Project Life Week Three

Cor I am so sticking to my mission to do project Life every week this year as close to the actual weeks as possible. I've been busy organising my photos from my camera, phone and face book etc into weekly folders on my PC, I even have an app and a notepad where I'm jotting things down so I don't forget. Who knew?

Right do you want to see week three then? Brace yourself, I did three pages as we had so much going on and too many photos I wanted to use too:

I printed on my header card again, quite like being able to do that when I'm in a hurry without lots of stamping or die cutting. My first page shows Blake with his reading diary, he's worked so hard and has managed to go up a reading band and so he got the head teachers award. Also thought that being as we were finally getting cracking on decorating the boys bedroom that I should include some 'before' shots. Crikey - wasn't it boring?

I used Pic monkey to create the collage photos, they print on my Canon Selphy too, great way to use lots of photos on a page.

The graphic wallpaper - glad it's only on two walls. The boys adore it as they think it looks like a cross between a Lego base plate and something from Mine craft!

I also added photos of James building the bunk bed - had to be done when you consider it took us 4.5 hours to build it.

 

Managed to sneak in another pic of snow falling, I know I'm obsessed but I just love it!

It was a week of ill health too, Zac was on antibiotics with a perforated ear drum, I was on antibiotics for  tonsillitis and The Spark had an awful tummy bug too. Used a card from Becky Higgins Perfectly Imperfect Kit for summing that up.

 Some of the details for you. I did manage a spot of stamping using 2 Cool 4 School from Kaisercraft.

 

Had a none stop day yesterday, the boys school had the puppet man come to visit and do back to back  performances, I was lucky to attend two different ones so there was no yawning from me. Of course I took loads of photos and will feature them in my week 5 layouts.

Today was a snowy walk to school with the boys and my friends little girl Sophia but the sun is shining now and the roads are thawing - boo hiss! I really fancied a snow day!

Hugs

Victoria

xxx

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Project Life Week Two and a kids room update

Ooh blimey - I'm not sure the Nottingham weather knows what it's supposed to be doing today, cold - no, windy -  yes, cloudy? Yes a little. Freak hailstorm erm yes that was fun - ouch!!

Today I plan to relax, mainly in the Room of Craft as I haven't spend much time in here recently, mainly due to the whole tonsillitis episode and 'Destroy It Yourself' adventures in Zac and Blake's bedroom, which by the way is sooo close to being finished.

So I have the heating on just in case the temperature takes a nose dive, which depending on which weather forecast you listen to is likely any second now followed by a foot or two of snow, freezing conditions, bright sunshine and sleet with possible rain. Really? I find looking out of the window my personal forecasting tool. Although - did you ever see the weather stone forecast? keep reading and I'll share at the end.

Right then, Project Life Week Two -done!

Found myself needing two sides for this one, so much going on. Blake was VERY excited to discover his first wobbly tooth, clearly he whittled away at it as 24 hours later it fell out, one happy little boy trying to stay awake to stalk the tooth fairy, ha, parental victory!

The cloud and thunder card is so apt for me, I am a TOTAL snow stalker (yes really) and if one flake of the fluffy stuff floats by me or my window I have this awful habit of phoning The Spark immediately to inform him, so much so that he calls me Snow Watch. He loves my significant interruptions to his working day - see today he's already had 'Blimey you should have seen the hail babes.....'. It's not like he works in a different country or doesn't have windows where he works, I just get SUPER excited about it. That explains the inclusion of my snap of said week two snow falling (it didn't stick incidentally).

Then there was the great wallpaper debate, all very tense.

Next I HAD to pop a picture in that Zac's friend Darcy drew for him at school this week, it's so cute. It's a full A4 sheet but I folded it to fit in a 4x4 pocket. It's a drawing of Zac and underneath it says 'Zac is my best friend because he plays with me'. 1, 2, 3..aah. Also come cute pics of Blake and his bestie Sophia too.

Sad food shots I know but I'm trying to eat healthy so a nice reminder that I can make an effort and churn out a healthy meal or three will hopefully spur me back to plan later in the year when I look back.

Do you like my printed journaling? I used a 6" x 4" card and printed directly on it - so easy to do, If you've not tried it, just set your word doc page layout to 6" x 4", type away and print.

Obligatory close ups:

Now about the weather stone, not seen it? Want to see it?

Good isn't it? I'm off to finish my week three pages now, enjoying listening to Happy by Pharrell, followed by a bit of Will.I.am - just my mood today.

Hugs

Victoria

x

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Some Party Bags and Tags and an Ikea rant

 Oh my word Ikea yesterday...talk about insane. We go there so rarely yet when we do it's always rammed. How do other furniture shops survive? Grab a cuppa - you're going to need one as I share our visit to Ikea.

One of those frustrating trips where we'd already planned the wardrobe for the boys room to save time, but still had to queue in the wardrobe area for someone to print us off a bar code to be able to pay for part of it. Then a battle round the market place, taking every short cut known to us (through doors that aren't marked - you know the ones if you're an Ikea stealth shopper too) and through to the picking area where shock horror - two drawers are missing from Isle 19 area 8!!!

 I felt my blood boil just a little after having carefully checked stock levels before leaving home,  wondering just who had been in and purchased 52 drawer units  in the space of 43 minutes, I mean who does that? 

Thankfully sad looking individual in yellow shirt and blue trousers who looked like he'd rather be anywhere but there, asked if we were OK. I gritted my teeth, it wasn't his fault after all that some idiot had bought all 52 drawers when I only needed three of them. Ah, another chap will bring them through if you'd like to loiter?

 'Like?' not really mate, but left with little choice we waited for 10 minutes for another poor yellow clad individual to stack the shelf, with shelves in boxes from the other side.

Trolley stacked off we very slowly and painfully pushed and weaved our trolley through the Nottingham and Derby massive to edge our way closer to a till. 

Sometime later:

We made it to the till. What? 15 items maximum? No one is going to notice we have 17 are they? Really? They did, but we were let through to various tuts and groans. 

After devouring two tubs of meatballs and two lemonades we pushed said trolley over to the 'too heavy to put items on shelves in case you hurt yourselves and take us to court dept' to patiently await our corner wardrobe.

Done, loaded and on our way home without injury, although someone did attempt to steal ladders off van roof whilst we were inside - seriously? 

So endeth the Ikea rant.

Crafting -  that's why you came right? A lovely friend of mine treated her daughter to afternoon tea out with friends for her eighth birthday (how cute?) and asked me to make some party bags and tags for her to give to her guests. Sooo enjoyed making these:

Five years ago when I first joined Stampin' Up! one of my favourite colours was Pink Passion. I LOVED it. The bags I had in stock to decorate were the exact same colour and I knew that somewhere in my stash I had some Pink Passion card. Yes one last piece - how lucky? Also very enjoyable to create with. I used the Scallop Tag Topper punch to create the tag look and added papers which I can't remember the name of - sorry they're not current. The stamp set is Tea Shoppe, glad I hung onto that too as it was perfect for these tags and bags and the theme of afternoon tea,

The twine is from my stash, no idea where it's from.

I decorated the bags to match using the biggest tea cup, some sentiments out of the set and more of the designer papers.

Now please excuse me as I am off to assist The Spark in building of wardrobes, there may be some swearing so didn't listen against our door!

hugs

Victoria

xxx

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Fabric Gift Bags and some Project Life stash too

All I can say about the last 8 days is...tonsillitis - bleaurgh!

Right, minor pity party over and done with, funnily enough whilst lying on the sofa nursing me and my tonsils better I haven't had any energy for crafting, lots of ideas running through my head which was MEGA frustrating. 

Still, I have yet more stuff I've not shared with you yet so here are some previous makes. I thought I'd showcase them today as they would make a perfect gift bag for either Valentine's Day or Mother's Day.

I adore this grey spotty linen look fabric with the complimentary red heart and trim. If you'd like to order one, all you need to do is message me at:

bluejellystampin@sky.com

Today involves a trip to Ikea....I know the pain! It's not even for stuff for the Room of Craft as that is pretty much kitted out. Nope it's for the dudes bedroom, last weekend it was wallpapered, painted and then four and half hours of mine and The Sparks life disappeared building a bunk bed. YES four and a half hours. Want to see it?

Luckily it was very worth it as Zac and Blake love it to bits. Zac has called his top bunk 'The Tower' and Blake has named his 'The Hideout' mainly because there's a den behind the cupboard!

So, back to Ikea - we are getting the wardrobe / storage cupboard from there and this weekends mission is to build it and then put all their stuff away that is currently littering our bedroom, the landing and the rest of the house too!

Thing is I don't think my mind is on furniture building, whilst attached to the sofa all week, The Spark took pity on me and ordered me a little cheer up package. Check out what postie just delivered.....

I have two weeks of Project Life layouts to catch up on and cannot wait to get stuck in.

Hugs

Victoria

x

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Stampin' Up! Project Life New Years Eve

Yuk - today I have horrible tonsillitis. I thought yesterday it was a mild dose but it so isn't. I'll spare you the details but lets just say my tonsils stuck together last night!

As a result The Spark has banned me from helping to decorate the boys bedroom and called in the help of some of our mates instead. Luckily we got lots done last night so I don't feel too bad. I will of course be sneaking in to take photos, meanwhile I have been granted permission to enter the room of craft as that only involves sitting down and doing less energetic tasks (he's clearly not seen me speed crafting before!).

Luckily I have some Project Life pages from New Years Eve I can share with you. I used all Stampin' Up! supplies on these pages. The kit I used is Every Day Adventure and the coordinating Accessory Pack too. I was lucky enough to win these on a prize patrol last year at a regional event.

I loved using these bright colours and backed all my photos with Bermuda Bay card.

We had a brilliant evening, my Mum in Law Linda invited us all round for a steak and champagne supper - just the grown ups before you freak out! It was our first proper meal in her new home and she'd only had the dining table delivered that week too. The food was lush and it was so much fun. 

I took a LOT of photos, I drank a lot of champagne too ha ha! It all got a bit silly but luckily the little ones went off to bed at 9am - very late for them so they missed out on most of the grown up stupidity!

My favourite bit of the whole thing was when Blake came into the kitchen and asked to blow out the candles on the table so he could make a New Years wish, he was so sleepy and already changed into his new PJ's - thanks to Auntie Choklit for those. He wished to be healthy in 2015 and promised to eat an apple every day, it's the only fruit he will eat so far and he's stuck to his word bless him. Zac made me proud, he wished for love every day....aaaah.

A few close ups for you - I had fun with the alphabet stickers and accessories and used the washi tape too, something I don't make the most of. Of course I used my Stampin' Markers to do all my journalling. I have however discovered journalling memories is a tad tricky when you can't remember much of what happened, the photos were a good reminder.

I'm off to nosey at some blogs now to keep me occupied, why not have a look at these two with me:

The Stampin' Senorita

The Sticky Elf

Hugs

Victoria

x

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Now for something different - Jelly does cooking!

Cor it's all happening here. 

Zac's been a bit under the weather and yesterday morning I got a call from school to bring him home as he wasn't feeling well and was upset. Long story short after a while he got worse so I took him to the Doctor and my poor lad has a middle ear infection which got so bad it perforated his ear drum. He's reacting really well to the antibiotics and has happily gone into school today.

 Also this morning after a night of very little sleep (I never sleep well when one of my boys is poorly and with me in bed), I wake up to a dose of tonsillitis. One of these days the Doc will actually refer me to get them taken out as I get it three or four times a year now. 

Well there's your update on me - still here? Right then, I haven't managed to squeeze in any crafting since I last posted but I have been getting creative in the kitchen and trying out some new recipes. If you read my week one Project Life post you'll know I'm on a bit of a mission to shift some of my excess baggage and as a result I'm making a few Slimming World recipes and generally looking after myself a bit more. 

I found a recipe on Pinterest which looked a bit tasty and figured it looked simple enough so here we go with my first post of "Jelly does cooking" with Cheesy Meatball Pasta Bake.

Let's start by sharing the link to the recipe and how to by A Matter of Choice. Next, here's my version. Check me out all posh and that with my Tablet in the kitchen surrounded by herbs and spices. I adapted the recipe by the way - I HAVE to add smoked paprika to all manner of dishes and this was no exception. Here you can see me being all chef like making up the meatball mix.

The recipe quoted 20 meatballs but they would have been ma-hoosive so I ended up with a whole lot more than that. If you're wondering and I bet you're not but I'll share anyway, you can buy low fat pork mince from Tesco.

They don't look too shabby do they?

Now the sauce making - I do have a tip for you (I know!) and that's to cook your onions low and slow as you'll get oodles more flavour out of them that way. 

Ta-dah! Food for the family, healthy and pretty damn tasty it was too. According to three of us, Blake with his food phobia managed some plain pasta and cheese with a slice of garlic bread which actually is pretty adventurous for him as he's always declined pasta before. I did have a sneaky chat with the school chef to see what he eats or tries at school so I could mirror some of the cooking at home.

Now I'm off to dose myself up and get back to my task for the day of clearing the boys bedroom.  Their new bunk bed has been delivered today and tomorrow is decorating day......

Hugs

Victoria

x

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Christmas Project Life

Aah the joys of life interruptions spoiling my plans to blog daily for at least a week ha ha! Yesterday instead of nipping home from school, doing the food shop and then sewing and of course sneaking in a blog post went to pot. 

Why? Something a bit silly - parked outside school someone reversed down the road and clipped my wing mirror. Something really minor and a complete accident (and yes it's sorted amicably and the other driver is paying) resorted in oodles of time spent trying to find a decent quote to get it fixed. turns out you have to have the whole unit replaced not just the casing. So car - sorted and booked in for repair.

Next - grab a wallpaper sample and hope everyone likes it - not! We are decorating the boys bedroom this weekend. Oh my word talk about a family that can't make a decision. I've sat through less painful dental appointments. Anyhoo, we finally agreed on that and will share more at another time.

Now then, I was a very lucky girl at Christmas as The Spark bought me two more Project life Core Kits - yes he's that amazing, he even chose them himself. So whilst we were snowed / iced in between Christmas and New Year I brought my Selphy downstairs and quickly pulled together a few Christmas memories:

I was a bit neat and tidy with these as I didn't bring many supplies down from The Room Of Craft to put these together, that's the fab thing about project life though, you don't NEED loads of stuff or space to play. 

I had to jot down two things that really did make me chortle on Christmas Day, the first was when Blake saw the two huge Shark bean bag chairs his Granny had bought for them. We'd stashed them in car on Christmas Eve and then brought them inside once they were fast asleep. He was totally baffled as to how they'd got in to their playroom and went round checking the windows weren't open. He didn't question once how Father Christmas had got in! The second comment was from my Step Dad just as we sat down to dinner - you know the once a year meal you spend most of the day in the kitchen making. He complimented me on how good the food was and before I could say thank you, he commented how good it was of the local takeaway to deliver on Christmas Day.

Things like that you have to jot down as they're the sort of thing to smile when you look back a year later!

 These are all using the Kraft Edition Core Kit.Above me about to tackle the sprouts, with the help of one or two (small under statement) of sparkly.

And some close ups:

It's not snowing here in Nottingham today but it is freezing - I went for a walk earlier and it took me nearly an hour to thaw out, I even wore my ear muffs!

Hugs

Victoria

x

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My Range of Statement Fabric Hearts

I'm so excited to share my new range of products with you today. They are of course handmade by me and I have so many ideas and ways to develop them it's unbelievable.

So here they are, my statement hearts:

They are a lovely size and I had both Valentine's Day and Mother's Day in mind when I created these. they are all hand sewn cotton hearts with lovely white ribbon and matching buttons. Want to see some close ups? Here's a Love is All You Need heart:

And one just for Mum:

I'm selling these at £5 each (UK delivery only at this time) plus postage. You can request anything you like on them. 

You can order by emailing me at:

bluejellystampin@sky.com

Please allow a maximum of two weeks from payment to delivery although I plan to ship much quicker.

Pop by tomorrow to see another addition to the range!

hugs

Victoria

x

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Happy new Year and getting cracking with Project Life

It's official I have decided I am in fact a really lazy blogger! It's not that i don't want to blog or that I don't have the time - it's just I'm lazy, not sure how I fix that to be honest ha ha!

So it's Sunday and the kids are playing nicely, hubby is currently causing disruption to the whole street, noisily drilling through the kitchen wall to FINALLY fit our kitchen extractor fan. It's OK we've only been here seven years now!

I'm upstairs in the room of craft planning and plotting stuff to do in here. thing is I came up here to do some project life pages and to blog and as always I got distracted by on-line chats and Facebook catch ups etc, it was fun though. It's 11.26 and I'm still in my PJ's but then it's Sunday so what do I care?

Right then, Project Life, this year I am determined to journal EVERYTHING! My project life pages might not look pretty but for me they are all about capturing life before it escapes me - I'll be 44 this year and I can tell you my memory ain't what it used to be. Without further ado, here is 2015 week one in the life of Jelly:

I've just done a single page as I didn't take lots of photos, actually that's a fib, I did but they are nearly all of the boys in their onesies. I've been super brave and added a selfie pic of me. mainly because I've made a resolution to look after myself more this year and I think it will be fun to be able to look back and see myself changing (she typed optimistically).

I've added oodles of journalling too - the selfie is on the front of a card so lots of stuff in there about what we did this week, how I felt about the boys going back to school after the Christmas break etc. I even added my weight! Aargh - planning to track it week on week!

The cards I've used this week are from Becky Higgins Kiwi Edition Core Kit - just in case you wanted to know!

Right I'm off - got to start cooking a nice stew for dinner tonight - might even see it in next weeks pages.

hugs

Victoria 

xxx

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