Finally Summer Arrived !

At last we have had a lovely summer's day !

Clear blue skies, warm breeze instead of a chill wind & a pleasure to be in the garden !

After swimming I spent the afternoon in the garden - first wading through months of old craft & scrapbooking magazines ripping out all the bits I wanted before tossing the rest into the trusty blue Carmarthenshire CC recyling bags ! Then I had a play session with my Cuttlebug - trying all my new Paperatsy Dies, new Bug folders & plus Nestibilities dies - cutting out a stash of shapes - ready for upcoming projects ! I cut & cuttled some metal to get ready for the Sunday Stamper challenge this week which is - you guessed it -metal!

I'm going to create 4 panels for my tissue box which has been painted but looking at me plaintively for some decoration for months !! Rich did the biggest crafting task of the day - a coat of Barleywood piant onto the new work surface for my potting shed to waterproof it !

Supper in the garden at 6pm before the sun dipped below the trees in the wood behind the garden rounded off a lazy summer day !

Sunday Stamp Challenge - Numbers

Hi - this is the first time I have entered a challenge !

I found Hels blog a couple of weeks ago & have lurked about without commenting or anything. I did make things with the wings & a letters themes of the past couple of weeks but not in time to take part !

This weekend I got my act together to make a stamped piece with the theme of Numbers. I used as outsized (8" long) chipboard tag, decorated with paints & inks. Then stamped with the PaperArtsy Clocks numbers stamps & coloured them in. Then some Viva Inkagold smudged over to highlight. I cut the No. 1 out of a grungeboard sample, used gesso & distress inks to colour & mounted it on burgandy card as it all merged in a bit too much without it ! I stamped the U R My No. 1 with HOTP alphabet stamps. Then added a fabric flower rosette with a hand made embellishment (mica cover baked fimo with a charm set in it!)

So my first completed entry for the Sunday Stamper Challenge !

Sanctuary Screen

Despite a night over in Cheltenham to see Calendar Girls (great fun - funny & sad too !) , I have got a bit of crafting done - project 1 was decorating the 3 panel screen I bought at the Artsy Crafty weekend. I used the new Hot Picks stanps and mixed them up with some of the others in the series.

I was worried about stamping the detailed stamp directly onto the painted wood - so used the sticky back smooth canvass for that part & the moths & butterfly panel. Think it has worked quite well with a fair amount of inking it in to cover the joins !

More on project 2 tomorrow !

Cooking & Crafting !

Just to prove that women are SO capable of multi-tasking, today has been a blend of cooking & crafting - oh and swimming 60 lengths, doing the washing & planting out lettuces !

I tried a new chicken recipe - chicken thighs with pineapple & chipotle chilli. It was supposed to be mango but I'm not fond - so pineapple it was !

I made the marinade this morning & left it to seep into the meat in the fridge all day.

It came out really quite tasty & I would make it again but maybe would crisp off the skin a bit.

Then I had decided to make Chutney to try to use up the Rhubarb that is going mad in the garden - I found a recipe in my new Preserves book which suggested adding shredded tangerine skin - have you ever tried to de-pith a tangerine ? - well the tangerine may have been orange but the air was blue !!

I decide to go with a 50/50 mix of dark brown & golden caster sugars to get a nice balance of sweetness & a deeper colour. Oh & I thought that spicy would be good - so added a couple of chopped red chillies & a couple of inches of fresh chopped ginger.

So it's now made & successfully bottled - Lakeland's Jam Funnel's are the real deal !!

Now I just have to wait 3 months to see how it matures up - so come back in September !!

Whilst the chutney was cooking, I was nipping back & forward to my craft desk to make up the perpetual calender & wooden bird I had bought at the Artsy Crafty weekend.

I had decided to base the colour scheme on the Wisteria & Pistachio Kaiser paints, added in a bit of Distress Inking, a spray of the new Crafty Notions matte white paint spray (a little goes a long way - all over the desk & everything on it from a couple of tiny squirts !!)

Then I used the Ding Dong Paperartsy stamps to get the Time theme & numbers - Pro-markers proved very effective to colour things in !

I also got to finish my Scrap Club challenge.

We each had to draw a template on the theme of "A Day in the Life" which had 1) 5 photos, or more, 2) 3 different papers, 3) a pocket & 4) a fabric flower .

Then we swopped all the designs & were given someone elses to make up as a page.

I decided to do the Day as the Saturday from my Artsycrafty weekend - I took photos on the day, asked a couple of the other girls to take some of me & then used a lot of the scraps & leftovers from the weekend to make the page - plus a new stamp and a grunge flower adaptation !

All in all I am quite pleased how it turned out !

Crafting but not Blogging !

Poor sad neglected blog ! One minute it was March - then up crept Easter, a fantastic spring holiday in sunny Ras Al Khaimah in the Emirates & somehow May rushed past and still I hadn't blogged !

Happily I have been crafting ! A full album scrapbooked about our holiday and a wonderful inspiring time at the Artsy Crafty weekend - as usual we tried lots of great new products, fun inky & painty messy techniques in lots of brilliantly put together colour combinations !

Here's some work in progress !

Something From Almost Nothing

Great news - a new Shimelle class - and something geared at stash-a-holics - how perfect is that ! I am so relieved to know that it's not just me that has an addiction to buying "stuff" ! So many girls from round the world seem to have the same problem - far more stash than we can ever get to be creative with ! Hoping that Shimelle's new Something From Almost Nothing Class will inspire me to use up some of my copious amounts of papers, ribbons, buttons & use my stamps more creatively - so watch this space for the rest of March !!

Snow Boys !

My sister sent me these great pictures of my nephews making snowmen back in January - just had to make a page for my scrapbook !