Our 35th Anniversary..

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies,  

Welcome to the start of a new week, this one starts on a high for me as we celebrate our 35th Wedding Anniversary today.  There is not a day goes by that I not grateful to be married to my Best Friend & Soul mate.  

Paul is working so we aren't doing anything today, apart from having something  ice to eat later,  we are going to have a weekend away when I am feeling better.  He is working from home though so we do get to spend the day together.  

A fun reminder,  fun graphic too 😄 

Today I am sharing the card that I created with the assistance of ChatGPT.  I uploaded a couple of photos and explained what I wanted to say etc,  the Coral colour represents the 35th Anniversary.  I matted the printed piece onto a narrow coral border, then I added a narrow metallic mat for a bit of shine!  

I am going to have a go at Sonia's tutorial and practice using ChatGPT  so that I can get the most out of it.  The first images I tried to create had ChatGPT putting someone elses face on Paul's body 🤣😂!  

I hope that you all have a good day,  

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx

A look back at our makes this week

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

A very gray and gloomy day here yesterday,  there was a local festival 'Rissifest'  on yesterday,  the girls wanted to go and have a look,  the problem was I was feeling terrible,  Lucy has what Soph has had for last ten days so she felt unwell,  Soph was back at work yesterday and has just got a nasty cough left,  she rang on her way home from work, excited about going,  Lucy and I dragged ourselves to get ready,  had I known that the only thing they were interested in and excited about was the bloody Plant stall !!!  I had tried to manage their expectations but they have a positive thoughts only vibe.  We got there, saw it was going to cost us £25 to get in,  had second thoughts,  Paul and soph went to see if it was going to be worth it,  sadly there was no plant or cake stalls and very little of anything,  they said there was van selling pizza slices, another doing jacket potatoes which I wouldn't have minded but Paul said it was £8 for potato £2 for cheese, another £2 for beans or coleslaw,  so it was a no,  other than two food vans, there was a donut wagon a bar and a band on stage.  The clouds were very dark and it was very windy,  so we came home,  Soph was a little deflated,  I explained that for £25 she could buy a nice plant or two!  🤣

I was relieved to be going home,  I had been up since 3am with the worst Uti symptoms,   it broke me down,   I was holding on to every scrap of hope that the Uromune was working.  I believe it was the Bladder instillation that caused the flare up.  I had to call 111 early morning, got an appointment at urgent care,  the nurse was shocked at how fast it lit up and said that I hit the jackpot!  (I had everything I shouldn't have lit up ) !  After a bit of to-ing and Fro-ing, she gave me Nitrofurantoin for 3 days,  to last until surgery was open.  

Anyway lets cheer things up, I love sharing your makes.....

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Here is a card made from various different cut out some from Stamperia, and some from chat GPT, although didn’t do too well with that this time. A lot of fussy cutting.

Lilian your card is perfectly Autumn!  I love all of the colours,  your shading makes the oranges and greens 'pop'  

Thank you so much for creating a lovely card for the challenge XXX

Maria

Maria's Description:

My card for Sunday is : Summer.

My best days as a child were to get on my bike, well as long none nicked it of course. 

I made a background by embossing a piece of patterned paper and then cut it in half. Attached it in opposite corners and then used a stencil to fill in the middle. I then used this summery bicycle picture, framed it by using some dies. Put some drills on and did a bit of splatter in white.

(Most of my desk and arms were covered tho 😂)

My other season is winter. What's nicer than a nice cold, sunny winter day. So that's a crystal art. 😊

Sonia

Sonia's Description:

Here’s a couple of Christmas cards I’ve made. Hope they’re ok to be part of the Seasons challenge - Winter

I used ChatGPT to create the images, backgrounds and sentiments.

I inked edges with Gathered Twigs distress ink. Added some sparkle gems, a Memory Box snowflake die cut and some little punched snowflakes 😊

I had to zoom in on your snowflake,  its so beautiful,  so much detail,   the gorgeous gems at the points of the snowflake look like you have placed them there, like they are 3D 

I zoomed and screenshot the image so youcan see the details.

Your adorable polar bear Christmas scene is as lovely as anything you could buy from any of the big designers.  

Thank you so much for sharing your amazing designs with us my lovely XXX 

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I hope that you all have a good Sunday,  

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra xxx 

It's Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

Firstly I'd like to bless you all with all of the above 🤣😂😘

I hope that you are all well and relaxed and ready for the weekend.   Our plans changed,  no Anniversary weekend away this week,   sometimes things just aren't meant to be.   We did still go to Farnborough,  Paul offered for us to stay somewhere nearby but A) there wasn't anywhere that was interesting enough to make a weekend of and B)  After a somewhat painful Bladder Clinic visit my bladder was sensitive overnight and throughout the day but after a trip to toilet in the afternoon I had the most agonising bladder spasm,  iit bought me to tears,  I am keeping everything crossed that its just a flare up caused by yesterday's treatment,  I asked her to dip my sample and she said it was ok,  which makes me hopeful,  either way it would have been miserable to be struggling with that pain after spending money on hotels etc.  

Now onto Farnborough show,  in all honesty it was a let down,  luckily we got concessionary tickets so paid £12 for both Paul and I,  I would have been furious if I'd spent £12 each,  there were way more sewing stands than craft,  there may have been 10 proper craft stands, you know its bad when even Honeydoo aren't there as they attend every show,   apart from Card io and Sweet Poppy stencils most other stands had those big bins of naff bits that you have to rummage through,   there wasn't any card selling companies,  in fact it's quite sad when you think back to some of the company's that used to be at the shows,  Clarity, Lilli of the Valley,  Pin Flair, Pink Frog, Anna Marie Designs plus her husband's paper stand, limetree,  Crafters Companion,  indigo Blu,  Stamps Away,  creative expressions, Gummiapan to name a few,  there was always a real buzz of excitement around the exhibition halls, I overheard a conversation at the Dies to Die for stand about the problem they had with theft,  at the last show they lost £400 of stock to theft, which on top of the cost of exhibiting at the shows meant they barely make a profit,  which explains why companies don't bother I guess.   Which is such a shame as there is nothing like seeing the craft demos and holding the actual craft products in your hand.  

My Shopping 

That's it,  crazy compared to what I used to get !! 

I did go onto Charmed Craft and order the Poem and Flowers Stamperia collection to compensate! 🥰😍

Sonia's Shopping 

Sonia had a much more successful Shopping spree than I did,  I think you must have bought most of that before I arrived Sonia!!   I can't wait to see what you create with your lovely haul.   

This reminder needs NO explanation 🥰😍😘

Not sure what our plans for the weekend are now 🤔,  it will depend on my bladder I guess.   Our village has a festival on today,  so all being well we may visit that,  Lucy and Soph are both suffering with flu symptoms, so they won't want to go,  I'm hoping they keep it to themselves.  

I hope that you all have a lovely Saturday,  

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

Autumnal Colour Butterfly card

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies,  

I can't tell you how relieved I am to get the Blog back to 'normal '  it must have been a blogger glitch.  I know I don't have a 'big' or far reaching blog, but it's my baby and means a lot to me as I have explained before,  I truly believe that if it wasn't for this blog I wouldn't be here, it came along at a low point of my life where I was isolated and lonely.   I wanted to give other people that might feel like I did a place to come to talk to other like minded people.  I made myself make a commitment to posting every day, which gave me a purpose,  the 'purpose' I had lost when I lost the ability to leave the house on my own.  

The blog gave me the excitement to get up and read comments every day,  it also encouraged me to craft, which I find therapeutic,  it occupies my mind on a lonely day and sharing what I create gives me pleasure.  I hope that what I do will encourage you to get the craft stash that you have spent good money on and use it.  I also want to create a space for anyone that feels lonely.  

The hugest benefit I have had from my blog is the most incredible family I have gained ❤️ 

So when I couldn't get the blog to work on Wednesday I will admit I did panic,  I sat from about 6pm until way after midnight trying and retrying to get it to work,  I forgot to take my BP meds in the turmoil 🤣 which I hadn’t realised until about 3am when I could feel and hear how fast my heart was racing!  I felt fairly ropey when I woke at 6.30,  no time to catch up on sleep though as I had bladder clinic!!  

I think we are all definitely stronger mentally than we give ourselves credit for 🥰

Todays card is made using Arden Wicked Woods paper pad for the background,  I created a kind of spotlight over the centre butterfly by adding a frame cut with my new 'Craftaddiction' square dies,  I then fussy cut more butterflies to add to the frame to make the frame part of the background.  I added a little sentiment button to finish. 

I hope that you all have a lovely Friday,  Paul is finishing work early so that we can go to Farnborough today,  we aren't sure whether we are going to Paul's mums at the moment,  Paul is calling in the morning to see if his Mum back from his Sisters. 

Sue, I hope dentist goes well,  you are much braver than I am,  I hope it doesn't cost too much xxx 

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

Autumnal Butterfly card

Good Morning Ladies  

I seem to have an issue with my blog, its not allowing me to upload any photos, either on here or on my laptop.  

I have Bladdet clinic today,  which isn't the most exciting way to spend a Thursday but I do get to spend the day with Soph so thats a huge Bonus.  

I will continue to try and solve this issue,  it's really frustrating me as you know how much my blog means to me.  

Thank you for you patience,  

Love and hugs 

Sandra xxx 

Fun messy craft project

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

A much cooler day yesterday,  a bit wet and gloomy too.  I did a bit more in the pantry,   Lucy was feeling like helping so I only did a bit,  everything takes so much time,  I have bought new storage boxes for the different pasta shapes,  different rice varieties,  flours, different sugars etc.  I was really frustrated to find that a new bag of flour that I bought had those bloomin' weevils in,  I had it stored with two other flour bags (luckily different to all other powder like ingredients) as the weevils had moved into the seeded flour and Canadian bread flour and into a bag of rice flour!!  So I obviously threw all of those bags away, washed out and dried all storage boxes ready to restock,  the problem is how can you check the flower before you buy it,  from now on I will be opening it as soon as we get home to check it and if it has an infestation it can be put to one side and returned,  however I wouldn't buy from the same place as uf it was in one bag it will most likely be in other bags on the same shelf.   Things like that make my skin crawl. 

You are all loved beyond measure ❤️   such a pretty page today 🥰

After an hour washing out flour storage boxes I needed a change of scenery,  so I decided to sit and craft,  as I sat down I noticed a Tim Holtz leaf on the floor by my feet, I must have die cut it and coloured it last year and put it with my Autumn things.  

So I die cut the full set from watercolour card,  I used Tim Holtz watercolour pencils to add colour to the leaves,  I then took a wet paint brush and moved the colour around the leaves,  adding a bit more colour,  to add so lovely sparkle I spritzed the leaves with Distress Spritz spray...

You can see the lovely sparkle/ shine here. 

For the background I spritzed some of those Distress Spritz sprays onto my ink mat and dipped my card background into the ink and heat dried. 

I added some random stamping around the background,  mounted it onto a Kraft card base and added some splatters of brown ink. 

I added my coloured leaves that i edged in Ground Espresso Archival ink and arranged them across the card front.   

I was unsure about adding a sentiment,  so I have taken photos with and without I love the phrase that I used .....

"Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the Autumn Tree.   Emily Bronte. 

I hope that you all have a lovely day,  not much planned here,   Paul has suggested going to visit his mum this weekend,   he did say that we could go to Farnborough for a couple of hours on the way 😀   We will have to see, it depends on his work commitments etc.  

Sending love to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

I am pleased to say,  it's back !!! 😀 🤣😂 I got up and had breakfast,  did a few jobs ( I was meant to be finishing the pantry reorganisation) but I wanted to sit and create,  I ended up crafting for a while then doing about 15 minutes re-organising then back to crafting.  The problem is when it comes to tea time I have to rummage through all the different boxes and bags to find ingredients,  (i bagged/boxed things in groups like 'tins', baking, spices) Lucy is home today so she will help me finish it off.  

A lovely colourful reminder today, a good reminder too,  it doesn't matter what it is that we need to change, it's always okay,  nothing is ever really set in stone, you just need to what makes you happy 😊 😘

I really enjoyed sitting and making this journal page yesterday,   I used my Stamperia Golden Harmony collection,  it features some lovely Autumnal artwork,  not all 'obvious' Autumn,  although there are pumpkins etc,  there are elements like the suitcase I have used today that are all in Autumnal colours and tones.  

I used a piece of patterned paper to create the background,   I added some stamping and a few splatters for some extra detail,  it also makes the background your own.   I fussy cut the suitcase and the long tag to create something to 'ground' the suitcase on,  next I fussy cut the pile of books and and the teacup,  then came fussy cutting the little postage stamps!! What a frustrating faff that was,  they aren't perfect by a long stretch but I inked them and placed them behind the edge of the case,  some fussy cut flowers finish the page.   I popped the sentiment on top of some more fussy cut flowers!!  (Fussy cut is the word of the day 🤣😂)

I really like the Autumn colours of this page. 

I hope that you all have a great day, 

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx