wagwaan?

:Sunday:

Phew what a week!  I know, I know, I always say I know how to pace myself now - but apparently I do not. Something every day of the week = a very tired brain. By Friday afternoon I was having trouble with my words, which doesn't happen that often now, thank goodness. I did a real push to get most of the database updates out of the way so my jobshare colleague doesn't come in to a pile of them on Monday. Thing is, though, I was already pushing my luck.

I stopped for a cuppa on the way home with my colleague and I don't think I was talking much sense, to be honest. I must have looked exhausted because she was concerned for me. I know that look! My friends get a concerned look on their face that tells me I need to go and rest immediately. I actually took a cab home, which is a real sign I'd overdone it. But never fear, the weekend is for relaxing, right?

Anyway, yesterday Claire and I decided we needed some craft supplies, so we had lunch in town and went shopping for goodies. When we got home Claire set to with the hot glue gun and I did some Photoshop creating. We didn't see the time fly by and it was 10pm before we knew it.  I was working on my Project Life and thought I'd do a few filler cards. Here are a couple that I made for the 4 x 3 inch pockets. Feel free to download... They're  not going to win any awards for design, but I enjoyed making them :)

I'll be making more today no doubt, and then I'm off for my Sunday walk in the park with one of my choir buddies. I must remember to switch on the app when I leave the house. Talking of choir, I really must practice my pieces more AND learn the words. Gospel choirs don't stand their with their sheet music do they?! And we'll be recording soon, so I must get it right! 

Have a restful Sunday.

 

 

Autumn... and nearly Winter

I have so many photos in my iPhone I thought I'd upload some of them here...

First of all, this is one of my favourite Autumn snaps from this year.  Just round the corner from our place - it made my heart soar every time I walked into town.

Then there's this one: I bought Lyle some catnip and even the packaging drove him crazy!

and more recently I snapped this one on my way home from work. Yes it's that time of year again...

And the same night, from the top of the town looking down the High Street.  

Today I went out to the Christmas Craft Fair at the Colosseum and met up with my friends and their toddler. After we'd had coffee and little Alex had had his lunch, I had a late lunch with my other friends from the Community Centre who were manning a stall there. It was a real shame I don't have any spending money till next week, but I suppose that way at least there were no rash purchases!  It was gorgeously sunny early on, after a stormy and windy night, but tonight it turned quite grey and cold and I was glad to get home and have a cuppa all snug in my little house.

It's Agatha Christie's Marple now on ITV3, so I'm going to settle in for a nice evening. Busy week (off work) ahead... maybe I'll get an early night.

 

Making stuff

You know I get a lot of support from the Community Centre, right? I try and reciprocate when I can and as we are having to do a lot more fundraising this year due to cuts in funding I have been roped in to help (I know we are not alone in this, sadly.) Anyway, we have the option of taking a stall in the local "artisan market" and have all kinds of crafty goodness planned so we can make stuff to sell.  I was playing around with some bits of felt & ribbon and some pound shop hair clips yesterday... Claire was my (rather unwilling) model:

I really should get the big camera out for pictures like this..  

Well I had such fun that I made loads and loads of the bow ones, with different ribbons, and they went down a treat at the coffee morning today where I showed them off. "Baby Anabelle", our little nearly-2-yr-old resident beauty, let me put one in her hair to see how it looked and she was so sweet I let her keep it. They are perfect for little ones so I hope we can sell LOADS!

Christmas crafting

It's quite a year for Christmas crafts. I'm not sure if it's the world economic situation but we're all very "make do and mend" these days.  I have already sent my home-made Christmas presents to the family in France via my lovely brother, but I'm still working on stuff. I have made quite a lot of felt hearts, each one unique, and I have had several people ask me to make more. Tonight, though, I thought I'd do something a little different, and as Claire got the cookie cutters out to make snowflake biscuits I thought I'd use a cutter as a template - and this is the result:

 

I love it so much I think I'll make more, BUT I must say that the edging was much more difficult than on the heart shape, due to all those pointy bits. I find it really relaxing and I was lucky enough to get some bits from the Watford Recycling Art Project so the ones I'm making to sell at the Community Centre coffee mornings aren't costing me a thing. I have some other ideas up my sleeve, so I'll be crafting for days yet!

In other news, Claire and I did some shopping at that well-known high street store that is extremely good value.... We bought snuggly blankets and a cushion for the living room. I think Lyle approves (picture by Claire)

 

Gorgeous boy!  (oh and I mustn't forget, the banner pic is also courtesy of Claire. She's been busy).

Well, it's past my bedtime. I'm off to check the Lottery numbers. If I've won, you'll be the first to know. Goodnight!

 

In the festive spirit

Can you guess where I met Claire for "lunch" the other day?

 

That's right - the Red Cups are back :)   And I thought I'd try and get in the Christmas spirit with a deep-filled Mince Pie. It was actually rather good....

And to continue in the festive spirit, I started doing some more Christmas craft today. What do you think of my freehand embroidery?

Yeah, the curly bits went a bit wrong, but I had such fun!

Countdown to Christmas

Oh no - I used the C word! I blame it on Claire: she loves Christmas so much and she keeps getting her iPhone out and saying "ooh, xx sleeps till Christmas".

(just FYI, that screencap is from today)

She also went into London with a friend yesterday and filmed her way round the Christmas department in Harrods, which has actually got me in the mood too now.  Anyway, this morning I've made a start on some Christmas presents. I've always liked home-made gifts and, well, money's tight for everyone these days so I'm hoping not to have to buy anything except materials for most of my presents this year.  

I've got lastfm playing on the PC, and the table spread out with crafty stuff while the washing machine and tumble dryer are going full-pelt. You see, I can multitask again at last, ha ha!

It really does feel like Autumn now, after that unseasonably hot weather we had before. The leaves are turning and before long it'll be Hallowe'en, Guy Fawkes' night, Victorian evening, the Church Christmas bazaar... all the events that Claire and I enjoy. Oh, of course, not forgetting the winter extravaganza in Hyde Park which is a blast.  

Life's great, isn't it?! 

Inky fingers

At the weekend I had a coaching assigment to do, and I was asked to think back to my childhood to do it creatively.  That got me thinking and as I had bought some canvases and paint, I decided to do it as a piece of artwork.

Getting ready:

During:

And this is the result, which I love by the way....

Especially as I used Glossy Accents all over it when the paint was dry....

 

I can highly recommend getting messy with paints :)

Layouts

Do you want to see the little layouts I did on my scrapbooking weekend? Do ya?  I haven't scrapped in literally years but I took along my first ever scrapbook (bought from QVC), which has photos of Claire in it, to see if I could move it along some. You see, I progressed from this to proper 12 x 12 layouts after a while and never finished it. Every so often Claire would ask why I hadn't finished it... Oops!

So here are a couple of my earlier pages. They are pretty painfully bad lol!

They got gradually a bit better as time went on... for example, I learned about matting:

I looooove these photos of Claire with "Froggy" who came all the way from the USA (thank you Chrissie!!)

So anyway, at the weekend I did a really simple one to start with:

(hee hee just noticed my toes in the picture)

Then I used a kit that I won in the raffle - it was just the right colour scheme for a winter layout:

This is another photo of Claire that I love - her with her best friend Bleuenn in Paris:

 And finally, this one, also with Bleuenn, this time in London:

They're nothing special, but I think they will be something for Claire to look back on. And it's been really fun getting back into scrapbooking!

 

At last!

Ooh look what I did! I made a mosaic of my scrapping weekend. I only had the point and shoot with me and I very cleverly managed to miss several of my girls (including the gorgeous Debbie who organised the whole thing!) but it still gives you a flavour of what we get up to on these getaways...

(click to see it bigger)
 

Pictures from the weekend

I haven't had time to upload my photos from the weekend yet (I know, I KNOW!) so I'm just going to link to my sweet friend Debbie's blog so you can see for yourselves how beautiful she made everything. If you are my Fb friend then you'll probably already have seen this, but I did promise you pictures so here goes:

Click here to see what a brilliant time we had. I have known this bunch of girls for years now, and every time we get together it's like no time has passed at all. 

You never know, I might get round to uploading my pictures soon :)