It's Started

The you-know-what card making!

I thought I'd ease myself in gently, so got the boxes of Cword paper and other bits and bobs out and had a good sort through.  Some have gone in the "pass on to worthy causes" pile,  Some are in a "not sure about these" pile and others I like too much to assign to either of the other piles so they've gone back in the box.  If I'm strong enough, come the end of the Cword crafting I'll dispense with those I've not used - After all, I've already bought lovely new things to use this year, so am I really going to do anything with those old favourites?  Answer on a postcard, please.....

Having done that it was on to the cards.

First I went through my leftovers from last year and threw away those I hated.  I then revamped some I didn't like enough to send last year, but liked enough not to throw away.  Aha! I now had a little pile ready to go in this year's box for very little effort!

Next - and please don't faint - I actually made some cards.  All variations on the same theme and using the same stash.

The die is from the Spellbinders "Fanciful Holiday" set and the papers are from the Kaiser 6x6 "Dear Santa" pad.  The paper for the trees was mounted on to scrap card before cutting, I used the little bauble waste circles to add as mini-brads.  The gold card pieces are from my "scrap gold card" box and the rub-ons are some I had left over from my home made transfer sheets made last year. The blank cards were als some left over from last year.  So it was worth sorting through the Cword stash boxes to see what was there, wasn't it! hehehe.  Okay, so the dies and papers were new but you can't have it all.

Next I'll bore you with a few holiday photos.  This bunch are from Mount Grace Priory near Northallerton, N. Yorkshire where we were staying.

The first shows our cottage from the entrance side - it was the whole of the building you can see, the rooms are off a long corridor with steps between the levels as it goes down the bank 

 The second photo is the cottage from the priory side.  As we were staying there we had access to the priory grounds whenever we wanted to take a stroll.

 

 You wouldn't believe that the busy A19 tuns along the bottom of the hill and is tucked out of sight in this photo taken from just inside our cottage gates!

 

 Normal entry to the site is via the gorgeous old manor house (originally the guest house for important visitors to the monastery) shown below.  The EH people recently moved a cupboard/bookcase in one of the rooms and found that behind it the wall of the alcove still had some of the original William Morris wallpaper on it.  Apparently Sandersons have all the original blocks in their collection so new wallpaper has been made and was being hung while we were there - we were lucky enough to be allowed a sneak peek of the room and you can catch a glimpse of the beautiful paper HERE

 

 The view from the dining table in the cottage was out to the ruins of the old priory church:

 

  The priory was a Carthusian Monastery and the monks there led a hermit-like existence.  Each had his own cell - most were two-storey, and each had his own garden.  Food was brought to the monks by lay workers and they met only rarely in the Church.

The photo below shows the cloister and some of the cells arranged around it.  One of the cells has been renovated and furnished to give an idea of what they were like, you can also see some of the garden area, but it was impossible to get a decent photo as they are in a really shady area.

 Another view of part of the ruins, and the manor house, the following picture als shows the manor, this time from the priory side of the building.

 

 

 It's a lovely place to visit if you're in that area of the country, and even more wonderful as a place to stay - I would absolutely love to stay there again!.  I hope I haven't bored you too much!

Thanks for visiting