A lovely day off

It made a really nice change yesterday to cast the calculator and Exel and Sage to one side and go off in the sunshine to  a lovely garden centre about an hour's drive away,how lovely are these flower towers?

I bet they take some watering and dead heading!

These are in the middle of the driveway into the garden centre - you can't really see how tall they are but they dwarf the cars!

We had a morning of making three cards using various ink techniques.I really enjoyed it for a change..

First up we used glossy card and versamark,stamps and distress ink to create a resist effect. I need to do a bit of finishing off with these,just inking round the edges and maybe a sentiment i think.

Then we went on to make a tag with distress stains and inks ,lots of spritzing,stamping and acetate butterflies..we got really messy with this one !

and the last one was stamped onto little squares and then coloured with promarkers then we took the design apart and put the squares back together onto a piece of card. 

I really enjoyed the colouring in - does you good to do something completely different sometimes doesn't it ? I forgot how much I enjoy stamping and making cards..

Then after such hard work all morning we felt we had to go and try out the cakes and have a cup of tea 

Tough job - but someone has to try them ...

I went for the coffee and walnut - my fave..

and now - I'm off for a morning of Pergamano - get me !!

Short and sweet ?

I've noticed a lot of my blogland friends have joined in with Julie's Height of Summer project  just lately. As others have been brave - I thought I'd play along too....

I've always been the short one around here, having three sons who now tower over me and a husband who is taller too ( he is 5'8" ) .... I'm always asking them to reach something for me from the top of the cupboard...and when we went out recently and met some of our son's friends- yep I was the 'shortie' of the bunch.

I think I am about 5'3 - so maybe not the shortest - but certainly not very tall!

There's many a time when I have to ask a poor unsuspecting gentleman or young manager in Tescos to get the last of something that I need at the back of the top shelf- and they have the gall to put the Hello magazine on the highest shelf at our store and I can never reach it....

Having said all that - I would say I'm around about friends Deb and Karen's height - or maybe a teensy weensy weensy bit taller ? 

Scavenging and I've been tidied ....

I've been at it again,and have a couple to add to my collection...

Me standing with something that symbolises my nation...

 

Someone playing a musical instrument - colleague at work bought her husband a saxaphone and has been practicing her clarinet and brought it in to show us...

and now on to a little story to make you smile ....my friend Deb will laugh at this..

It was our 32nd wedding anniversary last week and I knew he meant business and was in 'tidy up and sort out mode' when I came down Saturday morning.... not only was he sweeping the floor and hoovering the lights ....

Anyone who knows me/us - knows how much this er niggles me - sometimes - and makes me laugh other times...

All of my 'mess' is laid out on the table for me to put away - Apparently I can't read all those books at once so why keep them ?.... and the layout I'd finished  the night before had the audacity to still be on the side.....I mean honestly- you don't tell a Taurus what to do.....

wedded bliss? you bet!  We did have a nice meal out in the evening though and he did let me blog this !

In the words of Bill Withers - A Lovely Day

On Saturday it was the monthly Eclectic Keepsakes crop.It was so nice to see Deb back and Jane - and this time I took a new girl with me - my eldest son's girlfriend. I have often bored her   shown her my creations at home and when I've been to a crop. She had mentioned that she might like to come one day - so Saturday was the day.I am very happy to report that she really really enjoyed it, put me to shame by doing three layouts and went shopping the next day for supplies- yay! Here she is scrapping away..

We had a good catch up on all the gossip in the morning  enjoying Key Lime and Coffee and Walnut cupcakes made by Karen.

I managed to get one layout done- I signed up for a Big Picture class - 28 days of sketches - and made a layout with the absolutely gorgeous new Carta Bella papers. Checkout the slim himself and me  in the early 1990s!

A topical photo by the Olympic rings had to be done..

Karen had designed a beautiful class using 7Gypsies papers 

and here's mine

Am off to play some more now - back soon.

Photo Scavenger Hunt link up

Over at Rinda's blog  she is hosting a photo scavenger hunt through the summer. Today she is hosting a blog link - lots of us who are playing are posting links of what we are up to  on her blog - do pop over and have a peep. I didn't play along last year - but this year I'm having fun ticking items off the list of things to find,some difficult,some not so diffficult.
My latest finds have been pretty normal really, but It's always on my mind wherever I am..
todays offerings....
Number 2- A clothesl
I popped over to an old friend's house in the village where i used to live the other day for a cup of tea - and sneaked a photo as I went to knock on her door - she didn't know I'd taken it! ( but she wouldn't have minded)

2

Number 4- A roadside stand selling something. 

This was on my way home for lunch from work the other day.

                                    Number 10 - A Horse 
                                    Her name is Scarlet

I

It's going quite well at the moment,but am getting down to the tricky ones. I'm off to have a look at the other Scavenger's photos on the links at Rinda's blog now.