A good week so far!

The main excitement for this week is that our garden has been done. Following on from the grand garden tidy and fencing installation we have now had the concrete path removed and the really bad flower bed and path filled in with extra soil and then turfed over to extend the lawn and smooth the levels down to the gate and fence. It looks so much better! Now I just need to get some plants to put along the fence (and do something about the one remaining dodgy flowerbed!) and we will be sorted. The weather has definitely turned more autumnal this week, with lots of wind and rain so Alex and I have been inside most evenings playing daft games of chase and he has discovered that he can climb the stairs, which is quite frankly terrifying! I am trying to teach him to come down backwards, but he hasn’t yet got that idea. Work has been busy but manageable with me having finished writing the 13,000 word review article (just need to get the reference list into the correct format) and submitted a paper on wound healing to an American Journal. My new PhD student started today and I had a really good and productive meeting with my boss in which we discovered that we are in complete agreement with what the priorities and goals are for the next few months and it should be a busy but reasonable work load which is a relief. Crafting wise I have had a lovely few days. I have discovered the Cuttlebug and was thinking about getting one for Christmas, mainly for the embossing folders so Kath (LazyKay) sent me lots of samples of card that she had embossed to play with. I have to say that I am completely sold...the effects are wonderful. I have already made 6 cards and will no doubt make more. For the first one I swiped an ink pad over the raised parts of the embossing to highlight them in yellow...this was a partial success as some of the yellow also went onto the non-embossed background, but it still looked OK. The image was one from a stamp swap on CM&PC coloured with watercolour pencils and sakura stardust on the wings. The second one used exactly the same technique, only wasn’t quite as neat and there were some big blodges which is why the dinosaur ended up placed in that position! Again, the dinosaur is from a stamp swap and coloured in with watercolour pencils. This next card was the result of a blunder...I tried to use the same technique, but with a bigger stamp pad and it really did not work...in fact it was a total mess and disaster so I decided to try brayering on the back of the embossed image instead and I have to say that I am really pleased with how well that turned out. The ribbon is from a box of chocolates we were given last Christmas! Having had such success with brayering the back of an image I decided to try brayering the front of the Christmas tree and it did leave a much cleaner look than just swiping an ink pad over the top. I then cut the tree out and mounted it on green card and added highlights with a sakura stardust pen (it doesn't show up on this photo). This certainly makes a very easy and different Christmas card. I then decided that I would try leaving some of the embossed card uncoloured for a potentially more sophisticated look. I am quite pleased with the effect that that creates, but am not sure about this card as such. The ribbon and plaque were free from magazines and the flower is from Angel Crafts. The final card again uses free paper and ribbon from a magazine and an image from Crafty Individuals alongside the cuttlebug embossed card. I think it is fair to say that I definitely want a Cuttlebug for Christmas, but I will have to see if our finances stretch to it. In the meantime, a huge thank you has to go to Kath for kindly giving me these bits of card to play with...I have had loads of fun. I hope you are all having a good week. More soon,
Love,
Caro
x