Over on Kelli's blog, There's no place like home, there is a lovely challenge called Show and Tell Friday. Here is my show and tell for this week, it's a piece of a Victorian or Edwardian tile that I found in our garden. What is now the garden used to be where the household dumped their rubbish, so all kinds of treasures have come to light.
Vintage
Retro
MY CHALLENGE THIS WEEK IS TO PORTRAY SOMETHING OF NATIONAL PRIDE FOR YOUR OWN COUNTRY.
Over on Rosie & Linda Awfully Big Art Adventure blog, the challenge was to alter a rock or stone. I liked the sound of this, so this is my attempt. I painted the rock with Stuart Gill paints then stamped onto tissue paper with one of my Graphicus Indian themed stamps. Then I decorated it with yellow & orange beads and some glitter and a couple of little photos of elephants.
There is a little story about this card. I have had this stamp, one from Tanda Stamps Oriental collection, for quite a long time and have never used it. I always thought it was two coy carp, so was pleased to be able to use it for the challenge. Of course, when I stamped it, it turned out to be a turtle!!! Anyway, it looked so sharp in monochrome that I decided to go with that as a theme.
As it was pancake day today, I decided to make some pancakes with cinnamon. I found this recipe on the internet, made up the mix last night and only had to mix them up tonight and cook them on the girdle. I've been making pancakes since I was very little, my granny used to make them and I would help.
On tasting them I would use less salt and more cinnamon, to up the cinnamon I made some cinnamon butter, just a little sugar and some cinnamon mixed into softened butter. 
These would be great with bacon and maple syrup and because they have oats in them they are still good for you - ha ha!
I used the Sketch from Kathy's Waffle Sketch File again to make this card for my DS2's birthday. He loves anything to do with the 7o's and likes to wear bright and colourful clothes, so I know he will like these Hippie Chick papers with all the 'groovy' words.
I found this blog today and it really appealed to me to complete these questions.
No not all on the one plate!!! I had planned to make a Chicken & Mushroom Pie then DS2 and his vegetarian girlfriend came to stay, so I froze the chicken and made something else. Anyway, I had used the mushrooms so added some par-cooked carrots to the sauce instead.
Served it with fresh cauliflower, no potatoes because there was plenty of pastry.
Followed the pie with the remains of last night's pineapple made into mini-trifles. Just some sponge fingers in the bottom of the ramekins, a little blueberry juice to wet them, then the pineapple, some low fat, greek-style yogurt and a few chopped pecan nuts on top.
I used the Sketch 4 from Kathy's Waffle Sketch File to make this card for a colleague at work who has a BIG birthday coming up soon. Papers are by Crate Paper, stamp was a freebie from Craft Stamper Magazine.
It was a bright and sunny morning, so I went out to tackle some more hacking back of plants and bramble briars! In 10 minutes I had filled the wheelbarrow with dead leaves and overgrown branches. Because I live on a farm, there is no need to take all the cuttings to a dump, I just have to wheel my barrow up the road a bit to the 'burning heap'. Once there is enough rubbish and we get a dry day without too much wind we light the pile of wood and weeds and then we start all over again!
In rather more picturesque mood, spring is beginning to show itself in my 'garden'. I say 'garden' like that, because the snowdrops are half way up the road at the side of the hedge, the daffodils are pushing up under the hedge next to our dustbin and the miniature irises are in a tub which came out onto the patio today. The flowers were there but completely closed this morning, by afternoon they were open, they may not last very long but they are very pretty.
I made this card for a colleague who is unwell. I hope it cheers her up. Paper by Crate Paper, stamp by Studio G. I used the new punch that I bought for my inchies!!!
I found this really great blog through Flickr - its called The Chic Life 
These are the lovely berries & cherries, dried blueberries, cherries and lexia raisins.
I added some tikka chicken to my salad and made up a little French Dressing with olive oil & cider vinegar, I'm looking forward to eating my lunch tomorrow!
No need to say that this is probably my favourite photograph of me and DH ever. When I saw the background provided for the Art Creations Friday Challenge, I thought immediately of this photo as the colours blend perfectly. I've altered it with the Scrapbookgraphics collaboration kit 'For Melissa' including elements from Flergs, Ellie Lash and Nicole Seitler of Sugarplum Paperie.
Here is challenge 10 from Artarazzi:
We had an Inchy Swap on Bubbly Funk Forum, the theme was blue. When I got all my little inchies I wanted to do something with them. I've had this 5 x 5 canvas for some time, having bought it in a sale, so I painted it with some Stewart Gill paint and then stamped over it using the Cornish Heritage Farms 'Cracked Earth' stamp. Quite a few swapees had used little gems on their inchies, so I continued this theme round the edge of the canvas. I've just got to do a fixing on the back and then it can hang in my dining room which is decorated in similar shades of blue.
I've just found this great site full of lovely craft projects. Lots of inspiration here, you can find it HERE
The image (from The Art of Costume Design Vintage Magazine courtesy ofTakeabreak at Flickr) on Artarazzi reminded me of the glamourous Bond girls of the 1960s. However, I have put my Bond girl with Daniel Craig and given her a glass of champagne rather than a martinim, so definitely no shaking! Bond image courtesy of hayashi nauhiro2007 at Flickr. This was fun to do.
There's some 'Candy' over at the Crafty Calendar Blog all you have to do, is make one of the projects from any of the months of the calendar before the end of February, post a link to you blog in the comments or email your pics to craftycalendar@gmail.com and the winner will be chosen by Random Number Generator. Please don't post your links in this blog, you need to be over at the Bubbly Funk Crafty Calendar Thank you XXX
Here is my 'Winter' inchy for the Inchy by Inch challenge. Stamp is Studio G Clearstamps from Bubbly Funk
I would like you to make a card with an Oriental influence and the ‘Take Away’ I referred to is the twist in the tail.
There seem to be a lot of tags around at the moment. Hazel (Craftyhazelnut) tagged me with this Lemonade tag, it is to recognize someone who shows a great attitude or gratitude, thank you Hazel. I have to pass it on to another five bloggers, this is getting really difficult as you can see I have been well tagged recently.
Karen tagged me to blog the fourth photograph in the fourth folder on my PC, as I have more than one drive I was able to choose the drive and came on this picture of 'ribs' which was taken in the US in 2007. Our friends have a cabin right off the beaten track in the Sierra Nevada and they have this barbeque grill inside the cabin! It has it's own chimney, surprisingly the ribs were delicious lol.
When I went to download the pics of the brooch, I found this sneaky shot, and some others which are even less flattering, taken by my DH through the window! There I am in my son's fleece, DH's hat and my dodgy old cords, cutting back some plants. Just as well it is blurred and you can't see me too closely - ha ha ha! At least it is proof that I have been doing some gardening, I read something last night that said that gardening was good exercise for people who don't like to exercise, so I thought I would try and do some each weekend. After I finished this bit in the garden, I went up the road and cut back loads of old brambles in front of the old cottage so that the daffodills will show through, my MIL will be most pleased as she usually goes on about how we don't cut them back! I hope I burned a few calories!
A colleague, who has bought some of my felt brooches in the past, gave me a piece of tweed that she had left over from making a skirt. Here is the brooch I have made from it, using the tweed, some green velvet and a button from my button box. It is quite chunky so would be best on a coat.
