Card making (1)

Hello dear friends and readers !

Are you a hoarder ? I am. I try to deny it, and I tell Mr EC off for keeping random boxes of god-knows-what - mostly cables it seems (what is it with men and cables ???) but in all honesty I'm as bad. Its just my hoard is prettier and more fluffy. Ball of wool anyone ?

One of the things I keep is old cards, or to be more precise the fronts of, or pictures from, old cards. I've been doing it for years, and very, very occasionally I even put them to good use by making some handmade cards. Meanwhile the months go by, I forget to buy cards for birthdays and the pile of card making stuff sits untouched and my friends feel unloved.

So I've been meaning to sit down and make a load of cards for ages, and today seemed like a good time to do it as my other job for today was laundry. About 8 loads of it. Where does it all come from ? Are there some children living here that I haven't noticed yet ?? In between putting the machine on, hanging stuff out, bringing stuff in, rearranging the washing line for optimal clothes peg usage, I put together a few really easy cards. I know a lot of card making peeps make lovely fancy cards: my imagination/design skills are not that great so I like to keep it simple. Plus I can make them faster that way which is great if you're looking for instant-gratification.

So I thought I'd show you the cards I made today, to demonstrate how easy it is to make some quite nice cards (or maybe they are hideous, I find it really hard to tell when I've made them lol) with some really basic supplies, and not much skill!

The basics that you need are:

- scissors, pencil and ruler, and of course card blanks. Or just plain card if you are feeling confident enough to be able to fold it exactly in half. 

- decorative card and/or paper. I got a lot of mine free with magazines, or have leftover stuff from the days of crafting with the children ....

- card toppers - most of mine come from bits and pieces of old cards. I have a few packs of things that are labelled "card toppers" but I've no idea where they came from! Probably given to me by someone clearing out their stash. I seem to be a magnet for that sort of thing (not that I'm complaining).

- this picture below is a really good example of reusing an old card. The original card had 16 cupcakes on it, I was able to chop it in 3 to give me 3 little rows of cupcakes each with a "happy birthday" sentiment, (one row of cakes ended up having to be trimmed to close to the edge) and I can use each little row for a new card.

- sentiments - obviously these can be hand-written or stamped, but I found this pack of 100 little sentiments in the poundshop - yes, 100 for £1. Bargain!

- bits of ribbon, trim, twine are all useful for little touches

- shaped hole punches are handy, and glue obviously. But the one non-essential item that I consider to actually be essential is a guillotine. Mr EC bought ours years ago, before we got married so its a good 17 years old. We've used it loads, for making our wedding invitations, kids party invitations, cutting up laminated things, and now of course card making. You could just use scissors or even a ruler and craft knife, but if you're anything like me, manually chopped up stuff will look like a pre-schooler has made it. So personally I'd recommend splashing out on a guillotine, they can be really cheap - this one on amazon is less than £8.

- I also have a Sizzix Big Shot manual die-cutting machine. I mostly use it for hearts, circles, flowers and butterflies, but you really can make lovely cards without it. Mine was a birthday present from Mr EC, and whilst its not essential, it is fun and I love it!

So that's the supplies covered! Here are the cards I made today and a bit of blurb about each of them. Oh and also all the sticking was done with a cheapy gluestick.

Here I used pink checkered background paper, with 3 die cut hearts. I wanted to fit 6 hearts on but even my smallest heart die they were too big to all fit. 3 on their own looked a bit lost somehow until I added the vertical striped to match. I also thought of putting a smaller heart on top of the ones shown, but it was starting to look a bit fussy, so I left it as it was. Then I added the "Happy Birthday" sentiment.

I used this flowery card front from an old birthday card which already had this sentiment on it. So I just guillotined it down to size and stuck it on the card blank. The sentiment is stuck on with foam dots so it has a pleasing 3D effect.

Next is quite a fun girly little card. The shoes etc and the "Happy Birthday" sentiment came from an old card. I guillotined it to size, and also guillotined some coordinating background paper. It was quite hard to decide which colour to use for the background, the main picture has so many colours in it, you'd think anything would match, but nearly everything looked horrible! I think/hope this one works. Though this is a prime example of where I can't decide if it actually just looks a bit rubbish!

Ooooh I do really like this one. I have a few papercraft magazine and took inspiration for one of those for this card. Its really very simple but I quite like the layered effect. I started off with the background paper of pale blue with lots of little cards. I decided to pick out the colours of the stars in the decorations. The red trim is some hessian bordering stuff that I found at the poundshop. I used my die-cutter to cut circles and stars to layer over the background and hessian. The paper for the stars is from a pad of paper that claims to be handmade. I'm not sure how true that is, but its that sort of paper that has a lumpy bumpy texture. This would be a  nice one for a chap I think, but could easily be copied in a more girly style.

I started off with the piece of an old card that has the sentiment on it - and it also had some swirls and a lovely 3D butterfly. I managed to find a piece of very lightly patterned paper that matched the pinky-red of the main card, and then I die cut another butterfly, and used a heart stamp for some mini hearts. I think this would have looked just as nice without the second butterfly, and maybe with a few more hearts.

Again I started off with the main image which came from a new home card. We last moved home 15 years ago so that's how long I've kept this one! Bonkers!! Anyway I cut it out free-hand as it had a sort of wonky look to it. Then layered it over some grey and white patterned paper, and also layered on a white die-cut plaque shape, and then a "Best Wishes" sentiment. You could easily just cut or guillotine a rectangle instead of the plaque shape.

This was another magazine-inspired card, and is by far the most fiddly of the cards I've made today. I found some stripey paper which had came with some sheets in checks and spots of matching colours.

I guillotined down the stripey paper to make the edge pieces, then using guillotine, scissors, and glue, I made some little flags and looped the over the twine. The twine is fixed at the back with sellotape and then I kept the flags in place by gluing down a couple of them. Then stuck a little sentiment on top.

Another really really simple card. I guillotined down some blue card as the background. The balloon decoration again came from a card that I received absolutely years ago. It's balloons painted on a piece of acetate and the original card had an aperture so you saw through the balloon window but I decided just to put some white card behind it. This meant when I layered it over the plain blue card, the background of the balloons stayed white not blue. Does that make sense ??! And of course a little sentiment added at the bottom.

I've currently not got any plans for tomorrow - no, not even any laundry - so I'm planning to make a load more cards while my stuff is all already set out! I might bore you with some more pictures too. And well done if you read this far!!!

Til next time,

Jillxxxxx

ps no idea why my images look so grainy today but I have to go and start dinner now so they will have to do!!! Sorry!

Summer Holidays 2017 - Donaghadee - Part 1

Hello dear readers and friends!

I can't believe there is only one full week of the school holidays left, its gone sooooo fast. We've had a great summer though: I was in Northern Ireland in our holiday house for a month, with Little Miss and Little Tomboy - MrEC and Mr14 joined us for the last 2 weeks.
Our holiday house is in a little town called Donaghadee, which is close to the town of Bangor.
(There is also a Bangor in Wales, so don't be confused, I am talking about Bangor Co. Down). The photo below is Bangor Marina which always looks really pretty but appearances can be deceptive - it is often really really windy.



Close by the marina is the Red Berry Cafe, we often go for lunch here, they serve lovely salads, though the kids prefer the waffles with cream, chocolate and marshmallows - can't think why !!!?!!
In NIreland it's all about the bread: soda bread, potato bread, veda bread, and - best of all - wheaten bread. Wheaten bread with proper butter is aMAZing. Don't confuse it with soda bread. Soda bread, though also amazing, is white, very soft, and tends to be baked in a circle and served in quarters which we call soda "farls". Wheaten bread is brown, much rougher, made with wholewheat flour and oats, and with added treacle for the colouring. It is often baked in a loaf tin so it can be easily sliced. Soda bread is gorgeous toasted with butter and jam, wheaten bread can be eaten the same way but is a marvellous accompaniment for soup or smoked salmon, or as the base of an open prawn sandwich. Actually all this talk of wheaten bread is making me crave some - you can't buy it easily in the south of England, so I guess I'll have to make some! Watch this space for another post ...

We were amazingly lucky with the weather, and had loads of lovely days out. As we are National Trust members we visited Mount Stewart a couple of times. Normally we walk around he lake there, but this time we chose to go in the opposite direction towards the Temple of the Winds. You can see the view of it on approach up the hill.



Mount Stewart House dates back to the mid 1700's, and the Temple of the Winds was added later in that century by the then owner, Robert Stewart, 1st Marquess of Londonderry. The Temple of the Winds is so called as the design is based on the "temples" in the Meditarranean seen by Robert Stewart on his tour of Europe, and as you can imagine its location at the top of the hill, is quite windy.




There is a gorgeous view though ...

Of course there are also trees to be climbed ....

... and no visit is complete without a photo beside the beautiful Canadian geese mural ...

We also visited CastleWard which again is owned by the National Trust, it's a lovely property with a large estate which sweeps down to the shores of Strangford Lough.

 

You can see Castleward in the middle, near the bottom, on the map below.

This map is a photo of a painting (not by me I hasten to add!) that we have hanging in our downstairs loo - as you do !!!! You can see just north of Castleward is Audley's Castle. In my family we call is "Audrey's Castle" as we have an Auntie Audrey! No, she doesn't own it !! We walked from Castleward along the shore to Audley's Castle, stopping at various bays along the way to skim stones and soak up the sun.

If any of you are Game of Thrones fans you may be interested to know (or indeed know already) that a lot of Game of Thrones is filmed in Northern Ireland. Most of the rugged sea scenery is the north coast of Antrim for example, and the scenes at Winterfell are filmed at Castleward. Audley's Castle field was also the setting for Robb Stark's camp, and various other scenes. There are lots of Game of Thrones tours and hikes all over the place! It's helped the tourism industry in N.Ireland immensely as people from all over the world make a trip to see the Game of Thrones settings.

Just further east from Castleward is Strangford, from where there is a ferry that goes across the Narrows to Portaferry. Usually on the way home to Donaghadee (which is just north of Ballywalter - but not on the map) we take this ferry - its a small car ferry which takes about 10 minutes - and its fun to stand on deck with the wind in your hair, watching Strangford receding whilst Portaferry edges closer.

This is a view from the ferry of another ferry - the spare ? an old one ? - but basically the same as the one we were on. You drive on one end and straight off the other when it lands (is that the right word lol) at the other side.

Little Tomboy came on deck with me as Little Miss didn't want to, so she stayed in the car with Pixie.

And here are views of Portaferry from the ferry ...

It reminds me a it of Balamory (anyone in the UK with small children will know what I mean!)

I so love going home home to Norn Irn. There is something about the pace of life that means we are just so relaxed from the minute we arrive. Every day tasks aren't as boring, when its sunny it feels like a real treat, and when its not the wind blows away the cobwebs and the rain makes everything so green and lush. Even the food shopping is made more exciting by the presence of the aforementioned wheaten bread and the local shop sells amazing yoghurts. And that's before we even talk about the ice-cream .... and the local cafes .... in Donaghadee, which is pretty small there are about 10 cafes and umpteen restaurants. We are so lucky.

Where last summer was filled with sadness after my Dad had passed away, this summer felt a little lighter, though there were always be a Dad-shaped hole in my life and of course even more so when we're in Norn Irn. Nonetheless my heart is so happy when I'm there, aaaaah I feel relaxed just re-living these memories as I type.

I'll be back with Part 2 soon. Hope you've had a lovely Bank Holiday if you're in the UK, and a lovely regular old Monday if you're elsewhere.

Til next time,
Jillxxxxx

Bunnies and Unicorns

Hello dear friends and readers!



This is what happens when a small dog gets into your crochet bag. Actually this was after I'd started separating it all.

And of course this little lady is the culprit......  but how can I be angry when she is so cute ...?






Its been a busy week, we had Mr14's paintball party which was a huge success - due to a booking mix-up they had the whole place to themselves, ordinarily there would be 30ish other people there which would completely change the vibe, but instead it was just Mr14 and 9 friends having a blast.



I believe they are "dabbing" in that photo - I presume those of you with school age children will know what this is. I don't really get it myself. Anyway, we've had many, many issues with friendship groups (or lack thereof) over the years, with Mr14 being on the autistic spectrum, so it was absolutely wonderful to see him enjoying himself with such a lovely group of friends. The school he goes to is so nurturing, their pastoral care is excellent, and currently he's loving it.

Also this week I was away on my cousin's hen-weekend. We had a spa weekend at a really lovely country hotel called Crewe Hall. Crewe Hall dates back to the 1100's and came into the Crewe Family in 1608. You can read more about its history here.



We spent the weekend, relaxing, having spa treatments, eating cake and drinking bubbly - what more could you want ?



Well, you could want crochet too, and I did bring some with me to work on, though I was too busy relaxing to get much done.
The other thing you could want would be to get home at the end of the weekend without incident. Sadly my car had other ideas and decided to breakdown on a very fast (70mph) road with no hard shoulder. Nightmare. And no we didn't have breakdown cover. So after getting car to trundle at 8mph for a few miles - so stressful - to a service area, I phoned the RAC and joined there and then. Thankfully they came to my rescue fairly quickly, but couldn't revive the car, so I had to be towed to the garage and MrEC picked me up. Poorly car is still in the garage awaiting parts. Not the best end to the weekend, it has to be said.

This week I've been working on a couple of fundraising orders - firstly this bunny, she still needs a wee bow for her head but is otherwise ready to go.






... and this little chap is going off to his new owner who is going to take him with her next week when she travels off to climb Kilimanjaro! Wow!





I've also been messing around with beads - just for a break from the bunnies and unicorns.



I'm thinking I may make some of these to make at our school summer fair, but just not sure that I will have the time really, as I have sooooo many unicorns still to do. And on that note I am off to finish some unicorn "hair" for a large unicorn that I'm nearly done with.
Hope you all have a lovely week,
Til next time,
Jillxxxx

May (and March and April) Days

Hello strangers, remember me ???!!!! Lost my blogging mojo for a while there, nothing worrisome going on, just life etc.



We had two weeks over in NIreland for Easter. You may remember that my Dad died at Easter last year, 2016. Very sadly, my uncle, my Dad's twin brother, died a year and 3 days after my Dad, just before Easter 2017, and of the same thing - cancer that had spread to lungs and stomach. We all just couldn't believe that the family had had to go through the same thing all over again. My Dad was the baby brother, well actually when they were born there were triplets, but the 3rd baby didn't survive, so technically my Uncle was the eldest and my Dad was the middle one. We took the children out of school to travel over a couple of days early for my Uncle's funeral, and once we had the funeral done we were able to settle down and enjoy our time over there. All the extended family are going to my cousin's wedding in a few weeks, and we were all saying how it will be lovely to get together as a family for a happy occasion for once. Whilst over there we had some lovely days out which I think deserve their own post so I'll share those another time, but for now here's a pic and maybe you can guess where we went.



As you may or may not know I am training for the New York Marathon (New York Baby!!!!) in November, and have been doing lots of events as part of my training. I did an obstacle colour run (where they throw paint at you while you leap around on big bouncy castles - such good fun) with my daughter ....


I also did a triathlon with a friend ....





As you can see the weather was fantastic for both of those :) Sadly (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), there are no photos of me during the swim section of the triathlon!
I've also been doing parkrun every Saturday morning. For those of you who haven't heard of parkrun, it is a free timed 5k event that runs every Saturday morning at hundreds of parks all across the UK and indeed there are some international parkruns too. Its not a race, just a run, you can sprint, run, jog, plod or walk, and bring your kids, buggies, or dogs. I very firmly fall in the plod category and I don't bring the dog as it would freak her out. Parkrun is very inclusive, runners of all abilities are welcomed, and it's free, as the whole thing is run by volunteers.




In other news our activities as a family have been somewhat curtailed by the fact that Little Tomboy broke her wrist! She fell off the playground play equipment at school, and although it wasn't REALLY bad, it was bad enough that she had to have an operation under general anaesthetic to straighten it. On my birthday. Hurrah. First time I'vve ever left the house on my birthday at 06:30 - as we had to be there by 7am.
Here she is in hospital recovering from the op - still smiling bless her - no overnight stay required thank goodness.



.... and at her checkup lat week ....



That's us in the hospital cafe having breakfast before her 08:30 appointment! 08:30! Have you ever tried to get a 9 year old to a hospital appointment in the centre of town before breakfast in rush hour traffic at the same time as getting the other 2 ready and off to school and then realising the patient has got dressed in normal clothes not school uniform even though she is going to school later so you've had an argument with her to get re-dressed. It wasn't terribly fun. Luckily the hospital cafe does a pretty good latte and The Best Pain Au Chcolat In The World, so that eased the pain. I am pleased to report she is doing very well, her arm barely hurts and she'll have the cast for just another couple of weeks. Currently we have covered the millions of signatures (very cool but she was bored of them!) with some rather fetching camo tape bought off amazon. And she's STILL smiling :)



Tomorrow we have Mr 13's birthday, he will be Mr 14. He's having 9 friends to go paintballing and very disappointingly I'm not allowed to join in. Too embarrassing obviously. He's very into his artwork at the moment, does a lot of computer art, loves media studies, animation and computing, but he also loves drawing and sketching with what I call Proper Pens. And Proper Pencils. At least I hope they're proper because they cost enough! Here's a little sketch that he did the other day in a cafe while we were waiting for lunch. With just the one blue pencil. I just love this and its pinned above my desk.



I popped into Hobbycraft today (can you tell whats coming) to buy him some more Proper Pens for his birthday but I seemed to come out with a load of yarn and fabric. No idea how that happened.



The fabric was reduced so of course I HAD to buy it, and I just loved the colours of the yarn, I'm going to use the Lionbrand Lamdscapes Yarn for a shawl/wrap and the caron cakes for lap sized blankets. And now I really really must stop buying craft materials of any sort. In fact I feel a no-spend challenge with associated blog posts coming along sometime soon ...

In crafting news its all been about the unicorns.  I'm selling them for charity to fundraise for my marathon for the National Autistic Society (Mr 13-soon-to-be-14 has autism). One lady wanted a large unicorn so here's what I made for her. The credit for the pattern goes to a lady called Marina Chuchkalova whose pattern I purchased on etsy.



I've also made loads of little ones but don't seem to have a photo. I'll take one of the next one I make. Other than the unicorns not a lot has been happening on the crochet front. But I'm hoping to rectify that this weekend, I'm going for a spa weekend for my cousin's hen-do, as these things go it's going to be a fairly non-rowdy event so my crochet is coming with me and I intend to sit about, drink prosecco, and do my crochet, all weekend :) Bliss!

Til next time,
Jillxxxxxx

Five on Friday

Hello dear friends and readers,

It's that time of the week again so today I am joining in with Five on Friday (hosted by my lovely friend Amy of Love Made My Home). This week has been a fairly quiet one although I seem to have spent ridiculous amounts of time ferrying children about and driving to and from various schools. My 3 Little People all go to different schools. Mr Teenager goes to a secondary school that's 4 miles away, with his autism he wouldn't cope with the bus so I drive him there and back each day. Little Miss is at our local catchment secondary school and walks there with her friends. She loves that independence, and even if it's tipping it down with rain she'd rather walk than have a lift from me. I'm so, like, embarrassing. And Little Tomboy is still at primary school so I walk her there and back. It's a bit of a juggling act and in the afternoon I don't always have time to drop Mr Teenager and my car at home before walking up to get Little Tomboy, so sometimes I pick her up on the way home in the car, but I prefer to walk if I can. Then you add in all the clubs (football, gymnastics, drama, guides, kickboxing, Photoshop-club, badminton) and its a wonder I am ever at home. 

Anyway enough waffle ... here are 5 snippets of my week .....

1. Little Tomboy's school had some duck eggs that they nurtured, and last week they hatched - great excitement. It wasn't in her year but we popped in to the relevant classroom after school one day to see them ..... Soooo fluffy and cute .....

2. On Monday the pre-school attached to our primary school had a fundraising bingo night. Just in the school hall, bring your own snack and drinks - bottle of rosé wine, don't mind if I do - do you like my heart paper-cups - so classy. It was a fun night, I won £5 (so it's not big money!) and a nice little raffle prize of some hand-cream. The raffle prizes are donated by people and are often unwanted gifts or bottles of wine, so it can be hit and miss. I have in the past won a bottle of wine which was so revolting I poured it down the sink. I know. Yes it was that bad. So nice hand-cream was a pleasant surprise :)

3. There has been a bit more in the way of sunshine and blue skies this week, and the daffodils are coming through. This is our local park which we pass on the way to school each day, and at which Little Miss hangs out with her friends. Even though she's at secondary school now you are never to old to play on a swing 😊 There's also a great little local cafe and of course all important sweet shop.

4. Little Miss goes to Guides and they've been working on their Confectionery badge. I think basically this teaches them how and where to get inordinate amounts of sugar into their diet. They need to learn how to make truffles and peppermint cremes, and at their meeting on Tuesday they made little icing cake-toppers. She made this one of a teddy sort of hanging over a moon, so sweet. Literally.

She also made cupcakes, but we aren't allowed to mention those because she stupidly left her bowl (containing her last cupcake) on the sofa in reach of Pixie. So, yes, it got eaten by the dog, cupcake case and all. Lots of tears. Mr EC (big softy) gave her a little bowl of Minstrels by way of consolation. She ate one then dropped the bowl on the floor so the dog got those too. More tears. We then sort of accidentally reminded her that she had wanted to give up chocolate for Lent, and a minstrel is ... well ... chocolate. Even more tears. Not a fun evening. Luckily the cake-topper did not meet with any calamity and is still intact.

5. We had a really lovely afternoon last Sunday out at our local National Trust Property, Basildon Park. If you follow Amy's blog Love Made My Home you will have heard about Basildon Park, as Amy works there, and I have also blogged about it before here. Mr Teenager is now of an age where he doesn't want to come along, and needs his own space and some peace from his sisters, so we leave him at home playing xbox online with his friends. This is a recent development for us: having to drag a reluctant autistic 12-13 year old everywhere is not fun let me tell you. He tries very hard but, due to the autism, anywhere new causes so much anxiety and upset, it's always a nightmare trying to get him to get ready and causes everyone to get super-stressed and grumpy before we've even left the house. So for us now to be able to leave him at home (and for him to be okay with that) is really a bit of a game-changer.

Anyway, back to Basildon Park.  So we went out with just the girls. This time we went slightly off-piste and instead of walking round the garden we followed one of the trails - the orange one - through the woodland. Ok, so not strictly off piste then, but a bit of an adventure nonetheless. We covered about 4 miles, we had one tired little doggy at the end. It was extremely muddy - we had a few slippages and near misses but nobody actually fell over.

You can just see the front of the house through this gap in the trees ....

I wish we could have taken credit for this awesome little shelter but it was not us who made it. Isn't it fab ?

The end of the walk brings you out at the side of the house ...

....and being back at the house means you are at the tea-room. They even have a special extra tea room where dogs are welcome 😊

In the above photo you can see a press/cupboard at the far end - here is a closer look. I just adore it, I'd love something like that in my kitchen however Mr EC is very much the minimalist and would definitely resist that decision. So perhaps best not to go there!

Hope everyone has had a great week.

Til next time,

Jillxxx