Well this is a first - in many ways!

I am sat in my car outside a HSE building waiting for my DD to finish her assessment appointment, yet another appointment and there are lot's and lot's of them. The baby (not that I will be able to call her for too long as she is nearly 2!) is sat in her car seat watching Barney and I am blogging from the car after finding an unsecured Wifi and taking advantage of their free signal.

Blogging from the car is a first for me and entering a card challenge from The Passion for Pro-markers blog is another - but first below is a card that I made 8 of for my daughter to give to her teachers, lot's of cards for lot's of people who make her day special every day. The image of the apple taken from the internet and nesties to cut the circles and downloaded dotty paper - cheap and effective. This is my Passion for Pro-markers entry - The Magnolia arrived early this week and I have been colouring like mad and trying to save my pro-markers from being damaged by the kids. The card base was cut from the Doodlecharms Cricut Cart (thanks Val! - She loaned me the cart weeks ago!, and Lisa loaned me her Cricut Expression as mine is out of loan to someone else, LOL we sound like lovely people!!)
The tag reads - Ok! One more kiss! Its my first time entering this challenge and just love the image and will be doing some cards for the teachers as gifts with this image next week.
I am off to Birmingham for Cheryl Johnston's Photography Boot Camp on Friday. Days are flying past and can't wait.

Bye all......

Michelle

Powerscourt Waterfall

On Sunday, we took the two small girls to Powerscourt as it looked like it was going to be a fab sunny day - but it stayed overcast and cold-ish, not sunny like it was promising to be.

The waterfall is magnificient, really tall and interesting... The girls loved playing in the water and we even found a small area with sand for them to play in, and we watched them from the side and drank hot tea from our flask and had some lovely homemade cookies.... It was wonderful and what memories are made of!

On the way home we stopped at the side of the road to put Lea back in her car set (the rascal keeps getting out of it when you are driving!) and this horse was stood in the field with the most amazing backdrop. OMG it was stunning - even if the horse was sniffing a big lump of poop!

No craftiness that I can share - I made a card for my cousin in America who is 40 and won't share it till her birthday has passed. Made a big effort to sort out my craft office, which is a huge mess, and got part of the way thru it. Actually DH and I are not in agreement about what to do with the office - my plan is to go with a fully fitted system like a kitchen with a long countertop (swoon with the joy of it!) and he wants yucky horrible free standing desks that won't match and won't suit. The irony of it all - is that he NEVER uses the office, never ever, and he is standing in my way of getting the layout I want.

I have treated myself to a small box of craftiness from Crafts U Love and will stop off on Thursday for a quick peruse of Anna-Marie's shop locally before I head to camera club. The craft shopping just makes me so happy!!! Anyway - it's about 5 weeks till our holiday and we WILL be stopping bye Joannes and Michaels for a mega mega shop where DH will just have to walk away and not comment..... or else....

less than 10 days to my photography boot camp - YAH! I can't wait, a weekend away from the madness and full immersion into photography.

Busy busy busy!!!

OMG I just don't know where the time goes - I seem to be running all the time, but over the weekend I made 4 batches of cupcakes on Saturday for parties, and they are best served with toppers made from scraps and coffee stirer sticks from Ikea....

I had a stack of cards to make on Friday night, so I sat down and made the following cards. The one below is a Sympathy Card I made for a friend, as she has a lot of her plate at the moment and wanted to help out a little.... Flower image is glossy and cut from the new Melissa Francis papers. This one was one of 12 cards that I made up kits for as I was helping another friend with a 10th Birthday party for her daughter. The 10 girls all made name garlands in pink and white and made this card - don'tcha love the Cricut, it cut all the pretty bits!! LOL

One of the two cards I made for the Birthday girl and the one that should be below but has dropped to the end and I can't seem to move it is one that for Caoimhe to give her best friend Megan!

We are off to a confirmation on Thurday and this is the card I made, the card is missing a silver cross charm, that I know I have, but cannot put my hand on it, and this makes me cross (no pun intended!!)

Below is the bold card that would not move for me. Will spend the rest of the evening editing photos of the party and sorting out my other images. Like I said, busy busy busy, but the ironing is done, uniforms ready and dinner dishes cleaned up - just a cuppa and a sit for a moment before the next jobs need to be done. Nite all!!

The secret to happiness - Balance!

I just wanted to pop in and write a short note to say that I have discovered at 40+ years what makes me happy....

My family, my kids, my husband, my friends, my photography, my crafts - these are the things that when they all work in unison with each other, make me tick, make me get up with a smile on my face and go to bed satisfied that each element has been given its time.

There has not been a time in my life that I have felt so balanced, so satisfied, and that has to do with the time that I have carved out for myself to feed the need to create.

Wow - not sure where that came from, but there ya go!!