My Next House...

Oh, please!... Me and Speedy live in a huge flat. The rent has been obscenely low for 14 years. The landlords ( rich solicitors) have never reviewed the rent because we pay on time, but recently retired and engaged an agent. Get the picture? The agent came to look at the flat and you could see the pound signs in her eyes. We thought " that's it, the rent will be going up". The weeks passed and nothing. Until last Friday. We had a letter to say we've got two months to get out. They want to turn the flat into three separate bedsits. OMG!  All my stash! and my 5 slow cookers, about 150 cookery books! It's like being told to choose between your children. Because this place is so big it took a lot of stuff to fill it. So now starts the hurried process of cutting it down to fit into normal sized accommodation, which we are yet to find. Hence the card..

The image and sentiment are both from TLC Creations. xx

Well, blow me...

...I'm posting on my long suffering dormant blog.  Not a lot has happened since my last post. Life goes on. I have often wanted to add a little project or two but have been put off by all the photo editing and stuff. You all know what I mean. I've made loads of things but my style hasn't really moved on. I don't much care for all the die cutting stuff that's out there. I have a die cutting machine, The Wizard, one of the first but I don't quite get the die cut thingy. I like to see them on other peoples cards but I can see me owning hundreds of dies and only using them once. Anyway. I decided to post a few things now and again. sometimes from my phone camera, without the faffing, partly for my own record. Here's the first couple.

The image is from Meljens designs.

And another Meljens. The papers for this one are from the DCWV Girl stack which I got from TK Maxx ages ago.    xx

Bit of a slow start.

Hello all. Guess what I woke up with on Sunday morning.

Something bit my knuckle in the middle of the night! It wasn't too bad at first but by midday I noticed a "tracker" making it's way up my arm. I went to the pharmacist and he sent me off to A&E as he couldn't prescribe antibiotics. Two and a half hours later I got home with some pills to pop and strict instructions to go straight back if it travelled any further. I had to go back at 8pm as it had gone up past my elbow and after IV antibiotics and some lovely black pen marks ( if it went beyond the marks I was to go back) they finally let me go at 11pm. As I couldn't grip anything and it looked so horrible I've had to take a few days off work already. I called in the shop to show my boss because if I had a new member of staff calling in sick with an insect bite I would think they were taking the pee. It's much better today though but still a bit ugly.

I managed to make a card last week before the attack.

Meljens had a digi stamp sale on last week and I couldn't resist nipping back for just a couple more as I love them. The circle sentiment is by TLC and the ticket is one I forgot to take note of. The papers are from the papermania summer bloom pad and the card base is 6"x6".

Happy Birthday Speedy!

Yes Speedy is 60 today, bless him. He is a mechanic  so I looked up mechanic colouring pages on Bing and found this one. There's loads more HERE.

I added the name as there was a blank space nice and ready for me.

There he is working away, lol, and there's his little red car parked up outside. His garage is definitely not as tidy as this one though. What I want to know is why is there a woman's stocking hanging on the red bin!! Hmmmmmmmm..............

As you can see his Christmas themed party went really well. I was up at half four in the morning making food for 100 people. I made loads as I'd rather have too much than too little. Speedy's son is manager of a local restaurant and the chef made 120 mince pies, and it wouldn't have been Christmas without a turkey curry.
He even had his own beer pump. And what are father and son singing? "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" of course.
At the end of the night I looked in the fridge at the huge amount of food which still hadn't been eaten and declared Sunday as boxing day and we all went back in the afternoon and carried on.
Tonight we are going to his favourite food haunt for another big scoff. It's a hard life!

EDIT. Speedy said the woman's  stocking was used for a faulty fan belt! Yeah, right Speedy.

Card for a Tailoress.

This card is for my twin sister ( she doesn't look at my blog, lol ). Our birthdays are on July 9th but as I've got a major mission on my hands, ( more of that later) before then I've made her card today.

She works as a tailoress, measuring inside legs etc for a men's outfitters. Her name is Isobel, but as a child I found that a bit of a mouthful so she became, and still is, Bell. The image is from an amazing freebies website I found through Pinterest , HERE. 

The tape measure is from The Clipart Fairy, but I didn't take note of the page. Sorry, but I didn't save the cotton reels either. I didn't think I would end up out of work and blogging properly again, lol. I will do a search in the next couple of days and try to add a link.

Now then...... My mission???...... Speedy is having a 60th birthday party at a local club on the 30th June. Nowt unusual about that then?   Oh yes there is. This is Speedy we're talking about here. It is to be a CHRISTMAS PARTY!!!!!! Yes, complete with tree, decs, pressies for the kids, mince pies, crackers, you get the gist, lol. Unknown to him, we are trying to get a snow machine and a live reindeer ( he also never looks at my blog, bless him ).

Update on his kidneys, for those who are following the story. I got tested to give him one of mine and scored one out of six. Could still do it with loads of medication for him but his sister came forward and scored better and is having further tests. If all goes well it should happen in about 3 months time. Speedy is feeling fit and well and you wouldn't really know there was anything wrong with him. We are just trying to get a transplant before there is a need for dialysis. He has kidney damage rather than kidney disease so doesn't feel ill.

Thanks for visiting. xx

Rockin' from an early age.

Don't you just love that advert. The Duran Duran one. I'm not sure what it's for. Something technical, but I love the bit right at the end where he's looking at his flat mate as if to say " one more word and you're dead, mate". Imagine my excitement when I got an Email from Just Inclined to say they had some free digi stamps on their site. I when for a look and there was this one.

I looked it and just knew which caption to add. I think if I do another one I'll use a bolder font. The papers were from a DCWV pad and the circle sentiment is from Craftwork Cards. The card base is 6"x6".

 I think I'll give it to my stepson for his birthday next month as he has a little lad of 2. You can find the image HERE.

Well, since my last post I have lost my job completely. I complained about having to do more work in less hours as they made 3 girls redundant and cut my hours to 4 a day leaving just me and the boss. Of course there were still the same amount of tasks to do and they were just not getting done before I finished at half eleven. I said I felt like leaving and was told If that's how I feel I could go now. I know it's wrongful dismissal and proper complaint procedure wasn't followed as I've had legal advice, but haven't decided what to do about that yet. The main priority for the moment is to find another job. I loved that little shop but there must be better things to come.
 Take care y'all.............

Fab CD-ROM.

Hi, remember me, lol? I've just nipped back to recommend a cd rom from Just Inclined called "The Next Big Thing". I bought mine from HERE. I love all the digi stamps. they're so different and there's loads of them. Here's a few cards I've made from it.

Sentiment from TLC Creations.

Not sure where this sentiment was from.

This is the favourite. Papers for the last 2 are from the My Minds Eye "complete boy" 12 x 12 stack.

A card for Teacher.

I wasn't going to blog this card as it was for a special order for someone who used to teach and I thought everyone would be more into Christmas stuff at the moment. Then I realised a teacher card is probably one of the most needed but hardest to come up with ideas for at this time of year.

So here it is. It could easily be made into a Christrmas teacher thank you card. It took me ages to find a suitable image but I eventually found this one from Colouring Pages 4 Kids  HERE. It's a great site with loads of different free images.

I didn't keep the link to the apples but I found them from Google images/line drawings. I just typed apples into the search box. I resized them and applied glossy accents after colouring them.

 My sleigh's virgin outing was such fun yesterday. There is a Christmas market in town which is pretty abysmal, but we hung out and had a mulled wine and a mince pie and everyone was commenting on my sleigh and asking where I got the lights from etc. One bloke ( who I knew) asked  where they where plugged in and I gave him such an X rated answer, lol. You should have seen his face. He saw the funny side though. He should have known what sort of answer I'd give him.

A million housewives every day...........

...............Pick up a tin of beans and say. I'm probably showing my age now but most of us will probably remember the old Heinz beans advert. And as we were kids at the time we just couldn't resist singing our own version could we. On my daily scavenge to the Free Digital Stamps site I found this image from Marlene at Disguised as a Grown Up.

Don't you just love his face? You have to be quick to get Marlene's images though as they are usually only available for 24 hours this one is now available from Dude Time Doodles HERE. The papers are downloaded from Summer Driggs.

Here's another version. I added the caption before printing the image.

I've had a right cold and cough this week and I've felt as "rough as our soles". I very rarely get ill so this came as a right shock to the system. I'm on the mend now though so hopefully I'll be OK for the next few years.

Friday weigh in.  9st 2lb. (target weight).

Ride like the wind.

I was having a little look at Free Digital Stamps last week and came across a page of free images at Operation Write Home. I couldn't resist this little gem as it's perfect for younger men. It's my stepson's birthday next week so it came just in time.

I got the gingham card from Payperbox a couple of years ago when i was on holiday and I'm really tight with it because there isn't a Payperbox anywhere near me. So, Simon, consider yourself honoured!

I got the caption from TLC Creations HERE. It goes really well with the image.
Off to work now but I'll be back tonight to link up to any suitable challenges.

Challenges. Southern girls, Anything goes
                   Anything goes challenge. Anything goes.
                   Digital tuesday. People images.
                   Papertake weekly. Creature comforts
                   Top tip tuesday. Kids/teenagers.

Target weight 9st 2lb. Today, still a slightly naughty 9st 3lb.

Glamour.

Still not really in the mood for this card making lark but my craft room is slowly getting tidier. I hope I kick in again soon as I need to get on with all the Christmas stuff I've started. I haven't had much time this week though as I went with Speedy to Liverpool hospital for his tests on Monday and Tuesday.  Two nuclear heart scans, one after exercising on Monday and one resting on Tuesday. Both appointments took 4 hours !!      15 minutes to do the actual test and the rest was spent hanging around waiting for the Chemical injections to take effect. On both days it didn't work first time so had to be redone. Still, that's over with now.

Here's a card I made a few weeks ago using an image and caption from TLC Creations.

It was one of those days when I didn't make a note of the page addy. I've just realised the paper matches the box in my last post  so I will give these both to the same person with some chocs in the box.

It was my wedding anniversary on wednesday so we went out for a big scoff to our local, The Mill Hotel. One of the lads who works behind the bar had paid for a bottle of champagne for us. He's such a nice lad. As another bonus the kitchen staff knew we were there so we had larger than average portions. I had a trio of fish, salmon, cod and sea bass and it was no way supposed to be that big. I was really stuffed at the end of the night.
So guess what?  Target weight 9st 2lb.  Today.............9st 4lb.  Worth every ounce though.

Birthday gift.

Hello there. Has anyone seen my mojo? I seem to be having a little  "I hate card making and blogging" phase at the moment. But that's ok because I know it won't last long and in the meantime i can blitz the flat. I have got a couple of unblogged cards to keep me going and here's one of them.

The image is from Meljens and the paper is by Papermania.

I downloaded the ticket sentiment when i had my stupid head on and forgot to copy the webpage addy. If I'm bored enough tonight I'll try and track it down. I know i got it through the free digital stamps website and the date is in my file so we may be in luck.

Edit. I found the ticket sentiment freebies at SG Stamper HERE. There's a whole page of them too.


 Challenges. My  Mums Craft Shop.  Layer it up.
                   Cards for Men.  G is for.......( gift ).

Meanwhile I've got to go to Liverpool later as Speedy has a hospital appointment.

Today's weight 9st 2lb ( target weight).

Variations.

 Another sunny day here in Chester. The first two weeks in September usually are nice though. It's like last chance saloon before the autumn sets in. I don't mind it getting cooler but I can't stand dark mornings. I like to be awake early and the lack of daylight fools me into sleeping for longer. I hate waking up on my day off and realising it's 8 o'clock. I love the summer when i can be awake at 5 o'clock. I'ts hard to believe I used to lie in bed all morning in my teens. What a waste of life.

On to today's card share. I needed a couple of men's cards so I went down the easy road and made 2 similar ones.

The stamp is from a set called "Ethel and Murray" which I got from Create and Craft a few years ago.

The caption is from Gingers House. The patterned paper is from Papermania Henbury Lane and the main paper is an unidentified scrap.

Another TLC caption and again the main backing paper is an unidentified scrap. The striped paper is by Summer Driggs. Both card bases are 6" x6".

Challenges. Allsorts challenge blog.  Green and blue.
                  Challenge up your life, Something for a man.
                  Creative stamp friends.  For a man

My name is Diane and I'm an addict..........

.....................to Pinterest!!  Do NOT click on the link unless you've done all the housework. Loads of people already know this site but I was always the slow one, lol. So many nice things to look at and loads of crafty inspiration. Go there if you dare...........

Today's card share is a bit out of my comfort zone as it's a C6. I usually do square ones but I bought loads of these last year as they were in a sale. I tend to struggle a bit with layouts for rectangular cards but I really must use them or they weren't such a bargain.

The image is from Meljens Designs. The bones paper is DCWV from stack 6 and the dotty paper is by Papermania.

I coloured a fabric flower with a promarker and added a circle sentiment from Craftwork Cards. I have at least 120 of these cards left so I'd better get used to them.

Challenges,  One stop craft challenge. Anything but square.
                    Polka Doodles, Spots and dots.
                    Do you stack up. Masculine

Live Life Glamorously.

Well,  that's one thing you can't call me. Glamorous. I can't walk in heels for a start. Hats drown me. I'm short, and I slouch. You can't work on your feet for 36 years and not end up slouching ,lol. Still this is what glamorous looks like.

I found the image HERE.  I can't link directly to the blog as i stupidly only saved the image  addy. I will leave it like this for now but will do a bit of searching and try to find the blog  .EDIT, I've found it. It was from Digital 2 for Tuesday. I've edited the link and feel heaps better. We ain't supposed to give links to the image, just links to the blog so I can sleep with a clear conscience tonight.  The caption is from TLC Creations. Papers are by K & Company and the card base is 6"x6".

You can't tell from the photo but I went over the necklace with a clear stardust sakura pen. The flower is made with a sizzlits embossing die which I've had for about 3 years and have hardly used.

Challenges.  Glitter Fairies.  Pink
                    Cardmakin Mamas. pink
                    The Corrosive Challenge.  Girlie.
                    Stamps R Us.  Anything goes.

While I'm here I must show you this photo.

This is what the local council have done to our trees because they think it will attract more tourists. I kept my nose out of it as as it made no difference to my life what they did to the trees.  Then I found out how much it cost.  £25.000 !!!!!   And no, I haven't put too many noughts!  There are so many empty shops in Chester because the rent and rates are too high and this is what's at the top of the council's shopping list. All paid for with our council tax no doubt............

Dance Yourself Dizzy.

Morning everyone. Friday again so that means early start at the paper shop. It's Getting so dark in the mornings now too. I get up at 5.30 because I'm not into rushing around so early in the day. I like to get ready slowly and I have to visit the Daily Mail website every morning. Yes I know I work in a paper shop but I'm turning into my dad who had to read his paper as soon as he got up.
On to to day's card which actually uses a rubber stamp!!

Her name is Dotty and she is made by Art Impressions. I got her from Sir Stampalot a few years ago but I'm sure she's still available. I paper pieced her dress then cut her out as i wanted to put her on a " textured" background. There is so much space around her that she looks a bit lost on plain white.

I put loads of stickles on her dress and used an X Cut botanicals punch for the leaves. The papers are from my scraps but i think they are from a Papermania Christmas pad.
By the way if you have a WHS near you it might be worth popping in as I got a 12x12 scrapbook pad for  £3.50. It's a Brenda Walton and apart from 36 double sided lightweight card pages there are lots of usable die cut letters, numbers and tags etc.

Challenges.  City Crafter. Use scraps
                   Crazy Amigo. Black white and red.
                   Divas by Design. Birthdays
                   Rainbow lady's. Song  ( dance yourself dizzy ).
                   Southern Girls. Black white and one colour.

Today's weight, 9st 2lb ( target weight).

Yummy Cookies.

Another dull day in Chester. There's a big black cloud just sitting there ready to burst. Not moving much, just sitting waiting for enough people to be out without an umbrella. Well, it won't get me as I'm not going anywhere this afternoon. I'm just going to stay in and relax, maybe do a bit of colouring while thinking about chocolate cookies.

I found the image from Arthur's Free Clipart  HERE. It prints out really well considering it's only a colouring page. There are quite a lot of  unusual images on the site. I got the caption from Create with TLC.

Here's a close up of the yummy cookies. Have you ever wanted to eat one of your cards?  The paper is a scrap of Papermania Henbury Lane and the card base is 5" square. I'm off to get myself a biscuit before i do eat the card..................

Challenges,  Crazy 4 Challenges. Monochromatic.
                   Inspire me fridays.  Anything goes.
                   Totally Papercrafts.  Food and drink.
                   Catered Crop.  Recipe FTR18 ( promarkers.). Oops sorry didn't read the info properly. It should have been back to school/ garden theme. Don't know how to delete my entry.
                   Stamps & fun.  Monochrome.
                   Paper Playtime. Anything goes.

Goodbye.............

...............Summer, lol.  What a horrible windy wet day. I was looking through my images for something to make today and this one is perfect.

It's from TLC Creations, but I didn't make a note of the page addy. I usually copy and paste the URL into the "add caption" bit under my pics in picasa but now and again I forget. The caption is on THIS page. I hope it's still available as most designs are now only up for 48 hours before going into the shop.

The papers are by Summer Driggs. We owe such a lot to these generous providers of freebies. I know they have helped me a lot with my paper crafting. Sometimes I just don't want to do something cutesy and these images and papers are such a Godsend. I thought the card looked a bit bare around the edges so the old peel offs came out of hiding.
I'm off now to do a terrible thing...............................HOUSEWORK !!

Challenges,  One Stitch at a Time. Use a digi.
                    I did it Creations, Children.
                    Birthday Sundaes, Birthday.
                    Make it Monday, Anything goes.
                    KB Cute Monday. Digi
                    Shopping our Stash. Dogs/ digi.

Early Bird.

Yes that's me on Fridays. Up at 5.45 to get ready for work. Good job I'm not going in search of bread.

I made up the sentiment because I think I'ts so true of most supermarkets. The image is by Meljens Designs available from Whimsy Stamps.

There is a link in my side bar to the free digi buttons. You can't really tell in the pic but I've coated them with glossy accents. The paper is from my stash of unidentified scraps.

Time to get ready to go and sell newspapers to the early birds now, lol.

 Challenges. I love promarkers. Things with wings.

Todays weight 9st 2lb ( target weight ).

Feeling Fruity.

I thought I'd make a nice summery card today as the weather is so nice. Mind you I did trash my room in search of my mojo.

 This card is the result of thinking "oh well, I'll just do some colouring while the mojo is away". It all fell into place when i remembered this caption from Ginger's House  HERE. The image is also a freebie and is from Meljens Designs HERE.  The flowers are also Meljens and there is a link to them at the top of my sidebar. I coloured them, added glossy accents and cut them out. Another thing that gets done when the mojo takes a hike.
EDIT. OMG!  How freaky is this, I've just been to TLC blog and apparently today is............wait for it............National watermelon day!!!!!!


Challenges. For fun Challenges. Anything goes.
                  Little red wagon. Put a Critter on it.
                  Tuesday Throwdown. Summertime
                  Craft your passion. Anything goes.
                  Penny's papercrafty. Watermelon
                  The Playdate Cafe. Watermelon, sorbet and lime.