Happy Christmas

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and a very Happy New Year.  xxx

Some Christmas cards

Hi all

I made a lot of Christmas card over the last month or so and was really pleased I'd got everything done early.  Then my friend Sue came along and bought a lot of them, so I had to make them all over again!!

These are the original ones that Sue bought:

This one above I made from some free papers I'd got with the Christmas edition of Creative Cardmaking magazine. 

This card is made from the Cute Companions Adorables CD by Jayne Nesterenko and the one below comes from Crafters Companion Winters Tale.

This picture doesn't really show the card at its best.  There's lots of sparkle and decoupage put onto a stepper card I adapted myself and the picture is of a beautiful snowy cottage scene by a bridge from the Joanna Sheen Thomas Kincaide CD. 

And this is also from the Adorables CD.

So I had to get making again.  I'll show you some more later.

Bye x

Thank you

Hello

On the way to visiting my grand-daughter in hospital, I popped into Cardinal Colour Jilly's crop which I was meant to be going to that Saturday.  We were supposed to be having a celebration for Sue's birthday as well as our Christmas crop.  I was so lucky and was given the most gorgeous Christmas cards and hand made Christmas presents from my lovely friends at the crop.

Linda                                              Anita

Sue                                                      Jill

 Lynn                                    Karen

 

Chris

Aren't they beautiful?  What clever friends I've got.  But that is only the beginning - just look at these gorgeous presents I was given as well:

The cream box which the red and green bauble is on is from Linda - it contains the most beautiful candles - smelling of cinnamon and Christmas spices.  How beautiful it will look on my Christmas table.

The interesting looking Father Christmas is from Jill.  He is sitting on top of a lovely wooden box full of fruit jellies and wine gums - yummy yummy.

This one is from Anita  a lovely big mug full of goodies, love the gingerbread man with the label 'the Perfect Man'!!

The beautiful green and red Christmas tree bauble has been made by Chris.  All that bead work must have taken her a long time. 

The cute pink doll behind Chris' bauble has been made by Sue.  It is also a tree decoration - it is so delicate and looks nice on the Christmas tree.

This little box is from Lynn - she has made these tree decorations from half walnuts and polymer clay.  How clever are these?

They all look sp beautiful on my Christmas tree, thank you very much.

Thank you to all my good friends for all the beautiful presents you have given and made for me.  They are absolutely gorgeous and I am very lucky.  Thank you, thank you, thank you. xx

My poor grand-daughter

Thursday we had a bad shock.  

My daughter, Kate,  received a phone call from Chloe's (my eldest grand-daughter) school to say she had been knocked down by a bus!  Initially they said Chloe was OK, just battered and bruised as she was moving and trying to get up. 

However, the next phone call I received was that she had been air-lifted to Brighton Hospital for scans.  There then followed a long gap until I heard from Kate to say they had found a small bleed in Chloe's head and the film had been sent to King's Hospital. 

The next thing I knew was that Chloe was in great pain in her tummy and she had been taken down for an emergency laparoscopy through her tummy button.  She had lacerated her kidney and spleen, and her spleen was leaking, hence the pain.  Anyway that was repaired and things looked on the up again.  Then we heard her pupils had started dilating oddly and down she goes for an emergency CT scan.  Anyway that showed an improvement from the previous scan and everyone was happy.

I went to visit Chloe on Saturday with Emily, Chloe's younger sister.  Poor Chloe looked very battered and bruised.  Her tummy was still hurting but that was because of the operation and nothing sinister.  She didn't want to eat nor drink and was very sleepy.

Sunday Kate texted me to say they were coming home that evening!  I cooked a shepherd's pie and took it with me.  The hospital told Kate Chloe had to have bed rest for the next six days, she can't walk about until her spleen has settled down.  No school for two weeks, which has worked out well as Chloe's school breaks up next week. 

The Headmistress told Kate she didn't want to see Chloe back at school until next year.  The School have been very kind - they sent a big basket of fruit, a teddy and some chocolate for her and all the school groups Chloe belongs too have sent her 'get well' cards and because Kate lives very near school, some of Chloe's friends may come a see her from school.  As the accident happened as Chloe was coming to school lots of her friends saw what happened and some were very upset and traumatised. 

Here's the weary soldier lounging on the sofa watching the television or reading all the messages her friends had put on Facebook.  Everyone has been so kind.

Considering what could have happened Chloe was exceptionally lucky but at the time we didn't know that.  We are all very grateful and hopefully Chloe will pay more attention crossing the road.  x

The beginning ...!

I know I'm getting my blogs round the wrong way but hey, ho!!  This shows the beginning of the snow - on the Sunday when it was all novel.  I had my grand-daughters with me as they'd stayed overnight.  I'd popped outside and noticed we had some snow flurries.  The girls were very excited, well Emily really, Chloe's a bit too old to show she's excited (she's 11!).  Here's Emily outside, skipping and jumping around.

Their dad collected them soon after and off they went.  That afternoon this was what I saw through the window

It was really snowing!!  How exciting!

It didn't come to anything though and Monday was showing very little extra snow.   I got into work on Tuesday and there was a bit of snow there as the hospital car park shows - but we got there OK.

However Wednesday was another kettle of fish (or snow!),  This was what I woke up to that morning!  I had a doctors' appointment so had to get the car drive-able!

I know I shouldn't have, but I did take a photo from the car on the way back from the doctors.

And this was by the roundabout on the way to work.

We left work early as the snow continued.  I was due to go to Jill's at Cardinal Colours as Anita was doing the Christmas scrapbooking class which was using a canvas for a change.  We all got there no problem, but as I arrived at 7pm it was snowing in the air. By about 8.30 we could see it was snowing again and then Jill's husband, Richard popped in to say the snow was settling.  So we all decided to finish early.  I have to say that journey was rather hairy - heavy snow, at night and no gritting!  Anyway I made it. 

This was the sight in the middle of the night:

Whilst I was looking out of the window at the snow a tractor came up the road - it was the school caretaker - there is a infant and junior school to left of this picture.  He stopped when he saw me and asked if I wanted any milk.  I said I was fine but he said as the school was closed he had all the little 1/3 cartons of milk to get rid of otherwise they'd be thrown away.  He was driving round seeing if anyone wanted any.  So I took some and stuck them in the freezer - they would always come in useful.

The next morning I got up to sort out the car - this was my car.   Of course because the school was closed my road, which is a dead end, had no traffic on it, so I had to boldly go where no one else had been!  Quite an interesting experience, I must say!  It was stopping at the end of the road that was a bit hairy - luckily there was nothing on the road.  Getting into work took rather a long time, but at least there was very little traffic.

Then after a day came the rain and the thaw and it had all gone!  Still I've got some memories!!

xx

Old fashioned snow!

At last the snow has gone.  Can you believe how much we got this year?  Unbelievable.  I just wanted to pop some photos on here, just for me, really.  I am sure you all have your own pictures These I took about 3 am on Thursday morning -I couldn't believe it and I thought it looked just like an old fashioned picture.

I think I will have to scrap these some day! x

Now I'm doing knitting!

Back again - typlical just like buses, wait for ages then two come along together!!

I've been getting 'itchy feet' recently and been doing a few other things too.  I went to Battle the other day and went into the most lovely little old fashioned haberdashery shop, you know the type, can't move cos there's so much in there, ribbons, buttons, wool, material, hooks and eyes, patterns, etc etc.  Absolute heaven.  My eye was caught to a knitting pattern on the wall - of a square hat with pom poms on it!  I kept going back to it and in the end I asked to see it.  There were four hats on the pattern, all different, and I fell.  So I bought the wool, needles and the pattern and off I went home. 

The first one I knitted was the square one - it only took the evening - and it would have been quicker but I made a mistake with the pom poms. 

So encouraged with my first attempt I made another one.  This time a simple one but with a flower on it

Unfortunately I couldn't make any more as I'd made a mistake with the amount of wool I needed for the third hat, I misread the pattern, so I've got to go back again to the shop. What a hardship!

 

I can't remember the last time I did some knitting, probably when my children were babies, and they are 31, 33 and 35 now! and I really enjoyed myself. So I may be making something else, but I need to look out for some interesting patterns and ideas.  Any suggestions?

Bye x

A Scrapbooking Page at last!

Well well, fancy that!  I've done a scrapbook page at last!  I used the Scrapology November template for inspiration - I needed inspiration too.  I really enjoyed myself though. 

I have used the DCWV Baby Girl and Baby Boy papers mainly but a couple of baby pages which I bought in Australia and which don't seem to have brands on.  The pink flower was one I bought from a junk shop and broke up to make a big flower.  The other flowers I had in my flower box.  The font was Ashlyn's Alphabet from the Cricut.  The backgrouind shape I traced from another paper and I used my new punch from EK Success deco scallop.   I finished off using Diamond Stickles on the papers and also on the pink flower.  Oh and a few brads too.

I hope you like it. x



Happy Birthday Linda!

As I have said previously I went to Jill from Cardinal Colours's crop today.  What a lovely time we had, as usual.  I get so much abuse, it's not even funny but I suppose I'd feel I'd done something wrong if I didn't get it now. 

It was Linda's birthday yesterday, 5 November, so we had a little birthday party to celebrate.  Lynne made a beautiful white chocolate, marbled, pink smartie cake and Anita and Lynne brought sparklers to pop onto the cake.  They did have trouble lighting them but they did look special when lit. 

Here's a picture of Linda's cake.

 



Happy Birthday Linda!!

xxx

How brilliant is this ???

As promised here is the wonderful blog candy I won from Scrapology.  I collected it today when I went to Jill's crop from Cardinal Colours.

The pictures really don't do it justice - there was so much.  What a lucky girl am I?  The first blog candy I have ever won.  Thank you again vlery much Linda and Lynne from Scrapology.

xxx

Halloween

Halloween is my grand-daughter, Emily's, 6th birthday.  Emily doesn't like to have her birthday as a Halloween party so this year she celebrated Halloween and will have her birthday party next Sunday with a Fairground theme.

So the whole family, well Kate, Danny, Chloe and Emily, dressed up and went 'Trick and Treating'.  

Don't ask why Kate and Danny went as a Smurf and Batman, probably only cosutme they had!

Chloe decided she wanted to go as a 'dead' school girl - very ghoulish my grand-daughter! 

Now Emily didn't want to dress up but wanted to be black and white!  So black and white she was.



While they were out 'Trick or Treating' those left cut up the pumpkins and left them outside with candles lit.  They really looked spooky. 

I'm going now.  This flippin' blog has taken me ages to do as I haven't been able to upload more than one photo.  I've just learned from Lynne at Jilly's crop today that Blogger has hiccups and that I've got to go right out of the Blog and come back in to upload another photo!!  I ask you, how ridiculous is that?  So although I started this blog on 1 Nov, because of work, frustration and not knowing what to do, I've only just finished it now, a week later!  So sorry but I was determined to upload it anyway.

Bye xxx