I don’t know about you but I’m itching to get the christmas decorations out and start trimming up.  I’m all ready this year with just a few last presents to buy before I’m all done!

This months theme is ‘You are stranded on a desert island’.

Please click the picture below for more information!

I swap with Swap-bot!

I swap with Swap-bot!

What to expect?  Well I had lost touch with a lot of myself over the past few years and I’m hoping to be able to get back into the crafting, so watch out for posts on Kucachoo.  Also I am still watching plenty of films so I will, with any luck, still be able to bring you film reviews, albeit DVD reviews as being a single parent I don’t get out to the cinema so much!

Hope to see you around!

Well, I’m planning on doing regular film reviews here on my personal blog.  Me and Mat love films and with a collection of over 200 and growing and the fact that we are often visiting the cinema, it makes sense

Over on Kucachoo Crafts I’ve posted a few articles about carving stamps from lino and 4 articles about creating backgrounds for ATC’s/artwork.  I’m loving these posts and by the comments so are my readers   I love reading about people who have tried out the techniques!

At home I’ve been learning how to crochet!  I’ve only been doing it a few days now.  I’ll post my attempts in photos soon lol!  Pretty soon I’ll get a crochet tutorial over on Kucachoo featuring the best learning materials and some links to free patterns.

Over at Swap Addicts, we are in the process of our first poll for our first ever monthly swap within the group.  Everyone there is amazing and a few months and 109 members later we have still not had one incident of negativity, which makes it such a fun place to be!

The ATC beginners flickr group is going strong with 52 members.  We’re also planning our first monthly swap within the group too.  This months theme is favourite words.

Also this week I was ecstatic to find that the admin of the Whole Lotta Swappa group on flickr had made me an admin too, along with the other moderators of the group.  I love this group as we are all committed swappers and you know that you will not get burned in their swaps

 And that’s about it.  On a more personal note, me and Mat have been discussing the future now that Blake is 8 months and Milli will be off to nursery in September.  We have agreed that I will remain at home with the kids until they are both at school full time.  This is to provide for their needs in the mean time.  They are both bright kids and I want them to find challenges in their daily lives, not something I expect them to find at nursery.  Mat is happy for me to do this, which is great.  He actually said he was proud of me wanting to make sure our kids needs are met at home, which helped a lot.  I was concerned about that guilty feeling I would have for taking from the family financially and not giving back (guilt is a big problem in my life).  To solve this we have agreed I will step up activity in my etsy shop Kucachoo Crafts (expect to see new additions soon to help me feel like I was providing too.

 I’ve also been cutting back on my swapping.  I was fed up with being burned in one way or another.  What was once fun had become a drag.  I had to cope with nasty messages, people trying to rush me in hosting, people not acknowledging receipt or rating and packages not making it to me….  From now on I only swap with trusted groups.

So picture this, spidey is walking down a dark alley and it’s clear that someone is following him.  You automatically assume that it is going to be this guy in dark spiderman suit.  Well when he turns round (cue shock music) it isn’t.  It is the single most upsetting face I have ever seen.  Black with pointy, elongated silver eyes, and an extended mouth full of pointy teeth.  Well Mat for one jumps 6 inch off his seat and I, well I just plain started crying.  Real tears and full blown sobs.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am a tough cookie and nothing scares me (apart from perhaps ‘The Ring’), the reason I was all upset was that this image is one that plagues my nightmares.  Dark figures with white eyes and big mouths of pointy teeth.  The only other film that got this reaction was ‘Donnie Darko’ and that isn’t even scary.

It appalled me to see the film classification rating of this film.  It was 12A.  This means that I could have taken my 3 year old to see it provided she was with me.  There were children as young as five in there and all of them came out pale faced. 

As we all know our nightmares are often more frightening than real life and I am stunned to learn that classification takes into account blood scenes, gun scenes, sexual content but not scenes of horror.

Now browsing the internet to provide a picture of what I am waffling on with also reveals that the makers of the film did their utmost to keep images of this character ‘Venom’ out of the media until the film was released.  No wonder.  If parents had any inclining of the content of this film the attendance would have gone through the floor.

I had a hard time finding this picture, I warn you that it isn’t fluffy bunnies.  This is taken from early cgi efforts and isn’t finished.  I can honestly say that even this wouldn’t come close to what is actually in the film.  I ask you, would you like your young child to be faced with this:  Venom

I haven;t been able to go and see her as much as I should have been either as I have had quite a bad chest and sinus infection for two weeks now and I don’t want to hit her immune system with anything else.  The doctors are saying that my immune system (which is weak anyway due to a condition called Gilbert’s Syndrome) is compromised due to the stress of recent events.  At this moment, despite double strength anti-biotics, I am laid up in bed with badly bleeding sinuses (yes, eww! I’m sorry and a headache like you wouldn’t believe.

My hubby is having to look after the kiddies, even though he is just out of hospital.  He has had an infection after and operation he had 8 weeks ago and was really badly for a while, though at the moment he is a lot better.  I have looked after him as much as I possibly could for the past few days and have taken full care of the kiddies despite being ill, but now I just can’t go on.  I’m beating myself up about it but my hubby is stubborn and has insisted I take to bed as I can’t look after anyone in this state.

As for swapping, I am still managing (which makes me wonder about some of the excuses people have, as I’m not a strong person by far, oops, did I say that!),  I have been only a few days late with one or two swaps while the hubby and mom were in hospital.  I am on top of things now though and even have some swaps out over a month in advance!  There is just one swap that has gone bad, one of my hubby’s, a coffee cuff swap.  He hasn’t been able to do it and I have no idea where to start.  I am going to give it a go as soon as I am better and he’ll just have to live with the bad rating.

In my ‘bed rest’ time I have added a swap and tutorial on paper dyeing using plants from the garden.  The swap can be found here on swapbot and the article is on my craft blog Kucachoo Crafts.

I’m also using the time to catch up with my emails and I’d like to take the chance to thank those people who have supported me with kind wishes and thoughts, those who have sent me random surprises and those who have been dear friend to me through this difficult time, you know who you are

 Firstly I’m loving swap-bot at the moment.  I am being more creative now than I ever have been in my entire life, my mantlepiece is full of cards from people who have sent me stuff and every day I am eager to get up, check my email and greet the postie!  With all this mixed media work I’ve been doing I can’t help but attack everything with a pair of scissors.  The hubby thinks there is a mail vandal about!

 We also have a new addition to the Sylvester household.  Her name is Brie.  Check out her page on Catster.

 I have created a blog for Kucachoo Crafts, my Etsy store.  Recent posts include a collection of links about making books for journaling and a photo tutorial on making an elastic topped storage bag.

I’ve also been updating the soggy-cornflakes parenting blog with some really cool things to do with kids!

The first is a group for journaling.  It’s for those who journal, want to journal or make their own journal.  Journaling these days is a little more than glorified diary entries.  It can be wonderfully creative using pictures, colours and embellishments to make the journal ‘speak’ to you.  you can have a journal on almost anything, nature, recipes, thoughts, inspiration, family history and so on.

The second group is based on a different kind of pen palling.  If you have ever wanted to write to someone as a film star, secret agent or alien.  Alternative pen pals is for you.  It also covers alternative media pen palling where you use different things to write your letters on.  I once read about a lady who received a letter on the insole of a shoe!

If you think that these groups may be of interest to you come on over and join in the fun!