Anniversary Waltz

It's been a week or so since I entered the DCM challenge but this week's theme certainly tickled my "fancy", as it were, being all to do with Anniversaries. As I and a Certain Someone have an anniversary coming up, I decided that this card might do the job:

The bird embellies are by Express Yourself DIY and I think they're rather sweet. The papers are from the V&A Collection by Papermania (I think!).

I hope you're all enjoying your Bank Holiday Monday. I'm gearing up to enter the June Loons Listing Challenge over on Folksy, which will mean trying to list one new item a day. Oooerr! I don't half set myself some corkers! Talking of which, this is also the start of my Week Without Cheese Challenge. As my diet probably comprises about 75% cheese, it's going to be a toughie. Wish me luck!

Preparing to Craft..

I can't believe I'm contemplating putting the heating on this evening :o( It's just wrong to need to do that at the end of May, isn't it? I'm hoping that I'll soon be so focussed on crafting (this is the first time I've sat down at my desk in a few days) that I won't notice the chill. Or else the hot water bottle might need to come out!

It's been a pleasant couple of days. Friday night was Card Night at Kim's and there were laughs aplenty ( as well as a lot of sniffleage from me - hay fever?) but the sum total of my productivity was these:

I think I must have had my "squint eye" on when taking this pic!

Yesterday Himself and I met up at John Lewis' cafe' with his cousin and his cousin's wife and wee girl who were visiting from Doncaster. Then it was back to mine for me and H,with a M&S Dine in for £10 meal and the Eurovision Song Crapfest. Why we bother with such excruciatingly tactical piffle I'll never know, but maybe the wee glass of white wine that accompanied our meal helped ease the cringes!

Today was a sat-fat-laden fried brekkie at Asda cafe' to start with, followed by a doze-session and then a walk in a newly-discovered (for us) part of Livingston. And now I am keen to craft. The only other card I have to show you at the moment is one I made for a friend who recently passed a very important test:

I don't know where I got those letter stickers but they have a tendency to peel back off so I hope it didn't read " we on" by the time it reached her!

See you soon!

Going the Whole (Hedge)Hog!

After the debacle with the Daisy and Dandelion blog, I wasn't sure I'd ever be using any products from the range ever again, but when I saw the new characters Hawthorn and Bramble, I knew I just had to use them to create a class for the shop. It's taken a wee while and a lot of procrastination but I've finally put together one of three projects, so here's a preview:

What is this going to be?

Well, open it and see!

Cute characters, eh? I've been working on the other projects too so more sneak peeks soon. My class is on the evening of the 20th July at the PaperMill Shop in Livingston (shameless plug!) and there are still places available!

I met up with my fellow bookworm friend this morning and over a delicious breakfast roll we chatted and she gave me a pile of books that are almost as tall as me!(well, not quite but impressive nevertheless!)

I can't wait to get my teeth into them! Anybody read any of these and recommend them?

Bye for now!

Bad Puns

As a regular user of bad puns on my cards I was delighted that the challenge over at Cards Blog this week is to use a pun of some sort! So I went for my old favourite:

Papers are by My Minds' Eye, sheep image is by DebboDesigns!

Sun, Sea and Sand

Well, hasn't this been a weekend of the most fantastic weather in living memory (almost)? I was lucky enough not to be working and I made the most of it! Yesterday I had a lovely, summery lunch at my parents', where I guzzled my first strawberries of the year, then Himself and I slathered on the Factor 15 (we've been told it should really have been 30, oops!) and took a walk in Lauriston Castle Gardens where we investigated the Japanese Garden, which was a riot of colour:

Then we watched genteel folk playing croquet on the castle lawn, and quizzed them about the rules of the game (I came away none the wiser):

Care for a game of croquet on the lawn, M'Dear? Oh, rat-her, Your Lordship!

After that we joined the reddened flesh-bearing masses down at Silverknowes and enjoyed ice cream and the scorchio weather whilst walking along the "promenade":

View across to Cramond Island. Mad people swimming.

Today, Himself and I took a trip to Dunbar to have lunch with his parents and to say hello to his sister who was visiting from London. In the late afternoon, H, his Mum, his Sister and I went for a walk on the beach where, once again, the world and his dog were soaking up the rays.

The walk to the beach was idyllic.

Then I got to do this:

So refreshing!

On the way back my companions sat on a wibbly seat:

After that it was back to their house for a lazy hour or so laughing looking at old photos of Himself and his siblings on family holidays, titter!

And what about crafting? Well I've been too busy enjoying the Great Outdoors really, but I have done a spot of monkeying around:

Cupcake Tags

To celebrate the fact that I got through a whole week without one iota of cake passing my lips in the No Cake For A Week Challenge, I've made some cupcake tags:

I also celebrated by stuffing a pecan and toffee whirl from Greggs into my gob on Monday morning. I like succeeding at these challenges!

A Whale of a Time

Well, that was a busy, but very pleasant, weekend! On Saturday Himself and I went to North Berwick to pop into a craft fair that his mum had a stall at. Sadly, it was very quiet, with not many people browsing or buying, but it was interesting to see what was on offer; there was some lovely stuff, all the stall-holders seemed very nice and I was able to get a "feel" for what doing a craft fair is like. It's still on my list of Things I'd Like To Do Before I Expire!

Afterwards, Himself and I took a walk up North Berwick Law, where the wind was a-gusting at 3 million miles an hour but we got some lovely views:

Through an "orifice".

Himself posing by the fake whalebone that adorns the summit (don't ask me the reason, it's a bit random really!)

Afterwards we had a nice game of putting:

Which I actually won (yaroo!) but only because H gave me a massive advantage (i.e. two shots counting as just one). It was nice to feel the buzz of achievement because I don't experience that very often!

Then we "rounded" off the trip with my absolute fave pig-out fest:

Fish n' Chips, a bottle of "The Bru" and a lurvely sea view. Nom yum smlurch!

On Sunday I knocked up a quick card for a commission:

Hand-drawn purse embelly, gorge My Minds Eye papers and a vibrant colour scheme. I was quite pleased with this one!

Right, I'm off to make some Father's Day embellies as it's not long before that occasion comes round!

Early Bird

I was up early this morning to craft and I'm so into it just now that I'm trying to put off the dreaded moment when I have to go and do housework (Boooo!!) The DCM dare got me quite excited this week; it's all about Bunting and I decided it was the perfect theme for a birthday card I needed to make:

It's quite a "busy" card, but I've decided I'm a fan of bunting now!

My Little Tree cards are ready to go into the Folksy shop:

I love making Little Cards!

OK, (sigh) I guess there's no delaying the inevitable - it's time to go and scrub that loo (bleh!)!!

My Workdesk

These were the WIP's (Works In Progress) on my desk this morning:

Some Little Trees, Charlie Chicks and a cupcake (excuse the state of my cutting mat, it's seen a lot of craft action in it's time!). They would have been Completed Works last night had I not foolishly left all my craft tools at work - doh!

Never mind, now I'm fed and watered (and chocolated!) that's what I plan to do this evening!

CPS #166 Challenge

I've been playing with my new eyelet punch to make this commissioned card which also fits the bill for this week's CPS sketch:

The papers are, as ever, by Cosmo Cricket, and the embellishment is by the Paper Studio Company.

I'm also building up more stock for the Folksy shop:

The next set of mini cards will feature Colin the Cat!

Hissy Fit

I'm crabbit* tonight as my mojo is AWOL, but at least it's been a nice weekend so far, yesterday being spent at a BBQ with friends and today a productive day at work. And at least I've got Douglas the Dog to cheer me up now that my mood is a bit GRRR!!!:

He and the other animal characters will be going into my Folksy shop very soon!

Now I'm going to shout very loudly at a wall then go to bed. Bah!

*a Scottish word meaning "intensely grumpy".

More Farmyard Friends

Tonight I present...Clarabelle Cow!

Our Stampin'Up stuff arrived today so I'm looking forward to playing with my new eyelet border punch! I will have to wait a bit longer for my stitched felt flowers, boo! I've got a few cards to make and I'm just wondering if I can combine them with a challenge or two to kill two birds with one stone (although being an animal lover I would never do such a thing of course!)

Brrr, my feet are cold, better go and fill a hot water bottle to put under them while I'm crafting!

That's it for now!

Farmyard Friends

Well, I've now made it through four days without having a cup of coffee, which is a record for me. After having a couple of, aherm, digestive incidents recently, I've decided, by a process of elimination to work out which part of my diet triggers these occurences. So this week it's caffeine, next week I might try and go without chocolate (horrors!) It's been surprisingly easy to have a break from the old Nescafe. In fact it's felt quite "cleansing".

Right, enough about my digestion, onto the cards. I'm currently putting together sets of cards featuring cute farm animals of my own creation. I used to make animal toppers to sell years ago and I've decided to try again. Each one is individually hand-drawn so it's quite a lot of work but I enjoy the process.

So far, I've completed some Percy Pig cards:

Or maybe that should be Phillippa Pig as the theme is a bit pink and girly!

Cow cards coming next! See you soon.

Detox Day

I didn't feel too well this morning. I suspect that in my advancing years it is no longer advisable for me to eat curry. Even if it's a particularly tasty one like I had yesterday as the veggie option at a carvery. Sigh.

I'm glad I was on a day off from work today because it meant I could spend the morning in bed recovering. I think it's time to have a detox. Nothing unhealthy (except, aherm, an Aero bar) has found it's way down my gullet so far today! I've not even drunk any coffee!

So it's a miracle that, without my usual sugar and caffeine fuel supply, I have made a card!

I made it for CPS #165. The pretty papers are My Mind's Eye and the letters are Doodlebug.

I've also bitten the bullet and opened a Folksy shop!!! I've not had time to list many items so far but I hope to stock more of my self-drawn designs in this store. So we'll see how it goes...

That's all for now, folks, I'm going to do a bit more crafting then I'm going to soak in the tub. I might even keep up the detox and have a herbal tea!! (!)