OK now your probably thinking twice in one night!! Well yeah I can't believe it either but I realised that I have not posted the 2nd of the January challenge's that my mum and I set each other as did this the day mum went home after Callums birthday.  

The challenge is from scrapbook magazine on page 50 - it was the Gesso whitewash

Sorry the picture isn't fantastic as was taken from my phone rather than the camera 

Anyway I am going now I promise!!

Hi all I just wanted to do an quick blog post to show what I have been up to this weekend.
I missed the first week of the craft barn alpha challenge with all that's been going on travelling up to mums for dads funeral but I still wanted to have a go so here is my V!

I wanted ton do some thing that would be a challenge and something that I could remember dad with so my V is for valuable.

My photos of dad are very precious to me at the moment and as I have said in the journal page they can't be bought or replaced with money!

Anyway what else have I done well whilst up at mums I took a couple of Kate Crane DVD's to show mum as she has not done any art journaling before (but she is a fantastic watercolor artist even if she won't admit it!!) We watched them all one day as we needed to relax after a hectic stressful few days - she has now bought some acrylic paint and can't wait to see what she comes up with!

Anyway here is what I have started this weekend will post the finished items when they are done

Have an enjoyable and crafty week xx

I just wanted to share the birthday card that I made for my Dad, it was his 67th birthday on Saturday which he shared with my youngest son Callum I planned this at the time as what better present can you give your dad than a grandson!

Anyway he sadly passed away tonight unfortunatly I did not travel up to see him as my eldest son Mak and I have been suffering with novo virus, so I said my goodbye over the phone.

I feel guilty as mum came down to me at the weekend to share Callums birthday when he was not well, and would like to thank my sister in law Dee for being with mum when she only buried her own mum Beryl yesturday.

Anyway here's the card

 Rest in peace now Dad I loved you loads and will miss you xx

Here's what I have done today - its the first of the 2 January projects with Mums challenge  I have done the craft artist 2 - we decided that the projects this month would be from Scrapbook magazine Issue 69 so I have scrap lifted the Christmas traditions from pg 73

Yes its a piccy of me!! well several - another of my new years resolutions was to do things I'm not comfortable with - I'm normally behind the camera and don't have that many taken!!

Anyway enough from me today - Happy Crafting!!

Happy New Year!!

Firstly I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year!

One of my New years resolutions is to post on my blog more often!! - I know what you are thinking this will be an impossibility!! well I am going to try!!

I have set myself a few challenges this year:

1. Is to keep up to date with my monthly challenge with Mum - we did 2 A4 scrap pages a month - I did finish last years (only just before the end of last year!) and I will post the pictures to show what we did, and will be sharing what we do this year.  It is still going to be A4 size, one page will be a digital page (we both use Craft Artist 2 which we are still learning and don't know how to use to its full potential but we both love it!  it is so quick and easy to use!) and the other will be a normal paper scrap page - we are using our existing stash as we both have so much (well I have to much!) and hope that we will push ourselves to learn new techniques or use papers we wouldn't normally use.

2. I am going to do a 12x12 page every month to create 2013 in a year album

3. I am going to try and craft more often - last year my husband got fed up of me taking more and more of the dining room (which is also linked to my living room) it was always messy so let me take the space of his old shed - I had a fantastic new craft room built (I will do a blog post on this with pictures at some point BUT PLEASE DON'T GET JEALOUS!!!!) Anyway I didn't do as much crafting as I would have liked so I now have full internet access, my own telly with dvd player, a portable doorbell and a walkie talkie to keep in touch with the family when I am down the garden so I don't have any excuse as to why I should not craft!! (my family may not see me but hey I'll be happy! LOL)

4. I am going to do the scrap365 blogspot monthly Sketch challenge as an 8x8  - I have decided that I will be doing this on craft artist 2 as this can be done in the house and they don't tend to take to long to do 

Anyway I have typed so much and you are probably getting bored with me now so here is my first picture of the new year - it is the January sketch for scrap365 blog ( http://sketchbook365.blogspot.co.uk )

My youngest was 7 yesterday (well it is now the early hours of Sunday morning) and he had his first ever birthday party (I know we are bad parents - but loads of screaming kids in your house making a mess just put us right off!!) 

Anyway we decided to have a bowling party - they do everything and we just turn up and don't have any mess to clear up afterwards!! so used some of the pics for this! 

Anyway I hope you like it! I think I have written a long essay today but PROMISE they won't all be this long and will be many more to come this year!!!

Have a crafty time whatever your up to this week!!

I didn't get started on anything today as trying to load my Serif Craft Artist cd's back on the laptop after it being at PC world it took ages due to the amount of discs and freebies that you can download.

I have also done a bit of digi scrapbooking before on photoshop but Mum bought the serif craft artist on Create and craft as she thought that this looked easier when she saw a show and thought she would learn this this year as a challenge she had a second copy of the software and gave a copy to me.

Had a play with it and came up with these -

I started off with a template of the page and amended it to suit the photos and added in some extra embellishments and the text, doesn't really take that long to do its a lot of drag and drop with the templates
Also did this one

Thought I'd also share a few few past projects on my blog as well as the new -
My mum and me started our own challenge at the beginning of the year - my dad has been in a nursing home for over a year and mum now on her own on the Wirral so loads of miles between us but we both craft and enjoy scrapbooking and although we have different styles we decided that we would set challenges each month - either something we wanted to try or a scraplift from a magazine and that we would do A4 size so that we could scan a picture to send to the other
I am actually behind (I managed  to do the 2 pages in Jan and have done one of the ones from Feb)

This challenge was to use texture and a scraplift from scrapbook magazine issue 59 pg 34, you cant tell from the picture but the bricks behind the phone are done using texture paste then coloured with distress inks.  This is a really old photo taken in 2000 at conway castle that I thought I would use - it is of my husband and my eldest Macauley (Mak who is now 16!) just thought the brickwork went fab with this

This was a scraplift from the same magazine pg 44, this was to use tags as mum hasn't done this before, this is a lovely photo of Mum and Callum (CJ) my youngest at Llangollen on the walk back to the car after a trip on the train peeking through the trees at the river

This is the one I have done for Feb - this was to use an oversize photo. I have used a photo of CJ as don't have that many of Mak these days (teenagers!!)  was taken when we had that small amount of snow earlier in the year we went sledging in the fields at the back of us.

I will catch up with Mum on this as have enjoyed doing it.  She is very good and up to date she is also managing a weekly scrapbook challenge of a picture a day (like the 365 app you can get on smartphones) and doing a weekly page.

Anyway its later than I thought - have fun what ever your doing to keep out of the rain!!

Ok so not done much as been in work the last couple of days but have lined the inside of the drawers

and have been thinking that the middle drawer with the key in needs a key fob so thought this may do - obviously it needs to be distressed over the weekend

and found this book - Steampunkery polymer clay and mixed media projects it has some great ideas that I can use for the cage

So what else am I planning this weekend well I have these couple of frames that I thought I would have a go at doing something with and a bird (sorry he didn't photograph to well) that may go with the bird cage frame some how - I have the perfect picture planned for inside it so just hope my ideas come together 

Anyway enough from me - enjoy your weekend and hope you enjoy whatever you have planned 

   Rachel xxx