Things are on the up!

Well for a change there has been some good news this week. Firstly, Alex is back to his usual cheeky self, the ulcers are gone, he is eating properly and he is as lively as ever. He went to nursery today for the first time in two weeks and had a fantastic time apparently doing a collage...it was too wet to bring home so I will show you all when we see it. We have been having fun in the garden in the evenings, enjoying the dry weather. Secondly, I heard that I have had a successful grant application and will be able to employ another technician from January for 18 months. I am so pleased as these days it is so hard to get a grant from anywhere and although it isn't a big grant it is still based on my ideas and was funded.

One good thing to come out of Alex's illness is the fact that we made the decision that it was time for me to give up breast feeding. When Alex had ulcers he couldn't feed anyway and so I just let things continue from there...in a way I miss it, but it was getting to be difficult and being bitten is no fun, so this also counts as a positive in my book. Finally, I had a day off today to do nothing but crafting (except watch an hour of TV with lunch) while Alex was at nursery and it was bliss! This is only the second time that I have had a day to myself since he was born and I loved it, although it was still strange not having him yelling and chattering. I finished off lots of swaps, got presents for various people packaged up and ready to go and generally got organised. Wonderful!

I have continued with my vintage scrapbook with this page featuring my Gran (Joyce), her brother (Les) and her Mum (Annie) on the beach at Swanage in 1928. This page is a mirror image of one I did a little while ago of the two children with their Dad...I hadn't realised that I had this photo from the same holiday at the time so they now match and make a nice double page spread. The overall title is 'Precious Memories' and the journalling reads 'Annie, Les and Joyce sharing a cuddle on the beach at Swanage 1928'.

I have now completed the altered postcards for the swap organised by Linda Brunton on the CM&PC forum. For this one, which the author titled 'In thoughts of you' I added the cupids, dogs, pile of boxes, gramaphone, music and hearts.

I ran out of postcards featuring people so this next one is a Canaletto painting of the upper reaches of the Grand Canal in venice and I thought it would be fun to add speed boats to the canal, and then thought of the idea of jet planes which transfered into the red arrows and then there was a gap in the bottom left corner so I put the girls on the jetski in there. It is all very silly but I hope people like it. The final postcard was a landscape by Claude to which I added lots of stickers of zoo animals, gold edging and corners and thought of it as a scene picturing an escape from a zoo. I have to say that I have found the landscapes harder to alter than the cards featuring people. All these postcards have been backed as before and will be sent out tomorrow. I have also been on a card making bonanza using Penny Black stamped images from a swap on the CM&PC forum (I don't own any Penny Black stamps-yet!). I coloured all the images in using water colour pencils and then mounted them on the cards. This first one is for Julia's daughter Chloe who turns one on Saturday. This next one is for Julia's son, and Alex's playmate Robin who turns 3 later on this year and who loves all farm animals. I don't have anyone in mind for this one, or any occasion so an appropriate greeting will be added to the bottom right hand corner when I make that decision. Similarly, this card will just be added to my stock selection and used at an appropriate time. I would love to know what you think of these as I haven't made any cards in ages!

Finally, I thought it was ages since I had made some ATCs for swapping so I made these using flowers I pressed a couple of years ago, a stamp from Creative Expressions and covered them with mat protective transparent sheet. The reason I have never used these pressed flowers is simply because it is too difficult to protect them on a project, but now I have discovered the transparent sheet (from Joanna Sheen), I will probably use more. That concludes my crafting bonanza and I would love to know what you all think. More soon,

Love,

Caro

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