Almost Too Much Excitement!

What a Bad Blogger I've been! Bad Blog-hopper too, for that matter but I'm going to make some time to ahve a good old mooch around my favourite places asap.

Soooo much excitement around here in just a few days!
First of all last Wednesday a man came to clean the ovens. hob and extractor hood - what, you don't think that's exciting? lol You would if you'd seen the state of it before and after! haha

Then on Thursday two men came to tame the conifer hedge at the back of the garden. It was last done just before we bought the house, and by the look of it they'd actually got some butchers in to do the job. No offence to any butchers who may be reading this, but butchers deal with meat, and tree surgeons deal with trees. Or that's the way it should be.
It's taken the 3 years we've lived here for the trees to green up again, and apparently we were very lucky that they did.
Knowing that the guy who was coming to do the job didn't use ladders for work like this, hubby left me with the camera all fitted with a big lens so that I could take photos from the upstairs window to mark the occasion.
Picture 1: Man and chainsaw disappear into trees
Picture 2: Man's head pops out at top of trees
Picture 3: Man gets to work with chainsaw
Picture 4: Man stands nonchalantly on newly cut tree stump, presumably contemplating next cut.
The wood frame you can see at the bottom of the photo is a pergola that I can't reach the top of which should give you some idea how high up Tree-Man was!
Having cut all along the top, they then trimmed the face of the trees so now our hedge is neat and tidy - and thankfully, still nice and green.

Excitement no 3 came on Sunday, when I met up for the first time with forum friends Tracey and Rosie to go to a scrapbooking workshop. It was great to meet them and we had a lovely gossipy time. Rosie of course already does scrapbooking and really just came along for the waffle! Not sure if Tracey has done any before, but I certainly haven't, my only scrapbook efforts have been 8x8 and only about five of them!

So you've got to be gentle with me, OK?

I've got two photos of my very first 12x12 LO to show - because I don't know whether to add the photo corner permanently or not - please feel free to add your tuppenceworth to the debate - I'd really like to know what you think about the photo corner - and also whether you think it needs anything else. I'm not confident enough after just one LO to make any decisions at all!




Anyway, I was so exhausted after all that excitement that I was in bed with a drinking chocolate by 9,30 on Sunday evening - I know, I'm pathetic, aren't I? lol

Last for this time is a birthday card for Youngest Nephew Adam, who'll be 7 in a week or two (one of the many family birthdays we have in May)

It's a variation on a design I did for Nephew Dan's birthday last year. I used my pirate ship Robo template again, and the same ribbon, but I didn't have a ready made chippie skull and crossbones so had to Robo cut this one several times then stick them all together to get the chip effect I wanted. I need to alter that template though as the eye socket and mouth bit aren't really big enough.

If you made it right through to the end - Well Done!
You'll be glad to know that that's the lot for this time/
Hope to catch up with everyone really soon,
Thanks for popping by

Lemon and Lime from Ribbon Oasis

It's warming up nicely outside, looks like being two hot ones on the trot woohoo.
We spent most of yesterday in the garden, I was weeding, pruning and shredding and hubby was hedge-trimming and planting tomatoes - exciting eh?
I think he got a bit carried away with seed planting as our garden is beginning to look like a tomato farm (should such things exist). Looks like I'll be making lots of tomato sauce and soup later in the year then.
There also seems to be rather a lot of courgette plants at the other end of the garden. Well, it is our first vegetable planting year so lessons will be learned......

On Saturday we went to see the latest Indiana Jones film. It was OK, not great, not bad - just OK. At least there wasn't much blood and gore - I hate films where I end up with my eyes shut and my fingers in my ears. OK so I'm a wimp.
I do end up with my eyes shut and my fingers in my ears quite often actually. Years ago we had a long weekend in York and hubby wanted to go to the York Dungeon - he wouldn't go if I didn't, so I went, I really am a great big wuss - they should offer reduced rates for people who need to be led around by the hand because of the eyes shut, ears blocked thing - surely I can't be the only one?

Checked with Bea that it's ok to share some things made for Ribbon Oasis recently. Bea sent a lovely assortment of ribbons and trims in zingy lemon and lime shades. I thought they'd look good not just for summery projects but also would be perfect to make a little scrap page with a photo I took last Autumn just as the leaves were turning - it also encouraged me to do another page in my 2007 mini album - which in truth, hasn't got very far since last March! ooops!Card is Bazzill, the little trees are cut from some BG that came in a Self Addressed kit months ago. All the ribbon, and that gorgeous felt flower trim stuff is obviously from Ribbon Oasis and just look how many of my stash of brads I used!This is a little box made with chipboard squares all fastened together with pieces of ribbon. I used a yellow acrylic Paint Dabber to paint the squares, then BG Colour Me Silly papers to decorate them. The rosette on the top is made by running a line of gathering stitches along a length of ribbon, pulling it up to form a rosette then adding a button centre. If you use a wired ribbon you don't even need to do any sewing at all because you can take out the wire from one edge of the ribbon, then gently gather up the ribbon along the wire on the other edge and twist the ends of the wire together to form the rosette.
Also used: Angel Kisses yellow blooms, Cuttlebug scallop flower die
Lastly is this mini notebook. The various ribbons, felt trim and sequin trim were all in my RO kit, the papers are Cosmo Cricket. I used my Bind it All to make the book. Rubbish photo, sorry about that.

Best Laid Plans

I took loads of photos this morning of new cards and some gift tags - made with the latest DCM Little Extra in mind. Went to download them and realised that when Hubby installed another new "holding" gadget for our shared stuff at the weekend, he must have forgotten to set it up so I can download my pics.
Never mind, it'll give me something to blog about another day. I did really want to blog today as I've been getting out of the habit lately so I've had a rummage around and found some stuff I've not shown yet and some full pics of some sneak peeks from a few weeks ago.

First up some photos I took out in the garden last week, I just took them with the little Canon Powershot camera I use for craft stuff because I was too idle to go and get my "proper" camera out.


I'm most certainly not a scrapper and I'm in awe of those who create wonderful scrapbook pages. Occasionally I dabble a bit, but only in 6x6 or 8x8 sizes - those big 12x12 pages scare me to bits! I did the following LOs for the recent Bubbly Funk Cybercrop. One is for my 2007 album - which I've not touched since ,er, March (ooops) and the other is a page for the album I gave to my aunt and uncle last Christmas - and this is the first page I've done for them since then, too. Hopefully I'll get a chance before this Christmas to manage another couple of pages that I can wrap up as an extra Christmas present.

Both these have hidden journalling in the lower right hand corners, a tag or an opening dodah/ The Sam page also has another photo hidden in the little "booklet" behind the first one.


Last thing I can share atm is a sneak peek of something I've just finished making for a Christmas present.