Craft Fair - Lancaster - 13 July 2008

I'm busy preparing for my second craft fair of the year! I'm madly trying to make enough stock to take with me (toppers, die cuts, embellishments and cards) as I've had a lot of orders lately and stocks are a little depleted! Still, keeps me out of mischief....

It will be from 12 noon to 4 pm on Sunday 13 July at Slyne with Hest Memorial Hall, Hest Bank, Lancaster. If you're in the area pop in and see me! More details are on my website.

Update on Lynsey - she's back home as nothing untoward was found but she's to get back to the hospital if she's in that much pain again. Glad you're home!!

What???? No Root Beer??

I am most disgruntled, appalled and shocked.

McDonalds, years ago stopped selling Root Beer in the UK (I remember it well) so I have to do without the beautiful refreshing flavour. I had resigned to the fact I'd have to wait a long time before I drank the stuff again. Or so I thought. I spied a tube of Jelly Beans on the very top shelf in the sweet section in Asda the other day and safe in the knowledge that they included Root Beer flavour, I just simply had to have them.

I managed to abstain until around 2:30pm. Once I'd managed to get the tape off the top of the tube and pick the split beans up (was a bit too eager to get to them) I was horrified to realise that there WAS NO ROOT BEER flavoured ones............

How totally horrible and unfair!


And the tube proudly states 'now with 36 flavours'. Well, get shut of cinnamon (oh my word, I though my mouth was on fire!) and put Root Beer back. It even deserves capitalisation on the packaging.

Sorry. Had to have a rant. You do understand, don't you?!!

Despite all that, I did eat the whole tube and almost thoroughly enjoyed it. Didn't eat the packaging, just in case you thought I did. I'm not that mad. Yet.

P.S. The last one I had was cinnamon which is quite vile, and with not having any other beans left to take away the nasty flavour, I had to console myself with a mars bar. Hehehehe.

Space Saving Dino!

Made this dinosaur card last night as part of my demonstration cards for It's Funky Too. Had been working the idea through in my head for a while but not really found the right backing paper to do it. Then I found this little gem on the cd!! The template is hand drawn and it fits neatly over a 15cm square blank card - I just trimmed the excess off around the edges - the bend is at the top of the card.

The head and tail are attached with eyelets and brads so they move about.

And so that they can fold into themselves to fit into the envelope. Although it does look a bit like the dinosaur is sniffing its bottom!

The only extra bits on the card are a few age spots cut from the same card and with black fine marker circles, and the same black marker around the edges of the dinosaur. I showed it to the boys this morning and they loved it!

Will make a few more of these and see if they sell at the Craft Fair next weekend!

Warrington & Minnie

Was asked to make a card for a 30th Wedding Anniversary. My brief was that they both supported Warrington Rugby League, loved Disneyland and she liked flowers. The backing vellum paper I bought on a whim ages ago from here, knowing that I'd be able to use it at some point!


As it was a Pearl Wedding Anniversary, I've used fake pearls strung onto wire and threaded through the organza ribbon. And I've used an eyelet too!

Bargain Ribbon!

Look what I got earlier this week!! All these bundles of ribbon for £1!! 10p a bundle!! And some of them are around 4 or 5 metres long. From the lovely market stall in Blackburn.

Ribbon and bargains - what more could a girl want??!!

It's not crafty!

This is not a crafty post! I used to do a lot of gardening before I had the boys, and grew nearly everything from either seed or cuttings. But, time is tighter these days, I just don't do as much gardening as I would like. So Simon does most of it - well, grass cutting and pulling the big weeds out and mulching.

Even though the summer this year has not got going properly, my gardens are looking quite good! The clematis which I nearly killed last year (bad combination of greenfly and forgetting to water it as its in a big pot) is thriving and has masses of flowers!

I love red hot pokers and have big clumps of the in the front and back. I grew these from tiny little plants the summer after we moved to the house, so they are 8 years old now. Last year something munched all the flowers and I had nothing to show, but this year is very different! I'm now thinking of attempting to grow some that are not traditional in colour...

Last night (before it chucked it down) the boys played on the trampoline. We bought the trampoline a month ago from Netto as it was a bargain - costing less for the whole thing than B&Q were charging just for the net enclosure!

It's quite huge - 10 foot diameter! And they love it as you can see!! For some reason, they insist on having a football with them!

And because I had the camera out, they wanted a photo of themselves!

The Chickens Are Poorly......

Get well soon Lynsey!! And I hope its not appendicitis (I can only spell it with the aid of spellchecker), but what ever it is, I hope its not too painful and that it can be sorted quickly!

Advance Warning!

My little blog is approaching 100 posts - at this rate it should be sometime over the next 10 days. So, it means blog candy time - whoooo-hoooo!!

Keep a check to see when it does actually happen, as you've got to be in it to win it!!!

It's Funky Too - some creations!

I made these over the weekend from It's Funky Too cd. This is the second cd Anice produced and it was really nice to go back and rediscover old friends!

The first card is my favourite. Not colours I usually go for but the paper just screamed at me to be used! It is first printed onto card which is cut slightly smaller than the actual card and then the same printed on vellum laid over the top - that's why it looks slightly out of focus. It's all attached with 4 little eyelets (see - I'm using it!) and lemon ribbon threaded through and tied on the spine (I've made little slits in the spine so the ribbon will go through). Bling added to the centres of the larger flowers.


Now, I'm not too sure about this next one. It lacks something, but I don't know what. The edges of the card has been dotted with a silver gel pen. Two ribbons used around the centre - a lovely organza piece which matched the main colour perfectly, and a darker maroon satin ribbon to set it off. I made the wire swirly thing. And nearly punched holes in my thumbs in the process. My intentions with the card was to produce something simple that even the least experienced card maker could replicate.

I've used the football paper before, but not got photographic evidence! The keyring is from a party bag that one of the boys got a while ago. And I thought the keyring would come in for something one day! It is attached to the card via lovely satin blue ribbon through an eyelet (although you can't see it). Silver letters cut with my new Sizzlitts Round-a-Bout alphabet.

I've got some more ideas swishing around in my head for more examples, but got a few orders to complete this week, so it may be next week before I share anything!

The Postman Always Rings Twice

Well, actually, in my case, the post lady knocked. Look what I've received through the post in the last few days:

Cuttlebug embossing folder from a very kind and generous Enfys from the Funky Hand Design Team - we all got goodies sent to us. How nice is that?! Thank you Enfys!


And this is the Jozza blog candy I won (see yesterdays blog post)

And she added a sweet little card too. Ribbon and flower - very nice!!

Keeping Jozza's card company on the mantelpiece is this card from Kath. She asked me for some male graduation die cuts and offered to swop some eyelets for my new green baby. Kath, you are far too generous and there are enough to keep me going for a long long time! Thank you!

So watch out for cards with eyelets!!