Engagement Card

Good Morning Ladies,

Today's card is an Engagement card that I made for Paul's Niece Emma and her Partner Oliver, that got engaged in July.

It is quite a simple card to put together but looks really complicated, I used Stampin'Up! 'Detailed Floral Thinlits' (dies) to die cut a piece of Whisper White card, I placed the dies in such a way that they left a large enough gap for me to add the 'Congrats' Sentiment Die cut, which I cut 3 times and layered up, so that it really stood proud of the background.

I took a white card base and added a mat of Silver Mirror Card, I placed my die cut piece of Whisper white over the mirror card, then before adhering to the card I wrapped a piece of the Silver Metallic edged Whisper White ribbon around the gap that I left for my sentiment.  I placed the sentiment on top of the ribbon, then ties a bow and placed it sideways at the start of the sentiment.

I then used a Scalloped Heart die a to cut mirror card and then cut a matching plain heart in Whisper white.  I stamped Emma & Oliver's Initials onto the heart and layered the two together. I popped a tiny diamante Gem on the top of the heart and then added a few around the die cut areas.

This card could be used for so many different occasions, it could be used for Wedding Invitations too.

I hope you like the card. xx

We left our lovely cabin after breakfast on Sunday morning and started the second part of our journey up to Etampes, which is on the outskirts of Paris.

We had another relatively straight forward journey, the roads seem much quieter on Sundays, we were going to stop at a shopping centre at a town called Issoire on the way as it has a lovely restaurant and cheap fuel.  What we forgot to factor in was the fact that it was Sunday and Supermarkets in France either don't open Sunday or if they do that close at around 12.  Paul still managed to get fuel for the car but fuel for our tummies was off!  To be honest neither of us were that hungry as we ate quite a good breakfast and we had fruit and snacks in the car, so we decided to just travel on.  We arrived at our Hotel in Etampes at around 5.30pm, luckily they had remembered from last year that we needed a ground floor room as they don't have a lift and when I checked our booking 'Booking.com' hadn't passed on our request.!  We both showered and went for a look around for somewhere to eat. We were a little disappointed that the hotel restaurant was closed as it served lovely food last year.  The place also looked a bit tired and breakfast the following morning was very disappointing, for 11 Euros I expect a good variety, when I asked for some milk for cereal the receptionist bought me two of the little pots you get on the tea tray in your room! I politely declined and had some bread instead.  As we were getting in the car we noticed that it was no longer part of the 'Kyriad' chain of hotels, although they were still using their name on paperwork etc in the hotel, we usually book that chain as they are quite nice hotels with good breakfast at a very reasonable cost.

I think I will contact Kyriad and let them know.  

We left the hotel at around 9;30am to start our journey towards Coquelles (Calais) for our crossing home.  We weren't planning on stopping off for lunch as we were hoping to get there and ask for an earlier crossing as ours was booked for 8.30pm.   We only needed to take one 'comfort' break, but oh my goodness it is such a lottery! You never know what kind of toilet you will get, we have learnt to only stop at the rest areas with a Service Station with a restaurant, as the other ones that usually have a picnic area and a playground generally just have toilets that consist of two footprints either side of a hole in the ground!! It seems so behind the times but even modern toilet blocks have them, I guess its just the European way, sadly for me it just doesn't work, as A) I can't 'squat' B) I am generally wearing either trousers or shorts! (what are you supposed to do with them?)  C) My crutches create and extra obstacle!   

We stopped at a decent looking Service Area called 'Aire Centre of France' so I'm guessing that it is pretty much in the centre of France.  I kind of guessed all wasn't well because of the smell as we entered the Service Station, then as I entered the ladies there were a large number of Blue Bottles...…

I opened the Disabled toilet door to discover that somebody had decided to use the bathroom floor instead of the toilet (I don't mean for a Wee either)!! They had made an effort and placed a couple of squares loo roll over the top of it!  It was covered in flies too!  I almost lost my breakfast, my eyes were watering as I couldn't stop wretching,  (bare in mind it was 31degrees), a lady that was washing her hands thought it was hilarious!  The problem is for some reason none of the regular toilets had seats on, (another common occurrence) they are also very low.  I  tried but ended up just giving up, I just decided to hang on, it would have been more hygenic to pee up against the tyre of the car! 

We continued our journey stopping for some shopping at Cite Europe which is a large shopping centre beside the Euro Tunnel, we grabbed some yummy goodies for lunch and a few bits for home and decided to proceed to the tunnel check in, even though we were 4 hours early.  I asked in my very best French if we could possibly get an earlier crossing, I got excited as he said yes, my face dropped though when we discovered it was only about 20 mins earlier!  There had been so kind of drama, which caused a back log and all trains were full. 

This scuppered our plans, we were going to eat a proper meal at home if we got an early crossing and would just eat the baguettes etc for lunch while we were crossing.  

We ended up having to eat our main meal at the Duty Free shopping area, the choice …….Burger King or sandwhiches!  Neither appeal to me but we had no option.

As it turned out it was a good job we did eat as an announcement over the tannoy of the train advised that there had been an accident on the M20 causing both sides of the motor way to be closed!  We crossed our fingers that it had cleared but as we approached it was in fact roadworks causing the problem, we were directed (along with all Dover traffic including hundreds of lorries) along a route through tiny villages that must have wondered what an earth was going on, it took us a good almost hour and half to cover the equivalent of two junctions of the motor way.  Consequently we didn't get home until between 10:45 and 11pm.  Both absolutely exhausted.  Very glad to be home though.

Paul eventually climbed into bed at about 12.45am and was up at 5:30 to get ready for work.!

I hope that you all have a good day today.

Val, your day out sounded lovely, I bet you were exhausted though xxx

Michele, how did the class go? I was thinking about you all evening! xxx

Pat, sending you huge hugs my lovely xxx

Janet, how's the decorating coming along?? xxx

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra

xxxxx