What time do you call this ??

As you may know my eldest son Chris lives in Australia.  Every Sunday morning we Skype each other and I get to see my other grandchildren getting ready for bed.  Unfortunately now the hour has gone back their bathtime is 7pm which makes it 8am our time!  As I've said before I don't 'do' early and because I can see them, they can see me so I've got to look at least reasonable and also be dressed!  Well this morning I overslept a bit and it was 7.45 before I got up!  So I've been rushing around like a blue a***d fly - even managed to get a cup of tea ready to bring upstairs.  Then a text - 'sorry mum we've lost the camera, can't find it anywhere.  we'll speak next week instead'!!  You can imagine the words I said.  So here I am at 8.30am (such an unearthly hour for me!) with nothing to do!  Hey ho, back to the cards then!

You'll know now we didn't go ahead with the card class, too much short notice, but I'm probably showing the acetate card for those who want to see it at the next crop.

Last Christmas I had some Christmas cards left over and although I am enjoying making my cards I'm certainly not planning to send everyone (50 -ish) one of my own cards!  But can I find these left over cards?  I flippin' well can't.  Where the heck have I put them?  I'm going to have to buy some more as I'm running out of time.  I've printed off my labels but must write them. 

I'm not a great lover of Christmas - I love the kids' faces and all that but the commercialism of it all really gets to me. 

I've done quite a few more cards over the last week - with the weather being so foul, I've enjoyed playing with the cards. 

This card I borrowed the idea from a card I saw at Ali Pali last year.  It uses the Creative Expressions Christmas tree and I've added the Cute Companions mouse, presents and flower pot.  I used Brushed Corduroy distressed ink and then water coloured the outline. 

This card I was pleased with.  I bought some Hero Arts' stamps from my friend and thought I'd have a play.  I embossed the stamps in gold and silver embossing powder and then matted them on alternate silver and gold shiny board.  You can't see it very well but I've covered the card with some gorgeous Mica Pearl Papers I bought at the workshop I went to and finished it off with very fine gold peel offs.

And finally, this one I thought was quite cute.  I used free templates from one of the magazines, some card blanks I'd had from last year which I cut down and voila!!  Quite a cute card which cost me nothing.  Happy with that.

Right I'm off now to do some more cards - actually I might go via my bed first, but we'll see which has the stronger pull!  Speak soon.  Byeee xx

Oh well !!

Morning all!  What horrible weather we're having at the moment - all the more excuse for staying inside and playing!! 
As I mentioned in my last comment on my blog - Jilll (Cardinal Colours) and I decided we wouldn't do the card class next week - although we had initial interest I reckon it was too near Christmas and too short notice and people had to drop out..  Maybe next year!  Bit of a shame cos Jill had ordered lots of stuff for the class but she hopes she can sell it anyway.  Anyway gives me a chance to practice a bit more!!
I mentioned earlier that it was my granddaughter, Emily's, birthday on Halloween and I had made her a 'book' card.  Stupidly I forgot to take a picture of it so my daughter brought the card back so I could take pictures.  Rather than bore you all with every single page just thought you'd like to see the front spelling out her name.  I used the Funky Word Books CD (http://www.funkyhandcom/) for the basic letter shapes but the colours didn't fit into Halloween so I traced the shapes onto black card stock and then onto the paper stock!  Bit of a labour of love.  All the other pages were covered front and back with halloween papers and rub-ons.  I used Basic Grey Eerie for all the papers and the rub-ons were also Basic  Grey.  I also used the Bazzil Basics Cardstock strips Halloween.  The ribbons were from my stash. 

I have also made this Christmas card from the Cute Companions Winter Tale CD - very simple but I think very effective.

The door opens and show this inside scene

Have a nice rest of the weekend (weather permitting!).  Byee xx

Have you ever heard anything so silly?

Can you believe it?  I went to Jill's (Cardinal Colours) on Saturday for the scrapping day - absolutely smashing time.  Then Jill has to spoil it by MAKING me agree to do a card making class in a couple of weeks!!  Me!!  Who can't teach a rice pudding to make a skin!  I don't do teaching!!  Jill chose a couple of the cards I made when I went to Jayne Nesterenko's workshop last month, so that's it!  She won't take no for an answer - in fact Jill totally ignored all my protests.  I have to say though the others at the crop didn't help either - encouraging me too.  You'll be sorry I tell you!!  Anyway that's it - I've now got to plan what to do.  He he!!

Thought I'd show you a card I made using Hobby Art stamps - I saw them demonstrated at the Glitter Pot last month and thought I'd give them a go.  I was quite pleased with it.  x

The Things I do ....

........ as a Grandma.  "Come to my Fireworks Party at school" my eldest grandaughter, Chloe said.  "Its tonight at 6.30pm".  Seemed like a good idea yesterday as the weather was so nice.  So I arranged to leave work early as I had an appointment at 5 pm.  My daughter, Kate, had forgotten the keys to my house so she borrowed mine, "as we'll be back long before you are, mum.  Chloe's swimming is only from 4.30 - 5pm."  Sounds good, doesn't it?  Well that would have been OK but my appointment finished early, I was back outside my house by 5.30pm - no daughter!  It is now persistently raining - so I'm sitting in my car like a wally.  Rang Kate, no answer so left a message.  She then rang me back, but I missed the call.  So she left a message.  It took me ten minutes to find out how to listen to her message on my mobile!  Well I'm not that used to it, am I?  Eventually worked out swimming was for an hour, not half an hour, so they turned up at 6pm.  Anyway we get changed, bundle back into the car and arrive at school just before 6.30pm.  By then it has stopped persistently raining, just falling down, instead.  Couldn't park car near school, so walked in pouring rain and blowing wind.  Got into school, absolutely crowded - band in assembly hall, crowded and boiling hot.  Disco in Chloe's classroom - so dark and noisy couldn't even lip read, and the flashing lights - my lord - didn't stay long in there.  Food for sale everywhere and drinks.  Full of very damp, hot, pushy adults with pushchairs that aim straight for the ankles!!  Anyway time for fireworks - everyone outside - very fine drizzle rain that gets everywhere!  Manage to stand just by entrance to school, under cover slightly but right by the door everyone is using to go in and out.  Never mind.  Fireworks lovely but younger grand daughter, Emily, has bad ears and has grommets in one, and the bangs started to hurt her, so we left the display.  Anyway after fireworks girls wanted to go to disco so Kate and I sat outside under partial shelter, right by the speakers but at least it was not too hot.  Eventually got home about 8 pm - completely drowned but the girls seemed to have enjoyed it, although Emily was sound asleep by the time we got home.  Ah the pleasures of being a grandmother!!

I'm going cropping at Jill's (Cardinal Colours) tomorow - can't wait!  A whole day just doing my own thing and no interruptions - yippee!  Bye xx

Back again ...!

Well I'm back again, just about recovered from yesterday.  Had the chance to upload more cards and ideas from the workshop I went to.  Thought you might like to see some more:

This one I have made making this slightly differently from the sample at the workshop.  I just loved the colour.

Now this is one I've done.  Jayne Nesterenko's sample was darker than mine but I couldn't get the paper to print just the correct colour, but I do like mine.

This is one of the cards I actually made at the workshop.  This is the front of the card, opening up to show:

It is a very classy card and I loved making it.

Hope you like them.  xx

Halloween

What a day yesterday!  It was my grand-daughter Emily's 5th birthday yesterday.  My daughter (her mum) came out of hospital on Friday after having her sinuses 'stretched'!!  My daughter, Kate, stayed at my house Friday night so I could keep an eye on her.  She wanted to see Emily and her other daughter Chloe on Emily's birthday so they all stayed with me, including my son too!  We had a lovely time opening Emily's presents as you can see.

I thought the obvious card for me to make for Emily would be a Halloween one, which I did.  When we asked Emily what type of party she would like she decided on a Princess and Pirate party!!!  So much for my Halloween idea - anyway that's what she got!  She did seem pleased with it.

My son bought her the fairy outfit - as you can see she was tickled pink.

Obviously with Kate being unable to plan too much it fell to me to sort out the food and we prepared it all Saturday morning before going to the Church Hall where the whole of Emily's class were coming from 11 - 1pm!  All 30+ of them!!  It was quite funny when we got there and a little girl was already there.  I said to Emily to go and say hello and Emily said 'no' cos she didn't know who she was!!  Great!

Anyway the party went off very well.  Kate had planned things well in advance and had ordered some wall hangings of pirates and fairies which looked brilliant in the hall and really set the scene.  Kate had put all the party bags together before her operation and my son and I blew up all the balloons - which kept going bang the whole way through the party! 

Finally it was over - I popped Kate back home to have a well deserved sleep in peace and quiet.  The girls went off with their dad for four days so she'll have time to recuperate and I finally came home to sleep!!

I think a good day was had by all!  x