♥ Team Teal-Strengthening the love .....♥

This is for Marti- and Deb and Carrie and all the family -strengthening the team teal....
Thanks for sending it Deb - it's here safe and sound.♥

A stretchy dog

Our dog is a funny little chap- the boys say they have never seen a dog who stretches so much. He does do it a lot, when anyone gets up - or when he's been laying in his basket and gets up after a sleep.The boys always like to make him do it- if they get down on the floor and pretend to stretch and there he is - I suppose it seems a bit weird, but it always makes us laugh. I managed to catch it the other day.....

and I played along with Shimelle's sketch of the week last week 'My favourite things'

The papers I used were the Dear Lizzie range - love the colours of these.

Creative Chemistry day 6

 Day 6 was all about using distress markers.You can't actually see much difference between the butterflies - mainly because I should have maybe used a stamp with a bit more 'white space' to colour in-but I think I got the gist of the techniques.

Creative Chemistry - day 4 & 5

It's funny isn't it? I've had all these inks and stains and misters in my stash together with some manilla tags 'just to use whenever' for ages-and doing this class has at least made me realise the things I don't  really love..for instance- it's confirmed the fact that...

 I really don't get on with alcohol inks that well- not a  favourite.

I like colouring in with distress inks.

 It's always good to use the heat tool to dry layers as you go. Definitely a thing I will always do now.

It's ok to just do your own thing and play- and you can always go back later and add.

I should use my stamps more often.

I didn't think Distress Stains were that brilliant- this has changed my opinion.

Tags are quick to do and fun.

Tim Holtz is a genius..

Here's day four and five's tags..
Day four - colouring with distress inks and masking..I only had one mask but it wasn't too bad.

Day five- love the Kraft resist technique and loved using the white picket fence stain to stamp with

I only had a couple of stains so couldn't use lots of colours for this background.

Week one has been brilliant - roll on week two.

Creative Chemistry- day 3

Well, I'm keeping up so far! - I can't wait to get home from work and get dinner over with quickly so I can sit and digest the latest videos and Pdfs.
This is turning out to be such a revelation,although my pieces aren't perfection - I'm having a go at some techniques which I'd always kind of known about but never got to do.I especially liked using the resist technique.
Here's day three's offerings..

Creative Chemistry day 2

It's day two of Tim's online class - day one was introduction and talk of techniques really.

So on to day two and here's my tags. I also made a card with the same technique. I really wish I hadn't have put the sentiment on it now but it was too late after I'd stuck it on! You know how it is... decided I didn't like it on there and faffed about placing it every which way - stuck it and then tore the paper underneath trying to get it off- so it stayed on!

Lovin' it so far!

ATDML March sketch

Last week I bought some of the new Bo Bunny range 'Serenity' - the  chinesey ones from
ATDML-they have a sketch challenge over on their blog at the moment and I thought I'd play along - here's a layout and a card I came up with..

I hope you all had a lovely Mother's day,mine was half Saturday and half Sunday. Youngest son came home from Uni on Saturday and we had lunch out,and eldest son came home from a working trip to New York yesterday and we had a nice Indian meal out in the evening, mind you he was pretty tired though! Middle son sent me a gorgeous little house with a lid that opens (must get a photo of that) and we had a nice long Skype call too. 

It was school reunion time Saturday evening- it was great to catch up with old friends again..himself and I went to the same school so as usual we both went.Soooooo very scary when you think we left 38 years ago!! eeeeek.. 

Matt Cardle and Donny Osmond

Nope,it's not a new duet out on itunes - (now that would be random wouldn't it?)!

Anyone who knows Ann Freeman  is very aware that she is a superfan of Matt Cardle...she has seen and met him umpteen times - so when I saw the class she had designed for this month's crop last Saturday,it made me smile and also made me happy - because it gave me a good excuse to re use some of the photos that I took when I went to see and meet Donny Osmond and his brothers -ahem - quite a while ago- (just pretend you haven't seen them before!)
Here's Ann's original layout - sorry the photos are not brilliant

                                             
                                             and here's my version

The top photo is when we attended the sound check/rehearsal where they were in casual clothes and did a question and answer session and the others are photos I took during the concert ....just in case I didn't mention it before (sigh)

11 on the 11th

I missed 10 on the 10th yesterday so here is a little bit of my life at the moment - 11 on the 11th !

My addiction at the moment - have one every day ... but it has to be the syrup one - naughty but nice

Beautiful hyacinths - a gift from sister-in-law...

My Dad's windmill looking lovely in my garden in the sunlight today

Little fella sitting beside me on the chair in the garden enjoying the sun

Ladybird sunning itself on a dried up leaf 

New shoots appearing on the mock orange again

The beautful church which belonged to the hall where I went to the crop yesterday.

One of the pages I did yesterday 

Treated myself to a bunch of tulips doing the boring weekly shop today 

Self portrait ....

and last but not least - a lovely tribute to Dad in the local paper this week-emotional,but lovely....

Time for some Tim inspiration.....

I'm a tad excited as I've just signed up for this  -  have you seen it ? Can't wait till it starts. It's just the right incentive to get me to go and clear the old crafting desk and make some space to make a bit more mess !
If anyone were to walk into my craft room at the moment they would probably give me a right talking to....so I really will have to clear some room so there is more than about a 12 x 12 square space of room to work on.
Honestly - how did it get that bad. Tomorrow I'm off for another day scrapping - this time with the lovely Ann Freeman - she has been running a new class but I've been pretty pre occupied so haven't been to any of hers yet.I'm looking forward to it. So now I'd better gather the distress inks and the blending tool and clear the craft sheet down and get the mister and the perfect pearls - time for some Creative Chemistry.

Been scrapping

Yesterday it was time for the monthly Eclectic Keepsakes crop,and I was really looking forward to seeing everybody again for a day of chatting, cupcakes and crafting,and I was not disappointed..

We spent the morning catching up on projects - I managed to do another page for 'Just one sketch' It was the turn of ' fill the page' for me












Karen made some lovely cakes as always..

.

It was so nice to see the other Karen back teaching a beautiful layout with lots of different elements in - I loved the 'polaroid' effect papers we used especially.Lovely colours- they were muted so suited all sorts of photos.









It's a really rainy,wet,miserable day here today.Himself is off to watch football- eldest son is away so I'm going to do the dreaded Tesco run - then spend the rest of the day scrapping - enjoy your Sunday whatever you are up to.