What do you think?

I've updated my blog with various things this morning, and to be honest.. it's not on my list of 'to do's ' but I really enjoyed doing it - until a knock came to my door at 8.30 (lots of boxes of Jammy Dodgers!! ) and again at 9.00 (a scrummy luvverly delivery of new product from my beloved Docrafts for my demonstrations).

I eventually got back to it and

• got a new background
• made a new topper
• changed the wordings at the bottom of my posts
• created and installed my own signature

Who would have thought that playing with HTML would be such a hoot!!!!

Brain Mush...

Hi folks.. don't you just have them sorta days - well, weeks - where your brain turns to mush?!

I feel this week like I have been doing loads and achieving nothing ... I really need to pull my finger out and get some things done craftwise and personal! Although to be honest I haven't been feeling well for the last three weeks, and been quite ill through most of it on and off.. iyswim. I'm feeling completely washed out and have the energy of I don't know what!!!

So..... I did find this on Jackie's blog a while ago, and it seemed to work for her, so... in good old trusted formula.. I'm putting it on here to see if it gives a much needed kick up the bum!

My to do list.....

• Ring my friend Nikki - she's my most treasured friend and we haven't spoken since last week! Sorry Nikki.. I will get around to ringing you today - promise!
• Finish getting my cards and letter finished for putting in my SOS parcels to Afghanistan.
• Finish designing a range of stamps for Jennie as requested.
• Get my finger out and design some cards for my new venture.
• Finish a circle journal and post it onto the next person.

Jackie... I'm taking it that this will work as good as yours did and that I can tick a few things off!

I'll let you know how I get on..

Cards and cakes!

What a combination eh?


Although I still need to photograph the cards I have made, plus the other bits from last weekend, I thought I would share one of my favourites this week. I used a H and S stamp which I got in an image swap, coloured with prisma's and sansador. The papers etc are all Papermania.
Now... cake!

Martina wanted to do a bit of baking the other day, so we used the bread maker to make a banana cake (they bake beautifully.. if you've got one, try it!) and then made a traditional victoria sandwich full of strawberry jam and buttercream - Martina's idea of heaven!

Here she is being busy.

I do confess that the cake turned out fantastic! Well risen and lovely tasting..but I forgot to take a photo of it before all the family demolished it! lol.

We have relatives coming up for this weekend, OH's aunt and uncle from Australia and his sister from Kent, so we have a busy time until Monday. This also means that I won't be able to post too much over the weekend.. so until next time, enjoy yourselves!

Can you help??

Copied from Kirsty Wiseman's Blog....

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

For the compassion of the Armed Forces
I am ex forces - I served 9 years. My bro and sis are still serving (between them its nigh on 39 years). My husband served 22 years in the British Army.Mum and Dad are ex forces which totals up to almost 82 years.Plus my grandfathers are ex-forces too.

I have a little plea to anyone who cares to help sign a petition to help keep the Royal Military Hospital at Haslar open.

There is only ONE MAJOR forces hospital open in the whole of the UK. That means if any of our servicemen in Afghanistan or Iraq return to the UK with an injury, they have to go into a NHS Hospital. Somewhere alien to their needs and no camaraderie. And this is the message I got from my mum today. She was once treated in this hospital when she was a WREN.

PLEASE PLEASE HELP xx

RMH Haslar is set to close, but is still operational and could be made into a great home for our injured service personnel. Some background: '2 Para' alone have on their current tour sent back over 50 casualties to the UK, and even that many cannot be accommodated at Selly Oak Hospital.

So when all of the casualties from other battle groups are added to this figure, how is ONE ward in ONE NHS hospital going to cope? It cannot. And as a result the individual troops are sent home to recover relying on NHS visiting services which themselves are over committed. We need a dedicated military hospital if servicemen and servicewomen, who have been committed to hostilities and injured, are to get the medical care they rightly deserve.

A lot more than 5000 names are needed for this petition to survive, and quite cynically, Downing Street has put a time limit of one month - during the summer holidays - for this to be achieved.

Please support it - please copy the link below to confirm your signature on the petition. Please forward this email to as many people as you can.
Thanks. Go to - http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Wounded/ it takes 1 minute to fill the form

The petition was created by Denzil Connick and reads: 'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Create a dedicated Military & Veterans Hospital within the UK.'If you sign it, could you let me know in the comments box here please? That way I can come and thank you on behalf of my ex-comrades and friends and thousands of other soldiers who will be relieved that you did.
Posted by Kirsty Wiseman at 10:30 2 comments

Anybody want a freebie??

If so, feel free to come on over to my place and catch a free bug.. not the 'orrid but curiously cute type of bug, but this bloody thing I've had since last week!

Last Sun/Mon I was feeling rough, badon Monday, ended up feeling sorta better towards the back end of the week, Paul started with it on Saturday and late last night I started with it again!I've got absolutely chronic aches and pains and feel washed out!

Rescue me... anyone?? NO?? And I thought you were my fwends! : (

Ahhhh... bliss

Apart from the drive - which took just over 3 1/2 hours each way - I had a fantastic day yesterday demonstrating up in Cockermouth, Cumbria...

It was such a lovely place...

I was in Al's Toyshop, on Main Street, doing kiddies crafting. The children that came in had a wonderful time, and the two children of Alison, the owner, were delightful. Her son had fun playing with the glue gun, until it turned round and bit him.. lol.. and the daughter, Courtney, is just wonderful. She makes lovely cards with a little guidance, and has a lovely creative mind.

We had a brilliant time, and lots and lots of pompom toys and matchstick men to show for it - photos later! At the end of the day, Courtney and Alison presented me with a little gift bag, with toffees and a bottle of wine in, and a handmade Thank you card.. really lovely - thank you so much.

The scenery is like nothing around here at all.. it is wonderful... and I didn't take me bloomin camera.

These are two pictures I pulled off the net, and they show Bassenthwaite (?) Water, a big lake which is around 4 miles long and 3/4 mile wide. It is breathtaking! I had a few minutes taking in the scenery on the way back before venturing on my long drive home and stood wishing I had took the camera... unfortunately I hadn't because I wouldn't have been able to keep it safe whilst doing my demo (my thoughts anyway!).

So lucky you, if you live in that area.. it is blissful... I look forward to coming back to stay very very shortly!

looking back....

I just thought I would have a look at my blog from this time last year..I can't believe I've been blogging over a year now!! Blimey! time flies when you're having fun..

Guess what I found?? A little Holly.. about 14 weeks old. I can't believe how much she has changed, and grown.. I got a gooey puppy feeling all inside.. isn't it wonderful!?!

Go back... take a look.. see what you can find! Certainly brings back some nice memories! Thank heavens for blogs eh? (even though, suprisingly, I was never very good at keeping a diary!)

What a hoot!

Hi again ...

I thought I would just come and upload a couple of cards for you all.. They were originally made a few months ago to go up onto the Docrafts website, and the owl was to be featured in July as project of the week. Anyway, Nikki has been waiting with baited breath for it to appear (so that she could make it on her demo), and it didn't, so I thought I would give you all a sneak peak here..

The second card is also a little project that was for the Docrafts website, but didn't appear.. sigh...

Anyway, here's Mr Owl.. he was actually placed onto an acetate card but you couldn't see it well on the photograph, so thought I would just show a close up of the owl.

And here is card number two....

A couple of pics to finish..

I feel like I've been blogging for ages this morning.. I guess that's because I feel a bit better than I have for the last couple of days.. still don't feel right, but hopefully later I'll be back to A1.

Anyway, I thought I would just share a couple of photos I've taken this past week..

They were both taken on the same evening whilst out watching combines with OH. He used to work on a farm so loves to watch them working, plus this combine is the one my son had a ride on when he was a couple of years old (he's 19 now!).

The Artistic Stamper...

Using some of the new stamps and bits that came to me this last couple of weeks, I now realise why I love using their products.. even though these two haven't turned out quite as expected..

I think the colours on this one are a little too mish-mash... I used distress inks to colour the tag and stamping, and used a little bit of mulberry ink to add the pearly splodges (mmmm.. very descriptive!!) Fibres are from the Artistic Stamper too.

Again.. not too happy with this one.. the white dots were not supposed to show up like this.. in fact in real life, they don't.. lol.. I masked off part of the chipboard before stamping with the image, and then masked off again to stamp the writing.. The inks were the distress inks. I really must learn to use them more! Fibres again from Artistic Stamper.

I've been inspired!!

Check THIS out... I absolutely love using my 100's of ribbons on cards, but always like new ways to use things.. I love this idea by Laurel.. and just how cute are these cards?? So fresh and lovely..

Updating with some new cards..

After talking to Nikki this morning, I am feeling much much better... I reckon I was just missing my buddy! Seriously, I am feeling a bit better than this morning, but still not quite right.. hey ho!
I did say that I would get uploading some new cards I have been making over the last few days. Here they are.. I hope you like them..

This one was made from a lovely set of stamps I recieved from Jenny at the Artistic Stamper(link to the right). They are called Stitchels.

These two are experimentals! I used the christmas tree embossing stencil from provocraft, and used the new papermania textured cardstock. Because it has a white core, I sanded the top of the embossing and also distressed the paper a little bit... both finished off slightly different, but I quite like them!

Ooooooh I like this card (and I don't often say that about my own work!). The image was sent to me from Norway in a swap, and I used prismacolour and sansador to colour. The papers are the lovely Papermania range and so are the gold gems. The ribbon was a bargain from the Range!

For this card, I have to thank Wendy, one of my SBS 19 group.. She made a giraffe card which I saw on her blog, and I remembered I had this little giraffe.. so I took him out and had a play! He is coloured with pearlex paints. The papers are a mix of DCWV and Papermania. I am not sure where I got the ribbon from, but tied a little pram charm onto the middle. The shapes for the topper are cut from the XCut shape cutter and scallop scissors.

Using the shape cutters again, I had a play with a few different sized ovals. they are all cut from the Basic Grey Two Scoops papers. The words are BG rub ons, and the flowers are various from dunelm held together with a PM brad. The little boy is coloured with watercolour paints.
This little cutie was coloured with distress inks, a new idea for me really. The papers are Basic Grey two scoops again, just cut to fit on the square card. The word princess is also BG.

Well.. that's it for now..

Back soon with a few more things I hope..

How much is that doggy in the...... washbasket??

I was sorting out the office the other day, having a clean around etc.. turned around and this is what I found sitting on top of the old wash basket... adorable or what??

I left her sat there for a few minutes.. the next time I looked she was sound asleep.. ahhhhhh.. isn't she the cutest?!

A mummy's proud moment..

Yesterday, we went for a walk with the poopies up to the woods.. We always go up there in the evening, as the tree shade is lovely if it's a big warm, but also quite dry if it's wet..

Anyway, as we got them out the car, Truly pulled the lead out of my hand. Panic Panic because she usually does a runner when she gets off (because we weren't keeping her, we never worked on this!) and legs it around like a bloomin' greyhound.

Well.... yesterday she just came running back when I shouted her, so we thought we'd let her run with Holly and Scooby to see how she does. She was brilliant!! She came back when we clapped her (the others come back to the whistle, she responds to clap!) and even responded to her name.

Mummy and daddy are so proud of her today, I put up a post in her honour!

Feeling a bit green......

rather like the horrid background on this page.. I really must change it...

I am awake early this morning because I am not feeling the best ! OH went to work at five and I got up shortly after, feeling a bit green around the gills... Yeuch! I hate feeling sick! I must have a bug because I don't feel right generally.

Oh well..

Later on today, I plan on uploading some new card pics. I was having a creative day yesterday and managed to produce a few cards and a few mini scrapbooks. So...until then..

We've got Bumbus Lapidarius's!!!!

After a little bit of a disaster in the week with a leaky roof on my studio (hence lots of ruined stash!!!) we have this evening been re-roofing.. We got around to the side where our honeysuckle is, and got observed by lots of bees! Upon further investigation, we found we had a nest under the studio, which we really don't mind.. it's lovely having a bee nest in the garden (they are not at all dangerous).

Anyway, this is what we have - the bombus lapidarious! (even the name sounds sweet!)

Red-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius)

- The Red-tailed Bumblebee is a common visitor in many gardens. This species is entirely black, except for the red tail. It is not easily mixed up with other species, for the few look-a-likes around are quite rare, especially in common gardens and smaller usually. The queen does have a small whitish yellow band on the front end of the thorax at times. Males, workers and queens do not differ much from one another, which is rather unbique among bumblebees.

Scientifically this bumblebee used to be called Pyrobombus lapidarius.

The Red-tailed Bumblebee makes its appearance quite late, usually in April. In unusually warm springs it may have appeared a bit earlier: by the second half of March. The colony remains rather small and rarely ever contains over 300 individuals. Normally the nest is made underground in some old micenest, but occasionally nests are found in openings in walls, birds nests or nesting boxes. This too is a common species all over Europe, including the British Isles. The animal easily adepts itself to man made changes in the natural environment. It will adopt even small beds of flowers in the middle of big cities and welcomes parks, gardens, and the fringes of woodlands, even though it will never live within forests. The Red-tailed Bumblebee visits well over 200 species of flowers, including many exotic garden species. Yet, it is not used in agriculture because of its unpleasant character and eagerness to sting. The Red-tailed Bumblebee is also known as Stone Bumblebee or Large Red Bumblebee. Scientifically it was known as Pyrobombus lapidarius in the past.