Well our holiday has come to an end and unfortunately not in a good way...Alex is really ill with a very bad cough and our car has died. It seems unlikely that we will be able to get it back on the road so we may have to try and buy a new one which we can't really afford at the moment. However, we were determined not to let it completely ruin the end of our holiday so we hired a car and yesterday we had our last day out at Eureka in Halifax. 
This is a children's museum where Alex could wander round and push buttons, swing levers and wind handles to his hearts content. 
We had a fun time although Alex was very tired because he has developed a nasty cough so hadn't had much sleep. 
Alex's favourite parts were the shopping trolley 
and the two igloos, one where he climbed in with me 
and one which we built and he knocked down.
Today we had a normal weekend day with shopping and a time in the park, while also spending some time looking for cars on the net. We need a mid range estate car so they are not easy to come by..we will have to see what we can find and/or afford.
I have done a little crafting in the form of some more stamp only ATCs. These two had a brayered background in Adirondack Butterscotch and Cranberry and then I stamped over the top.
For these two I heat embossed the central images and then used my tapestry stamps for the edges.
Finally I made a scrapbook page for this saturdays Stamp and Scrap challenge which was a great sketch. I used K&Co, Hot off the press and The paper Company papers, Doodle bug design alphabet stickers, JustRite and Purple Onion Stamps, and various rub-ons, stickers, buttons, charms and old coins from my stash. The title is Exploring our local museum and the journalling reads 'We are so lucky to have Western Park Museum so close to home as it means a great trip out when it is wet. Alex loves the freedom to run round and explore, opening drawers, crawling through tunnels and generally having fun!'. 
This layout also fits with this weeks Kaboodle Doodles challenge of using Charms on your creations...I decided the only way you would be able to see the charm would be for me to do a close up of some of the layout - that little bird is cute! I would love to know what you all think. Have a great week everyone, it is back to work for me tomorrow.Love,
Caro
x
pigs, wallabies, ducks, geese and llamas. 
He was slightly pecked by one of the ducks while feeding them grain, but it didn't put him off. He loved his ice-cream, but in the end it was getting us all in such a mess that we gave up with it! 
I got to feed the llamas, which was good fun 
and Alex got to play on a tractor 
and in the ball pit which he loved.
Today Alex went to nursery while I stayed at home crafting in the morning and then had a wonderful Chinese Meal out with Tim...Tim was too tired to go out today so this seemed like a good compromise. Crafting wise I made these mini book marks for a swap on Quirky Crafts..they had to include wings on them hence the dragon flies on one and the butterfly background and birds on the other. 
I also made a card following this weeks CPS sketch (#132) for a friend who has just given birth to a little girl. 
The second card followed a sketch from this weeks 
I have also joined in an ATC swap with the theme of stamping only. My first attempt at this is this Greek Goddess which was embossed with clear embossing powder. I then sprayed over with Adirondack colourwash inks and ironed the image to remove the embossing, leaving the greek lady image white against the orangey background. I then added HeroArts stamps and the phrase Greek Goddess before embossing in gold around the edge. I am not sure how well this has worked and will be making some others. I would love to know what you all think.
Alex loves going to the beach and had a very happy day spent building sandcastles and knocking them down. 
Driving Thomas up and down a hill track made in the sand. 
Putting sand in his dump truck and tipping it out. 
Having a picnic on the beach…
yes he did eat quite a lot of sand with his sandwich, but it didn’t seem to bother him at all. 
The tide was right out, but that didn’t bother him as there were plenty of little puddles for him to splash in and he helping me while I collected a lot of little shells for use in various scrapbook and altered art projects. I should point out that Tim was with us but didn't want me to put his photos on the blog!
Yesterday was a lot more windy, especially on the coast and so we went to The Deep in Hull to see the fish and sharks. Alex loved being able to run around and explore inside the building and enjoyed watching the fish, 
especially the really big fish. 
The jellyfish were a hit too, especially the light display of one on the floor.
He also liked the soft play area where he spent a happy time throwing himself down this little slide. 
As we are not allowed to use the flash inside the building and the fish are moving so fast we took loads of blurred photos of fish! 
However, there were a few successes on the way including this nursing shark. 
Today Alex went to nursery so that Tim and I could go the cinema and see the new Harry Potter film as I just love those books. It was lovely to go out just the two of us for a change and I really enjoyed the film. Alex by all accounts had a great day at nursery so I didn’t feel too guilty, especially as we played out in the garden together for ages this evening. The other advantage of the day was that it meant that I could get on with some crafting as well and completed another page for my altered art book, which happens to fit with the challenge on Quirky crafts forum to use rough and smooth. This page is about rockpools/seaside and took days to make as I had to stick nearly 90 pages together and let them dry in order to cut out the hole for the shells (the rough part of my challenge!). The stamping round the edge uses Stamps Away stamps, the background paper is pebbles by scrapdashery and the shells were collected from three different beaches, although most were from Cleethorpes on Monday. The quote is the first verse of a poem which reads ‘I held a sea shell to my ear and listened to its tale, Of vessels bounding o’er the main, and all the ships that sail. It sang of brilliant water flowers – the bright anemones, that bloom beneath the ocean waves – tossed in from seven seas’. 
I also made a scrapbook page following the theme of Love from Scrap and Stamp. It also fits with the flowers and hearts theme from Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge. This page uses Sandylion, Basic Grey and K&Co papers, Heidi Grace chipboard and Doodlebug design Alphabet stickers, Stamps Away stamps, Angel kiss flowers and gold peel offs. The journaling reads ‘Tim and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with a delicious meal at our favourite Chinese Restaurant, Hui Wei and Sheffield.’ Have a great rest of the week.
while I played around with the macro setting on my camera trying to get a close up of the extremely fast moving ducks. 
Alex then played on the bouncy castle and went on the fair ground ride that is in the park. 
Today we got up relatively early and drove across the snake pass to Chester Zoo, which was wonderful. It was the first time Alex had ever been to a zoo and he loved it! I am not sure what his favourite part was, although this ice-cream kept him going for the best part of an hour (very messy!). 
He definitely loved the elephants 
and rhinos, 
and spent hours watching the various apes and monkeys, with the chimpanzees being a firm hit. 
My personal favourites were this cute little baby Orangutan 
and the cheetah (taken from a distance). 
The giraffes, especially this little baby were also a firm favourite of Alex's, 
while I couldn't resist the Okapi! 
You mustn't forget the big cats, 
but as they were lying on the ground they weren't as exciting as Alex expected. 
Probably best of all were the penguins which were swimming past the observation window and he found very exciting. 
He also found an ornamental pond which he splashed happily in while we ate our sandwiches...All in all it was a very successful trip out and a great start to the week.
Crafting wise I finally got round to making two ATCs for a tree and rainbow swap. For these I used a stamp from Stamps Away and coloured in the image using my Whispers pens, including adding a rainbow. In order to make the two ATCs different I set one in Summer (full green colours) and the other in Autumn with autumnal colours on the trees. 
I have also joined a ‘Cluedo’ swap where you have to make one ATC on a theme taken from the board game Cluedo. This was so much fun to do as I wanted to include a person, place and weapon. This card is entitled ‘Miss Scarlet in the library with the candlestick’ and I found all the different images on the web and combine them as a collage, colouring in the ladies dress to make it red. I couldn’t resist adding the speech bubble (What candlestick?) as she looks so innocent and is looking away from the candlestick! 
Finally I have completed a double page layout of our trip to Hallam school fete following Anna’s fantastic sketch on Pencil lines. This layout has used Sassafrass Lass, Bazzil, Hot off the Press and Cosmic Cricket papers/cardstock, E-Z rub-ons, and Anitas peel-offs. The journaling reads ‘Alex had so much fun at the Hallam school fete, watching a dog display and listening to the brass band. He discovered the ‘round and round’ rides and especially liked the cards and ‘Thomas train’ and he confirmed his love of bouncy castles!’. As usual I would love to know what you think of my crafting. Have a great rest of the week everyone.