Lilypad likes bubblebath!

My grand-daughter, having a whale of a time in the bath! She loves bubblebath and puts the bubbles on her head, blows them over me... and even eats them!
I used a page from a Sara's paper pad, the rest is all me - no distressing this time, but still lots of stitching, and circular dome stickers that I used as bubbles. I also doodled a few bubbles with a white gel pen. It was great to finally find a use for the lettering - I've had it for so long, sat in a drawer after buying 8 sheets of the letters for the bargain price of £1.50.
I was going to use a lot of "Little Mermaid" and "Nemo" characters - but in the end decided that Lily needed to be the star of this particular layout. With my new kitten trying to eat every bit of thread and paper, this one took a couple of days - but even though it's not my usual style, I think it's growing on me :)

No time right now...

Ah, yes... for as long as crafters have needed to work with bits of pretty paper and make a mess with paint and glue, there's been the problem of finding the time! But right now I have the most wonderful excuse for no new scrapbooking pages and no time in the near future for any crafting. I'd like to introduce the newest member of our family. Please meet Callie, our new kitten.

Our very beautiful (but totally vicious) cat Bagpuss died last year - he was about 20 years old, and I vowed never to have another cat. A vow my children did not agree with. Hubby of course, didn't want another cat at all... not even when our daughters cat had kittens could he be swayed into thinking that one little ball of furry cuteness would be a welcome addition to the 'furrmily'. Tonight, I had to clean up so asked Hubby just to look after the cat and make sure the dog didn't have her for a late supper. A little peek ten minutes later and Callie is happily curled up on hubbys shoulder and he is very obviously smitten. She's quite the little character and has already (in just a few hours of being home) learnt that the camera will be a permanent fixture in front of her cute wee face - and is posing appropriately...

The only problem as yet is that she doesn't have any clue what a litter tray is for. Apparently, it's a huge pile of gritty stuff that a kitten is placed in only to see how quickly she can jump out of it, spraying the gritty stuff around the floor until her new owner chases her, picks her up and places her back in the pile of gritty stuff for the chasing game to start again... No poopies as yet - but we have bought her a little house that I thought she'd like. She loves it... perfect for weeing in apparently!
As you can see, the pretty plaid pink cushion inside has been removed... five minutes after putting it together, and it's been taken apart and in the wash already :)
She'll learn eventually...
Little steps... (She's only a babykitty right now, she was born on 27th February.)
And our home feels quite complete now we have a cat in it again.
Not sure that Lily the Dog agrees though.

Dandelion Dreams

I had such fun making this LO! It's an idea I had a while ago, with lots of different things I wanted to incorporate into the layout - including the flowers in the picture being the only colour in a black and white photograph. Of course, it ended up almost nothing like I first planned! The photograph is of my two eldest daughters on one of their first days together at school. They started the same year, but at different times of the school terms because of the difference in their ages. They were so excited to actually have a full day together in school (but that didn't last long though *lol*). I made such a mess making the roses - lots of scrunching up with paper and gesso (and inks and starburst stains)- and thoroughly enjoyed every messy moment. The butterflies were easier - but took a lot longer as I waited for each layer of kids glaze to dry. I get so impatient! Of course I had the usual blank cardstock to start off with, and lots of distressing and inking just for fun. The stitching had to be there - but I did draw back quite a lot on what I wanted to do. I felt that enough was enough, and anything extra may not work very well - especially with those huge scrunchy flowers! I decided to call the layout "Dandelion Dreams"... almost as a follow-on or accompaniment to the layout I had made a few days back named "Dandelion Wishes".

My Dad...

This photograph is of my Dad - I think it was about the time he and my mum were first married, and it was taken at his in-laws home. I noticed the wedding band he has on, so maybe it was around 1966.
I love my Dad so much - the back of he LO explains that every man I've ever known has had to live and measure up to my Dad... only my husband ever achieved that. I've used the back of layouts for journalling a lot recently - and I like the idea of turning scrapbook pages to read something on the back of each page. It's like I'm writing a "Life Book"... MY life, for everyone who wants to read about it, can do so just by turning a page.
I used plain cardstock and lots of distressing, inking, stamping... and stitching of course. No flowers this time - I tried to de-feminise the layout and make it masculine. I hope I achieved that. The colour choices all came from the photograph itself - I wanted to use all blues and greys and only use red on the stitching and header. The wording ("DAD") is from the Monograms sizzix die cut alphabet - I layered the letters to make it stand out a bit more. The birds (also sizzix die cut from the same die as the branches) were doubled up so I could use some 3-D foam under the wings to give a little bit of extra texture and interest to the page.
I loved doing this layout... the stitching took quite a while - but I'd have happily spent days doing it. I'm pleased with the end result.