Industrious Bank Holiday Weekend

Well it has been for us! No complaints about the British weather this weekend it has been wonderful yet again if a touch breezy.

My husband has been busy with the garden furniture sanding it down and giving it a coat of oil and hasn't it come up a treat? The photo below shows before and after, I think the after chair on the right looks like new.


We have also been to Wickes and bought slabs, sand etc. to do a bit of hard landscaping in our garden. (see the blue tarpaulin in the corner of the above photo) That area is going to be paved and will give us more room to put out our table and chairs. It was heavy work carting 20 slabs and bags of sand from the front garden where they were delivered, to the back garden where they are to be laid. Good job Kris is big enough to help now.

This next photo is of some Craft Robo cut letters which I managed to weld together!!!! I am really proud of myself (psst! but don't ask me to tell you how I did it hahaha) it took me all afternoon to do though and my brain was very frazzled by the end of it.

I will try again when I have relaxed a while - maybe that will be a job for the next Bank Holiday weekend. hahaha

tar rah x

Pre Wedding Nerves?

Well here in Blighty (United Kingdom) things are hotting up for the Royal Wedding. You must of all heard by now that Prince William is marrying Kate Middleton tomorrow, and if you haven't you must be living in a hole! hahahaha

I will be watching tomorrow on the telly - well it would be rude no too as they have given me the day off! haha.

I bet they are both nervous but wish them well and fingers crossed that it doesn't rain.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to you all
Hope you have all had a lovely family day?
I did with my parents and sister and her daughter.

Easter Tree on Good Friday

Hello everyone and hope you are all having a lovely Good Friday?

The sun is shining, we just had lunch and I've photographed my Easter decorations. We don't normally decorate the house for Easter but after a recent visit to John Lewis with my daughter we decided to have a go this year. I kept saying, "Wow that is expensive .... I could make that! .... that is so easy to make etc" that my daughter said "Well make it Mum!!" hahaha. So I did .......

This is my knitted bunting with felt letters and beading ..... thanks to Anjie for the tutorial on the i cord, really easy to knit and very good for attaching the bunting triangles too.


I finally got round to using some of the beads I bought last year from the wonderful Creative Beadcraft shop in Beak Street, London.

And finally the Easter Tree. I've never made one before and just made it up as I went along. I cut branches from our garden hedge and then bound them together with masking tape and covered the whole thing with gesso.

All the decorations were bought except the flower which I made, again using a template and instructions from Anjie.


Have a lovely day and a wonderful Easter break. x

Christmas comes to April

Being on Easter Holidays I have had time to play catch up with some challenges and here is my offering today.


For Hazel's Christmas Challenge number 5 "Santa" or as we usually call him, in my house anyway, Father Christmas. I love this little wooden stamp and every year I use him I think he is so jolly just as a Father Christmas should be! I stuck him onto green card stock and he is standing on a piece of card which has been inked with Dylusion sprays and a sticker for the word Believe.

So do you believe in Father Christmas?

I still have quite a way to go to catch up with Hazel's challenges as she is already on number 16 eek! Please pop over and have a look at her blog - new challenges are posted every Saturday.

Surprisingly Good Afternoon!

Don't you just love it when that happens? You think something is going to be a chore and then it turns into something quite pleasant!

Kris needed to go to Wheathampstead and research the River Lee and photograph it for his Geography course homework. Yawn yawn I thought "Ok I'll come along with you." I said. And what a great time we had.
Found the river and took lots of photos as evidence for his course and then found a bridleway to walk along. Very lovely in the warmish weather.



Of course when we started out it was just gone 11 so we weren't hungry but after some fresh air and exercise we were ready for a little snack! So we went into this very nice pub for some lunch - sssh don't tell Kat.
I wonder what other homework he needs "help" with hahahaha!

It's All Gone .......

..... my hair that is! I've been wanting it cut for sometime. Yes I know I grow it long then don't do a thing with it then have it cut hahaha.

Well at 4 o'clock it looked like this


And yes my bum does look big in those lounging trousers but I wasn't going out in them lol.

Then at 5 o'clock my hairdresser arrived. Five minutes past five this happened ...


eeek my hair! I have it in a bag at the mo hahaha. And then after many snips and cuts later this was the result of the floor ...

what a mess. Ten minutes to sweep that up and then hoover up the small pieces and then had time to take a photo to show you lot.

So are you ready? Well this is the new me!



I love it and that is the main thing. Hope you like it too?

Glorious Sunny Saturday

Wow hasn't the weather today been glorious? Well it has in this part of Hertfordshire! Beautiful blue skies and warm Spring sunshine - lovely.

Well today I made a few cards. One of which I am entering as the Daring Cardmakers "draw a bird" challenge. Visit their blog for more information.
Well I haven't exactly drawn just any old bird - I have drawn a chicken, yes a chicken? I'm not sure why but she looks quite cheerful on this "carefree" card. The paper is by Fancy Pants. The bottom card has been coloured with Lime Pearl Mica Spray and Sky Blue Pearl Mica Spray from Dylusions and the chicken herself is also card painted with Dylusions Yellow acrylic paint. For the beak and feathers on the top of her head they are coloured using Neo color crayons.


The second card to share today is "dream" for which I used Fancy Pants and Scenic Route papers and a gem. A bit of doodling and finish!


The last card you might recognise, as it was laying on my desk on Wednesday, and it has now been finished. I stamped flowers onto some Scenic Route papers and cut them out then stuck a gem in the middle. These were then matted onto some paper printed from my Artylicious CD ROM Filigree Fusion (another thing I have found whilst looking for something else hahaha)

Well not a bad haul for the first day into my holidays. Thanks for dropping by.

WOYWD

Hi there blog guests

Today I realised it was Wednesday, after spending most of the day thinking it was Thursday haha, so I decided to show my "work desk". See Julia's blog as to the ins and outs!

Last night I got very inky as the desk can vouch for! I covered most of what was laying around on my desk and my fingers in Dylusion spray inks. I had so much fun! I was playing around with the "ghosting" technique which Dyan demos on her blog it is wonderful to see the results developing.


I created another card for Daring Cardmakers Challenge this week "to feature a daisy or sweetpea" and as I found this stamp in my stamp box whilst sorted them out I thought I would use it. The sun came out today and it was wonderful to be warm and wear my sunglasses for a change. Playground duty wasn't a chore for once! Only two more days until the Easter Holidays - yippee!

Daisy, daisy give me your answer do ......

Happy Mother's Day to all you Mums out there.

My children did me proud and I received a lovely handpainted spotty mug from Kris and Kat had these beautiful tulips delivered, aaaah not such bad kids after all.
Also to show today are three cards I made last night for the Daring Cardmakers Challenge this week which is to feature either daisies or sweetpeas.


So I hope these can loosely be included. I also tried to make some crinkle flowers that I saw on a tutorial on Such a Pretty Mess blog. I think they need refining though *cough* so I tried to disguise the wonkiness with ink and Stickles haha.

Have a great day!

Button Mum

A Mother's Day card to show you today. I used the prompt from Gorjuss challenge from two week's ago which was "buttons".




These buttons aren't real they are chipboard ones which I inked with Distress Inks. A little bit of stickles on the stamped flower in the bottom and "Bob's your uncle"!

I would like to wish all Mums a Happy Mothers Day for tomorrow.
x x x

Christmas in March

I have been really late with these challenges from Hazel's Christmas Challenge Blog so over the weekend I had a little play and a catch up.

I made these two cards. The first card is for challenge number 10 "Embossed" and I have used a Cuttlebug embossing folder with snowflakes on. Not a usual colour you would think for snowflakes - green - but I like them and with the dotty green paper I think it works.
The second card is for challenge number 9 "Sentiment" and I used this wood mounted stamp, (can't remember who it is by) but I have had it years and it is one of my favourites.
I've also made a few more cards but they are waiting for elements to dry and if I tried to photograph them I know I would smudge the glue - I'm not a handy as Net who usually photographs projects with wet glue and manages to do it perfectl hahaha.

Spring fever?

Hope you remembered to put your clocks forward (those of you in the UK that is) I didn't need to as my DAB Bug does it automatically, so I was up at 8.30 (really 7.30 but ssssh don't tell my brain or I will go to bed far too early :) )

Today I want to share another journal page with you. This one has been in progress for sometime as I doodle and wipe my waterbrush over several pages to clean it and if I have any "spare" paint left over after a project I just wipe it on a clean page. So this page did have flowers all over it and then I doodled some mountains and there it stayed for ages.


I found a "rubbish" dictionary that Kris had but the pages were falling out so I took charge of it (to recycle it of course) and made the house. Sorting through my desk I found this house that Gez made me so I decided to incorporate that too. Gez's house is hinged as it has a little message on the back.

The "creatures" on this page look rather weird because originally they all started out as flowers haha. After gessoing over the flowers some were very persistant and kept peeking through so hence the rather demented looking birds and fat bumblebee (see another one!) And just in case you were wondering what the brown things are on the hills ...... they are rabbits tee hee.

Well enjoy the rest of your Sunday. x

"bright and breezy ...

... free and easy" that is the line from the song isn't it? hahaha fair to young to remember that one! Well that is the title that came into my head first this fine sunny morning in Hertfordshire.

Today I would like to share with you two more art journal pages which are very bright - so get your sunglasses ready ......

I used a mixture of Caran D'Ache neocolor watersoluble crayons and Adirondack Inks applied using a waterbrush. Also used some gesso in places too. Then the trusty Pitt pen to doodle and write with - mmmmm need more crayons and a new fine Pitt pen me thinks.

Also is it me or do there seem to be (no pun intended) lots of bee images and motifs around at the moment? My sister was wearing a beautiful bee pendant the other day too.

Have a lovely day everyone. x

Love food?

Well I love food, but isn't it something when food loves you back? ......

This is the message my jacket potato left for me yesterday, hahaha.

Have a happy day. x

And not a Gene Kelly in sight!

My journal pages today show my take on Milliande's prompt "Singing in the Rain". I was a little stumped at first as to what to do and then lying around on the clutter on my desk was a Craft Robo cut umberella ella ella! So I used it as a mask and sprayed Dylusions ink over it and then whilst the template was still inky stamped it onto the opposite page. Much colouring, gessoing and doodling later I had the following pages.




Oh and those legs aren't mine. Do you think I could stand let alone walk in those heels? hahaha

Thanks for stopping by.

a trio of cards

Two birthday and one for Hazel's Christmas Challenge.

This is for Hazel's "Bling" theme Challenge number 4

Not very stylish (and others would have binned them) but I was running out of crafty time! :)

Seeing Red

Today I am showing you a journal page I completed which I have entitled,
Seeing Red.

I used various media including
Distress Inks applied with a baby wipe (I find this colour washes a page beautifully and very evenly)
Pitt Pens and
Neocolor Water Crayons.

Birthday Bus

Well the Birthday Bus has called again! ...... ding ding ...... move along right down the bus please. haha

Why is it that birthdays come along together? For today alone I had to make three birthday cards. Only photographed two out of the three.




More birthdays next week too so I guess I will be busy over the weekend getting those finished. mmmmmm tricky teenage boy cards ...... need to get my Thinking Cap on.

Not this time

On well it wasn't to be ......... no balloon trip for me this morning due to bad weather conditions. :(

Oh I will have to choose another date and then it will be fingers crossed again for a successful trip.