new scrappers there.

I finally got to grips with my Scrapdragon book that i was having problems with, turns out that when i cut my spine i had it facing the wrong way..doh! Big thanks to guiderbec on UKS for talking me through to see where i'd gone wrong! That's enough for one morning, thought i'd let you look at some daft pics of Emily taken last week when she, for some reason only known to herself, decided to spend the morning in the tumble drier!

Having a real headache at the moment. The wonderful Lesley Florence from my team on UKS sent me a scrummy mini book kit this morning from Scrapdragon and i just CAN'T work out the instructions! I've now made a minibook who's pages can't be turned?! Anyone that may have done this kit, your help wouldbe much appreciated as the instructions are somewhat vague...lovely kit though!

Found out who the chocolate was from...it was a precrop swap that i'd completely forgotten about which is a kick up the butt as i'm supposed to send my swappee some chocolate on Monday so a trip to Tesco is urgently needed tomorrow. Have just finished the Maze book that i'm making for another pre CC swap and i'm quite pleased with it, i even managed to use a load of scraps i had left over from some 3bugs papers i had from the last CC. Can't upload a piccie before the swappee gets it but will do once i know it's reached it's destination.

Well i'm off to finish my bottle of wine and see if i can make head or tail of this blooming minibook!

Funny thing happened yesterday....along with my gorgeous new troll beads from hubby i also recieved a jiffy bag FULL of chocolate. Now at the time i was thinking that it was from one of my teamies on UKS but it's not and no note, only that the person lives in the Hailsham postcode area...now i can't for the life of me work out who it was....so, in the slim chance that said person is reading this.....thanks so much, the kids have helped me eat it so they think it's easter all over again (actually they still have eggs left dotted all around the house). Would love to know who sent it to me!

Stayed up late last night and finished the layout that i'd kind of started at Plymouth Scrappers on Wednesday night. I used the CI Love Struck transparency and for a minute i was really baffled...i absolutely adore this range..but like the new Urban Lily and many other manufacturers lately...the patterns are so bold and beautiful it's quite hard to actually DO anything with them and even when you decide you will it's a case of...well where do i cut? Well i decided that I wouldn't do much with the transparency..there were no obvious places to cut on the first one so i just layed it over a piece of white bazzill and added photo and journalling. The journalling was so tricky though it took me ages. I'd seen this type of journalling done in a magazine article by Jane Dean and decided to give it a go. So hard to write neatly on a transparency though. Then to finish off i just added a couple of the rub ons to the transparency to give it a bit more colour.

The second layout is one that i started last night and finished this morning and this one i'm really pleased with although the pic makes it look a bit washed out. I was originally going to add a mini book but once i added the heart and wing transparency part i just couldn't imagine a book on there. This is one of my fave pics of me and Pete...not very flattering pic of either of us to be honest but it just reminds me of how much fun we had that night.It was a Ladies Night held at the Duke Of Cornwall Hotel in Plymouth. These are formal dinners up to the point where everyones eaten and then just imagine a room full of sailors and wives with far far too much alcohol. Lots of dancing, lots of laughing and on that night we got far more than we bargained for. Pete had bought a load of raffle tickets at the dinner and we made ourselves very unpopular by winning most of the prizes...a bottle of bacardi, bottle of vodka, bottle of really expensive whisky, crystal vase, crate of wine PLUS the top prize of £500 cash which Pete then handed to me and said 'go splurge - you deserve it'! Pity i didn't scrap then cos i would've made good use out of it...but i do smile everytime i wear my Karen Millen coat!

The journalling is taken from some lyrics from the Sugababes 'too lost in you' song. It's one of those songs that if i hear and Pete is away, has me in tears. I've always loved the words and it sums up how i felt when we met and this hard tough exterior that i'd spent 5 years building just disappeared and i became a wibbly wobbly teenager again (although with less spots). Anyway...hope you're all enjoying the sunshine - X

THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL.....

So here is what you could get your grubby mitts on this month for doing the scrap it challenge...for details click on the April scrap it challenge link top right and get scrapping...could there be some scrummy arctic frog papers and bits plus a lovely flop book coming your way?

Went to the Plymouth Scrappers crop last night and a good time was had by all, even though i did VERY little scrapping. It took me half an hour to find the entrance to the school, well....actually that's a lie...it took me 5 minutes to find the door and then 25 minutes to walk round the building to come back to the door and find the buzzer! What a great bunch of girls, it was so nice to meet them all and Anna (aka Skippie) did everyone proud putting together a great paperbag kit which i'm going to get to grips with before the next crop when it's showtime. I spent most of the evening eating cake, swigging diet coke and lushing over everyone else's albums...well it was the first crop and you have to get to know everyone don't you!

So anyway...today is mine and Pete's wedding anniversary....4 years and we haven't yet killed each other although we've come close on several occasions! This is what appeared in the post for me this morning....those shiny blue beads are all newbies from my sweetie hubby.....did i get him anything? Did i 'eckers! He's lucky i'm still here LOL! I do have something to give him when he comes home but that's for me to know and you NEVER to find out!

Not quite constantly in tears but I am in the middle of a mini breakdown. I have them every now and again…you see the way I’ve suffered on and off with depression for about 9 years now and the way that I cope is to keep myself busy, sometimes too busy. Every now and again it catches up with me, usually while Pete is away, but sometimes when he’s home. I don’t like to take medication…I’ve tried…a few times I’ve tried and it just doesn’t seem to work for me. I probably sound like a right scary monster, but I’m not. It’s just that every now and again I need to STOP and take a breather for a couple of days, not plan anything, rip up my ‘to do’ lists and take stock. So that’s what I’ve been doing the last few days. I’ve got a busy time ahead and the last thing I want to do is get to the point where I have a full breakdown cos, believe me, that AIN’T pretty!

We enjoyed a lovely day at Crealy in Exeter on Wednesday and it was our first real outing since Natasha could walk properly and it was lovely to see her interact with animals, go mad in the wooden fort, play in the sand area etc.
She found some baby goats and it was magical watching her feed them. If you haven’t been Crealy I really would recommend it. It’s best for kids under the age of around 10 in my opinion as it’s not got loads of rides but there is so much for them to do we always go when it opens and leave when it closes and the kids still want to stay longer. Plus if your child is under 92cms it’s FREE…and if they’re over that but under 1m then the entrance fee gives you unlimited entry for the season which runs til the end of December! Its definitely better for the smaller ones compared to Woodlands which I’ve also been too a couple of times. Ididn't get too many pics as i spent most of the time behind the video camera but here are a few, i love the ones of emily on the dinosaur climing wall, when she got to the top she just jumped back givng me a mini heart attack and the laughed her head off, wish i'd caught THAT on the camcorder!

The last few days i've kind of chilled out with the kids, Freya was back at school yesterday and Emily goes back to nursery tomorrow so the manicness of the past week should ease off slightly. I also have my first Plymouth crop to go to tomorrow night which i'm looking forward to. Signed up for a couple of the kits for the UKS cyber crop...one from rebeccas scrapbooking stash which looks very interesting, a shrink plastic kit from 3djean which is something i've never done before, the hearts team mystery kit...which i must say is absolutely superb but can't say anymore than that because i'll be shot..all i can say is that 'A Trip Down Memory Lane really pulled out the stops on that one and lastly...i've preordered the kit from artbase.

Unfortunatley i wasnt' quick enough on the mark to get them all but i have such a mountain of stash that i really need to get through it all. I've also had my monthly kit from Jenni Bowlin which i like better than the last one...and my most fabby purchase this week was a mountain of new CI goodies from Craft Obsessions. I've got to say a big thank you to Dave because when on their website they say that they give a personal service, boy are they telling the truth! I've had a load of Autumn leaves stamps on preorder for ages and had been waiting on them coming in and when I called Dave to let him know my card details we were talking about the gorgeous Love Struck collection from CI.


to come in next month as i am LOVING that. The pics were taken from the CI website and work is by their DT.He said that he'd had more of it in and called me the next day with item numbers for CI's website so i could view all these things and....well i had to have most of it..just waiting for some more of the 'Caution - Girl!' range

Last but not least - Prize for the April scrap it challenge........not many entries recieved so far so all i can say is get one done and email it to me cos there's a good chance you'll win....ummmmm.....well camera isn't up to it tonight but will post piccie tomorrow but it involves a flip or a flop but not a flip flop! Surely that's not TOO cryptic! For pic of what you'll get check back tomorrow evening...ps also added some pics to older posts that i hadn't gotten round to doing yet plus a big big BIG hug and kiss to Liz for brightening up my afternoon by giving me a surprise phone call. X

slack slack slack!

Yes it's the first update for too long but life here has been manic! The sugababes concert was a great success although i wish someone at the Plymouth Pavillions would sort out the flaming air con which only seemed to come on with burst of 5 seconds every half an hour! It was crazily hot and my mum collapsed!
Luckily i was stood right next to her and felt her go and just about managed to get her before she hit the floor but it did mean that she left with about 4 songs left including a fantastic encore of push the button that had the crowd jumping.

Did a typical 'terrie' thing of leaving the tickets at home! I couldnt find them, then put them safely in my wallet only to leave my wallet on the side as i walked out the door. I picked up my mum...parked the car in Plymouth....even got a ticket for the pay and display and THEN realised my stupid error. So i sent mum off to queue up whilst i drove like a maniac to get home and back with the tickets.

Support acts there were two extremes, one woman who' name i will choose to forget..at first i thought oh it sounds alright...bit bland for my liking and then i noticed that she was miming! That made me furious to be honest, i thought well if you wanna show you can sing then the least you should do at a live concert is blooming sing! Second act were a band called Dragonette who were fab! Even though the sound quality at Pavillions again isn't the best, these guys were great. Mostly from Canada apart from a Brit drummer, they were very No doubt and the singer was very Gwen Steffani but not in an obvious way. I've checked out their website and stuff and look forward to being able to buy their first album. She actually sang on the Basement Jaxx single 'take me home'.

Been very busy getting the new team up and running on UKS. We're the Yummy Mummy's of course cos we are! In my head i'm an 8 stone stunner with glossy locks til i look in the mirror! Of course this means i try not to look in a mirror too often.

Pulled an 'up all nighter' on Thursday evening as i couldn't sleep through dh's snoring. Glad i did cos i did the fabby minibook by Jenni from the Design Collective week one classes...not quite finished it yet as i've had little chance this week and there's 10 layouts to do on it but will show you once i've done it. I'm really enjoying the DC classes, i'm doing things that i would never have done, sometimes something which doesn't look 'your thing' really inspires you once you take the bull by the horns.

Another reason i'm glad i stayed up is that the details of the new impending Cyber Crop went up on UKS. OOOH it looks good, it has an Alice in Wonderland theme which is great as it was one of my most loved books as a kid and i just didn't 'get' the last Harry Potter one even if the classes were great i just didn't get into the concepts and games.

I ended up going to bed at about 10 on Friday morning when Pete got upand then didn't get up til 5pm! No wonder my body clock can't ever keep up with me, my diet coke fuelled insomnia makes it impossible to sleep sometimes. And then when i eventually do...i could sleep for days. Saturday was spent mostly shopping and cleaning as i suddenly had the nesting feeling come over me, either that or i felt guilty that i was hogging the pc whilst pete was trying to fit the skirting in the 'soon to be finished' conservatory.

I certainly made the most of Petes last few days home though, grabbing some lovely long lie ins. He went back to Scotland on Sunday after we'd had a lovely big family dinner with my mum round here. Lovely beef wellington cooked to perfection if i do say so myself. The kids had gorged themselves with as much chocolate as they could lay their hands on and seem to be sick to the back teeth of it all now. That means i have about 30 eggs stuck on top of kitchen cupboards slowly melting in this glorious weather that we're having. We usually still have a stash of eggs left in September in this house.

~WEll that's enough catching up for one post.....check back later tonight though as i'll be putting up a sneaky peak of what you could be winning in this months scrap it challenge. Not many takers so far i'm sad to say so get your thinking cap on cos IT COULD BE YOU! X

Cooler than the red dress....

singing up to date, off to see the Sugababes tonight at Plymouth Pavillions... I@ve really liked them since they first started and Freya loves them too. I got her tickets to see them last year for her birthday, but as Pete was away i stayed home with the ickle ones and my mum took her and i was gutted to miss out. So this year..all the way back in October i bought the tickets then realised i'd messed up the dates and freya wouldn't be home so it's just me and my mum tonight.

I really wish we got more decent acts down here although it has got better over the last few years. I went to see Pink before Xmas which was fantastic. I love her stuff and her last album was her best by far...but what a performer, a real show it was and the crowd was going mental, got some good pics too so i'm going to take my camera tonight and see if i can get some tonight. I have a very eclectic taste in music which i think stems from growing up in a very music orientated family...don't get me wrong none of us were musicians (although i did play the drums for a while) but my dad sang in a local band and the record player (remember those?) was on constantly in our house.

I love everything from Motown to Dance, hip hop to indie and i still adore pop for it's infectious happiness. CD's in my car this week (i generally change them each week)are Pink - I'm not dead, U2 - Greatest HIts and Amy Winehouse's two albums although im putting sugababes greatest hits in there for the drive into Plymouth.

Had a lovely chat with Tracie Hudson last night, she really is someone i think is an inspiration and i cant wait to see her next month spesch as i'll be staying so i can have a peaky at her stash. I'm loving the altered tamagotchi she's put on her blog, i have several dead ones here and so may change them into picture keyrings. Like i said, no real scrapping done today so i'll leave you with another pic from my BOM that i did last week, bit wierd scrapping pics from your first wedding but hey....i suppose it all counts as history and i have to shamefully admit to ripping up all the ones with 'him' in them.

Things kids say....

Completely forgot to say that i've completed the last three layouts that im going to be doing with my jenni bowlin kit...one was begging to be scrapped as it's something emily came out with the other night that i haven't been able to stop laughing at since....enjoyThe second layout is one that i did for my dad, it's of his best friends and his brothers when he was a kid, even more sentimental as he lost one of his brothers aged only 17 and one of his friends in his early 20's. I included a pocket with a journalling card in for him to add his own personal memories of them.>


The last layout i've pinched some of he idea from Liz (aka Cottonscraps from UKS). I'm really pleased with it even though i ended up with some of the circle rub ons on my hand and couldn't get it off!

Migraine alert

Think i've done too much the last couple of days cos my head feels ready to explode! Popped some pills and fingers crossed it goes away as i've got a lot of things planned for this evening. The Design Collective went live today and it was so nice to wake this morning and find three wonderful classes and a hints pdf in my mail box, so much nicer than hearing that some bloke in Africa has died in a plane crash and has no living relatives and that they'd like to give me some of his millions if i claim to be a long lost relative and supply my bank details!

I've managed to do one of the classes today, written by the fabby Kirsty Wiseman, it was basically saying 'use eyelets' so i did the class...the original used embroidery thread but i used fibres because a> i don't HAVE embroidery thread (the thought of me even sewing a button onto a shirt is enough to make DH howl with laughter) and b) i hate fibres as much as i hate eyelets, i just don't know HOW to use them so in for a penny....

I don't mind the end result actually. I love these dressing up pics of Emily which were all taken over the space of a few days last April. The papers are MME Starburst Girly Girl from which i hand cut the flowers (and boy was my hand hurting at the end. The fibres were given to me by Lesley Florence and the rub on title was also from MME which all came from the March Modscraps kit, which i still have loads left from even though this months is sat here begging to be taken out of the pizza box.

Found myself a couple of crops to go to in the next few weeks and months...the Plymouth one organised by Anna(aka Skippie)is on the 18th of this month and next month i'm off to Braunton Croppers to catch up with the fabulousness which is Tracie Hudson...luckily i'm staying at her place so i get a chance to stroke stash on a major level! She's also running a 10 hour crop in July which is definately my kind of thing and luckily DH is home soi'll be picking him up from Exeter, bringing him home and then travelling back in the direction i came to ridey on up to Tracies! Hello darling...;bye bye darling ...well who can resist the call of stash!

JUST ME

I've been thinking about the 'BOOK OF ME' for ages now and have finally gotten round to starting it. It's very difficult to be the subject of a scrap page rather than the author and it's something that at present i'm not entirely comfortable with. But what has pushed me is knowing how important it is. I have so many old photos where no one knows who they are, where or when they were take, the story behind the picture and it would be so sad to think that i've left the same unanswered questions about me and my life for my grandchildren, great grandchildren etc. So you want to leave a history....but i also want to leave something personal, an insight into my mind (no matter how messed up it often is) an insight into my life, the spectacular and the mundane. My question though is this....do you put dodgy stuff in your BOM? And i don't mean whether you once got lifted for urinating in a public place or what you got up to with the post boy at the office party.... i mean, how much do you open your heart in your BOM. I've always kept a diary. Not religiously kept it but my current one has lasted the past 5 years. It is very very personal but obviously reflects how i feel in a given moment on a given day. In my BOM i aim to think about how and where i've come from, who am i in terms of personality etc but how much do you open your heart in your BOM in comparrison to a diary? Any opinions? Well anyway...here is the first page i did....... and any comments about how you're dealing with your BOM would be greatly appreciated.

DRUM ROLL PLEASE....

...and the winner is .....Sue Bradley! Well done to Sue for a lovely take on the picture of Freya with her 'crazy hair'. I loved the use of the fibres in this and you'll be getting a little goody bag sent to you very shortly....Well done to everyone who entered, maybe try again on the next one....I've put together another little kit which should mean you could do at least 2 layouts..complete with embellishments etc. Your challenge this month is to scrap 'home'. This can be anything not necessarily your house, it could be something in it, but it's the thing that makes your house a home. Thinking caps on guys...email me your entry to terriefarrell@hotmail.co.uk by the 25th April and stay tuned to the blog for a sneaky peak of what you could be winning.

So what else has been happening in the world of Farrell lately? WEll Natasha got her first pair of shoes....yes i know she's almost 18 months but i have a real thing about putting kids in shoes too young. She was a late walker and only really started walking a couple months ago and even then had no need for outdoor shoes. She loves them though and was good as gold in Clarkes having them fitted (which is more than i can say for Emily as she screamed blue murder when she got her first pair!).

Freya and her best friend shannon had their school disco on Thursday followed by a sleepover which meant spending far too long playing with the Bratz bus that she got for her birthday.....Freya loves it when shannon stays as i think she sometimes feels a bit fed up that if she plays with emily everything gets smashed and if she plays with natasha everything gets bitten! Shannons a great kid though and her mum kath is great. She also has three girls and was pregnant with her youngest when i was pregnant with emily so we've always had a fair bit in common.


Right, i'm off to see what delights are in store at the scrapstars cyber crop..... i'm running a class there today so anyone want to come play?