Is it summer yet?

Feeling all Summery?
Nah, me neither, so it honestly lifted my spirits to see Daring Cardmakers
challenge this week. Don't know about you, but nothing says 'Summer' to me louder than finally getting my flip flops out, so naturally I made a card using a cheeky lil pair of my fave footware :-)

And because I was so inspired by the idea of sunny skies (...and also because I'm off to the Canaries on holiday myself very soon for a bit of much needed sunshine and sangria...) I made two cards on this theme! Get me!


I also spotted a summery looking little bargain on my shopping trip to Hemel yesterday, tho i'm sad to say I found no nice holiday bits to pack, even tho I looked very very hard! What I did buy was this brill set of acrylic measuring cups in the pound shop - absolute bargain, and even better as they match my kitchen's lime green colour scheme :-)

This is actually really good because I've found I'm always having to bypass great recipes if the ingredients are measured by the cup or half cup - being a bit dim in this department I personally having no idea what that relates to in ounces etc - but hey! No more! My handy little set here will do me for many a year I reckon - and all for the princely sum of 99p!

I've also been playing with the robo a lot today and cutting lots of mats and frames out - as is evident on these latest cards. Oh the fun i've had poking all the holes out... I just can't tell you, you must try it for yourself... ;-) but I like the result, so I guess it was worth the time. And mess!

Hmmmm what can we say?
Roll on summer eh?
Happy days to you all whatever your weather

is it any wonder I get nothing done?

365 Cards:- ..."find inspiration in modern styles..."

Ok, I freely admit i've taken a bit of a licence here.... ;-) Definitely nothing classy or stylish about this tongue in cheek card - but I do see it as contemporary.... - ok, at least of modern design then, lol. And I've sort of scraplifted Kristie's design too, just turned it on it's side, and more or less followed the plan :-)

Anyway, it's impossible to do anything with the pup in here..... Look at her!!
I'm trying to write at my computer... and she's having none of it...
"Sausages Mum! Play sausages! C'mon!"

She's under my feet, under my chair, nibbling scraps of paper and blossoms on the floor, worrying at wires... she's a proper nightmare.

The only way I can get a picture of her at all is to use the 'sport' setting on the camera. And even then they're blurred - because she's a blur!
love her to bits tho... She's my baby :-)


til next time, take care and thanks for popping by my blog :-) x

and there's more!

Guess what? More snow! This was completely unexpected as the good old Beeb got it wrong again... but we woke up to a white world Monday morning, and then it went on to snow pretty much all day. I was thrilled, as you might imagine.

Fortunately, or rather, unfortunately, I had more to worry about as I'd been awake most of the night with the mother of all colds which hit me like a ton of bricks and left me very tired very fed up and very very sorry for myself this morning. I've felt rubbish all day, and even without the snow I could never have gone to work. I just felt too damned ill. Anyway, Carlos has now brought me home some meds and ultra balm tissues and while I feel no better in myself, it's nice to know he cares enough to go back out in the snow to get them, bless him.

So I haven't been up to doing much today. Basically just rested as I was so knackered, but I did make a card later, based on this week's CPS sketch, # 155.



I keep thinking about making a layout but somehow it never happens, I think if it does it will have to be in a different size, I just don't have room to store any more 12 x 12's!

Hope to feel better soon, take care all til next time

Is it too late to hibernate?

Blooming weather! I'm fed up of being cold, and I can't wait for my holiday. Totally given up on trying to lose weight for it tho - it's just not the right time of year to starve yourself is it? Today I baked a lovely crusty parmesan and tomato loaf, and we had that with huge bowls of spicy turkey and spinach soup... real stick to your ribs grub!

I'm stll tweaking the old pc after yesterday's operation, but it wasn't as painful as I expected. The new XP sp3 went on fine, although we had to completely format the drive instead of just fixing the prob as we'd hoped. No matter, i got rid of a lot of junk and it's running faster now, but I lost ALL my address book in the process, along with all my links and fave's which for some reason didn't save :-( Just saying, so's you don't expect any funnies from me... not unless you mail me first anyway lol.

Haven't had much time to craft, tho you'll notice i've played about a bit with the blog. That black background was doing my head in!

I did makea couple of little cards today - One for Card Patterns, Challenge # 52

And another quickie based on the challenge over at The Sweet Stop - Think Spring!
It's kind of hard to do anything with a 5 month old puppy constantly scrabbling to get on your lap tbh, and this little shadow is never far from my side since she discovered the stairs... honestly, my craft room is tiny enough as it is and now i've had to move a bed (and half her toys)in here it's even worse!

Anyway, hopefully more tomorrow. I've got a bit of a cold and don't feel so great so it's bath book and bed for me I reckon.
Til next time...

Total Blowout!

Dear Dear... overeaters anonymous, please contact me, I think I need your help. Ate the mother of all meals tonight... and you know what? it was deeeeelishious!
Seems I am in a rebelious mood. Take note those that need worry.

Two cards today, but it appears I get lazier by the week as I've done nothing else, shame on me.

DCM, Winter Birthday card theme:


Very simple but it's actually quite sweet irl.

And one that I made for my stash of 'might need one days':


On this one I used some of katie's doodles, check out her new designs on the lilypad, she's always got something fab on the go.

My Bargain of the week?
This mini spidery tripod - makes photographing cards so much easier! Guess how much it cost?


99p! Gotta love those pound shops eh?

Pray for me tonight pls, got a man coming to wipe and install a new OS tomorrow... Talk about jelly legs! I'm terrified!

Can you say Happy New Year... in Chinese :-)

Finally got to use the new stamps!
But I haven't really had much time to play today, as apart from it being Chinese new year, it's obviously also Valentine's day, and I do have a honey or two to think about...

Actually tho, i've had a lovely day. Our treat was to see Avatar, which we absolutely LOVED! and boy do I want one of those swishy tails... and erm, I have to say, I want it now! Carl thinks it's so funny that I was completely fascinated by the tails all the way through the film... but I just thought it really clever how they managed to convey how the Na'vi character's were feeling by the activity of their tails... and I don't think that's particularly funny at all. Having owned cats all my life, i'm used to judging their mood by their tail movements and have managed to avoid being mauled many a time by an aggravated cat just by watching for that angry flick which comes nano seconds before the strike lol :-) Any cat person will tell you that!

We've also cooked (and scoffed) a massive roast beef dinner and very naughty gooey brownies.. yum yum... and drunk wine, lots of wine, and well... just done the whole valentines thing, as you do ;-) xx

But I managed to squeeze in time to make one little card. It's a Happy New Year one for the Chinese New Year, which incidently, this year is the year of the Tiger.

The translation for these words comes from Google Translate which is a fab lil tool to have around


and the card itself was inspired by papertake challenge #34

Cherish the rest of your valentines day - and remember to enjoy yourself... as the old song says...it's later than you think ;-) xxx

heart to heart

I've been having a heart to heart with myself this morning. Giving myself a bit of advice. If I was a friend i'd give me a kick up the bum, because God knows I need it. Hopefully some part of me will have listened, and by tonight the mess all around me will have been (at least partially) sorted into some order and I'll be able to move and find things again. I can't use the Robo, I can't use the cuttlebug... even the scanner's buried... it's a disgrace and so am I. How does it happen? No one sets out to deliberately sabotage themselves do they? No one thinks "right, if I just dump all this crap on the side I'll bury all the important stuff and then I can have all sorts of fun searching for my new stamps/best scissors/ paper piercer/ heat tool...."

I mean, I can't even SEE my cuttlebug! It's not like I lost a pair of tweezers... I lost a whole MACHINE for God's sake!

But I'm on it. I am.
I am really really ON IT today!

On a teeny lil corner of my desk... the only part that's visible... I managed to make a card for Daring Cardmakers heart challenge. It's here



And these babies are what I'm going to reward myself with later when all the trash is cleared and I can actually USE them! It's Chinese New Year tomorrow, but we're celebrating it on Monday so I have a little time to make something hopefully. Depending on how the big tidy up goes of course!




Have a great day guys whatever you're up to
more from me tomorrow - I hope! lol :-)
jkxx

what a week!

Just after publishing my last blog post - a week today, I lost all internet access. Sat on the phone for hours with very helpful BT people in India, 4 different ones to be precise, to no avail. No internet for me, although the broadband signal was allegedly fine... no wireless access for Vin, no Bt vision TV for Carlo, or indeed anyone in the family. This went on for days. My pooter whizzkid buddy couldn't find anything wrong either, tho Bt insisted it must be a software issue. We checked everything. Tried re-installing windows over the top, but obviously couldn't connect to download anything useful. What a palaver! Eventually decided to order a new Windows disc but even had trouble there as I refuse to buy Vista because of all the probs people have had, and let's be honest, Windows 7 is too new to really know... so it was Windows pro sp3 I needed, and can you find that anywhere...?

Actually, you can. In germany of all places! Anyway, after all sorts of fannying around transferring everything to an external HD, suddenly it all decides to play nicely again!! Grr! I'll still install the new disc when it comes... but honestly - it probably WAS BT all along! How damned annoying. I wasted all sorts of time... blew several gaskets... I could go on, but you get the picture I'm sure.

Anyhow. I'm back. Back with a card for CPS #153



and a pic of the gorgeous (huge) bag of cream and white antique lace and broderie anglais I inherited yesterday! I feel a few LO and cards coming on using some of that!



Happy weekend everyone, thanks for popping in.
jkxxxx

whatever came over me?

I always enjoy the challenges on Daring Cardmakers . Friday's my day off so I usually spend some of it crafting or doing something I like to do, and the last couple of weeks i've popped over to DC first thing to check what the new challenge is. This week the theme is 'Amethyst' so I decided to go with the colour and teamed it with lime and soft teal as I like the combi. It's a real detraction from my usual style but hey ho, give it a go is my new motto.

Not sure who'll end up with it tho - it's awfully girly for my lot! They've also got a FAB giveaway going on.... and wouldn't I like to win it lol! They've teamed up with Craft Obsessions to give a Martha Stewart Butterfly Punch and Stamp set as a prize, so pop over and scope the rules of the draw if you fancy having a go yourself... but please don't win it! Coz erm....I wanna do that! :-)

Ok, here's my frothy card:



have a fab weekend everyone, hope the sun continues to shine on you all
thanks for popping in
jkxxx

minus 10...

Yep, that's me. Minus 10lbs. Lost since my D day on the 4th Jan.

Go Me!!

Don't worry tho, i'm not in any imminent danger of fading away... there's plenty more where that came from more's the pity. But it's a good start. All I have to do is keep it off and keep at it. Wish me luck with that then ladies.

Just one lil ole card today. This one for the 365 challenge to use a large heart on a card. This'll do nicely for my anniversary card for Saturday. Carl will either not notice that i've cut the heart out on the music paper upside down... or be far too polite to mention it... Doh! Why didn't I notice it til I scanned it! losing my sight as well as going senile now.... ye gods! is there no help for me?



Anyway it's late and i've had a long old day
Hugs to all, maybe more tomorrow.
Hoping to use some new stamps I have my paws on!

thanks for coming by
jkxxx

funny how things change

It amuses me how much I enjoy making cards these days. I mean, I never used to make cards. I couldn't understand why anyone bothered to. I know that sounds totally ridiculous, but all I can say is, I was stupid. I was even a little bit snobby, like I thought people who scrapped were somehow better than card makers...

"oh no", I'd smile, "I don't make cards..."

"Noooo... I'm a scrapbooker see, it's what I do..."

Honestly...! What a plonker!! Of course, I'm embarrassed now.

But don't despise me - because people change. They wise up. And I love making cards so much now that the truth is I'd rather make a couple of cards than a page any day if I happen to find myself with little spare time. That might have something to do with the fact that I have a gazzillion pizza boxes crammed full of layouts that no one ever looks at tho, to say nothing of the dozens of bulging albums getting dustier by the day on my groaning shelves. Also, I absolutely can't afford new products, new papers, or new anything, but with all my old stuff kicking around and a few odd scraps of ribbon I can make a nice card without breaking the bank. I'm not saying that i'll never scrap again... it's just that right now i'm having more fun with something else - and isn't that what hobbies are supposed to be all about?

So, two today for this weeks ColourQ challenge. This is another challenge site i've just found and I like the look of it - love me a bit of colour, I do!

The first one I took a bit of a liberty with... so I made another to comply a tad more :-)

The butterflies wings actually stand up, but you can't really see that in the first pic.



And this is the other one. It'll probably be my anniversary card to my Carlo, as we're celebrating 23 years this Sat... or is it 24...? we can never make up our minds!





Thanks for popping by
jkxxx

Eeek!

My hols are looming. Not that I don't want to go, it's just that i'm starting to panic about the thought of exposing myself to the elements out there looking like I do. I've a nice comfortable padding at present which has been invaluable this bitter British winter with all the cold and ice etc.... but for the Canaries in March? Not much call for a muffler and overcoat out there I fear.

The time's come. I have to drop some pounds, fast.

Don't laugh....I've bought these.




Very cheap on Amazon (£15 for the lot), and i'm just going to have to make myself do something every day. That, a diet, and lots of walking - it's all got to help eh?

I'll let you know how I get on....
wish me luck.
jkx