aaaargh...laptop finally copped it.....

Well whadya know. Decrepit old thing went and died on us christmas eve which left us facing a mini disaster - no way of uploading tracks onto Millie's xmas mp3 player (should've been more organised!) and no way of transferring mini movies and pics from digicam to make room on camera for new stuff halfway through xmas morning. This has wound me up more than anything cos now I don't have much for scrapping this year's minibook. Will just have to think of ways of being a bit more inventive with what I do have. Hmmm. Anyhoo, on the brighter side, we went and bought a nice new shiny laptop this avo so all is well in the world again. We feel like we have literally been cut off from the rest of the world over the last 4-ish days. Did we miss anything???? This new laptop is gonna take a bit of getting used to (I'm sure we had our old one at least 7 years) - can't find anything and it's doing stuff I haven't asked it to but i'm sure we'll get along fine once we are better aquainted.

Nice to be back in the land of the living
Jak
xxx

Sleep tight furry boy...

...missing you my Moochops!
1991 - 2010

A Secret Santa quick make...

Hey Steph, hope you've found a nice spot on your Xmas tree to hang Harry in his Xmas Bauble...

"Who is Lord Cheese?"

...asked my cute little 4 year old as she was brushing her teeth in the bathroom the other day.
"Eh? Sorry, who darling?" responds a baffled Mummy.
"Lord Cheese, Mummy!" She explained, mildly annoyed at my lack of enlightenment.
"Erm, where did you you hear about this Lord Cheese then Sadie?" I ask, hoping some kind of context might help me out a bit in placing this intriguing character.
"He's not crying..."
"Oh, well, that's good isn't it. If he was crying then I suppose he might be sad or something." - now totally baffled and to be honest just humouring the adorable little minx.
"But he's asleep on the hay"

PING...LIGHTBULB MOMENT!!!!!
(Mummy now hooting with laughter in said bathroom!!!!)

"Oh, the lord Lord Cheese is asleep on the hay? That one? The song from the Nativity Play then?"
"Yes Mummy that's him"
"Sweetheart, it's Lord Jesus!"
"Huh?"
"He's the the little guy that Christmas is all about"
"Oh okay..." accepts my newly informed child.
Mummy (who had a Catholic upbringing) cringes inwardly at her lack of spiritual guidance, but some things are too just complicated to explain to a four year old
10 minutes before bedtime. I think she knew she was yanking my chain anyway, the look she had on her face was a bit too composed - smug almost. Wee wind-up merchant!!!
Bless!!!
Hope you are well and enjoying your preparations for whatever kind of Christmas you celebrate, wherever you are.
Peace,love and remember to breathe.
Jak
xxx



Oooops, my halo slipped there!

Dear Santa...

The girls have been busy writing their letters to Santa. Millie has filled 2 sides of A4 so far...And to think I used to find myself saying "yeah, she doesn't ask for a lot for Xmas". WRONG!!! This year top of the list is a mobile phone. I ask you - she's only just turned 8!! Don't think Santa will spring for one of those... Next on the list is night vision goggles and a metal detector. LOL! "Might find treasure in the garden" she says. Sadie wants some Sylvanian Families and a PeePee Max (eurghhhh!) which is a toy puppy that can pee everywhere(?). But she also wants everything else that comes on the telly too. Ah, happy days! Amazon delivery better get it's finger out tho' cos snow or no snow, my kids can't have empty stockings Chrimbo morning. I feel a mild panic rising in the pit of my stomach at the thought of this...Pass the Lansoprazole please!
Happy Christmas shopping everyone - hope your not stuck in the snow!!
J

Do you think you could get any closer?

My poor old Merlin Boy is very much feeling the cold just now. He's 19 and a bag of bones these days but boy, can he move if he hears a fire crackling in the hearth! As you can see he's all but climbing in to get as cosy as he can! Bless!

Icicle, icicle...

As seen at my back door!
Don't know if any one out there knows the song by Tori Amos... can't get it out of my head just now.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Saturday afternoon looked like this...



...then this happened...



...so, we made one of these!



Hope everyone's having a snowtastic time!
Jxxx

Go....scrapbooking!!!!

Yay - got a chance to do a coupla pages for the girls scrapbooks! It is great to get back to doing the thing that inspired me to start crafting again in the first place!

And so, off they go...

Bye Bye Christmas cards 'n' tags! Hope you go to good homes!

Here's what I'm up to....

Ebay stamps - cheap n cheerful tags!



Recycled tags. Twine rocks!!!



30 cards ahoy!


Thought it would be a good idea to make some cards for the Nursery Fete so I could use up some of the Brenda Pinnick Xmas Crafters Kit I bought over 2 years ago. This was a massive box of stuff that had minibooks/cards/scrapbooking - you name it - it had the lot (apart from some stamps!!!) and although I've used it over and over again, next time you open the box, it looks like it's hardly been touched. So, I put it to good use and invested in a few stamps (go ebay!) and hey presto, for a minimal outlay I've made 30 cards and recycled some old Christmas cards from last year to make 60 tags and then I had to justify the ebay stamps so 48 handmade tags later we are all ready to go. Phew!!! Hope they sell!!! I especially love doing the recycled card tags, it gets me in the Christmas spirit and is turning into a bit of a tradition chez Strachan. I even have the girls in on the act now - Sadie causes more havoc than anything else but she's funny and keeps us all amused with her craziness!!!
Next stop - pressie shopping!
Love J
xxx

busy busy...

After the flurry of activity that was hallowe'en it's back to the old Christmas tags and card making. I'm going to take some piccies soon of my very untidy table and let you see what I'm doing. The nursery cake and craft morning takes place nearer the end of the month so I really must get cracking. I have set myself some goals and I hate to let myself down so enough of this time wasting/procrastination, I'm off to do some work...
Have creative fun my crafty friends!!!
J
xxx

Jack Skellington alive in Dundee!!! Hahaha!!!!

We had lots of fun dookin' for apples, pumpkin carving (nice one Leon!!!!) and trick or treating. Imagine my surprise/horror though when I thought I'd nip in to Tesco on Sunday - yes actually Hallowe'een - The Day, to top up on treats for visitors, only to find that The World of Tesco had totally washed their hands of Hallowe'en and were slap bang into the hard sell of Christmas complete with huge wallopin' decorated tree at the entrance!!! Bah humbug anyone? Hmmmmm....

SPOOKTASTIC!!!!!

Little treat bags...




Hey everyone! Hope you're all spooked up and ready for some trick or treating. The girls here are all dressed up and waiting impatiently to go and harrass ahem entertain the neighbours with some songs and rubbish jokes. We don't get many Trick or Treaters (or 'guisers as we used to call them) round here as there aren't many kids close by so I've not had to get much goodies in. I made the girls and Millie's friend a little bag each and filled them with stuff and nonesense. Theres a few litle bags of treats too. Any excuse to get inky mitts! Still trying to make a few Xmas cards too for Sadie's nursery fundraiser but really not going anywhere fast with them. I don't have a lot of Xmas stash so I think that's why I'm struggling a bit. Will need to be a bit more inventive or... buy some new stuff. Hmmm... Hope you all have a fun Halloween!
Keep popping by to see what we're up to.
Take care
Jaymoo
xxx

Hello, hello...

I have been neglecting my poor little blog of late because it's been a bit busy round here recently. Millie has just turned 8 (how did that happen) and there was quite a bit of work of the non crafting variety namely h*******k (-bah) and shopping leading up to this. She had a lovely day - see piccie - and we all ate too much rubbish and me and auntie Kaggy drank more wine than we should have. The birthday girl could have opened a sweetie shop with the amount of choccie she was given but as is the Strachan tradition, we have all helped out to get rid of/consume about a shed load already and there really isn't too much left now! Heehee happy days! Craft wise I have fitted in a 12x12 and managed to lead little Sadies friend's mummy (hello Elaine) astray down the craft path. Oh dear she's displaying the first signs of obsession/addiction to papercrafting already. I must be a bad influence....
More stuff later!
Love J xxx

A coupla hallowe'en tags...

Lovin these vintage hallowe'en images and thought I'd try playing with them to acquaint myself better. They pixelate when used larger than actual size (must be lo res scans or something) so I've started out by trying them out on a coupla tags. Hallowe'en is my fave time of year (big kid!), Autumn my fave season. Love the smells and the changing of colours/light...

Hop over to have a look at some of this amazing halloween stuff. Some people are just soooo talented!! Amazingly inspirational!!!!

Yesterday...

...we had a nice autumn walk here...


...Millie's friend Clodagh came too...


...And Leon did this...


...and we got these!!!!
Yay!! Chessies!!!

All Done!

And so this is how it turned out...

Unfinished business!!

How it looked when it came home!



first photos going in!



nice papers!!! (good choice Louise!!!)

What a life!!!!

Sometimes there just isn't enough hours in the day/days in the week and as you know I'm not one to off-load to you all in blogland but man, I'm spent! Work is outrageously busy this last 2,3 weeks, I've designed my socks off and only now am making headway with it all, result being that I'm quite actually a zombie by the time I've done the work thing then the Mummmy/domestic goddess(!)bit - there's just nothing left in the creative pot to do much of anything inspiring.
However, apart from Sadie and her exploding snotty nose and my horrendous acid reflux (thats stress for ya), we are all in rude health here on Planet Strachan, so I guess I should be grateful for small mercies and just roll with it. I'm just getting antsy cos I'm too tired to play just now although I have made the effort to complete my paperbag book that I made at a class a couple of weeks ago at Kitty Krafts! I loved this and the good thing about it is once the book is made up there's lots of little flappy bits and pockets to put extra photos and bits of journalling into. I think the next one I do I might put some of the girls drawings inside the pockets and make it into a little story about their developing artistic talents. I actually tried to put some pics on last night but as usual the bloomin' laptop gave up on me and decided to have a mini nervous breakdown instead - not good. I wish we could just retire her but just not possible at the moment. Perhaps if I treat her with dignity and respect instead of shouting and namecalling she might soldier on for another few months. Wishful thinking perhaps, meantime there's always the lottery!
Happy crafting peeps!
J
xxx

Oh - I've kinda fallen off the blogging radar...

Sorry folks - had a lot on at home of late but will be updating you on the paperbag class I did and hopefully have some piccies to show too!
Love Jak
x

I'm going to a paperbag book class today!

Now, this is a wee project I've been interested in doing for a while now. It's being hosted/taught by Louise at Kitty Krafts (is the kettle on Ross?) and I'm keen to show it off once it's done as I have a couple of friends who are very intrigued by the sound of it! I think sometimes non crafting peeps kinda wonder why you would use these odd things to work with but they are always amazed how they turn out! It's gonna be fun! Yay! The only thing is, while I'm gone the kids (and Leon) will be unsupervised(!!!!!) - so, what will I be coming home to? Watch this space!

Oh and I'm making this now...

Found an old tin kicking about the house and thought it might make a nice little altered memory thingy, so I'm in the middle of making a wee book to go inside it and using up some not so interesting snaps of the girls by tightly cropping in on just their faces. Using some K and Co papers and Grand Adhesions to decorate oh, and dug out some vellum flowers to pretty up the pages too! Not quite sure how I'm gonna decorate the lid though...any suggestions anyone?

A thankyou card for the office

I thought I'd try out my new purchases and put them to good use by making a thankyou card for the office. Thanks again guys!

Then I came home to this...

A shantytown in my back garden using every throw/blanket and clothes peg known to man(daddy)


...complete with a makeshift animal shelter for the homeless - except those cats are my next door neighbours and not in need of any shelter but we're not the kind of folks to turn anyone away...so it would seem!

Where to start....

First of all, this lappy is on it's last legs and is getting v tempremental so I'm gonna take the opportunity to lump all my pics/posts on together. The bloomin OAP of the computer world kept crashing (badly) last night and needed to rest up for the remainder of the evening. So here goes...
Went to Perth on Saturday to spend the lovely birthday vouchers I got from my collegues at work. This is what I bought. Yay! Those are some beautiful PaperArtsy stamps which were quite expensive but I felt no guilt as they were a gift, hoorray! Of course I had to buy a coupla of wee extras to make the journey worthwhile. A big thankyou to all in the 3rd floor editorial office - now I have new stuff to play with. Thank you card to be posted later...OAP lappo permitting!
J :-)

I like this free stamp...

The flowers on this LO are made with a free stamp in the last but one issue of Craft Stamper. It's makes a really nice crisp image when used with a good old Momento inkpad!




Here's a close up of the flowers...

Summer not so long ago....

Whilst having a clean up of my lappo I came across some LO's from a wee holiday we had in Brighton one summer not so long ago. I love the colours in this one...
My Millie is not quite 4 years old here - now she is in P4. Time flies....

Look what we made....

My one and probably only hand-made Xmas card!
Yesterday the lovely Louise at Kitty Krafts gave us a quick diecutting and punching demo (great fun - want one!) at her workshop, then set us loose to make one of these! And after a bit of a battle of wits with a Martha Stewart corner punch - duh!!, I took my festive little card home and meddled a bit more with some inking and stickles! However, far from the peaceful bliss of creativity with some nice friendly grown-ups, this is what was waiting to greet me at home....



Play-Doh Oh No!!!!