Owl Sanctuary............

Yesterday, we went to Kendal, a pretty little market town to do some shopping. There was a display of gorgeous owls, birds that lived in a owl sanctuary....... 

there were little ones.... 

a snow white one....

and this fabulous eagle owl, called Oscar....

I put on the falconry glove and was allowed to let him perch on my arm (he was heavy!). I look quite nervous!

 I saw this sign in a shop, for some reason, I was very tempted to buy it....but resisted, it would just be another reminder of how messy creative I am

and it was a lovely drive home, past Lake Windermere, the largest lake in the Lake Districe.............

and on to today's card, my very first Christmas card for this year, made last week at home. I bought the Memory Box snow globe die last year, and had never done anything with it, so when I saw that they had bought out some new Christmas stamps which fit perfectly inside the globe, I had to get one. This was my first attempt, done quite quickly, but it did give me some ideas for using the die and stamp. Watch this space to see how those ideas work out - I see a lot of glossy accents featuring, and maybe an aperture or two! The shaped card and sentiment is from Craftwork Cards, I got the Memory Box stamp from Simonsaysstamp in the USA. I used distress ink pens to colour the stamp........ 

I sprinkled the image with some Frantage embossing powder, the blue circle was cut with the George cartridge and my Cricut

See you tomorrow 

Soaking it up....

As you all enjoyed the photos yesterday, I have been doing my roving reporter for the Buggy Times again today (slightly hampered by the fact that I forgot to put my memory stick back in the camera, otherwise you would have had a nice photo of a cup of coffee as well...........boring, so we won't stress about that)

Here is the old mill in the village of Ambleside where we are staying...........

Everywhere you go, the little cottages have such pretty gardens with lavender and plants tumbling over the dry stone walls...........

and here is my friend Anne (who invited us here to stay with her, thanks Anne!), sitting in front of the old bridge house in the village

One amusing little anecdote, some Japanese tourists were standing in the middle of a country road here,  having their photos taken - they obviously didn't realise that it was a road ( it probably looked nothing like the freeways of Tokyo), until the person with the camera started waving and shouting at them (obviously saying, get out of the way, there's a car coming). They carried on smiling and nodding for the camera, then looked back over their shoulders. The jolly smiles changed to alarm, and they shot to the side of the road, the last time I saw anyone move that quick was when Mike spotted a snake in Florida..............

On to today's card, made with a Whimsy stamp - every so often it is nice to pull out a stamp that needs very little colouring. I found my sewing machine on my newly tidy desk, so that came in useful as well....

I grounded the duck with some random lines of pale blue to look like water, and splashed drops of glossy accents onto the blue to look a bit like puddles 

See you tomorrow x

7 I love the Lakes.....

A card which sort of evolved into an 18th birthday card today - in the UK, 18 is when you become 'of age' and can vote, drink and legally do everything else that adults do......the key is a bit of a symbol for that age - the key of the door

The image is from the Emma Canning CD from Polkadoodles, I coloured her with ProMarkers, I thought she looked good on a step card.... 

We wandered around Grasmere yesterday a lovely little village in the heart of the Lake District, I took some photos, I know those of you overseas love to see photos of the English countryside....this was the view as we walked along the road leading to the village

How about this for a quintessential English graveyard - I love that tree!

The Parish Church is so ancient....

and has a beautiful vaulted ceiling....

the ropes leading up to the belfry, which ring the church bells

and how do you fancy sitting here for a quiet coffee?

Then we spent ages looking around Dove Cottage, which was the home of William Wordsworth, one of the most famous English poets, who was poet laureate to Queen Victoria. The house was fascinating and filled with furniture that belonged to the family - I loved it. The little sign looks like a 'for sale' sign, it's just a sign announcing the name of the cottage and the opening times!

Another peep at my holiday wanderings=/?0 tomorrow. Have a great week x

Thank You

Firstly, today's card. In my massive clean up I found another very old stamp set from Stampin Up called Furnished with Love. I only kept it because I liked some of the sentiments - the images are too small for my taste (I often find that Stampin Up stamps are really small, and I like BIG)

So here's the sentiment.............

which led me to my Cricut and gypsy. I seem to have lost the charger for the gypsy, oops, hope I didn't throw it away by mistake during the cleaning frenzy. So gypsy dead, I leafed through some cartridge handbooks and found this chair on the Heritage cartridge. It was a very simple die cut, no layering, but I liked the shape......

so I cut it twice, once in black and once in a tiny flower print and trimmed the back and seat parts to fit. I found some old black screen mesh and thought it would look a bit like woven cane, I really like the way it turned out. The colours aren't very true in the photo, the background of the pattern paper is more green than yellow.......

Thank you all so much for responding to my post on commenting. I felt quite guilty that I was putting you all to so much trouble - it was more concern that I had stopped getting comments from 'regulars' that made me post, I didn't mean to whip up a comment frenzy. Of course, one of you knew the answer - thanks Barbara. She reminded me that I changed the settings before I went on holiday, and I have changed it back so that anyone can comment again - you don't need a google account or anything. I have switched comment moderation back on, so your comments won't show until I've checked for spam. I did love reading your comments yesterday though, you made me feel very loved and made my day! There were a couple of people who said that because they got emails, they sometimes wanted to ask a question and had to go through all their favourite blog lists to get here. When you get your email, there is Going Buggy in quite a pale script, just above the post heading, if you click on that 'Going Buggy, it will bring you straight here.
Anyway, thank you all again for all your support, I really appreciate you all.

We are heading up to the Lake District tomorrow for a week, so expect scenic photos and tales of sturdy walkers. I will be blogging from there every day as the trusty laptop is going on holiday with me. See you then x 

Petal Card Tutorial using Elegant Edges Cricut Cartridge

I did this tutorial a while back for a design team project over on Scrappy-goLucky - Mandy has closed her store now, so I thought I would share it with you

First I cut four cardstock circles with a fancy edge at 4 1/2" using Elegant Edges....

then cut two plain circles out of pattern paper at 4" - cut these in half 

Score your scallop circles down the middle........

and sharpen the creases with a bone folder..........

Stick the pattern paper to one half of the scallop circles.....

Now comes the tricky bit. Take one circle with the fold line going horizontally, and place another circle with the fold showing vertically so that it overlaps. Make sure your pattern paper sides are on the unglued sides.....

these next two photos show you where to glue......

and line up your pieces....

this photo shows three of the 'petals' in place - a photo is better than a thousand words!

and here I have all four pieces joined together.....

cut strips of card to make a pretty 'belly band' to hold the card closed

and here is what it looks like when decorated and finished,, the flower is stuck to the belly band, which slips off, I used the embellished floral cartridge to cut that....

and the petals open to show your message. I cut a scallop square to cover the joins on the bottom......it would make a pretty way to present a gift card, or slip some cash into a little pocket on the inside...

Don't worry if you don't have this particular cartridge (or a Cricut for that matter) you could use a circle cutter and cut plain circles, or use one of the many scallop circles available from the Silhouette store if you have a Cameo. 

Now I have to ask if anyone has been having problems leaving comments on here? I had a few emails a while back when I was running a prize draw, saying they were having problems commenting, but I haven't heard anything since. I have been looking at my stats and although there were 187 visitors here yesterday for instance from around the world,  (which is an average sort of daily figure, email subscribers don't show up in the statistics), there were only a very few comments, and this seems to be a trend lately, now this tells me a couple of things are possible:
1. My cards are rubbish! (sad face) OR
2. I am spending hours on here talking to myself. HELLLOOOOO anyone there? I have my faithful bunch of blog friends who, bless them, comment every single time I post so I know that not everyone has a problem, but I would really like to know if anyone is experiencing difficulty. It may just be that we all lead such busy lives that it's just a matter of time, and that's fine. But if it's broken, I need to fix it

While I am on this sort of subject, I have had a couple of people under the impression that I make money from Going Buggy. Nope, nada, zilch, not a penny, in fact I spend quite a bit of my own money sending out various prizes when they don't come direct from the sponsor. I do get products sent to me, and of course when you are on design teams you get all their latest stuff to make samples. Magazine commissions are done on a fee paying basis, and that can be quite sporadic,  but the blog itself earns no revenue at all, it's just for fun - which it is, and I love it!

See you tomorrow x 

Hoppy Birthday

Two pocket cards today, but before that, just let me rave for a few minutes - I went to see The Lion King last night and was totally blown away by the sheer originality of this wonderful show - if you have the opportunity to see it do go. It is the best stage production I have EVER seen. A riot of colour and jaw dropping costumes and stage sets. I have been on a real high ever since! In fact I am seriously thinking of getting tickets to take Kiki when she comes to stay with me in August.......

Okay, back to earth. During my massive tidy up in the craft cupboard, I found this very old Stampin Up set and decided it was time to give it an airing. I stamped the pocket onto denim pattern paper and added a couple of Card Candi 'brads'. Papers are by Bo Bunny.  The stitching is faux - I just doodled it on because I had hidden my sewing machine under a mountain of junk supplies and couldn't reach it

and this next one was made with the same set, I went for a very clean and simple look for this one. The paper is by Tim Holtz

So now all the hysteria about the new baby Prince George has died down, I do hope that this lovely young couple are given some privacy now to bond with their child - heaven knows, a first baby is a bit of a shock for anyone without the added pressure of having hundreds of cameras recording every movement each time the child is taken out for a bit of fresh air - I don't think we will be seeing Prince William driving bleary eyed around the block in the wee small hours of the morning with a screaming baby in the back of the car. Hands up all of you who resorted to the middle-of-the-night-car-therapy? I know we did! 

It did occur to me today that I have never seen a royal baby/child have a tantrum. How do they do that I wonder? I know that if I had had the eyes of the world trained on my offspring when they were toddlers that there would have been shocked articles in newspapers and TV programmes about the child who lay on the floor in the supermarket screaming for half an hour, or went totally rigid and refused to bend to be put into a car seat. Then there was the breath holding contests to see who would break first, baby or anxious Mummy (the baby always won that one). Ah, happy days, but I am pleased to report that these young  hooligans, toddlers have grown up to be nice, productive and pleasant people, and it's (secretly) rather gratifying to watch them having to deal with their own children's tantrums. What goes around comes around as they say......

See you tomorrow x

Just buzzing by....

 Here's a card made with the first stamp I ever bought - $1 from Walmart! The hexagons are dies by Simonsaysstamp and the papers are by Authentique

this has been such a useful little stamp - I usually stamp him direct onto the card, then again on white card which I cut out and apply with foam pads - that way I don't have to worry about cutting out the antennae. The trail was doodled afterwards......

Oh dear, just look at this mess. It all started when I was looking for the bee stamp and I decided to have a big reorganising session. Animals and bees should live together I thought, but instead of finishing one job and moving on to the next, I was pulling out all the drawers in a sort of frenzy. Sigh, I never learn.......

and in the middle of all this mayhem, I decided to play around a bit and try some blending colours for the new Winter limited edition ProMarkers. This isn't a definitive list by any means, I just wanted to find colours in the same 'family' for starters.....

I'm not sure I found the right 'family' for Firewood (the brown marker), I may try again with that one, but it gives me enough of a guide to start using them - the colours are quite delicious don't you think?

Summer gave way to rain today, but at least it was warm rain. I overheard four people saying 'the garden needs the rain'. It's only been 18 days of sunshine for heavens sake, we aren't exactly turning into the Sahara Desert - whatever happened to an old fashioned watering can, or garden hose? Friends from overseas will be amused to learn that there is a new black economy here - electric fans are sold out all over the country, so they are being offered on Ebay for prices about three times above their market value! In the main, none of us have air-con here, we just open doors and windows and let the air in, and we don't have ceiling fans either - the great British summer usually means bursts of central heating when it gets too chilly, not things to cool us down! Still, it has been lovely, and I am thinking of snapping up a few dozen fans when they are back in the stores (which will be about February probably) and becoming a fan entrepreneur, the only drawback to that plan is that we probably won't have another heatwave for five years or so and I will get pretty tired of tripping over boxes of fans when I am looking for a bee stamp...

See you tomorrow x  

On the inside looking out.....

Another memory box window card, this time I did a scene from the inside looking out. Someone asked for product numbers of the dies, I'm afraid I don't have them, I just look online for Memory Box and Poppy Stamps dies, there are loads of stockists, but I find Simonsaysstamp is very good in the USA (they mail to the UK as well), and I have always had good service from Oyster stamps in the UK.  The window is called Grand Madison Window, sorry I can't be more help on this

I used acetate behind the window frame on this one, and the white panel was sponged in a random way with stormy sky distress ink. The tree is the bare branch die....

I made a little pot plant from a cut-down Easter egg die!

What good news about the new baby prince - I felt quite sorry for Kate yesterday with the whole world urging her to push! I posted on FaceBook that I thought they would go for a victorian name like Prince Albert. Cue for some horrified comments from my kids 'you are joking mum?' and 'I take it you are being sarcastic mother?'
Well no, I thought Bertie sounded cute - until they told me that Prince Albert is the name given to a male piercing of a rather intimate nature. How was I supposed to know that? Well, well, you live and learn. Loads of bets have been made on the name apparently, I am so pleased that I didn't go into a bookies to put a bet on Albert being the name. Can you imagine?
See you tomorrow x

New ProMarker Colours....

 I have been away in London for a couple of days, but look what was waiting for me when I got back. The brand new Autumn Winter Limited Edition ProMarker colours. I haven't opened the pack yet, but I love the look of the colours, they are subtle and look gorgeous. I will have a look at them tomorrow and see where I think they fit with the existing colours....This is a sneak peek of the colours, they are not even on the Letraset site yet.  

As usual, they have come up with some enticing names - winter spruce, solstice blue, firewood, sugar plum, red sweater, frosted lake, pressed leaf, hearthstone, trick or treat, sleigh bell, frozen lake, iced pearl

So we were enjoying the sunshine in the garden and I told Max and Milo I wanted a nice photo taken of the three of us. What I had no control over of course, was the expressions on their faces. Milo is resigned, Max is showing off his latest superheroes look, so there am I, smiling fondly, imagining that a wonderful family memory is being captured.......boys!!!

Kiki was delighted with the lei I took her, and garlanded herself with them - note that she is the only one who is delighted to have her photo taken.....

unlike her little brother Monty, who decided he didn't want a photo at all - his daddy used to do this when he was little, strange what habits are passed on down the line.....

So it's another day in the sunshine today, as we go to a birthday party lunch in a friends garden. Bring on the Pimms...See you tomorrow, when I will be back at my desk x