No words,just a title - happy and content !

Spick and span ?

What I love so much about Shimelle is that she has an ability to know exactly what we bloggers like to see when we 'blog hop'and today the prompt is to blog something from around the house - inside the home that makes us smile or feel good. Well,the one place that makes me very happy is my long awaited craft room,my very own escape where I can revel in all the kits and stash and inks and pens and rubber stamps. which are all now in one place.This makes me very happy and I love my mess that is my craft room and I know my mess :-) my desk is just as I left it last night which I know is naughty but what I always wanted was somewhere I could leave a project and go back to it without having to pack it all away every time I got it out.As I work full time the main times when I craft are later on in the evening and as I normally start late It's a pain to have to put it all away at 1 o'clock in the morning when I've got carried away and not realised the time !I realise how lucky I am and that not everyone has the same luxury but I used to read blogs with beautifully organised craft rooms and so wanted one.
When all three of our boys moved out within a few weeks of each other we decided to decorate the lounge,which we are now in the middle of. The walls are papered and where we used to have a big black gas fire we decided to get a just for show electric fire and I have been pleasantly surprised at how cosy it looks..
So it's not really one photo with not many words but two photos of two rooms in my house that make me feel warm inside for different reasons.

Normality and a little project

A change is as good as a rest they say don't they? I've been doing a few different crafty bits lately and have really enjoyed getting the old inks out and doing a bit of stamping.When I was sorting all my stash out in my new craft room I found quite a few chipboard bits and mini books and things I'd had but never done anything with. I was inspired by another project of Wendy Vecchi's again. The stamps I used were hers and the butterfly was a Twiddleybitz one which I inked and stamped and went round with a gold pen.It's a project I'm going to add to as I do some more pages.
So on to 'normality' and Shimelle's class and trying to show how it can actually be something that is very bloggable and there is always an interesting side to what can seem normal and boring to us. So sitting thinking of my day today - what has been on my agenda that is interesting...hmmmm well,did I set the world alight at work today? no..did I have an argument with the self service till at Tesco? no not today - normally it drives me nuts telling me to place the items in the bag, but I was there before it today and managed to keep up AND remove items before it told me instead of fighting trying to get the bag handles off of that silly metal hooky thing before they tear AND the bleeper didn't go off because there was an unsuspected item in the bagging area- result!No deciding what to cook either cos It's five a side night and they have fish and chips afterwards whilst discussing who should have been up front and why they didn't send that ****** off from the other side when he went in for that horrendous tackle ....so my normal hasn't been that normal at all really I suppose !

Five favourites

The prompt today from Shimelle was to list five favourites or the like and link them or post photos or make a layout.
There is nothing I like more after a stressy day at work than to sit down and do a bit of blog hopping and one of my favourite at the moment is this lady , she has a great way of wording her blog posts and really makes me smile when I read them and she does some amazing work too.I really find the hours slip by when I am visiting blogs and one leads to another and then there are links from there to another and you can discover so many different sites- I love it. One of my other faves at the moment which is always on my list of visits is this one .
This may be a tad boring if you are not a dog/sheltie lover, but having had them for the last 30 years (god is it that long !) I love to see pics and speak to other sheltie lovers.Now,after I have had a wander round the blogs, been inspired and gone off to my craft room to start a project or two I absolutley am totally hooked on this ....sad I know but it has to be the dulce de leche one and it is really scrummy.
The other two favourites on my list at the moment are of course crafting and scrapbooking - but that is just my number one all the time. I really love Shimelle's classes and am looking forward already to Journal your Christmas . The final one of my five favourites at the moment is .......yep I am totally addicted to farmville on Facebook, have to have the latest goodies they have to offer and have to get on the laptop to check my crops and make sure my cows are milked ..
One other thing I can't miss at the moment is Dancing with the stars (American version of Strictly come dancing -why, anyone who knows me knows I am a bit of a Donny fan -he's doing well so far....

So all in all quite a weird mix I suppose of my five/six favourites today.No craft projects to blog tonight but I have enjoyed listing my faves and am now off to blog hop and go in my craft room to make something :-)

Blogging day two

Wise words from Shimelle today,just reminding us of being aware of how much information we divulge whilst blogging.I guess it's all too easy to record your thoughts and post pictures of things and people that are normal to us but could give things away that maybe we should think before posting.Hmmm - interesting,I suppose us crafters are such a friendly bunch we forget there may be unscrupulous peeps about.
I haven't done a page today as I've had a busy evening again. I have however got a nice photo of me and one of my dear friends who has been a friend for a long time, since we were young ladies just starting out on the road with our respective partners. We have not been in each other's pockets over the years but have always known that each other are a only a phone call away.Life is far too busy and flashes by far too quickly sometimes,and it's great to be able to share our scrapping stories now as well as lots of others over the years :-)

Blogging for scrapbookers

So today has seen the start of the new class from Shimelle.It's been a hectic day for me today, Monday morning as always back to normal but I was going to a client's today to help with their accounts system so started the day off nervously ( don't know why- just haven't been out of the office for a while !). Anyway,there are varying options today for the class and as it's now 11.20 p.m and I am really tired,I have decided to use the 'quick' option!
Shimelle always has a knack of inspiring me because her classes are always at your own pace and they are for your own benefit.I really want to learn lots anout the techniques that I lack like subscribing to feeds and google reader and I aim to keep blogging as much as is possible - Ina funny way it keeps me sane as it's nice to put your thoughts down sometimes.I love to blog hop and see other peoples posts and photos.Since the boys have all left home we have been sorting and decorating and our lounge is now taking shape. The carpet was fitted today so everything has been piled up in any space available in order to clear the room for the fitter.Our two youngest went back to Uni yesterday but not before they had helped their dad move all the furniture.So we asked our eldest to come and help move it all back tonight and ended up having a nice roast dinner together,which was lovely.Now they have gone and himself is in bed, the clearing up is all done and there is an armchair to sit on I can reflect on a busy day and leave you with a pic of the two youngest as I don't think I've ever seen them here,dressed up and having fun- I do miss them.

Another tag and a card

After seeing some wonderful creations on some of the blogs I hop to on my travels, I decided to buy some stamps and a book by this lady Wendy Vecchi. I've made a tag inspired by one in her book and am pretty darn pleased with the way it turned out!I bought a couple of the latest Mabel Lucie Attwell stamps too and made a card with one of them.I used distress inks for the card and coloured the images in with the inks and used a glaze pen to give it a bit of a lift in places. The Wendy Vecchi inspired tag was distress inks again. I stamped the butterfly onto grungeboard and inked it,then went over it with a gold dabber.The background was stamped with one of Tim Holtz's music notes stamps but it smudged a bit when I sprayed it!Don't think there's anything more to say apart from the fact that I am enjoying myself lately...