Snapshots of the Lakes

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I have just come back from a couple of days in the Lake District, I thought those of you not from the UK would like to see some photos

It is an area of outstanding beauty in the North East of England, very popular with hikers and walkers, so there are always people striding around in stout boots and woolly socks, using gnarled walking sticks. They really look the business. Of course, I always forget this, and this time apart from flip flops, my only footwear was a pair of silver leather pumps - I know, I know, ridiculous. I never get it right

Here's a view of Lake Windermere, taken from the hotel that will be hosting the wedding reception - imagine having that view in your wedding photos..............

and how about this for an English country garden?

This is the church that Anne's daughter Jessica will be getting married in, simply perfect. It isn't very old by our standards, early Victorian I think

a gorgeous duck egg vaulted ceiling and stained glass window over the altar

and I really loved the colours in this stained glass window

the whole area has drystone walls, with little plants clinging to the cracks.........................

and little streams of crystal clear water rushing down from the mountains............

another more formal country garden

So there you go, I will be back at my crafty table tomorrow, see you then

Summer at Polkadoodles

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Summer's here! Or at least, it's supposed to be (which is why the cover is still on our patio heater in the photo below, most evenings are too cold for the garden even with a heater). Long range forecast says that July will remain unsettled and cool........I just knew I should have stayed in Spain

So at Polkadoodles this week, our theme is Summer. Any project or card, just use bright summery colours that make you feel sunny and warm

I decided to print out some green spotty paper, and digi flower stamps from the Sundae of Seasons CD, and made some napkin rings. They were so quick to make, and really do look pretty, I think I will be making a lot more of these every time I have a supper party (which isn't very often these days, crafting doesn't leave much time for cooking :)

The flowers on each one (I made six) are different, but they are all coloured with the same ProMarker colours. I used buttercup. gold, apple green, so they all look part of a set

I am in the Lake District as you read this. I have come up with my friend Anne for a couple of days - she is doing some advanced prep for her daughters wedding, to be held here later this year. Expect some stories - things happen when we are together. Or even when we aren't together. Last week she had to be rescued from a locked toilet in France. Screwdrivers were involved I understand...

First E2 Project

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Between getting sick, going to Spain, unpacking again....I have only just got around to unpacking my brand new E2 Cricut machine, it needed updating which I was dreading syncing stuff on the computer usually leads to big problems for me, but it all went well, and I just clicked on the shoe from the built-in Cricut Alphabet cartridge, to cut at 1", and I was astounded how well it sliced through that paper, no snagging or tears at all. I got into a frenzy of cutting, using thin papers, thick cardstock, and even a shiny textured one, they all cut like butter. There is no way my Expression would have coped with all that without some irritating tears. So once I had cut out this little pile of shoes, well, I had to do something with them, so up popped this card

So my first impressions are good, I find some things tedious, like altering the size, but since I made this card I have used it a lot more, and like everything, it gets much easier when you are familiar with the icons (and it still cuts like butter)

We are in the market for some new carpet. So Mike and I went shopping. The first store was an abandoned wreck - victim of the economy I fear, the second one didn't have any sales people around at all, and the third one.................well, words fail me, or almost fail me. We walked into quite a high-end store and started browsing the carpets. We looked around for assistance and there was a chap in a little office munching on a sandwich. He looked up, saw us, returned to his sandwich. So we drifted around, then looked hopefully again at him. 'Is there anyone to help us?' we asked. He just shook his head and waved his sandwich in the air. Presumably we were meant to understand mime. After about 10 minutes of this, we walked out, with me saying sarcastically to him as we stalked past 'great customer service you have in here'. He nodded, smiled, and waved his sandwich at us as a goodbye (which made me laugh, it was so unexpected. Not one word was spoken.) Perhaps he wasn't a sales person at all, just a customer who had been waiting so long for service that he decided to sit in the office and have his lunch - we could have joined him if we had thought to pack a picnic.

(Cousins of Tyseley if anyone is reading this from the Birmingham area - one word, don't!)

Win - Cricut Cartridge and Promarkers!

Time for some candy! 1,000 posts seems like a good enough reason, so this is to thank all my lovely followers. Some of you have been with me almost from the start, although in the very early days I was chattering away to myself every day!

So what's up for grabs? First of all, Letraset have been very generous and are giving TWO lucky readers the chance to win a pack of twelve ProMarkers, plus a set of fine tips to go with them

What are fine tips? Well I am excited about these, didn't think my Promarkers could get any better, but then these arrived in the mail.......................

inside is a very, very fine tip.............................

which just clips over the existing tip on any Promarker.......

which means that you can fill in really tiny detail, or write sentiments in any colour to match your card. Genius!

One lucky person will win the Cricut cartridge that has taken the Cricut community by storm - Elegant Edges. No more expensive dies, you can cut every label shape under the sun with this cartridge. It's my all time favourite. To see an example of my work using this cartridge, pop over to Scrappy-go-Lucky's blog to see my baby boy book, using Elegant Edges and Nursery Steps

I had to include a card with the post. This little sweetie is a Sugar Nellie digi stamp, coloured with ProMarkers of course. I kept the card very simple, and just let her do the talking......

So there you go, three chances to win. I will keep this running until Saturday 23rd July at noon EST (5:00PM UK)

All you have to do is put a link on your blog if you have one, (don't worry if you don't, you are still entered to win) and leave a comment under this post. If you don't have a Cricut, and would just like to win the ProMarkers, please tell me. Also, can you make sure I can identify you if you win, especially those who use the anonymous option to leave a comment. Remember to leave your name or message board name

Good luck!

Gap Year Card and Blog Candy Winner

Thanks to all of you who took part in my blog candy. Using random.org, the winner is

Cotnob

Congratulations, email me with your address and I will get your prize in the mail

I spent a good deal of time on holiday making resolutions, do you do that? Sitting in the sun with drifting thoughts, 'when I get home I am going to do that.............and that.............and that'

One resolution was to take part in more blog challenges, it is hard for me to find the time, but I so enjoy doing them. One of my all time favourite challenge blogs is Daring Cardmakers - they always come up with the neatest dares, and the design team are really inspirational. This week they dared us to make a card with a suitcase theme, this is what I came up with.

A word of explanation to those of you outside the UK. Here, it is quite standard for kids to take a gap year between leaving school at 18 and starting university. They go off, travelling the world. It is meant to broaden horizons, teach them independence, and prepare them for adult life, which of course it does, as well as giving them a great thirst for beer, and a chance to put off studying for another 12 months while diminishing the bank balance of the bank of Mum and Dad

A suitcase is probably not really appropriate, they go off carrying huge rucksacks, but, hey, you got the idea. I cut the suitcase at 4" from the Going Places cartridge. The base card is from a fabulous stack by Papermania UK, assorted kraft cardstock, a new favourite of mine

I used my favourite tiny letter stickers from Making Memories

and found another use for these great wheel brads that I found last year in Big Lots

Only one of my three kids took a gap year, the boys couldn't wait to start Uni, then start earning money, but Alexandra planned it with military precision - she did her degree first, then took a gap year before starting work. She went to Thailand, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand, all by herself, making friends along the way. We saw her off at Heathrow airport, wearing a huge rucksack with all her worldly goods packed carefully inside. I swear if she had fallen over, she would have floundered helplessly, arms and legs waving, like an overturned turtle, until someone helped her up. I sobbed all the way home, and honestly never really had peace until her year was over and she returned to the real world, tanned, happy and confident, to find Mum and Dad had a few more grey hairs than when she left.

See you tomorrow

Tilda - and sandals!

Here's Tilda, a Magnolia stamp. I perched her onto a little rock by a stream - this was a friends stamp and I don't know what make it is, but she fits nicely on there

I coloured her with Promarkers

Hair - cocoa, cinnamon and tan

Skin - blush and soft peach

Clothes - powder blue, pastel blue, denim blue and ice grey 2

Scene - blue pearl, powder blue, apple green, marsh green, coral, ice grey 2, 3

The papers are from one of those packs, where you get sticky alphabets, which I never knew what to do with. I decided to use an assortment of these, quite randomly for the sentiment

I can't believe I am doing this, but so many of you have said 'well come on then, let's see the sandals.......................................here's some of them

snazzy pink to match my mosquito bites............

and I liked this huge grey flower so much..................

I had to get it in blue as well!

I see that I have just made my 1,000th post. By my reckoning, allowing for time to make the cards and do the posts, that means (allowing for a 36 hour week), I have spent a total of 2 years and 3 months, full time work, doing this blog! Gulp. I think it calls for a bit of a giveaway though, so watch out for that next week.

See you tomorrow

A taste of Spain..........

The worst thing about having friends coming back from a holiday is that you have to sit through the holiday snapshots - well, you didn't think you were going to get away did you?

Here is the pool of the villa, where I spent a lot of time floating about on that inflatable armchair, reading my book...........................that white wall on the left was the one that the late, unlamented rat family used as their exercise bar......

this gorgeous Bougainvillea grew up one wall, and the petals used to drift into the pool - so pretty

I love the way all the roofs in Spain are tiled in these terracotta domed tiles..........

and they use ceramic tiles a lot as well, look at the gorgeous blue tiled dome of this church, in a little town called Altea

something else I love, the way trees are planted to form shady avenues for you to walk along......

We had a fair bit of Sangria...............

look at these gorgeous pots, drying in the sun, and just crying out to be splashed with bright slashes of colour.......................

I wonder how passion fruit tastes when it is dried? I bet it is a very intense flavour..............

The mountain scenery was spectacular

I am always very taken with the lamps attached to buildings, that often take the place of boring lamposts.........

This is a view from the top of a hill village called Guadalest. The water is a reservoir, and yes, it really was that colour

The sandals and everything else are unpacked, I will be back at my craft table tomorrow, see you then

Teacher Cards

Here's two cards I made for Papercraft Inspirations magazine - the quick cards section, which means that the readers are able to reproduce your card in a short time, about 30 minutes. My brief was thank you cards for teachers, for full details of how to make the cards, see this months magazine (on sale now in the USA)

The thing about going on holiday to Spain is that they have all these addictive street markets, where you can pick up stuff like leather handbags and sandals for next to nothing. Of course I got carried away, not only for myself, but a text message to Alexandra - would you like some leather gladiator sandals? Of course the answer was yes, since it was coming from the bank of Mum and Dad............so that left me with the problem of trying to squash all these purchases into the suitcase. I swear that these budget airlines doctor the scales, so that the cases mysteriously become twice as heavy on the way back..........ten pair of sandals couldn´t make THAT much difference, or could it?

Sweet Meadow

Here's a clean and simple little card, made with flowers cut from the Sweet Meadow collection of papers by Craftwork Cards. I used the narrow sentiment strips to spell out happy birthday to you as the stems of the flowers.

Remember how I told you that I had made 'buttons' out of card candi? this is what is looks like close up

This is my favourite punching tool, by Martha Stewart, it has three different sizes of hole punch tucked neatly away in the rounded end, and uses a simple 'push down' method to punch your hole - and of course, you can punch anywhere on a page, unlike the hand held pincer type punches. If you haven't got one - well, I recommend it (especially if it is on sale :)

We fly back from Spain tomorrow, the only thing I could bring out with me were some stamped images, and about 3 dozen Promarkers, so I have spent a lot of time in the sun happily colouring away, and have done a couple of tutorials, so look out for some colouring tips very soon.

I hate to upset all you rat lovers, and those who believe in equal rights for rats, we put the stuff (rat poison) down on the rat run wall, it looked like pink playdough. The rat was last seen sitting with a lump between his paws, nibbling delicately at it. He hasn´t been seen since. Oh dear.

BLOG CANDY!!

Since I am having fun in the sun, for those of you who are waiting for holidays, still doing the daily commute, here is a chance to win some goodies to bring some sunshine into your day

Just leave your name at the end of this post, and I will draw a winner on Saturday 9th July. No rules, just that if you have a blog it would be nice if you mention it on there

Here is what is up for grabs

A great tag board book, 5" x 7"I bought one of these for myself as well, and can't wait to alter it......

A set of Martha Stewart inks - Aquarium

Mulberry paper mini roses in shades of lilac by Recollections

A set of 17 clear stamps by American Crafts with a baby theme - always useful for cardmakers, one thing is for sure, those babies keep on coming!

A Fiskars tool taxi, an ingenious little gadget with loads of tools tucked neatly away - perfect for crops or crafting sessions with friends

Some green and white bakers twine

Cuttlebug folder - Diamond in the Rough

So there we are, I hope there is something that takes your fancy in that little lot

Good luck