Update

Just a quick update as I haven't posted for a while! Olivia is doing well now and gaining weight. She is very good on the whole and sleeps as well as can be expected for a 4 week old baby! After a late feed around midnight she usually wakes once around 4a.m. and then sleeps until morning. I am one of those people that *need* my sleep so I am finding even this to be completely exhausting but I have friends with new babies whose sleep is much more erratic so I mustn't complain!

I love the picture above. Mum had Izzy for me overnight on Tuesday and so on Wednesday morning I had the luxury of a little time and I set up a little photo shoot. Considering the lighting was from my bedroom window and the back drop is Darrens dressing gown I am quite pleased with the result!

Welcome Olivia Ruby

Olivia Ruby was born at 10:11a.m. on Monday 7th January. We stayed in hospital until Thursday evening and then came home. Unfortunately she had jaundice and there was a problem with her weight - she was incorrectly weighed at birth and so we couldn't tell how much she had lost so combined with the jaundice and being extremely sleepy we ended up back at the hospital in the Special Care Baby Unit on Monday. Livvy managed to lose more weight the first day we were there despite the formula top ups, however from Tuesday to Wednesday (today) she gained 110g so we are back home again!

Tomorrow is THE day!

Feeling really surreal tonight, it is so weird *knowing* that tomorrow the baby will be born. We have had loads of lovely messages \ e mails and texts from people wishing us well which is so nice.

Just had to post this picture taken by the wonderful Kirsty Wiseman when she came to do a workshop at our retreat.

I felt like I had an enormous bump then but compared to it now it looks quite small!!! This pregnancy has been way more uncomfortable than the last (probably due to having to run round after a toddler as well but I really quite like my bump and will be sad to lose it - of course I *won't* lose the bump altogether but once the baby is born it will stop being a lovely pregnancy bump and start being yucky old belly that needs to be lost pronto!!!!

Recent Favourite...

As I posted before i have been trying to get more photos scrapped, some layouts have been scraplifts or quick and easy but I have also been playing about with different techniques.

This is my favourite layout recently, I adore the colours in Scenic Route Salem so although there isn't loads of the paper visible it was my starting point. I also used some Scenic Route Metropolis and some Autumn Leave Rhonna Farrer Scribbles papers.

I have also been really into Technique Tuesdays Tecnique Tiles recently and used several on here painted with Jo Sonjas and then either doodled on, added to with rub ons or just glzed with glossy accents.

The buttons in the callops along the bottom were so much fun to make! I used plain white fimo and just fiddled about squashing balls of fimo into rounds and then pressing lids into them for indents, piercing them to make the holes and using various bits and pieces to make textures on them. Then I cooked them, painted them to match the layout and glazed them with glossy accents too - so much fun :)

I may find time to post tomorrow but if not I am off to hospital early on Monday morning so won't post after that until at least next wekend!

Honey I'm Home!

Well after a 4 month absence I have decided to make my way back to blog land! I stopped updating because I felt like I was just doing it on auto pilot and I wasn't doing a whole lot creative wise so it seemed silly to continue for the sake of it.


Anyhow, I have decided I am going to give blogging another shot - I won't be posting daily as "Our News" from my last post i.e. baby number 2 is going to be arriving in 4 days time by C Section so I am not nuts enough to think i will have oodles of time to blog but I will make an effort to post more frequently!


Things in our house are a little crazy right now - Isabelle is a complete fruit loop but totally gorgeous too, she had a fantastic Christmas but as they say is often the case i think she realises change is rapidly approaching on the horizon and she is a little bit unsettled in terms of sleeping, that combined with a case of the terrible twos and "I don't want to" syndrome is making everything a bit hard work!


In addition we are in the middle of selling the house and moving to a house to be shared with Mum and Dad - this may sound like a crazy plan but it is a big house so plenty of room for both families to have their own space, and it has oodles of potential!


On the scrapbooking front, ATDML will be getting it's own premises in the grounds of the new house so that is exciting for 2008. The November Retreat was a great success and we had a blast. We are repeating the event in March on a bigger scale - places still available if anyone wants to join us for a weekend of scrapping fun - Friday 14th - Sunday 16th March. Details are HERE!


Personally I am trying to get a bit more up to date with Isabelles album as i am all too aware that soon I will have another album to keep up with! For me this means accepting that not every layout has to take hours or planning and execution and that it is ok to mix and match between complicated layouts and quick and simple ones. I have sorted through my "Photos to Scrap" box and tried to be a bit more realistic about how many layouts I am likely to get done. I sorted the photos into "Must Scrap" "Maybe" and "Been Sitting Here So Long I Am Obviously Never Going To Scrap This!!" There are still loads to do but it did make me feel better to remove a whole lot from that box and put them in a separate box for now.

So here are a few layouts i have been working on:




I am completely loving Scenic Route at the moment! I used Salem for the Autumn layout and Loveland for the Fantillusion layout. Neither of these are WOW layouts or particularly creative, but I guess they illustrate what I mean by allowing myself to do some layouts which I like but which aren't at all complicated or fancy - they just showcase photos I like for different reasons and get the pages done!

Our News...

OK so I have been a bit sneaky and have been keeping our news under wraps for a while because it makes the time pass quicker but I thought I ought to introduce the newest member of our family - due in January 2008!

This is my 20 weeks scan from Monday just gone (although i will be 22 weeks at the weekend) In our local hospital they will not tell you whether it is a boy or girl although you can pay for a private scan to find out. We are not going to though as a surprise is nice at the end of it all :) We are working on the basis that if we have a girl then we have loads of girl things already and if we have a boy we have one of each then - which ever it is we are happy.

Holiday Pics

A Few Isle of Wight Photos, some from Arreton Barns Craft Centre, the park, the Donkey Sanctuary and one of Izzy and Libby Libby eating ice cream on the least sunny day we were there!...