I am going to eat cake...

... at the birthday party of my friend's grandson this afternoon. He is two years old today. 2 years - where has the time gone. He is a beautiful little boy - a real boy who loves cars and boy things. This morning between customers I made an exploding box instead of a card - I know his mum Kerry will appreciate it! I'll take loads of photos and she/we can finish decorating it tomorrow.

I also made a necklace for my friend Norah who has just returned from over-wintering in the UK. She was absolutely delighted with it when she saw "Dear Norah" spelt how her name is spelt in the picture from Crafty Individuals complete with the hand of love charm. She pops into the shop most days when she is in Spain and I really miss her when she's not. She was my first ever student. She popped her head round the door when I first opened and said I'm not creative or arty but I need to make a 100th birthday card - do you think you could help me - I said pop in Friday morning - she did - she skipped out like a 5 year old with the 100th birthday card and another one she had made and hasn't looked back since - she has blossomed so beautifully and I am so proud of her. She has just made 52 Wedding invitations for her niece's wedding and they are absolutely so professional. If I can persuade her to lend the sample to me I will photograph it and put it on here.

Just time to have a quick look at the newspaper (yesterdays and not even opened!!) , a comb through the hair, an hour at the party then off to the shop for the older girls class - more of the faces - drawing, painting, etc and by 8.30 tonight I shall be just about ready for bed!!

Sue xx

Monday night girls

Just a quick post to show you the delight of the girls who come to class on a Monday night. They stippled and stamped and heat embossed their way to four cards and a bookmark - good going girls! well done! and all in 2 hours and with a break for a drink and Pringles.

what a change!

Well, what a change in the weather. Today woke up to grey skies and chilly and it has rained and been generally miserable all day. Put a sweater back on....

and, checked the blogs of those I had tagged and Dyan took up the challenge so go and visit her on her blog -click on websites to visit under Dylan's blog - well worth a visit...

and they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so here's a photo of some of the projects I have taught with Dyan's inspiration and Blonde Moments products. I hope you approve Dyan!

Off to have a shower now as I am going out to celebrate a friend's birthday with a meal at the restaurant my lovely Wednesday girl Ellen's parents own. You will find Ellen on this blog several times if you look! She is the one in the grey tracksuit doing some stamping.

Bye for now

hugs Sue xx

Whew! its warm today!!!

At the moment the weather is still unsure if its hot or not and so I erred on the side of caution and wore a jumper - whata mistaka to maka!!! whew! I'll probably wear a t-shirt tomorrow and freeze! ha!ha! At least my feet are happy. I only ever wear boots(winter) or flipflops(rest of the year) and the relief when my feet can breathe again is incredible. My boots (and I have quite a few pairs ) are very comfortable but oh joy! to feel the air on my toes - pure pleasure!

and what a lovely day I had in the shop today too. I was asked to show how to recreate the effect on this photoframe.

It is done with Distress inks polished with Ranger's foam applicators and then stippled over and through grungeboard flourishes. It's really good fun but very messy - hands get extremely mucky!!

These are the two cards I made

and these are the cards that Margaret (top two) and Muriel made.








andhere are Muriel and Margaret - when Margaret's husband came to reclaim her he very kindly took this photo of us. Bernard is a real sweetie and he makes the most lovely scrapbooks too. I will have to ask him to bring in the album he made of their Wedding - it's really beautiful - so I can take some photos of the pages to put on here. Bernard if you're reading this please remember next Friday or Margaret nudge him for me thanks




I am now off to check whether any of the ladies I tagged yesterday have taken the dare and put their "as you are" photos on their blogs - so bye for now

Sue xx

Tanya tagged me.....

Tanya tagged me.....I have to take a photo of me right here, right now as I am- no putting on make up, hair brushing or anything - just as!!! Grab Colin's new camera and away we go. Oh well I tried - never mind doesn't my bum look big in this - I hadn't realised how my nose has grown aaaaagghhh!!!!! and where have all those veins come from - think I'll have to go back to my own out of focus camera - I look so much better on there!!!!

Today is a fiesta (Spanish Father's Day ) so I thought I would just relax, do a little artwork for myself, take the dog for a leisurely walk etc but think I had better grab my make up bag and hairbrush before I go as I don't want to scare the locals ha!ha!

I now have to tag five others and challenge them to do the same so here goes:

Dyan, Kate, Suze, Sian and Jackie - hope you are up for it girls!

Last night I started the girls on drawing faces - to get them to really look at details of how eyes fit into the head and such like with the intention of them doing a self portrait picture next week and the week after. These are the two suziblu inspired atc's I made to give them an idea of what their finished work would look like only on a bigger scale. I have been drawing a lot of suziblu type atc's lately and I am really enjoying gettiing back to this type of art

These are the five steps I showed to the girls to get them started.

and these are five pictures I myself drew when I was at school so they would have been done in the 1960's. I found them when I was looking for something else and took them to show the girls. When you think how we agonise which products to use and on which surface - these were done on the type of paper that children were given with school type coloured pencils!!! those were the days!!

Anyway, enough reminiscences, off to walk the dog through the forest

Bye for now Sue xx

the bakers dozen

On Wednesday I did a workshop making cards to cover any number of occasions we all come across during the course of a year - wedding, happy birthday, sympathy, etc and so we made cards. Some were what I call quick lick n stick and others were more involved using techniques including brayering, Distress inking over stamping and doodling. I cracked the whip and pushed and pushed and these were the results - happy ladies. I told them we were making 12 but there were 13 if you count!!ha!ha



The ladies were pictured on Wednesday with my out of focus camera??? so today I borrowed Colin's to take a photo of the samples. Out of focus or not there was lots of laughter and smiles


Muriel did manage to make most of them even though she is only displaying three and she even came to class this morning.



Chrissie popped in with some Weight Watchers magazines to try to kick start my efforts at losing weight. Think she's fighting a losing battle with me there but we can but try! Got to list all I eat and drink - she reckons I'm not eating enough - he!he! that sounds good to me!
The sun is shining, the sky is blue and I've finished work for the day - big smile - so I'm off to play some for myself now.
Bye Sue x

Friendship badge

I received a friendship badge from my lovely friend Tanya in Belgium - check out her blog as she is one talented lady http://tanyawatts.blogspot.com/





These are the guidelines that came with the badge:"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these kind writers."When you pass the award along please include these guidelines. I am to choose eight friends to share this with.

There are so many blogs that I follow that I will have some lunch and a think and then name names. Back soon Sue x

Worn out today

Yesterday I had a really busy day. In the shop from just after nine and not home till half past 8. Maybe not a long day for some but for little old me yes it was! I had a 5 hour workshop from 12 till 5 and then the girls arrived for kidz club as the ladies were leaving - there is supposed to be 1/2 hour for me to have a comfort break, tidy up and gather my thoughts, etc but no...not yesterday. The ladies didn't want to leave and the girls came in exitedly early so complete chaos, but hey ho! who cares - none of them did so why should I!!! Anyway, got to go and open the shop now - OH! I'm sooo tired! so will blog again later with what we did yesterday.
Hugs Sue xx

Bailey had his hair cut

Just a quick update -

On Wednesday I showed a photo of Bailey pre-haircut and I have just fetched him from the dog grooming place - Vicky is lovely - so here is the clean groomed version. I love him anyway but prefer the scruffier version.

Bye for now
Sue x

Tim, you are a true inspiration

I remembered seeing a technique of Tim's where he blasts a blob of alcohol ink with air from a can - well I had the alcohol inks but no aerosol so what to do??? "Think out of the box" I say so I followed my own rules and found a solution. The kidz have juice to drink in little boxes complete with....yes, a straw....so.....drink the juice and nick the straw!!! easy heh! A bit of glossy card later and hey-ho.....fun!

I had earlier been playing with my Sticky Fingers inks without much success. I had lots of inky pieces of paper but no inspiration of what to do with them.



Then suddenly inspiration struck. This looks like a quiet rural landscape - what if I made the other alcohol ink piece into urban!! Got it!



Heyho! bit of stamping later and two more atc's are made!! The urban jungle houses are coloured with Wet look markers and heat embossed with clear and the atc edges roughed up a bit!! while the rural idyll houses are painted with sticky fingers inks (maple and olive). Add a songbird embellishment and the piece is complete. Voila! very pleased with these two.



Right, ignore the grey sky and the howling wind which I suppose is keeping the rain away - we've had enough rain lately thanks - and get on with making some more art.
Bye then
hugs Sue xx

Bit too good to be true

I woke up to blue sky and bright sunshine which was lovely as the weather has been awful since the weekend. Good start to the day. Certainly lifted the spirits.

After breakfast I took photos of Bailey as he was due for a haircut today but at lunchtime found the date had been put back to Friday so here is the shaggy uncut version of my dog. He will look totally different come Friday.
Tia, my pretty faced little cat said and what about me!



Went off to the shop in high spirits to find that the rain all day yesterday and all throught the night had blown in under the door and left little trails and puddles on the floor so after mopping up I decided to mske some atc's. I haven't made any for a long while now. I used to participate in a swap forum but I found I didn't have enough time once I opened the shop which was such a shame as I enjoyed receiving these little works of art. I took ages cutting up the little pieces of card........great time wasting ploy..... but once I got going I could have stayed there all day. They are not great works of art but served the purpose which was to get me back into the swing of making them again.







bit of stamping, dabbers, triple embossing and Stickles.

As the morning wore on the sky darkened and the sun disappeared and by the time I came home for lunch it was raining again!

Spent a very unproductive afternoon on paperwork - yuk! and then back to the shop - I just love Wednesday evenings - these girls are just the greatest. We laugh, pull legs, play music (who, I ask!!! and they laugh!!!!)oh yes and craft.

The girls finished their albums - a 3 week project - and they all turned out really well which is more than I can say for the photography...and this was the best one of the three I took!!!





I got home about 8.30 and sat down to catch up on America's next top model cycle 8 with a bowl of Colin's home made leek and potato soup - just right when its cold and rainy outside - love that programme - very easy watching when you just need to flop.

Right, i'm off to bed now as its almost midnight. No classes tomorrow so lots of playtime between customers - yes! maybe even a few more atc's you never know.

Night, night Sue xx

In a gloomy mood today...

I deliberately did a bright class this morning - stamping and painting onto grungeboard using mica powders - I just love these - such vibrant colours - as the weather is so horrid. Grey and rainy and some more!!!! I am so not a bad weather girl - I need warmth and sunshine and blue skies.

Despite the rain I was full of good intentions when I left the shop and brought home all sorts of bits to play with but... instead I snuggled on the sofa with a packet of Jaffa cakes and Bailey and watched trash TV. The vibrant colours on the screen contrasted with the grey from each of the three windows in the sitting room as the rain lashed down.

On a brighter note Bailey is going for his haircut tomorrow at 3pm so I will have Colin take before and after photos of him and post them tomorrow. His hair is ultra long as we cancelled last month's trim as it was still too cold to have short hair. He looks so cute and scruffy but tomorrow it will be a new dog who returns!

I've no pictures to show today as my camera is not playing the game and the scrapbook pages I've made are still lying in my craftroom. I tried laying them on the terracotta tiled floor, on the dark wood dining room table and on the pale checked spare room bed cover and all the photos were dreadful. I'll take them back to the shop and try there tomorrow.

Well, back to the TV with a nice warm mug of hot chocolate - the cure for all ills!!!
Bye, speak tomorrow
Sue x