Snip Snip!

I have finally had my hair cut after 8 months! The situation was getting desperate...it was all falling out following Alex's birth, looking really thin and straggly and the split ends had to be seen to be believed. 6 inches shorter and it is a new me. I can't decide whether I have gone a little too short as it now has a series of waves that it never had before, but it will grow eventually and in the meantime is looking much thicker and better. We had a busy day yesterday...Alex is booked in for nursery and our deposit is paid which means that the place is held open for him whenever we want it, the house is tidier, my hair is shorter, the washing was done, I took Alex for a short walk in the sun and made a card.

A very sleepy and grubby Alex...carrot all over his clothes!

Today we went out for a family pub lunch to The Sportsman, which is 5 minutes drive from our house. It is a real old fashioned, traditional English pub serving non complicated pub food. Tim had fish and chips with the biggest cod you have ever seen, and I had lasagne, salad and chips. For desert we shared a rubbarb pie and custard. Yummy! Alex was awake the whole time and was a complete star, playing with his Octopus and gently chatting away. Tim has always been hesitant of taking Alex out for lunch, although I have done this many times, so I think it surprised him how good Alex was and how easy it really is. Hopefully this means that I will be able to persuade him to do it again soon!

The other treat for today was a parcel of crafty goodies that arrived for me: 4 Adirondack ink pads, a paperartsy stamp, a pack of wedding stickers, and a rubber brayer. Time for me to play I think!!

I have recently discovered, thanks to other peoples blogs, the joys of challenge sites. The only one I have previously used has been Pencil Lines for scrapbooking sketches, however, I decided to look at some of the cardmaking ones. This card is based on sketch number 23 on the Sketch This Cards site, and is for a friend who's baby girl is due next week. Funnily enough this card also meets the challenge for Wednesday Stamper, although it doesn't use a single stamp, as this weeks challenge was to use stitching on a card (real, drawn or stamped) and two of the papers I used have stitches on them. Isn't it great when you can do a 2-in-1!! I am really pleased with this card and hope that Zoe will like it.

I also had a bit of a play today with my new stash! I used the resist technique with stamps from the Stamps Away range and Adirondack butterscotch ink pad to generate the background for the main panel of this card. I then stamped some hearts in gold (versamark), then stamped two more hearts in red (pretty colour) and embossed over the red in pearl gold (the red shows through), and added a little of the red to the card by dry brushing and lightly sprinkled some pearly gold embossing powder and heat set this before adding the wedding stickers. Finally I edged this with red ink. This whole central panel was then matted onto red patterned card, before adding to the white card and inking the edge in red. This is a new set of collage techniques for me and I am thrilled with how it turned out. I would love to know what you think.

Love,

Caro

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