SCD Challenge

So over on the SCD blog this week the challenge is to do a twinchie with the theme being Crowns.



I've used another piece of my lovely Tando Creative prize, and again used distress inks to make the background. Then stamped a crown in the same two colours (milled lavender and broken china). Then I stamped again and embossed with a purple and added glitter highlights. The "C" was cut from grungeboard and triple embossed with a flat silver and then stamped. I know it needs something to finish it off but blowed if I can think what LOL.

Hope you've all had a good Bank Holiday weekend.

Sue x

Scrapping

I've not done many layouts this month but finally managed one yesterday as Dawn and I got a day to ourselves and scrapped.



I used a sketch that Wendy posted on Papermaze blog a few weeks ago here and used up some more scraps from the Fancy Pants rough and tumble range. The title was cut from the paper and then covered with glossy accents. photo's are Ben and Harvey roaring around the garden.

Hounds all well!

Sue x

Birthday girl

Well we had a lovely evening, the boys played cricket,




whilst the girls watched Vikki open all her lovely presents.



A rare photo of Vik and me, I have lots of lovely photo's to scrap.



Dogs and myself totally shattered today LOL.

Off to the dentist later to get my tooth fixed!

Happy Birthday Vikki

today my daughter is 30 !!!! Happy birthday sweetheart xxx

So at tea time all the family will gather here to celebrate Vikki turning 30 LOL. I've been busy baking but made hard work of everything, just one of those days when it doesn't flow LOL.

Decided to take a break and finish this wall hanging for the porch, I've been faffing with it for days and couldn't get it right, last night Eric wandered over to my side of the study and said what about putting it off centre and it suddenly fell into place. Beginners luck !!!




Quite a good visit to the vets last night, Tom is perplexed by the lump on Jim's pad and scrapped the top off (Jim was very brave) and thought maybe he should be sedated for further investigation. Eric however suggested he gently files the top off the lump and see if that helps with the option of sedation and investigation if it doesn't. Well he had ago last night and Jim promptly jumped up and went outside and played with his football. Fingers or paws crossed this may be the solution. Tom gave Jim a complete check up and is astounded that post op (now approaching 8 months) that Jim is in excellent health with no signs of anything sinister lurking. he said he personally hasn't seen a dog with Jim's aggressive bone cancer survive this long. WTG Jim buba xxx

Okay back to the kitchen for me.

SCD Challenge

So having been the lucky winner with my name being pulled out of the hat over at SCD last week, I thought I had better do another LOL. Didn't want it to look like hey thanks for my prize don't have time to play this week (which I seriously don't) so anyway this week the challenge is PARIS and here's my twinchie



I've used a piece of my prize from Tando Creative Ltd, then coloured it with distress inks, stamped a background text stamp and some foliage and the Paris stamp mark. Finally I printed the Eiffel tower coloured it with a silver pen and then dragged black ink over it. Quite by accident it ended up looking metallic. All very amateurish by comparison to the girls on SCD but you don't improve if you don't try do you.

Jim is off to the vets tomorrow as he paw that had the corn removed is still bothersome but other than that he's in good spirits and seems well.

Busy week here, Wednesday Vikki (DD) will be 30th so we're having a birthday bash for her and Sunday Marc (DS) is having his engagement do, so guess someone is going to be busy in the kitchen LOL. Oh and lets not forgot Thursday! Thursday I'm back to the dentist to get my tooth fixed which by the way now aches. So looking forward to that NOT!

Does everyone else lead such a hectic life !!!! roll on my weekend away with Dawn only two more weeks yay !!!

Workshop

Yesterday I went to a workshop at papermaze run by Carol, this time we were learning about alcohol inks. Now I love alcohol inks but usually only play with them on acetate, yesterday I learnt so much and had a wonderful day.

We made some lovely papers by inking onto glossy paper



then we stamped images onto acetate and when dry inked them



and finally inked a stampboard piece, stamped it then scratched it to add highlights.



As always a fab day Carol THANK YOU.

Two other pieces of news one good, one very very sad.

Yesterday my dear little Ed died !!!! Friday he had been in top form but Saturday right from the start he was off and wouldn't feed or drink, he grew weaker and weaker as the day went by, finally he died in my hands 10 minutes after I got home. I was totally shattered having thought getting him through the first four days he would survive. Sleeptight little Ed the duck.

On a happier note my little twichie I made for the challenge at SCD was picked out of the hat as the winner and I received all of this



whose a lucky girl LOL.

Visitors

On Monday after months of anticipation my friend Shellie and her husband Kit arrived.

Shellie and I met through greyhound gap but when I say met, I mean we met and became cyber friends over 5 years ago. We email each other most days and have shared so many highs and lows over our precious hounds. IN November Shellie's beautiful Miss Flo passed away and so Shellie decided it was time whilst she didn't have her own dog (but OMG she's a favourite Auntie to loads of hounds who come to stay) to come and visit.

We have had such a wonderful 5 days, eating, talking, laughing and hugging. On Thursday we left the men at home and went for a stroll round Stowmarket it was totally surreal to be walking around town with my best cyber pal.

But Shellie and Kit aren't the only guests we've had this week.

Monday afternoon Eric came home with that sheepish look which means one thing, he's rescued something, a Mummy duck had hatched two of her ducklings then upped sticks and left the others. One died as soon as it hatched from cold and so Eric came home with 3 eggs. (Mummy duck wasn't coming back Eric and watched and waited for hours) so .......Tuesday early am this happened. The other 2 eggs didn't make it.



I think maybe because we had guests it just didn't occur to me to ring a rescue place and instead I just got on with looking after him. 5 minutes googling ducklings and I was an expert LOL.

Day 2




so day two sees Ed (yup I named him) looking weak and I didn't hold out much hope. However I decided to feed him every 20 minutes throughout the day and evening and by

Day 3

He looked like this.



Day 4 today

he looks like this



and is now thriving!!!

So after our guests left and much soul searching I decided it would be best for Ed to go to a sanctuary and be looked after by someone who knew what they were doing. Finally I found somewhere and arrangements were made. So why did I burst into tears, the upshot after ringing this lovely man back (who incidentally knows of us via the vets) has said Ed stands as much chance with me as him and has talked me through what I should do and expect. He's even said I can ring him daily for advice etc, so for now Ed is staying (who would have guessed that LOL) However should he decided to wake me up again at 4am demanding food this may change LOL...

Alfie is back to normal and has been thoroughly spoilt all week by Shellie and Kit (as have the others) but Jim has had a few off days, we think his pad with the corn is sore again so off to see Mr Vet next week.

So tomorrow I'm off to a workshop on alchol inks at Papermaze run by Carol and really really looking forward to it.

Happy Birthday SCD

Over at SCD they are celebrating their first birthday. It's a super blog run by my very talented friend Carol and finally I've found time to take part in their weekly challenge.

Here is my twinchie on the chosen flower theme.



The background paper started off white (Carol take note) then I scrunched it up and swirled it in distressed inks that I'd sprayed. When it was dry I then ironed it (that was a shock doing the ironing), finally I've stamped a quote onto it with some background flowers and added a flower which has been sprayed with glimmer mist and voila.....okay so it's not great but I took part and that's what counts.

Here is my layout from crop on Saturday. I love this photo Eric got of Jim last month, he spotted something in the distance and suddenley pulled himself up tall and strong. Seeing it rolled back the years to when he was younger and healthy.



Papers are from Bo Bunny "a gift of love" and the title is painted chipboard and then painted again with distress paint.

Happy Birthday blog

This week my blog is celebrating it's 3rd birthday LOL who would have thought I'd still be doing it. I actually started it at the end of April 2007 but then promptly forgot how to get back into it for a few weeks d'oh ...

Been scrapping with Dawn today and made this little wall hanging for the porch. Just needs some holes punched in and ribbon to hang it.



Paper has been inked with distress inks, then glued onto several layers of thick card as I didn't have any chipboard and stamped with TH stamps, then the centre bits were cut out using a spellbinders thingy and lastly a greyhound silhouette and chipboard heart added with the little letters. Or something like that LOL. Too tired to think straight as Alfie Bear had us up at 5.20am being poorly and I am very tired now.

Off to Otley crop tomorrow all on my own. Dawn is away and Mum, Mandy, Sandra and Peb are also away on a scrapping retreat.

Sewing and stuff

Yes I know this comes as a shock to anyone who knows me but I dusted off the sewing machine. Now me and the sewing machine don't get on at all and true to form not only did the bobbin jam but the needle also broke !!!!! I did not give up although I was seriously tempted to ring my Mum who is an expert with the sewing machine but instead GRITTED MY TEETH AND PUSHED THROUGH THE TEARS AND TANTRUMS.

Aaah I hear you ask what master piece was I creating, well just a small table cloth (made from a £2.99 single sheet) and some little frills for the kitchen windows (all 3) because Eric painted the kitchen and my lovely roman blinds then clashed. Why did Eric paint the kitchen..... because it was yellow and the new porch and conservatory are green and as an Ipswich born and bred girl there is no way I could have them colours together (Norwich city FC for those who don't get it).

So here is my window frill (bad photo due to poor light).



and my little table cloth, mines the green one, Mum made the red checked bit.



So now you can see the other end of the conservatory and did you notice these



I have been playing/making them for weeks having seen them in various forms on various blogs. I think they're probably inspired by Tim Holtz LOL. So the vase started off life as a baked bean tin and I made some paper to match the coasters and hey presto I finally finished them.

There's nothing like a visit from a friend (my cyber buddy Shellie is coming with her hubby for 5 days on Monday) to make you focus on all those little jobs you've been meaning to do LOL...

PS Jim is still very well and happy.

Sometimes

life just gets to much !!!! I'm still really struggling with my chest and rib pains and now to add insult to injury I have to go to the dentist as the front of a tooth just fell off. So not funny!!!

Poor Eric has a chest infection and pleurisy but the good news is Jim's stitch came out and he's doing really well.

Went to Bramford crop on Saturday and had a fab day, Janina laid on lots of games and food to celebrate NSD. Dawn and I left normal time as I'm pooped by then but it was set to run to 8pm for those with more stamina LOL.

Finished this last night, love this photo of Vikki and Ben.



Most of the papers are Prima with a few bits from unknowns LOL, bling swirl is Prima, and the a few bits from Basic Grey.

Sue x

Scrapped with Dawn yesterday and as always we had a lovely relaxed day.

Did this layout of Vikki with Ben and Harvey using papers from Francy pants called rough and tumble.

I have also made a set of 6 coasters for the conservatory using an old chipboard book that I took to pieces and had a play with,



and another LOL



all slightly different but following a similar theme. When I showed them to Eric he said oh there like that American chappie's stuff, oh how I puffed up that he had reconised I was trying to get the Tim Holtz grungy style LOL...

Off to Bramford crop today for NSD but just HAVE to show you this photo of Jim taken this week standing tall and proud.



Jim has far exceeded the life expeactancy the vets gave him after losing his leg to the cancer and has also had to indure two further op's for the blasted corn. He is a STAR! and so very precious to us.

Eric had a good birthday but guess who fogot to take any photo's and I made a wicked chocolate birethday cake d'oh !!!!