A new day, a new tag

Preview of my latest tag creation, using the fab kit of SussieM and Suzanne Woolcott's Gorjuss girls.  You can get it now from SS before anyone else - this one will be posted at the weekend. 

First come, first served!

Another pretty for you to grab before anyone else - I'm calling it 'Bicycle Ride' for pretty obvious reasons, lol. You can request it now at SS before anyone else - I'll be posting it in the Gorjuss folder at the weekend (if I can remember!). This time I used a new kit from Irene Alexeeva, called 'Make Me Smile' - adore the colours, and a gorjuss Suzanne Woolcott girl - hope you like it! Ciao!

'Floral Harvest' - new tag!

Available right now, this tag combining a fantastic scrapkit from Lily Designs and a 'Gorjuss' Suzanne Woolcott cutie - a match made in heaven, imho!  Be the first to grab it now from Sensual Signatures!

New tag up for grabs!

 As promised, I've been busy making some new tags using the fab scrapkits of Lorie Davison. Her stuff is unique and really quirky (like me) and I just had to have her 'Bee Garden' kit. This is the first of the tags using her work - more to follow next week, if I can find the time!  I think this kit co-ordinates perfectly with Suzanne Woolcott's Gorjuss fairies too.

As usual, you can put in a request for this tag over at Sensual Signatures.

The scrap album I'd made for Cala has now been printed up - I'd wanted to order the hard cover version but with shipping at almost £30, I decided to get the soft cover version and ordered 2 of them - one for my Mum's 80th birthday in June, and one to take over to Stacey when we visit next month.  I'm really pleased with the printed result as I wasn't sure what the quality would be like - I was very pleasantly surprised! I think Mum will be thrilled.

Well, I don't have any other news for you, so I'll say adieu for now mes amis!

It's been a while since I had anything significant to blog about, so thought I'd post this latest photo of Cala, who turned 11 weeks old yesterday (7th May). I know she looks a little startled in the picture, but Stacey assures me she was all smiles and giggles right up until the shutter clicked - typical eh! Anyway, this is Cala with her very favourite teddy, nicknamed Juno, after my Mum (June).

I have also been busy adding more pages to Cala's photo album - it now has 25 pages and I still haven't used half of the photos I took when we were in Lanzarote!  Here are a couple of the new layouts:

It's hard to stick to just one theme, as I have so many new and beautiful scrapkits to choose from - but I hope they all work in their own way.  I used a combination of layout artists this time - Lily Designs and SussieM Designs, both absolutely awesome artists, I think you'll agree! I'm also very excited about a new artist I've discovered, whose work I hope to feature in some tags very soon - I just need to save up some money to buy the kits, lol.  Here is a sample of her amazing work:

That's all from me for now - ciao!!!

I'd almost forgotten I'd made this little video clip of Cala - she had just turned 4 weeks old when this was taken - it's hard to believe that was five weeks ago already! She even smiled on cue!

Tubeless!!

My tubes are missing!!  And, no I haven't had a medical procedure - 'tubes' are the elements used when making tags in Paint Shop Pro, i.e. all my Gorjuss girls and all the scrapkit tubes, sob!  I've got my computer back, but the eejits at the shop forgot to reload my documents as a backup, which means yet another trip back to the shop with computer!!  Apparently, the backup they made was nearly 38gb, compared to an average backup of around 10gb on 'normal' PC's (I guess that makes me 'abnormal!).  It means I will have to take my computer back yet again as the files are too big to put on a disk.  I had a wee bit of a ding-dong with the guy in the shop as he tried to imply it was my fault the backup wasn't put back on as I hadn't asked for it when I returned it the 2nd time!  I pointed out to him that the back up had NEVER been put on even though it clearly states on the job sheet 'backup documents and reload' - I also pointed out that I paid for this service when I picked the machine up the 1st time!  Fortunately, I had copied a lot of files to my external hard drive before I handed them the computer the 1st time round, but all that said, I am still missing at least half of my graphics, all my fonts, and all my plugins.  It's just so frustrating as I know they won't do the job with any urgency and once again I will be resigned to using Luke's laptop in the interim.  Ok, rant over!

Update on sick PC!

Had a missed call from the PC shop yesterday so made a quick dash down there in the hope that it might now be fixed and ready to pick up - more fool me!  Apparently, my graphics card is 'mashed' beyond repair; something they didn't pick up on whilst running the 'health check' - consequently, I've had to buy a new one and (hopefully) it will be installed today.  I had my suspicions that it was more than a Windows software problem, which is exactly what I told them when I returned the PC last week - pity they didn't believe me.
Anyhoo, having already spent a small fortune just having Windows XP reloaded, I'm praying that the final bill isn't extortionate (some hope!) and I'll be able to afford to collect my battered PC sometime today - will keep you posted.

Not a happy (Easter) bunny!

As the title suggests, I am far from happy!  Picked up my desktop from the shop yesterday and was told all was fixed and backups made of my documents - not only are my documents nowhere to be found, but my graphics card seems to have gone AWOL and after updating a couple of things, i.e. Internet Explorer and AOL, the damned thing is freezing again on the desktop screen!!   I tried rebooting 3 or 4 times, and it completely freezes every time - so much for the 'health check' they alledged to have performed.  Now, with the Easter weekend, it will be Tuesday at the earliest before I can return it to the shop, and it's anyone's guess what/who they will blame for the problems this time.  Consequently, I am still unable to open my folder in Sensual Sigs or begin taking requests until I can access my PC again, aagggghhhh!

My beautiful Cala Nicole Hodges

PC kaputt!!

Mein komputer ist kranken!! It seems the weird noises my PC has been making for quite a considerable time may have been an indication that all was not well with the motherboard - quick dash to the PC hospital yesterday and at least another 4-5 days till I get the results of the healthcheck. I can't begin to describe how frustrating it is not being able to continue with my Scrapblog for Cala, especially as I have new photos just waiting to be 'played with'. I had also been working on some layouts for an album for Alfie too - I'm praying that I won't lose all the work I'd done before the PC 'died' - I did manage to sign on in 'safe mode' and, hopefully, copy most of my tag creations to my external hard drive, but there's no guarantee (sob). With every penny going towards our trip to Lanzarote on the 16th, I just cannot afford any lofty PC repair bills, so it could be quite a while before I'll be back to 'normal service'. Stacey has sent some more pics over and I'm dying to get at 'em, lol. Here's one I'll be adding to the album just as soon as I'm able.

After several lengthy phone calls with Stacey this week, I now have confirmation that Cala wasn't 8lbs, but actually 7lb 9oz - not a huge difference (unless you're the one giving birth!).  Cala is doing very well - she is now quite used to her brace, and both Stacey and Kevin have now got the hang of getting it on and off without too much of a drama.  Cala has an appointment with the doctor tomorrow so Stacey will ask some specific questions regarding the brace and the degree of Cala's hip dysplasia - fingers and toes all crossed!

I bought a few items at Bluewater (mall) yesterday to take with us - some anti-colic bottles and teething/colic powders, which they can't get over there.  I also HAD to buy some baby clothes - I must have spent at least an hour just in Monsoon Baby - the baby girl dresses were to die for!  I must resist temptation, but as Oscar Wilde said, "I can resist anything..... " etc. lol.  I'm now getting quite concerned over the amount of baby stuff I have to pack into my 20kg suitcase!  I am going to very frugal with my own clothes, but I'm still woried that our cases may be over the limit - I think I'll just have to persuade Luke that he only needs a couple of t-shirts and shorts for a fortnight, lol.  Anyway, I'm away to start on Sunday lunch - got mum-in-law over for dinner today so I'd better do a pudding too!  Auf wiedersehen meine freunde!