MILs Birthday Card

I've been really busy this week what with one thing or another. Some weeks are like that aren't they? I've written a cardmaking class for a cyber crop which is happening over at Scrapstars at the weekend. I didn't realise it was set for Sunday and I won't actually be around so I've had a couple of people check it over and make sure it's all nice and clear and makes sense! Tracie has offered to be Supply Teacher and will be there to help and answer any questions, bless her cotton socks! Thank you Tracie :-)

This is the card I've made for MILs birthday. The papers are from a Self Addressed Kit I do love these kits but far too often I just get them out to look at then put them away again (bad Kathy). The big flower is/was a white Angel Kisses one but I sort of went mad with the inking. I used Cats Eye chalk ink pads in various colours, finally coming up with a shading that I liked, but it looked really "flat" and dull. I decided the worst that could happen was I'd have to start again so got busy with the Krylon pen and actually, I really like the result, it sort of tied all the colours together and gives quite an "opulent" look I think (feel free to disagree, but don't burst my bubble - keep it quiet!!!). The big brad in the centre was yellow, but I Krylon-ed it gold, then Glossy Accented it - then took the photo before the glue was dry, hence the gloopy look, sorry! Now it's dried beautifully but is sealed in the envelope so I can't do another photo.

The greeting is done with QK Phoebe alphabet, and the other bits and pieces are tiny pieces of peach ribbon fixed with peachy coloured brads and some small turquoise-blue prima flowers accented with liquid pearls.

That's it, I hope she likes it.

This Week's Little Extra

The Daring Cardmakers have another word theme for this week's Little Extra challenge.
The word for the week is STAR - that should help you make some more Christmas cards, but it's also great for all sorts of other cards too

OK so I admit it!
This is one of my cards from last year but it fits the theme and I'm running so far behind this week that I doubt I'll ever catch up! I made loads of variations on this theme last year, so can show you a couple of others too.

They were all made using the serendipity technique: cover a piece of thin card with torn or cut up bits of paper - a great way to use up all those beautifully matched scrapbook paper scraps you've been hoarding. Make sure they are well stuck down and let dry. Now find a suitable rubber stamp and using a versamark pad, stamp randomly all over the stuck down scraps. Cover with silver or gold embossing powder and then heat undil the patterns show.

Now you can use punches to cut shapes from your finished serendipity paper. I've done baubles, hearts, flowers as well as the stars, and also just plain squares look great when dressed with a little bit of ribbon or some beads. It's a good idea to either ink the edges, or go round them with a Krylon pen - looks much nicer than leaving a raw edge.

I did have some pictures of the serendipity sheets before they were cut, but I can't find them at the moment. I'll add them later if I discover their whereabouts.

OK, failed to find the photos so have scanned some scraps of what I have left to give you an idea what the sheets look like.

Hope it helps explain it anyway!

Yesterday's Little Visitor

Hubby glanced out of the window on his way out to an archery event yesterday and saw this little chap digging holes in the grass. The archery had to wait a while so that he could get the camera out and take some photos. It's the first time we've noticed a woodpecker - at least that's what we think it is - in the garden. He stuck aaround for a while, I don't think the other birds were very impressed with our visitor though. Between us we took about 70 photos, a lot of mine had the end of his tail on as he teneded to hop just as I clicked! Last week we had a new fence upt up along the drive so hopefully that'll put an end to the hedge attacking the car every time we reverse out of the garage. Also got a nice new gate for the other side of the house, a great improvement on the tatty fence panel that used to do the job.
Put the curtain pole up in the dining room, it had to go into the ceiling so let's just hope that when we get the new curtains and hang them the whole lot doesn't fall down on our heads. Today the new curtains for our bedroom arrived. As did a nice little package of paper, inks and some Twinkling H20s from Stamp Galaxy - like I've got time to play!
Did a few more Christmas cards with doodled frames. I'm not keen on the red one, funny how the black ink just looks so much better.

This morning I've been working on my DT card for Friday's challenge for The Daring Cardmakers, I had a bit of a panic over the weekend when I was beginning to despair of having any idea at all. Seemed an easy-ish Dare when it was issued, but then reality set in and inspiration ran out - very speedily indeed! Mucho relief when an idea came to roost, but of course you'll just have to wait till Friday to see it.

Next on the "to do" list is a birthday card for MIL - I have NO idea what I'm going to do All I can think of at the moment is Christmas Cards. I've also just got an order for 3 cards and a photo album to do at some point too, all needed before Christmas, and a 4th card for just after. Not sure I can cope with it all.......... :-)

How are you Doodley-Doing Today then?

10 o'clock on a Friday morning means only one thing nowadays - the launch of the new Daring Cardmakers Challenge. The time when we take our courage in both hands and show you what we've been dared to have a go at during the past week, and challenge you to join in and give it a try too.

Some of the Dares we've been issued with have made me gulp, Jo's most certainly did, it was probably the most scary so far. I can't draw for toffee.
When I was at college, sitting through those boring lectures on Educational psychology and philosopy I usually found myself decorating the edges of my notepad with flowers , squiggles and occasionally brick walls - I still wonder what the real psychologists would make of that one.
So that's how I decided to approach this dare, my squiggles are anything but artistic but they are true doodles - I was just sitting with a piece of paper and letting the pen go where it wanted, no plan, no system. The black and pink flower card was my first effort.

The squiggles are done with a Sakura Gelly Glaze pen on a piece of vellum, it's attached to the card with silver and black brads - they don't show up very well - look more like dark blotches of ink - but honestly they're brads! The black flower is by Angel Kisses, the others are from a mixed bag of Prima flowers. Ribbon from my stash.

I'm quite chuffed with this one, it looks less ham-fisted, I think! Very simple frame drawn on a scrap of card with Sakura pen as before, then a few extra squiggles added. I even wrote the greeting on this one, somehow it doesn't look too bad on a "relaxed" sort of card. The white card is then just mounted on a piece of dark red paper.

The tree is more Fake Chipboard - I think the paper is a Doodlebug one - I cut strips and stuck them on some card from an old cereal box then cut the slightly curvy tree shape with a craft knife. You get a LOT of little trees from a small strip of card - great for this time of year. I edged the tree with a dark green chalk ink pad before sticking it on the card and adding a star sequin and little red gem.

I've got one other card, but I hate it and am going to try and tart it up a bit before I show anyone!

Nothing

What have I made today? Nothing but a mess.

I've printed off photos ready to make LOs and got pretty much every sheet of paper thar I possess out to see what would work but came up with a big fat nothing.
I really wanted to use the latest Pencil Lines sketch but I'm only doing 8x8 and I don't think it works for the photos I wanted to use.
I've tried about 4 different colours of card and loads of colour combos for papers but it's just rubbish. Maybe it's just a state of mind thing.

These are the photos I wanted to use. This is my cousin's new baby "modelling" the quilt and bumper set I made for his cot.
I think I've realised that it needs to have a fairly plain background rather than the pretty patterns I wanted to use - they look far too busy with these pics. Maybe if I just used one photo it would be better. I just don't know. aaaaggggggghhhhhh

So if you've got any bright ideas, or good advice, or even just a want to say you've been in this place too, please feel free to leave me a message. The most fully-stocked craftroom in the world is a lonely place when your creativity's gone on walkabout.

Cards, cards, cards

Just completed a couple of cards for an order, the first is an anniversary card. I've been waiting for the chance to use this pretty paper, and it worked perfectly with the colour of the plain stuff which I found lurking next to it in my box.. I bought these large velvety roses some time ago only to find they have a polystyrene core which is way too bulky to use on cards. Yesterday I chopped the back off one and found it worked really well - I just hope I put enough tape on the back to stop it falling to bits! It seems ages since I put any beads on a card so I reverted to one of my fave trims and made a bead string for this one. Tiny heart brads and a heart charm to finish.
I've been putting off doing this one because I knew it was going to be tricky. The brief was "can you make a card that says something like; To my brother Daniel on his first birthday from your big sister Katie?"

Now that's a lot of stuff to get on the front of the card! Finally came up with this idea last night and started to get the bits together - too tired really and of course mucked some up so had to start again this morning.

I've just realised I've not got a number 1 - only the single candle on the cake - on there, so will have to figure out how to stick one on somehow before it goes.

The card is cream hammered and the papers are from one of the MM Cosmopolitan pads, along with a bit of Bazzill here and there. The cake is a QK die, but I altered it as it was a bit too wide for the design.

I've also got a few more Christmas Cards done. Still enjoying my fake chipboard (ie a bit of pretty paper stuck on card from empty cereal packets) - this time went for the pink/lilac/grey sahdes from the other papermania pack - ok, I couldn't decide which to get so I got both....:-)

This time as well as the parcels I've made baubles with a Bosskutz die. These worked quite well for the DCM's Little Extra Challenge for this week which is cards on the theme, or using the word SPARKLE, To get the sparkle I used glitter glue (me and loose glitter hate each other vehemently...) and some diamond dot thingies.

And finally, another SPARKLE card, but a Little-Girly birthday card for a change from all those Christmas ones. A few round silver and pink heart gems, plus plenty of glitter card to add the sparkle.

Wand and tiara dies are QK as is the Katie alphabet

Coffee Break

Got my cappuccino on the desk beside me. I even managed to make it without a) spraying myself with steamed milk or b) flinging coffee grounds all over my kitchen for once.
A pretty good weekend really. The weather was beautiful - all bright blue skies and gorgeous Autumn colours. Hubby test drove another car first thing Saturday morning, but I'm not allowed to say anything because he read that I called him "awkward" and wasn't happy....
Then off to the shops with our Christmas/December Birthdays present list. We've now got most of what we need from actual "bricks and mortar" shops, so now we can concentrate on the internet shops/ It's such a good feeling to have got so much done - and there's a big element of relief in there too. I suppose I should start with the wrapping now then.

We also bought curtain poles, decided to say "what the heck" and just buy the flipping things - at least for the dining room and our bedroom.

Lunch was at the Red Lion near Welwyn - probably our most frequented Saturday lunchtime spot. But I didn't have my usual Hunter's Chicken, opting instead for a Aberdeen Angus Steak burger. I rarely have burgers but this one was very tasty indeed! OH had the double chicken fillet open pie which looked delicious so might have that next time... We were both tempted by puddings so he had his childhood favourite Banana Split and I had the Toffee Apple Granny - yum.
Back at home we sorted the lounge out - well as much as we could what with still having an extra sofa down at one end that I forgot to ring the charity people about. So now the cables for the TV are now neatly hidden under the carpet and we've moved a couple of other bits of furniture around and I might even remember to take a photo so you can admire our beautiful new sofas and be really jealous!
Next OH headed up the ladder to put the first of the new curtain poles up so we can measure and order those curtains at least. Finally it feels like we're getting somewhere.

I got another LO for the scrapbook finished at the weekend, I found this difficult, couldn't quite get the bubbles idea to work, but in the end I gave up and stuck it all down anyway! The papers and letters are from Beckie's November kit - lovely Cosmo Cricket stuff - plus a bit of BG Oh Baby Boy fibres to tie in the colours of the bath. The backing paper is actually the reverse of one of the Prima Stone Rose pack of papers - good job you get 2 pieces in each of the packs....


This morning I've managed to do a couple of cards for the next Dare - another stinker - probably the one I've found most scary so far as it's so far out of my comfort zone it's probably in a different galaxy! So I'm feeling pretty chuffed this morning - not saying the cards are good, but at least I beat the scary monster by doing them at all!

The guitar card is for the sone of a friend, OK it's going to be late, but it'll get there eventually. He's taking guitar lessons so hopefully this will be ok. Have you spotted that this also meets the Ribbon for a Man criteria because of that cute musical ribbon at the bottom!

Made some Christmas toppers yesterday and have just done the printing on the cards so that's the next job. I wonder if I can add a "Little Extra" to make them qualify for our midweek madness challenge? hhhmmmm, if I just....

Women are from Venus?

You Are From Mercury

You are talkative, clever, and knowledgeable - and it shows.You probably never leave home without your cell phone!You're witty, expressive, and aware of everything going on around you.You love learning, playing, and taking in all of what life has to offer.Be careful not to talk your friends' ears off, and temper your need to know everything.

What Planet Are You From?

Saw this on Paula's blog and thought it was fun. Talkative? me? surely not?

Actually, I'm quite pleased with myself!

TWELVE Christmas cards added to my box in one day - it may not seem a huge number, but for me it's LOADS!!!!!

Inspired by Beverley, who regularly joins in with our DCM Dares, I made these cards yesterday using card from an old cereal packet - I cut strips from a Papermania Christmas selection pack, covered the piece of card with them, then chopped them up to make trees and parcels. I've still got loads left but whether I get round to using them is anyone's guess. Maybe I could do some with different colours....Maybe I could see if I can use my sidekick to cut out some more interesting shapes...wonder if that would work? ummmmm.

We're all very excited because our very own Daring Cardmaker Jo Kill is up for Cardmaker of the Year in Simply Cards and Papercraft mag. Check out Jo's blog for more examples of her fantastic cards, and if you'd like to add your vote, well, there's a form on the SC&P website where you can do just that!

Ribbon for Men

Daring Cardmakers Friday Report :-)
Debbie dared us to make a card for a man using at least a little piece of ribbon. Apparently her first though was to make us use flowers on a man's card, but she thought we might mutiny at that so went for the ribbon instead. Little did she know what some of the team would come up with. You need to check out the Dare Blog to see.

Mine is really tame compared to some, I apologise in advance! All I could think was, oooh it's my brother's birthday in December how can I use this dare to get his card made ahead of time?
So obviously it has to have a sports theme, and obviously that theme has to be football.

So here you go a football themed card with Leeds Utd colours for the ribbon element, and for the highlight borders. .
It's all self evident, a bit of chalking, some of the usual chalk inks (the cats eyes ones to be exact). I stamped the greeting and, with hindsight I should have embossed it as the letters are a bit flat looking. I think I'll have another go at that bit before December as I'm really not happy with it. I used QK studio alphabet to add the name, and the footballs are from QK too.

Getting not very far

I need to do another page for that scrapbook I'm supposed to be making. Unfortunately, no matter how many photos I print off, when I sit down to make a page my mind goes blank and I can't think what to do.
Had a wander into town yesterday and managed to buy a few bits and pieces for Christmas, Most of the adults are now sorted I think, but so far we've only got something for one out of the 7 nieces/nephews, so that's not really going very well. (note to self, ring the parents for ideas....)

Oh no, I've just realised I've got a couple of birthdays mixed up. I thought it was Lisa's today, but have just checked and it was yesterday which means she probably didn't get her card on time. Sorry Lisa, hope you had a lovely day - and the card is on it's way, I promise.
Which also means that it's actually Friend's son's today, not that I've made his card yet anyway as I wasn't planning to go over with it till the w/e anyway. That's on my job list for today.

Just to prove it, this is the card I've made for Lisa. You know the "killed 2 birds with 1 stone" thing - well this time I got THREE! Not only did I make Lisa's card, but I used the lovely Cosmo Cricket papers, ribbons and flowers from Beckie's November kit AND this card meets the criteria for the Daring Cardmakers' "Little Extras" for this week. The challenge was to use the following ingredients:

1 tag

2 different fibres or ribbons

3 different patterned papers

The Waterfall Book

So, here's the waterfall book that I finally managed to get finished. They're actually really easy once you know how! The waterfall name comes from the way the pages move - if you hold the book gently by the sides then pull on the back page all the pages flip over like a waterfall - very clever and very impressive. I used papers from Cherry Arte and from Chloe's Closet to cover the pages in this one as they seemed to work so well together. The blank bits are for the recipient to put their own pictures in. The pictures are in the order they appear in the book.

Bags of fun

My first go at making Beckie's Bagalicious

Papers are a mixture of Cherry Arte papers from the Bumbleberry October kit, and Chloe's Closet ones from an old Self Addressed Collection. I'm going to fill the bag with nice bbathtime treats and give it my friend sara for her birthday.

Monday Monday

Our new sofas are ready! They are at the showroom and ready for delivery, we could have had them on Saturday but as the lounge is already full of sofas they are going to be delivered on Thursday instead. So yesterday saw us putting the old chair in the guestroom and the sofa bed up in the spare room. Sounds easy? Not a bit of it. It was far too heavy for us to get up the stairs - which btw have a "dog leg" half way up. Hubby decided to take the metal bed frame bit out of the sofa so that made getting it upstairs much easier. Next problem was getting it into the room - would it go? Not without a fight. We ended up taking the door off and still it was a struggle - all a problem of angles - or lack of them. Oh the feeling of triumph (and relief) when we found the right way up the sofa had to be to go into the room.
We now only have our tiny sofa till the new stuff arrives - and then we have to figure out what to do with that, but we'll put that one off for a few days.

The TV has been moved to other side of the fireplace, but as we're not sure if this format will work, it's just sort of sitting there, with all the wires across the floor - looks really pretty and organised - not! It's a bit like the chaos of "just moved in" all over again. Hey it'll be nice when it's finished. I hope.

After a bit of a struggle I finally managed to make the waterfall book I've been playing with for the last few days. I did what I should have done in the first place, make a "dummy" version with bits of blank card just to see how it worked - it was so easy once I'd done this that I'm cross at having spent so long reading and re-reading and trying to work it out without actually sticking it together. I hope the recipient will like it and see through the imperfections, because this little book took a lot of time, effort and determination - plus a little bit of temper and foot stamping before it was done! Pictures to follow!
I've also got one of Beckie's Delicious Bagalicious Bags almost done. This I will fill with bits and pieces for a birthday present for one of the December birthdays we seem to have so many of - rather inconsideratly, I can't help feeling.
More of that later too.

Mind Your Language

What a fantastic response to last week's Daring Cardmakers Dare - you did us proud, Thank you.
I added another link just this morning so don't forget to go and check out all the blogs and the gallery - apart from those of the DT there are around 13 or 14 other cards to look for, and they are all fantastic.

Right, on to this week's little teaser.
At first reading Tracie's Dare didn't look so bad. A card which had to feature another language on it - no problem.

YES Problem........

It's not that I couldn't come up with some ideas, it's just that either they didn't work on paper, or that they were ideas that on reflection would be better for other projects (wink wink).
So Wednesday night saw me lying awake working out how to make the latest idea work.

I made the card yesterday morning - after it was done I realised that I'd even forgotten to have my usual mid-morning cappuccino - see what sacrifices I made for this one? :-)
Anyway, here it is:

Just in case it isn't obvious, it's "The Language of Flowers"

Originally I was going to put squares of card with individual flowers and their meanings, a mix of photos, diecuts and paper flowers, but I realised that a bouquet would look better as long as I had enough paper flowers to make one!

Actually I was quite surprised to find just how many different usable elements I had in the shoeboxes of flowers. Plenty enough to make a decent bouquet and then some....

The background is glittered vellum from K&Co's Chelsea collection, with a bit of extra chalk ink around the edges. I found the flower meanings on the net, printed them off in green ink and dabbed different shades of decorating chalk over to take the whiteness off, then used cats eye chalk inks in various shades to colour the edges. It's hard to describe how to make a bouquet , but they're not as tricky as they look - all you really need to do is get a few flowers and wind something round the stems to hold it together - I usually just bend up one of the flower stems and use that to wind around the rest.

Hope you like it.

Close run thing

Tomorrow sees the new Dare going live and I've had a real struggle to come up with an idea I could make work. The pile of discarded paper, card, pictures etc on my desk tells a tale of ever increasing panic.

Late last night inspiration finally struck and this morning I've made my card - but you'll have to wait till tomorrow to see it - huge sighs of relief here, I can tell you. I should be allowed to play this afternoon, but instead there's a great big pile of ironing to do. Maybe if I become a really speedy ironer....

Paula - thanks for the mini book idea, its def on my list of things to do I think they'd make fab little presents and would love to give them a try. If only Debs sets us a nice easy Dare for next week I might have a bit more time.

Waiting and wondering

Is today too soon for my new Self Addressed Kit to arrive? If I go up to the postbox to post this card order off, is that the time the parcel post will arrive with my box of goodies? Of course it is....I'll wait and go to the post this afternoon then. Thanks for helping me to decide.

Feeling chuffed because I killed two birds with one stone and used the Daring Cardmaker's "Little Extra" - this week a card layout sketch, to make a birthday card for a commission - are you like me and get a buzz from doing something like that? Feels a bit naughty and like you've "got one over" on the system. I know it's daft. Anyway here's the sketch and here's the card

Oooh after a grey and gloomy start the sun is making an appearance - typical of course that it should wait till I'd taken the card photo in poor light and packed it up with the others ready to post.

I'm prevaricating - can you tell? Loads more to do including my card for Friday's Dare for which I still have NO IDEA what to do....

Then there's the Christmas cards to get on with only 31 done so far - not 331 as I miss-typed on a forum and made all the other readers' jaws drop - hehehe, I didn't half laugh when I read the comments that followed and realised what I'd done!

"331 .........are these all for yourself to send out kathy? or do you sell some?? I make about 40 ish for ourselves, have 2 done so far!"

"I just reread your mail about 5 times - how many cards do you send?"

chuckling still at the very idea that I could EVER manage to make that many cards.....

Wellllll

How about that for timing.

Two minutes after I pressed "Publish Post" the doorbell rings and Postie is there with my lovely SA kit for this month. Now, what am I going to do with microscope slides and wooden discs, ummmm

More to show....

I've been making some more Christmas cards (well, it has to be done...) Just going to show a couple here for now. The black and white one was made with left over bits from a challenge to make a card using black and white, with ribbon only adding any other colour. Hared than it sounds as I had to fight against adding a brad, or a flower etc! I can't count this card though as the backing paper, stars and pots add too much in the way of "extras"


Another card made for a commission, this one an egagement card. There is no blue on it despite how it looks - the light must have caught on the silver edge as I was taking the photo! I had loads of bother with this - it started off with a fuchsia rather than dark red colour on the B&W baackground but no matter how much stuff I got out I couldn't find the right embellishments to work with it. Went back to my favourite dark red and hey presto!

Fireworks

Back on the seemingly never-ending Curtain track (haha pardon the pun...) we went to one of the nearby towns where there is a good curtain /interiors shop and spoke to a lovely and very knowledgable lady about our curtain problem. Anyway, upshot is that it's all much more positive than the last outing, and she's coming over on Tuesday to have a look in situ, so to speak. Fingers crossed, because I'm getting bored with this now!

It was a lovely sunny Autumn day yesterday, we were up and about early for once, did some Christmas shopping at one of the local garden centres, then headed for St. Ives where Hubby had noticed there was a car he wouldn't mind seeing (yes, we're still on the car-buying trail). However, sneakily the road we usually use to get there was closed and we found ourselves going in the wrong direction - so we gave up as we were running out of time to get there and back. Hubby was out doing some archery in the afternoon - it's what they call a "frostbite" - they shoot outdoors once a month through the winter and hubby uses the longbow for this. His exxcuse is that a longbow takes no putting together/taking apart - a great benefit on chilly days!

November 5th was not only my cousin's birthday but it
was Guy Fawkes Night too. No bonfire (well apart from the little one when they managed to set light to the football pitch....)and no Guy Fawkes on top of it, but plenty of pretty pretty fireworks to ooooh and aaaah at the display we went to. Not even that cold either. Remembering back to having fireworks in the garden when I was little and living in Northumberland, we'd be well wrapped up in big coats, hats, scarf and gloves and still feel the chill. but last night I had my gloves on but didn't even need to fasten my coat!

Home by 8 and some nice M&S food for dinner. A good day.

Dare3 it was all my fault

I thought Sewing would be such a good idea for this week's Dare. pah!
It wasn't long till I was regretting it, funny how all the ideas you get in your head just won't make it onto paper sometimes isn't it?
Anyway this was my card. All the letters are made from various ribbons, folded (or otherwise persuaded .....) into shape and sewn by machine onto some thin pink card. I used different stitches and wasn't too precious about how neat it looked going more for a "relaxed" look - well that's my excuse anyway. After the sewing I cut them out quite close to the stitches ready to be fixed onto the card. the "O" is made with loops of 4 differnet ribbons sewn together then a cute flower shaped button sewn in the middle (it hides all the messy stitching too) and tied with a dotty pink narrow ribbon. . I used a DL sized card - it had to be big to get all the letters on! The edges have strips of Junkitx Hip Hop Skinny Stripes paper along the edges - I love this paper.

The tag is machine sewn - a chance to try out the memory in my sewing machine which lets me load several stitches/letter patterns in and then just put my foot down - cool or what?. The little primas are sewn with bead centres and the button in the centre of the big Prima came from a pack of similar ones but I can't remember who makes them, sorry!

With a bit of luck I might even get rund to doing another card with sewing stuff on - I'm sure those ideas that are swimming around the goldfish bowl I call my head could actually get out and show themselves if I only force them.....

Don't forget you don't have to have a blog to play along now, we've got a gallery and an email address for you to send your cards to - check the Daring Cardmakers Blog for all the info. Now I'll sit back and look forward to seeing your "Just Sew" stories, shall I?

Love is.....

I've just finished this page for the scrapbook I'm making as a Christmas gift. I've used this week's theme from the "Because You're Speshal" blog, I loved this photo of Julie with her newborn son, and it seemed to work well with the "Love is...." theme. It's my first go at entering a scrapbook dare, and hopefully not my last because I need all the help I can get to make this book worth actually wrapping up and putting ribbon on at Christmas!

Quick quick....

Catching up while Blogger is behaving properly!
Had a lovely time with my aunt and uncle when they came over for a few days stay on their way home from visiting Baby Grandson.
It meant I didn't get much crafting done, but spending time with them is much more important, and we always enjoy their visits. My cousin lives just along the A1 from here so he came over after work on Friday to spend the weekend here too.
As usual their visit involved a tour of local garden centres, a bit of other shopping and an English Heritage or National Trust site, this time Shaw's Corner at Ayot St Lawrence.


I've been wanting to try on some of these much acclaimed "crocs" shoe things for ages now - so was chuffed to find that the garden centre at Willington (Bedfordshire) has them. Couldn't quite get my head around the bright pink, considered the pretty lilac but in the end plumped for nice sedate navy blue. And here they are. Hubby says that if I paid more than £2.99 I was robbed and my aunt, uncle and cousin just looked, they were wearing that "I can't think what to say about those" faces. What do you think of the socks? they don't show up well but are pink, turquoise and white stripes and even have glitter thread in them.


We went to Ireland for lunch on Saturday, to the Black Horse, which is a rather nice "Dining Pub" in the middle of nowhere. That's Ireland, Bedfordshire by the way!. I had pork medallions in a creamy mustard sauce, then shared the Assiette of puddings with hubby - little sizes of white chocolate sorbet, baked cheesecake with summer fruits, steamed fudge pudding with butterscotch sauce and cherry brandy creme brulee. Oh boy how glorious were all of them!

A nice parcel arrived on Friday morning - some new stash from Crafty Pastimes. I only went to order some little silver charms, but somehow a load of Angel Kisses flowers, some tiny ricrac braid, and this lovely pack of papers from Prima fell into my basket. Now how did that happen?