This 'n' That

I've been a bit of a dabbler this week, not really knowing whether to ink and paint - or cut n paste- or get hooky crocheting.So I've spent a couple of evenings snuggled on the sofa crocheting and messing with wool and hooks,an evening trying to make a Grungepaper rose  and an evening making an anniversary card for a friend and a birthday card. I used Kaisercraft papers and flowers for the cards and the grungepaper rose was made using the gorgeous stamps by Paperartsy

So all in all a bit of a wandery time ! I get like that sometimes,I have so many things In my head and want to do them all at once and am not very focused at all.
I've been meaning to take photos of a gorgeous little shop we have here,it's basically a card shop but lately they have added some lovely crafty type things,a few months ago they had a range of Cath Kidston goodies - shame they didn't have any bags,I SO want one! Then just recently they've had some lovely cushions and odds and ends.I love shops like that,and it certainly brightens up Monday morning on the way to work.

Am looking forward to tomorrow for two reasons...

• It's Craftystash Crop Sunday - sadly on my own this month as Deb and Jane have other things on
• Youngest son is coming home from Uni - his first year over with and the whole summer here...back to shopping for dinner straight after work and booking haircuts and tidying up after him ...love it !

I'm getting round to making my little project that the lovely Mel has organised .Still not sure about the tin but have got the mini book under way.
Have a great weekend whatever you are up to .

Tired and Inspired

I had a lovely crafty,inky,messy,stampy,metally and di cutty weekend at the Artsycraft retreat. This is totally different to the other 'Scrapbooky' retreats I've been to as there was no cutting or paper,and no photos at all.

We inked,painted,die cut,used metal tools and stamped three wonderful projects all on one theme.
Now, during the weekend at one of the chats by the ladies who organised the whole thing,they asked anyone who had blogs not to show the projects in full as they will be doing another weekend at the end of the month and didn't want to spoilt the surprise for the next people who were attending.

So I can only show a few sneaky peeks of what we did - but will be able to show the whole things after the next weekend is over.

All I can say is that I thoroughly enjoyed what we did, it was quite intense but I really found that I learnt a lot about how to apply techniques and also that you can really use so many colour combinations on altered projects ,and they don't have to be dark and browny - something I always seem to do! and it's all about 'doing your own thing' and not worrying about whats right or wrong.Needless to say I came home buzzing. Some of the colour combinations that were used throughout the weekend were stunning ,and I loved every one.I also discovered that I do actually like working with metal and there are certainly a lot of things you can do with it.

Final pages,a surpirse and Artsycrafts

Well  what a lovely surprise I had in the post, Do you remember when we did the House Party blog hop? well, one of the lovely ladies-Ruth  had a giveaway and I was lucky enough to be drawn by the random drawer ( or whatever it's called!) It arrived safe and sound so thank you Ruth and I'm really looking forward to playing with it.

I've more or less finished my Shimelle album apart from maybe a tiny few more embellishments, but still have journalling to do. I added one more double layout as I really wanted one of each of the boys when they were younger and then grown up,so mine now has two more pages ..

and now I'm off on a great weekend creating lots of different things - this is a first for me,something I've wanted to do for ages,with my friend Hilary and  these people ...should be getting very messy and inky I think!Have  a great weekend all .

More pages.

I had such a good day on Saturday at the Shimelle workshop organised by theEclectic Keepsakes ladies-Karen and Karen.

Shimelle made some yummy cakes as she always does - they were so nice and light.

I'd used lots of my photos on various themes at the recent ATDML retreat-One thing I've wanted to do for ages is an album of the boys and this album was perfect.I would never have thought to match some of the papers with photos of boys but they actually worked as I was putting them together.

I've still got quite a bit of journalling to do and some embellishing on some of them but here are a couple that have a bit more on them now.

I'm loving the 'Dear Lizzie ' range and am seriously tempted to do another album of himself and me.

I've got so many photos that I didn't think would make a good page but in fact I reckon I could fill another one with pics of the dog and another one with pics of flowers in the garden over the years - food for thought hmmmm....

Testing Testing

Yahoo it worked ! I really wanted to get to the bottom of my failure to post a scheduled post that I have been trawling through help to find out why post didn't work on Sunday morning. Hope I've sorted it now- I've changed the timezone within blogger settings.
So this is just a wee tester post.Remember that blanket I crocheted a while ago? Well a certain person in our household has taken a shine to it and always manages to lay on it even when there is lots of space everywhere else !

House Party Blog Hop

So what's all the excitement about?
Well,if I've done this correctly you should be reading this after having been to Amy's blog to see her housey creation after seeing the others along the way too.
This party has been arranged by the lovely Rinda who sent out packages with houses and papers and embellies to ladies all over the world for them to alter.If any of the links are broken along the way you can go back to Rinda's blog for a complete list of all the links..
When I sat down to alter my house - Rinda's little vintagey postcard made me think of dreams you have when you are a child. I covered the house with the cardstock in the kit then stamped it with distress inks to make it look a bit textured.Then I mounted the lady onto some of the paper in the kit to use as the main focal image.
After that I used a chipboard butterfly and painted it with Perfect Pearls to embellish with.I punched some butterflies out from some of the papers and then cut some bunting out as a finishing touch. I stamped the 'believe in your dreams' wording on the roof but it wasn't very clear so I went over the word believe with a white gel pen.
A quick wave and *hello * to all the other blog hoppy ladies who have taken part.
So now, I will link back to the lady who organised the whole thing - Rinda - who kindly sent all the houses together with papers and embellishments to all of us so we could play and alter our houses.
I really enjoyed doing this and hope we can do another one soon - a BIG  thank you Rinda.

P.S....just editing this to apologise as my ***scheduled*** post for 06.00 am this morning is still sitting in the scheduled drafts - please forgive me ladies,I really really thought it would work,anyone any ideas why? is there a time setting within blogger that's different to the computer's ?So sorry once again ....

Day one - fab

How quickly did that go ? I can't believe how the class with Shimelle flew by today.We managed to construct pages for a whole album- a brilliant size of 8 1/2 x 11. This is a lovely size to do as its just big enough to have room for embellishments as well as photos but not quite as large to fill as a 12 x 12.
We've got the pages to a 'base ' level and will be able to embellish and add things as we go along with some advisory emails from Shimelle.
I've had lots of old photos of the boys when they were little sitting in a box for ages now and decided to sift through and use them for the class - am really pleased I took the time to sort some out as I think I will really like the end result. You know when as a Mum you have your own little favourite photos that warm your heart? well there are a few in here and I'm looking forward to getting it finished - just for me !  A bit indulgent but hey ho.Here is a pic of the front page and one of the inside double layouts - to be embellished a bit more...

...and now I shall go and make sure my scheduled post is all ready to go for the 'House Party' tomorrow - should be fun...