Sunshine and Showers

I don’t just mean the weather which has been very mixed this weekend - bright sunshine one minute and drizzly showers the next. Alex is so tired that he is happy one minute and crying the next. It gets to the stage where the poor boy doesn’t even know what he wants so there is very little we can do to help him other than cuddle him. Despite that we have had some fun this weekend. Yesterday morning we did our usual weekly shop followed by a ride on the ‘singing truck’, then games in the garden in the drizzle and howling gale, which he really enjoyed. He also had fun playing inside with his racing cars. In the afternoon we went to the park, but tantrums were in full swing about something…don’t ask me what, so we didn’t get any photos, although he did calm down eventually and have a nice time. I think he must have slept better last night because in general his mood has been a lot brighter today, although he has still been inclined to say No a lot. We went to the local Fire and Police Museum this morning which was great fun. Although we fully anticipated that Alex would enjoy climbing up into the fire engines he was very determined that he didn’t want to! He did enjoy running round and pushing the pumps and working the wheels of some of the hand pumps instead. I must say that he got rather confused about the exhibits and didn’t understand why various models of fire engines were stuck behind glass where he couldn’t play with them, but apart from that he enjoyed his ‘Fire Engine Venture’. This afternoon we went to Endcliffe park again where he finally got the idea of feeding the ducks, cheering whenever he managed to throw some bread into the water and clapping when the ducks actually ate it. It was still a case of one piece for me followed by one for the ducks, but he really enjoyed himself! He also had a fantastic 15 minutes bouncing like mad on the bouncy castle which made him laugh no end. A much happier afternoon and much more successful trip out than yesterday. How lucky am I? This huge parcel of JustRite stamps arrived from the States yesterday - my prize from a random lucky drawer on CPS website. These stamps are of excellent quality and consist of sets of letters enabling you to make your own words as well as some pre-designed stamps and the blocks to set them on. I have used them in every crafting project this weekend and am delighted with them. I just wish they were a UK company as I will definitely want to buy more in the future. The first project of the weekend was this double page layout entitled ‘Explore’. This used papers and die cuts from the Bloom & Grow range by My mind’s eye and Bazzil cardstock as the base. I used my new JustRite stamp for the little circle on the righthand page which says ‘June 2009’. The journaling reads ‘Alex and Daniel had a wonderful time exploring Grandma and Grandad’s enormous garden – running across the lawn, climbing steps, shutting gates, hiding under trees, walking between flowerbeds and putting cars in the hedge!’ This page actually fits with this fortnights theme of Blossoms by a new Papercraft website called ‘Crafty Cardmakers’ as it uses flowers as embellishments and there are flowers in some of the photos. The next project was a card using yesterdays Sketch Saturday sketch and my new letter set from JustRite stamps. It also fits with the theme of lace by Daring Cardmakers as I used my Martha Stewart Doily lace punch to generate the edge effect. As this card uses paper flowers by Angel kiss, Making Memories flower brads and a flower paper background this also fits with the crafty cardmakers blossoms theme.Finally I set myself a challenge of using some of my crafting supplies that I have either never used or not used for ages. As a result I generated this card using a cuttlebug embossing folder that I have never previously used and I was given for my wedding anniversary in June, a set of Hero Arts stamps that I haven’t used for any project despite being given for my birthday last October and some orange ribbon I was given a number of years ago. The Hugs and love stamp was generated using the Curlz alphabet set and a decorative border by JustRite stamps. Again this fits the crafty cardmakers blossom theme in a different way. I hope you all have a fantastic week ahead.
Love,
Caro
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