cards, cards and more cards

These are the cards Christiana and Sophia made using copics.

Another very busy day yesterday which involved retail therapy in clothes shops. We had a lovely wander around Larnaca town centre and managed to find some bright tops for Christiana. Lunch didnt happen till nearly 4p.m. by which time we were starving so we sat outside and froze lol. The sun was out but we couldnt feel it because of the wind.

Late afternoon and we collected two BIG boxes of crafting goodies that I had sent from the UK the previous week and here are some pictures of Christiana opening them.

Dinner was the girls favourite, pizza hut followed by a fantastic cake that Andis mother made for us.

The day ended with crafting of course.

Rather a long post today so thanks for having a read

Tuesdays twitterings

I thought I would show you another cute picture. This is foxy and she is one of two dogs that my sister in law has.

We are still chillin on our hols, litterally. The temperature is rising but there isnt a lot of sunshine so no skinny dipping yet. Hopefully the clouds will vanish and we can get ourselves a bit of a tan before we come home. As the forecast today is rain, we shall take another drive out to find another small village for coffee.

We are however, having a fantastic time. Lots of laughs with the girls, visiting family and driving around villages.

Our evenings are spent making cards as you can see below

This is a cake that is a favourite with the girls. It is similar to artic roll with ice cream and sponge and a wonderful strawberry flavour.

Hope you have a wonderful day, whatever you are doing

I can put pictures on the blog now

After sitting here for a couple of hours I can now put pictures on my blog from my netbook. There is no stopping me now.
No chance to have a dip in the pool today. It was extremely cloudy and cool this morning so we decided to go out and get necessities and I dont mean crafting items, it was food, food and more food.
By late afternoon the temperature had risen but we were visiting family and by the time we got back to the villa it was too late.
I had a treat of looking at all of Christiana's cards and wow, they are lovely. I will take photos over the next couple of days and share them with you.
Just as Sophia and David left the go out (well it is Saturday night) there was a banging at the door, bell ringing and we opened the door to david holding this
After a few minutes he let it go, and boy did it go.


My excitement for the evening.

no pictures to share with you today. I am using my new netbook and need to find out how to download the photos from my camera onto here. I was just saying that I shall miss everyone whilst I am away and hey presto, my knight in shining armour turns up with a net book. It is such a fantastic little thing, fits into my handbag (i have a very big handbag) and it is red. My daughters just love it and have asked if they can look after it for me, yeah right. Paul really does spoil me.

I think I shall be crafting with my daughter today, oh wow, that is so nice to say that I have to say it again, today I am crafting with my daughter. Those that know me will realise the importance of this. We shall all do a bit of shopping and hopefully the sun will have come out by then.

Have a great day, whatever you are doing.

Happy Birthday Robert

Another weekend has been and gone and phew, I am shattered. Yesterday I was lucky enough to have a couple of hours in town and found a few bargins - nothing crafty of course. The weather was lovely and I didn't need a coat. Just hope it lasts. Had a lovely cuppa and natter with my best mate and then went off to bingo. A perfect end to a perfect day.


It's Roberts Birthday today and we are off to visit him this evening. This is the card that I have made for him, another favourite of mine. So cheerful.


I expect work will be extremely busy but at least it will make the day go quicker. Have a great day what ever you are up to.

Wet Weekend

So far the weekend has been very wet. We got wet yesterday going to our training day with Helen, which was a lovely morning spent with lovely people. Unfortunately I didnt take any pictures. Hello to all the ladies that I met and I look forward to seeing you again.It was wet when I got home and had to carry all my things back into the house. I got soaked. It was still raining when I took rubbish out late evening but WOW, suddenly there is colour in the garden, buds on plants, a dash of yellow on trees and the crocuses are all out. I will try and get a picture later, if it has stopped raining.

I have made a few birthday cards this month (yes on top of everything else)


This one is for my neice. I used the simply said stamp set along with a few punches. I like this, even if I may say so myself. It isn't my usual style of card but it's fun.

Today is a day of sorting, crafting and shopping for me. Hope you have a great day, what ever you are up to

The third card we made, yes 3. Did I work you all too hard?? This is from the greenhouse garden set



We used different greens for the base card along with regal rose, lovely lavender and natural ivory card stock. I was a bit concerned that this would have been OTT but I think everyone enjoyed making this one. Two Step stamping is really fun.

The rest of this week has to be spent finalising the card orders I have for the rest of this month and April as I shall be going away.

There is also that dreaded task of packing, oh if only it was so easy. Am I the only one that has to get everything ready so far in advance? All the clothes I am taking have to be hanging up in the spare room, all together so that I can ensure that I have enough to mix and match. Even shoes and jewellery have to be all together, just so that I know its all there. How far in advance do you prepare for a break away?

Another Wednesday and the week is wizzing past. As promised here is another card that we made at the Monday night's card making session.

We got the wheels out to do the background on this card. I showed everyone an easy way to ensure that your wheeled image is straight by lining it up with the grid paper and using the wheel guide. I don't think anyone had a wonky background.
Next we punched out flowers and put brads through them and mounted them on the card. Using the square scallop punch and chocolate chip card we made the greeting. The Happy Birthday is from the stamp set. By using the stampin' up! markers you can just pick out certain words on a stamp, write over it and stamp onto card. Hay presto your own greeting.
Again, a lot of people glittered up the backgrounds for that added shine.



Have a great day, whatever you are doing.

Tracey

Crafting Nights in March

Trying to keep up with the blog at the minute is a bit of a struggle so I apologise to Jenny and everyone else for lagging behind. As well as the Peterborough weekend, the papermax show and all the birthday cards I have made, I have had 3 fantastic crafty nights and we are not even half way through March.

Here are a few pictures of our evenings. I totally forgot to get my camera out on the last session and a couple of pictures didn't turn out too well on previous sessions.


Let me introduce you to Debra. This is the first time that Debra has made a card but she did fantastically well, thanks to all the help of everyone else that evening, especially patient Lesley.

This is one of the cards we made on our crafty Monday's (and a Tuesday). These evenings are becoming so popular that I have scheduled in 4 for the month of May. More details can be seen on the right hand side of my blog but be warned, places are filling up fast.


We used the Pocket Silhouttes stamp set for the image and an array of different stamps for the greetings. The Circles were coloured in using the same ink as the card and a dauber. A very quick and simple to make card. Some of us glittered the stamped image for a bit of sparkle.

The other cards will be posted over the next few days.

Hope you have a lovely day and I look forward to reading your comments on our crafting nights.

Tracey

Stampin' Up! at the Papermax Show

Of course having a wonderful weekend away in Peterborough made it tough to get everything finalised for the Papermax Show but this all turned out perfectly okay in the end.

I met up with Jacqui and Lesley and we set up stall. Fortunately we had a coffee as soon as we were sorted which was a good job as our table was more or less constantly full all day. So many people wanted information about Stampin' Up! and came to see the demonstrations that we all did.

Jacqui kick started it (think I bullied her into it lol) but she loved it once she got going. I then had a turn showing people how to make the rabbits, then I made more rabbits and some more. They numbers just rose and rose throughout the day, true to rabbits. Lesley showed everyone what you could do with the pocket silhoutte stamp set and then before we knew it, we had to pack up. That was the quickest 7 hours I have known for a long time.

Here are a few pictures of our day
Jacqui and Lesley

Some pictures of our table.








For more photos, please nip and have a look at Lesley's blog

final part of AWOL

Once we were all seated and ready Janice was our tutor for the evening. We all got dirty again but it was well worth it. First of all we got to chose some 12 x 12 paper. Now tell me, you are in a craft shop, the doors are locked and you have 100's and 100's of fantastic papers to chose from, how can you pick one. I think that this was the hardest part of the weekend for me, so much choice. Finally we all got our papers and then the paints came out. We got paint to match the papers and started to paint our pieces of wood. We cut the papers, stuck the papers, touched up paint, stamped beautiful sentiments and pictures, stuck jewels and sparkly bits and hay presto, just look what we made.
this has pride of place in my craft room

Pictures with a little more detail.


We did have a few hicups along the way but with Janice and Andy helping us, every problem was solved, even Jaynes. Can you imagine taking a couple of hours of painting, decorating, cutting paper, sticking together to find to your horror that the front and back just dont stick together. As soon as one end was stuck, the other would come apart. You stick the other side together, and the first side springs up. How frustrating. Us girlies had a go at sorting out the problem but to no avail. In the end Super Duper Andy came to the rescue. An incy wincy tiny little gem had gotten between the two pieces of wood, stopping it from sticking together....men are useful sometimes.

After laughs and giggles it was time for bed, to get ourselves ready for another day of crafting.
Sunday was wet and soggy but this couldn't dampen our spirits. After a quick breakfast we all checked out of the hotel, loaded the cars and set off for another day of crafting.
Coffee and biscuits at the ready and Chris started us off with this amazing box. It shouldn't really be called a box because it is so much more. Once the drawer was made we concentrated on the picture and that's where we had some more fun with the shrink plastic. I just had to take close up of this to show you the detail.


Thank you for showing me how to make this and it will be the first of many that I hope to produce. A walk to the local to blow off the cobwebs, sunday lunch and a brisk walk back to a class with lou. I was amazed by this card. It does have a little recipe tag to go with it that sits on the bottom right hand side of the card but someone has borrowed it (no names mentioned but you know who you are).

Of course we had to end the weekend with a shopping spree and what a spree. I came home with so many things that I didnt know existed and am really looking forward to playing with everything.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend, the company was great, the tutors were great and of course Janice and Andy of sirstampalot deserve a special award for making this weekend possible. We all intend to return, if they can put up with us again.

Part 2 of why I have been AWOL

and to continue.

We arrived at our very own crafting heaven all ready and rearing to go. The coffee was on, the biscuits were out and we all got into place. Now when we arrived we were clean, showered and all prepared for a great day. I dont think that any of us were ready for the mess we created, when I say mess I mean mess. Our hands were covered with ink by lunch time (to tell you the truth I still have red thumb nails now).

You wouldnt believe that this was just a plain silver coloured tin box. Our tutur (UPDATE - It was the talented Sue who took this class)oh, please can someone let me know the name of this lovely lady), showed us how to use inks in a way I didnt know could be used. We inked the box, we stamped on the box and we even embossed on it. I love mine and cant believe that 8 of us did the same thing and every one came out differently. Girls if you have pictures of your creations please send them over and I shall put them on the here. The tutor even had holes drilled in these boxes and purchased the lovely handles, which we decorated. We then had a great time decorating the paper inside the tin to match. Thank you so much for this wonderful and messy class.

After sarnies galore and the most wonderful fresh fruit salad with fresh cream (thanks to Andy's mum) we were off again and this time we made a lovely book. It started out as a kit but we just cut it to pieces, literally. Off the spine came, all the pages were cut down and then it was time to begin. We cut lovely card, labels, played with the ribbon box (which we darent get muddled up), stamped images and created an amazing tag book. Once again big thanks go to our tutor Hayley, for showing us just what we can do.


You would imagine that after all this crafting we would be shattered but if we were Janice soon got us all revived with a walk to the local. It was a lovely walk, very fresh and breezy. We all sat there (12 of us) with our drinks, non alcoholic I may add, although I do think Lesley's had some alcohol content. Our meals arrived and we started to tuck in but wait, hang on, what was that meal that just went past me. I just had to take a photo of it. It was huge.Have you ever seen such a big meal? This was for the youngest and skinniest of us at the table. There was no way Janice could eat all that, was there? Well just to amaze me even more
all gone.

It was then a brisk walk back and time (please note that word 'time') to start our evening session. But more about that and the rest of our amazing trip tomorrow.

AWOL

Awol with a reason. It all started just over a week ago with a weekend away in Peterborough.

Well I say that is where it started but because I had this weekend playing, I had so much prep work to do in advance that I have been holed up in my craft room.

Anyway, back to Peterborough. This fantastic couple,
Janice and Andy, gave us a weekend that we wont forget. It started at the garden center where 8 of us met up. That was once we found the garden centre.

After checking into our hotel we had a brilliant evening crafting way (and eating lots and lots of pizza) and I really cant believe that I made this canvas. Thank you so much to our tutors for showing us how. ( I am terrible at names and was so excited at what we created I cant remember the delightful ladies names).

It was a quick drink in the bar and then a good nights sleep ready for an early breakfast. Early wasnt the word. I was up with the larks, had a good wander around the area and was at breakfast for 7. Once everyone was up and ready off we went back for our next surprise and wow, what a surprise.

We had a full day of crafting and tomorrow I will show you what fantastic projects we made.

Who stole my posts?

okay, own up, who has them? I had a couple of posts all prepared that should have come up automatically over the last few days and I cant see them. Just where have they gone. Oooppss

I know I had a HAPPY BIRTHDAY WISH for Pam who had her birthday last week. This was the card that I made for her.




And I know that I had a post about maintaining my weight at fat club, oh well. If you do find the posts, please let me have them back.