Memorandum Monday - the one that is all about the fundraiser

Just a very quick whizz in to say hello and wave to Sian at From High in the Sky for Memorandum Monday.

It was the weekend of my fundraiser at home and the weather was pretty vile, but a few souls braved the weather to come along and support me.  Early indications are that I have made at least £70 for Children with Cancer Fund.

The rest of the weekend has been about catching up on lost sleep - I did burn a bit of midnight oil getting all of my cards finished and putting the house back straight again - I rearranged all the furniture to fit all my tables in!!

This week I can now turn my thoughts to getting ready for Christmas - I need to do a count up of the cards that didn't sell to work out how many more I need to make.  Also Marillion's UK tour kicks off in Aylesbury on Sunday so I need to get packing as we are seeing them for four out of the six nights. We are looking forward to not just the gigs but a chance to catch up with so many of our friends who also support the band.

Have a great week everyone!!

I'm Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

It is with great joy that I can say that one of my favourite digi-stamp designers is back in business - Pink Petticoat is now The Lovely Studio and to start with she is re-introducing all the previous Christmas collections and designs including these flamingos.

I love love love these digi-stamps and have been busy making Christmas cards for my open house fundraiser next Saturday.

The background papers used are all from Craft Creations own range apart from the very bright pink one which is Basic Grey.

I coloured all the images with Promarkers and added a hint of Stardust Stickles for some sparkle.

The dies used are mainly a Stampin Up/Sizzix thinlet set and the snowflakes are All Occasion dies with various brands of glitter cardstock.

Memorandum Monday - the edition with a coffee cake, crop and new snuggly dressing gown

Well I have just realised that I haven't blogged my Memorandum Monday yet and as I am still up as I can't sleep because I am full of a stinky cold, I will get on and blog now rather than waiting for the morning.

We had a lovely long weekend as Mr P had five days off from work.  Friday we took my parents to visit my Uncle in Rye Hospital - he isn't doing too well at the moment so we keep everything crossed that he will pick up soon and get back to his old self.  It was a dreadful day weather wise and the roads were a nightmare coming home with torrential rain and flooding on the marsh roads and yes there were those loony drivers that had to keep overtaking because they are in a hurry to get to the mortuary!!

Saturday saw the second crop for our new crafting group - we have gone from being the craft group with no name to the Seaside Crafters - the hall we meet in is off of Seaside and most of us at the group are Eastbournians so live by the sea.

I rustled up a coffee and walnut cake for us -

I had a break from scrapbooking and got stuck into Christmas cards as I am replenishing my stocks ready for my next fundraiser which is only two weeks away.  I got fourteen cards made and die cut a load of images ready for more cards -

 Sunday we had a nice quiet day at home, we were both starting to develop our colds.  I got the sewing machine out and made a pile of Christmas themed tissue covers - for my fundraiser and for our WI when we have a stall at our village Christmas Fayre

And Monday found us spending the day in town finishing our Christmas shopping.  I still need to get a few online bits and pieces but otherwise it is all done, I try to get done before the end of November as trying to negotiate the crammed stores in December in a wheelchair is just no fun.  I treated myself to a lovely new snuggly dressing gown - it is damson faux fur and is the softest cuddliest dressing gown I have ever had and it has a hood for extra snuggliness -

I will quite happily spend the rest of the winter living in my new dressing gown LOL!!

Please go and give a wave to Sian over at From High in the Sky who is in charge of Memorandum Monday.  Have a great week and fingers crossed by next Monday I will be a little less snotty!!

Blogtober Day 31 - Memorandum Monday or Hooray I have managed to do four blog posts per week for the last month!!!

Yay today is the last day of Blogtober and I managed to meet my goal of four blog posts per week.  I still have a backlog of stuff to blog but at least the amount is not so daunting now.

Today is also Monday, so it is time to reflect on the weekend and pay a visit to Sian over at From High in the Sky.  It was a very busy, packed crafty weekend at the A Trip Down Memory Lane retreat.  They hold two per year at the beautiful Stoke by Nayland Hotel.

Wendy was my chauffeur and we took a rather loaded car with us (PS the back seat was pretty loaded too!!!!)

The rooms are beautiful but you don't spend much time in there

The crop rooms are large and there are lots of shopping opportunities

 I was very productive, did 6 classes and got 12 layouts done and a thirteenth is almost finished.

And Monday finds me with all my crop unpacking to be done - I think I travelled quite light really!!

I have a busy crafty week ahead, WI craft class, my monthly scrap class and a crop to look forward to.  Hope you all have a great week and if you get a chance go and visit Sian and give her a wave.

Blogtober Day 30 - Asilah

This was one of Anita's classes from last year.  The paper range is Bo Bunny Rose Cafe

 As soon as I saw the small tiles that Anita had cut from the paper I knew that it was going to be the perfect layout for some of my photographs from Christmas Eve 2012 when we visited Asilah in Morocco.  

The circles were made with Liquid Pearls in Rose Gold.

Thank you Anita for another great class

Blogtober Day 28 - using up kit leftovers

I had lots of bits and bobs of a magazine freebie paper pack leftover, so I started out by covering a load of card blanks with the papers.  Then I matched stamped images (all of them Penny Black) that I had coloured a while ago with the card blanks.

The sentiments are a mixture of Stampin' Up, Hero Arts and Personal Impressions

Punches used are EK Success butterfly, Stampin' Up scalloped border and small flower.

That's a few more cards to restock my for sale box.

Blogtober Day 26 - Beat the Christmas Rush - the October Edition

I need to up my production rate of cards the closer we get to December as I still have one more fundraiser to do plus I have my own cards to send.  So I made 10 cards for this month's edition.

I used a lovely doily die from Penny Black and mounted a snowman from Stampin' Up set 'Snow Place' on top of it, the little santa hat is also from that stamp and die set.

The little white peel off sentiments are from Woodware and the sequins are from my stash.

If you would like to join in with Beat the Christmas Rush please leave a link to your blog post below -

Blogtober Day 24 - Memorandum Monday

I'm dashing in with my weekend round up and waving hello to Sian over at From High in the Sky.

It was another fairly quiet weekend, the weather was very autumnal and a bit wet at times so we mainly stayed close to home.  I did go to my parents on Saturday evening to watch Strictly and as ever did a bit of multi-tasking and coloured in a load of stamped images ready to be turned into cards for my next fundraiser.

I also worked on another big batch of Christmas cards and it is a good job I started these as I have just realised that tomorrow is the 25th and I need to blog Beat the Christmas Rush - guess what I will be finishing off as soon as I have finished this blog post!!  Hopefully I will get them blogged tomorrow.

Today has been a fairly quiet day, I went over to Brighton with Mr P this afternoon to the funeral of one of his friends' Dad.  I hadn't realised that it was half term so the roads were pretty quiet and we had a very good trip there and back.  I have a busy week ahead - I am going on the ATDML retreat on Friday so I have to sort lots of photographs out ready for my chosen classes plus some spare kits for if I run out of work to do.  Luckily I keep my tote semi-packed most of the time so I just need to check that I have my favourite scissors, a trimmer and plenty of glue/adhesive packed - though there is a very good shop on site if I run out of anything - now repeat after me 'Karen you do not need any more patterned paper, Karen you do not need ......................'

I hope you all have a good week and I will hopefully have lots of retreat photographs to share next weekend - sadly the retreat does not clash with Halloween this year so there will be no dressing up.

Blogtober Day 23 - Dukes Farm Table Gifts

When we have our little crafty meet up each year in Wales we usually all exchange small gifts and this year was no exception.

I had some little packs of nail gems which are great to use for crafting so I made a little box to put them in with my WRMK gift box punch board.

I decorated the boxes using SU Perpetual Calendar stamps in Daffodil Delight and Smoky Slate.

I then added a sweet treat on the top - white chocolate coins decorated with punched scallop circles and a LOTV round sentiment stamp.

In return I was given these lovely gifts -

Decorated mugs by Jessie

Journalling prompts from Jules

Easter chocs in a basket from Fiona

 A box of embellishments from Gemma

Decorated pringle tubs from Sy (they didn't last long LOL!!)

Post it note pad from Dee

A brooch from Lisa

Mini bottle of wine from Mr P and washi tape from Lee

Quilted coaster and pot holder from Tara