A jewellery phase?

So this phase I'm in now is about making jewellery. I used to make earrings, and sold them on Ebay, then for some STUPID reason I gave all my beads away!! Luckily I kept my tools, and this week I decided to buy some more beads and make a few bits and pieces.
They are all for sale... so if anyone is interested, leave a comment :D
Any of the ear wires can be swapped with sterling silver wires, but this will incur another £2.

 Bracelet and silver plated earrings set - £6, plus P&P.

 Beautiful beads - Burgandy "moon" glass beads, amethyst silver lined Japanese Toho beads, pink Swarovski crystals, tibetan silver spacer beads, and glitter glass Stardust beads. 

 Childs silver plated charm bracelet - £3 plus P&P.

Tibetan silver charms and a Swarovski crystal, a Stardust glitter glass bead, and Japanese Toho Beads.

 Bracelet and silver plated earrings set - £6 plus P&P.

Gorgeous sapphire blue Swarovski crystals, dark blue glass faceted rondelle beads, AB clear Swarovski crystals, clear silver lined Japanese Toho beads, tibetan silver spacer beads, Stardust glitter glass beads. Very pretty and delicate looking. 

All come with an organza bag.

A Photographer in the Making.

I seem to be using a lot of greens/blues in my layouts lately.

This was a day out in Godmanchester by the river. Matthew is using the camera he got for Christmas, to take lots of photo's. He is a good little photographer and took over 200 photo's this day!

I used K&Co Kazoo Kids for the paper, and the Cricut E for the cut out shapes and text.

Lot's of scrapbooking this week.

I've had fun this week creating lots of pages. Here are two more!! 

 The above page is showing two of the houses that I've lived in. The top one is where my dad now lives, and as you can see on the page, I lived there from 1974 until 1988. The house at the bottom is the house that I currently live in. I've lived in one other house, and I'm sure I've a pic of that somewhere... that house I lived in from 19966 to 1974. Papers are Daisy D's and Creative Creations.

 For this page I chose a photo I liked of Matthew with Justin, over Hinchingbrooke Park (is there anywhere else?!). I used a mix of papers from K&Co Mira and Blue Awning, and a few bits cut out on the Cricut. The "With Dad" are letters taken from the To the Moon kit by Fancy Pants. Other elements cut out from a Nitwits collection called, I think, Into the Meadow.

He's getting big!

 My Grandson, Elijah, this summer. Created with papers from an old paper pad from K&Co. I made the little kite lol :D. Isn't he gorgeous??!

Below is a page all about my crocheting. I used the freebie papers from the months Scrapbook magazine. I also crocheted the little cream doilie. 
I love Shaun the Sheep! I got it as a free pattern online, but can't remember where... but I'm sure I listed it on here somewhere, I'll have a search for it... I love crocheting Amigurumi animals, they're so easy, crocheted in rounds. I'm making a snowman at the moment, slowly...

FOUND IT!! Click here for the free Shaun the Shepe crochet pattern.

100% Boy!

 I've got this weekend off work, and so far have had a lovely day! This morning we had a full english breakfast in Sainsbury's, then it was to the market where I bought some more card... the market stall is only there on a Saturday, and I'm normally at work, so it's nice to get to have a snoop round the stall. 

This afternoon, after I watched football with Justin, he went on the computer, so I went up into my lovely little craft room and came up with the scrap page...

I scraplifted it from this months Scrapbook Magazine.
I fell in love with the bright colours and the business of the page... I strive to make ALL my layouts like this, but fail miserably, lol.

I used Fancy Pants To The Moon collection kit for the papers and some of the embellishments. I used my cricut for the wheels. The 3D train at the top is from a little selection of baby embellishments someone sent me years ago, and the robot on the right hand side was with a little selection from the 99p shop!!

I absolutely LOVED making this page.

A little bit of crochet.

I bought a new teapot this week, together with mugs, milk jug etc as a matching set from Wilkinsons. I love it! I realised when I got home that I needed a tea cosy, so set about making one... the white one, then I made another one, the pink one, lol... then that got me into my crochet again, so decided to get out the double bed blanket, and I finished it!!! 56 stripes in total, two rows to a stripe... over 28,000 treble stitches!!!!! I love it that the sides got right over the edges of the bed. I started with a chain of approx 250. I got the idea from Attic24 - link over there on the right blog list. I'm now making Matthew a single bed granny stripe blanket... I wonder how long this one will take??

The first three photo's are mobile phone uploads, so the picture quality isn't that good, and then there's the two photo's of the bed blanket. The colours seem richer in real life.

See my tea cosy crochet pattern at the bottom of the post... my first attempt at writing a pattern...  

So the tea cosy pattern. It's basically two sides sewn together. I have written in in the Rest of the World terms, not US.

This is for a 6 cup tea pot.

Hook size 4.5mm

Chain 30.

Row 1. Skip first stitch, then dc into the rest of the stitches, chain 3, turn.

Row 2. Tr into each stitch, chain 3, turn.

Row 3. Tr into each chain space, chain 3, turn.

Keep going until you reach your desired height for your teapot. I personally continued in pattern for 11 more rows. 

You will need to crochet/sew the sides together, leaving a gap for the handle and the spout. I then made a chain of 100 and weaved this through the third row down from the top and tied it... 

Still Life.

My cousin, Mandy Disher, takes the most fantastic photo's. Click here to visit Mandy's website.

So... trying to copy her style (hahahaha, yeah, don't fall about laughing after you've looked at hers and then come back to my effort... it's my first attempt!!) I cut some rosebuds from the bush in the garden, and "arranged" them in the glass vase. Fiddled around with the computer stool/chair, the back window cream curtains, and various exposures, and came up with this... with added textures of course!!

But then... I thought it looked bit stuck on, so here's another attempt!!

Photo for today.

Today's fiddle with textures and Paint Shop Pro x3 produced this. I really like it...

Just love this one...

Alas, this isn't mine...

I snagged this photo of my friends cat from her facebook album... His name is Albert, isn't he gorgeous?

I had a fiddle with some textures etc in the brand spanking new Paint Shop Pro Photo x3 which you can download a free trial by clicking the link above. I've got the purchased version and I love it! You still get the full version for 30 days in the trial version.

So anyway, here is the gorgeous Albert.

Here are a few more photo's that I took at the garden centre, all are available to purchase via the redbubble icon at the top right of the page. I wouldn't mind a couple of them on canvas myself!!

 

Photography.

I have loved photography ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper. My first "proper" camera was an Olympus OM10 35mm SLR. I loved it! Photography had to take a back seat for many years, but my love of photography never dwindled.

6 or so years ago Justin bought me a digital SLR, my Canon 400D. I'm still fancying that lens that I mentioned here the other day... but I'm leaning towards a macro lens now...

Anyway... today, I went out for the afternoon with Amanda, a friend that I've known since starting infant school many moons ago. We were debating where to take our camera's, and ended up settling on a garden centre!! What a fab place to take lots of photo's of flowers! There was torrential downpour while we were there, so it's a good job we hadn't gone to the park!

Here's a few of the pics that I've been fiddling with, adding textures to etc. The top one was taken in our garden.

They are available to buy - without watermark and larger, as a card, laminated print, matted print, framed print... see the RedBubble icon at the top of the page.

Twinlakes part deux.

The second page is now complete... To the Moon by Fancy Pants papers used. 

Today I purchased some of the new Christmas Forever Friends stuff by DoCrafts. I love it! The A4 die cut pack is fantastic, I can't wait to use it... but Matthew is upstairs in the craft room hogging the desk creating his own Christmas scrapbook page.

 

A little bit late...

...making this one! It's a page with photo's from when we went to Twinlakes last June! I received my fab scrapbook kit on Monday. It's from Fancy Pants, and called To the Moon. I love it, it's very bright and colourful. I enjoyed making this page, and I need to make the right side as well. I have printed some of the Skegness photo's today, and might do a couple of pages of those tomorrow. 

We have booked a holiday to Skegness Butlins next June, for four nights. I've been reading reviews for Butlins... not all that good, but most people only write a review if they're complaining anyway... oh well, there'll be plenty of things to do. Matthew has £35 saved up for it already!

Hunstanton??? NOOOOO, Skegness!

The day started well... all of us up early, in a good mood, looking forward to a great day out. We originally were going to Hunstanton, but then showed Matthew Skegness on the internet and he said we could go there instead. 

Matthew had a bath, Justin a shave, and I straightened my hair... then disaster! Half an hour before Justin's dad and step mum were due to arrive, water began pouring from the header tank out onto the patio area by the kitchen. Justin will be the first to tell you that he's useless at anything to do with DIY. Luckily, his dad isn't... 

Steve (Justin's dad), turned off the water and went up into the loft and said the fault was the ball valve was kaput. Weird it should go all of a sudden. Anyhoo... on the way to Skegness, we made a quick stop at Homebase and picked up a new ball valve, and headed off.

Skegness is brilliant! SO much to do! Unfortunately we only had about 5 hours there so didn't get to do too much. Matthew loved it there! 

First stop was Harry Ramsbottom's fish and chip restuarant. Lovely!!! Then we went into the amusements, Matthew likes the 2p falls thingies. After that it was onto the pier, then icecream - I really shouldn't have had that being lactose intolerant... I felt ill until I got into bed that night after that! But the icecream was GORGEOUS! It was whippy icecream and the cone is filled with icecream... mmmm... but I did suffer afterwards, lol. After the icecreams, it was on to the beach and we all, except Steve, had a paddle in the sea, it was really warm. 

Matthew, Justin, and Steve, then had a game of cricket. Then it was onto the gift shops to get some rock/fridge magnets etc, and along the sands back towards where we were parked, but first a drink and a final play on the sand. We then had another go in the amusements then a quick nip to the loo.... 20p it costs to go to the loo in Skegness! Silly me didn't realise that after 6pm the turnstile on the exit bit was left open, so I needn't have paid that time... 

We got home around 8.30pm. Justin and Steve went up into the loft and fixed the ball valve... which was a bit touch and go because the bit it had to fit too had corroded quite abit. After that, it was Frankie and Benny's... lovely as usual, and we got home around 11pm. Joan and Steve went back to The Marriot, Matthew watched Thursday's Eastenders, and then we all went to bed at half 11.

Today we were woken up by Matthew at half five this morning saying that the bathroom was flooded! For some reason the cistern had allowed more water in and the overflow pipe had leaked, lol... plus we saw a damp patch on the bedroom ceiling, which we think was caused by yesterday's disaster. We still have no idea why the cistern did what it did, but it didn't do it anymore.

We went to Bury St Edmunds today to visit Justin's 2 aunts, 2 uncles, 2 cousins, and Nan and Grandad. Everyone was really lovely. We'd go to one of one of the aunts and uncles bungalows... the other pair live opposite. The bungalow had a lovely garden, with a fab veggie patch and greenhouse. Matthew had a laugh with his great Uncle Stephen, and great uncle Mark's chocolate labrador. Mind you, it's the wives of those that are Stephen's (Justin's dads) sisters... 

Matthew's Great Grandad gave Matthew £20!! He's putting it in his holiday fund... next year we're staying at Butlins!

Home by around 6pm, all worn out... Joan and Steve then had to drive to Devon... 

Here's some pics!

 LOL @ my hair! 

River... not a great title for a page!

Today I made a page with some photo's taken from a day in Godmanchester (there are more to come! Well, one more anyhoo!). This is a place called The Rec to us locals. It's a very pretty place, and has lots of weeping willow trees. 

I used a mix of papers - K&Co's Mira, and Blue Awning, and a Fancy Pants Beach Bum flock sheet... some Prima flowers, and some jewels.

The colours seem to be very strong in this photo... I took three photo's of it, each with different modes on the camera, and each looked different...

Tomorrow we have Justin's dad and step mum up from Devon. We are going to Hunstanton, Matthew loves the rock pools there. Sunday we're off to Bury St Edmunds to meet Justin's grandparents for the first time - that's me and Matthew meeting them for the first time, of course Justin has met them!! :) 

Sunshine and Love. Oh, and cake!

Last night I created another page from the day out in April at Hinchingbrooke Park. I know it seems that that's the only place we go to... well we don't go to many places lol!

I've fallen in love with a camera lens... It is a Canon 85mm f1.8. If you look on a blog to the right of this page, Slugs on the Refridgerator, the lady on there uses this lens... I want it!!! Click HERE to see the lens. 
Today, Matthew is off school as the teachers are on strike, so we made a cake. It's got almond extract in it... tastes like a bakewell tart lol.

 Before Matthew decorated it...

Don't you just want to stick your finger in and get that bit of jam off?!
...and after Matthew decorated it.

  
Showing off "his" creation!

 "Oops, jam on my finger!"