Im back :)

I  can’t believe I am back from Florida for more than 4 weeks now, and I think now it's time for me to come back to ‘normal’ life and start to blog again. ( My routine for the first week back is work>bed> back to work, I even left my suitcase unpacked for the whole week(!!)I did my washing the 1^st day then the suitcase got left in the living room for. the. whole. week .terrible I know. Felt like a zombie when I was dealing with all the paperwork sitting on my office desk when I was back at work. Proper zombie. Not joking) But, Sun is shining today after 3 weeks of rain so I think today is a good day for a new post!

Just a wee mention on my holiday in case you are interested…Florida is so much fun and HOT, unbearably hot, burnt to a crisp 1^st time in my life. Wish I got more money and luggage allowance so I can bring home more craft goodies and cheap stuff from the outlet! I managed to bring back 6 12x12 photo album this time(!!) Should put another 4 in Gary’s luggage if I had known his luggage was not overweight!

So I will show you what I am working on these days, another baby album, baby boy this time(much more challenging than baby girl i think !) , and some baby cards I quickly put together the other day(not sure why i made a baby girl card instead of a baby boy tho..). There is so much cute craft stuff for baby/baby shower in America so I guess I will be working on baby theme for a while from now on. Entering this card for A Passion for PTI , a while since last time I enter any challenge.

 A sneak peek of the album..

 

Will try to go back to the effective mode rather than the holiday mode(= lazy mode) which I was in for the whole month! Still got a holiday album to make. Will add that to my never ending to do list.

Catch up soon!

Busy,busy,busy

Manic in my household this week.  3 days before my travel buddies arrive in Scotland and 2 weeks till the Florida trip!! So I am doing my very last minute preparations, that includes washing endless bed sheets and pillow cases, stocking up all my cupboards with food and junk(!!), cleaning the whole flat in & out, printing out all the pre-booking stuff and planning all the routes, getting all the holiday clothes ready etc…..

And I still managed to make a card to enter the challenge for A passion for PTI and CAS-ual Friday! ( My first ever entry!) one stone ,two birds.

Better head off to hang up all my washings before the sun is away!

Oh, did I mention it is finally sunny and summery in Scotland?! Hurray!

Smash Book

I ordered my first ever Smash book online last week and it finally arrived. Check this video to see what a Smash book is.

I choose Retro blue for my Smash book. (totally me!) I love it the minute I saw it. It will be the perfect home of my trash !( i.e. Cinema tickets, cute leaflets, bits & bobs I collect from nowhere) and random thoughts.

It came with a two sided pen. I would say the quality of the pen is much better than I thought. The tip of the pen is so fine and smooth and so is the glue. You can tell it is not a cheap glue.

Pages inside:

I don’t have a plan with my smash book, I just dodle a lot on it. Drew my 1^st ever mandala the other day. (I can’t stop after one which I found it quite therapeutic in some way, search in youtube and learn how to draw one yourself)

I would recommend you to get a Smash book if you are the kind of person that love to write down a though or two every so often.

Of course you can just get an ordinary note book but the Smash book layout is much more fun and it is cool to carry around! Im going to carry it with me for all the upcoming trips.

Going to draw a few more mandala now (totally addictive).

Catch you later :)

Summer or Winter?

It is not even summer and I am starting to make Christmas cards.

To be honest, I think summer already came and gone, and Scotland is now officially back to winter with rain and cold weather and I won’t be surprise if it snows. ( so I am entering this card for the A passion for PTI ‘whatever the weather’ challenge, I think I might be the only one that made a ‘winter’ card when everyone else will be making summery theme !! you can’t blame me when I still need to turn my heater on at night..)

Dig out this old stamp set the other day and I thought I will give it a go. So I tried to multi task again when I am watching the Apprentice. I think this start to become a habit.

I made 3 identical cards during the show (plus one that I messed up, multitasking is not that easy in the end.. ) . Um..What to make next week ?Oh.. btw I think Tom is going to win this series.

Just quickly show you what I am currently working on at the moment as well, it is a baby girl 12x12 album for one of my colleagues. Trying to finish at least 2 pages every night, but I hope the baby will be overdue so I have more time(!!). 8 pages done. Another 12 pages (!!) to do.

Is time to put the ‘ Do not disturb’ sign on the door. Catch ya later. Cheerio :)



Postmark

I thought I will update you on the situation of my room’s makeover. After some DIY work by Mr. Finnegan, my room is finally organized with a set of new chest of drawers. I will not show you a 'before' and 'after' photo because it is still quite messy(!!), ok, I admit I have not tidied every single part of my room yet ( You can’t rush things when you are on holiday). And to be honest, although my room is not small in size but with the amount of stuff I have, I always managed to made my room ‘crowded’ ( hint* I want a separate craft room when I move into a house!!).

Anyway, at least most of the tools and paper have now got their own place in the room rather than lying around in boxes and in plastic bags. And it is much easier for me to pull them out and work on different projects. Stage 1 completed with stage 2,3.4 to come in the coming weeks.(!!)

So on a lovely Sunday afternoon while Mr. Finnegan is working on something on my laptop, I decided to make a quick card before I start sobbing that the weekend is over.

At the moment I am a bit obsessed with postmark/travel/queen jubilee/British theme so I put all these things together made this random thank you card.  (And I discovered that the union flag colours are actually the same as the air mail postmark colour!!)

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** I wrote my blog and edited the photo during the week and actually I made another card using the same background paper I made while I was watching ‘The Apprentice’( Edinburgh this week, can’t wait :D) . I just switched the design a wee bit and added the baker twine. Done before Lord sugar fired one of his candidates :D

That’s me just now, hopefully I will be able to produce a bit more in my new craft space. Lets see :D

Graduation

When I am tidying my room this week, I am also trying to tidy all the photos in my laptop, putting them in different folders and stuff and then I came across these cards. I remember making them for my ex-ex-flatmate and my ex-flatmate for their uni graduation last year. I sent them both a card, some flowers and a bottle of bubbly for their big day. I still think finishing uni is kinda a big achievement and after that you are a proper grown up I guess. No more essays and assignments for the rest of your life! ( my first thought!!)

And I think uni is so much fun that I would love to do it again. If I am academicly clever, I think I would like to stay in uni forever, however I am not (not even close to it). Being a student, you have got so much free time and not much to do really , a few hours in the library max if you are approaching the essay deadline, such a great stress free life compared to working life.

Although I don't see my ex-flatmates often now since both of them moved away from 'lovely' Dundee, I still wish them all the best with what they are doing now. They are both very nice girls and lovely to live with. ( and yes, I lived with flatmate from hell before as well)

( I finished typing and editing this post when I am waiting for Argos to deliver my new set of drawers, they said the delivering time is 7am -8 pm. Will the delivery man really come at 8? I am getting impatient now) Time for a cuppa and some biscuits I guess.

Food

I am not really in a crafting mood this week because I am going to rearrange my room so I can fit in a new chest of drawers for all of my, ever expending, craft supplies. So there is quite a lot of stuff lying around just now and I think I will start doing craft again once I have finished tidying them up during Easter. (9 days Easter holiday!! Got sooooooooooo much on my to-do list :D )

I am not in crafting mood but I am in cooking/eating mood(diet plan in the bin?!),I made a few things last weeks and I am quite happy how they turned out.

First, is the ‘Union flag’ shepherd pie. It is my version of shepherd pie, using buffalo mince instead of lamb and I added chilli in it, bascially I changed half of the recipe expect for the mash on the top(!!). I saw this ‘design’ on the cover of Jamie’s magazine a while ago and I thought what a fun idea! Perfect for Queen’s diamond jubilee dinner party. Very British :D

And next up is the ‘ Dinner for the month with Mr. Finnegan’. He chosed ‘My old man supreme chicken’  for his main course. (the original recipe from Jamie Oliver as well) Basically it is a chicken breast wraped with mushroom and pastry. I am a big fan of puff pastry so I think this is great! Even Mr. Finnegan doesn’t really like mushroom. He cleared his plate much faster than me. March mission completed :)

And I made waffle on..Pancake Friday I think..? ha. It was made within Pancake Tuesday week anyway.  With ice-cream and cracking chocolate sauce, yum. ( you can totally see my ice-cream is melting tho.lol)

Even typing this blog post make me hungry! I am actually on a diet right now so i don't look too chubby in my American trip in June. Better head to the gym more ofter I guess. ( Actually I am munching a carmel slide when I am typing this. lol Diet starts on Monday which I said all the time lol)

Going to put some Jason Mraz on then back to my tidying :) Happy Easter everyone!