HAPPY NEW YEAR and a Few Christmas Photos!

Thought I really ought to upload a few photos from Christmas! The exposure is not quite right on the one of me and Belle and it needs a bit more working on but last year there were hardly any of the two of us at Christmas, I have learned this year that if I want to be in ANY photos I really must let Darren use the camera occassionally!

Isabelle really seemed to "get" Christmas a bit this year. She was excited and loved eating Christmas dinner (including large amounts of Christmas pudding!!!!) and unwrapping her presents.

One of the top most favourite things she got were some crayons! She has 'drawn' countless pictures although to her credit she is VERY economical with the paper - she will crayon on it til every last bit is covered!!! She hasn't crayoned on anything she shouldn't have yet, it has only been on the paper except for in this picture where she seems to be adding a nice shade of green to the Celebrations tin!

I guess this will be my last post of 2006 (even though I have some more photos to post from Christmas) so I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy new year. I know it will bring some exciting things for us, we have some cool things happening on the ATDML front and personally I am looking forward to a year with hopefully lots of highs and not too many lows.

Happy New Year!

A Very Scrappy Christmas and Something to look forward to!

So what did Santa bring to you?

I was a very lucky girl and got some lovely goodies including some fab scrapping stuff. I was the lucky recipient of a Making Memories trimmer, an All My Memories tote in Seafoam with a matching mini tote and a cutting mat. I also got various DVDs eatables and some money, including some Dollars ready for our trip to California!

Off To The USA

I don't think I blogged about California which was very remis of me! Mum and I head off on 25th January for a week in sunny California to go to Winter CHA at the Anaheim convention center.
This is one of the biggest and best shows in the world for Scrapbooking manufacturers to showcase their goods. We have had (and will I hope continue to have) soem great service from UK distributors but we want to go and find some new product lines to stock. There are hundreds of smaller manufacturers out there producing products in all shapes, sizes and styles and they aren't all picked up by the UK distributors so we hope to find one or two companies which will provide some new and interesting products for our customers. If you have anything you think we should be looking at while we are out there please let me know - either post a comment here or e mail me Mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk Obviously we can't promise to get in everything anyone asks for but we will look at as many of your suggestions as we can.

Congratulations To The Hafermanns!

I meant to post this yesterday but Blogger was playing silly games and wouldn't let me post!

Annie had baby Addison on Boxing Day - Anna posted the news on her blog.

Huge congratulations to Annie, Spike and Dean on their new arrival and to baby Addison; Welcome to the world - I'm sure you are going to love it here!

A Few More Pictures

I was going to update this the other day but Darren and I both seem to have some bug thats doing the rounds and that coupled with the manic Christmas preparations has meant very little time for the internet.

We had a really nice time visiting everyone last weekend and Izzy was good as gold - we were so proud of her. She slept well both nights (she had her travel cot in a different room to us which helped I think) and didn't wake til 9a.m. both mornings. There were no little tantrums in evidence and the worst she got up to was fiddling with tree decorations which was (I thought) not too bad!

It was especially good to go and see Darrens sister and her partners new house, it's gorgeous and I am very jealous - she has a spacious hallway which is essential with a pram!!!!

Anyway I made a bit of a faux pas with the camera as I had to wack the ISO up as high as it would go when we visited my Grandma as it was dark outside and the rooms were not well lit. Of course silly me left it on all weekend so the quality of the photos is not as it should be - they are too grainy. Ho hum, live and learn.

Cousins

The trip went well, we saw all but one of the groups \ people on our list. It was lovely to see everyone. Will post more tomorrow but just wanted to share this picture of Isabelle and her cousin.

From Crazy Days To Crazy Weekend

We're off at lunchtime (and it's 8:30 and I still haven't packed EEEKK!) on a two and a half day crazy pre Christmas trip!

2 and a half days
2 nights
5 towns
6 visits

AND (going by Belles recent record of sleeping away from home)

NO SLEEP!!

Wish us luck :)

First stop Peterborough, then on to Spalding, then Boston (Lincolnshire not USA unfortunately) then on Saturday it's Newark, then Grantham then back to Newark over night and finally home on Sunday.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone, first up is my Grandma who hasn't been very well lately so it will be nice to see her. Then of course the main highlight of the weekend will be the first meeting of "The Cousins!" Izzy didn't come with us to see Nic Chris and Anya when Anya was only a week old as she had a yucky cold and I didn't want to expose Anya to them when she was so new. But now she is almost 3 months and should be a bit more robust and Izzy is not poorly at the moment.

Will hopefully have some lovely pictures to post when I get back! Have a good weekend!

Crazy Days

Well it was my work Christmas meal on Friday. Usually these are quiet sensible affairs which end EARLY! Well not this time! We went out to a hotel for a meal followed by a disco and I had a blast!!!!! OK so the Creme Brulee was not the best I ever tasted but we had fun!

Unfortunately I had to be up at 6a.m. the next day ready to take the shop to Nickis crop in Bury. I love going to crops (especially Nickis as the girls are all so much fun) but at 6 o'clock I was not ready to crawl out of bed!

I hauled myself up and went over to Mums... or at least I tried. Lucily I was nearly there before the car cut out. The power steering went, the oil light came on and so did the battery light. Now I have been here before and I could see the ££££ signs stacking up quickly. Darren came out and we called the AA so Mum had to go to the crop herself while I took care of Belle and Darren took care of the car! At this point we thought the engine had seized due to a radiator leak, or a slightly less expensive scenario; the head gasket had gone AGAIN!

Luckily the AA came quickly and towed Darren and Belle home and I got to go on to the crop - better late than never!

It was great to catch up with the girls, Annie popped in and it was lovely to chat with her, she is still annoyingly cute and petite for someone who is 37 weeks pregnant, I remember feeling like I had eaten a basketball at that stage! I also managed to get her write a little important date in her diary!!!.... mwahahaha

By the time I got home at around 7pm I was ready for bed but a sudden burst of energy and a little dose of Ty Pennington on Extreme Makeover Home Edition helped me stay awake and get on with a circle journal!

I am having a blast working on the Hodge Podge circle journal I am in. As the name suggests it is a mixture of themes and styles, there are a couple of scrappy ones but in the main they are arty ones. I am really loving playing with paints and inks in a way I never usually do with my layouts. I don't know why I don't try a layout or two in that style, there are some stunning layouts done in that very arty way and many of them by our own very inky, painty and generally fabby Clare! *Note to self, must get on and try new things!*

Anyway here is the last of my Cyber Crop layouts. I am always amazed by the amount that people get done in a weekend. I thought four layouts was quite productive but then I am quite slow at scrapping! I have to faff about for AGES first before committing glue to paper and actually getting started!!! I scanned it before it was quite finished as the leaves are connected by a swirly doodle thing - I wanted them to be "falling" but didn't like it so added the doodle so they weren't floating aimlessly anymore - I am of course far too lazy to go and rescan the layout now - it's done now!

Christmas is on it's way!

Well It's December and we're counting down to Christmas! Every year I think I am going to make cards and crafty decorations and every year I don't get the inspiration until it's too late. So if you get chance pop by our Christmas Inspiration Gallery where our designers have put together a selection of cards, layouts, decorations and projects to get your creative Christmas juices flowing!

As I said in my last entry I am going to upload my cyber crop projects in my next few posts so here's todays!:

This is a layout I did for Lousettes class on UKS during the cyber crop. I can't believe how grown up Isabelle looks in tthis picture - I absolutely adore the photo and this little girl :) She pulls some crazy faces but sometimes she looks really serious! Lousettes class was really eye catching and I loved the idea, I changed it a bit to move the title and use only one picture but I am quite happy with the outcome.