Cards

I seem to be in a bit of a card making groove of late - a combination of the need for a load of cards and liking the small size of this type of project has kept me busy over the past few weeks.

Here are a few of 'em:
This one was made using the new page kits over here, I made a scrapbook page and this card with the one kit - plus have loads of it left to make more cards so they are great value for money. Eeek. More men's cards were needed with both my bro in law and cousin's birthdays in the past few weeks. Tricky - I find men's cards so hard (well, no cards are easy but men's are even harder!), so when I made a design I was happy with for my cous, I copied it for my bro in law too!!!

And finally my sister needed a card for a wedding over the weekend, so I was happy to oblige. As you can probably tell I am loving the swiss dot thing at the moment ha! I made the Mr & Mrs greeting in photoshop - I used a tag from a freebie kit I downloaded from here at 2Peas: I altered the colour and added the text, whizzed some cardstock through the printer et voila.

I can happily report that Dora the chook has made a splendid recovery and is now back in the coop and run with the other girls - happy days! Will try to get some chook pics up soon lol!!

Hope you are all enjoying the sunshine!

Nat xxx

School's out for Summer!!!!!!!!!!!

Whoop whoop!

Teaching practice completed and successfully passed?

Check!

Assignments all completed and handed in?

Check!

Exams swotted for and sat?

Check!

4 months holiday until the next semester starts?

Check!

Yeeha! My second year of my course is over! This time next year I will be qualified! I can't believe how fast it is going and am so happy that I made the hard decision to leave work to follow my dream to become a teacher!

So what to do with my new found free time?!

Well I've had a fair bit of partying to do. I spent the bank holiday weekend in Bristol for a dear old friends' hen weekend. We partied by night, and mooched around the shops during the day. The lovely new Cabot Circus was fab and the cafes there were perfect for people watching - which due to tired feet we spent a bit of time doing!

I pinched this shot from the website; this square had the most divine shops and the water fountains shooting directly from the paving and splashing back down on the stones looked so pretty in the sunlight (and my aching feet were desperate to take a little stroll over the water outlets!)- but I didn't have my camera! I could have spent a small fortune in the Molton Brown boutique - quite literally! A travel-sized soap cost £15 alone. I think I'll have to wait for a QVC TSV lol!

Then last weekend, my uni class had our end of exams celebratory night out - much Champagne was consumed with special thanks to my fantastic friend Vicki, who was leaving us to return to New Zealand to complete the course there. I feel honoured to have met such a fantastic woman - she is so energetic and inspiring and constantly amazed me by balancing a hectic family life spread over two global hemispheres with the demands of the course, and her continual encouragement and support when it was needed by others. She would go out of her way to help anyone - she really was an angel, and had a wicked sense of humour and anecdotes

to match. She really will be missed by us all next year. So here is a group of shot of my fab class whilst we were all still decent and controlled lol - the teachers of the future!!!

The night after (as if I didn't already have enough of a headache) was Lee's sister's Hawaiian themed birthday BBQ. Here we are suitable dressed for the occasion with our good friends S&A. The Luau Marquee was home to the biggest and most lethal punch bowl you ever did see. "Bring it on!! " we cried!!!
The chooks are well and truly settled in - we are getting 2-3 eggs every day: we think it is just the smallest girl, Dolly, left to come into lay now.

That said, we have been nursing Dora indoors for the last few days!All four girls quickly got into a great routine of getting themselves off to bed at night - I had read that you may have to show them how to use the ladder to get into the coop for a few days until they get the hang of it, however our fab girls took to it like, erm, ducks to water. So when we went out one evening to lock the coop up for the night, we found it a bit strange to find Dora cwtched up under the ladder. Just a dizzy chook moment we thought, and Lee lifted her into the coop with the others.

But the next morning when I let them out, she slid rather than walked down the ladder and plopped to the bottom, where she stayed. I could see immediately that she'd hurt her leg and scooped her up and took her indoors amidst my tears (I'm such a wussy wuss wuss!!). We looked at her closely and sought advice and it seems that she has bruised her upper leg badly - apparently it can take them a fortnight to recover from bruising and strains :( We think she must have tumbled from either the ladder or one of the branch perches we had put in there to enrich their environment, poor dab. What ever it was - I feel so guilty! She is starting to stand and bare a little weight but is still not walking properly, so she's indoors where we can be sure that she won't fall again, won't be trampled on by the other girls and that her food and water is in reach for her. She seems to be getting brighter each day, and is bawking away at me as I type!!

So, as you can see I'm all partied out and busy chook-sitting! I have applied for a few summer jobs, but they are very few and far between with the current economical climate. So hopefully I'll be able to get on with some nice creative projects over the next few weeks to keep me out of trouble!!!!

Catch you soon xxxx

Bunches!

Here's another of the pages I did for Sarah's Card's April Kit.

The journalling reads:

I learned today that you need to have a PhD in physics; a degree in material sciences; an idea of the space/time continuum; various certificates in manual handling AND violence and aggression; a large bag of chocolate buttons and approximately four hours to spare in order to put a two year olds’ hair into Bunches. I am clearly under qualified. 3.4.09

I'd printed the photo onto some canvas, so that was cool to try for a change. Must admit, I'm living rediscovering my dusty old sizzix machine again! The mini date tag, the bookplate, and the flowers were all cut from patterned paper using it.

Other news.......

I handed in my last assignment for this academic year this morning!!! Whoop whoop! Exams in a week and a half and then that's year of my degree over - just one year left until I'm a qualified teacher!

I have been a Chook Mamma for eight days now, and loving it! We have four girlies - one brown who is about a year old, and three black ones who are about three months. They came at a lovely time really, as although we are still heart broken about Rocky, the girls have given us something positive to focus on.

We thought we'd let Ellie name the brown one as she'd be able to recognise that hen easily. When I first asked her she what she'd like to call her, she sang "toodle-loodle-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-" whilst rubbing her fingers together like you would to call a cat! So I asked her again through tears of laughter, and she just said "looloo", so we decided to go with Loulou while the going was good!

Because the other three are all black, we wanted similar names for them, so we went for Dotty (because she has some brown speckles on her wings), Dora (as in Dora the NON-explorer, because in the first couple of days while everyone else was exploring their new home, she was happy just sitting on her branch!), and finally Dolly, as she is teeny tiny compared to the others and so cute!

They are settling in nicely and the brown one has been kind to us and we've had a few lovely eggs to eat this week. However........we think today that Dora may have come in to lay - fingers crossed!

We are learning lots - certainly getting up first thing in the morning to feed the birds, let them out and poo pick has been an eye opener haha, but no more than I expected! Poo picking in the rain is certainly not fun either - the weather this week has been so horrendous. The coop/run we purchased is too small really, I've since found out that everyone who purchases these models find they are too small, so plans are already underway to extend the area around the coop for the girlies - and it will have a roof and a light out there so at least when I have to go out on dark, cold and wet winter mornings (or Summer mornings at this rate!) I'll have a roof over my head and will be able to see what I'm doing as I poo pick!!!!!!!!!!

Lovely :)

Anyway, 'nuff bout chooks for now!

Hope you are well, catch up soon xxxx

:(

Sad times in this family.

Rocky passed away last Wednesday, bless his doggie cotton socks. The old boy had had very good innings and was very loved by many many people, and will be very sadly missed by both mine and Lee's families.

I have to make a photostory video as part of my IT assignment due in next week, so as I was sorting out pictures and captions of Rocky for Lee's sister, I thought I may as well use them for that. I hope nobody thinks that's morbid.

The video brings tears to my eyes (I think it's the song really, it's so emotional), so please don't watch it if you're a big wuss like me lol! However I've tried to celebrate his comedic and quirky character - and I think the last slide really shows what a star he was lol ;)

Love you Rocky boy xxxx

Latest Sarah's Cards kit

I do believe the subscribers have started receiving and getting busy with their latest kits from Sarah's Cards, so I can start to share my DT stuff I did with it here :)

The papers were gorgeous, and the kit had lots of little fun things like decorative pins and white overlays.

Chooks are hopefully coming very soon, just waiting on confirmation of our adopting them :)

I've signed up for an online PS class with Amber Ulmer over at SIS, looking forward to it but they've already changed the date and not confirmed when it's going to be, so I hope it's going to be good! I like her photography/editing style so I'm sure I'll benefit from it when it does run.

Catch you soon xxx

Cardtastic

I've been in a bit of a card making zone the last week or so.

It was a combination of having treated to myself to a few new bits and bobs (including an owl stamp and a swiss dot embossing folder), and needing a couple of cards for different things.

First it was the in-laws wedding anniversary......the stickers look strange colours in the pic!! they liked the card anyway and that's the main thing lol.....

Then it was one of the cousins' 18th - making mens cards is soo hard!!! A couple of dots and stripes was all I could come up with lol!

And then this one I made just to have a play about with my new stamp lol!!!

Have I mentioned that we are getting chickens in a few weeks?! C.R.A.Z.Y. Well the coop has been erected and fox-proofed, so now we're working on the rest of the garden. Two sides are protected by brambles, so we thought that would be fine - until Lee watched a fox crawling through them yesterday stalking, and catching, a bird for his dinner! So we need to rethink that one. We see loads of foxes in the field at the side of the house, and I guess we can not completely keep them out, so vigilance is going to be the key me thinks.

We're also having another go at growing our own stuff this year haha! The green house is up, beds have been planted and the south-facing windowsills of the house are crammed with various seedling trays and things sprouting up in 3" pots. Ah the good life!! Sop fingers crossed for good weather. Well actually, I am leaving it to his highness - I'll stick to making the window boxes, patio and hanging baskets look pretty thank you!!!

xxx

Back to the grindstone.....

Ah this weekend is the end of my Easter holidays, back to uni lectures on Monday for the first time in what seems like forever what with having been on teaching practice!

I also have an assignment to hand in on Monday, which I have currently written a grand total of 600 words for. Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow then?!

So what have I been doing for the past three weeks, if not working on my assignment you ask?

Firstly, I have been working on a shop over at Folksy as I hope to sell some of my mum's handmade jewellery over there. Maybe I'll be brave and sell some of my own handmade stuff too?!

Been busy with kits and bits. I made a lovely paper bunting set for Bubbly Scrumptious this week which I was really pleased with - you know what it's like, quite often you finish up a project and you always want to tweak it a little bit, but I was happy with these. The only thing that I was gutted about it that I really couldn't get a decent shot to show them in all their glory!!!

If you fancy having a go yourself, my instructions are here for a peep.

My sister caught a lovely photo of Ellie and I in the garden on Easter Sunday. The Easter Bunny has obviously got very generous over the years because as well as an abundance of Easter Eggs he left a swing in the garden for her too! Ok, ok, the Easter Bunny once left a massive slide for my sister and I once, however we had had the mumps or something so we couldn't eat chocolate - the massive slide was set up in the living room until we got better - it was so tall we'd have to crouch at the top so we didn't bump our heads on the ceiling!!

So, Ellie had been asking me to "come see my park" (aka the swing) all morning; she led me out by the hand and my sis snapped this with my camera. It's my fave pic at the mo. Adore the way she gives you that squinty smiley face of love, and love the vintagey brown tones I gave it in PS, reminds me of the yellowing photos I have of my cousin and I playing in my grandparents sun-filled garden when we were about Ellie's age.

Oh, and while I'm on toddler topic: I was at my mum's one evening this week and Ell was there. Mum was half watching Coronation Street and half chatting to me, when Ellie stood up, grabbed the remote control and announced "this is boring" and paused the Skyplus!!! We were in stitches, and between giggles I asked her that if it was boring, what did she want to watch instead?

Know what her answer was?

" 'Stenders........"

pmsl xxxx

Bubbly Funk Challenge!

Well, while the little birdie stamp is still fresh in your minds, I may as well over indulge in a little more of him!

This months challenge over at the Bubbly Scrumptious blog is to make and use a felt bird of some kind on any project you like.

With Easter upon us next week, I couldn't resist stamping my lil fella onto some felt, and popping him on to a bright and zesty card for Easter. A bit of stitching and an odd button gave him a bit of quirky detail.

The rest of the design team came up with some really amazing projects - rather putting my card to shame! Check them all out here, and give the challenge a go - it's up for a whole month.

Ellie stayed over on Friday evening. I was asking her what she wanted for tea, and she left me perplexed for the evening by replying "poopables" everytime I asked her.

Eventually I worked out that she actually meant VEGETABLES! Ha, I think poopables is a perfect description :)

xxx

Lil Birdie!

I bought a lil birdie stamp a while ago - I thought it was a bargain at 99p! So I put it to use to make some baby-themed projects - it seems that everyone I know is having babies right now!

I made this card for my friend who had her first baby, Elaina, in February, using some of the many pretty bits I had left from the February Sarah's Cards kit.Lil Miss Ellie became a "big cuz" for the first time in the same month, with her daddy's brother and his partner giving birth to their first baby, Harvey, in the same month. So my sister asked me if I could decorate a basket for her to fill with baby goodies and wrap in ribbons and pretty cellophane as a welcome gift from Ells Bells. It was really quick to do. I altered the free digi tag to the right size and colour in Photoshop, printed it out, mounted it onto kraft, popped on his name using Pink Paislee alpha stickers, and thread some ribbon through it. I then topped it off with lil birdie, and it made a sweet gift once it was laden with the baby-themed bounty!

This week has been the start of my Easter three week break! And although I have loads of uni work to be getting on with, I'm hoping to spend a good amount of time relaxing and getting creative :)

Hop you;re all having a good week xxx

Woolly Jumpers

I mentioned in my last post that a group of my sister's friends have been organising several events for charity, including the ladies night. Well, last weekend was their long awaited charity Skydive, and we were all out in force to show our support. My sister's partner was jumping along with his mechanic colleagues, who dubbed themselves the "Woolly Jumpers". This is no mean feat for anyone, however he has never flown before as he is terrified of flying (he once pulled out of a holiday a couple of days before he was meant to leave as he was so worried!), and is petrified of heights.

After spending a whole day at the airport on Saturday white as a sheet and shaking with nerves, and continually psyching himself up for the task ahead, the group was eventually turned away in the late afternoon as the wind conditions were too dangerous to jump. We were unsure whether he'd be able to go through it all again on Sunday, but he truly was brave and by noon he'd made the 12,000ft jump and landed again safely!!

Chocks away!It was amazing to watch, and all the boys (and girls) were fab! If you're on my friends list on Facebook, please go and take a look at all the other photo's I have added to see the enormity of what they did on Sunday morning!

My last day at school was lovely last week. I had a party with the children, complete with games/prizes, party food and party bags (of course!). I was very lucky and had some beautiful cards and gifts, and most importantly big hugs at the end of the day, I will miss them all. But I was brave and didn't cry this year! Will be attending their Easter concert this week, so it will be nice to see them again.

Here's the last of the layouts I did with the Pink Paislee February kit from Sarah's Cards. It was perfect for the Halloween pics of Missy from last October. Speaking of Sarah's Cards, they are organising a retreat for March 2010 - and it's sold out already! Should be an exciting one I think!!!

xxx