Halloween Fun

I am amazed at how quickly i have got my halloween scrapbooking done considering the party wasnt until saturday night. I think the reason is because i have tried to be alittle more organised this time. The night before i gathered to gether all sorts of halloween and autumn elements and put them all together on my craft table. When i had made space that is. This way i already new which pages i needed to use - as i tried to use the 12x12 halloween papers as i can not use them for anything else - and had matching elements with it. as well as themed elements i had black, orange, purple and green tags, ribons, brads etc incase i decided to us them.

What you might not believe if that the bright bold halloween party page of the pumpkin carving is actually the reverse of the calm natural looking pumpkin fun page. it seemed a shame to waste the other side and the orange already matched the pumpkin theme. It did however effect some of my choices for embellishments as i could not add brads or write directly onto the page.

Please check out my halloween pages on www.docrafts.com/lexon5

Halloween Party 2010



I had a fantastic time last night at our halloween party. We decided to invite fans and friends round to our house for alittle celebration. Our normal routine for halloween is turn all the lights off and watch films upstairs ignoring the knocks on the door from kids wanting to stuff their faces with sweets. This year I wanted something different. Was it because I was in a party mood, wanted to be the   hostess, wanted to socialise with friends and get merry? No, it was because id bought a crapload of halloween and autumn craft stuff and needed to use it up so i could buy more craft stuff. And I wanted a rocking party.  



The Pumpkin



The Guests





My Stampin Up Stash

My order for Stampin Up finally arrived!! Apparently they have backlogs at the moment and also a misspelling of my postcode did not help but it got here in the end. It was well packaged and had an order form with everyones individual names on which made it easier for me to sort out as I was that busy trying to work out what I should buy on the night that I didnt have a clue what goodies the other girls had got. I bagged everyones up straight away and set off with my delivery service as I knew everyone was eager to start playing with them. I felt alittle bit like santa at christmas. I was amazed by how many stamps I had bought as id not realised. Its all product numbers to me and id forgotten what id ordered.

One thing that I was disappointed with one is that the wooden stamps are self assembly. I dont like wooden stamps anyway and use clear stamps normally but the particular sets I liked didnt have the option and only came in wooden. To find that before I could use them I had to spend time and sit down and stick the images to the front and the actual stamp to the back I wasnt pleased with. Im very limited in time so by the time I had put them together and found storage for them in my room I didnt have anytime to play with them. I think that for the price that you pay for them they should be ready to use. Also it has meant that the image on the front that you look at is not inline with the actual stamp behind so is even harder to use than a normal wooden stamp. Also I dont think i attached the stamps straight so I will have 'fun' using them as it will be hard to get them square. I contacted the demonstator and she responded to say that it is so you can trim the image closer if you wish before putting it on the block or so you can mount it on cling mount if you prefer clear stamping. Unfortuately I dont have time to cut aroud each stamp so they have been stuck on as they are and there was no mention of how you would us the stamps with acrylic blocks so they are now firmly attatched to wooden blocks. I will have to see how I go but worry that it will not make the best out of my stamping. Will update you on it later on.

Dog scrapbooking from a catlover

I am very pleased that this week I have been able to scrapbook the pictures of my two dogs that I had when I was younger. Although I am a catlover and dogs seem to hate me, me and my mum gave dog owning a try twice when I was younger. Unfortunatley both weres unsuccessful and we had to give them away to new homes but I enjoyed them while we had them.


Judy was a house destroyer and very quickly turned from the cute floppy eared pup to a pointy eared fox who loved nothing more than chewing on wires and tearing down walls. Assuming bordom was her reason for been destructive, and not that she was evil, we felt she needed someone who was in more to entertain her and gave her a new home.

Our second dog Blue was lovely but we soon found that this border collie cross must of been cross with a great dane or a giant. My most recent post on my scrapbooking gallery shows me and him together. (www.docrafts.com search lexon5)  Amazingly he is only a pup on these pictures. The was very tall and had very long legs with massive paws on the end. Although much loved he was very difficult to walk due to his size and my lack of strength and we felt that we werent able to give him enough excercise for his size. Begrudgingly we had to give him back so I have scrapbooked my photos of him as a lasting memory.
 
I am still ongoing with my cat scrapbooking and hope to get some more pages done in the next few weeks. Keep checking in to see how i go. Check my docrafts gallery for what I have already posted on there too.

Docrafts Focus Group

Weary and jetlagged I arrived at the secret location (well, no one told my satnav where it was) just hours after getting off the plane. I was greeted by Nicci, Becky and Kerry-Jane from the Docrafts team and asked to take a seat. I was joined by I think 10 other local crafters and we started to look at different possible product ranges that Docrafts were considering using in the near future.

They had mock ups so the images were flat but the girls explained to us were shimmer, shine and other elements would be. There was a new fairy range that had mixed reviews. They weren't your typical cutesy ones which is good if you want to broaden your appeal as often when I've done my fairy cards they are only really any good for children. These fairies looked to be in their late teens themselves and had a variety of poses. The colours were nice - blue and purple - but they were darker than you would maybe expect for that theme.

Posh Pets was the next theme which I loved. It was a mixture of regal dogs and cats - proud poodles and posh Persians. They realised that often you are a cat OR dog lover and so had a good mixture and considered selling the stamps individually as for such as myself I would only want the cat stamps to scrapbook with. It was however argued that you craft for other people so you could do a dog lover a birthday card extra. I was very impressed with the quality of the image but found the backing papers colours to be quite pale. Paler than I'd expect for such a regal array of animals.

Again working on the animal theme they had a safari range which was lovely. Although I have a lot of similar products this one stood out. I liked that it wasn't specifically aimed at young children but it wasn't that grown up that it was no longer cute. They had hit that happy medium where you could use it for any age range or gender. I especially liked the backing papers. Many of mine are that busy with pattern that you don't want to put anything over it or that plain that it doesn't colour coordinate enough with it. Again I thought they'd hit the mark with this.

Although that was the fun part the main part was them trying to find out if they, and particularly the Creativity magazine was doing the best it could for its readers. We discussed price, packaging, content, regularity, features, availability. Does it need to be exclusive to craft stores or should you be able to nip to the supermarket and get it with your local shop? Is there too much 'other craft' and should it stick to just paper crafting? Should they provide 'sister' publications? Are free papers something that the market wants?

We also touched a little on the website. It became clear that this is a hot topic especially with the launch of the Creativity Club and the restyling of the website. Unfortunately time did not account for this and they stated that they would do future focus groups based on the website. I think that this is definitely needed and think that it would be nice if they could ask the same people back to discuss this issue so that they can get a full overview of what readers want.

I had a fantastic night, learnt a lot and made some new friends. I would love to be involved in something like that again as you do feel closer to the product and a lot of the Docrafts aim is to get a loyal network. If anyone is ever asked to be a part of this process I would definitely take up the opportunity to have your say.

Holiday Troubles

I wont deny that I had a fantastic holiday and loved spending time with my family but there were afew hitches along the way.

Firstly there was a mix up with the travel agents. They didnt book the hotel I asked for so we were an hour and half outside of downtown Toronto which meant that we got only 4.5 hours in the city. We literally had time to go up the CN Tower and grab some lunch then back on the shuttle to the airport. I would of liked time to look at the shops, buy some souveniours etc but no such luck. At least we got the main attraction done and the views were great. We could even see the Blue Jays playing in the stadium below us.

We then spent a fantastic week getting to know my family that I had gone to stay with. I had only met them once briefly many years ago so this was time for us to get to know what we like, where we work and how things worked over there in Canada. We went to a hockey game, the races, shopping, Point Pelee national park and Fort Malden. The weather was similar to home most days but I was warmer on others.

The second part of our adventure was heading over to Florida. This is were my case got destroyed by the baggage people. We were charged $25 at Detroit to transfer our bags to a final destination at Orlando however they some how broken the wheel and the lock on the way. I dont understand how they broke the third clasp of a four as the lock goes securly through it. Luckily Steve could jimmy away of getting it home safely but i've put a claim in. Not sure if and when i'll get a response back for that and what the response might be.

I had spent months trying to get the right contact lenses for the trip - specifically for this trip. I have astigmatism in both eyes so it was tricky. I thought we'd sorted it out before we went but when I went to put them in I found I had two prescriptions for my right eye. No use for my left eye. I therefore struggled round the theme parks with one eye and i'd purposely bouht them so i didnt have to worry about my glasses flying off half way round a ride so that was a strange and disorientating exprience too.

Like I said all in all it was a good trip with nothing that we couldnt work around but as we all know there is never such a thing as a holiday running smoothly.

Stampin Up Demo

Well we had a great time last night with Stampin Up demonstrator Monica Gale.

She brought Dasher, the beautiful reindeer that i had falled in love with when i saw a card made with it at the Great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza at Harrogate. She showed us how to us it to make a beautiful christmas card using the masking technic. Then we were shown how to use heat and stick and finally we had a make and take. This is a picture of our creations.

Everyone who came were at different levels of crafting but there was something for everyone and the newbie was the one getting into the make and take more than anyone else - go Stacey. I love how the night was taylored to the colours and designs that i had told Monica that i liked. It made it more personal and we showed our appreciation by placing a nice big order. Thanks eveyone for a great night.

Postsecret Of The Week

I think that this is a fantastic idea and I secretly hope that it is my bestfriend who sent this in.

I think I will add this to my 'to do' list of great crafting ideas that I have seen. Idea number 8,246 i think.

Back Home and Jetlagged

Just come back from the most amazing holiday. Spend a wonderful week with my family in Canada where we spent time getting to know each other as I had only ever met them once before. They took us to a hockey game, the races, shopping - love the dollar stores and to beautiful places of interest like Amherstburg and Point Pelee. Check out my flickr account for the best of my Canada photos.

The second week we flew to Florida to the theme parks and NO we did not do Disney. We went to Seaworld, Busch Gardens, Universal Studies and Universal Islands of adventure. We also visited the Kennedy Space Centre. It was fantastic and the weather was wonderful although I was worried before we went as it is hurricane season. Will let you know when I get those pictures on Flickr but I've used most of my space allowance on there for this month just with a weeks worth of Canada so it might be next month before they're all up.


The jetlag is horrendous and I've been incapacitated for the last 6 days. Today is the first day that i feel relatively alive but it has slowed me down that much i havent got all the jobs i wanted to get done done. I only have this week left then I'm back to work and I certainly don't have a months worth of stuff done while I've been off. Partly due to jetlag but also the first few days of the holiday was packing and seeing family.


Well best dash I am hosting my first Stampin Up demonstration party today and Monica Gale, who's doing the demo, will be here any minute. Will let you know how it goes.

Time and Energy. Friendship and Love.

We never seem to have enough time, enough energy, enough strength to get everything done that we want to. May it be getting all the household chores done in the allotted time, fitting in seeing loved ones, or being there at the precious moment where a friend needs you the most. Personally I don't feel that I get enough time to fit my own stuff, never mind anything else that is mandatory, socially expected etc. I find that if I concentrate on just one thing, or introduce a new element into my life, other things suffer. It can lead to you thinking of seeing members of the family of chores. Right, seen mum, dad, auntie, sister. Right who's next on the list. This isn't how relationships will grow. You can't give a quick five minutes to everyone in a weekend and think 'right that's sorted for another week or so'. You need to give quality time to the relationship. If time or distance is a constraint why not text, email or call them on the phone. Put in a conscience effort. I know it's difficult. I don't have the constraints of a big family life in the home so although I have the same housework etc I don't have 7 loads of washing every week although a few extra hands in the house to help out might be handy. Or one set of maids hands would be even better. Don't think I've never thought about it before. But once you've been to work, done upkeep on your house and seen your nearest and dearest, what about you? What about your hobbies, goals and dreams? Where do they fit in? Do you have time to relax, have a bath and read a book? Can you go for long walks and take pictures of wildlife? How often do you get time to go to the gym, dance class, guitar lessons? There is a lot to fit in, and a great difficulty in finding time. Even if you organise a schedule these things often are unpredictable. You don't know when your friends going to need to vent to someone, how many times you need to pick up the kids, how many late shifts you're going to have to do at the office. The best way to fit things in is to give quality time to each job, each role. Try to find the strength and energy to accomplish these things. Friendships and happiness are important. We must achieve these to be successful in all things.

Relationships Postsecret

This postsecret took my eye this week as something that I could relate to. 

I have been very lucky to have met someone in my life who I can share my thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams with. Although we have had very hard times through out the relationship, both related to our friendship as well as life around us, we have stayed a strong unit. We have disagreements, we dont share all the same dreams but we understand each other and respect each and our different views.

When I hear how other people get treated by their partners I do sometimes wonder how we have such a strong relationship. I think that some of it does come from what we have had to through together and the fact that we chose to go through it as one. Often people do not realise what they've got. Know how lucky they are. Understand how bad it could be. 

My secret is that I enjoy been a little old couple. We like long walks, puzzles and crafting. We enjoy movie night and sunday dinners. But the main thing is we enjoy each others company and that's the most important bit. Enjoy your time together. Treasure it and make it quality time. Make it so that you truly feel that your relationship IS better than everyone elses.

My stupid computer (part 2)

Well I just don't know what's going on with my PC at the moment. When I bought it I was working on the principle of the more you spend on it the better and if you buy it with better than average everything then it will last longer. How foolish of me. The machine broke 13 hours after the year warranty ended due to the hard drive failing. This meant no pc over Christmas which was annoying as I couldn't play any of the games I had got, couldn't email everyone merry Christmas and so on. Although the pc manufacturer wouldn't fix the computer the hard drive was still under warranty so that was sent off and a massive 6 weeks later a reconditioned one was returned to us. This obviously meant that they couldn't retrieve the data, couldn't be bothered to, or had sold the data including pictures id rather no one else see to the highest bidder. I felt a little like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex And The City where everyone just keeps saying' ' well didn't you back it up?'.


Steve then decided that he would set up a Raid system where there are 2 hard drives running together saving the same data so in theory of all theories if one dies you still have the other. Well guess what, after 6 months the back up raid drive died. What is going on? Why are PCs only made to last 12 months. Brand new hard drives last only 6 months. I just don't get it. After a little bit of trouble shooting we found that the error was that the two hard drives were out of sync. Although seemingly 'fixed' and knowing what our (my) track record of killing hard drives and power packs Steve thought we best by a back up drive to back up the back up hard drive. Covering all bases we thought. Well we bought it but didn't get it set up yet, and getting back to the start of my rant, I turned the pc on yesterday and it said 'Invalid system disk please insert disc and reboot' and nothing else. Steve looked at me in disdain as of course because I had turned the pc on, It was my fault that it had broken. After 4 attempts Windows started to load. We checked the system status. The results were that there was nothing wrong with either drive. Well how could that be? You just threatened me with an impromptu strike. Temperamental or what.


So, I have backed up what I can on random USB sticks, memory cards, and rewritable discs and am just plodding through hoping that I won't do anything wrong to upset this temperamental being. I am now in fear of the PC. Power over Clair. Now I understand what PC stands for at last.

L4svegas Is Lovin'

This week I have hammered my ITunes account, bleeding it dry. I do now have a nice little collection of new sounds.


The ones that made the grade this time are:
Airplanes - B.o.B (feat Hayley Williams)
California Gurls - Katy Perry (feat Snoop Dogg)
I Like It - Enrique Iglesias
Alejandro - Lady GaGa
Wonderful Life - Hurts
OMG - usher (feat Will.I.Am)
New York - Paloma Faith (Radio Edit)
Nothin' On You - B.o.B

It was pure fluke that I got two songs by B.o.B. To be honest I didn't even know who the tracks were sung by until they were in my playlist. I just liked the songs. Apparently that makes me a hip hop/rap fan.

I chose Katy Perry as I like her cheeky songs. Whoever decided to put her with Snoop Dogg was a genius. I reckon a drunk genius but still a genius.

I'm not usually an Enrique fan and I can not stand Pitbull but I think this is amazing. It's a fantastic dance track and really gets you in the mood for a great night out. I also like that if you listen very carefully you can hear Lionel Richie.

Although Lady GaGas' song is very different to her previous tracks it still has the same flare and quality. Very good for quite a conservative song.

I heard Wonderful Life on one of Radios Aires shows were they introduce new bands and thought the song was great. So fresh and different to anything that's out there at the moment. That really appealed to me.

I love Black eyed peas so when I heard that Will.i.am was featuring in an Usher track I had to hear it. I don't usually like artists who known that they look great but Usher somehow is smooth about it. A ladies man, but not in the creepy sense.

I had heard New York a couple of times before but it was overshadowed at the time of release by Alicia Keyes Empire State Of Mind - another fantastic song. Again listening to the radio they had Paloma on saying that she was unsure where her career was going and that she didn't have much say in the direction of it. They then played this, the original without the new remix, and I had to go and buy it.

Update

Sorry for lack of blog time. Been busy with other things im afraid. Good things mind.

I have had a lovely day at golden acre park squirrel hunting. Check my flickr account for more images

www.flickr.com/photos/lexon/sets/72157624656709157/ 

Ive been COOKING! An amazing feat for me as I cant cook for toffee. If its not microwaveable or oven chips then I wont usually go near it. Ive been trying out some Slimming World recipes from books I bought a few years ago as I needed to spice up my taste buds alittle as they were getting bored. It seems to be working and the foods yummy.

 Ive also been going to the gym to try and shift afew pounds or at least get a better shape before I go away. Been twice this week. Going to try and stick to it this time.

BlogCatalog

I have officially been accepted as a member of blogcatalog. This will hopefully increase the amount of people that have access to this blog. For those new people visiting please feel free to leave comments and add yourselves as followers.

A Crafty Night

Its amazing what you can get done when you bunk off work early.

New Links

I have set up a Flickr account for those interesting in seeing any of my photography. Ive not been doing it long so be easy on me. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lexon5/

For those who like papercrafts I have set back up my Docrafts account showcasing my work and blog. Search for me under Lexon5.

Views Out My Window Pane

Its amazing the difference between these images that were only taken a few nights apart. I spend quite abit of time looking out this window from the chaos of my craft room. Its a welcomed break when i need alittle inspiration or time away from my latest project that is driving me crazy.

My 50

I would recommend that you all go to www.my50.com and make your own list of lifetime achievements. It is a brilliant site which I feel is both motivational and inspirational. The idea is that you think of 50 goals and write them down. Once you have the list you then complete them one by one as they are achieved. Now 50 sounds like a lot so I would advise that you do like I did and have a list of achievements and a list of goals. The goals are obviously things for the future but also have a list of your achievements in life. If you are feeling a little low and wondering what you have actually achieved then there it is in black and white in front of you. It might sound daunting but there's so many things that you will have done that are big achievements but you might not think they are because you've lived through it. Renting your first property, booking a holiday, falling in love. These are all major things that happen in our lives that we tend to forget just how important they are. For me I have 'learn to swim' as one of my goals where as for other people it's like second nature and they've been doing it for years.

I think that when creating this list you need to think of what you wanted when you were younger. Now I don't mean the latest issue of the Spiderman comic or the new Barbie accessory but trying to see it from a time where you were starting to explore life and its challenges. I asked my friend if she would do a list for herself and she said she couldn't think of anything because she hadn't achieved anything. She has a mortgage, a husband and a child but had forgotten just how big these achievements were and what life experiences go with them. That there are others out there are striving to achieve these things that she has already done. That if we had wrote this list 10 or 15 years ago, those things would of probably of been at the top of the list. The problem is that we begin to believe that it's an easy task to do because we've already done it but it doesn't mean that it is not still a great achievement. Check out my list on the link at the top of the page up My50. I hope that you'll be inspired by it.

The Big Bang Theory

I have totally and inexplicitly fallen in love the programme 'The Big Bang Theory'. The adverts made it out to be a geeky, slightly boring, programme with relatively few jokes but after some convincing from my best friend I gave it a go and now I'm hooked. Obviously she was right as we are practically one and the same person but I did have my doubts there for a moment. About the programme that is.

I've really taken to the character Sheldon Cooper and my only hopes are that Jim Parsons who plays the character is not simply playing himself. This fear is backed up by what his next project is which is about 3 avid bird watchers. Exciting. With the title 'The Big Year' I was wondering if it was going to be a film of the series. Something along the lines of geeks go in search of... type thing but sadly not.

Anyway the programme is all wrong for me. Science yuk, mathematics no thank you, history now that I can cope with in small doses. Somehow however it still works. Maybe it's because I feel slightly superior when I understand some of the more technical jokes that are made but then I wonder how many pass by me without me even realising. There are a lot of references to previous collaborations of both the cast and writers. I was slightly disturbed when 'David' and 'Darlene' ended up sleeping with each other. This obviously only being apparent to Roseanne fans. Also quips about Blossom made in the lunch room in one episode then transgresses into Mayim Bialik guess starting as a possible love interest for one of the group in a later episode.

All I can say is try it. If you're an 80s child then I think you will definitely benefit for some of the jokes. I'm sure you will be pleasantly surprised and soon grow attached to the characters. Who couldn't love a socially dysfunctional genius, a cute geeky quite guy, an engineer who makes crude jokes but lives with his mother, an a man who can't speak a single word to women without been drunk or on very powerful drugs. Try it, you might be pleasantly surprised.

OMG

I cant believe that its almost been a year since i last went on this thing. It took me half an age to remember my email address and password never mind think of what to write. If there is some way of sites remembering all of the failed passwords then my bank will be emptied, my phone will be used to ring Uzbekistan and my house will soon be repossessed. Every important name, date, place name and country which i can spell is now out there in full view. The fact still lies that if anyone who really knew me tried to hack into anything of mine the answer would always be password. Pa55word if I was getting creative. Well heres to hoping that I get the time, energy and motivation to write on here more often. That is before it becomes the musings of a thirty year old at the rate im going. No no, a few years left before that but heres hoping.