What a great day!

We had a great day today, when these lovely ladies came to visit (Thanks for the photo, Lisa!). From the left there is Jules, Lisa, Brenda, me, Meg and Lynn. We spent much of the day chatting, eating and drinking. There was a moment or two where we stamped and die cut too, but the thing we did the most was laugh! I am still smiling now! It was wonderful to chat to Ruth from 'A Passion for Stamps' using skype too. Brenda brought some of Ruth's stamps, manufactured by Tonic, and I stamped some before she left. I have to say how impressed I am by how beautifully they stamp. They are now top of my shopping list! I will make a card with them soon.
Finally, after everyone had gone home I got to see Mo Farrah and Usain Bolt make history, and Tom Daley get a well deserved Bronze Medal. All these Olympics have seriously affected my crafting, and thanks Brenda, for pointing out the attributes of lycra to me!!!

A lovely day

Yesterday Meg and I went to another Blog Girl day at Sir Stampalot. We met some lovely new people like Nikki, Lynn, and Tracy and really got to grips with our brayers, led of course by the lovely Brenda. Here are a few of my cards.

It is always lovely to meet up and enjoy a bit of social crafting whilst developing those skills, and trying new things. Thanks for a fabulous day!

A fabulous weekend

Hi There! Well, I have had a fabulous weekend. On Saturday we went to Sir Stampalot for another Blog Girls get together with Chris and Brenda. Here are a couple of my makes...

 This first one was one we did with Brenda using a penny black stamp. The flower was made using Tim's tattered flower dies and the melt pot.

This second card was done with Chris. The twisted easel used lots of mini stamps. I have quite a lot of mini flowers and I will definitely be making more of these! The flower was made using one of those quilling cuttlebug kits. I will show you a few more of my makes in the next few days. We took Lynne with us and met Lisa Jane there for the first time, along with Linda, Hayley and some other lovely ladies. Brenda had made us a lovely gift bag which you can see on her blog, and Chris had made us a beautiful bookmark, which I pressed into use as soon as I got home (Lisa posted a photo of hers here). We really enjoyed it and as usual came back with much lighter purses! I felt I'd earned some serious retail therapy after the past few weeks! The food was wonderful too, especially Chris's Cheesecake which was to die for...
Today I've been busy making  cards needed for the final few days of this term. Two birthdays and two christening cards.

 These two feature Kay Carley's Funky Flowers (Aspect's of design) stamps. The second uses paper from the Artylicious Essence of nature cd.

 I hope these fit the bill for christening cards. I've not made any for quite a while and suddenly got asked to make three.

Five more working days to go before we have a fortnight's holiday from school- whoohoo!

Get yourself a cuppa - it might be a long one!

What a busy few days we have had! First of all I must share the 'creation' that I mentioned in my last post that Meg and I had been working on...

 

This was Meg's outfit for a fancy dress party on Friday.

Next I want to tell you about the fabulous Blog Girls Day at Sir Stampalot. We had a wonderful day. Lynne, Megan and myself went to Peterborough for another fabulous workshop with the very talented ladies Chris and Brenda. We made some wonderful cards...

We chatted, got messy and had a really lovely time! We met some great ladies and so enjoyed getting to know them. It was wonderful to meet Zoe for the first time in person, although I feel like we have known each other for ages! I can't choose a favourite from all the lovely cards we made, as I love them all. A huge thank you to Chris and Brenda who make the day so special every time. A huge thanks from Meg too, ladies, as you helped her to achieve such fabulous results too.
I was going to share a couple of cards with you that I made during last week, but I will save those until another day.
Thanks again to everyone, including Janice and Andy who provided the perfect retail therapy I have been looking forward to since the dreaded 'O'!

Didn't we have a lovely day the day we went to Sir Stampalot!

Has that title made you sing?! Our Day at Sir Stampalot was fantastic! Chris and Brenda had created some amazing projects for us to have a go at. We assembled, we stuck, we brayered, we sponged, we distressed. In fact we had a fabulous time! We also ate some wonderful food and chatted and laughed lots! Here is the lovely album we created during Chris's wonderful workshop.

Inside it looks like this...

and it fastened with a really cool little magnet. I'm definitely going to make more of these. They could be for tags, ATCs, recipes, photos, and are great for using up scraps of beautiful papers.

The distressing project we did with Brenda was also wonderful, but I'm afraid mine isn't finished yet. I've got to admit I went for a wander around the shop at that point as I wanted to see if they had the things on my shopping list plus a few extras! Anyway, my next picture is of the brayering we did. I brought it home to do the stamping on it and finished it last night.

I also came home with three big and juicy pads including this soothing sunset one! I didn't spend all of my Birthday money... just most of it, and I'm sure you will be seeing the result of some of my purchases soon. Finally I'll share a picture of  some of the girls. Looking forward to doing it again!

A quick eye update: having not spent more than half an hour per day at the computer since Tuesday my eyes are feeling much better, but I'm still going to be good and carry on following orders until my next appointment at the end of the month. Thanks for all your lovely comments and support - I really do appreciate it!