Catching up

....on my blog, if not my "to do" list!
We had somne good weather this weekend, no hacking of the garden this weekend as the garden bin is still full to overflowing with yukka from last week's endeavours - as soon as they empty it tomorrow I'll be filling it up again as there's still a pile of the stuff waiting to be disposed of. I did some crafting - I need to make the covers for a new CJ - but having spent some time on it I think I've changed my mind and will start again with some different colours, hmmmm
On Sunday we braved the M25 and went to Fleet in Hampshire to visit Hubby's brother and family who've recently moved into a new house. It's such fun to have a good look round other people's houses and wonder at the bad taste of previous owners! I'm not very keen on the kitchen in our new house but boy, is theirs worse! It was good to see that our house isn't the only place with really bad bathrooms too. It's hard to believe that there is so much choice if you want a really ugly, impractical bathroom suite - but trust me, there is!
And on the subject of bathrooms, we've decided on a builder to do the work on ours now, we're just waiting for him to come round again and get some more detailed plans sorted out and hopefully a date for the work to start. Then hopefully in place of this:










We'll have a nice little en suite shower room leading from our bedroom and a "family" bathroom in the rest of the space. Can't wait to see the back of those hideous green tiles, the manky suite and the tacky taps that don't even work properly - I'm dreaming of the day when I turn a tap on and water comes out! Actually I must confess, the first thing we did on moving in was to paint the walls in the bathroom white - it was such a dismal, dark room with that awful green paint!
Anyway, before I went off on that little rant, it was lovely to see them - we don't see them as often as we should - mainly because there's the M25 and all it's horrors to be negotiated, I think. It was good to catch up as we've not seen them since they came to visit our new house in December. It was a lovely hot and sunny day so we had a barbecue and spent the afternoon in the garden before braving the queues and heading for home.

I've had a few cards to make for a customer of mine - I always like doing work for her as she gives me the names/dates etc then lets me get on with it - none of that mad stuff I occasionally get asked to do! I've done quite a few Christening cards for her and this is the latest. The card is made from pale pink stardream from pda, the background is a square of plain card covered with that gorgeous soft tissue stuff that I can never remember the name of - it's almost a fabric and has tiny flecks of silver and gold foil on it. I decided to keep this one really simple and just gather up some lace to frame the greeting and add a tiny silver cross. I also used a little more pink ribbon, a bow, an edging of silver mirror card and a pink ribbon tab fixed with a tiny silver brad in the corner.
The next card she asked for was for a couple who are emmigrating to New Zealand soon.
I made a template for a silver fern leaf from an image I found on the internet using my craft robo - I wasn't sure it would work so was chuffed to little mint balls when I managed without having to get any Hubby-help (for once!). I cut it in thin white card, then added some fine embossing powder and some white glitter. Because it was thin card I was able to curl the leaf into a nicer shape when I fixed it onto the black glossy card. The shells are puau shell pieces from NZ which I bought at a craft fair ages ago - well, you never know when these things are going to come in handy, do you? The card blank is covered with a piece of that lovely vellum with tiny specks of foil on it (pda again) That FABBY black and white swirly patterned ribbon is from Ribbon Oasis
Last for now a Thank You card using that delicious We R Memory Keepers paper I seem to reach for an awful lot at the moment! There's a toning plain colour on the reverse of every pattterned sheet which makes life so easy! The flowers are "Lucid" Prima Essentials which are a fantastic match for the paper. The greeting was cut with the craft robo.