Misty Moochings

Crivens - I can't believe it's nearly December!! Scary!! The new year will soon be upon us so I've been churning out a few more calendars:

Another pleasant weekend occurred, with coffee and big cakes at South Queensferry to celebrate my Dad's Birthday. Shame the bridges were swathed in mist:

The Forth Rail Bridge

The Road bridge wasn't much better!

We pitied the poor coachloads of tourists from Yorkshire or wherever who'd travelled up especially to see these miracles of engineering only to find them half-missing!

The card I made for my Dad was a little bit cheeky..

The immense age on the front is a reference to the age he would be in cat years (I'll let you work that out for yourselves - sorry Dad!) and it was a good excuse to use another paper piecing.

I have a few days off work now, but a busy week ahead - let's hope I have time to make a few more cardettes!

See you soon!

Organic Crafting

Well, with the weather being sooo horrendous and me being afraid to step outside the door without my wetsuit on, you'd think I'd have had time for a bit more crafting! Sadly, however, this is not the case.

Last weekend already seems a long time ago, but it was a good one, with a night out at the Queen musical "We Will Rock You" (brilliant, good fun, didn't realise I knew or even liked so many Queen songs!), the discovery of a new organic food place to visit, and a meal out with Himself's family, not to mention a coffee with friends and a good dollop of rugby-watching (big men in shorts, grappling - oooerr missus!) - my feet have barely touched the ground!

But as I've been feeling a bit "organic" myself, I decided to make some cards using the technique I started out in - paper piecing - and came up with a set that are entirely hand-drawn and cut out from scratch:

Dull photo of course - blame the weather! This is my homage to all things cheeky about cats!

Why I like these creatures so much I don't for the life of me know - mine had me up at 5.30 this morning!

Blah!

Sad, Sad, Sad!

Last night I finished the cards to go in a gift wallet I'd also made (thanks J for letting me use your idea!) and I was quite pleased with them:

The cards were pre-patterned, from a set by My Minds' Eye, so didn't need much added to them. They have a gorgeous linen texture too.

I've not been up to much today so far. It's nice to be cosied up indoors, the weather is sooo bad!

But I did venture out briefly this morning, for I had a Next Giftcard to spend and essential items to purchase...



Yes, with regards to the slippers, I know I'm the saddest of the Saddoes from Saddo Land - but I don't care!!! :o)

First Challenge!

I've always wanted to enter a card challenge so as I was designing cards for my up-and-coming Retail Therapy class, I thought I might as well put one forward as an entry for the Stampin Chic blog challenge this week! Here is my card:

I love this new range, but I'm none too keen on watercolouring so my cards are going to stick to a basic colour theme. Sorry about the dull lighting - the weather is dire! Blinged the card up a bit with some little gems and a pink souffle pen, although that isn't clear from the pic! I'm pleased with how my stamped backing paper came out!

Crafting + Pizza = Yay!

A nice crafty day :o)

I decided I'd better make use of the calendar tabs I bought recently, and managed to make the first of a batch of chipboard, er, calendars:

And finished a set of mini Christmas notecards:

Those birds again, this time another set of notecards for my shop:

Still not attended to any of the projects that are actually on my To Do list though!

Oopsy!

D&D Christmas Projects

The Christmas Daisy and Dandelion design Team projects are now available to view - woo! A great selection of fabbo creations from the Team to get you in the festive mood!

(Don't panic - it's not really only 10 days until Christmas - it just feels like it !)

I really enjoyed coming up with my projects. If only I could launch into making Christmas cards with the same enthusiasm! And to think I planned to have them all done by August!

It's looking to be a Successful Food Day here at Mushroom Towers. I've just burned my tongue on some homemade veg soup, but it was worth it. And Himself is coming over later with a Quorn Cottage pie he's created - slurplicious! Now I'm off to warm my toes on a hot water bottle and hope that I don't end up swearing at the TV during X Factor tonight....

Random Update

Thought I'd better report in as some concern has been expressed at my recent lack of blogging. Well, I'm pleased to say I am currently alive and kicking; the reason for my abscence has been the scarcity of decent daylight to take pics of my creations. Not that there's been time for any creations - boo! But there has been time for cooking (Quorn chilli - nice!), a bad case of X Factor Rage (don't get me started on that one!) and a random visit to the Rhodesian Ridgeback Club of Scotland's Championship Show (as you do!).

I tell a lie - there has been a smidgeon of crafting. Someone gave me these little gold boxes which just happen to fit my scalloped circle embellishments...

But that's about the "height" of my creative productivity this week. I have a class to prepare and Christmas cards to make and my shop to stock, so this is no time for resting on my "laurels". But first I've got to go and clean the flat from top to bottom and I'd really rather eat my own head than do that. Sigh.

Before I go, I thought I'd share a photo I took of Ben this morning, where he's looking rather "pretty" (note the fake plant; I have a habit of killing real ones):

At this current time he's "helping" out by sitting on my lap and making it virtually impossible to type. Cats eh?

Byeeee!

Getting Boring Now...

I feel very virtuous at the moment because I've just given my car it's annual wash and yesterday I performed the heinous task of defrosting the ice compartment of my fridge - both jobs I had been looking forward to with about as much relish as that of my execution. But now I can tick them off my never-ending "to do" list and move onto something more enticing, such as making things like this:

This little box once contained dental floss sticks (how delightful!)

Now it's home to 8 little birdie notecards.

The World: "Gah! Will you please STOP using the same set of papers for every project you've ever made since the beginning of time??!?"

Me: "What?? Not until every last miniscule smidgeroony has been used up from my scrapbox I won't!
Mwahahaaahaaaaahaaaarrr!"

Ahem.

Quick Visit

As hoped for, I am having a nice, crafty week - yay! Quite a few projos on the go, nothing I can show at the moment though, except for a couple of cards:

As you can see, I am getting quite a lot of mileage out of those papers!

Cosy v Scary

Hello folks, hope you all had a good Halloween. Mine was spent in "interesting" circumstances at a Hen Night in the centre of Glasgow, that I was not entirely sure I would come back alive from. But I lived to tell the tale, which included a pleasant meal, a "tired and emotional" bride-to-be, a Sex and the City theme (we scrubbed up well if I say so myself), an encounter with grown men dressed as Oompah-Lumpahs (bizzarre!) and actually managing to find our way there and back without ending up just north of Aberdeen. It was fine but I'm rapidly reaching the conclusion that I'm just not a party animal in any shape or form!

Much more my scene was a cosy day in yesterday; wild weather outside, a game of Scrabble with Himself (he won - bah!), a veggie curry and curling up under a throw to watch X Factor. Bliss!

I've spent a couple of evenings in front of the telly, making Christmas embellishments:

And I finally used my new Craftwork Cards stamps to make this New Home card:


PPs are Wild Asparagus from My Minds' Eye, just love those papers! The stamps are pretty nice to use as well.

That's all for now; the cats are tearing round the lounge in a frenzy so I'd better go and rescue my priceless Ming vase (ahem) from toppling. Byyeee!