New Blog banner

Ooh hark at me with my own blog banner lol. This is the result of my efforts at digi-scrapping and I have actually started to read my Adobe books and they are beginning to make sense. I'm not 100% happy with the quality of the banner yet. I think it could be sharper, however I think it will do for a first attempt.

When I have collected more digital elements I will have another go. The background papers are Shabby Princess, Splendid as are the stitched cross embellishments and the daisies come from Adobe PSE 5 Artwork.
Better go an get on with my tidying up, I am making very, very slow progress towards being 'organised and inspired'. Actually I think I might go out and see if I can take a pic of the ducks on our flooded field as it is not raining at the moment (not that I'm trying to avoid the tidying - hee hee).

First Digi-Scrapbook page

I have been having a little play around with Adobe Photoshop Elements and the Free Digi-Scrap kit from Kirsty Wiseman that was in the Bubbly Funk Shoppie. Probably not the best photo for this paper, but I am really pleased with the general look and quite proud of myself for actually managing to do all those layers. Still haven't read the books (tee hee), but I am sure I will be able to do much more exciting things once I have!

My Christmas Presents

Here are some of my Christmas Presents. The jumper and the cardigan that I mentioned in aprevious post, the Organised and Inspired Scrapbooker (I've read two pages so far), the blue thing at the front is a glass bowl which my SIL gave me, lovely shape and colour. At the back the Curry book, some lovely dark chocolate in there too. You can just see the pink handle of my new Crop-a-dile and a Clinique eyeshadow and right at the back under the Scrapbooker are the Adobe Photoshop Elements books. Only your best friend could give you Clarins Mains de Jeunesse hand cream for AGE SPOTS!!!! It is really thoughtful of her as I have had trouble wearing my wedding ring as my finger seems to break out and become sore - seems a bit strange after wearing it for 26 years, but it must be my age lol.

Alterables

Yesterday, I was trying to sort out some of my kitchen cupboards so I could fit in the spices my sister gave me with the Madhur Jaffrey Curry Book. I threw out a lot of stuff that was out of date, but something weird has happened to me.....I was looking at everything to see if it could be altered! Here are the things I decided to keep. Don't go getting any ideas that I shop regularly at Harvey Nics - but I do love their food hall and I did get this on my first visit to the Edinburgh shop (I told you it was out of date). I now have to find somewhere to put these till I get them altered.

No pictures today

I didn't take any pictures on Christmas Day, there were too many sorry souls with the cold - red noses, bleary eyes, I just couldn't do it to them. My sister took some pics on Boxing Day when we visited my family and she is going share them with me, so I might get some to post in a day or so.

I had a lovely Christmas, got my Crop-a-dile, but haven't played with it yet. The Organised Scrapbooker book - I live in hope! I also got two books on Adobe Photoshop Elements, so now I will have to get down to mastering this programme so I can start to digi-scrap (that should be less messy). I got a beautiful pink cardigan and a pink and grey striped jumper from my Mum, it is lovely and soft and pretty, DVDs of old musicals that I love and a CD of James Taylor's greatest hits. And lots of chocolate, my great aunt gave me some chocolate covered mango slices from Hotel Chocolat - OMG they are fantastic.

Made a big pot of 'left overs' soup today and just going to make the supper using left over ham. Even though we still have stuff left, I had to go to Tescos today for milk, and it was mobbed.

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas

It's Christmas Eve and here I am with my empty stocking! The strange half smile is due to me using the timer on the camera!

Here are all of our stockings, I brought the pattern back from the US in 1980 and over the years have made stockings for all the family - makes me sound like methusela! That is the offending oil stove which has no oil and as DH was out and the fire is not on I was able to hang up the stockings for a few minutes (he doesn't like things near the fire - especially if they might drop on it.)

The cats are not left out, they each have a litte sock - you may notice that these socks have Westies on them - they were a present from William a couple of years ago.

One final piccy for you - the GRAND REVEAL of the back kitchen -ta ra

Have a lovely Christmas and I will be back blogging sometime after Boxing Day.

Cosy Cats and Christmas Cake

I iced my Christmas Cake yesterday. I had been wondering how to decorate it and then had a brainwave! I made the stars from the fondant icing left from covering the cake, coloured one piece with blue and left the other white. I let the stars sit for about 10 minutes to firm up then I used a Cuttlebug Embossing Folder (snowflakes) and pressed it into the stars, pushed in a few silver balls and then left them to dry out for another 30 minutes before attaching to the cake with a little royal icing.

Here is a close up of the 'embossed' stars.

At this time of year our cats don't go out much, they tend to dominate the area around which ever fire is on.

I hope everyone visiting my blog a very Happy Christmas and if you don't celebrate Christmas, I wish you a very happy holiday.

A cold and frosty morning

On Sunday morning it was -9C and I nipped out and took a few snaps before the relatives arrived (see post below).

Deck the Halls.. fa la la la la

The decs are up! We had DH's cousins over for our annual pre-Christmas feasting so I had to get the house decorated. The little tree above belonged to my gran, she died in 1986 not many months before DS1 was born. She was a fab gran and I used to stay with her quite a lot. This always reminds me of her. I updated the little baubles this year as I found some small enough for the tree.

Here are some of my favourite decorations. The little wreath came from a craft fair in Edinburgh about two years ago. The Rocking horse, Mrs Mouse (as she is known) and the C for Cow were all gifts from my Mum, mostly brought back from the USA.

I bought the blue bauble a couple of years ago after we redecorated the kitchen, where the Christmas tree lives, in shades of turquoise blue. I just couldn't go the whole hog and get rid of my special baubles and decorations, so there is blue tinsel and a few blue baubles but I still have all the old favourites.

I 'wrapped' the vase in holographic wrapping paper and the stuff in it goes with the kitchen colours.

Here is the festive table. I made the table cloth and it comes out every year, it has a border of holly patterned fabric, you can't see it here.

...and here is the tree, not a real one, because the oil stove would kill it in a matter of a few days. The coloured lights were a gift from my friend who was eventually my bridesmaid. She gave them to us as a housewarming present when we bought our first flat in December 1980. That is value for money!!!

Christmas Card for my Mum

This is the Christmas card I made for my Mum. The bauble (yes, here it is again!) is stamped on acetate and then painted on the back with Twinkling H2Os and mounted on gold card. I was really pleased with myself as I cut the card without a template and it folds closed perfectly. I kept the outside fairly simple as I hope it is the inside of the card that will be on display.

My 100th Post!

Just noticed that this is my 100th post for Serial Crafter - woo hoo!

I've been busy with my Christmas cards and a special one for my favourite dog and my bestest friend. I have made two of these cards one to give to my friend (and dog) and the other for her to send to the breeder that she got him from.
The first picture is on the front of the card and the one below is inside.

Not very well

I have come down with a cold. I had a sore throat on Tuesday, felt better on Wednesday just a bit of a cough, yesterday had to go to a meeting in Glasgow and was okay till I got home when my nose started streaming. Struggled in to work this morning and had to come home at 11 o'clock as my brain was not functioning properly. Had to go to bed for a couple of hours when I got home. Still not feeling good and have so much to do this weekend. At least I have got if over with before Christmas!

Bright and Shiny

You Are a Bright Christmas Tree

For you, the holidays are all about fun and seasonal favorites. You are into all things Christmas, even if they're a little tacky.

What Christmas Tree Are You?

My Elf Name

Your Elf Name Is...

Sassy Mc Mini

What's" Your Elf Name?

Sunrise

There was a beautiful sunrise this morning - at 8am! I don't normally see the sun rise, but I was just going out to my car and snapped picture. I really like the sillouette of the tree.

Craft Fair

I was working at a craft fair today. It was for one of the local schools and very busy. I did quite well and cleared a lot of stuff that I had bought last year when I was doing more fairs. Really underpriced quite a lot of the stuff, but not the felt brooches, which have been selling well at work. This is a view of my table, before the sale started.

Here are my felt handbags and some scarves on my handbag stand. The polar bear got sold as did the little pink bag with the butterfly.

This is my glittery tree that I got in a sale at a local garden centre a couple of years ago. It is great for hanging Christmas decorations off. They sold very well today, as did the candles undernearth.

Here is a close up of the little bags I made from the Bubblyfunk Cybercrop and some that came from a Crafters Companion CD. I filled them with Celebrations. A few sold but not as many as I had hoped, given that they were only £1.00 and you would pay more than that for the gift bag at many places.

It was a good day overall and I met a lot of people I knew. One of my friends came in especially and it was good to see her as we used to work together, but she has now moved on and I miss her.

DCM Little Extra - very late

Here are some of my Christmas cards using the Elusive Images Klimt bauble stamps, background papers on the three little baubles is from Artylicious Seasons Greetings CD. All of these come from Graphicus.

Photos from Bubblyfunk Cybercrop!

Here is my little baggie, made with DiW's instructions - loved, it going to make more.

and here is the hanging frame, which took me nearly all day to make.

No Pictures - arghh

Yes, another post without pictures. Have had some majorly serious computer problems this weekend, just as well we have 2 pcs. Both have been playing up, but the one with the printer and card reader for downloading my pictures has had major surgery over the weekend. It is in recovery now and I am hoping to get some pics up later today.

I had a lovely, lovely day yesterday at the BubblyFunk cybercrop, first time I've done anything like this and I thought I would have managed to make more things. However, I did get a couple of projects completed, not without some trauma, I have to say. It was good to challenged to do things you wouldn't normally attempt. Those are the pics I am hoping to post later.

One of the craft fairs that I had planned to attend has been cancelled, bit of a relief really, but the other one is next Sunday, so I had better get on and make some more felt brooches with my fabulous embellisher machine - I really love it.

No time to blog

Just a quick update as I am really busy making felt flower brooches for a couple of craft fairs that I have coming up in December. Because of this, card making and photos have had to take a back seat.

The painting was all finished on Sunday and now we are waiting for the joiner to come back and rebuild the cupboards and box in some of the pipes, then the electrician can come back and put the sockets back on the walls and connect the heaters. Do you think it will be finished for Christmas?

HS:MS SPS

As the plasters were here on Monday, the plaster is now dry enough to paint, so DH and I spent all day today painting the back kitchen. DH snapped this picture of me getting ready to start painting, wearing my fetching Massey Ferguson overalls and an old scarf tied round my hair!

Tidy up

Yesterday, I tidied up my sewing space. That's my embellisher machine on the desk and the sewing machine lurking underneath. I know it doesn't look that tidy, but you should have seen it before!

This is what I am up against. DS2s drum kit, semi-dismantled, but still taking up a lot of space.

HS:MS Away

I had to really think about 'Away' , but then my DH came in and said "Do you want to take a picture of the fire for your blog, it's burning really well" So I did and you know, all that stuff has burned AWAY!

When the postman arrived in his van at about 2pm (they get later and later), he said he thought we'd been saving that big pile for Bonfire night, it had never occurred to us!

Psychedelic Hens

This is a picture my Mum painted, she painted one with ordinary hens, and this one with the psychedelic hens, I really love it and will be hanging it in my back kitchen when it is finally finished. It will really stand out on the yellow walls.

HS:MS - Miniature

You would think that being on holiday, I would have had more time to do the HS:MS but somehow that hasn't worked out. Anyway, here is my 'miniature', a little picture that fits between two doors, I left the lightswitch in to show the size of the picture, but when I uploaded the photo I realised that it was needing a good clean - should I go back and retake the pic after cleaning it? Nah, can't be bothered, I will go and clean it now though - funny how you don't notice these things in real life but they jump out at you in a photo.

Glasgow

Here is Andrew, our DS2. On Friday night we had a really nice meal in the Cafe Francais at the bottom of Byres Road in Glasgow. It was lovely to spend some time with him and catch up on his news. We met him again on Saturday after his work and went to O Sole Mio, an italian restaurant that has been in Bath Street in Glasgow for 40 years and one DH & I used to frequent when we lived there, we were going to the theatre after that and Andrew was off to a party.

This is our bedroom at the Town House Hotel, in Hughenden Terrace. It was very nice, quiet and the breakfast was very good.

I couldn't resist taking this shot of the Christmas decorations in Frasers in Buchanan Street - it is THE department store in Glasgow.

This blurry shot is from the top of The Lighthouse in Mitchell Lane, Glasgow. The Lighthouse was the original home of The Glasgow Herald and is a long narrow building hiding up a small lane off Buchanan Street. It is a museum of architecture and had an interesting exhibition about the Saltire Awards for social housing in Scotland from the 30's to the present. You can only get up to the top of the tower by climbing a spiral stair case, then you get out onto a little platform looking down on the city. It was very windy and the light was bad, so my picture is not good, but I think it gives you the idea of what it was like and how high up we were.

There would have been more photographs including some from the newly refurbished Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, however I forgot to take the memory card out of the reader after downloading the last pics, so I only had the memory on the camera - doh!

Will blog a little tour of 'places I have lived in Glasgow' as I did take some photos when I was up the West End, but I should really go and get on with something else now.

Stash Bargain

My DS1 currently works in Au Naturale and today was family and friends discount day. 30% off all the full price stuff and 20% off the sale items. I got four little storage boxes that stack into each other, some beads, six lots of ribbon and some organza sheets all for under £20.

DCM Dare - Cut it out

This week the DCM Dare involved hand cutting. I love to cut things out and although I was not terribly taken by the Angel decoupage sheets on the Artilicious Season's Greetings CD when I first got it, I thought I would have another look. There are only three layers of decoupage, three sheets of the background paper from the CD a bit of glitter and my favourite little Dovecraft 'Wishing you Joy at Christmas' stamp.

HS:MS - SOS

The blackbirds have feasted on the cottoneaster since August and now the leaves have turned the most gorgeous shade of red. This will probably be the last year I will see this from my dining room window as all the shubs have grown too big and are blocking the light at the back of the house so we plan to take them all out next year and just have some grass. I do have another cottoneaster in another part of the garden, indeed it tends to self-seed and bits pop up all over the place.