November Photo's.........

Hello Friends, just popping in to show you my November in photo's, they were taken on my Galaxy Ace with Retro Camera.

Cozy Afternoon in Front of The Fire

Shopping & a Latte

Lunch at Zizzi's

Vintage Afternoon Tea with Libby

My Girls Decorating the Christmas Tree

I hope you all had a good November.....

P.S. a few of you mentioned Paige's wallpaper on yesterday's post so thank you. It is a montage of Marilyn Monroe photo's, we got it from B&Q, I just love it.

xxxxDebxxxx

Tuesday's Tallies............

First of all I would like to apologise for not posting for a few week's on Gingerbread Girl's, Tuesday's Tallies, things have been so upside down here that I just haven't had time to post. I have been crocheting most days though which has brought me a bit of comfort over one of the most stressful times of my life.
Anyway, first things first I have finished my AF hexagon blanket which I have kept small but is the perfect size for a pushchair blanket for my little niece.

Here's the cheeky little monkey wearing a crocheted wrap cardi I made for her she just wouldn't keep still while I took the photos, I just love this baby girl to bits. You can find the pattern in the book Crochet in No Time by Melody Griffiths.

I've seen so many ripple blankets on differnt blogs and just love them so I have started one of my own using Lucy's pattern, she makes it so easy to follow, I love to pop over to her blog, Attic24, to see what other wonderful projects she's doing.

I decided to use Debbie Bliss cashmerino dk for my blanket, it is so soft and luxurious with some fabulous colours to choose from. I made a conscious decision not to have any pink in this blanket, for some reason I always go for pinks even though it isn't my favourite colour !!!!

I'm doing two rows of each colour and trying to get two rows done every night, I'm loving doing it and will definitely be doing another one in different colours.

As it grows, it is keeping me nice and warm as I crochet it on these cold winter nights, what a bonus.Thanks for taking the time to look, enjoy your day.

xxxxDebxxxx

Postcard Swap................

Don't you just love receiving happy mail instead of all those bills and junk mail we usually get, it sure brightens your day. I took part in the postcard swap over at City Crafter Party Blog, where you had to send a handmade postcard and a small Thankgiving/Autumn themed gift. On Tuesday,I received my parcel from my swap partner  Alida, her postcard was gorgeous and her gift to me was beautiful, lots of ribbon, flowers,stickers and embellishments, I adore the wooden leaf shapes.

Thanks Alida, you should receive mine very soon. Also I received a lovely parcel from Kashi a couple of weeks ago, which was totally unexpected. She sent me a box of chocolates which were delicious, I wish we could get them in the U.K. and also a beautifully painted handmade card that her friend makes, this was to say thank you for the giveaway that she won from me. How sweet, I really wasn't expecting anything in return.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas in our house, the girls have just finished putting the Christmas tree up !!!!!

Have a good weekend !!!!
xxxxDebxxxx

Winter Wonderland.......

Hello there, firstly I would like to say a big thank you to all my wonderful friends who left me a comment on my last post, you are all so very kind and thougthful. My brother is on the mend and everyday we can see an improvement in his physical injuries, I think the test will be when he has to go out on his own but I'm sure he'll be ok, he is a very strong man with lots of support.
Every year I buy a new Christmas stamp set and this year I have bought two Winter Wonderland and Christmas Greetings from Inspired by Stamping. I love these snowflake stamps, they work perfectly with the Snowflake Nestibilities. Even though I love to take time over some of my Christmas cards with lots of layering, stitching and inking, I also do a batch of quick & easy cards, where I can get a little production line going, as I have to make so many. Here's this years quick card:

I stamped the two different snowfakes onto white card in SU Baja Breeze ink and covered with some glitter film, I used the snowflake Nestibilties to cut them out, layered them with a 3D foam pad and added a rhinestone to the centre. I then stamped the sentiment from the Christmas Greetings set in SU Real Red ink.  Joanna is offering FREE SHIPPING on all stamps anywhere in the world,today (24th November) and Friday 25th November, just use discount code IBSFREE, you don't get that anywhere very often !!!!

Happy Thankgiving to all my friends across the pond, have a wonderful day.
xxxxDebxxxx

If Wishes Could Make You Well......

Hello my friends, I'm lying in bed writing this post after a very, long and traumatic week. I've had a very blessed life from childhood to now but sometimes something happens to burst your bubble and my bubble burst early Monday morning when I had a phone call from my Mom saying that my brother was in ICU and was very poorly.
On Sunday night he was found unconcious on the pavement, luckily a police car came past and found him when they did. He had been attacked and left for dead, it was touch and go for him and when we arrived at the hospital he was still on a ventilator. We waited in the relatives room for many hours before we could see him and was broken hearted when I did, he was unrecognizable. How could another person do this to someone ?
Whilst I was getting a drink I saw a friend who asked if everything was ok and when I told her what had happened she gave me a little wooden cross that had been blessed and even though she was obviously very poorly herself all she was worried about was me and my family, such a lovely lady.
They took him off the ventilator on Monday afternoon and he was talking to us by the evening, though he doesn't remember anything about the attack, he'd been left with a fractured eyesocket, broken jaw in three places and broken nose as well as injuries to his body.
Since then he has made an amazingly quick recovery, the swelling in his face has gone down and you can see it's my brother again, he will make a full recovery. He's got to see a plastic surgeon on Monday and my Aunty joked they may make him better looking than before, which he found funny. I'd like to think that somebody was watching over him from above, he still has some way to go but the worse is over and now I just hope that they catch and charge the person who did this to him so nobody else has to go through it. We just can't understand why anybody would have done this to him, he isn't violent man just a nice guy who's whole life is centred around his kids. I've had so many people ringing and messaging me, telling me how sorry they are and wishing him well which has been very heart-warming, I've passed them on to my brother who has really appreciated it and hopefully cheered him up a little bit.
Needless to say I'm not in the right frame of mind to craft or blog but will hopefully back soon, I did make my brother a very quick card inbetween hospital visits and some Whoopie Pies, as he has a bit of a sweet tooth, he's going to be the size of an house with all the sweets and chocolates, people have bought him.

My friends who read my blog regularly know this is my online diary too and was something I needed to talk about, thank you all for listening.

Back Soon...........
xxxxDebxxxx

D is for Dream Street and Doodling.....

It's time again for another A-Z challenge over at Scrapbookers Anonymous and this month it is the letter D so I've used some Dream Street papers that I have had for years and some doodling.

I used this week's sketch over at Sketchy Thursadays but flipped it.

I hope you'll all join in this month, I'd love to see what projects you come up with using the letter D whether it's papers, a bit of doodling, dogs or anything else you can think of.
Also don't forget our other challenge which is to use at least 7 different ribbons on your project, you have until the end of November to get your entries in for both challenges. There is a great prize up for grabs this month, an iRock tool with two bling wheels, what a fun prize !!!!

Happy Crafting
xxxxDebxxxx

Afternoon Tea.....Vintage Style.....

Hi Folks, can you beleive it's Thursday already, where is the time going? Last night I met up with my old friend Jane for dinner, we haven't really seen much of each other for about 6 years but thanks to Facebook we got talking and arranged to go out. It was so good to catch up, we use to have some right old laughs back in the day and was great to talk about all the things we use to get up to and also find out how the kids are getting on now they are teenagers. Thanks Jane for a great night, you haven't changed a bit.
On Tuesday Libby and I went to Any Occasions Cakes in Solihull for a Cupcake Workshop with Vintage Afternoon Tea. We had a great afternoon starting with a pub lunch, where we met Julie from our crop who was also on the workshop, so after an early lunch, we got to the workshop for a 1pm start.
Kathleen started off by telling us about the different icings and how to use the molds to make the decorations then we were given 6 little fairy cakes to decorate ourselves to take home. Here are some of my photo's taken from the day, *warning* photo heavy post.

I enjoyed decorating the cupcakes and loved how they turned out but my favourite part of the day for me was the afternoon tea. I loved all the vintage mismatched teacups, the traditional teapot and tablecloth, using tongs for the sugar cubes and pretty wild flowers in a vase. This is how tea should be served not that I drink tea but I enjoyed my coffee served like this !!!!
One last thing my I'd like to thank the girls from City Crafter Challenge Blog  for picking my postcard as this week's winning entry, I was absoloutely thrilled when I saw that I'd won.

Thanks for looking...........
xxxxDebxxxx

A Couple of Sketches from Sketchy Thursdays.....

Hello everyone, I hope you're all having a good week, when I went to Bromsgrove Craopaganza on Saturday as well as doing the classes I took two Sketchy Thursday sketches to do and actually managed to get two LO's finished.
Here's the first LO using this week's sketch.

Sketch 11.03

I used some leftover scraps from The Girls Paperie and cut out a doily using Cheery Lyn's French Pastry die, the misting is actually done with the Stampin'Up Colour Spritzer Tool and a brush marker pen, it is so much less messy than a spray and easier to control. I also used the splodge stamp from SU French Foliage stamp set. I can't remember what Jodie and I were laughing at but Mick and Paige were looking at us gone out !!!!

This LO was also using The Girl Paperie, I love the simplicity of this sketch and stuck too the bare minimum. We went to Blist Hill Victorian Christmas one year and Mick was accosted by the Two Ugly Sisters, by the look of the photo he seem's quite happy to be chatted up by those two lovely 'ladies', lol.

Sketch 10.27

I've just got back from a Cupcake Workshop with Afternoon Tea. I went with  Libby and Julie, it was a fun afternoon learning how to decorate cupcakes using diferent icings and embellishments we then had afternoon tea with homemade cakes all served on vintage style china, so much fun !!!! I've got lots of photo's to share but here's a little sneak peek.

Thanks for looking...........

xxxxDebxxxx

She Art Postcard.........

Hello there, as you know I love to take part in the challenges over at City Crafter Challenge Blog espescially when they include a swap, week #81 is to make a postcard to send to your swap partner along with a small Thanksgiving gift but talk about the 11th hour, I have just managed to finish it with a few hours to spare to enter.
I purchased the She Art Workshop some months ago but didn't get chance to do anything with it so I decided to give one a go but on a postcard rather than a canvas. I used some Girls Paperie papers, adhered them to a postcard and white-washed the whole lot,then the fun part began making my girl then adding random stamping, rub-ons and using some glitter stencil paste through a dotty stencil.

Here's the back using some Tim Holtz and Crafty Individuals stamps.

I've really enjoyed creating this and geting messy with ink, paints and paste and will definitely be doing more mixed media.
Have a good day.......
xxxxDebxxxx

Bromsgrove Cropaganza 2011..............

Happy Sunday, Friends !!!! I had the best day ever yesterday, it was Bromsgrove 12 hour Cropaganza and we all had a fabulous time, thanks to Libby who organized it all and made the day such a success, she also made the most amazing Buternut Squash & Parmasen Soup for dinner,mmmm delicious. Libby puts so much time and effort into organizing these wonderful events, so a big,big, thank you, we really appreciate it !!!!
The very talented Ifa Zainon  taught us three wonderful classes throughout the day with a kit from Sarah's Cards which was full of American Crafts papers, Thickers and mini alpha's,bling and lots of other little bits, I still have  loads leftover to do more LO's and cards, she is such a lovely lady and such a great teacher, thanks Ifa.
Here's my three finished projects :

This frame started out as a blank Tando Creative Multi Frame, Ifa had a selection of paint colours so everybody's looked completely different when finished.I love how she got us to stamp and heat emboss on the painted frame, it's so effective. The bits of paper were scraps leftover from the LO's,I added the little drop pearls when I got home.

I loved doing this LO, it is so pretty, we covered the blank chipboard ampersand in embossing powder and heat embossed, cut out flowers from one of the12x12 papers and also added Stickles to the doily, I love those Thicker alpha's.

This page was so much fun to do, I have never doodled on a LO before, but Ifa showed us how and I loved it and will be giving it another go. Where my white space is, Ifa filled her's with journaling which I'm not very good at, I never know what to say but I will do some sort of journaling on this page to finish it off.
Thanks once again to Libby and Ifa for a wonderful day !!!! I also got another two LO's finished which I will show you in my next post. Thanks for looking and for all the lovely comments you leave me, I really appreciate each and every one. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

xxxxDebxxxx

Steel Blue, Grey & Yellow.............

What a wonderful colour combo and once again I wouldn't have put them together myself, thank goodness for CR84FN and the inspiration they give.

Yesterday, I received my first stamp set from Inspired by Stamping, I wanted to use them straight away even though I should be getting my things ready for Bromsgrove's Cropaganza tomorrow. I've got to say they are a pleasure to stamp with, giving a lovely crisp image even with using Tim Holtz Distress inks, that don't normally like clear stamps.I also used sketch #42 from Cardabilities.

Yesterday, I went to the Hobbycrafts show at the N.E.C. and had a great day out with Maria and Lyn, my crafting buddies. I was on the look out for a Cheery Lyn doily die which I'd seen Stella using recently, I went for the French Pastry which was just the right size for cards, I cut it out using some yellow Prima paper. I also reached for my Amy Butler Lotus papers, as these were perfect for this colour challenge.

The Inspired by Stamping stamp set was Birthday Wishes which is full of sentiments, frames and pretty icons, perfect for inside and outside your card, the frame stamp was perfect to use with Nestibilities as are all the sentiments.

Supplies
Stamps- Inspired by stamping,
Papers- K&CO Amy Butler, Prima
Dies- Sissix, Nestibilities, Cheery Lyn

As I said earlier, it's Bromsgrove's Cropaganza tomorrow so that's 12 hours of scrapbooking, including three classes with the talented Ifa Zainon. I'm soooo looking forward to it and will show you my projects sometime next week.

Have a great weekend !!!!!
xxxxDebxxxx