Kelmarsh Hall

Bank Holiday Monday was a girly day in this household. Will and Jacob went to Dovedale for the day on a walk which left me and my girl 'home alone'. She chose Kelmarsh Hall in Leicestershire (about 20 minutes away).

They have the most beautiful gardens and it was lovely to go round the Hall and get some of it's history too, especially as it's my local history!

The front door...


The back door...


And this little kiddie is carved from wood and set into the centre of a grass spiral...


Now for the poser who came with me...

Kirby Hall

As it was Bank Holiday weekend and we were both off, we made the most of the weather. Sunday saw a family day out at Kirby Hall as we could take the dog, there are some lovely photo opportunities and it's only 10 minutes from home.

I decided to share with you a couple of photos with you:



It's being restored at the mo so there is scaffolding around some parts of it, which I didn't photograph. Inside the 'Great Hall' there was a table layed out with some costumes that the kids can dress up in. As you can see, Freya was a little more obliging to dress up than Jacob was (just look at his face!)

Tickle my ribs!

As we had a girly day on Monday, I let Freya choose what she wanted for tea. She chose one of her all time favourites - Chinese Spare Ribs in plum sauce. I couldn't resist taking these photos of her to show you all. Just glad that I made her put her crafting apron on to keep her lovely white blouse clean...

DCM - It's a Wiggly One!

Catching up STILL! This one was from Tuesday August 14th...

Is it just us, or is everything really hectic at the moment?
It's great to see you are still finding time to have a go at our dares and we're really enjoying seeing all your "Photo Finish" cards - there have been some fantastic ideas for using photographs on cards already so "Thank You" for sharing them with us.
It's Little Extra day today and this week we've another sketch for you to play with, we hope you'll have some fun with this one. Remember that you can twist it, stretch it or even shrink it -just as long as the basic sketch is still there to see you can get as creative as you like.



I tend to stick in my 'comfort zone' of A5 cards recently, so to make a square card was a nice change. BUT the square card is white hammered! Handcut my wiggly bits freehand. Used another cheapy poundshop decorated chipboard square. Some Diecut felt flowers, Penny Black 'happy birthday' stamp and purple glitter glue to finish.

DCM - Photo Finish

Still playing catch up from a couple of weeks ago with this one was from Friday 10th August...

This weeks Dare is set by Tracie (Bondgirl) and is titled Photo Finish....

This week I want you to make a card for any occasion but it must include a photograph somewhere! The photo subject can be people, items, locations, flowers, absolutely anything so get snapping. Dont forget to check copyright if you are using someone elses photographs in your art work



Yet another white, hammered card base... do you notice a pattern here? LOL! Some freebie papers from a magazine long since that sat in my stash forgotten about. I tore it to make random layers and added some funky ribbon to the left hand side onto which I layered a Birthday ribbon. The photograph was taken by my DH in 2004. I have several, different coloured versions of these daisies (bit Andy Whorhole!). I used a journalling stamp and handwrote my greeting to finish.

DCM - Recipe

Catching up on the DCM Challenges here... This one is from Tuesday 7th August (I was on holiday, so missed out at the time). I've decided that I love doing the dares so much that I'm catching up with them all... So here goes...

It's one of our recipes this time, all you need to do is include all the ingredients on your card - remember, you can always add more things if you want to.

Here are your ingredients for this week:
3 arrows
3 circles
1 square



Trusty white hammered base as a starting point. The arrows , circles and the square are from the chipboard packs I bought in my local pound shop. I had to alter the colours to suit my 'primary' theme here. Added some freehand doodling to the card base and a button to each of my circles. The plan is to add a photo of the birthday boy in the square - hence the pencilled note to 'place photo here!'

DCM - Who's pushing your buttons?

Over at the DCM blog we have the latest challenge which was set by Keryn as follows:

I know you've all got buttons stashed away somewhere, whether they've been purchased at a cardmaking store or you thriftily snipped them off DH's old shirt. I'd like you to find those buttons and use them somewhere on a card. They can be real buttons, craft shop buttons, die cut buttons, faux buttons or another type of button, surprise us all.


Using a white hammered card base, I used some free Junkitz papers that I got free with a magazine recently, cutting on the wavy line to add effect. Buttons were from my stash that I used to make a flower, stem and leaf. Added a few buttons down the left hand side, again to emphasise the patterns in the paper. Journalled some words in colour and black.

I've really missed doing the challenges these last few weeks, so have decided to set myself the challenge to catch up.... I only have the Frilly Bits and the Dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash challenges to do now. I'm off to upload my other cards now.

Di Hickman - Card Sketch August #4

This is my first ever Di Hickman card challenge that I've done.

This is what I came up with....




The card base is plain, white hammered. I embossed the Cuttlebug Happy Birthday folder onto some DCWV white core card and scratched to reveal the core. For the three lines I've used 3mm black satin ribbon. The square aperture is from a pack of patterned chipboard I bought in my local pound shop. Topped off with an Angel Kiss bloom, a black button and a length of 3mm red ribbon tied through.

Well, what do you think? Did I hit the mark of the challenge. Please leave me a comment and let me know.

Thanks loads!

I took the quiz that I found on Kathy's blog and it came back that I'm orange! Not 100% sure if I like the result of not!

What color is your soul painted? Orange Your soul is painted the color orange, which embodies the characteristics of balance, heat, enthusiasm, flamboyance, playfulness, aggression, over-emotion, danger, desire, strengthens the ability to concentrate, attraction, adaptability, and stimulation. Orange falls under the element of Fire, and symbolizes glory and fruits of the earth. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

I've been nominated....

My lovely, bubbly friend Di nominated me for the Nice Matters Award. Thanks Di.

I would like to nominate Caroline and DiW also as they are my bestest bubbly friends, but Di got there first. So, who will I choose?

This is so difficult as there are quite a few friends I want to nominate, but I have to choose only 3. So... Erm... Err... I'm going to choose three people I know read my blog on a regular basis (no offence to anyone else of course). So....Kathy, Kaz and Beth, here's to you three lovely ladies.

Pass the award on to those you cherish the friendship of in the world of blog

Hello Strangers...!

Just got back from two weeks holiday in Sunny Norfolk! Had a lovely time, Freya and I took some craft stash with us but only managed to spend an hour enjoying ourselves surrounded by scissors, papers and card. I can't wait to get back into it now I'm home. Got Bubbly Funk and DCM to catch up on right after I sort through the 265 emails in my inbox!

Catch you all soon.

Just another birthday...... albeit a 40th!

A really good friend of mine will shortly be celebrating her 40th. She'll be celebrating in style with a 'grown up' kids party - bouncy castle, bucking bronco etc.

To help her remember how old she'll be, I made her this...



I wanted a fairly simple colour theme, so I've gone for white, pink and black. The pink card is DCWV white core card, but I've not distressed it to show that off. I've used black organza ribbon and pink rik-rak. The blooms are Bazzil bling, Angel bloom and one I've cut with a Sizzix die. The centre is pink felt, all fastened together with a bling brad. The words are hand cut and edged with silver. Three pink buttons are tied with black thread to finish.

Just look at the state of this...

We got our caravan out of storage last weekend to give it a good old clean. We've been really bad and not used it yet this year, mind you the weather has been pretty poo and has certainly NOT given me the incentive to go camping at all so far.

Will spent 5 hours cleaning just the outside, it was so bad as our storage plot is under a tree. Thanks to all his hard work and elbow grease, it now looks like a new pin again. What a sweetie.

Here's what it looked like...



The white bit is the clean bit LOL!

DCM - It's about time

The Friday post this week is set by Kathy as follows:

Hi there, It's me, Kathy, here to dare you this week;
OK, Absolutely anything goes this week as long as it's on the theme of TIME.
"It's About Time"
So you can use clocks, calendars, quotes, sayings, pictures, nursery rhymes, or altered art-type stuff, whatever takes your fancy - just take some time out to play and have some fun; remember, time flies when you're having fun!

The card is covered with a clock printed acetate (forget who made it but I know I got it in the sale at Craft Obsessions a little while back. I attached it with a couple of brads. The clock hand is cut free-hand and edged with gold pen. The 'Time' is chipboard covered with Bazill card and distressed to tie in with the aged clock faces. I stamped the greetings onto Bazill, inked the edges and distressed them too.

DCM - I'm Sorry!

This week's dare goes as follows:

We want you to say "Sorry"!
So, we're looking for things like
Belated Birthday cards, "Sorry to hear you're unwell", Sympathy/Condolence cards, "Sorry you're leaving" or maybe Sorry, but we can't come to your wedding/party/etc
We all need this sort of card every now and then, so here's a chance to be able to Say Sorry in Style

I always like to keep at least one 'sympathy' card around (just in case!) so this was the opportunity to make one for me.


The base card was one of 3 my mum gave me, so I don't know where it came from. I wanted to keep it simple so stamped and clear embossed the 'With Sympathy' Greeting, added three ribbon tied roses and some gems. Some simple doodling finished it off.