Just a little glimpse of my Christmas

Twenty of us went to Centre Parcs in Penrith - 3 lodges and did all the normal things any family does at Christmas...ate too much, drank too much and .....swam in the open air on Boxing Day - well 9 or 10 of us did anyway...

Grandson Josh took his letter when he went to have breakfast with Santa on Christmas Eve morning... it said lego, lego and even more ...lego!

Granddaughter Abigail with Santa
Pippa holding Ethan 23 months in his elf outfit...


badminton played by 10 of us - me included...



well I said too much drink didn't I!!! daughter Victoria and youngest son Jon relaxing after badminton...


opening presents.......


playing on the Wii..... and relaxing with feet up.....I am holding Bob one of Victoria's two guinea pigs - well she couldn't leave them home alone could she!!!


and Colin - photo taken by Abigail with my camera - no guessing what she'll be having next Christmas!!!

all quite normal really....but bl88dy COLD!!!!! between minus 4 and minus 8 degrees

.......and landed back in Spain last night to 13 degrees and when we reached home it was 17 degrees at 11 o'clock at night!!!

Hope your Christmas was good and that you had as happy and enjoyable time as I did.

Bye for now
Sue

Just to wish you all a Very Peaceful Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

I am flying to the UK tomorrow - snow permitting!! - and will return on 28th so wishing you all a very Peaceful Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Bye for now
Sue x

Bringing you up to date...

My daughter Victoria and her new husband John are making their own Wedding Album so I thought I would start them off by showing them how to do a layout on a scrapbook page.



the colours are not true as the light is not so good today - very overcast. It's really amber and bottle green.

On Saturday we made trifold cards for both Christmas and birthday...

the lovely Rosangela and two newbies Casey and Hannah at class.





On Friday it was Mu, Q and Sue - we merrily carolled our way through more trifold cards...

Mu, Q,Q, Sue,Sue


and on Thursday the men tarmacced the road outside - their project is almost done - its only been 6 months!!!



and the delightful (in Spanish delightful is deliciosa - how yummy does that sound!)Wednesday girls also made trifold cards.



All classes now done and dusted for this year.

On Wednesday I fly off to the UK to have a Christmas break at Centre Parks in Penrith with my family and daughter's new husbands family, 20 of us in total and then back on 28th to stocktaking, repairing and repainting the shop walls and cleaning and to make some new samples and refurbish the display boards. I may even get an hour or two to do something crafty for myself!!! My pile of unfinished...and nearly finished ...and even not yet started projects gets even higher!!!

Now off to attack the ironing so
Bye for now
Sue x

Birdsong

I have just finished reading Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks and am so confused!!! Not sure whether I enjoyed it or not. I could happily have given up on it several times but persevered to the end.....what a strange book. I can't see the first part appealing to men as its a love story but then it is really one for the men when it gets on to the gory details of the war and then the last part when the granddaughter appears seems ...well just odd somehow! Has anyone else out there read it and enjoyed it ...or not? Is it just me or has anyone else felt as I do. I have never read a book before that I couldn't say whether I liked it or not and I have read sooo many books - thousands possibly. Interested in your comments.

Bye for now
Sue

This is for you, Linda E...

Tia is now 3 and a half and very affectionate - but as with any cat totally on her own terms!!! Here she is inspecting the remains of one of three trees that blew down in our front garden on Monday night in a most horrible storm.

Now off to the shop for the Wednesday girls.
Bye for now
Sue

putting my toe in the water...

Colin is out moving Mum into her new apartment so I just thought I would post a couple of journal pages...

...this incorporates journalling with doodling in one of my moleskines in my usual style...



...and these two are from my Teesha-inspired moleskine journal





...and this is me getting really Teesha-ish!!



Hope you like them.

Bye for now
Sue

Colds and flu are going round and round...

bad blogger that I am this is another marathon post...

I actually made something today - well a couple of things actually!!! I made a birthday card for a good friend so I can only show glimpses until she has received it........





.....and then with the Wednesday girls tonight - the flu is going round the schools here like wildfire so we were sadly depleted - I showed the girls how to stamp an Outline stamp and then a fold here and a pinch there and make it into a fancy thingy that you put on top of a present. Add a jewel and a bit of Stickles and voila!





Yaa's


Maddie's


Yesterday was a fiesta so the shop had to be closed for the day. Colin was flying back from the UK so I had envisaged a nice lie-in but no it was not to be - he texted me at 7.50 to say his 9.30 flight was on time!!! I know to a lot of people 7.50 was a lie-in but I was just so disappointed. I'm not whinging really!!!lol!

We sat in the sunshine (23 degrees) and had a long lunch with friends Erica and John who are sadly moving back to live in Erica's native Germany.





On Monday the girls made bauble toppers - again illness meant there were fewer girls...

Lauren


Dayana


They concentrate so hard...


I was asked to start a Saturday morning class for other youngsters - so they too made bauble toppers ( do you see a theme emerging here!!!

Blaithin


Celia


Rosangela


A couple more weeks and then we are off to the woods!!! Well, Centre Parks at Penrith in 3 chalets - the whole family and some of the new inlaws of daughter Victoria - 20 in all so a mad, mad Christmas in view.

I just hope that the lurgy that the girls have mostly all had passes me by. Colin, who hasn't been to a Dr in 40 odd years, has gone to bed early with a hacking cough and cold blaming it on the awful English weather so I shan't be going to bed too soon as I don't want whatever it is he's got!!! It's not that I'm unsympathetic but being a one woman business I can't afford to be ill.

I am going to make a mug of hot choccy and go and get my fix of Golden Balls that I recorded this afternoon...

so Bye for now
Sue

Workshop samples for 2010

Right, well I promised I would post the samples for the January, February and March workshops so.......drumroll!!!...here they are...

for January - a fabulous paper bag album carefully crafted for us by my good friend Tanya Watts from Belgium when she was here in early November....



this really is soooo beautiful...


For February....a choice of mirrors....

one for the adults...



...and one for those who are younger at heart...

you will need to choose which one you want to make when booking...





and for March...

A canvas with loads of techniques....You will need to choose colours when booking...
Tanya made this one...



whilst I sat alongside her and made this one



a photograph (size between 20 to 25 x 14 to 16 cms will fit on here)

So there you have it. Workshops must be booked in advance as there has been lots of interest shown. For those not in the know they are held from 12noon till 5pm and cost 30 euros. Dates are Wednesdays 20th Jan, 17th Feb and 17th March.

I am currently working on the April to June workshop samples.

Bye for now
Sue

Bauble toppers

Another busy week with classes...

The Wednesday girls made bauble toppers...

Yaa


Yaa, Maddie, Melissa, Alice


and then we made them again this morning...

Mu with her arachnid!!!


Q, Margaret, me, Ruth, Mu


and very likely they will be made again tomorrow.

And what have I made this week....well, truth be told nothing, nada, nought!

...but Sunday and Tuesday are fiestas when I am obliged to close the shop so maybe a little me time may just creep in.

I have been working on classes and workshops for next year and over the weekend, maybe even later today, the first three workshops will be published. I have hinted at what they contain and so booking will be necessary as lots of interest has already been shown.

I am now off for a pedicure as my feet just hate being enclosed in boots!
so Bye for now
Sue

Noisy night!!!

Whew!!! what a noisy class the girls were tonight....but they achieved a whole lot so that's OK. First they painted the canvases that they had gessoed last week and while they were drying they made a Christmas card and after a short break for juice and ginger biccies they decorated their canvases. Not bad for their age I reckon.
Emily 6 Lauren 7 and Dayana 8.



Beautiful work girls and equally on a par with the canvases the older girls made last week.

and on Saturday morning Blaithin finished her canvas and a Christmas card.



Busy, busy, busy...so am now off to have some dinner and collapse on the sofa and watch TV. No idea what's on but who cares.

Bye for now
Sue

Why is it called a brayer anyway???

Does anybody know why a plain rubber rolloer is called a brayer??



Ruth asked could we use a brayer in today's class so...
"Today Matthew, I am going to be Barbara Grey"

...and so complete with laughter and inky mistakes I showed them how to make reflections and hills and use masking and they had fun trying all these techniques.



Ruth


Mu


Margaret


Thanks, Barbara for your wonderful inspiration. Today's class was easy peasy for me and the ladies all enjoyed it so what more could you ask? Happiness guaranteed.

Bye for now
Sue