Buzzing and creatively energised....

I had the most amazing weekend with 3 friends in Leitrim this weekend. We had a photography weekend planned and 3 of us took our crafty bags and we had the most incredible time. Fog had come in on the Friday evening, and lasted all weekend with a finale of freezing fog on Sunday morning. Will share the photos later, but at the moment I am still in post-weekend bliss and pestering DH for a new camera as "I was just so underspec-ed!! lol"

Anyway, here are some the things that I made over the weekend. I saw this challenge on ATDML blog and thought I would have a go... Here is the sketch...
While I was on a roll, and with a few drinks on board, I made this LO and had the good sense to finish it another night, but this one is from the same Pink Paislee papers.


On the weekend I even had a go at this....

I found a nice idea on the Studio Calico blog and just had to give it a go, there were no instructions and just winged it and made an effort at it, above is the cover and here is the inside....

I tried to make you a template for it again, it's a bit small but if you click on it you will get the idea, a bit of faffing around and you will get it, not too hard and two covers on it and bingo, you have it....

Another thing I have been meaning to do is join the local Camera Club, so I have that in hand and have to bring some of my photos with me so have just copied some photos to print out later today and will try and get to the meeting tonight, and if no next Thursday.

Hope you all have a great weekend....

Michelle

Random Acts of Kindness - RAK's

We live on a main road, in a very settled area, and there are no small children apart from mine in our row of houses. The lady next door to me is 92 this month, and lives with her two batchelor sons. During the snow her pipes froze and she had no water and for the first time ever she rang our house and asked if we had water - we did and we brought her 20 litres in most days to keep them going. Very kindly I received an arrangement of flowers and wine as a thank you and I am very touched that she did this.

My friend's (Millie's mum Audrey (Hi hon!)) daughter is 17 and I wanted to make her a card and to give her some money along with a CD I bought her. So last night I dispatched myself to my craft office and I made the CD / Card / money holder for her and I have also included the template that I made.

Bo Bunny papers from my Scraproom kit a few months ago but I just love them (as I do most of the papers).
Inside of the card, with the area for the most important money part of the gift.
CD tucked inside (now if I had been thinking more about this I would have used a circle punch and punched a half moon in the top to allow you to see part of the CD, but at 11pm last night I was just too tired to try and get it all nice and neat, and I did'nt have a circle punch that works properly (another story) and would have had to pull it apart to use my nestabilitlies circles so it's fine as it is, but next time I will adapt it!) PPPPPP - so my mum would say, Previous Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.... must remember next time!!!
Rear view, and I used some small strips at the end to ensure the CD does not fall out.
Template and god bless you if you can read the measurements....
Gives you an idea how to tuck it over and make the folds - baby steps....sorry, I'm not Pioneer woman (just love her too!!)
I used a velcro dot to keep the card closed, hard work as I used box card to make the holder and it's stiff....

Well that's it for today. My lovely friend Dale has invited us for Lunch, (Yipee no cooking for me!!!) and DH gone to shops with kids to buy a nice cake as dessert, it was a toss up between baking or a shower and the shower won as time is of the essence and as he has gone I decided to do power housework and ended up here on the computer.

Our whole area seems to be without water - we have water and have a very handy 20 litre container we bought years ago and are supplying water where needed. The biggest problem is DD's school who have no water and this has caused another problem with the tanks and she has been in school a total of 2 days since Christmas. For most kids this is not a problem but for her this is huge as she has Autistic tendencies and routine is SOOOOO important to her and she just can't work out what is going on. So they are going to try and open the school and area asking them all to bring 2 litres of water and hand sanitisers to school, so this will be trialled and we will see what happens. Will reduce my stress levels if she can even go a few hours and this will help her a lot....

Enjoy you day - Ta M

I'm on a roll.....

The time off over Christmas was lovely but very manic with the two small kids, we live from hour to hour with the temper tantrums and the odd behaviour that we deal with so once the baby was in bed I made sure I went out to the office to have some me time. I tried to clear lot's of stuff that was waiting to be finished and I completed the few LO's that I've shown over the week. The LO's often come together and I know I am finished, and love the look and the outcome. This one is different... I wanted to use these photos taken at the 12 Days of Christmas market, and when I was taking the photos of the girls my DH was nattering in my ear saying why do you take these photos when you never do anything with them. So I was on a mission to use them and had the bits left from a LO that I did using the scraproom kit from months ago papers from My Minds Eye - lovely papers....

Sorry back to the reason why I had a hard time with this LO, I had the photos that I took of the signs on the Carousel and wanted to use them too, so had a lot to get in on this LO. Anyway, I have pushed stuff around, stuck it and unstuck it, torn the paper, hid the damage and still not sure it's balanced and right. Anyway, I was not going to show it, but will put it up and I am not going to touch it again, but it's not something I am happy to showcase, but maybe someone might know why I am so not sure about it... So here it is - warts and all!!!
Sharing some more photos of the snow days we had, it's all gone, we have lovely cold sunny days and the weather is due to get into double digits soon.

Our holiday home has suffered a burst pipe and the kids bedroom and bunk beds are ruined. Typical I am taking a group of friends down there the weekend after next for a photography weekend and now the girls will have to double up in the twin room. It's only cosmetic damage, and the beds took nearly all the water and some carpet, floor and 2 ceilings damaged. Not as bad as it could have been but still not great news!!


Thanks for looking - any bright ideas on the LO let me know!!

Snow helps my mojo....

This LO did not exist in any way before Saturday night, the photos were taken on Saturday afternoon and printed that night, and the whole LO came together nicely. It might sound a bit mad (actaully probably does!!) but when you have a LO in your hands that you only just took the photos - you get a little kick out of it!

The PP is from Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses, Alpine and I just loved it, only have a little piece of it left and will be buying more as it's not only limited to Christmas LO's. The snowflake stamp was reduced to €1.25 in my local craft shop and I heat embosssed the paper with sparkly blue embossing powder along with some extra snowflakes for the top to embellish. Again, most of the makings of this LO came from the Christmas Cleo Crafts December kit. Even some of the gems came from them, the kit seems to be never ending.....

This was my backgarden on Saturday night, the office at the end is my craft room / office.

I found this message in the snow from my DH on Sunday morning - knowing that I get up with the kids and let them look out the window in the morning.

This little guy was visiting to say thank you as I remembered to leave some food out for the birds.

Have another LO on my desk that I am pushing around, using one of my Scraproom kits from My Minds Eye, again papers I've used before, and just loved them.

Nite all - there is a big thaw on and hopefully the snow will be gone by tomorrow and the kids are due to school tomorrow. Back to normality, and a big diet!!!

Day 9 of snowy Dublin

We got our first sprinkling on New Years Eve and it been hanging around and being refreshed frequently and its not going anywhere for the forseeable future either!!

My Dh left for an overnight business trip and got caught in Brussells as Dublin Airport closed due to the snow and his flight home never left Dublin. So I was a single parent for one more night.

These Photos are some of the ones that I took over the last few days, lot's of random stuff.




Snow Angel! - lots of these were made...


Snow ball fight in St. Annes... I stood to the side and watched these boys for ages, they were vicious...

They used these signs to slide down the hills, but I just loved the irony of the sign... Think safety first.... Yah right!!






There is a lovely graveyard and I stopped by to take some photos, someone hangs these baubles from the trees above the grave and I just loved them....




Last night's sunset over Donnycarney church....


OK if you still with me you might like to see a LO that I did, I was using the Cleo Crafts December kit, and nearly all the bits for this page came from the kit apart from the alphas' as they were from my stash...I hand cut the big snowflake and the white page is actually swiss dots... Drop by Cleo Crafts as they have really well priced mini kits and this one was jam packed with bits, that I still have not used yet. Defo one for reordering.... www.cleocrafts.co.uk

So this post was mainly for Nana & Grandad who are in Spain on their 4.5 month holiday - enjoy the lovely weather... this is what you are missing.... Love M

Love it / hate it, it's been and gone, phew!!!

Every year I do it, take on too much, my plans are just too big and I stress myself out. Dh hates Christmas and every year there is the moment where I melt down and just feel that I won't all come together in time. This year was no different and my poor mum came to my rescue. (thanks mum!!) I had a pretty staggering list of things to complete so I really had gotten myself into tizzy! Not helped by us deciding to update the downstairs bathroom on Christmas week and having to go around and deal with this all on my own till the day before Christmas.

Here is what I wanted to get done....

Handmade gifts for teachers - acheived
Cards sent out on time - achieved
packs of homemade baked goods for neighbours and friends - achieved
Handmade table arrangements and placecards- achieved
House squeaky clean - well nearly there....
Brunch for 20 family members on Christmas morning - done and enjoyed
Christmas dinner for 12 - done and enjoyed
Supper for 8 - done and enjoyed

We visited 12 homes on Christmas eve to deliver these packs of baked goods, half dozen mince pies, same of cookies and Brownies, jar of homemade Cranberry sauce and then some packs of Peppermint patties and coconut ice.....
I made in total 15 boxes of goodies, 15 jars of sauce and 20+ bags of sweets all tagged and wrapped (must be totally mad!!)

Here is part of the present for the teachers - DD has a lot of people to say thank you as she has an angel of a Special Needs Assistant and learning supoort teachers for her visual difficulties... So I made up a bag for each of them with notebooks (made by a very telented Anne!), the sweets and either a plant or wine for each one of them.
These are the place cards that I made for our Christsmas Dinner - the first ones are for the kids an the second ones are for the adults. Really easily made with my new Nellies multiframes that I just love.....
This is the card that I made for my mum, based on one that I saw somewhere, (searching memory for the site! - will update if I remember!!). Anyway, I completly forgot to give it to her and will not hold onto it till next year!

This is what my husband gave me for Christmas, I got it before the day, and used it over and over and I am thrilled with it.
We started entertaining at 12 on Christmas day and the last people went home at 12 that night, so the next day I indulged myself in a jammie day, stayed in PJ's all day, told the kids it was a self service day and if they ate selection boxes all day it was OK by me! So we lit the fire, sat around and they played with their new bits all day.

I have become addicted to the Wii game Rockband and am fab at Roxanne on the guitar! Wow just amazed that it is soooo much fun!

Here are some random images from around our home over the Christmas, I removed it all on New Years Eve as I just needed to get the place back to normal and our tree was so dry it was in need of the bin!!
Wow - Santa's magic footprints....

Thank you one and all to take the time to stop by my blog. I REALLY REALLY appreciate all your comments and I hope to be able to share more images and crafts with you all in 2010.