Monday 31 May 2010

especially for mrs a !!!!

managed to get up into the craft room today and was on a roll with 8 single lay outs done and 1 double, promised h i would put them up here for her to have a look at so here goes, in no particular order, a random selection of the march holiday album,
the first photo is of the inside and outside of our lodge, it was gorgeous, so well appointed and a lot bigger than it looks in the brochure and on the web.

this one is of the linn of dee near braemar, i'm experimenting with different shapes and multi photo layouts in this album as i thought my last album looked a bit samey as all the photo's were 7x5. next photo is of the otters at the scottish deer centre in fife, they had this huge enclosure and were nowhere to be seen so i shouted "hello otters" and they came running over, i was well impressed.
i love this photo of the deer at the auchengarrich wildlife park, he was so greedy trying to get all of the food we had and he even licked the lens of my camera, so not a good move mate LOL

did a double layout for the first time in ages of us panning for gold at the highland adventure safari lodge, dad seemed to only find gravel and a few bits of semi precious stones, i fared a bit better, i found lots of fools gold, bits of amethyst and rose quartz and then right at the end i found a piece of real gold LOL if i can remember where i put it the plan is to put it on the lo too LOL this next one is from the off road safari we went on, the village in the bottom of the glen is fortingall and we have visited there driving through the glen to get to aberfeldy, never thought i'd be up a mountain to take photos of it from above LOL

took this next photo when we disobeyed the warning signs and stopped on the drive down to glamis castle LOL used the brooke collection from crate paper here, just love the stuff they are doing at the minute
okay, bored now and the asda delivery has just arrived so i need to go and put that away, so here's the final 3 from today, think i might go open a bottle of wine now and chill with my book for a while

Sunday 30 May 2010

the best laid plans............

..............of mice and men, go out the window when your bum is attached to the toilet bowl all day LOL wasn't laughing yesterday though when the tummy bug that is rife at work at the mo struck me down, oh no it certainly wasn't funny when i couldn't even go upstairs into my craft room for fear of not being able to make it downstairs in time !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so yesterday i drank gallons of water to flush the bad bugs away and (touching wood) today i feel well enough to make the trip up to my craft room a with only a little trepidation LOL mind you i am starving LOL but i think i'll stick dried toast today.

on the plus side i did get lots of my latest book read as i sat pondering the meaning of life LOL

Tuesday 25 May 2010

it's a girl!!!!!

my dear friend b who retired from work recently has just become a granny for the third time to a much longed for baby girl, her daughter already has an older daughter but has tried for another baby for so long and has lost a few along the way, so it is such lovely joyous news to hear of the safe arrival of lily rose :)

Monday 24 May 2010

good news

had a phone call from the doctors tonight,to say that dad's latest blood test results have come back and they are back to normal, his kidneys appear to be working properly again so they are very pleased, they want him to go and have his blood pressure taken asap to see if he needs to go back onto a different bp medication and he still has to go to the hospital next wednesday but she doubts the specialist would do anything because the bloods are back to normal, might get a bit of a good nights sleep now

Sunday 23 May 2010

bit of a shock

to discover last night that the woman who murdered her two children in spain used to live next door to us about ten years ago, and her parents live up the street, even more of a shock to discover that some of our "lovely" (meant in a very sarcastic tone) neighbours have been describing her poor parents as weird and reclusive to the local rag just because they haven't spoken to them :0 i don't speak to that particular set of neighbours either but it doesn't make me weird and reclusive just bloody choosy :0 i was so upset by the article i have sent an email to the rag telling them exactly what i thought, the poor parents J and D have just lost two grandchildren, have a daughter accused of murder the last thing they need is their neighbours talking about them like that, i aslo had to laugh at the street being called a close knit community LOL yeah right, a close knit community would have told the reporters to sod off and would have been offering as much help and support to J and D as they want, ooh it makes my blood boil the lenghts peolpe will go to just to see their name in print, stupid people

Friday 21 May 2010

the monthly group hug

or how a few hours with my dear friends c, b and v make me a happy bunny LOL we had only planned to go out for tea but in the end were in the restaurant for hours, chatting, giggling and reminiscing, and being completely oblivious to the head waiter who was obvioulsy after the table LOL tough!!!!!! we had to have our dream team fix LOL

busy weekend planned and i'm out again tomorrow night LOL taxiing this time so i can have a drinkie poos or three LOL

Tuesday 18 May 2010

a planting we will go part two

after the disaster that was the gardening at work last week i dug all the dead plants up today, went to b&q and bought lots more and planted those, the kids were very interested especially at the part where i was almost being sick scooping up fresh cat poo as the local cats have decided to use our garden as their toilet, of course the kids were fascinated and it was like "step away from the poo" they were all so keen to have a look LOL oh to be three again LOL

got some lovely coloured foils delivered today as i'm going to have a go at making some more faux dichroic glass at the weekend using different colours this time, slao got some gorgeous cosmic shimmer sprays, like glimmer mists but even more shimmery and sparkly, fancy spraying the blue one in my hair when i go out partying on saturday night LOL

Friday 14 May 2010

bye bye queen b

has been a sad day at work today as my best friend at work retired today and now i am the only one of the "dream team" left, the dream team was when me b and v all worked together in the same room and it was possibly the happiest time of my working life as we worked so well together and really complimented each others strengths, so i was very sad to see b go although she deserves a fab retirement things will just not be the same without her there, she was completely overwhelmed by the gifts, cards and flowers she received from staff and parents and most of us have spent the day weeping buckets LOL i took her home tonight and the boot of my car was packed to the hilt with all her lovely stuff, won't be long before i see her again though as we and some other friends are going out for tea next friday night and supper next saturday :)

Wednesday 12 May 2010

a planting we will go !!!! no more

all the plants i planted with the kids yesterday were all dead or dying when we got in this morning, killed by the frost we had last night :(:(:( so no more planting until it warms up considerably

been to the doctors today to find out the results of my tests on my lung function, i don't have asthma as the tests got no better after i had my inhaler which they would have done were it asthma, so it seems i have some obstruction to my bronchial tubes, probably bronchitis so i am to continue with the brown inhaler which really helps and only take the blue one if i get a cold/chest infection.

Tuesday 11 May 2010

a planting we will go !!!!

have spent the last week digging over the planter we have at work for the kids to dig in, it had become totally overgrown and i decided that since i had such success last year with my pot grown vegetables i would dig up all the weeds and turn it into a little veg plot, it's taken me a week to get all the roots up but finally it was ready for some plants, we have been planting indoors for weeks so we transplanted them all out today, so my little bunch of munchkins at work now have a herb garden, strawberry plants, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes, peppers, leeks and peas as well as sweet peas and sunflowers, i just hope it grows as well as the things we planted last year did. now my garden on the other hand has absolutely nothing growing in it!!! i wish i was as passionate about my own garden as i am about growing things at work LOL

suzy, you asked about my new camera, i think it takes lovely pictures but it takes ages to process them after it has actually taken them, it is very nice though, my fave cameras are always kodak ones as i have always gotten fabulous results from them, great lenses and you can pick up little point and shoots that have loads of great features relatively cheaply, all the photo's on my blog are taken with kodak cameras either my little compact one or my big zoom lens one and i confess to never taking them out of auto mode LOL hope that helps

Sunday 9 May 2010

lazy sunday afternoon

spent the afternoon printing out photos so i can start my march holiday scrapbook, i ran out of paper halfway through and when i looked i only had matt left and there was no way i could have half of the photos glossy and half of them matt could i ???? LOL so i ran up to pc world which is just up the road from me and got the paper and another couple of ink cartridges while i was there, it was great as the cartridges are only a tenner compared to the 50+ quid i used to pay for my hp ones anyway i thinks to myself i'll have a little look at the cameras while i'm here, it can't hurt right LOL long story short i have had my eye on the samsung cameras with the lcd screen on the front so you can see what you are doing if taking a self portrait but had decided they were far too expensive at well over 200 quid,




well they had one today with one hundred pounds off it, now what is a girl to do with a credit card burning a hole in her pocket LOL so i thought it would be rude not to take advantage of such a bargain so the camera came home with me LOL just waiting for it to charge up then i can have a play LOL

Friday 7 May 2010

faux dichroic glass










a few of the ladies i chat to over on uks have melt pots and i was telling them i knew how to make faux dichroic glass so somehow they (and i mean you lisa LOL) talked me into a step by step on how to do it, so here goes, this is the first time i have ever done a step by step so if i get all wrong please excuse me LOL.
picture one is the materials and tools you need, black and clear utee, foils in various colours, from memory these are stix 2 foils and were really cheap, embossing ink, memory glass and frames from ranger, melt pot and heat gun.
picture two ink a memory glass piece with embossing ink and then pour black utee over it.
picture three (i've missed a picture out) but basically you use your heat gun to reheat the utee to smooth it out and to make it soft then you lay pieces of foil, colour side up onto the warm utee.
picture four use your heat gun again to heat the foil, it causes it to crackle and move around on the warm utee and it looks pretty.
picture five shows how the foil looks when it's crackled, the more you heat it the more crackle you get, i let it cool a bit here then peeled it off the glass but sometimes it won't come off, guess i was lucky this time, i also trimmed the raggy edges with scissors.
picture six pour clear utee over the whole piece.
picture seven use your heatgun again to get theclear utee nice and even all over the piece, then stick it in a memory frame, this is much easier if you have got it off the glass, if you can't get it off the glass leave it be and add a bail to the back with some glossy accents later on.
picture eight i made another one using clear and blue interference utee mixed together and did lots of thin layers and lots of heating with the heat gun to make this one
picture nine the two finished pieces, now i just need to clear up and treat the serious burns to my fingers LOL

hope you enjoy

shattered LOL

after a week of early shifts i feel like i want to sleep the weekend away but i am determined not to do it LOL i have a crop to go to tomorrow, i want to print out some photos from my march holiday then i want to have a go at making some faux dichroic glass with my melt pot and utee, plus i've new books to get stuck into LOL

Wednesday 5 May 2010

not a good day

dad had his annual health check up at the doctors yesterday which involved blood and urine tests, he gets a phone call at 6pm to say they needed to see him urgently today because of the results, it appears that his kidneys may be packing up, probably due to the side effects of a medicine he has been on for his heart since he had his stroke years ago, so the doctors have taken him off this medication to help his kidneys but this means his risk of having another stroke or a heart attack have soared, he has an appointment to go and see the consultant nephrologist at the freeman hospital in june and has to go back to the doctors every week until then so they can check how his kidneys are doing. so i'm watching him like a hawk, managed to get a half day off work the day of his appointment though so at least i can go with him and find out first hand what they are planning to do

Monday 3 May 2010

the bank holiday weekend







has been spent in a very lazy fashion in this house, i've read books, listened to music, finally watched david tennant as hamlet that i sky+ at xmas and done lots of scrapping, i went on the hunt for some sketches to make life a bit easier and also did rachael's class over on the sarah's cards blog and managed a grand total of 12 lo's so that's 27 lo's in four days over the past two weekends, it's got to be some kind of a record LOL certainly for me it is, so now i have just five lo's left to do and i have finished my november holiday album :) will have to get the march holiday photo's printed off, was planning on doing them myself for a change as i fancy having a selection of sizes to play with instead of the usual 7x5 ones i usually work with, so here are a few of this weekends work, hope you like :)