Introducing Dylan

Yesterday, Holly one of our Schnauzers gave birth (by cesarean) to one little puppy.  Harry has named him Dylan.  Both mummy and puppy are fine and have no side affects from the operation.

Dylan   

Holly and Dylan 05.07.11

Celebration Cake

Well, it finally arrived - my 50th birthday!  I had a wonderful day starting off with one of my sisters taking me out for a champagne breakfast and then in the evening I had lots of my family at the house for eats and drinks!  It was lovely.  Must admit my head was sore the next morning, not the drink mind you, oh no, it was because I hadn't eaten much!!! Yeah right!

As usual I was totally spoilt and received lots of beautiful gifts, flowers, balloons and the most beautiful cake made by my niece Gillian.  Away now to start making the thank you cards!

Circle Journal Pages

Penny Black at Allsorts have their new challenge running.  I have added this project which are two 8" x8" pages I made for insertion into a circle journal.  It is very difficult to pick favourite Penny Black stamps as I love so many of them.  You are allowed to enter three projects so tomorrow I am going back into my den to make a new card for entering as well.

I had such fun doing these pages as it gave me the opportunity to use four of my Penny Black hedgehog stamps.  http://pennyblackatallsorts.blogspot.com/

Get Well Soon

This is the first day I have been crafting and blogging since my sad loss last week.  We need a Get Well card to send to one of our volunteers at work who unfortunately is not too good after an accident at his home.  I sometimes find choosing a stamp for a male card quite difficult but I finally decided on this Crafty Individual Owl stamp. Hopefully this will cheer him up!    Apologies it looks a bit squint but I think it is how I have scanned and cropped it.

Now back to the blogging, I need to see what new challenges are around!  I noticed the new Less is More for this week is running and the Crafty Individual June theme has now been posted and just as I logged in to my blog account I noticed my friend Siobhan has posted a wonderful Penny Black card on a challenge so might go and have a little look at that one as well!  Hopefully these will lure me back into my den so watch this space ......

A Sad Farewell

It is with deep sadness that we said goodbye to our wonderful standard schnauzer Charlie yesterday evening.  He would have been 14 next month and for anyone who is an animal owner/lover you can image how devasted we are.  We were given him when he was 13 months old, when he was a bit of a character and a handful to manage.  With lots of love and affection and without loosing the wonderful traits in his character Charlie became everyone's "friend". We had no endless amount of visitors who wanted to take him away with them as they left our house.  This is one of my favourite photos of Charlie sitting on the embankment in our garden where he used to love watching the rabbits in the farmers field.

                                               Farewell my handsome chap  x ....

Less is More - Butterflies

I have been trying to have a massive clear out in my den these last few days as I am so running out of space!  The Children's Hospice Association Scotland are shortly having a Craft Sale at the beginning of June so I thought it was an ideal opportunity to try and sort through some of the items I don't use for donating.  As well as that I had bought some lovely storage containers when I was over at the Yours Sincerely craft show and decided to store all my brads, eyelets and embellishments in these instead of having them dotted all over in separate containers within drawers etc.  4 hours later after methodically colour co-ordinating them I finally managed to achieve my goal and if I live to be100 I will never need to buy another brad again!!!  Anyway after seeing this weeks Less is More Challange I managed to find enough working space to have a bash.

I love this butterfly stamp which is part of a Penny Black set. 

As I have several birthday cards to make this week I also made this card from another favourite stamp of mine.

http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.com/2011/05/week-16-theme-butterflybutterflies.html

Flights of Fancy

I don't know where this week has goneI  Until yesterday I hadn't even managed to work on any new projects to post on my blog.  Last night with either the choice of Eurovision or Britains got Talent I took myself into my den to potter.  Hopefully this will make up for the shortage of postings during the week.

I went to a wonderful workshop in Perth last year where we were shown how to alter a square mirror.  I decided to try my own take on that project using a square wooden frame and the stamps in my craft room.   Lo & Behold most of the stamps I have used are sets I have purchased over several years "for rainy day projects" and I have combined the various stamps from these sets within this picture. I then restamped the birds/insects seperately and glued on top of the stamped image on the picture to lift and give a 3d effect.  I have finished these off with glossy accents to add dimension and protect the finer areas I have cut out.

Although you cannot see the full effect of the dimensions it is really very effective when looking at the real project. Away now to tidy up all the sets of stamps, etc.  Ps. Eurovision was on in the background whilst I was working away, it was better this year than in previous years.  I even found myself foot tapping away to Jedward's song aah!!!