Friday, March 16, 2012

Spring Greens

Don't you just love it that the day you have loads of internet-required tasks on your list is the day you wake up, switch on and find....."cannot open page as there is no service..."
I gave them a couple of hours after the "it'll be back by 2pm" they told us, and then rang to find out what was going on. Yes, the fault is fixed, you probably need to reboot the wotsit - do you know where it is?  hmmm, well I know it's on the ledge behind hubby's desk - but I also know that there's a mess of all sorts of gadgets, wires and cables behind there and to be perfectly honest that's as far as my knowledge goes.  Thank you to Nice Man at Virgin Media who kindly and patiently waited while I dragged massive desk away from the wall enough to squeeze behind, then as I described the various "stuff" - finally finding the right one to unplug so he could do the honours from his end. 
I guess they are used to dealing with such ineptitude!
Bad thing number 2 for yesterday was the discovery that the glass splash-backs arrived and didn't fit!  We know the templates fitted perfectly because we were called in to the kitchen by the guy who made them to see how it would look when the glass was in. The glass is exactly right against the templates he made, so how the blazes don't they fit?  Bemused.
Today the UK Rep for the manufacturers of the doors and drawer fronts has been to see for himself the problem with those!  Last time I did the Swiss a dis-service by saying they came from Switzerland - I apologise! - it's the Austrians who mucked up!  The whole lot are to be replaced, which is good, but means more delay.
Through it all our Kitchen designers have been absolutely fab and I can't fault the way they have dealt with it all - none of the problems have been down to them - all the work they have done is first rate and their attention to detail is brilliant - their handling of the project and determination to make sure it is all perfect in the end has kept us sane!

Tomorrow we have the plumbers here to fit the new water heating system.  I think it's called a "mega-flow" system and will hopefully mean that it won't take five minutes to get hot water from the various taps, and that the new taps in the kitchen will produce more than the dribble they do atm!

I can't quite believe we're getting towards the end of March already as we've been living in Building Work Limbo since a week into 2012.....it will be lovely when it's finished......

So yesterday's internet hiccup means I'm sharing my own challenge for Get Funky's Funky Fifteenth on the 16th and also my card for the new Daring Cardmakers Challenge too.

For Get Funky, I chose a "Spring Celebrations" theme; It could be something for Mothers' Day, or Easter, or it could simply be a celebration of Spring itself, and any sort of project goes - so if you want to make an Easter basket, or an Easter Bonnet, or a scrapbook page showing off the daffodils in your garden then it's all okay!  Just make sure you use at least one Funky Hand product on whatever you make.  It's amazing and not a little irritating when people don't read that one little rule!  It's especially annoying when they share such gorgeous creations, but rule themselves out of being chosen as our winner because they've not complied....such a shame!
I think my own Celebration of Spring project may end up as a little wall hanging, or maybe as a page in a mini book, rather than as the card it is atm!
Visit the Get Funky Blog to find out how to join in with us this month - and maybe win our prize of a free download of your choice.  There's also instructions on how to get hold of this month's Funky Freebie.  I've added more about how I made this card and instructions on how to make the paper frill
Materials:
Funky Hand CD Craft the Year Away - I've used papers from the Marching On and April Fool collections
Matching shades of Seam Binding to make a layered bow
Organza flower with pearl centre
Lemon Ice Stickles

It's actually one of the Spring Celebrations that Samm has chosen to base her "Lucky Green" challenge for the Daring Cardmakers around this week too
It's Samm here and this weeks' challenge is
'Lucky Green'
Yes, St Patrick's day is on its way, so I challenge you to make a card using the main colour as green and feature 'luck' somewhere on your card. It's one of those colours we hardly ever get to use so I hope it gets you all digging around in your crafty stash and creating frantically!
Looking through my Funky Hand downloads and CDs for the right stuff to use for the project above was very timely as the "Marching On" set I got the pale green background paper for the Get Funky card from is all about shades of green with a bit of deep turquoise/aqua in the mix.  Just the ticket and meant I didn't need to go searching through my stash - I could just "Print...and Go" hehe
 I'm not entirely happy with this and it might undergo a bit of a facelift before it actually gets used - I think it might be better on a white background for starters.
Materials:
All papers: Funky Hand CD Craft the Year Away - "Marching On" collection
Good Luck banner and the 3 leaf clover motif are created from images also found on the  Craft the Year Away CD
Green ruffled edge ribbon from Creative Treasures (there's a special offer on Prima flowers atm )
Ice Stickles
Tools:
Craft Robo to cut the banner, letters and shamrock shapes

I hope you'll head over to our BLOG as the cards look stunning again this week. 

Thanks for looking today and for putting up with my waffle at the start - sometimes you just have to have a good old rant don't you? - but I do seem to be on a bit of a ranting roll lately!  I will try to make my next post rant-free :)

Have a great weekend

10 comments:

Ania - "Z Papieru Tworzone" said...

Kathy beautiful work.
I love it!
Hugs,
Anna.

Ania - "Z Papieru Tworzone" said...

Kathy beautiful work.
I love it!
Hugs,
Anna.

Kaz said...

Huge sympathies with the extended kitchen work. I had less done and it was done a bit quicker and I struggled with it. It WILL be worth it in the end, even if it seems so far off still.
Your cards are just gorgeous as usual, lovely and bright and cheerful xxx

Angelnorth said...

Gah, hope you get the kitchen hiccups sorted soon! The cards look great, I like the green good luck one as it is!

Anonymous said...

These are both gorgeous Kathy; I love the fresh and bright colours.

It feels like ages since the work on your house started - I don't know how you're coping!! I'd be going mad by now!!
xx

Kim Dellow said...

They are just gorgeous Kathy, lovely colours and details. Kim

Hanne said...

Such beautiful cards! Lovely green!
Hanne

Samm said...

Fab card!,, love the cute little daisies!
Samm
x

tracy said...

what lovely cards kathy :)
hope the kitchen dosen't take too much longer!!

Sharon (glitterangel) said...

I think your good luck card is perfect as it is, I love the flowers too. Hope you get your kitchen back soon!