We have HOT WATER!!

I forgot that the hot water tank in the airing cupboard could run on electric, d'uh! I phoned Justin from work today and told him to switch it on and hey presto, hot water! That is such a relief, coz at least if you've got hot water you can jump in the bath.
Dad has also lent us a fan heater that we've got on at the moment, just to warm up the lounge a little bit, and I've pulled the central curtains across to keep the heat in a bit more. It's not that bad in here really... I've got my thick cardi on and we have lots of crocheted blankets! LOL!

The Heating has packed up....

I have Gascare coming out on Monday!!!! Trouble is, they have already recommended a powerflush and won't fix heating problems because of that... So, other option... order a new boiler from British Gas (coz it is 21 years old), pay for that on finance with British Gas, and then they do a powerflush too... so a bit of a dilema, lol. I won't get a nice bubble bath tonight then!

Sally's Creative Corner: BLOG CANDY

Click here to see Sally's Blog Candy!

WOW! You MUST check out Sally's amazing blog candy. I've never seen so much stuff!!!
Take a look at her blog while you're there.

MY FAVOURITE FOR TODAY! 8th Jan 09

My favourite creation from today is a gorgeous card made by Sue! I love the owls stamp, it's just too cute!

Visit Sue here at her website.

Recycled ATC's

Tonight I've been making my Recycled Christmas card ATC's for my ATC group, and these above, are what I came up with. I think my favourite is the Father Christmas one. It's been ages since I made any ATC's and I must admit, I enjoyed making these. I used my background papers from a Dovecraft selection and some tiny stars, glitters etc, but all the other bits are from Christmas cards.
Matthew made the two below. He's happy enough so long as everything is ticketty boo.. but one of his stickers crumpled up a bit... disaster! He was ok after a few minutes. He's such a perfectionist.

MY FAVOURITE FOR TODAY! 7th Jan 09

My favourite for today is this gorgeous card made by Debby. I love it! I love the crisp look of it, and she's coloured beautifully... and I really must hunt out this punch for the lacy edge.

Check out Debby's website here!

What I'd intended to buy...

I needed to buy some paper stumps for my Prismacolor pencils, so I went and bought 4 of them. The trouble is, my local shop is having a bit of a sale because they're downsizing and selling the back end of the shop... so ALL art and craft materials are 25% off... so......................

I ended up bringing this home too!!

In this picture is 40 sheets of white card.

Monochromatic Papermania paper pack.

Forever Friends paper pack.

Forever Friends Decoupage pack.

Kanban Jewels.

...and a selection of lacy ribbons...

New Years Resolution.

STOP BUYING ON IMPULSE!!!!!!!

But it was such a good buy, lol.

MY FAVOURITE OF TODAY!

Ok, so here's my favourite card I've seen uploaded today.
It's made by a lady called Heather and she has entered it into for this weeks Spoonful of sugar challenge.

Click here to visit Heather's blog.
I LOVE the little fishes and all the gorgeous colours Heather has used.

A Spoon Full of Sugar challenge 33.

Here is my entry to a challenge over at A SpoonFull of Sugar challenge blog. 

It's the first birthday card I've made in ages! I used most stuff I'd got in my stash, but the papers were from a new pack I bought today from Dovecraft.

Sarah Kay coloured with Prismacolour pencils.

So as I sit here with my tea and toast...

...trying to decide what to do today. Yesterday I'd had a quick look at a couple of Scrapbook magazines in town - Scrapbook Inspirations, and The Scrapbook Magazine, and came home with neither, so today I might just get one of them... even though I don't think either gives me much inspiration anymore; I get most of that through looking at the great blogs which start from the great list I have over on the right hand side, one blog leads to a thousand others.

I've not long been back home from taking Matthew to school - first day back after Christmas! It's very quiet here, and I shall miss him today, but hopefully I shall get round to making at least one card. I need to get some birthday cards made for my CardScraps girls this year - I didn't send out any birthday cards last year, so I must change that this year. 

So, back to today. I'm going to go into town soon and pay in a cheque for Justin, get some money out for Sophie's pills from the vet, buy a mag maybe, and maybe another pot of Prima flowers!! 

Check back here later too as I might start doing a "Favourite Card of the Day" from all the blogs that I visit!! 

Been colouring...

... and I'm not to happy with the sky, but it's the best I can do till I've persevered a bit more with them, lol.

I hope everyone had a good New Year's Eve. It was just me and my kids that stayed up. Justin was a light weight and went to bed at 10.45pm. Us three just stayed up to watch the fireworks on the telly, then it was bed. 

Didn't get up to much yesterday, plenty of lazing around, telly, and laptop. Justin and Matthew built Matthew's new Indiana Jones Lego set that Darryl had got him for Christmas, and that took an hour or two. Matthew also had a go on his bike again, it was very cold, so we weren't out there for too long.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Happy New Year to all of my readers!!

Thanks for your comments and for visiting through out this past year. I hope you all have a good night tonight and stay safe if you're going out. We're not, we'll stay up and watch the fireworks on the telly.

I shall get back into cardmaking again once the table is cleared of everyones Christmas presents! They like keeping them all in one place for a while, lol.

See you in the New Year!

A photo of us...

Darryl took this of me and Justin at dads on Christmas Day. My hair has really grown! Three years ago my hair was shaved to a number one on the back and sides, and the longest setting on the top... I have no idea what that number is, lol. 

Oops, forgot this pic!

I forgot to add this photo of Matthew and Daddy outside for Matthew's first attempt on his bike. 

Our Christmas...

Was great! 

Below is Darryl, Abby and Matthew ready and waiting for our Christmas Eve buffet patiently. We had lots of scrummy things to eat. 

Abby left around 7pm to get to her nan and grandad's. Telly wasn't very good this night, and Justin had a headache and spent 3 hours in bed!!

Matthew went to bed at 10.30pm and "Father Christmas" started bringing the presents down and under the tree at about 11.30pm. We also had to get Matthew's new bike from the garage and wrap that up! Justin made us a cuppa. We went upstairs to bed at about 1am. I placed some little pressies like chocolate Santa's and other little bits under Darryl's tree and in his little stocking hanging on the door and then Justin went and got Matthew's stocking, after putting a couple of bits under his tree. Justin bought his little stocking in our room and then MATTHEW WOKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We heard him whispering "Santa's been, Santa's been." He then came in to tell us, by now we had the stocking in bed with us, lol. Matthew then went to the loo so Justin chucked the stocking on Matthew's bed, lol. Matthew said that Darryl's stocking had things in, but the strangest thing is that his was missing, lol... then he saw it on his bed and laughed. We told him it was far too early to be going downstairs, but he could open the little presents in his room. We heard him ripping little bits of paper for ages. I think he got up once more in the night, and so did Darryl as he couldn't sleep!

We got up at 6.35am.

Matthew LOVED his bike, and he said it was a big shock, lol. We all got lots of really nice presents. Justin got me a Betty Boop watch, pen, and charm bracelet, Leona Lewis CD, a Liliput lane pub cottage, and more! Darryl bought me a large Forever Friends rubber stamp/stickers set, Mamma Mia on Blu Ray and The Mist, Bendicks mints, two books and more. I got my lovely suede boots and pyjamas at dads, a bottle of Bacardi, chocs. I got two new Trollbeads from Justin's dad and step mum, a gorgeous deep red one and a silver spacer bead.

Justin loved his Ipod Touch, he also got Jack Daniels, Titanic book and Formula One books, Killers CD and more. Darryl loved his camera and printer, his Rocky bathrobe, dvds/blu rays etc. We got tons of stuff, don't know where it's all going, and it's still a tip here at home.

We went to dads at 11.30am and opened more presents! Dad liked all of his, he had two CD's - G4 and The Priests, some Apple and Damson chutney, new slippers, etc. Dinner was lovely as usual. As I type this, I could eat all of it again right now. 

Justin, dad and Matthew went to check on the dogs and let them out after we'd washed up. I stayed at dad's with Darryl. When they came back we watched Wallace and Grommit Were Rabbit. We watched the Christmas Doctor Who special and then came home. Home looked like a bomb had hit it and still does! We watched the soaps, Eastenders and Coronation Street - Eastenders being the best acted and storyline. 

We crashed in bed about midnight... and we all put our Ds's on and played Mario Kart together, lol.

Boxing Day. We had a brief walk into town and Darryl and Matthew bought some things with their Christmas money. Darryl a blu ray, and Matthew a couple of books.

Darryl went to his dad's for the afternoon, and took Matthew out to the garages behind us to have a go on his bike... it's going to be a while before he can ride it. We're going to take off the peddles so he can just push himself round till he gets his balance - I suppose he should of had a bike years ago! Darryl came back about 8.30pm, and we watched The Polar Express in 3D - see photos below.

I hope you all had a good Christmas, and thanks dad for a gorgeous dinner!

Christmas Eve buffet

A mince pie and milk for Father Christmas.

WOW! How happy does he look??

The presents under the tree.

Rocky! I mean Darryl!

Matthew and his bike.

Christmas dinner.

LOL! Flashback to the eighties.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - The Philippine Madrigal Singers

Here's some pics of our room.

Here's what our room looks like this morning. I've put the festive tablecloths on, lol... children's Christmassy types. The candle centrepiece on the main table is what my aunt and uncle bought for us. Underneath the coffee table tablecloth are the tins of Roses, Cadbury's chocolate biscuits, Celebrations, and auntie Janet's mince pies!! 

I uploaded the tree again.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

I hope everyone has a  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Last night we extended our table and now it looks massive! My Auntie Janet and Uncle Jim popped round with pressies and mince pies for us. They also left us a gorgeous candle with plants and glittery things centre peice which I love, I also have some mince pies and a card for dad from them as well. 

Darryl and Abby had a lovely Christmas dinner out at Frankie and Benny's and both full when they got home.

Today I'm going to cook our turkey crown for tonights buffet, I also have sausage rolls, cheese puffs, quiche, hot rolls and a zillion other things to prepare for tonight. 

Justin thinks he may not finish work until 5.30 tonight, which is annoying as he normally finishes around 2pm on Christmas Eve... then he cooks the sausage rolls etc... so I've got to try hard not to burn them, lol.

Where have the frosty mornings gone????

I'm annoyed! I hope it's going to be frosty on Christmas Day! It's been freezing here most mornings for around the last month, and now the temperature goes up 10 degrees C.

Matthew had a Christmas party/disco at school during school hours today which they knew nothing about. They had some party food too so that added to their enjoyment. They also got a treat from the teachers dressed in drag, lol. The teachers performed Jack and the Beanstalk their way. I wish I'd of seen it. Matthew's teacher said he doesn't know how women can walk in high heels... mind you, neither do I!

Justin had today off work and we went to Tesco's with dad. Justin HATES shopping and gets quite stressed going round the shop... then after there we went to Iceland to get some frozen gateaux, cheesecake, ice cream etc. We were glad to get the shopping finished. I still need to get the fresh salad stuff, but what I don't have after that then it's tough.

Darryl won a prize!!

Darryl entered a competition that was in the "Myvue" cinema magazine. It was to win some Quantum of Solace stuff, and there were to be 5 winners. He spent £10 on his mobile sending text messages trying to win. He never heard anything from them until the postman came this morning and delivered them! He won a massive cinema poster that's in the tube, an excellent jacket, a cap, and in the case is a cocktail shaker and two Bond cocktail glasses. He was very surprised. Well done Darryl!!

You are not seeing things if you can see the little Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles on my tree, lol... Darryl got them as a little boy, so they have to go on the tree each year... although I think I've managed not to have them on the last couple of Christmasses, but he got Matthew to put them on this year, lol... and yeah, my little pink mouse from Cleethorpes is still on there. I've forgotten again how old it is... but it's about 34 years old.