Here is my attempt at altering the Boreas 1903 print and including some orange as per instructions. I used the Impressionist filter and layered it up with lots of layer styles. The crown is a freebie from Nicole Seitler at Sugarplum Paperie which I recoloured to fit the orange theme.
Happy Birthday to Steven, here is the requested Guinness Cake from Nigella's 'Feast'.
Some painted chipboard for the gift tag on his birthday parcel.
After lunch with the birthday boy, we went down to the Whitesands in Dumfries, next to the River Nith where there was a huge celebration for Robert Burns 250th Anniversary and for the Homecoming Scotland 2009 an initiative to encourage people with Scottish origins to visit Scotland in 2009.
There were bands playing and a huge lantern parade called Burnslight It was really fortunate that the weather cleared up as it was pouring with rain in the morning. The First Minister for Scotland, Alex Salmond was there and there was a real sense of occasion. It was very cold, so we left at about 4.30pm, before they actually lit the lanterns.
This is the entrance to the Crieff Hydro Hotel where I stayed on Wednesday and Thursday with my Mum. Before we went to the hotel we had most of Wednesday to 'do something'. So we drove up from her home to Blair Atholl where we went to the House of Bruar where we had coffee and then looked at all the cashmere and other lovely things. We had lunch in Pitlochry then drove down to Crieff through the Sma' Glen, not a very good idea really as there was still a lot of snow on the hills and at one point I thought it was going to start snowing, the rain was definitely a bit sleety. Anyway we arrived at about 3pm
You can see there is still some snow on the hills in the view from the window of our room. Although Wednesday had started out a very nice sunny day, it deteriorated in the afternoon and Thursday was a horrible wet day, we never left the hotel all day.
This is our room, both Mum and I loved the curtains, which were very heavy and embroidered with thistles (see below).
I don't have any pictures of our beauty treatments, thank goodness I hear you say lol, I had a full body hot stone massage, and a Holistic Facial massage. All very lovely, but we were like zombies when we came out of the beauty salon, we were so relaxed and fell asleep in the afternoon. The evening meals were very good, we tried out both of the restaurants, one each evening. I would definitely go back as the service was excellent and there were excellent facilities.
After checking out on Friday, we drove to Dundee and then over the road bridge to Tayport to pick up my great-aunt and take her to lunch at Wormit. The sun had come out, so I took some pics of the Tay Rail Bridge, the River Tay and Dundee on the other side. There isn't a station in Wormit anymore, but I can remember my sister and I being put on the train at Wormit and our gran meeting us when we got to Dundee.
Dundee from the Fife side of the river Tay.
Yes, that is a train! I arrived home at lunch time Saturday and it was back to laundry and a demanding cat! You would think no-one had fed her since I left (obviously not true!). I had a birthday cake to make for my DS1 this afternoon, more of that tomorrow.
I was struggling to come up with a card for my DS1's birthday when I remembered Kathy's sketch and the 'Surprise' birthday papers I bought in the sales.
I made these Corn and Chive Savoury Muffins for the Midweek Muffin Challenge on 'What the Cook is that?' We had them with a bowl of soup and they are very tasty.
Tonight's supper was Braised Pork Chops with Cider Vinegar and Prunes from the BBC Good Food website.
Dessert was Mincemeat and Apple Crumble served with yogurt. Link for the Pork dish and more details of the crumble are on my cooking blog 'Farmersgirl Kitchen'
I had my hair cut today and I really like the way my fringe is all spiky, it probably wont look like that by the time I have dried it myself, so I thought it was a good opportunity to take a self-portrait for SPS.
This is Red Square in Moscow, we visited Russia in 2006. I'd just like to point out that it is not me who is dressed up as Santa in the 'Jolly' picture, but one of my colleagues from work! Me wearing nail polish is a very rare sight as I can't stand that it chips, so only for high days and holidays (work Christmas lunch is not one of those!).
I am taking part in Emily Falconbridge's 52Q challenge. But I have decided that rather than make the cards with paper & stuff, I will make them digitally.
I made this for tea on Saturday, the recipe is from the Rosemary Conley GI Hip and Thigh Diet, you can get the recipe on my cooking blog Farmersgirl Kitchen 
I had a look at HS:MS:HS this week, but never got round to posting any pics, so thought I do a mass catch up. The Beginnning photo is the start of a project I did for Bubbly Funk, it's a felt coaster with a layer of spices in it, so that when you put your hot cup on it, you get a gorgeous aroma of cinnamon and cloves.
I have to apologise for using some of these photos before, I'm not big into hearts or spheres in my house, or so it would seem when I went to look for some! I love my heart shaped decoration, so it's coming out again! 
Those lovely round, red holly berries have long gone, the birdies have gobbled them up, but they were pretty.
Now this is something I did make today! It's a light box because I'm fed up with only being able to take pictures at the weekend, you can see how to make one HERE I haven't quite got my technique right yet, but I can certainly take pics of cards and small objects without using flash.
New College Oxford is over 620 years old. I think that is quite old, don't you? No apologies for using this shot again, I just loved Oxford and staying at New College in October was a real highlight to my year.
We'd like you to do your bit for the planet and make a card using some recycled items.
I rescrapped the pictures I took of our winter walk for a challenge on Digital Craft Cottage, the challenge was to scrap a page showing what you like to do for winter activity (behave yourselves girls!), the gorgeous kit I used is by Roxi Hargreave and has been provided on DCC for monthly challenges and exchanges. I also used one of the sketches provided on the forum, so a three in one challenge!
I made this card for the Fiskarettes blog competition. I love those pictures taken in space and this was a good excuse to use one on a card!
So this week's Daring Cardmakers task is to get those Thank You cards made and sent - see how we like to help you get things done (hehe)?
I made this thank you card using the template on Dan's Blog 'Free Template Saturday' for the little pocket. Papers are Hippy Chick and card is Coredinations that I got from Joanne in the Bubbly Funk Advent Swap - I love them.
My MIL asked for a birthday card for a little girl, this was 7pm at night and she needed it first thing in the morning!!! I had a look through the stamped images that I had got in various swaps and this one seemed just the thing, I think it came from Sue at BF - Thanks! More of that Coredinations cardstock in the back, the ribbon (hmm... you may be seeing that quite a lot) and the rub-on were bought at the NEC.
I've made my downloads into a proper 'hang it on your wall' calendar, so I thought I'd let you see.
Being my own project, this one was particularly easy, as I still had some of the paper left!
I've been waiting for a good excuse to cut into that gorgeous cupcake paper.
I hope you like my hybrid calendar. If you make a calendar or any of the projects on the Crafty Calendar blog, I'd love to see them. Send me an email at craftycalendar@gmail.com
