Lil pick me ups

I made these cards this morning after I had gruellingly killed myself at the gym and before I went out to lunch with Sarah.

I love yellow, its such a happy colour. The gingham and daisy patterned card is glittered which, of course, made it that extra blingy spesh!!Im in love with this birthday cake stamp which I printed three times and mounted on to borwn cardstock. I used my stickles brown glitter doofery thingy and added a swoosh to each of my cheeks before I went out to lunch, whilst I was at it. I looked hot!
The paper is made from a roll of wallpaper that I bought but thinking about it, Ill never use it all... will I? Anyway, its really pretty and embossed and perfect for cards - NOT WALLS!

So, my friend Sarah.......
Ive been friends with her for for a couple of years now and its one of those friendships where we can go for months without seeing each other and yet pick up comfortably each time we see other again without any uncomfortable silences. She does make me laugh! She recently bought a camera and two really good lenses the other week and my job today was to get her out of using automatic. To be honest the pictures she was taking were already pretty impressive but by fine tuning the intricate details of the essentials (like white balance and ISO) she was off to a flying start mastering aperture priority. Hooray for fast learners!
Im such a fan of her vision and Im dead envious she is going to CHA at the end of the month where she will suck up all the new supplies for her A. Mazing. Kit club. I remember her kit club starting not so long back with a few regular followers and now she has to ship in extra hands to pack them all and stack em high (it is an unbelievable operation of heights scaling floor to ceiling balancing acts in death defying proportions). Pizza box towers should be the name of her offices! Needless to say I had a good old root in the shop this afternoon after a lovely chinese dinner, coffee and apple crumbly. Have you seen the gamma stamps she has from Basic Grey? LUMMY!

I came home via Hobby Craft (dangerous mission but I only bought two balls of wool...... Im going to be making a beanie hat with a flowery flourish - more on that to come!) and into the arms of my midget dog, beautiful girl and my cricket loving man. And we all lived happily for the next 24 hours until something crazy happened (it hasn't yet but it will - oh yes!)

Randoms

Today has just been a mish mash or little things. Like tying up the odds and ends and all that jazz.

I went to see Ellie swim with the school lesson she has allocated every Wednesday. She and her BFF, Beth, are the only two students from her high school that get special time allocation for swimming. Im so grateful the school taught her to swim because we have never been able to do it (you know how kids DON'T perform for their parents). And you know, this is weird but no instructors in our area would teach her "one to one". And we had the money to pay for it. Still, she swam like a little tadpole and looked so strong. I snotted out all my tissues and wiped my happy tears at intervals. I am so proud of my girl - and her support teacher who actually fought for these lessons for her..... thanks Alison x

Today I wore a new pair of jeans. Jeans to fit my huge butt are hard to come by because I also have miniature legs. well not like 2cm long or anything. Its takes me forever to find the perfect pair and the other day I founded them. Trouble with this lens Im using it actually makes my legs look 3 miles long. Still, here is me in my jeans and slowly getting rid of the wobbles from training hard at the gym every am.

This was lunch. Can anything be so unnaturally orange (except for Jordans fake tan?) I adore Kraft Mac and Cheese and I can only buy it in Selfridges in the Trafford Centre. Whenever I am in the US, I stockpile it. Its so delish. If anyone knows any UK supermarkets that sell it, please please tell me :)

Hmmm, our hallway.
Let me tell you about our hallway. It is the hallway from hell. It is artexed with the most yuckiest bark-like effect and we have lived with that bugger for 6 years.
And its coming off.
Mark is a wreck from removing it, its taking for-frigging-ever. We are decorating the hall from a cream wall and beige carpet to a pale Juniper green wall with a plum carpet ... and ooooooh, get this - a plum patterned wallpaper feature wall. I mean - wooooooooo!

I bought this vase a few weeks in preparation for some decoration when the hallway is done. It was only £3! Im a happy little thrift buyer recently.

And that is the end of my randoms today. Im off out for lunch with Sarah tomorrow and who knows what will come of that except for a stuffed tummy and lots of crafty chatter xx

A bit o' Doirty Doincing

Said in best Oirish Oiccent.

Oh, I almost forgot...

I made some layouts with a gorgeous kit for Sarahs Cards last month.
All perfectly streamlined and together that I couldn't decide how best to use them. Rich golds and deep burgundies and strawberry pinks and oh! not forgetting the bling, the chipboard and the pom pom trim.
I still have loads left over and wanted to make more projects but time is stingy in this house so this is what I turfed out in the end.

This layout here features one of the very few pictures from my pre-married days. Ive promised myself Im going to scraps my time in the Royal Air Force; this being one of them. Its me, not fakeed up blonde and on a van. You might see it bigger if you click on it. Firefox allows you to do this, not sure if IE does.
You see the ripped buts at the top and bottom? They show patterned paper underneath? Well they are only strips and not a whole sheet - I mean can you imagine wasting a whole sheet of spotty paper? Hmmmm?Red Rock Canyon is in Las Vegas. It was a great day out between hospital appointments. Belle had a super day getting away from prodding and bloods.I think this "simples" (grrrrr, that bloody Meerkat ;)) layout below is my fave out the whole lot :)
A great way of using numbers.....
I dont normally decoupage to this extreme but the photo reflects a day we spent surrounded by thousands of wild flowers so you know - anything goes.......
I never realised it but I scrapped belle on three occasions in this session in the same outfit! This picture was taken before we went to Las vegas in the back garden - where she CONSTANTLY picks daisies. You might not see it but the top right corner is my fave little peeky bit :)
And finally the most dinkiest card i ever made - from scraps

I think there are only a handful of these kits left, so go and grab yourself a delicious serving HERE whilst its piping hot.

OH and also - I have a giveaway on my Patti blog over HERE

Lazy, chilling, dozing

We haven't had a Sunday like yest in a looooooooong time. Dozing, lazing, surfing, chatting - all in spits and spats.

Ellie and the dog in one corner, surfing and yawning. Yes, she is wearing boots with her jammies!Me and a creative photoshop magazine in another. Both in our jim-jams and unkempt hair. Mark went caching. But not in his jammies. He is up to 799 finds but he would have topped that if 3 of the intended finds had of proved fruitful.

I flitted in and out of my office as I couldn't be bothered with a full on crafting marathon. I just wanted to make something and then come and sit with my girl. Made lunch, made a card, sit with my girl. Hang out the washing, sterilise the kitchen and then laugh with my girl. Then made more stuff and come back and chat about "owt and nowt" with my girl. And of course cuddles and play fights with the dog and then oooooh ......another creative project.

Here they all are....one feels smugly productive and ahead of myself.





It was just a perfect, perfect Sunday.
Hope yours was too.

**Edited to add**
How could I forget what else "so wonderful" happened yest? Hmmm?
I had a layout featured in the BG newsletter.
BG. Even Mark knows what BG stands for. He says it will be the death of me. LOL.
Kelly Goree asked me a few weeks back to join the BG sketch challenge. I mean was I really going to say no? huh? Na-uh. So I followed the sketch as best I could (meaning: do I follow it detail for detail or do I add my own slant in hope that I don't get told off for not following suit.....sketches worry me a lot!). In the end I added and took away some detail and here is what I made.

Doesn't Ellie look a little beaut?
Im so excited I got to take part and with Kerry Lynn Yeary too, one of my all time favvos (both Kelly and Kerry Lyns links are in my side bar).

He is one hot dawg!

Cor blimey, we are having a bloody good summer thus far.
Good in the sense as in "its not raining".
Bad in the sense that you feel like you have to shower 40 times a day to stay fresh, drink what feels like the entire contents of a swimming pool (hell yeah, including people!) to keep cool and lay in bed without a stitch of clothing on and hoping that there is no call to evacuate the house in the early hours of the morning; thus scaring all the neighbours to death or worse, being harpooned because the RSPCA thought I was a beached whale.

This poor thing cannot get comfy. He sprawls all over the cool laminate flooring or in dark corners of any room to try and take respite in a less sticky spot. He gives us such pitiful looks and other than bathing in him luke warm water or putting ice cubes in his water bowl ...... whats the Wiseman family to do?

Mum, help me...Im so hotIm wilting, look........I can't cope, Im going to sleep it off with the fan blowing in my direction and hope to wake up to rain!

Today has been great. We went to town with belle to buy her a new book. Mark was desperate for a new pair of jeans and I just wanted to mooch. Before we went though, I had a quick card to make to give to Ellies sleep over buddy, Beth. Beth and Ellie were as good as gold last night, I didnt even know I had two teenagers in the house.
We gave Beth a handful of craft supplies (crafting is her favourite thing; wish that would rub off on Ellie!) and she loved her card. This was really quick to make and is a template for future last minute heart attack cards that I all too often find myself doing!

Before I go, I just wanted to wish my American friends a happy 4OJ xx

Will is my new hero!

Will is Rosies husband and he is my hero.
H. E. R. O.
You hearing that?
He recovered most of my files from the CF card that I lost last Sunday and today a disc arrived with images of which I thought were lost forever. There were some really precious pictures of my bro and sis on there and as I don't see them all too often; you can imagine how fraught I was.
Thank you so so much, Will (and Rosie).

There is not a great deal happening here other than trying to keep cool. We are having a wonderful summer here although its getting a little uncomfortable at night. The poor dog can't settle neither but I guess its better than rain so we have to muddle through :) Ellie seems to just come in from school, strip off as bare as humanly possible and lay in a dark room to cool down. She is not good with the light as it is which reminds me, we finally put a window treatment in the bathroom to stop the blinding light almost killing her in the morning. Our bathroom and her bedroom is south facing so it gets the sun ALL day so they are both bright and hot rooms.

I bought the fabric in Southport in Sunday after spotting it and thinking "That would look so lovely in our bathroom". I didnt have any swatches of colour with me....I smply knew it sowuld match. So I bought a metre and came home all excited about wizzing it up on my sewing machine. Admittedly, I'm not the bestest sewer (as in dressmaking) but curtains I can do. I even used to make my own swags and tails a long way back and I never used a pattern. Sewing curtains and frills are so so easy.

The bathroom is lovely and bright but its too bright for Ellie, poor love. This is the before picture: I did have a measurement issue for the frill (ie too long, forgetting we had a short window!)so in the end I just turned them into fake austrian blinds. Mark, I have to say, is mightily impressed and Ellie can now enjoy the tempered lighting. I have to say it finishes off the room a treat and Im so glad I didn't plum for painting it RED a while back! The blue and brown is such a welcome when i need a soak in the tub (which is hidden behind the door by the way, just in case you think I mean the sink!)

I went thrift shopping the other day and wanted to share these freaky looking tea spoons. Well, we are saying they are tea spoons but I think they are a ice cream sundae spoon. Do you know what they are? Bargain at 79p for 6 so they can stay teaspoony for now!

I also went wholesale shopping today for some odds and ends and came back with two more of these pretty little cuppies. Ellie and I only drink out of china cups (I hate mugs or pots - sorry!). I think its because its keeps the tea hotter for longer. I had bought two previously and I want to build up the collection for my cupboard. There are so pretty, aren't they?

And finally - will someone please explain my sudden and extreme liking for Soreen? Lathered in Lurpak of course but good grief, its hard to stop cutting a slice and devouring its goodness. I can feel my arteries clogging up as I type.

Well, back to drawing again. Im working on CD2 of Patti Picklicious and some A5 patterned paper pads for Christmas (yeeeks, did I really type that word?). Ive got a ridiculous deadline but then again, all deadlines are there to create mass panic!

Happy friday everyone :)

Frozen berries - er, hello?

Why have I never tried these before?
Im investing in some extra zing a ling in my life because its too hot to eat normal food and fruit seems to be refreshing and thirst quenching in an instant. I've read about frozen fruit being used in smoothies a while ago so we gave it a try the other day. Not only is it super duper cheap to buy but it wont go off neither so that gets the Wiseman thumbs up.I grab a handful of any frozen fruits (Sainsburys have a frozen fruit offer 3 bags for a fiver and you get TONNES in them), wazz them in a smoothie maker/liquidiser/blender with a fat free yog (those muller ones are pretty swish) and a smidge of skimmed milk. HELLO? This is a totally filling breakfast, icy cold, HEALTHY, cheap as chips and keeps that little hunger pang locked up til lunch.
The god of vitamins is sure to let me into his veggie garden when I leave this earth.
**feels tres virtuous and smugly vitaminny**

Got any smoothie recipes for us? No banana ones for me, those buggers make me heave.

Strange amount of blog visitor activity these past few days, can somebody enlighten me? ;)