Traumatic times and a special treat!

My main trauma was having a filling replaced yesterday. I hate going to the dentist and really dread fillings at the best of times, but this was the worst ever - it took over an hour to have the old filling removed and a new one replaced and then my jaw and tooth ached for the rest of the day. To top it off I now have tonsillitis and my throat feels revolting! The second difficulty was running a PhD viva this morning where the external examiner insisted on major revisions and a re-viva. I really feel for the poor student, but did agree with the decision. My special treat made me feel a whole load better about everything...my darling husband bought me a Cuttlebug machine and a few embossing folders for it. I am so thrilled as I have wanted one of these for ages and asked for one for Christmas...he decided that I didn’t need to wait that long! I have now had the greatest of fun playing with it and it is so easy to use. Talking about crafting, I have had a fair bit of success recently with having a letter and photo of one of my scrapbook layouts published in Scrapbook Inspirations, two of my wedding layouts published on-line (here) and my inchie article has finally been published on-line at Papercraft Junkies as well (here). I would love to know what you think of any of these! Poor Alex is in a complete state still, his cough is still horribly bad, he has a reduced appetite and only a little energy. He alternates between sitting in a heap and gently playing with his toys and lying down and going to sleep. Last night he was too tired to have his tea and only wanted to sit on my lap and have stories read to him before going to bed much earlier than usual. I hope that he will get rid of this nasty cough soon and regain some of his usual bounce. My main crafting project over the past couple of days has been to make Tim’s birthday card. I always make him something romantic and containing green as it is his favourite colour, but this time decided to take a slight slant away from the usual theme with this cute decoupage dragon. Tim loves dragons and I thought this would be nice with the Cuttlebug embossed hearts background. However, I can officially say that I really do not like doing decoupage...cutting out all those fiddly bits drove me slightly mad. I would love to know what you think of the final result though! I have also been playing with my Cuttlebug to make some more Christmas cards. These two use CraftyIndividuals images and three different Cuttlebug embossed card (the spots were a kind gift from Gill). I coloured the birds using chalks. I thought that the chalk coloured birds looked so good by themselves that I gave them little red breasts and used them as the main image on these two cards and added the CraftyIndividuals message stamped onto K&Co paper. That’s all for now so have a good weekend everyone.
Love,
Caro
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Dreadful cough!

Poor Alex has a dreadful cough...it is so bad that it often makes him retch and has given him a sore throat so he doesn't want to eat, and he has very little apetite anyway due to being full of mucus. His sleep has been so bad at night that several times this week we have found him fast asleep on the floor amidst his toys during the day. Despite that he has been fairly good, playing gently with me in the evenings although he is still a bit confused by the clocks going back and wants to go to bed at 5.30pm instead of 6.30pm and get up at 5am...not so good! He is gradually adjusting, but I am sure getting rid of the cough will help more than anything else. On a positive note my father-in-law is safely out of hospital (Praise God) and at home taking things gently.

I have found time for crafting in the past few days and have continued to make Christmas cards using K&Co papers for the backgrounds and Crafty Individual Images and stamp for the toppers.

This one followed a sketch from SplitCoast stampers.

The final Christmas card for this batch used a Cuttlebug embossed image of Christmas baubles which I stippled with orange, red and yellow ink as the background.

Finally I wanted a break from Christmas images and made some ATCs instead using photos of my parents garden, angel kiss flowers, sticky pearls, a stamp from Crafty Individuals, sakura stardust doodling and a stippled background. As usual I would love to know what you think. Have a great week everyone. More soon,

Love,

Caro

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What a weekend!

This weekend has really been a weekend of two halves with various things going very wrong, including my father-in-law having a heart attack completely out of the blue followed by emergency surgery.

Sam and Ben having fun while Alex looks on..

Alex with his Auntie Fay.

Today we went to visit my mother-in-law and had a lovely family meal (Roast beef...yummy!) with most of Tim's family. The three boys had a great time chasing round the house and exploring the garden together and there was much silliness had with various cardboard tubes.

Afterwards we went to the hospital to visit Tim's dad who was looking remarkably chipper and very chatty, although unsurprisingly he tired quite easily. It was a relief to see him looking so well and a credit to the ambulance and hospital teams who recognised what was wrong and sorted things out so quickly. Alex was completely shatttered when we came home and has developed a nasty cough and coughed so much that he threw up his tea...not the best end to the day, poor boy.

On a different note I managed to do some crafting yesterday and continued with the Christmas card bonanza. All four of these cards feature at least one inchie and a stamp from Crafty Individuals. This first one also uses Crafty Individuals background paper. The next three use K&Co Christmas paper by Elizabeth Brownd. I quite like the ripped paper effect on this one. This one used my crop-a-dile to set the brads in the green card. I like the rectangular design and the use of two different papers on this final one. I hope you all have a good week. More soon,

Love,

Caro

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Busy but happy

Work remains completely manic, but at least I am enjoying myself. Yesterday was mostly spent running an experiment whereas today I had almost back-to-back meetings including giving a seminar at lunchtime. The seminar went well and proved a good practice as I will be giving the same one in Birmingham in February. Alex is on great form at the moment and we have had much fun and laughter in the evenings with lots of giggles, running round playing chase etc.

I have continued with the Christmas cards, this time taking a break from the cuttlebug embossed images (I am finally running out of those) and using some CraftyIndividual images and background papers. This first one uses those plus a StampsAway stamp and some Holly peel-offs.

The next one has used three of my inchies with the CraftyIndividuals background paper and various peel-offs.

Finally I decided to make my Gran's birthday card and use the pyramid card design shown by Joanne on her blog. For this I used a cuttlebug embossed image, coloured with chalks and then added some flowers, brads and a peel-off sentiment. I would love to know what you think as this is the first time I have made something of this design (please excuse the very messy desk in the background!). Joanne also has some nice blog candy available...check it out! Have a nice weekend everyone.

Love,

Caro

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Good News!

Well this week got off to a flying start with some great news, both at work and at home. Workwise my 13,000 word review has been accepted for publication and at home we have had the end to 4 months stress and worry. Work is crazy busy with all sorts going on at the moment, I have three theses to read and edit (one transfer thesis, one BMedSci and one PhD), numerous people to supervise, experiments to do, eleven medical students to mentor and today I had a committee meeting that lasted the whole afternoon! I keep thinking that 'next week things will calm down', but they never do! Alex has been on great form this week, entertaining me no end with all the funny things he is saying and doing. We had a hillarious game of hide and seek on Monday evening which made him giggle like mad, and he has discovered the smaller brick set which he loves. He posts them into a shape sorter, builds towers (and knocks them down), and generally makes a loud noise with them. He is also developing in terms of speech now, with car, up, down and cup added to his repertoire now.

I haven't forgotten Gran's family tree scrapbook despite all the Christmas cards I have been making and so this week I did the front page of the book which includes photos of all the people featured in the book with their dates. The page does contain some stamping as well as elements from K&Co papers and the Hot off the Press vintage set.

The theme for this months ATC swap for Time for Crafting is blue and gold, not a theme I found very easy. However, I eventually came up with something, although all three ATCs are the same. We were not allowed to use any other colour appart from blue or gold which I found hard...I would love to know what you think.

Finally I have made two birthday cards. This first one is for a work colleague who turns 40 next week using cuttlebug embossed background stippled with greens and blues, with a Jolly (Paper) Nation image.

This second one is for my brother in law who works with computers. Tim really liked this image and thought it would be perfect for a card for his brother so I mounted it on silver and then again used a cuttlebug image this time brayered with blue...the brayering didn't work as well as I would have liked, but Tim likes the card so I hope that Ben will. That is all for now, I hope your week is going well.

Love,

Caro

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Windy Weather!

It has been blowing a gale this weekend...the days have been dry, but very cold and windy. Yesterday was the usual round of shopping, cleaning, washing etc and then I took Alex out to the park in the afternoon which he loved. He especially enjoyed playing with the leaves and the fact that he was given a chocolate bar for the first time in his life!

Today I decided that a sort out of Alex's toys was in order...all the bricks were scattered around the house, and the various shapes for the shape sorters were in different locations...on top of all that I could barely get to my side of the study for tripping over a pile of a mixture of toys, rubbish and computer bits. I couldn't bear it anymore so it got sorted! Alex was tired out by the whole thing and slept much longer during his nap than usual...check out the use of Big Ted as a pillow!

We went to the park again this afternoon and it was so cold and windy that there weren't many people there, but Alex enjoyed himself running round the playground and climbing round. We also spent some time today preparing for Tim's benefit appeal which is tomorrow (any prayers most gratefully received).

I have been continuing to make Christmas cards and did a count up...I have made a grand total of 44 (more than half the ones I need), of which 34 were made with the various cuttlebug embossed cards I have been given so thank you once again to Kath, Christine and Gill for those. These next ones are still all with the cuttle bug. These first four used a design that I have previously used for a non-Christmas card, but I thought that the design would work so well with a Robin image for Christmas that I decided to give it a go.

This one used the Holly image and the saying that was a kind gift from Kath last Christmas.

This one used a lovely cuttlebug snowscene (thanks to Gill) that I coloured in with chalks. This one again used chalks to colour in the holly... ...and finally I used a stippling technique with my Pretty Colour inks to colour this tree, and then went round all the embossing with my sakura stardust pen to generate a bit of sparkle - it is brighter in real life. That is all for now, so have a great week everyone. More soon.

Love,

Caro

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What a fiasco!

Well today didn’t go according to plan at all....I was supposed to have undertaken my first ever PhD viva as an examiner, but it didn’t happen. The external examiner contacted me late last night to say that he wasn’t coming and I had to spend the entire day sorting out the consequences and re-arranging the date. All very frustrating and understandably upsetting for the student. Never mind, at least it is the weekend now and I can leave all the work stuff behind me and focus on having fun with Alex. He has recovered from his sore throat and is a complete little pickle, full of mischief and fun, liking anything that is rough and tumble or makes a loud noise. I have been trying to go out in the garden with him each evening to give him some much needed fresh air, but I have to say it has been getting rather cold - hence the trendy hat! We wont be able to manage it when the clocks go back as it will be too dark so we are making the most of it while we can. We have had fun, playing chase round the garden and scuffing through the leaves to hear the crunchy noises they make. I have done a little crafting over the past few days making some more Christmas cards with the Cuttlebug embossed images. These three cards all use parts of the same cuttlebug image...economical! As a special request I have also made a repeat of the pressed flower ATCs I made some time ago for a friend from the forum. That is all from me for now, so have a great weekend everyone.
Love,
Caro
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I am so busy at the moment!

I can’t believe how busy I am and how fast this week is going. I have finally finished and submitted my 13,000 word review about angiogenesis assays, completely read through and written my report on the PhD thesis I am viva-ing on Friday, reviewed a grant application, held mentoring meetings with 5 undergraduate students and submitted two abstracts for a cancer conference in London, to name but a few of the things that have been keeping me busy! I thought that things would be calming down about now, but it doesn’t look like it so far.

Poor Alex has had the worst sore throat he has ever had this week, crying when swallowing or coughing which means that eating has gone out the window again...he has only been able to manage petite filous and pureed rice pudding...not exactly a great nutritional combination. He hasn’t been sleeping well either and on Monday he and Tim sat cuddling an watching CBeebies for 30 minutes which is unheard of. Fortunately he is now a bit better and was able to go to nursery today where he had great fun doing painting and actually ate normally for the first time in three days. The Christmas card marathon has continued with these four cards, which I personally think are quite fun. They again used cuttlebug embossed card (courtesy of Christine) and the penguin background papers (courtesy of Debbie). I have also decided to take a mini break from Christmas cards to make some ATCs for the ‘peel-off’ ATC swap on the CM&PC forum. The challenge for me was to find ways of making using peel-offs interesting. I hope that I have succeeded in this with these three ATCs, but would love to know what you think. I hope you are all having a great week,
Love,
Caro
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What a fun weekend!

I have had a fantastic weekend! Yesterday we went to meet my brother and his family at a farm near Kettering. As Andy lives in London we thought this would be about 1/2 way for us to all meet up and give the boys a chance to play together. The farm was wonderfully set up for children and was entirely appropriate for Alex and Daniel's age group. There was a fantastic outdoor sandpit which Alex loved...

A fun swing that Daniel thought was wonderful (Alex hated it!)...

Goats and sheep to feed...

An old tractor to sit on...

Andy got to have a go at Pig herding, which was hillarious!...

a barrel ride through the yard (pulled by a quad bike)...

an indoor play area complete with castle...

and tunnel...

and lovely open walks for the boys to get some good exercise on. Alex, who is so fussy about food actually ate some macaroni cheese and a bit of sausage, which was a first. In all it was a wonderful day and we got to spend about 4 hours together which was lovely. I look forward to doing it again at some point.

Today has again been a beautiful day weather wise and Alex and I spent a lot of it outside in the garden and going to the park where he wandered around happily.

I have also been making a concerted effort to keep going with the Christmas cards using all the wonderful embossed pieces of card I have been given by Kath, Gill and Christine. So far I have been using up the snow embossed pieces and had great fun making these. The first two cards used some snowmen which had been cut for me by Christine. These next two cards used blue embossed card and images from Crafty Individuals and a scan of a Christmas card I was sent last year and window cards I was given by Kath. These cards used the cute little snowmen (from Christine) and a stamped image from Crafty Individuals kindly given to me last year by Kath. The images on these cards are by Crafty Individuals (again a kind gift from Kath). The background paper on the left hand of these two cards is K&Co, and on the righthand card was free from a magazine. I'm not sure if it is clear from the photo but the sparkly silver card has been embossed with snowflake images. These final two cards also used the snowflake embossed sparkly silver card and images from last years Christmas cards. Finally, as a change from card making, I decorated this candle with stamped images and pressed flowers. It is quite hard to get the pressed flowers to go into the wax and I singed my fingers a bit in the process, but I am quite pleased with the final result. That is all for now! Have a great week everyone.

Love,

Caro

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