happy sad times

Paul had his birthday, and that was another highlight of this season for us, we usually then look forward to our wedding anniversary, followed by the run up to christmas.  Sadly this year Paul's grandad died and we have attended his burial this week.  Whilst it was a very sad time it was lovely to spend time with the family.  Paul and his brother here at the wake happy in the knowledge that there is a wedding to be excited about in June of next year.

So now my mind has turned to christmas and the preparation ahead, this year is to be a frugal affair with home made gifts as tokens rather that the vast sums of money that have been spent in previous years, I will be posting my makes as I go to remind me next year of what can be achieved with a little planning.

I am actually quite pleased

I made my pumpkin, and actually it went quite well, or at least I thought so!  Halloween was fantatsic this year, lots of our neighbours made an effort, and the people a couple of doors up who have an icecream van opened it, dressed in fancy dress giving free icecream to the children who wanted it, how lovely was that. There are some new people in the street who are renting a house, they decorated really well, and it turns out they are American, so no wonder they did a good job!

Here is a picture of the pumpkin, I am ashamed to say I didn't let Logan share at all!

I really am trying

to get going! I want to make some cards, and have spent hours watching youtube christmas card tutorials, but I don't have what they are using, what I really want is to put in a list of what I have and have some kind of magic tutorial to point me to a tutorial that uses what I have!! in the mean time I have been thinking about my pumpkin for this year, and it has to be better than the ghoul from last year

or the witch from the year before!

Crochet Bag

I know that it's a bit mad, but I saw this crochet bag on Sarah's blog, then got the instructions from Lucy's attic 24 blog then decided to make it in chunky knit. I managed to snap 2 crochet hooks before I covered and cooked them in fimo!!  Now away I am going loopy hooky, hooky loopy on and on, then eventually I realise, this is huge!!!! still I carried on, and now I have a bag to hold all of my wool!! and it is so sturdy I don't need to line it Fab!!! Still not sure it shows the true size, but if you consider that these balls are 100g balls you get some idea :)

busy busy

I am still feeling productive, and have started on my christmas cards!  but I have also finished my crochet bag, but more about that later, made some bunting, and this little card for a friend who is starting her own business doing vintage tea parties, hen nights etc, I am really excited for her.  Ignore everything other than the pink bit, the white is the envelope, but now I look at the photo it looks like wonky backing!!

Something new

A Friend of mine is getting married at the weekend, and I really wanted to make a card that I was happy with, so I did a bit of knife wielding and using stash that I had, I embossed this corset image which I bought for my wedding invitations, and Linda you will be proud I used my SU heat and stick and Martha Stewart glitter first time and I thought it was great, glad I have 2 pots by accident.  Then I cut out some of the image on the side of the paper and stickled it to give a different bit of colour then I raised it with a 3d sticker, once I had sanded it  I was very pleased with the outcome, which actually makes a change as I am usually very difficult to please when it comes to my own stuff!

This time of year

I seem to feel the need to blog!! I have looked back and seen that every year at this time I have a post, perhaps its because of the academic year, it used to be "the children" go back to school, but now it is just the boy.  The girls are still in academia, one at Uni and the other at college, but its not the same, no school uniforms to buy for them!!

I read a post on Facebook from someone who's blog I read a lot, and she said that she found it frustrating that no one posted, so I have promised myself that I will post response and comments when I look at something new.  I am going to do this for every blog I read and see how I go!

I wanted to remind myself of the summer today so though that this image from the spring, when it felt like summer was perfect!!!

Hello

this is a tester

and can be deleted.