Fun weekend

Well despite us all having a streaming cold we have had a lovely weekend. Tim and Alex played together in the morning while I went shopping and although the weather wasn't great yesterday Alex and I still made it to the park in the afternoon. where we had the playground to ourselves although we spent the majority of the time stamping in puddles! It was the hail that finally drove us homs, although by that stage we both had frozen fingers. Alex is enjoying his train set more and more at the moment and even put some track together by himself for the first time yesterday. We are also having more breakthroughs as far as food is concerned as well and Alex ate a sausage for the first time yesterday.

Today the sun is shining brightly and we have spent some time in the garden and more time at the park where Alex played on the roundabout for the first time in ages and went down the little slide a lot with huge grins every time. He has also been playing on his ride-on car a lot this weekend and enjoying being pushed across the kitchen floor by me while I am cooking. The giggles that arise are wonderful.

We have spent some time crafting together today and he has made a thank you card for Gran, to say thank you for his car which he loves so much. I now have to get a good photo of him sat on it grinning to send with it.

My nature photograph this weekend is of these lovely yellow flowers on a small tree/bush...I don't know what it is called, but it always gives a splash of colour early in the year and these ones are growing at the edge of the playground.

I have also managed some crafting this weekend and made this card for my Dad, so it fits with the cute card theme this week of making a card for a member of your family. It also fits with the My time to craft challenge of 'its raining men' as it features and man (Jolly nation decoupage) and is for a man! I made the background to the panel using two different cuttlebug embossing folders (swiss dots and bird song) and coloured them in using chalks and then mounted the decoupaged man on top. I would love to know what you think of this as it is the first time I have used a Jollynation image.

Finally I have made some ATCs for a 'fingerprint' swap where you are supposed to turn your finger prints into something different. For these first two I used a moonscape as the background and then turned my fingerprints (done in acrylic) into aliens and a flying saucer. I used a black pen and sakura white glaze pen to alter the finger prints and for the stars.

The next two used an underwater photo in the background and the fingerprints were turned into jelly fish, fish, snails and water beetles. I would love to know what you all think of these. I am off to a conference in Birmingham tomorrow for two days leaving Tim to look after Alex alone overnight for the first time. So wish us all luck and pray for them please! Have a good week everyone.

Love,

Caro

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Phew!

Thank goodness its the weekend! I still haven't fully finalised my talk for Monday's BMS conference, but I am nearly there and am totally exhausted. This week has been manic, but at least it is over. Alex has been great fun to be with though and we have watched some television with his evening meals including 'Chuggington' which, for those of you who don't have young children, is all about trains. Alex loves it and has started trying to sing the theme song while dancing round the room which is very cute - I can't wait to catch it on video! We have been drawing, playing games of chase and generally having fun these past two evenings which is lovely, despite him giving me a stinking head cold.

I have managed a little crafting in the form of these two bookmarks for a swap I have joined in with. I will eventually put thread through the eyelets! The oriental one uses two different background cards stuck to each other and then the front has a Geisha image from Stamps Away, highlighted with sakura stardust and a small symbol stamped in silver. The back has a background symbols stamp in blue, then the small symbol stamp in silver and both sides are finished off with a silver eyelet and silver peel-offs round the edge.

The vintage one has the background of both sides brayed lightly over the brown card and edged with brown pen, a fleur de lys stamped in ginger and a dark antique eyelet. The front is quite simple as it just has the image of the lady on the stairs on it, which I love. I just hope it is detailed enough for this swap. The back has a background hand writing stamp in butterscotch, a swirl from Purple Onion in ginger and highlighted with gold pen and then finally the 'Dream a little dream' in cranberry. I hope you like these offerings and any comments are welcome as always. Have a good weekend everyone.

Love,

Caro

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Still busy!

I had Monday as annual leave so Alex and I spent the day playing together, although sadly Tim and I also had to do some work on tim's IB50 form. It was wonderful to play with Alex although he was clearly missing his Grandma, constantly asking for her and then saying in a sad voice 'Gramma gone'. The weather wasn't quite as nice so although we did go to the park in the afternoon we got rather blown to bits! Needless to say that Alex also spent ages going round the house on his sit on car - his new favourite toy!

It was back to work with a vengeance yesterday as I had lots of meetings, editing, writing and marking to do and today wasn't any better. I did manage to get everything done, just, but it was rather frantic and I didn't have a lunch break either day. It was nice to get home in the evening and play with Alex, feed him and get soaked by him in his bath. He is so chatty and lively that he is becoming a great companion.

I have finally managed to do a little crafting in the form of another fatbook page for the Oriental swap. This one I have tried to make vintage in feel with gently stamping some oriental writing in the background, then two large red Oriental writing on the corners and then adding the eyelets, gold thread and charm.

In comparison the back is very simple with the writing background stamp and then a Japenese painting.

I also joined a paper weaving ATC swap on the CMPC forum and made this ATC by weaving two different pale green cards, then embossing a leaf pattern on it, which I highlighted using green chalk, and then stamped, painted (using twinkling H2Os) some little Penny black images and then stamped the sentiment at the bottom. The label shape for the ATC was cut using my new label nestability set. Have a good week everyone.

Love,

Caro

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Wonderful but exhausting weekend

I am sat all in a heap as I type this as I am totally exhausted! My weekend started on Friday with a house clean from top to bottom and cooking before my parents and Gran arrived at 4pm and the fun started. Alex thinks that his Grandma is wonderful and there were shrieks and giggles of laughter all round as the two of them played together and Alex was given an early birthday present of a sit-on-car which he loved, riding it all round the house (too fast moving to photograph!). Saturday morning saw us all working hard in the garden to lower the level of a wall by one brick, dig out the flower bed and clear it of couch grass, wash down the patio furniture,mow the lawn and generally tidy things up. Even Tim felt well enough to help for a little while, which was really nice as it felt like a complete family affair, as Alex was in the garden too wielding his little fork and digging in the soil or running round with a brush. In the afternoon, while Alex had his nap, we went to the garden centre and bought some new plants to put in the flowerbed and then went out for a walk to the park so Alex could have a play. It made a huge difference to the way the garden looks, especially from the dining room window which is below the level of the flowerbed. The evening was great fun as Grandma joined in with bathtime and then read Alex his evening stories before we put him to bed. We then all had a glass of champagne before the evening meal and a lovely chat. It was so nice to have the chance to catch up as I don't get to see my parents or Gran very often as they live so far away. Today we took the rubbish to the skip, and then went out for a lovely walk through the woods to Redmires Reservoire. It was hard work pushing the pushchair back up the hill, but it was great to get a bit of proper exercise. As it was Mother's Day, I gave Mother her card, which she liked, and gave both her and Gran a 'brag book' full of photos of Alex and them, which they loved. Alex had a good romp round with Grandma and everyone left after Sunday lunch. It really was a wonderful weekend. At the end of the weekend I can proudly say that I have some more flowers in my garden - narcissi, helibores... and primroses that are actually in flower. Needless to say I have not done any crafting this weekend, but did want to show you my two Mother's Day cards. The first one is the one Alex made in nursery using his hand print as a flower head with glitter and a star and then a green line for the stem. The second one is the one he made with Tim, although he didn't get on very well with the stamping apparently so Tim had to help with that bit. I love the sticker chaos on this card. I am now off to relax and grab some 'me time' while everyone else is asleep. Have a great week everyone.
Love,
Caro
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So busy!

Firstly an apology for not updating yesterday, I have been just too frantic this week to manage it. Work is completely insane what with reviewing articles, writing papers, supervising students, teaching, editing papers, making posters of my data and writing a talk for a conference in a couple of weeks time. When at home in the evenings I have been playing with Alex (including more stickers and drawing as shown above!), feeding him, bathing him, reading to him, putting him to bed and then doing a grand tidy up of our house. I decided I could no longer stand the state of our study so removed a massive travel cot filled with toys and put things on the shelves, removed piles of boxes that kept falling over near the door and am finally able to get to my desk without falling over things which is a huge improvement. We simply have too much stuff for the study to ever be neat or particularly organised but things are definitely better than they were!

As a result there has been very little crafting this week. I have only made one fatbook page for the oriental swap on which I stamped various calligraphy images in pale pink (background), dark blue and copper, layered the main image and added the gold thread, eyelets and charm.

The back of the page is simply stamped with blue calligraphy and then a painting of Mount Fuji placed in the middle. My parents and Gran are here for this weekend so there wont be any crafting then either, but I can't wait to see them all. Have a great weekend everyone.

Love,

Caro

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Back to normal and the greatest of fun!

Alex is on cracking form this weekend and we have had a hillarious time with two trips to the park running around on the climbing frame and on the field adjacent to the playground. Having not eaten for several days Alex is starving so has been eating for England, which is also good news. We have also had fun with lego, cars, rough and tumble, hide and seek, trains and stories. In general everything is back to normal which is wonderful.

My personal favourite adventure of the weekend, however, has to be our crafting time together. For the first time Alex has worked out how to get stickers off his fingers and onto the paper, so he did some drawing then added lots of stickers as you can see above. The process was a bit hit and miss, but he loved it and the huge grins and loud excited shouts of 'stucker', 'stars' 'hearts', 'pooh' and 'car' followed by lots of laughter were fantastic. It made me grin too and we both enjoyed ourselves enormously.

For my nature photo of the week I couldn't resist photographing these lovely crocusses which were growing beside the playground. I just love the patterning on them.

Crafting wise I have only done a little in the form of two Mother's day cards. The first one follows the sketch from Card Positioning Systems, which I love. I used one of my free flowers from the CM&PC magazine and the rest were Angel kiss flowers with embossed paper in the background and pale green ric-rac.

The second one is for my Mother as we will be seeing her on Mother's day so it doesn't need to be posted as the daffodils make it very bulky. I have used a cuttlebug embossed background for this one. This fits well with the spring theme that is this weeks challenge on Cupcake craft challenges. As usual I would love to know what you think of these. Have a great week everyone.

Love,

Caro

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Definite improvement

Alex is definitely on the mend now, so thank you to everyone who has sent him Get well wishes and cards. His appetite was back today along with his cheeky grin and constant commentary on life. Sadly I wasn't around to witness it much though as I had to go to London for work...lecturing at UCL on tumour angiogenesis. The advantage of it was that I got to see my brother for the first time since Christmas and we shared a curry at Canary Wharf where he works. It was lovely to see him and have a good catch up, albeit briefly, before I headed back across London to give my lecture.

Crafting wise I decided that I needed to jazz up my oriental writing trading cards a bit as they were essentially just a peel off mounted onto red card then added to some authentic Japenese origami paper. For these first two I added an oriental charm suspended on gold thread.

For the next two I added an Oriental coin and a gem. For the final two, which had a crane motif, I decided to make an origami crane and stick it to the cards. For these I started with paper which was 2 inches square...fiddly, but effective! Finally a friend requested that I make her a duplicate of the vintage oriental trading card I made a few weeks ago. This isn't an exact duplicate as I didn't have the same images or chipboard stickers, but it is very close and I hope that she will like it. Have a great weekend everyone.

Love,

Caro

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Slowly improving (I hope)

Alex is slowly recovering from his ordeal and is very pleased that he no longer has to have eye or nose drops, although it is taking his stomach longer to recover from the antibiotics. On Monday, although he ate breakfast, he felt really ill and spent the day lying down until he was sick at lunchtime, after which he perked up again. He was better yesterday and today so went to nursery although he was somewhat subdued compared to normal, his appetite is reduced and he is still struggling with diarrhoea. Meanwhile I have been frantically trying to catch up on work that should have been done last week which has meant that so far this week I have run three experiments, written the first draft of a grant application and started editing two manuscripts. I am exhausted! I have been working on a project for Mother’s Day in which I have had to spend ages sorting out photos and uploading them to photobox as I am going to make mini brag books containing photos of Alex for both his grandmothers (and my Gran!). This project has taken ages so I have done very little crafting over the past few days. Indeed the only crafting I have done has been these two fatbook pages for the black and white swap being held on the CM&PC forum. I used my new nestabilities labels set for cutting out the silhouette image and the black frame, then highlighted parts of the silhouette with my sakura stardust pen, added the white stitching with a sakura glaze pen, black stitching and edging with a whispers pen and then the crystal stickers for a final bit of sparkle. The reverse of the two pages are the same, a black and white stamped image of a lady with wings in a garden of flowers (kind gift from Angie) highlighted with sakura stardust (doesn't really show in the photo). That’s all for now. I am off to London for the day on Friday, teaching at UCL, so may not get the chance to upload then. Have a good week everyone.
Love,
Caro
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Still not 100 percent

Poor Alex is still struggling as he is still completely exhausted from his stay in hospital and he has been vomiting and having diarhoea. We thought initially it might be a bug, but it looks like it may be a reaction to the oral antibiotics he is on. He has been most unlike himself, barely eating, drinking OK, but generally tired and floppy - playing for short periods of time then lying down on the floor cuddling his teddy. Most unusual for my very active little boy. As a result we have watched a lot of television, done some drawing while sat on my lap, played on my keyboard and played some very gentle games. I can't believe how quiet he is compared to normal and hope he recovers soon.

We did go out today for a pancake party at Claire's which was the greatest of fun. Alex enjoyed watching the older kids playing on the Wii and then lay in a heap on the floor watching everyone walk by and interjecting the occasional comment. Claire had made most of the pancakes, but then challenged the men of the group to have a go at pancake tossing, which was entertaining until Simon burnt one on the pan, after which they all stuck and couldn't be flipped. Pancake cooking turned out to be a great spectator sport! My nature image this weekend was actually a photo taken last weekend of a fircone still attached to the branch. The weather has been very wierd today especially...we started with sun, then had snow, then drizzle, then sun, then hail, then drizzle and now we have a blizzard....how peculiar! It also meant that I didn't manage to take any outdoor photos, especially with Alex being ill.

Crafting wise I have had some good news this weekend, I have had a letter and a short article published in two different magazines, Scrapbook Inspirations and Quick Cards made easy. Not only that but I am going to be featured in the May edition of Cardmaking and Papercraft and have the page proofs to check! I also came joint second in the CM&PC ATC competition with this ATC on the theme of birds. It was made using a cuttlebug background and a bird picture taken out of an old nature book.

I have continued to make the ATCs needed for the children's TV swap on the CM&PC forum. This one is of Ivor the Engine, a program I remember watching with my Grandad. I printed out the images of Ivor, Jones the Steam and Dai Station and then drew a little scene to put them in.

I made a very similar ATC of Noggin the Nog, which has the mountains in the background all drawn by hand.

Finally I made a scrapbook page of our trip to visit HMS Victory last May. The theme of the layout is yellow and black to match the colours of the ship. I had so many photos that I wanted to use so I kept the layout simple with very little embellishment. The journalling reads ' HMS Victory was Admiral Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalger, and was the ship on which he died. It was amazing to see the state rooms and the comparative luxury in which he lived on board, as well as to see the huge number of cannons, massive anchors, beautiful figure head, tiny low doorways, steep ladders, galley, sick bay, carpenters shop and other on-board essentials. We really loved exploring this ship. May 2008'. That's all for now so have a good week everyone.

Love,

Caro

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