Happy New Year and Welcome to the Bubbly Funk Crafty Calendar

I'd like to wish all my blog readers a very Happy New Year, thank you for reading my blog and viewing my photographs, cards and layouts, I appreciate your comments. I hope 2009 brings you everything you wish for.

The members over at Bubbly Funk Forum have created a Crafty Calendar blog for 2009, you can download the calendar and either view the projects online or download them. All we ask is that you give a small donation to Action for ME, our chosen charity, by clicking on the Just Giving box in the sidebar of the blog. Get yourself over there and have a look!

Goodbye old friend

James 1992 - 2008

Christmas Blogging

Christmas Day at home

Boxing Day at Mum's

Frosty Walk on Christmas Saturday

All digital papers and elements from Sunshine Studio and Ellie Lash.

OMG I'm fabulous!

Thank you so much Gez, for nominating my blog as Fabulous! I love this little pic, having grown up fantasizing that I would dance with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, this Audrey Hepburn Stylee pic is right up my street. Now the rules say I have to pass it on to five other peeps with 'Fabulous' blogs, not an easy task I have to say as there are many blogs out there, some of the most Fab have already got this award and there are many others which are also fabulous.

However decisions have to be made and I am going to nominate ...
1. Joanne (Angelnorth)
2. Di Oliver (Just Scrappin' & lovin life)
3. Kaz (Slightly Wonky)
4. Bubbly Scrumptious
5. Ellies Angels CT Blog

The rules also say you must link to the one you got it from, and also to the ones you give it to and let them know. And there is more ... ... You have to write down five things you are addicted to!!

What am I addicted to:

1. Red wine
2. Dark Chocolate
3. Bubbly Funk Forum
4. Laughing
5. Shopping

Now that makes me sound really shallow - ha ha ha - you'll have to make your own mind up abou that!

Hang up your stocking!

I thought I'd show you the Christmas stocking I made for my DS1's girlfriend. I've made stockings with this pattern for all the family, it's one I bought in the US when I first went there in 1980, at that time you couldn't get patterns like this in the UK and even Christmassy fabric was difficult to find. It is a very easy pattern, the trickiest bit is putting on the name, I've embroidered most of the others but thought I would try to do this one with applique, it wasn't easy stitching round the letters, but I'm pleased with the effect.

Merry Christmas digi style

Wishing all my blog readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. These are the digital Christmas cards that I have sent this year. The top one for people who know us both and the bottom one for people I work with who don't know my DH.
Digital papers and elements are from Sunshine Girls Mega Freebie Winter Wonderland, including the fantastic snowflake overlay which I just love.

Away Day

I was on an away day today to this amazing place. It used to be a Tyre factory and was built in Art Deco style. It has been restored and now houses some computer based offices and has conference facilities.

I loved the door and the tiles and especially the mosaic on the floor at the front door.

More information about India of Inchinnan HERE

Winter SPS

Star

Finally a star! I put up my Christmas tree this afternoon and one of my decorations is this lovely golden glittery star.

Almost caught up HS:MS:HS

A few catch up pictures for HS:MS:HS, no star yet.

Hawk Heaven

This cheeky hawk was sitting on the fence right outside our back kitchen window! I took the photo through the window, I then opened the window, but he flew away before I could get another shot. It must be the cold that is bringing them nearer the house.

Snow Day!

On Wednesday night it snowed quite heavily and it is still hanging about as it froze on the ground last night! I took a few pics just to show you what it was like, you would think I'd never seen snow before, but although I live in Scotland, we don't actually have much snow and it doesn't usually last.

It looks very pretty, but I'm not a big fan as it makes it difficult to get around. My MIL hasn't been able to get out of the house since Tuesday as the yard is too slippy and the farm road is still two tracks in the snow.

It seems to be raining tonight, so maybe that will help it to disapear.

DCM - White Christmas

All too quickly, and its Friday once again....and this week...we are dreaming of a WHITE (and splash of pink Christmas!) I would love you to design a card which includes white mostly (ie: snow, snowmen etc ) and also a little splash of pink somewhere on the card. :)

This card has been embossed with the Cuttlebug snowflake folder and I sprayed it with Glacier Glimmer Mist, the little snowflake confetti thingies are from Tescos, they have an irredescent pink sheen.

HS:MS:HS -SOS

Here is a little 'Show Off Sunday' pic of the frozen seed heads of cow parsley that I took this morning.

HS:MS:HS - SPS

Here is my DH and our kitty-cat Jenny. When she was a kitten she was very flighty and it is only in the last couple of years (she is 16 now!) that she will jump on your knee and sometimes, as you can see, even onto your shoulder!

A little dusting of snow

When I got up this morning there was a little icing sugar dusting of snow this morning which had then frozen onto the car and the paving stones. It thawed a little later, but by late afternoon a freezing fog descended making it really cold and spooky!

HS:MS:HS - English

New College, Oxford

HS:MS:HS Rain

HS:MS:HS - American

Photograph of the Sequoias in California.

OOh I got a lovely award from Gez, looks like it's travelled quite far from it's home too.

This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships!These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

What a lovely award to win, thanks Gez, now who will I nominate?

Karen

Kaz

Hazel

Caroline

No smoke - Fire!

Yes! The stove is lit and no disgusting oil smoke flooding into the rooom. DH is nothing if not tenacious and couldn't leave it alone, we were peering up the flue pipe with a mirror and a torch trying to see if we could see the blockage and yes, there is was 'A BIG BIRDS NEST'.

He then got one of the draining rods which has a double sprialled hook on it and stuck his arm up the flue :o After much poking about, what seemed like a bale of straw came out of the flue. Its taken him most of the evening to clear it and clean up and now the stove has been lit and the flue is clear - hurrah!

Please don't write and tell me that the flame shouldn't be yellow like that, we know, it is only like that when you first light the stove, once the door is fully closed and it has burned up a bit, it settles down to a bluish flame and a warm glow - the cats will be so pleased and will shortly take up residence either side of the stove.

HS:MS:HS Scottish

I had to do the HS:MS:HS today (thanks Gez for pointing me in the right direction) as a Scot it would have been rude not to! This is the Queen's View, not far from Pitlochry, in June this year and sums up the beauty of Scotland for me.

Very Cherry Scrap Page

I thought I'd turn the cherry picking events into a scrapbook page, so here it is. Papers and elements are freebies from the Sunshine Studio Scraps & Scrap Orchard Halloween Blogtrain, Amanda Laborde, Sine, Amy Sumrall, Kami Leonard of Ziggle Designs and Shauna Burke-Smith of Pineapple Plantation Desgins.

Cherry Picking! (SOS)

The weather is getting colder and when we tried to light our oil stove, it belched smoke into the house, so DH has hired a cherry-picker to see if he can dislodge whatever is blocking the chimney. Here he is starting the engine, he actually managed to get stuck up there while I was at the optician's and phoned me to say that the power had failed, I wasn't quite sure what he expected me to do about this when I was 12 miles away! Anyway, he managed to get down again using the battery power, scary moment though.

Another scary moment, suspended in mid-air.

Unfortunately, despite all the poking and prodding, the chimney is still blocked, so we will have to try something else.

This side of the house hasn't been painted for a long time, due to the difficulty in reaching it, you can see that there is a lean-to attached to the wall, so to get the most value out of the hire, DH painted the wall. He was still up there in the dark at 4.30pm, I had to go out and put all the yard lights on, of course, they didn't shine in the right place! When he brought the arm of the cherry-picker down I had to go out with a torch to help him guide it onto it's rest. Anyway at least that job is completed.

Woo hoo! I won an award!

I feel very honoured to have been chosen by Joanne (Angelnorth) to receive this award! Joanne is one of the most inspirational card makers and bloggers that I know, so I really appreciate this award.

Here's how it works:
1. The winner may put the logo on their blog.
2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Put links to their blogs.
5. Leave a message for your nominees.

I'm going to nominate Kathy's Waffle, Bubbly Scrumptious Blog, Digital Craft Cottage Blog,
Di's Blog and Kathy's Sketch File

These are all blogs which provide endless inspiration.

NEC Bubbly Funk Meet

At the weekend I went to Birmingham to meet up with some of the girls from Bubblyfunk Forum and go to the Hobbycraft Fair at the NEC.



Tracey met me at the station and we shared a 'Spicy Italian' at Subway!!!

Here is Tracey testing the bed in the hotel.

Karen and Tracey in the hotel lobby before we set off round the Lake to the Exhibition Centre.

DCM - It's Reining Birds

I'm a bit late getting this posted, but better late than never. These are digital papers called Chrsitmas Felt by Becky Alexander for Digital Craft Cottage.

HS:MS:HS - SOS

A little reminder of spring on a horrible, grey, wet day. This is my SOS for Her Space, My Space, His Space.

DCM - Sparkle and Bling

This week its Jozza's turn for the Dare and as its Fireworks week here in the UK she has gone all sparkly - so the brief was lots of bling!!

Not a brilliant card or a brilliant photograph, its particularly nasty here today and there is very little light, I'm in full Christmas card creating mode now, so used the dare to make another one. There's a lot of glitter on that stamped image and round the edge of the card, although it is not easy to see!

HS:MS:HS - SPS

It's ages since I did a Her Space: My Space photo and when I went back to look it had changed to Her Space: My Space: His Space with a new blog! It's Self-Portrait Saturday, I liked last weeks SPS with a twist which was about showing old photos of yourself. As I have just posted about my current cats, I thought this pic, of me aged around 8 years old, with the cat I grew up with was very appropriate. So here it is Janice and Jasper.