Go Ape!!

Yay - Jaffers is visiting from Scotlander which means a time for madness and a little danger. So a day out at Go Ape! at Delamere was planned, for me Jaffers and my sister (Jo). We had a blast although it was a bit scarier than I thought it would be. Not so much the height but the fact that you had to keep attaching yourself to the wires (long loves the tree!). So if you got it wrong it could have been game over!!

Jaffs all strapped up and ready to go:

And still they mess about!

Don't look down!!

I thought the zip lines would have been the worst bit but they were the best - waaaaahooooooo!!

But that wasn't all we did. When we'd finished - it took a couple of hours it was off to a local pub for a quick snack. Then we headed into Chester to show Jen the tourist highlights.

The suspender bridge - that's what we've always called it!!

Of the course the clock

But it was so hot we had to go shopping. We all went into New Look in different outfits to the ones we came out in!! We did pay for them. Then I danced in the bubbles in my new frock.

That evening we had a BBQ at Jo's, with a little help from Barney (Rubble)

So all in all a fun packed compeltely bonkers day. I loved it all, thank you girlies xxx

Acetate and Glitter

The last of my cards from the kit from Make the Moment Last. Here I had fun with acetate and glitter. The butterfly is a Heidi Swapp stamp (thanks Jaffers) and the glitter is from Crafter's Companion, as is the glue which is a lot cheaper than the Art Institute glitter and does the job just as well as it dries clear.

The flower is a transparant sticker from Remarks decorative stickers, find them here and these glitters and micro beads are from Stix 2

Fun with felt

As well as the 3 layouts I did for Make the Moment Last I also managed to make some cards, mainly featuring some of the fancy pants felt, which takes ink really well.


Loving the big felt scrolls

Some of the leftovers from the centre of the shapes - well I couldn't let them go to waste.

Paper flower with some felt added as highlights - including the greeting which felt that has been stamped onto.

Loving the 2-tone effect on the felt word, just by adding some ink.

7 little hearts turned into a flower

Thanks again to Jackie and Kim for giving me great goodies to play with.

A day at The Craft Place

Today I've been doing a demonstration at The Craft Place at Brimstage Hall. I had a great day with Rhiannon and Kerry. Here's a few cards I made prior to the demonstration. These are featuring the Cute Companion stamps

Say hello to Poppet from the Wish Upon a Star set - I just love her.

Here's Tim from the Wonderful News set with a little birthday present.

And last but not least Florence from the Wonderful News set. The frame is a 4" insert from the Cute Companion CD and it makes really quick and easy cards.

Look what I made

I'm surprised I got so much done with all the galavanting we've been up to this weekend, including Sunday lunch at the Gumstool Inn - thank you Jack and Martin for looking after us!

The lovely Jackie and Kim at Make the Moment Last let me be their guest designer this month and sent me a great box of goodies to play with and boy did it go a long way. Here's 3 layout I did with the kit:


I love this picture of my dancing friends Jean and Shirley.



Me the last time we had Sunday lunch at the Gumstool Inn


Anna on the same day

Pie and pretties

Another weekend of pure bliss. Yes I've been off to visit my wonderful friend Anna. Gone are the days when we used to spend the whole weekend crafting. These days we seem to spend as much time eating out - it's a hard life!

For lunch on Saturday we went to the local pub who do the most amazing 2-in-1 pie. Half with the filling of your choice (chicken with leek and tarragon in our case) and half with cauliflower cheese. The pastry is melt in the mouth and their Pimms and lemonade isn't too bad either.

So here's the pie before we demolished it.


A pretty flower in the beer garden

Anna enjoying the sunshine

And me - not sure what my hair is doing behind my ear.

We also managed to fit in a small shopping trip in the village and went out to an engagement party at one of Anna's neighbours and had a fab time.

The "C" word!

Yes, I mean Christmas. I've had a commission to do for the Practical Publishing Christmas Bookazine - 10 cards, 5 decorations and a project, using the Quick Cards for Christmas CDs and stamps from Crafter's Companion.

I've heard all sorts of ways that people try and get in the mood for Christmas in May, including drinking mulled wine and getting the Christmas tunes on the CD player. For me it was putting the air-conditioning on full blast in the car, to get that frosty feel.


So as the bookazine isn't out for a while, I can only share a sneak peak:

Altrincham Crop

A very quiet day at crop - just 3 of us, Gwyneth, Dawn and me. Hope those that are on holiday are having a lovely time and those that are under the weather are better soon.

As normal I didn't get much done but I did make a couple of cards, with one of the delicious kits I subscribe to at Scrapa-go-go Greetings:

A close up of one of the butterflies - stamped onto acetate and glittered.

Poor Gwyneth was feeling a little under the weather. Hope you're better soon xxx

Off to the cricket!

I've only ever seen Steve play cricket once at his recent club, which is why the fact that I went and watched one of my bosses play is quite amusing! Well what is a girl to do when cheap wine is on offer. We had a great evening, including having pizza delivered to the cricket club.

I love being up in the office, it's so great to see everybody. Hope you're better soon Kam xxx.

Still Down Devon

Another day down south. I managed to snap a few photos on my travels from south to North Devon. I had to see the sea, as I was working I didn't have time to paddle!

Here's a gorgeous village I found on my way to see two of my new customers - hello Johanne and Lizzie. I love the British countryside with it's greenery, the churches and it's variety.

Torquay

Having visited a customer in Bristol I headed on down to the South coast and I'm currently sitting in my room at Villa Marina. What a lucky find this place is. I found it on LateRooms but couldn't have picked any better. It has a lovely garden, it's own car park and not a piece of chintz anywhere!

Stephanie rang me today to make sure she'd be about when I arrived. So when I arrived I was greeted by both Neil and Stephanie and offered a tea or coffee. So I booked in and was shown to my room. Five minutes later my coffee arrived along with a warm scone, strawberry jam and clotted cream. What more could a girl ask for.

A Perfect Day

Having had a busy week zipping around the country, Bishop Auckland, Huntington, Lincoln, Hinkley and Chorley, I thought I'd finish it off with a visit to my bestest scrapping buddy's house. So a fab time was had at Chez Anna's. She's got a new baby - look

And with the weather being so glorious we had to go out with the roof down. So where would we end up for Sunday lunch - The Gumstool Inn of course! No Jack to look after us as he's on holiday but Martin was the perfect host - sorry about the football result!

So for lunch, a bowl of prawns with garlic mayonnaise to share. It almost felt that we were in the South of France sitting outside. But being Brits we had to have a proper Sunday dinner, Anna had the pork and I had the beef, which meant I got a yorkshire pudding. Being a great friend I did let her have half of it!

Did we mange pudding? Oh yes - I had the eccles cakes with ice cream and Anna had 3 different ice creams.

Then back to Anna's to craft and listen to music we both sing-a-long to and get the words wrong! A Perfect Day, thank you Anna, you really are the best xxx

Beautiful Cards

Beautiful Cards Issue 23 is out in the shops. Here's a few of my cards.

I'm loving this Daisy Bucket paper that I got from Rachel and her lovely girls at HobbyHorse Crafts.

This cute puppy and his own kennel is from the Everyday 1 CD from Crafter's Companion.

The Gumstool Inn - Part 2

What do you do for dinner when dinner was so good the night before. You go back to the same place of course!! I'm not sure the guys that worked there were ready for another night of Anna and Ginger madness. But they were and were waiting for us and for some unknown reason chose table 69 for us!

So what did we have tonight. Anna had sausage and mash and I had the calves liver with mash and peas - they do great peas there. Then onto dessert. Tonight we did have the Sticky (stiffy!) toffee pudding to share and then the cheese board.

With coffee to finish we asked why there were no chocolates. So off he goes and comes back with these - we were totally spoilt.

All the boys were delightful but a special thank you to Jack for looking after us and understanding our madness.

The Gumstool Inn

I'm out and about visiting some of the Garden & Leisure Centres. As some of them are around Birmingham and Bristol I've been lucky enough to stay with my wonderful friend Anna. What could be better than that? A meal out at the Gumstool Inn at Calcot Inn.

A beautiful setting, totally delicious food and superb service. We skipped starters and went straight for the main courses. Anna had the belly pork and I had the rib of beef. The hardest decision was choosing which extra side dish to have with it - thank goodness our waiter had a sense of humour!



So as we hadn't had starters it was only polite to have dessert. After some difficult decision making and a slight gaff from me - it's not called stiffy tockee pudding is it!!Anna had the bread and butter pudding and I had some of the best crumble I've ever had - well I couldn't order the sticky toffee pudding for giggling and blushing! I was supposed to make a choice between ice cream or clotted cream but I got spoilt and got both.