Sunday 30 November 2008

Vomit!

Firstly, my apologies for not updating on Friday as usual, but things have been a little chaotic around here. I was away at a conference in London on Thursday and didn't get back until after Alex had gone to bed, and then we woke up on Friday morning to discover Alex had been sick in the night. Fortunately it was contained and he was quite happy and not ill at all during the day on Friday. This was just as well because I was organising a conference here in Sheffield on Friday (it was a success!). However, Alex was sick again during the night on Saturday, what a mess...every single cuddly toy ended up in the washing machine along with all the bed clothes. He was then fine until after his lunch time nap when we had projectile vomit all over both of us. He didn't have any tea and slept the night through without incident, but again he was violently sick after his nap this lunch time. Projectile doesn't really cover it! Yuck!...anyone who knows me well knows that I am not great with vomit, but I coped remarkably well with being covered in the stuff, if I say so myself! Needless to say Alex is on a restricted diet for a few days to try and sort him out.
Despite the occasional vomiting bout Alex has been happy and contented most days and we have been out in the freezing cold for a run around, planted the last of the spring bulbs, had numerous baths, been drawing together, playing with cars, turning my half of the study into chaos and generally having fun. You certainly wouldn't know he was ill to look at how he is behaving!
I haven't had much opportunity to do a lot of crafting over the past four days, but I have managed to make these inchie type things as part of Tim's Advent calendar. A number of years ago I made Tim an advent calender of little boxes and each year I struggle to find something new to fill them with other than chocolates. Earlier this year he asked me to make him some inchies and twinchies (2x2inch squares) to go round his computer monitor. He now has a number of these based on some of his Space games, but none based on fantasy which is the other type of game he enjoys. As he is particularly into dragons I made these, some of which are images taken from some of his role playing games. The other days will have other little things in them, including chocolates!
Finally I made this candle for Nel for Christmas. She loves elephants hence the theme of this. It was decorated with gems to add a bit of sparkle to it. I hope she likes it. Have a great week everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

Wednesday 26 November 2008

Busy again!

Well, what a week this is turning out to be! Work is very busy anyway, but this week has been concertinaed by conferences on Thursday and Friday meaning I have had to get loads done in the past few days. Alex has been on good form which has made the evenings great fun though and bath-times in particular have been hilarious, with me getting a thorough soaking as well. Alex’s language continues to develop and he spent about 30 minutes one evening repeatedly telling his toys to ‘come on’ which made me giggle. Sadly I am barely going to see him tomorrow as I leave the house at 6.15am and return 2 hours after he has gone to bed...I’m not looking forward to that! Although I haven’t managed to do much crafting over the past few days I have finally made my entry for the ‘snowman’ ATC competition being held on the CM&PC forum...not allowed to show it here until after the competition though. The only other crafting I have done is another page for Gran’s scrapbook. This one is of her Grandparents, and we think the photo was taken shortly after their wedding. The photograph (stuck down with repositionable glue) is actually a rather bad photocopy of the original Victorian postcard, which I will replace once I can borrow the original to scan in. I didn’t want to leave a blank page in the album for when I show it Gran hence putting the page together now rather than waiting for the photograph. The journalling reads 'Lizzie and Solomon Merritt were married on 1st July 1893 in Durley Parish Church. It is uncertain as to whether this is their wedding photo or whether it was taken shortly afterwards'. Comments welcome as always. Have a good rest of the week.
Love,
Caro
x

Sunday 23 November 2008

Cold and windy

It has been a very cold and windy weekend here... we even had snow on the ground this morning, although it was all gone by lunchtime. Alex wasn't sure that he approved of the cold weather, which as he has the same stinking cold as the rest of us was not that surprising. Despite that he was fine in the park yesterday for the first 20 minutes, until I wouldn't let him go in the extremely muddy and deep puddle on the field, at that point he decided enough was enough...if he couldn't do what he wanted to do he was going to let me know about it very loudly. The screams didn't stop until we got home 20 minutes later. Today I didn't bother going to the park...we went for a walk to the shops and then when we came home I let him decide if he wanted to play outside and he decided that the leaves were definitely worth being outside in the cold for! When inside we have had the greatest of fun playing with cars, chase, and extremely wet and splashy bath times.
Crafting wise I have been working on Gran's scrapbook as I really need to get it finished soon. This first page is of Gran's secondary school where she was from 1936-1941. The journalling reads 'In 1936 Joyce passed the scholarship exam to Itchen secondary school and was given a new bike. The weekend that war was declared, 3rd September 1939, the family were visiting cousins and returned home to find that the school had been evacuated to Andover. As Joyce wanted to complete her School Certificate she followed to Andover and was billeted with Mr and Mrs Sims, a lovely Methodist couple who made Joyce feel right at home. The house was a lot of fun and she has many fond memories of her evacuation period.'
The second page is of the next year of the war (1941-42) and the journalling reads: 'Upon leaving school Joyce joined Lloyds Bank in Woolston as a ledger clerk. At 17 she was promoted to No. 3 cashier and opened a sub-branch in Burlesdon once a week, travelling on the bus with the money in a Gladstone bag attached by a thong round her waist! She is pictured here with her friend Hazel from the bank. Air raids were now a regular occurrence and she had one very close encounter when, before she could get into the shelter, one of the planes diverted to fire on the air balloon nearby, guns blazing. She fell to the ground and the bullets strafed the edge of the path. In the meantime Les had joined the Home Guard at the beginning of the war and then joined the RAF - he is pictured here in his RAF uniform with the rest of the family.'
The final page will go opposite the last one in the scrapbook and the journalling reads '1942 all women born between June and December 1942 had to go into aircraft or factories as there was a shortage of vital war equipment so Joyce got a job with Saunders-Roe. Following her 6 week fitters course, which she passed with flying colours, she became an inspector working on Walrus flying boats, checking the emergency repair kits, the cables that worked the rudder and ailerons, and checking the pipes were clean. She had a promotion at 18, checking altimeters, artificial horizons and swung compasses instead. The factory finally closed early in 1946, and she went home and found work as a telegraphist in the Dock Post Office. Shortly afterwards Roy was demobbed and they became engaged.' The photo on this one is of Gran with all the other girls from the factory. I have many other stories of Gran's experiences during the war, but she has actually written them into a little book so I feel that I can get away with only recording the highlights here. I would love to know what you think. Have a great weeke everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

Friday 21 November 2008

Chocolate bomb!

It really did look like a chocolate bomb went off in our house today! We gave Alex his first ever 2 finger kitkat and look what a mess he made with it...he did enjoy it though! He had to be stripped off and thoroughly cleaned afterwards, but I have to confess I found the whole thing hillarious. It is definitely something to be saved for immediately before a bath and wont happen very often, but I don't think it does any harm to have a little treat now and again. Despite his cold Alex has been in a great mood and we have had a lot of fun playing chase, building towers and playing with his cars. He loves BBCs Strictly come dancing and we danced round the living room together today to the accompaniment of giggles. However, I am still feeling really rather rough due to this cold and I can't wait to get rid of it. At least it is the weekend now and I can relax and have some fun.
Despite struggling with motivation and energy I have managed to make a couple of cards. This first one was for the Cuttlebug Challenge which was a wax resist technique so I used Alex's yellow and orange crayons to colour over the embossed background and then sponged Adirondack ginger ink on top. When I saw the effect it reminded me of the reverse of a Giraffes patterning hence the idea of using the giraffe. Unfortunately the flash seems to have bleached the photo a little.
For the next card I used the cuttlebug onto metal and then added alcohol inks using a paint brush. The original idea was to leave the raised pattern uncoloured, but the alcohol inks run too much so that didn't work at all! Instead I sprayed over the whole metal with glimmer mist and then covered the two snowmen with holographic glitter glue and used the layout from Sketch Saturday to make the card. This also fits the Papertake weekly challenge which is to make a snow themed card and the cute card thursday challenge to use snowflakes..can you see them on here?! Sorry about the glare from the flash on this card. That is all from me for now so have a great weekend everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Breakthrough!

Well, although we are all ill again with stinking colds, which is very frustrating as I am still deaf from the ear infection, we have had a bit of a breakthrough with Alex. Since I stopped breast feeding a couple of months ago he has refused to drink more than a few sips of milk (other than in cereal) but for the last couple of days he has actually drunk over 1/2 pint each evening which is fantastic. Despite his cold he has been on great form and we have had loads of fun playing each evening with cars, bricks, his garage, making silly noises and singing nursery rhymes. His favourite nursery rhyme is Baa Baa Black Sheep as he keeps saying 'Baa baa' and expects you to sing...if you sing the wrong song he gets cross and repeats Baa Baa over and over until you sing it!
I haven't done as much crafting over the last few days as I have been sorting out my scrapbook pages of Alex and putting them all into albums in date order as I want to work out where I have got to with the story of his life and protect the pages. There are three books with extra pages full and I am only up to May this year! The crafting that I have done, however, is another page for Gran's scrapbook which is of the first time she met my Grandad when she was 10! The title is first encounter and the photo has them highlighted with hearts. The journalling reads 'Summer 1934 turned out to be a very important date in Joyce’s life. Her family were on holiday with her Gran, Aunt and family and met up with another family also on holiday, Mr and Mrs Morgan and their two boys Roy and Francis. Les and Roy became great friends and the families often visited. Little did Joyce realise that she had met her future husband. It wasn’t until 1940-41 when Roy was home on leave that he noticed that Les’ kid sister had grown up, and they played tennis and went to the pictures together. Not long before the end of the war they started making plans for their future together and were engaged in 1946 after Roy was demobbed.'
On a different note, I have been tagged twice by Sally and Crafting Diva and have to say 7 random things about myself. I find these sorts of things quite hard to do, but here goes:
1. I like the colours blue and burgandy
2. I am a softy who loves romantic musicals
3. I am a singer who loves Opera, but isn't good enough to sing it properly!
4. I love roast chicken with roast potatoes and bread sauce
5. I love reading fantasy books (favourite is Tolkein)
6. I enjoy curling up on the sofa watching television and eating junk
7. My Gran is the most fascinating person I know.
The 7 people I have tagged are: LazyKay, Julie, Jan, Chloe, Lottie, Anna & Frances. That is all for now, have a great week everyone!
Love,
Caro
x

Sunday 16 November 2008

Challenge Weekend

I have had a great weekend catching up with some of the crafting challenges for a change. Alex has been in a better mood, which has enabled me to have some time to myself after doing all the housework, shopping, washing etc. We decided that this weekend would be an unofficial birthday weekend for Tim to make up for how ill we all were last week, and so we have had a lot of fun watching silly movies and eating yummy food. Sadly Tim isn't well enough for a day trip out, so Alex and I have made the most of the sunny weather by spending time out in the garden playing with leaves, and out in the park. We have been outside so much that he has learnt a new word (coat) to add to shoes and hat...a great winter outdoors repertoire.
Now onto the challenges! This first card fits the cupcake craft challenge for this week of using spots and dots as well as the My time to craft challenge of incorporating a snowman into the design. I have highlighted the embossed circles and spots with my sakura stardust pen, and added white sakura glaze to the snow man to highlight him a little. I even added spots to the ribbon on this card!
Funnily enough both Cuttlebug challenge sites (Cuttlebug challenge and the cuttlebug spot) had the same challenge for this week, to emboss a die cut image and include it on a card. Well I only have one die cut and three embossing folders so this was a major challenge for me, but a very kind friend, Gill had given me some butterflies which were die cut and embossed using her Cuttlebug. These two cards both use one of these butterflies and will count towards this challenge. This first card is a classic black and white...I have never made a black and white card before, but am quite pleased with how this has worked out.
For the second one I tried brayering onto the embossing folder before adding the paper and was quite pleased with the effect. I then highlighted the embossed parts of the butterfly with a pink sparkly gel pen and popped it onto the flower.
For my final card I decided to see if I could meet the cuttlebug challenges with my own limited supplies, so I used the die cut that came with my machine (a stamp shape) and embossed it with the birds and swirls embossing folder, then coloured the image with chalks. I used this image as a stamp and then added postage marks to the underlying robin card to make an unusual Christmas card which also meets the Daring cardmakers brief to include a bird on your card. I would love to know what you think of these cards...have a great week everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

Friday 14 November 2008

Cakes!

We have had a hilarious time at work this afternoon. A work colleague, Lance, is leaving after over 10 years in our department so for his leaving do he decided to hold a baking competition. Now it should be explained that these competitions are taken very seriously in our department and Jane always wins (Lance often comes in second!). The competition was to make a Victoria sandwich (Lance’s favourite cake) although the rules were fairly relaxed. There were 9 entries (mine is shown above) and then everyone had to try a bit of all of them and choose the top three and rank them in order with the top one getting three points, the second getting two points and the third one getting one point. I have to say we all felt pretty sick once we had finished doing that. Then the points were added up. The fear is always that no-one likes your cake, but fortunately everyone got at least 7 points. The winner was Jane (again!) with 15 points, but I came in joint second (with Lance!) with 14 points so was really chuffed! It was great fun and there was much argy bargy and arguing after the event in a very good natured way, the perfect send off for Lance!
All the entries!
Having tasted the cakes, everyone waits for the scores to be calculated.
Totting up the scores (a very serious business)!
Apart from making the cake I have managed to do a little crafting in the form of some ATCs for the November techniques swap on the CM&PC forum. The challenge for this month was to make something that was entirely your own artwork, i.e not using any stamps etc. Well I don't draw or paint at all well, but decided that I would give this one a go. This was my first attempt based on a Christmas card painted by my mother over 30 years ago!
As I was quite pleased with how the first one turned out I decided to make all four of the swap ones along a similar theme. I would love to know what you think of them. Have a great weekend.
Love,
Caro
x

Wednesday 12 November 2008

Hats!

Alex seems to be going through a hat obsession at the moment. Unlike a lot of children he likes them, so much so, in fact, that whenever he sees one he wants to wear it - even if it is too small! This photo was taken just before bed last night, and yes, he did wear the hat to bed! He is still very tired from the virus we have all had and so has been sleeping much more than usual, however, things are definitely on the mend as far as he is concerned as he is now bouncy and lively in between rests and we have had a lot of fun singing songs, dancing to music, playing games of boo and hide and seek as well as playing with his other obsession...cars! His language is slowly developing as well and we have had a few more words added to the repertoire including filou (his favourite food), tea (which I always drink) and bowl.
I am not doing quite so well as I still have a really bad ear infection and am having to take loads of pain killers. I went to the doctors yesterday, but apparently they no longer give antibiotics for ear infections so I just have to wait it out and keep taking the pain killers. Rest and relaxation was advised, but with another PhD viva looming tomorrow there is no chance!
I have had a complete break from Christmas cards over the past few days and focussed on doing more of Gran's family tree scrapbook. I am now into her childhood and this first page is of her other grandmother, who she called Gran. She was so fond of her Gran that when she became a grandmother she decided she wanted to be called Gran as well....I think I would follow on that tradition myself if I ever have grandchildren as I am extremely fond of Gran! This page uses Hot off the press Heritage papers supplemented with Making memories rub-on letters, purple onion stamps and gold peel off crosses. The journalling reads 'Following her husband’s death Lizzie Merritt (1868-1941) lived in two rooms of a friend’s house in Bitterne. She was a wonderful Gran and her Granddaughter Joyce thought she was the ‘Bees Knees’. She was the Chapel keeper in Bitterne and one of Joyce’s earliest memories is of going to find her in the Chapel on Saturday mornings and being given a duster to dust the pews. On Saturday afternoons she came round for tea, and she always stayed with her daughter and family for Christmas, sleeping in Joyce’s bed. Joyce could never understand how Father Christmas knew she liked dates – a box was always found in her black woollen stockings on Christmas morning!'.
This second page is of Gran's memories of her childhood with images of the different games she remembers playing (although I think that the coloured rope on the skipping rope is too modern!). The journalling reads 'Joyce Holes was born in Bitterne in November 1924. Her childhood is full of memories of playing in the road with her wooden hoop which was hit with a stick and was not easy to control. She played hopscotch, marbles, skipping and dibs with her friend Kathleen who lived over the road'.
Finally, this page is of one of my Gran's earliest ventures into the world of amateur dramatics. She sang in choirs from the age of five until the age of 70 so it is nice to be able to commemorate that part of her life within this book. This photo was taken of her when she was 9. I cut the K&Co Christmas background paper to look like the curtains of a theatre and drew lines on in brown to suggest folds in the curtains. The tinting on the photo was actually from the original photo that she had as her suit was pink in colour. The title is 'Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?' and the journalling reads 'Joyce’s Dad, Alec, worked at Moorgreen Poor Law Institution and at Christmas the staff put on a concert for the patients. In 1933 the family had Christmas dinner at home and then cycled across to the hospital. Alec played the piano for the concert and Joyce, dressed in a Pierrot suit made by Mrs Wyebrow the cook, and armed with a silver painted wooden sword had to kill the Big Bad Wolf, Mr Bradley, the 6’4” master of the hospital. Then standing over the corpse she sang ‘Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf’. Both she and the patients loved it!' That is all for now, so have a great rest of the week everyone.
Love,
Caro
x

Sunday 9 November 2008

Not quite what we planned!

Poor Tim, this weekend hasn't turned out the way we hoped with all of us being ill...on Friday night I only got two hours sleep as I had the worst earache I have had since being a child...it was awful, and then Tim started with the fluey shivers as well. Alex has simply been very tired and grumpy...kicking up a stink whenever he didn't get exactly what he wanted, which is a sure sign of him not being very well either. He actually slept for nearly three hours this lunchtime compared to his normal 90 minutes.
Alex and I went to Robin's third birthday party yesterday which was held in the newly refurbished Endcliffe park in Sheffield. As the day was dry, the park was heaving with people trying out the new play ground. Alex seemed to like it, which was nice...we may have to go back again some day when it is quieter. Today we abandoned our trip to the park after only 10 minutes...it was raining and windy and we both got a bit fed up with it, so came back home instead. I hope we all start to feel better soon as I would really welcome having a day without a headache!
I have continued with Gran's scrapbook, this time with a page of her, her brother Les and her Grandma Holes. The papers are from Hot off the Press and K&Co and the stamps are from Purple Onion. The journalling reads 'Jane Holes (1867-1932) lived next door to her son Alec and his family. She wanted to be called Grandmere, but was known as Grandma Holes, and she often played Halma with her grandchildren. Alec grew potatoes, and when Joyce was little she didn't like new potatoes so she used to take her dinner plate round next door and have one of the peeled potatoes out of Grandma Holes' pot!.
Continuing with the theme of challenges, I discovered the Friday Sketchers challenge blog and decided to make a card using their sketch for this week. Their rules are quite strict about following the basic elements of the sketch so I hope that this qualifies as I have included the image, diagonal strip across the middle, the flower and the sentiment. As I still have a few Christmas cards to do, this used Christmas papers from K&CO, an angel kiss flower and Stamp and image from Crafty Individuals. As always I would love to know what you think.
Finally, I also followed the Cute Card Thursday challenge for this week which was to include either angels or fairies in your card. I made this card using the flower fairies decoupage for Katrina, who turns 5 this year. She has a little sister of whom she is very fond so this seemed very appropriate, especially as she is a very girly girl who loves pink and fairies. Let me know what you think of this entry, and all my craft work. I hope you all have a great week ahead.
Love,
Caro
x

Saturday 8 November 2008

Kaboodle Doodle challenge!

I will fill you in on our weekend tomorrow as usual, but in the meantime Sally has got me back into challenges again. The idea behind doing these is to challenge myself to try things I wouldn't normally do. Well today I did the Kaboodle doodle challenge which was entitled 'Christmas brights' . The aim is to use colours that you wouldn't normally on a Christmas card. I have to say I found this very hard and I hope that this is bright enough to qualify! More tomorrow.
Love,
Caro
x

Friday 7 November 2008

Long weekend!

Don't you just love a long weekend! I am having a four day weekend this weekend as we intend to spend all four days celebrating Tim's birthday. Fortunately I am feeling a little better and Alex is much brighter too, although still very tired. Yesterday I went shopping, wrapped his presents, made and decorated his birthday cake and generally sorted out the house in preparation for the next few days. Following on from the lack of hat fiasco with Alex last weekend, I trawled round the charity shops and bought another two hats for him in the hopes that we will always have one available. This was a success, as Alex then spent most of the day wearing one of them! Unusual child that he is, he actually likes hats!
We went to the park in the afternoon and had a lovely time playing chase on an extremely wet playing field and round the park itself...and yes, he did wear one of his new hats! In the evening we watched a very silly movie (Boy Rambow) and had a takeaway Pizza. Yummy!
Today we continued the theme of nice food with a trip out to our favourite Chinese Restaurant and completely stuffed ourselves! Alex was reasonably well behaved, if a little loud and even ate some of the food. We had Spring rolls, BBQ spare ribs, Crispy Aromatic duck, Jilian Pork (I think!) and lemon chicken with egg fried rice. All very very yummy! I don't actually want any tea tonight, although I know Tim will so we have smoked salmon lined up.
Alongside everything else I have managed to do some crafting, which is nice. Yesterday I made another scrapbook page for Gran's book. This time of her Mother, Annie. The journalling on this says 'Annie Holes, nee Merritt (1894-1978) was a full-time home maker after her children were born, looking after the family while her husband worked. She had a great love of the countryside whih she passed on to her children. They would go out to Durley on bicycles to collect primroses and would pick and name all the wayside flowers. She was a staunch Methodist who shared her husband's love of music and sang in the choir in the local Methodist church in Bitterne. She also crocheted and knitted, keeping everyone well supplied with hand-made socks. I am continuing with the Christmas cards at a steady rate, and this is yet another Cuttlebug embossed image (kindly embossed for me by Kath). As this was already embossed on holographic sparkly silver card, I simply added red gems, holly peel offs, a ribbon and mounted it on green and red. The embossed tree doesn't show up too well in the photo, but it looks great in real life.
I have also joined in with a challenge..on Daring Cardmakers the challenge this week is to use any sparkle or bling on your card. I guess that the previous card would also count for this challenge, but I decided to use the Santa image kindly cut out for me by Gill, piece on the red hat, colour his face with Whispers pens, add texture to his beard and moustache with a sakura glaze pen and sparkle on his hat with glitter glue. For added bling I put gems in all four corners of the background. This is completely different for me and i would love to know what you think. Have a great weekend everyone,
Love,
Caro
x

Wednesday 5 November 2008

Feeling awful!

Alex seems to be on the mend now, as although he is still extremely tired and inclined to fall asleep on the floor, he is much brighter and we have had much more fun in the evenings. His appetite is still not great, but it is improving, he even went to nursery quite happily today giving Tim a brief ‘Bye Bye’ and wave before diving into the toys. In contrast I seem to be getting worse...today I have had a temperature, a bad case of the shivers and fluey achy symptoms of not being able to get comfortable no matter what I try. I have been reading through another PhD thesis for viva next week and although it is interesting have fallen asleep over it twice because of being so ill. At least I have the next few days off work to relax in although I need to make Tim’s birthday cake soon. My main crafting project over the past few days has been to continue my Gran’s family tree scrapbook album. The final double page spread of the album will be this, which is her wedding. The text under the left-hand photo says ‘The start of a lifelong and enviable union that was loving, strong and fulfilling’ and is a quote from Gran’s brother’s speech at Grandad’s funeral. The journaling on the righthand page reads ‘Joyce Holes married Roy Morgan in May 1947. Clothes were on coupons so Joyce’s wedding dress was borrowed and because it was a bit short she wore shoes that her brother Les had had made in India. She had had to draw round her feet for a pattern and as a result they were a bit tight!’. I am pleased with how this has turned out and hope that Gran likes it. I have been introduced to a new Cuttlebug challenge site (the cuttlebug spot) which puts up a different challenge each week to join in with. This can be quite hard for me as I only actually own three embossing folders! This weeks challenge was to use a Christmas embossing folder (I don’t have one!) and a border punch (I don’t have one of those either) on a card. Fortunately, I still have some of the Christmas images embossed for me by Kath which I used on this card, and Gill had given me a ‘floral edge’ die cut which had been cut using the Cuttlebug so I hope that this card will now count for the challenge. I'm not sure that it shows, but I have highlighted the background embossed image with holographic gliter glue for effect. The ribbon was from a box of chocolates from last Christmas and the trees from Paper Company cardstock. I would love to know what you think of this card. Finally I have made a few tags for Tim’s birthday presents using extras from the decoupaged dragon and the Cuttlebug embossed hearts to match with his card. These were simple, but effective I feel. I hope you are all having a good week. More soon,
Love,
Caro
x