Wiggity Wiggity Woo

Right! That's it! The wig has been officially ditched for good. It is now sulking like an abandoned hamster and I feel liberated!

Of course I am getting the obligatory "jeez that chick's hair is bloody short" looks, but I sooooo do not care.

I am off to the Maggies Centre this afternoon for a "Look Good Feel Better" session. Basically lots of beauticians and pampering - yay!!!

A Couple Of Makes

I bought a Bind-It-All the other week as it was such a good deal at ArtyMiss, so this is my first ever mini book made for my god daughter's birthday. I used papers from My Little Shoebox available at SarahsCards, just scrummy. The ribbons were from a set I got from Craftology I think they are Heidi Grace. The BIA is not the easiest thing for me to use, I got into a right "fankle" trying to match up the dratted holes for binding, but I found a great video and printable tutorial here, this guy is brilliant, so if you have a BIA gathering dust, drag it out and follow along.

Our friend, celebrated his 40th Birthday this week and he bears more than a passing resemblance to Jack Black, hence this card......

A Must Read Blog

I know, two posts in a day, pretty unheard of eh? Anyway I have to recommend this blog to you all and it couldn't wait.

It's written by a great gal, Lisa Lynch, she too has had breast cancer, her writing is just wonderful and funny and she simply just "rocks" , go and read it and be prepared to laugh and cry in equal measures.

Fitness Freak

I am now nearing the end of my chemo, only one more to go on the 7th April, then I get 3-4 weeks off for good behaviour and then the 5 weeks of radiation zapping starts - joy!

Anyway, since I have been on chemo I have been eating like a horse, a bloody big horse. Bald and fat is a great look I can assure you. Think of chemo and you think of people with their heads stuck down the lavvy, not me, haven't felt sick once. This is great news, I won't bore you with my vomit phobia but as you can imagine I have been darned glad that I haven't chucked up.

So, basically I eat, I eat lots, then I eat some more. Cake? Bring it on! Afternoon snack? Yes indeedy! I have never been picker, I have been blessed for most of my life with a pretty good metabolism so really I should weigh a heck of a lot more, but my metabolism is now on its knees begging for mercy, the tide has turned and my weight has soared.

So, what to do? From my hours of endless internet trawling and scaring the (big) pants off myself, it seems that research has proved that a low fat diet coupled with exercise is the best way to ward off further recurrence. Cool, having breast cancer sucks a lot, I was hoping a high fat champagne laden , lardy arse regime would be just the ticket instead - ha!!

Don't get me wrong, I do eat quite healthily but I do have a penchant for mayonnaise and butter, which I suppose will have to get chucked out of the window now.

Diet will actually be the least of my challenges. It's the exercise that bothers me. I am totally unsporty, check out the evidence

1. I have dreadful hand/eye co-ordination, I would struggle to hit a football with a bin lid.

2. I was the one they used to moan about when picking teams in PE at school, having me on your team was a total bummer.

3. I had a friend at school who spent time with her legs in calipers..............she regularly beat me at badminton

4. I gave up PE in 4th year to do art

5. I have been a member of 5 fitness clubs but never go, I might as well say "hi, here's £400 you'll never see me again.

It's not looking good is it?

I seethe with resentment at sporty types, if I see a lycra clad cyclist I want to run 'em over, see a jogger, I want to trip them up. The reason why? They make me feel bad about myself. I just don't get this urge to go off and do "fitness stuff". It baffles me, I can't see the attraction, and I am as jealous as HELL, I want to be like them, I want to be beautifully fit and toned and THIN! I wish there was a button someone could press which made me want to exercise, ugh but I don't know how.

The other night I listened to "stop being a fat git" (AKA as "I can make you thin") by Paul McKenna on my iphone in bed. I figured this could be the easy "get motivated by process of osmosis" or something , method. Well I drifted off and stopped the playback and awoke to the sound of voices, I thought I was having some miraculous clairvoyant experience, turns out Paul was still wittering on through the headphones on the floor next to the bed. He'd been going on like this all night, pity I didn't have the headphones in my lugs, I could have woken up a size 8. Ha! dream on.

I suppose the only way I am going to lose weight, get fit and keep healthy is to get motivated..............................any tips?

Very Funny

This is one of my Mother's Day presents, my husband thought it was hilarious........

Anyone who knows me, knows I have ALWAYS wanted to be famous, I wanted to be an actress or a singer from a very early age, I have friends "in the business known as "show" but so far fame has evaded me and at the age of 41 I guess it will probably never come.
He said, "read the first page" and it did and this is what it says

"Little Miss Star lived in Twinkle Cottage.

Now.

I'll tell you a secret.

You promise not to tell anyone else.

Don't you?

All her life, Little Miss Star had dreamed of being famous.

She desperately wanted to be famous so that everyone would recognise her and ask her for her autograph, and she would have her photograph in all the papers.

But, she didn't know how."

Sad but true...ha ha! Alan knows me so well (I'll get my own back!)

Gone a Bit Girly

I've gone a bit girly with these cards. A while back I bought a set of Prismacolour Pencils and some lovely fellow stampers sent me some stamped Magnolia type images to colour in. So far I hadn't used them, but I must admit it's very theraputic and I have ordered some stamps of my own, it feels cool to to veer away from my usual style and techniques.

The lovely pink patterned papers are from the "Sweet Always" paper pack and the spiral edge punch which I love are both from Stampin' Up! Don't forget you can place an order with me anytime without the need to have a paaaarty!!! OK enough of the advertising!!! Here they are....





Outside the sun is shining, I think bike ride to the Botanic Gardens is in order today. Have a lovely Saturday!

Cupcakes and Cards

Due to my never ending hunger and porkiness , I am of course blaming the steroids which I take post -chemo, I am rather into making cupcakes at the moment...............check out these which are all I have left after my book club meeting.

Thought I would share a couple of cards I made with a digital dowload kit by Zoe Pearn, she designs for My Minds Eye, the non-digital papers can be purchased at Sarahs Cards (check out the goodies that gorgeous girl has in stock. These cards were published in last months Quick and Crafty Magazine. Apologies for the carpet shots, I am not the best photographer in the world! Incidentally Zoe Pearn designed the Blog in a box I have used for my blog, her designs are so bright and cheerful.

If you have never used digital papers I urge you to try, it's quick and easy. You may find you need to scale down some of the patterns using graphic software as the kits are usually sized for scrapbook layouts, I used photoshop and Image, Resize, but it can be done using other software, try it out. I was sceptical about the print quality but it works fine on my ancient HP colour printer.
There is a free project online at the moment on the Quick and Crafty site featuring a card I made for this months mag - it's here

Happy Friday!

A Couple of Cards

Kirsty Wiseman has been busy working on a whole CD full of gorgeous printable papers and elements and asked if I could make a couple of cards with 'em. Well how could I not, she might set Eddy on me if I refused!! So here they are, you can see more examples on her blog devoted to the new CD.

It's a glorious day here in Edinburgh, hope you are blessed with the same weather, seeing the sun again sure cheers us all up x

Great Videos

I absolutely love this video, had to share

For all you Facebook fans, you have to see this, it really cracks me up

Shameless Card Lifting

Here is a quick card I have made for my chemo nurse -she is lovely ( I have to say that she reads this drivel) hee heee!!! It's a shameless "card lift" from Make a Card Monday here http://www.youtube.com/starofmay I urge you to watch these videos from the uber lovely and talented gal who also writes this http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/

I have been reaaaaaaaaaaaallllly naughty buying craft stuff, in the last 2 weeks I have bought

A Cuttlebug

A Big Squeeze

A Scor-Pal

aaaaaand

A Bind it all

plus lots of papers and other bits

They are all for using for mag projects so I gues I am forgiven eh?

Gotta go, chemo nurse due in half an hour (gulp!) it's number 7 of 8 - hurrah! Today would have been my Mum's birthday, so feeling a bit sad about that, never mind eh?

New Hair & Bin Creatin'

My hair is starting to grow back, not much and I look a bit 'ard like I have just been released from Borstal (no messin' with me innit!!) but it's coming back. Alan reckons I could go out without my wig, yeah right! I don't think I will be inflicting this look on the world for a while yet.

Now those of you that know me, know that I am a card maker first and foremost and I just don't "do" scrapbooking. I haven't done a layout for about 2 years, and I reckon I have only done about 4 in total like ever!, however I spied a gorgeous layout in the readers gallery of Scrapbook Inspirations by a lady called Gemma Meaden and I got inspired. Although this isn't an exact scraplift, her layout got my creative mojo started. I used my Cricut , for the alphabet, scalloped mat and some of the snowflakes. I also used snowflake die from Quickutz in my new Big Squeeze (total bargain from Arty Miss at £19.99 with an alphabet included). I have gone a bit die cutting mad of late, I bought a Cuttlebug last weekend too - oops!

Crafting can be dangerous, I dashed into my office yesterday morning and skidded across the room in a manner worthy of "Dancing on Ice". I stood on the acetate protective cover for the Cricut cutting mat and almost did the splits!!! HA HA HA!! got the shock of my life and a fit of the giggles.

I was signed off work last week, I have been working throughout my treatment since the side effects haven't been bad at all. However I realised that I have been overdoing it and my body really does need time to recover between treatments, so I am now off work for a couple of months, so hopefully I will soon start to feel a bit less knackered. I have my next chemo on Tuesday next week and then I only have one more to go - hurrah!!!!

That Cinderella Moment

On Friday night I was invited along to a Frock Exchange party which was raising money for the Maggies cancer centre in Edinburgh. The idea is, you take along a few items of nearly new clothing, shoes, accesories etc and you can choose items to take home yourself. I must admit I was a bit sceptical, but the lady who ran the event had been collecting donations for a few weeks and there was loads of really nice stuff to rummage in.

I found these shoes...............................how scrummy and mad are they??? They were the talk of the evening, they are totally barmy but I love them.



Check out the blingy toadstool detail! The soles are also like a work of art and are printed with something that looks really like a gorgeous liberty print paisley design.

Changing the subject completely, take a look at this adorable little fella, he lives round the corner from us and is really friendly, he likes to sit at our back door with a pleading look on his face which says "awwwww c'mon let me in". He is soooo affectionate and rolls all over the place, he is also quite pudgy and cuddly. I would kidnap him but Alan is allergic to all things with fur, which is a shame as he loves kitty cats.

A Couple of Cards

I thought I would post a couple of cards I have made recently that haven't been for magazines. The first one is a foray into "grunge", I don't do this often but I really enjoy it, I must see if I can get booked on a "grungy course", this was hubby's Valentine, he actually prefers a shop bought card (huh?) but he got this instead.


The second one is a New Baby card for a lovely girl who lives down the road, it's her first baby and it's a girl - betcha couldn't guess eh?