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

Few Christmas cards.

My hand is back to normal and I've started making my Christmas cards. I'm sticking to variations of the one design this year because for some reason, I don't really like making them.

The image is a Meljens digi and doesn't require a lot of fancy colouring in or a fancy layout. I added the sentiment on the computer.

The red and blue papers were free with a magazine a couple of months ago and the green is from my scraps.

The holly sprigs are also a Meljens digi which I scaled right down and cut out. The little mittens stamp is Hobbycraft's own brand. It is one of the little clear ones they do for about £1 each. I put a little blob of liquid pearls on the marshmallows and a sprinkling of glitter glue. The cards are 5"x5".

The lovely Speedy is having his Kidney transplant on Monday. Him and his sister both go into Liverpool Royal on Sunday late afternoon. There is not much sleep going on at the Speed household lately I tell ya. He's terrified of doctors and hospitals,( as most of us are)  which is why he got into this state in the first place. It's not just the operation, it's the worrying about whether his body will reject the kidney. With modern medicine this shouldn't happen though. I want you all to keep your fingers, and legs crossed for the next week or so!  I'll keep you all informed. Thanks to the ladies who have sent him cards. He's made up with them. There are more to come so I'll do a  "show post" when they have all arrived and have been opened.

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.............

Taking a little break.

Hello everyone. It's been a week since my last post and I've had to make myself do this one today. To be truthful I'm feeling a little bit despondent where my blog is concerned. I don't know whether it's because of this busy time of the year or whether I just don't want to keep it up. Therefore, I've decided to have a bit of a "trial separation" in the hope that I'll miss it and try again in the new year.
Meanwhile here is my last Christmas card for the year. Yippee!!

Well, it's actually one of a pair I made for mum and mum in law. The image is by Meljens Designs. I don.t know the origin of the paper but it's one I downloaded ages ago. It was originally pink but I changed it to sepia in picasa. That's not glitter around the edges, it's actually the design of the paper. I love my fiskars deckle scissors because it doesn't matter if you can't cut straight, lol.

I do hope I'll be back in a few weeks time. I still want to make things but I'm a bit fed up of editing photos, doing links, etc. Maybe I've just got my lazy head on.
I hope you all have the best Christmas ever. I'm going out to a local hotel for my Christmas dinner as my kitchen closes for the day.

So merry Christmas, happy new year and hopefully I'll sort myself out.

I'm at my target weight again today but as of Saturday I'm going to stuff my face for a few weeks then back to the diet.

A couple of Christmas cards.

Quick post before I get ready for work. These are a couple of cards I made for an order. They are both in my easy "go to" layout.

Both images are by Meljens designs from Whimsy Stamps.

 A few scraps, a bit of ribbon and plenty of Stickles and we're done.

Weight this week still 9st 3lb, one over target.

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.

The Sleigh is Ready.

Well it's December again and time to hit the streets with my sleigh. I've bought some new lights which are bigger and brighter than my old ones.

I will be going out with it for a few early doors drinkies after a bit of late afternoon shopping tomorrow. People have already been asking when I'm bringing it out as it gets them in the festive mood. You know what that means though.......yes it'll probably pee down all afternoon.
I've been of work this week using my hols and sods law, I've not been well again. This cough/cold keeps coming back and I've not felt like doing much at all. I've managed to finish my Christmas card orders though. I know I'm using capitals here but I do mean to shout. THANK YOU TO ALL THE GENEROUS ARTISTS WHO HAVE BEEN GIVING FREE CHRISTMAS IMAGES!!  They have helped such a lot. I don't really like making Christmas cards but new images cropping up makes it much more enjoyable.
As this is supposed to be a card making blog I suppose I'd better show you one. Not a Christmas one either.

Another free image this time thank you to Doodle Pantry. There's a whole page of them there. I'm not sure about the paper as I've lost the cover but it's from a 12 x 12 stack and it could be DCWV. The card is 6"X6".

Target weight 9st 2lb. Today 9st 3lb. Lets face it the only way is up for the next few weeks, lol.

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).

Another quickie baby card.

I've had this idea in my head for ages but couldn't find an image of a baby in a nappy. On last Friday's post I gave a link to a site which I've just found. There are lots of baby images ( some a bit blurred but most are OK ) including this one.

A bit different to the usual "welcome baby" stuff. The backing paper is from a stack. I've lost the cover but I think it could be DCWV.

The glue on my flower and the stickles aren't dry in the pic because I was going out and had to take the photo because it would be too dark when I got back.

Off to work now but before I go............
...........Target weight 9st 2lb. Today, 9st 3lb. One back on, lol.

Ramblers Card.

Evening all, I won't say "good" because it's peeing down here in Chester.I managed to get back from town before it started though.

A friend of mine rang the other night to ask me to make a card for someone who has just completed the Wainwrigh'ts walks across the Pennines. I remember my dad doing this years ago. He used to walk for miles.In the days of using just wooden stamps, I'd have had to say no but I searched Google images and came up with a nice map to use as background paper and found a great image from Artur's Clipart  HERE.

And here's the result. I even managed to find some walking boots. I resized them, coloured them, then coated them with glossy accents.

The card base is 6"x6".

Well, I need to get myself into the kitchen now. Speedy is still not managing to eat properly and being quite picky, so I've put a chicken in the oven hoping the smell when he comes home will make him want to eat it.

RSPCC. Look away now!

I was printing out some jars and was looking in my saved images for something to go inside the jars when something caught my wicked eye. Well how could I resist, lol. I just had to make up a quickie card.

How cool is that! I wonder if anyone will buy it if I put it on sale?! The jar image is from Scrapping Turtle.

I can't find the original source for the baby but while I was looking at google images I found THESE and was well chuffed.The baby at the bottom is the one I used for this card and couldn't find it again. I printed the caption in "thread fun" font. There is a link to the cute buttons in my side bar.

Todays weight 9st 2lb (target weight).

Another spice gift and some measurements.

Here's another little stocking filler for the cooks in our lives. Again, a bargain from Tesco on special offer. Not sure how much but around the £1.50 mark.

The image is from  ( oh no! I left a space here to add a link later only to find it was one of those 24 hour freebies but you may find something suitable HERE, another useful site)   and the caption is by Meljens Designs HERE. 

The instructions on the packet says " rub into poultry, meat, fish or anything else you can get your hands on " so look out speedy, lol.. I peeled the use by date off the back and stuck it onto the card so people can see it without pulling the packet off as it's stuck on with double sided tape. The piece of card is 11.5 cm x 24cm,  Score at 2cm, 13cm and 14cm.As you can see I've put some staples close to the bottom fold so the flap stays in better.

 I've also worked out the measurements for my little box on my last post;
The lid is 17.3cm x 20.3 cm and scored at 4cm on all sides.
The bottom ( slightly taller) is 21cm x 18cm and scored at 4.5 cm on all sides.
 Happy gift making.

An emotional occasion.

Well, what a week I've had. Speedy had his third Hepatitis B injection last week as part of prep for a possible kidney transplant. He had a really bad reaction, partly because they gave him a flu injection at the same time. Sickness, trots, stomach pains, you name it he had it. On Monday he went to the doctor's and collapsed when trying to convince the receptionist that he needed to be seen.He doesn't usually go to the doctors without me hounding him, so he must have felt bad. He rang me to say he was on his way to A&E in an ambulance!! I managed to get there about an hour later ( on the train as I don't drive), and was taken to an isolation room.He looked so pale, he had his eyes closed, and for all the world he looked dead.I just stood there rooted to the spot. Then he woke up and saw me and he cried his eyes out. We both thought his kidneys were packing up. He was on a drip as he was dehydrated and there was also a paracetamol drip. He had been waiting for a doctor to see him. To cut a long story short it was the jabs that did it and blood tests showed his kidneys hadn't been made worse. It was very scary. He's OK now though, 9lb lighter but starting to eat again.

But that's not the emotional occasion that this post is about. We've been invited to an anniversary party on Saturday, which we will go to for an hour or so as it's only a short walk away. Sometimes I go to Google images/ line drawings and type in things such as fruit, cookies, toys etc and save free images for future use.This card uses one of them.

It was from a colouring page HERE.  The caption which came along just in time is from Create with TLC. The backing paper is Papermania. The little hearts were from the Papermill Shop before it closed down and the little tag is from the bowels of my stash. I used liquid pearls on the icing and decided I'll never make a confectioner, lol. Sorry about the photo, it's a bit blurred.

As a result of speedy not eating much, I've been taking advantage of not having to cook renal friendly food and made a big vat of bolognese ( tomatoes are a big no no) and have been scoffing it all week, so.....
Target weight 9st 2lb. Today, 9st 3lb. I did expect it to be worse.....................it will probably hit me tomorrow.

Cookie tin gifts.

I think it's time I got my skates on with my Christmas gift making while there's still a fairly decent amount of daylight left. I was mooching around what I call the naughty aisle ( biscuits and sweets ) in Tesco and came across these tins of cookies.

There were 5 or 6 different types and all were priced at between £1.60 and £1.99. Not a bargain for a few cookies by any means but with a bit of paper and ribbon, I made them into nice little stocking fillers.

The main background paper was already there so all they needed was a contrasting band.

Here's the double chocolate version. I got the free image from Arthur's Clip Art HERE. There are a few more useful images in the "food" pages. The caption is from Create with TLC HERE.

I didn't like the sticker on the top with the scruffy black tape so I cut around the circle and stuck it onto a punched scalloped circle.
I learned a couple of things when making these so I'll pass them on. First of all make sure there are no dents in the tins. Secondly apply all layers separately. With the tin being a curved surface the papers crinkle if you mat them up and then apply.

I cheated and drafted this post last night as it is a fairly longish one. So all i need to do then is...................

Today's weight 9st 2lb ( target weight ). Going out for a big scoff tonight for stepsons 30th birthday so that will soon change.

An older cutting and sticking habit.

I was sorting through my enormous cookery book collection the other day trying to decide which ones to give away and which ones to keep. I had far too many and my shelves were bursting at the seems. I ended up wondering which one i would keep if I was only allowed to keep one. No contest. It was one I started compiling 14 years ago. It started life as a hardback " day to a page " diary. I decided to give it the respect it deserved and here's how it turned out.

12 x 12 paper wasn't wide enough to fold inside at the top and bottom but that's OK as I'm going to cover it with some clear adhesive plastic. It took 2 sheets, one for the front and one for the back.

I've spent years cutting recipes out of magazines and copying ones from library books.

I've used each month for a different category eg chicken, beef, cheese , desserts, food gifts, preserving, etc.

And another page. I'm looking at it now and wondering how on earth chicken soup ended up in the fish chapter, lol.

And if you're not drooling enough already here's a page from the desserts chapter. Unlike the rest of my cookery books, there is nothing in this book that I wouldn't like to make and eat.
If I've inspired you to start one of these yourself make sure you buy a decent quality diary and reinforce the spine with tape before covering it as it will end up bulging quite a bit.

I'll hit the publish button now but I'll find the links to the images which were freebies and add them later.

LINKS. CHEF by TLC. HERE
              VENDING MACHINES CAPTION by TLC  HERE
              LADY BAKING by TLC    HERE
              LADY WASHING UP by TLC  HERE.
              BON APPETITE by TLC  HERE.

More Christmas Quickies.

Morning all. A quickie post and some quickie cards.

Meljens digi stamp again.This design would be great for hot chocolate gift sets.The cards are five and a half inches square again.

I added the sentiment before printing out then coloured with Promarkers and added some stickles.

I'm off to work now. Channel 4 are filming a programme about small businesses in Chester today and they are coming to our shop early this morning. I hope they've gone by the time I get there as I hate cameras. Besides I'm on the wanted dead or alive list at the cop shop...........just joking.  Oh, and we have already been filmed for don't tell the bride in November. Me and Patrick must have looked right nerds as we didn't know what was going on. We thought it was an OTT stag party who had bought an amateur film crew along until they finally told us what they were doing. That should be entertaining, lol.

Weight today 9st 2lb, (Target weight).