my little haven

2011-04-08T00:38:00.000-07:00

Well the sun is shining high in the sky allready, and im feeling much better from a nasty dose of cold ive had so am going to make sure i enjoy today. We have been tidying up the garden ,a little at a time for me through lack of energy and shortness of breath ,but steve has been busy busy busy as usual. Firstly the front had a major tidy up with getting rid of a couple of dead shrubs that suffered badly in the winter weather ,and a major trimming of some winter flowering clematis that were so overgrown. A bit of weeding as well and we look as good as new now. Must go to garden centre to get restocks next week sometime though. We now have a couple of gaps to fill. In the back garden ,well where do we start ,last year i got rid of my greenhouse ,id tired of using it and it had just stood doing nothing ,or should i say I did nothing ,for 2 full years . Not good , so it went . Now though , we have the problem of what do we do with that space ,shall i have a veggie plot or should we make it into a sunny sit down area ,we have 3 sit down areas allready in various places in the back garden . That makes my garden sound huge but its not . Decisions decisions !! First though we have to have major clear up , since removing the greenhouse we've done nothing as we have concentrated on work inside the house with the new kitchen and building work we've done .As you can imagine its a right old mess with weeds and nettles and allsorts of climbing rambling things spreading everywhere ,AND i think we have foxes living in the hedgerow. The garden stinks of them at times and the dog ,Billy ,goes mad at times and at other times is scared to go near the top of garden ,especially when its dark. I will take some pics so we can show what it looks like ,maybe one day i can do a before and after shot . That would be good.

2011-04-03T16:22:00.002-07:00

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2011-04-03T16:20:00.000-07:00

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Hope all you Mums out there had a lovely mothers day . I was treated to a nice meal out in a place called matlock ,well just outside matlock to be truthful ,a pub called the claret and grouse ,been there before and its a lovely ,reasonably priced roast dinner and pud ,yummy too .Im full of another cold and am fed up of it now ,i want it to go away and stay away this time .

Think i might add some pics of my latest works of art !! lol!!

2011-02-11T02:38:00.000-08:00

2011-02-11T02:35:00.000-08:00

went to have one of those fish pedicures yesterday ,my bezzie friend Dawn bought it for me for a birthday present last week . She came with me of course and had it done too . Must say ,it was unusual and at first i did not think it had done much. However ,last night i had a good look and its worked wonders ,my feet are ready for summer , no little frilly bits of cuticle around my toe nails , no dry skin on heels . I'm all nice and smooth and glossy.
Recommend it ...yes I would.

2011-02-09T13:01:00.000-08:00

The challenge for this month on I love promarkers is the sketch shown here . I am going to have a go . I must start blogging more often .
Promise to myself ...do more challenges and blog them.

The boat meeting

2010-05-20T01:30:00.000-07:00

Well , we did find out everything and the new financial director certainly let us know it all . It turns out that about £4.5 million are lost ,stolen , gone awol ,whatever you want to call it ,so there is no money left in our funds at all , BUT we do still have the boat .Unlike some people who have put money into a new boat thats not yet been launched and is still in Poland ,we dont know what is going to happen with them , i hope they get a boat out of it at least .
The Old management team are going to put a new company together and run it in exactly the same way as the old with some new rules in place for transparency on boat accounts ,but to be honest now the bad apple is gone i dont see a need for this . im too trusting ,I know .Until then though ,we are on our own . We have a great syndicate so we shall be ok and may even decide to go it alone for the future ,we shall see . it might turn out to be too much hassle on the turnaround days especially ,and also on the boat servicing then we will all decide a management company is for us .I am hoping that we can still use the same management company whatever they decide to call it ( i like the name kingfisher boatshare ) as they know the boat .

stolen

2010-05-04T16:40:00.000-07:00

Ive told you all before that we have a 12th share in a narrowboat ,and we pay a company called Ownerships to run the syndicate for us , supposedly led by a lovely charming man called Allen. Well , this charming man has stolen all of our money ,our £3k free management investment and all the boats sinking fund has gone .We think ,yes ,only think , that the boat is ours but until we have been to the meeting which is being held in stevenage on saturday ,we shall not really know . We are expecting the meeting to be a little fraught to say the least but we hope that we will come away feeling that we have found out everything .Fingers crossed and then we can start to make plans for the future of the syndicate and where we go from here .
Allen actually died towards the end of last year so it is going to be a bit difficult suing a dead man for our funds ,but someone ,somewhere will know just where all our money has gone .

2010-04-30T01:13:00.000-07:00

A few piccies from the retreat we had in coventry a couple of weeks ago. Number 1 is of a lo I did using a piccie from another friend at the retreat ,this is one of Alisons and she was rather pleased with the finished product ,so was I .

Number 2 is a lo in the same challenge that my bezzie mate Dawn did of me , im kidding you not ,she was in a right pickle doing this cos i was sat at the side of her watching her every move ( not really) but i love it ,Thanks Dawn .

Number 3 is of all the entries for the black and white challenge with one colour spot , lots of lovely entries for this ,mine won ,its at the front with my youngest son Tim and my little dog Billy on it .

Last but not least ,just an example of how cramped the room was but we had fun , sooo much mess though ! poor premier inn staff had to clear all that glitter and glue bits and tiny punch waste that was all over the carpet ....sorry folks .

We had the best of times and I cant wait to do it again.

2010-04-28T03:12:00.000-07:00

These are the re-done lo's from when i first started scrapping . Just done a few to start with and im happy with them so far .I seem to have rattled a few feathers with having done this ,the general concensus is that they should be left alone ,but i wish id taken piccies of them before as people would then understand the very reason why ive redone them . They were BAD!! Most of my early lo's i am leaving well alone so it will show just how much change ive made in my scrapping style ,but i just could not leave these alone .

TO RE-DO OR NOT TO RE-DO!!

2010-04-26T02:21:00.000-07:00

That is the question!...

Well this weekend i have been sorting out my albums ,i had some empty spaces from when i put together an album for my eldest son jasons 30th birthday ,so removed some from my existing albums ,leaving spaces to fill . After going through them i was horrified at the state of some of my very early lo's ,so i decided to re-do some of the worst ones . Unfortunately the ones i have allready redone i have not taken piccies of before ripping them apart so you can see the difference and realise it really was necessary . i mean come on , who just throws on a single 12 x 12 about 10 photos and sticks them down ...well apparently thats what i did ! They were pretty grim and of my wee babies too ,how could I ?

So , I have decided im now going to take pics of them all so i can show you before and after pics ,and then you can draw your own conclusions as to if i have done the right thing or not . I have left some of the ones i removed ,deciding that they are not the worst offenders and i really want to show how much ive moved on since i first started scrapping about 5 years ago now .
Good idea or bad idea ,I'll let you decide .

monday 12th april

2010-04-12T11:13:00.000-07:00

Today i have been packing up my stash ready for a retreat im going on at the weekend friday to sunday pm.Its only at a premier inn at coventry but 19 of us are really looking forward to it .We are doing a few classes ,bookbinding ,alcohol inks ( its about time i had some tutoring on how to use the little blighters ) and distress inks and different ways to use them , then we are doing a few swaps and challenges .
cannot wait til friday

Crop day

2010-04-11T05:22:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was crop day and here are the 3 lo's i did all day . I also did some work on a cj i am doing at the moment ,this one i had to work on was "wild animals" . Cant tell you anything else as it will give the game away for the others in the cj circle and for the owner cynthia .I am pleaseed with what ive done so far though.

Ive had the pictures of my niece and nephew for a long time but not got round to scrapping them so thought its about time i did .I really love the nice cheerful one of Joanne ,and the wedding day pic of Matthew and Barbara is very subtle and pretty ,i think .

2010-04-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

This weeks I love promarkers challenge is an animal theme ,so here is my effort . I love this stamp ,its whipper snapper " lean on me" and i think the paper is bo bunny.the little dots are craftwork cards dots

2010-04-03T00:05:00.000-07:00

Phew im shattered today allready ,I was up til late last night making up kits in readiness for 2 events ,the first is next saturday ,i am running one of my own crops ,the third i have done ,well the second i had to cancel so its actually the second ive done ,and the second event is a retreat i have planned with all my friends on canny crafters or lous loonies whichever you know it as . 19 of us are off to a premier inn in coventry from friday to sunday and im really looking forward to it thats in a couple of weeks time .19 women and 1 one bloke who last time acted as official photographer and it was great to have some good pics done instead of the normal blurred ones i get .Steve is the husband of one of the ladies lynda ,a lovely friendly chap ,but he is not staying with us all day ,can't make up my mind if its cos he's not brave enough or he is clever and wise enough to stay away !!
What i have done is to make up kits for lo's matching the pics up to papers and bazzill instead of having to take the whole lot of my stash with me ,i am going to try to sort out ribbons buttons and embellies and cut out the titles from my cricut or silhouette as well but dont know if i will manage that or not ,i like to work "off the cuff" so dont really do planning to that extent ,but then sometimes i get stuck ,either at the start or part way through .so might try it this time .

2010-04-01T13:54:00.001-07:00

Did I tell you we have a narrowboat ,its not entirely our own,we are part of a syndicate of 12 .We have found it best for us at the moment ,until Steve retires ,then we will get one that we can call our own and mean it .Another 6 years to go unless we either win the lottery or he takes early retirement .In february we headed down the Oxford canal towards cropredy but we did not quite make it and had to turn around at fenny compton . We had a foggy morning on the tuesday as you can see from the photo,but other than that ,we had afantastically sunny warm days turning cold at night time .

We joined the Ownerships scheme in summer of last year and were slightly disappointed to only get the 1 week on her (shelton ) in 2009 but so far this year we have had 1 week in feb and we have 2 weeks booked in summer and another in november .So we are happy bunnies so far .

2010-03-31T16:25:00.000-07:00

This weeks challenge from i heart promarkers was a toughie ,i dont know if this is acceptable as ive not stuck to the sketch entirely .Im sure they will let me know , or someone will do.

2010-03-31T16:21:00.000-07:00

well here is my card for last weeks promarker challenge ,its not very inspiring but at least i did it .I made the background by stamping with papermania stamps .

2010-03-25T03:25:00.001-07:00

Right then , i thought i would have a blast of posts to build up my blog ,it might make me a little more interested in it , so i have uploaded quite a few pieces of my work ,mainly cards this time . hope you like them .

2010-03-25T03:23:00.000-07:00

Card I made for sons gf birthday

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This is also a great stamp fro a quickie card , easy to make into a really nice card with the addition of flowers ribbon and a bit of additional embellishment . Cannot remember who made the stamp now but its a clear one .(if thats any help! lol)

2010-03-25T03:06:00.000-07:00

Card I made using one of my fave stamps from Magenta ,its great for using the promarkers on too . adda bit of bling and you have a quick card

2010-03-25T02:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a little mini pocket book i made for a swap on canny forum , I was so in love with it ,I did not want to swap it . Oh well Kate ,The girl who got it liked it too so i suppose thats a bonus .

2010-03-25T02:56:00.000-07:00

the above lo is one i did of my baby sis Tracey and bil Pete when they joined us on our boat for a weekend . They had a real good time and to be honest i did not think that Tracey would like it .Not enough luxury for her you see ,lol! even though its a 5 star boat we have .

i Heart promarkers challenge #6

2010-03-19T17:35:00.000-07:00

I am going to start doing the challenges ,on a regular basis so this si the one im going to be doing next ,hopefully tomorrow

2010-03-19T04:04:00.000-07:00

2010-03-19T04:02:00.000-07:00

We have just had a week on our narrowboat "shelton " and had a lovely week of sunny bright warm weather ,but very cold at night time . We headed off down the Oxford canal towards Cropredy but did not quite get as far down as we would have liked . We turned at Fenny Compton to head back to the marina at stockton. Then shelton went in for the winter maintenance to be done .

all aboard!!

2010-03-19T03:58:00.000-07:00

i must i must ......

2010-03-19T03:56:00.000-07:00

improve my blogging , and since it is almost nothing ,zilch ,nada i should not have alot of trouble doing that .
So , i am making a promise to myself that i am going to blog regularly then i just may feel as im able to join in those blog challenges and put links to my blog up on the sites .

2009-10-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

this is the latest challenge sketch fro I heart promarkers so im going to attempt to do something with it now .

I am soooo bad at blogging!!

2009-10-16T13:18:00.000-07:00

Well ,i never ever thought i would be this bad at blogging ! I think its mainly because i feel as if i am talking to myself , which I am really ,as no-one apart from Lorraine has read it .
Oh well , folks will not read it if i dont update it so here goes .
I did get round to clearing my room as i talked about when i last blogged , then i got my christmas bits out to do some cards and voila , i may just as well not have bothered tidying up ,it was a bombsite again..

I love promarkers challenge #2

2009-08-20T02:24:00.000-07:00

I found a challenge for promarkers on facebook so thought I might join in seeing as i just bought a whole load of the little blighters .

Above is the sketch ...

Promarkers

2009-08-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I received my order of new promarkers and i have had a tiny wee play with them , but not done a deal as yet .Been too busy with hospital visits ( mammagram.. yuk) and visiting family .
I have not used them before so have to practice with my shading and such but im sure i will get used to them. Hubby going off to bed soon so I just might get some peace and quiet and be able to sit and doodle . Hes had me sat at the pc searching for a sat nav for sons gf for her birthday next week ,he never does things like that in HIS pc time ,only mine ,I wonder why that is !!!!!

ooops!!!

2009-08-18T00:36:00.000-07:00

i tidied my room on saturday , then got busy doing christmas cards before i took the pictures so it looks untiday again allready but it is only stuff im working on ,not rubbish and other stuff that wnats putting away . so i feel better about that . Went to a family bbq on sunday and had a great time with the people we dont see too often as they live quite a distance form us ,so I did not get in my room all sunday pm .Then i had visitors almost all day yesterday so got nothing done , and this morning I am going to my craft club,so I shall be back in here this afternoon ,no messing im missing it !
My sons gf bought her new baby niece to see me yesterday and she is just absolutely gorgeous i wanted to eat her .Id forgotten just how tiny new babies are and she is over 8lb so not as tiny as some .Ella jane is her name ,such a little cutie , im hoping its made kellie real broody!!

Don't look!!!

2009-08-14T00:16:00.000-07:00

I know its a right mess but today i AM going to start sorting out my craft room , so I took some before pics .Im so ashamed !

2009-08-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

Not a lot gone off today in my boring life , I had a visit from my mum this morning , then spent an hour or 2 in the garden pottering around while steve cut down some ivy thats overgrown onto next doors garage ,it looks tidier anyway .We have a big problem with a huge phormium we have in the front garden ,its grown so big we dont know how to trim it down ,im sure we could make 3 or 4 huge plants from it .its around 5 or 6 ft across and 10 to 12 feet tall.On top of that it gets huge black feathery flower stalks every year that are about 4 feet higher than the plant itself .Normally about 5 or 6 of those , very nice they are but too tall.

We really must chop it down or at least halve it .

A small selection of my Paintings

2009-08-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

Tired and grumpy .......thats me today ,i had a rotten night last night , got about 3 hours kip in total dont know what was wrong apart from could not get hold of my youngest son Tim on the phone ,but thats nothing unusual with Tim , he is just like me and not good with phones .So at the first sign of hassle he will either switch it off or ignore it . I only wanted to tell him about a bbq at the weekend as well .Lol!! Oh well got through to him today .Not that im a controlling mother who has not yet cut the apron strings ,chance would be a fine thing to be clingy , i just worry when i cant talk to them .

Made some flapjack for Jason and his workmates this afternoon , Scott and Kev rang me on Monday and asked me to do them some ...the cheek of it hey!! Oh well its nice to be remembered for something besides my good looks ....I wish!

Went to my art group this afternoon as well for a couple of hours ,i do watercolour painting , not very good but i enjoy it . I have sold 1 picture ...to my mum !She insisted on paying for it so i halved it .

Where did today go ?

2009-08-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

I can't believe its almost time for bed and i have done nothing today .Well I did the housework....boring!! felt cream crackered from that so sat down with a brew for a while ,then steve came home about 1.30 ish , since thewn i have done nothing but prepare dinner and read the sunday papers , i know its Monday but we get them from his mums and read them a day late . She has been registered blind so cannot read them any longer but will she give up her papers ....no!! waste of money to me , i would not mind so much if she bought the papers i like to read ,but she has the sun and the NOTW on a sunday, utter rubbish ,but i have a glance through for amusement.I cannot get her to change to the mail .

Spent this afternoon making a couple of christmas cards , i know its only august but we have so many to send with art group , my craft group tell you more about that later and all my friends and family ,plus my special orders though that will be a lot less this year as the poor old dears who bought my cards have croaked it , only his mum left now . I just have to make an early start , so this afternoon i had to crawl under my desk to get at all my xmas stamps and then get steps out to get to the top of a unit for all my papers and allsorts of bits .
had a quick rummage to reaquaint myself with what i allready have (before i order any new stuff) then made a couple up . I will take piccies tmoro when bits have dried and show you.
Then i had to package up some blank cards i had ordered for the ladies at craft club , it took forever and i had some kits to split too but that can wait for another day .Then i packed my trolley for club tomorrow .
I am now going to get some stuff ready for a cj i am doing on a forum i frequent ,its known as lous loonies or canny crafters , cant remember which to be honest we had to change it from one to the other when a forum we used crashed , or something like that anyway ! lol!!

2009-08-09T05:02:00.000-07:00

2009-08-09T04:53:00.000-07:00

just a few lo's i did earlier this year .

Sunday

2009-08-09T01:49:00.000-07:00

Well i reckon i must have wet my bed last night as i was up so early .Anyone who knows me will tell you I am definitely NOT an early riser . I dont know what happened this morning but i was wide awake and gagging for a cuppa at 6am , so got up , put some washing in and had a couple of brews , getting peckish now so am off for some croissants soon, and another brew.
Im a big tea drinker you see.

We had a bbq yesterday afternoon , jason and kellie came round ( son and gf ) and we sat in the sun with a bowl of home made punch and lots of fish, salad and jacket spuds and jasons home made burgers with mozarella inside them , followed by raspberry cheesecake .yum !!

Im hoping this warmer brighter weather stays around a bit , what do you think ? will it or wont it ? I would not like to put money on it staying .

Have you noticed the piccie on the left there <. We are narrowboaters ,we are at our most chilled out when on a boat . We started it a few years ago instead of going abroad while i got over a skin cancer on my face and we fell in love with it , we have not been on a greek holiday since then .
In May we went to a boat show at Braunston marina and saw a share scheme boat with shares for sale , and bought one ,just like that ! We were so excited ,still are and we cant wait to get on her in september for a week .

what to do , what to do ???

2009-08-08T02:42:00.000-07:00

ok ,its saturday and i have nothing planned for today at all apart from a food shop in tesco . and we have to do that before lunch time as we have empty cupboards in the kitchen ,i feel like old mother hubbard !.
as you can see below i was busy doing a few quickie cards with some odd bits i had lying around , not my normal style but hey ho ,it used a few bits up . . i really really must tidy up my craft room , maybe thats what i can do today !!! we shall see .

2009-08-08T02:17:00.000-07:00

just a few quickies i have made this week from a mixture of stamped images i have made earlier and some papers and diecuts from the bloom and grow range from MME and others .