NEW HOME

http://www.littlemissnutjob.blogspot.com/

Above is my new address....everything under one roof, i decided.  The blog retains its name just has a different address.  Hoping that by having everything under one account, it will be easier for me to manage since I get so little internet time at the moment.

Thanks guys :)

The holiday is nearly over :(

But the upside to this, is that tomorrow, I will get to see my 2 beautiful doggies.  I cannot wait.  They have been staying with their family while we have been in Galway, at my parents.  They love going there.  They get to see lots of dogs my parents have 7....a story for another day and they have lots of land to run around instead of our rather pathetic square of grass at the back. I also know that they are well looked after so...THANKS MUM AND DAD xxxxxxx
The downside that I will have to go back to work soon....luckily, I go back to nights so I am not due back until Friday night..yay.  Hopefully, I will have a parcel from Elles Studio waiting for me, so a few days to play with that.  Can't wait.

The holiday has been very relaxed..lots of games Trivial Pursuit is a favourite but we seriously need some new questions at this stage , reading, crafting, a bit of walking, a couple of meals out, cooking and a huge dollop of battery recharging.  Very successful, me thinks.  It is also nice to spend some time with the inlaws as well.

My trip to the craft shop was good.  I picked up some Sassafras stickers and paper, a copic pen, a letter J and some Gorjuss twisted Decoupage.  I love Gorjuss and I have already made a card using it 

I don't use Decoupage often but I quite like the look of the twisted so I will definately be doing it again.

As for the shop itself, it is great.  Lots of different stuff in there..I thought I was very good but I am planning to go back today to pick up a couple more things.  It is one a few homemade craft shops in Spiddal Craft Centre and they have some beautiful stuff in them.  There is weaving, pottery, jewellery, art, glass making and everyone is really friendly.  I would definately recommend a visit if you were ever visiting Galway. 

Right, I am off to pack and hound the boss to see what time we are leaving for more spending! 

I am also wondering if anyone knows if I can transfer my blog to another Google account...I have to open this in my old account but my reader is in the account that I now use regularly and I would like to combine the 2.  At the moment, it looks like I will have to open a new blog but if anyone can help......? Thanks

Irish Summers

Another cold and windy start to the day :(  I hope we have not our summer already!

It means we will spend much of the day again watching the comings and goings of this wee fellow.  He is a Hooded Crow apparently I am not much of a bird person but MIL is and it sits on that spot every day, taking in its surroundings and watching the world go by.  Occasionally, he sits on the wire near the back door which i wish i could catch so I could get a better photo....this one was cropped twice in Picnik so I could get a good picture. but most of the time, he sits on that flimsy looking branch.  He is sometimes joined by a friend.  We have decided that it is his girlfriend/wife although I have to admit, I have always missed them getting together.  Looking out now, he hasn't arrive yet so maybe he is getting some food.  I hope he pops by today.

I think much of today for me will consist of reading this ..

I am only 100 pages in at the moment and so far it is very good.  It is based on vampires but not in the Twilight sense of the world, thankfully.  The story is told from a lot of different perspectives but they are all 'bound together in ways they cannot comprehend'.  I picked it up on recommendation from SFX magazine and  I think they described it as a horror.  So, it should keep me occupied anyway.

In the 10 minutes it took me to write the last paragraph, the boss has suggested we take a spin to the craft shop down the road in Spiddal  An Siopa Bui yay.....I will let u know what it is like.....and if I managed to leave anything in the shop lol

Room with a view

This is where I have been spending most of the holiday....my little piece of creative heaven it seems. The table could do with being an inch higher so I can get my legs under better, but I am certainly not complaining.  Especially since, when I turn around, I get to see this...

well, we could do with moving the car!

It is a shame that today it has been cold and very wet.  Perfect for curing the mild hangover I sustained whilst watching Eurovision last night.

Of course, Jedward were great. I am not a huge fan of them to be honest but I do love their energy.

Blue were good but I was not convinced on the whole boy band feel.

I still haven't heard the winner yet I saw the end in the pub who had the sound down and I am just too lazy to turn the computer up I gather from facebook friends that it was not great but as I said to them, we are the real winners cos we don't have to pay for the thing next year!

Behind the Smile

Challenge 4 completed this morning.  Involved a lot of pencil and rubber dust! I still think I could have told the story better but I can elaborate on some points with different photos, which may be better because I can go into more detail then oh, just had a great idea for a photo of the boss, just as i wrote that sentence :)

The picture is me arriving at the hotel for my wedding.  I quite like the picture and thought it would make a good starting point to give a small description of the lead up to the day which had been rough to say the least.  Basically, my sisters children couldn't come because Ryanair require passports to fly and they changed that after the flights had been booked and it was too late to get some sorted.  My sister was nearly a casualty the tears we cried the day she told me were rivers..oceans even.  but thanks to her husband taking the week off to look after the kids he doesn't come over usually she was able to come over on her own.  1 bridesmaid down but only minor disaster

Then, 2 days before the big day, the boss fell ill.  He cannot cope with huge amounts of stress and, with the wedding and a very bad bout of flu which he didn't give himself time to recover from, he ended up in hospital for the night.  He got out the next day thankfully but we had to call an ambulance and it certainly gave the locals something to talk about they joked that it had been called for him and when they found out later it was true, I found it quite amusing...sick sense of humour I have in times of stress.

So, trying not to worry about him and the best man under strict instructions to keep an eye, I organised myself in the morning at my parents, for the mother to get a phonecall from the Aunt, telling us that Nanny had died that morning she had been quite ill and wasn't coming due to living in Sweden! All in all, anything that could go wrong, did go wrong but the wedding was good, the weather was great I told everyone (and my grandad who I phoned later) that it was Nan who had at least made it to the wedding after all! and noone was any the wiser unless I told them. 

I used Scenic Route paper and Banana Frog 'butterflies and swirls' stamps. The brown on the paper was done using acylic paint....a mixture of blue, ochre, violet and white.  I used the rest of that on a Maya Road chipboard tag, which I made into the embellishment on the left of the photo swirls stamped onto it, a couple of gems then a circle of coredination and v&a paper distressed topped with a button and gem.  I am quite proud of it and am going to be cheeky and enter that into the embellishment challenge on 2peas.

On the subject of 2peas, here is the LO I entered into the sketch challenge..

the one I intend to enter into the stamp challenge..

and the one I had originally done for challenge 1 but will now use for the handwriting challenge...

Below are 2 other LO that I have done this week, which I was intending to put a bit of journalling on was getting some info from the sister but I am not so sure now.  What do u think?



Challenge 5

The family have all gone to golf for the afternoon, so that leaves me here with the football (yay) and the computer. Happy Days. I do hope the weather holds for them.

Ok, I am jumping to Challenge 5 because I had a little play with Picnik for the first time and isn't it great? I can sense a lot of my pictures being suddenly put through their paces.

This is the photo that I decided to use.

It was taken in the garden at the cottage and I was playing with the manual setting on my camera for the first time.  I am actually quite happy with the picture as it is, because I think it really shows what the camera can do.  My point and shoot is a Sony Cybershot 5.1 DSC-P100 just out of interest.

Above is the Picniked is that a word??? one.  I titled it 'a windy day' because it was quite windy (!) and I found that by setting the camera to 'sports', the pictures came out better.  I love how the colours come out on this picture. I used Auto fix to begin with, which gave the picture its more natural colouring.  After that, I did a bit of saturation and temp control and something else......mmmm, how can I not remember this already?  Either way,  I can honestly say that I am very proud of myself smug grin on my face that no one can see...probably a good thing I am on my own as I also feel a little happy dance developing as well!!! and this picture will definately be scrapped either when I get home as I can't print here I wasn't allowed to bring my printer...apparently that was a bit too much 'stuff' :( or digitally if I can figure out how to use my trial Photoshop Elements 9 properly

Happy Hols indeed

So, I finally get my modem sorted on Thursday, only to find Blogger is down!  However, I was still able to read and it was great to be back in the web world.

The holiday is going great. Very relaxed and .....wet! Of course, we have beautiful weather over here for weeks and then, as soon as the inlaws arrive, we are back to the traditional Ireland summer.  O well! The view is gorgeous. Above is part of the view from the kitchen window and it is great for playing with my camera. I am currently doing Shimelles Love your Pictures class and am finally learning how to use my camera.  I will post some of my trials later on but I am really pleased so far.  It is annoying though that I have had my point and shoot for over 5 years now and am only just finding out how good it actually is! Still, it can only strengthen my case for a DSLR if I start taking great pictures over the next week this was always the bargain with the boss, learn to use what I have first!!!!

So, I am surrounded by great views, pubs, shops, activities. What have u been doing for the past week Jayne?, I hear u ask!  I have been sitting in the lounge surrounded by paper and card.  And, I have to say, I have scrapped like I have never scrapped before.  I have managed 5 LOs so far......5! That has to be a record for me I know that is mere peanuts to a lot of u....maybe I am finally finding my mojo! And, I have made 3 cards.  Galway must surely be spreading the creative joy.  I wonder if I could bottle it and take it back to Leitrim with me?
I certainly think that NSD helped as it was great to have something to aim towards.  Which brings me onto my first LO which I did for Shimelles first challenge

Oh! That is not the one....but I don't seem to have taken a picture of the one I wanted to post yet. Oops!

I did this one before I left! The paper is Sassafras.....in fact everything is Sassafras now I come to look at it.  The pictures are from our wedding reception.  The hotel had laid out apertifs and I thought that one of them looked like a nipple o dear, the benny hill generation! and was demonstrating this to people when our photographer the boss's Aunt, who |is a great photographer and did our pictures as a wedding gift said that she had to 'capture the image'.  Of course, the boss had to get in on the act.  I like that the pictures show how relaxed we seemed to be i dont know if that was the alcohol or the fact that the ceremony was over lol. A very simple LO but I like how with alot of Sassafras, u don't need to complicate things because the papers speak for themselves.

O dear, it has just started raining and the mob are all off to play golf in a little while.  I am off to stiffle my giggles so cruel to laugh at others misfortune,especially when I am staying in hee hee and I will be back later to post a few more LOs, pictures and get excited about Jedward  Eurovision tonight.