I am the Wheel of Fortune!

You are The Wheel of Fortune

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of
intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

New size... new layouts.

I'm a bit of a stick in the mud as far as Scrapbooking sizes go, so when Deanne challenged me on our blog Rosie-Dee's Challenge to use a different size to my 12"x12" norm, I rose to it and came up with not just one, but TWO layouts!!!!



The first one is of my gorgeous daughter, Freya which was taken at nursery school when she was about 3 years old. Already such a gorgeous little girl, I think you'll agree?!



The second photo of Karen and myself was taken when she came up from Cornwall with her hubby, Jeremy, to stay locally. We took them to Burghley House in Stamford which is where their rose petal wedding confetti came from. The sun shone on such a lovely day for us. The roses were in full bloom and oh, so fragrant too! What you can't tell from the photo is that, although Karen is taller than I am, she is crouching down to get nearer to my height!!!!

Fineshade Woods

We had intended going to Westonbirt Arboretum this weekend for some autumnal camera fun, but as the weather report was such a pile of pants, we saved the diesel and stayed at home instead.

The weather wasn't too bad today, so we armed ourselves with wellies/walking boots/hats/scarves/waterproofs/warm coats along with 4 cameras and headed out to Fineshade Woods, part of what was the ancient Rockingham Forest.

Freya looked absolutely stunning in her blue coat with pink hat and scarf that she was our model for the day (no change to her posing for the cameras there then LOL!)

Just check out that cheeky grin and those fantastic wellies!



This is a full on action shot - caught midair jumping into the pile of leaves...





You noticed how Jacob doesn't pose for many pics????!!!! Well, that's because he's very happy to be behind the lens of his own camera these days. With Will's expert guidance he's getting very good too. We're very proud of him.

Design Team

I received THE most gorgeous set of stamps in my Debbi Moore Design Team kit yesterday. I can't wait to start playing with them. You can see the stamps {here}.

I'll show you the results when I have made some up.

DCM - Forever Autumn

I've not taken part in a DCM dare for what seems like years and years! So, as Autumn is pretty much the most photogenic season, I'm back. Hopefully I'll be back every week if I can. I loved taking part when I did them a while back.

Anyway, Sues challenge is as follows:

Forever Autumn.

I decided on this one after hearing the Justin Haywood song of the same name playing on the radio. I couldn’t get it out of my mind and kept singing it as I was working.

So now I’m daring you to make a card that depicts Autumn.
It can be an Autumn scene or it can be something completely different but using a palette of Autumn colours……the choice is yours!

I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if a few of you are singing along by the time you’ve finished either, I know some of the DT were!



The papers are Dovecraft. Epoxy stickers are SEI. Sentiment is Karen Foster. Self adhesive felt came from Craft Obsesions.

Cards

Just a couple of cards that I made for birthdays last week. I can blog them now as I know they've both been received.

This was for our friend Carl in Newcastle who we've not seen for far too long! Happy Birthday mate! xx


This card was for an order for my boss' son's friend. Hope Grace liked her card.

Rosie-Dee's Sneaky peek...

Here is a little sneaky for the Rosie-Dee's Challenge blog that will be uploaded tomorrow night....




I actually created two projects for this next week. How good am I??!! LOL

Indigo Mill Retreat - piccies

I've been asked by a few people for a few photos from the reatreat. So here goes. Only a few though....





Warning.... do not drink wine before going into the hot tub as it concentrates the alcohol and makes you run round the garden at stupid o'clock in just your swimsuit!!!! You know who you are you three!!! And the picture was taken by ME on MY camera so that leaves 3 ladies from the other 25 present.... LOL



Answers on a post card please......

One other I have to blog needs a bit of work on PSE6 to mask the identities of the 3 owners of the 3 bums doing their Charlies' Angels pose ;-)

Rosie-Dee's Week 6

This was my challenge for Week 6...

Right then.... week 6 already and it's my turn again. A nice easy one this week. With Christmas approaching far too quickly for my liking, we'd like you to make a Christmas card using Christmas patterned paper. Easy peasy!

And this is what I made for it.



I used the DCWV Christmas stack for the printed paper.

Bazzil In Stitches.

At the Indigo Mill retreat Steph led a class on stitching using the Bazzill In Stitches cardstocks. I chose to use the 'flower' page as it lent itself really well to the theme of one of my photos of Freya taken on holiday in Lanzarote this year. I chose bright, zingy cerise, yellow and orange to go with the top that she was wearing that day. The silly face she's pulling is because she was imitating a monkey btw!

Steph also showed us how to accent felt by stitching onto it. For the flower I handcut a circle in pink and embellished it with a yellow running stitch using all 6 strands of embroidery thread for a bit of texture. I then pulled the threads slightly to create a bit of depth. I cut a flower shape from Orange felt and edged that again with yellow thread before cutting a large (coaster sized) piece of yellow felt and, using cerise thread, edged it with a chain stitch around the edges. Using orange thread on this large circle I made 5 large stitches from the centre to the outside edge and gathered them to made 'petals' to match the orange flower in the middle layer. I finished it off by sewing a bright and funky button into the centre, before hand cutting 4 leaves from thick velvet cardstock and creasing them down the centre for yet more texture.

The flowers on the cardstock are all stitched using the full 6 strands of embroidery thread as I wanted a really chunky, tactile feel to the page. Finally I threaded a bead on to a strand of thread to go into the centre of the large flowers.

Beware of strange comments to your blog

I've just had 9 of the most wierd comments left on my blog.

From used JCBs to skidloaders to mini excavators....

Luckily I have comment moderation on my blog so they didn't get through. You may want to spread the word to other friends who blog out there because these pillocks obviously have nothing better to do than leave pathetic comments on people's blogs.

I've seen these posts on someone else's blog too, so I'm not the first to have been hit by them.

GET A LIFE WHOEVER YOU ARE, YOU DIDN'T SUCCEED THIS TIME!!!!

Gardening delights!

My parents have a lovely big garden and as they're both in their 70's now it doesn't get the TLC that dad used to give it when he was younger. He used to grow all our veg - if you couldn't eat it, he didn't grow it!

We've wanted to grow our own veggies, but as our house is only 11 years old, we just don't have the garden space. So, we asked if we could use some of mum and dad's garden and all of dad's gardening expertise he's built up over the last goodness knows how many years to get us started growing our own. The deal is that they don't do any of the manual labour, but get to advise and help in a cerebral way and then take their fill from whatever gets grown.

Will and Jacob went down this morning to start preparing the ground. They moved all the gravel off that was there and, using some wood that dad had, built two frames to make the vegetable beds raised. We need to get them measured up and then to buy some topsoil. We have a compost bin in our garden and we'll no doubt empty mum and dad's too and dig a bit of the good stuff into the new soil.

Dad already has his potatoes planted - we always have freshly dug Christmas Day potatoes straight out of the bins. Tip: Dad grows them in black plastic dustbins and they're bloody gorgeous too! We can accomodate a couple of them in our garden for ourselves so that's on our list to do at home.

We're hoping for onions, carrots, leeks, cabbages (marigolds will poss be grown very close to the cabbages because of the cabbage white butterfly) as well as garden peas, green beans and whatever else dad tells us to grow.

I'll keep you posted with how it's going and upload a couple of photos to show you too.

Wish us luck....

He's home

Jacob's home again and had a wonderful time. They went into town, went swimming, rode round the village on their bikes had wonderful food (Julian's dad was a chef and Jacob says he makes fantastic meatballs!)

He didn't come home until about 4.30pm yesterday and we had such a glowing report from Julian's dad about his manners and behaviour so I'm a very please momma indeed!

We'll have to repay the hospitality and have Julian to stay with us soon.

Studio Calico - October kit

Thankfully the lovely postie delivered this months Studio Calico kit the day before I left for the retreat. I can't tell you how much of a struggle it was not to start crafting with it on Thursday night, but I was good (well, almost - I DID rip the box open sitting outside the sorting office when I collected it) but only took the contents out to stroke and play with while I was at the Indigo Mill retreat over the weekend.

And these are the 5 LOs that I made....







I absolutely LOVE the SC kits, I can tell you and they're made even better because of the strong Pound against the Dollar - long may the ££££ reign is what I say LOL.

Rosie-Dee's Challenge - sneaky peek

Here's my sneaky peek from this week's challenge. Pop over and see what's in store to make your mojo flow...

Where's ma boy?!

Jacob is on his half term this and next week so has spent the day at his friend, Julian's house today. They've been swimming, round the town, out on their bikes and now they're at their friend's birthday party. Oh, how the house is quiet without my boy!!

I know he's having a fab time with his friend, but I do miss him, despite the fact that him and Freya can bicker and argue like brother and sister! Oh, they ARE brother and sister lol!!!!

He's staying over tonight and coming home tomorrow but I won't see him until I get home from my crop about 4.30pm. I'd better get a hug!!!!

He lost is phone last week. Will recently got a new Samsung Tocco and we gave Jacob his old Samsun D600. We have looked high and low for it, in pockets, under furniture, in all his drawers including his undies drawer :-o. School bags without success. I even rang the school and the police today to see if it had been handed in, but it hadn't. I was determined not to let him have another one as this would be the second time he'd lost it. The first time luckily it was handed into school so we got it back. I went onto the Orange website today and confirmed that it's not been used since 7/10/08 @ 6:09pm which is when he'd have rang me to say he was on his way home from school. He still had £8.77 credit on it so I know it's not been used.

I spent over half an hour again looking for it tonight, under the sofas, under the furniture, down the side of the sofas.... no phone! Then I lifted one of the scatter cushions on one of the sofas and there it was!!!! Sitting there as proud as day. It had even left it's own little imprint in the leather it had been there that long.

You're probably all thinking - the dirty moo!!! How can she not find it on the sofa...? Well in our defense.... we don't watch TV much at all in our house. In fact the kids normally watch it on a Saturday & Sunday morning and on a Saturday night Will and Jacob watch a DVD but they sit on the big sofa not the smaller one (which is where the phone was). That's how much our TV is on in the week. We are not a family of telly addicts at all.

Well.... I'm now in a dilemma and I need some help.... I am tempted not to let him have is phone back straight away to teach him a lesson. As I said, it's not the firsts time he's not looked after it. As we all know, they're not cheap things and it is a priveledge for him to have it and the credit that Will and I pay for. But how long should I keep it off him for? He's got another week off school and I do like the fact that he has it to let me know when he's leaving on his way home as I know how long it takes him to get here. It's my safety blanket I suppose to know he's safe..... So, just how long should I keep it for?

Retreat catch up

Well I had the most wonderful time at the Indigo Mill retreat in lovely Derbyshire. Despite only getting at total of 8 hours sleep over the 3 nights - I managed to make some (what I think are lovely) pages. I need to get them photographed in daylight to upload and share them, so please bear with me.

I met some of the most lovely of people, and talk about talent...!!! My gawd it was oozing out of some people's every pore... I am totally in awe of some ladies there.

The food was fantastic - cooked mainly by Marie (Steph's mum). The venue was nice (could have been cleaner but I know Steph is taking that issue up with the owners).

You cannot imagine just what a garden room looks like full of 26 ladies complete with all their stash.....!!!! LOL

Steph brought her shop with her and I must say that I did partake in a bit of shopping over the weekend.

Roll on next year's retreat.....

I'm off to a retreat

I'm off for the next 3 nights to a retreat in Derbyshire. 24 hour crafting - who could ask for more...?

I'll miss my wonderful Will, Jacob, Freya and Maisy pooch of course. But sometimes it does us all good to follow our own route, doesn't it?

{This} is where I'm going to, doesn't it look a fab place to spend the weekend with friends - all 26 of them!

It's been organised by my friend Steph, who owns Indigo Mill. You want to pop over to her shop and just see the fantastic kits that she puts together. Unlike a lot of kits out there, they don't break the bank either. You can get a kit from under a tenner - and you don't find many of them now, do you?

I'm in retreat.....

Well I'm off to a retreat {here} to be precise.

Looks totally gorgeous if you ask me. Three nights away from home (Oh, how I'll miss my wonderful hubby and fabulous kids, and Maisy too, of course!) I'm meeting up with friends old and new and hopfully making some new friends along the way as well. There are a total of 26 of us going to be there. Can't wait!

It's been organised by my friend Steph, who owns Indigo Mill. You want to pop over to her shop and just see the fantastic kits that she puts together. Unlike a lot of kits out there, they don't break the bank either. You can get a kit from under a tenner - and you don't find many of them now, do you?

Rosie-Dee's Challenge - Sneaky peek

The new challenge over on Rosie-Dee's has been uploaded.



Why no pop over and see what we have in store for you this week?

Happy 1st Wedding Anniversary....

To two very dear friends - Karen & Jeremy. We feel very honoured to have been invited to share your special day with you last year in Cornwall. The sun shone and the bride looked radiant.

Wish we were closer to you both.....

I've already given you the sneaky peek, but here is the page that I've done for them. Hopefully it's ok to publish it as their anniversary is today and I'm sure they won't mind.



Loads of love to you both from us all here xxxx

oh, my poor baby!

My poor little Freya! As I posted last week, she was not a well little girl at all last weekend but thankfully hadn't been sick again since Monday night. As a precaution we kept her off school on Tuesday as well - a full 24 hours without being sick, and she'd be as right as rain, we thought....

I'd let Deanne down on Thursday night when I was due to go over as I felt awful myself when I got in from work and was fast asleep by 6:15pm. Woke up at 8:05pm and rang to offer my apolgies. Togged myself up in full length jammies and socks and went straight back to bed. Friday I felt pretty kaka myself but still went to work with a litre bottle of Lucozade to get me throught my solid food fast. I wasn't following the same sickie route that Freya had been on!

I nipped to see Deanne on Friday night and spent a lovely few hours in her company, chatting away easily and putting the worlds to rights (as you do!). I was just picking up my handbag at 11:00pm to head off home when my phone rings. On the other end I hear this little voice..... "Mum, Freya's just been really sick again!" Jacob, bless him was ringing me to warn me of my impending welcome.

She did look a sorry little sight when I got home, sitting on the stool in the bathroom while Daddy (for the second time this week) scrubs food out of her thick, cream cotton rug, mops and disinfects her floor (thank goodness we got rid of the carpet in the kids' bedrooms - now what I mean???!!!) Luckily I'd bought a new quilt for her in the week, so it was on with that one and a clean cover ready for her to go back to bed, complete with plastic bin at the side within 'reach'.

So for another night I slept fitfully and lightly listening out for my baby incase she needed her momma. An uneventful night thankfully and a very sparse day food wise for her today. Lots of 'honey tea' to keep the calories up, as she's only a little poppet, no fat reserves to tide her over in times of starvation!

Fingers crossed that she'll be fine now, eh?