My Month in Review....June's Instagram Photo's.

Well that's another month over, I can't believe we are going into July tomorrow, let's hope we'll have a bit of sunshine and our summer starts.

Here's a few of my instagram I've taken through June.

Dinner at mine.....

I asked the girls around mine for dinner last night, I made a fish pie from a Rachel Allen recipe, you can find it here but I added prawns as I don't think it's a fish pie without them but as I was about to serve, Linda informed me she was allergic to prawns, aaarrrgh, what do I do. Luckily I had a Young's Fishermans Pie in the freezer with no prawns so I had to bung that in the microwave,lol.

Holiday Photo's

Seagull eyeing everyone's food as they were eating.

Winter Gardens, WSM.

My stash of prizes from the amusements

Crochet & Knitting.

Books I've read this month.

I enjoyed both books, very much but I would highly recommend The Thread by Victoria Hislop, such a wonderful story , it was one of those books I didn't want to end.

Ed's Diner

Love the design of this shoe box

My New Shoes

Paige ready for a fancy dress party.

Bought myself some Sweet Williams

My favourite magazines

I hope you all had a good month, let me know if you are putting some photo's up from the month of June so I can pop over and take a look.
Have a great weekend, I'm off to Toft Alpaca today, it involves a look around the alpaca farm, a little about the yarn process, then back to the shop for some knitting and I may have to purchase some of the gorgeous alpaca wool.


xxxxDebxxxx

IBSIC #15.......Red, White and Blue.

Hello there my lovely friends, how are you all doing ? I'm back today with this week's challenge over at IBSIC and as it's Independence Day next week for our American friends, Joanna has given us this gorgeous inspiration photo and asks us to use red, white and blue on our project.

Here's my card, I've went with the star theme too.

I've gone with a CAS card this week, which I think would be suitable for anyone, of any age. I cut the star out of some Websters Page pattern paper and stitched around the edge, punched out a blue circle and added a button, giving me a layered embellishment. I punched the edge of the star paper and stamped the sentiment onto white card. Nice and simple.

Supplies
Stamps- IBS Big Wishes
Papers- Websters Pages, The Girls Paperir, Papermania (free from magazine).
Tools- Martha Stewart Zig Zag border punch

I hope you will join us this week, the team love looking at your amazing creations.
Happy Crafting
xxxxDebxxxx

Brockencote Hall Food Festival.....

Hello there, I hope you all had a good weekend, as I said in my previous post I went to Brockencote Hall in Worcestershire for their food festival.
It was only a small affair but plenty there to do and buy, they had chefs doing cooking demonstrations, live music and of course food to try and buy.

I bought this hanging basket full of strawberry plants, I've already picked some they are so sweet and juicy.

Pimms o' clock in the beer tent, listening to the live band.

After our Pimms, Linda (on the right) wanted to have a go at clay pigeon shooting, she always says she's the sporty type, if you knew her you'd know she wasn't so that always makes us laugh.When we got there we watched a man having a go and it really knocks you back when you pull the trigger so she decided to give that a miss, instead we had a walk over to the Hall.
It's the first time I've been, it's very grand, the decor is very tasteful and the staff are very attentive,we sat in the conservatory and had tea and coffee, that's more our thing rather than shooting, very civilised, you can even have a game of croquet on the front lawn.
I know I shouldn't talk about toilets on my blog but they had Molton Brown soap and handcream in there, I think you can always tell the caliber of somewhere by the soap, lol.

It's my birthday next month so I've booked Afternoon Tea there with the gang, the food menu also looks fabulous so hopefully we will go back and have a meal there one evening, you can even book a room for the night.
Thanks for stopping by
xxxxDebxxxx

IBSIC #14.......A Sketch.

Hello, how is your week going, not long to the weekend again!!! It's Midsummer's Day today, the longest day of the year and here in the U.K.our summer hasn't even started !!!
I'm going to Brockencote Hall Food Festival on Saturday to sample the delights of the local produce, live entertainment and cookery demonstrations, all set in the beautiful Worcestershire countryside, it would be nice if the sun could show itself.
It's week #14 of  Inspired by Stamping Inspiration Challenge and Joanna has designed this great sketch.

I've loved working with this sketch, especially doing the shaped top instead of my usual straight lines. I achieved the fancy edge with the scalloped circle Spellbinder and sliding the paper through the centre of the die, with the Spellbinder face down so just the top edge of the paper is on the cutting edge (the rest should be cutting the bottom plate). I hope that makes sense, if it doesn't let me know and I will do a photo tutorial.  I stamped the sentiment in SU Peach Parfait, it's a perfect colour match to the butterfly.
Have you noticed there's no stitching on this card, my sewing machine is playing up and the top thread keeps wrapping around the bobbin, if anybody could tell me why this has suddenly started happening, I'd really appreciate it.

Supplies
Stamps- Fancy Labels 4, Birthday Greetings.
Papers- Prima Songbird.
Tools- Spellbinder scalloped circle, TH rosette, Sizzix butterfly.
Pretties- SU lace, button, twine, MF pearls, SU rhinestone, tulle.

I hope you'll join us this week, we love looking at your creations.
Happy Stamping
xxxxDebxxxx

A CAS Baby Card..........

Hello there, how are you all doing today, I hope you had a good weekend. Jodie's friends have just had a beautiful baby girl so I needed to make a baby card.

I've used one of this month's new releases from Inspired by Stamping called Oh Baby !

I stamped the little outfits onto scraps of patterned paper and cut out, adding a couple of buttons and  "pegged" them onto the washing line. Nice and simple !!!

Faye also asked me to make a Fathers Day card using a photo of Daddy and Daisy. It was his very first Fathers Day so had to be special.

I used a large 8x8 card, there was no stamping on this, just paper, chipboard letters and my SU Pennant punch.

Don't forget to join in with this week's IBS Challenge, just make a card using light blue and cream, you still have a day to enter. 

Thanks for looking, I'm off to catch up with everyone's blog now, sorry I've been lapse lately, I've been really busy.

xxxxDebxxxx

A Quick & Simple Fathers Day Card......

Happy Fathers Day to my Dad, Husband and all the other Dad's around the world. I'm back today with a CAS Fathers Day card.
Male cards aren't my thing so I keep things simple, for inspiration I used this week's colour inspiration from CR84FN.

Supplies
Stamps- SU Something to Celebrate
Papers- MME Stella & Rose, 4 Heures 37.
Other- Spellbinders Stars, SU twine.

Thanks for looking, I hope you are enjoying the weekend.
xxxxDebxxxx

IBSIC #13.........Light Blue & Cream.

Good morning, it's week #13 of Inspired by Stamping Inspiration Challenge and this week is a colour inspiration using light blue and cream.
Here's the gorgeous inspiration photo to get you creating.

.

Here's my card.

I also used this week's sketch from Retro Sketches.

Supplies

Stamps- Birthday Greetings.

Papers- SU Beau Chateau

Pretties- SU Baja Breeze Seam Binding, MF pearls, IBS rose.

Tools- SU Sizzix Framelits Label Collection.

Thanks for looking, I hope you'll join us this week, we love looking at all your creations.

xxxxDebxxxx

Crochet EDF Zingy Toy...........

Hi, how is everyone doing, first of all I'd like to thank you all for the wonderful comments about the Cross Stitch stamp set and my projects I made using them, you are all so lovely.

I'm back today with a little crochet amigurumi.Here in the U.K. there's an advert on T.V. for EDF Energy and every time it comes on my baby niece will stop and stand mesmerised, watching it until it's finished then carry on with whatever she was doing.

She adores the little orange,dancing character from the advert so I had a look on the internet to see if I could crochet her own little Zingy.

There were plenty knitting patterns but not many crochet ones, I eventually found a free pattern on Princess Delirium blog, this one looked the most like him and was the cutest.

Here's my  Zingy.

I used Sirdar Calico DK in Spicy 716 for his body, a cotton/acrylic mix, which is soft and hard wearing. I crocheted the eyes in some leftover white cotton and used some black safety eyes for the centres and the nose.

A quick and easy make, Olivia absolutely loved him and just kept hugging and kissing him, bless her. Here's the advert if you haven't seen it yet.

One last thing, could I ask a favour my DT buddy Debbie has got through to round 3 of 2012 Paper Crafts Gallery Idol Contest! so please could you all vote for her gorgeous cards, here. Thank you so much, voting closes Noon (MDT)Thursday 14th June.


Have a good week.
xxxxDebxxxx

A Wet & Windy Week at the Seaside..............

Hello my friends, I've been at the seaside for the last week, I booked a caravan in Brean a couple of weeks ago when the sun was shining. Guess what, the sun stopped shining and we spent a wet and windy week in Brean. I'm not moaning though we still had a lot of fun. Paige's boyfriend Dan came with us, I'm not sure he knew what he was letting himself in for !!!!

A little warning * it is an extra long post with lots of photo's * so I understand if you skip through it, lol.

We drove down on Bank Holiday Monday and the weather wasn't too bad, it was cool but the sun was shining, we couldn't have the keys to the caravan until 2pm so we went to Cheddar Gorge, a very pretty town in Somerset, with lots of bunting, quaint shops and cottages, tearooms,caves and plenty shops selling cheese and cider.

How cool is this caravan......

After fish & chips, we went to the caravan site Ocean Lodge, we've stayed here before, it's a small, family run holiday park which is ideally situated right on the beach with private access. They also rent out a beach house overlooking the sea which accommodates up to 14 people, how much fun would that be !!!!!
After we'd settled in and a had a couple of hours chilling, we went to the beach , where we sat and watched the sunset, drinking cider, when in Somerset it's got to be done, it's the law, lol !!!! It was quite a party atmosphere with other people having the same idea, some family's even had the BBQ going.

I love these photo's of Paige and Dan, I asked them to walk down the beach towards the sea so I could get them in silhouette, bless them they did. I'm pretty sure they were only humouring me and were moaning all the way down, wishing I'd put my camera away !!!

Well that was our only nice day, the weather got steadily worse through the week, my mom and dad arrived with their little caravan on Wednesday with my sister and her family who were sleeping in the awning. All through the night they had to push the puddles of rain from the roof as it was weighing it down and likely to collapse.

This was us all sat outside a cafe in Weston Super Mare, drinking coffee to keep us warm, we had the dog so couldn't go inside, I'm sure I wouldn't have done this at home, haha !!!!

We had a walk through the Winter Gardens and along the pier but called it a day as my mom and dad were worried about the awning, mom kept saying " I hope the awning is still up ", well guess what it had collapsed but some guys nearby had put it back up and secured it but it was full of water, luckily it hadn't touched my sister's bed. This didn't stop us having an indoor BBQ on the George Foreman Grill though, by this time things outside had got a lot worse, it was really blowing a gale so we headed back to our caravan which was  a mile up the road.


We spent our time playing dominoes, cards, Dan bought a Pub Quiz game, which we were shockingly bad at. They even went back to their childhood and did some colouring, I'm sure they won't thank me for telling you that, though.

The rain was bouncing off the roof and the wind shook the whole caravan, but it was very warm and cosy inside so even though the weather was rubbish, I felt very relaxed and that's what it's all about when your're on holiday, isn't it ? Don't you think there's something quite therapeutic about listening to the rain, tip-tapping on a caravan roof ?   I  even got chance to do some more granny squares for my Starburst Flower Throw and some reading, guilt-free without thinking I should be doing housework, instead.

On the evenings we would do the usual traditional, 'seasidey', holiday things that I did when I was a kid. We'd spend a couple of hours at the amusement arcade, giving ourselves a limit of £4 a night.

Our favourite were the two penny fall machines and we got really excited when we won especially when we pushed some 2p's out and a tacky prize, look at this little bounty I won, lol.

I also won a TY Moshi Monster and a Me to You bear from the GrabEm's.

After losing all our money in the arcade we'd go to a bar where they had entertainment, I even got Paige and Dan up to dance, I couldn't persuade Hubby though.

Don't I look a bit windswept, I did straighten my hair before I came out !!!! On Thursday night the wind got so strong that the awning ripped away from my mom's caravan leaving my sister, BIL and kids 'homeless' so they had to leave a night earlier than planned :-(

On our last night we went out for something to eat, I'd been looking forward to scampi and chips all day but look what I ended up with.

My DH got the order wrong so I ended up without a meal, instead I had a bit off Paige's plate served on a serviette, I wasn't a happy bunny and I will never let him forget it, I can hold a grudge for years !!!!! Only joking, I did see the funny side and he bought me a big dessert to make up for it.

So even though the weather wasn't kind to us it will be a holiday we never forget, hehe. If you managed to stay with me to the end, thanks for letting me share it with you. My blog started out just for crafty things, it has evolved though over the last couple of years and is now my online diary too which I have printed into a book each year.

I'll be back in a couple of days with a fun crochet project I did last week for my baby niece.
xxxxDebxxxx