Something that I used to do years ago and do very little of now, my youngest daughter Natalie got engaged to Adam at Christmastime and is having a Party in the beginning of March as it was a total surprise to her and so Adams Mam has made the cake and covered it and I am to decorate it.
So here it is the top piece all done, I will show you the finished cake very soon but as you can guess from the colour of the roses their cake is deep purple.
I saw one of these on the Spellbinders Booth at CHA in Anaheim and was determined to try this for myself.
I have to be honest and say it took a little while to do but I love the end result.
I loved the distressing and gold leaf work, it does you good to get your hands dirty once in a while.
Curling the pages, finding something to go inside the book and stringing some beads, metal button and some hessian to make a bow, a bit of die cutting and some punch craft.
Well nearly anyway, I’ve just about finished, 2 more things to wrap and my job here will be done, This year I decided I would use lots of brown paper, I used a high quality roll 50 metres of the stuff and then some contrasting wrapping papers, red bows kraft gift tags and I am awaiting 2 x 25metre rolls of ribbon to arrive to tie packages together, if it doesn’t get here they will just have to wobble.
How are you all getting on?
Finally my homemade wall clock is finished.
I’m quite pleased with it too, so far it has kept good time.
As a rule of thumb I don’t take card orders, I am always too busy to do them and stress myself out over them yet as soon as a request came from one of Chris’s past work mates from the Brigade came in I said yes.
So I hope he will like them, I had made this card as a thank you card for Chris when he left the Brigade and it is still pinned up on the notice board hence the request.
All four finished boxed and wrapped with tissue to make it pretty.
Close up
and the inside, sentiment and names blurred out.
Sometimes we tend to over complicate things don’t we?
I decided I wanted to make some simple flowers for home decor, the easy way, something simple yet stylish, something that wouldn’t take me hour and hours of time.
I decided that material was the way to go and I spotted some gorgeous Suede fabric over on Terry’s Fabrics that would be perfect for what I wanted.
Simple we said right? lets start by cutting 3 circles, not perfect circles just roughly cut by hand, now cut out 3 smaller circles again by hand, they do not need to be uniform sizes in fact they turn out better if they aren’t uniform.
Next light a candle maybe a tea light or a scented one just to add fragrance to the house while you work, take one of the circles and run the edge of it over the flame, this will seal the edge and give it a darker edge, continue to do this with the rest of your circles. Be responsible and keep fingers out of the way and do not leave the candle burning unoccupied.
Next we need to stick the layers together with the larger circles on the bottom and the smallest to the top, you can do this by sewing them together, using a fabric glue or if like me you like quick results a hot glue gun.
Next find some beads to add to the centre, I hot glued mine but you could sew them in place.
Tadaaaa your done.
Ok so I have a favourite, I love this Flourish Swirls folder and die set from Tattered Lace, it makes such an easy elegant card.
Cream and gold elegant and easy.
I promised to show you my new car, so here are some images, did you know it parks itself? I’m too chicken to trust it though, I much prefer to trust my own judgement.
Come walk with me…….
Here I go again, back to my roots.
Hot summer days and family fun and picnics. We would pack the car, we had a very large green picnic blanket, a little gas camping stove always a flask of boiling water to make a cup of tea, freshly baked buns or stottie cake a tin of Pek chopped pork a jar of home made pickled beetroot loads of homemade cakes, biscuits home-grown tomatoes (you get the picture). deck chairs Dingy and towels.
We always travelled on Picnics as a family, Nanna and Granda, Aunt Irene, Uncle George, cousins Stephen and Susan, Mam Dad and my two brothers Alan and Russell.
We would head up through Durham, through Crook, then on towards Stanhope Ford which was somewhere we would often stop for a while before moving on to Eastgate then through to Westgate.
Just as you get into Westgate there is a little hidden paradise called Slit Woods, not easy to find but when we did it soon became a firm favourite.
Wednesday….
Chris had took a holiday from work, in truth he wasn’t too well but by the afternoon he was wanting some fresh air so we decided we would head off to see if we could find Slit Wood again.
It took some finding as we passed it once and had to double back but in the end we arrived. Still as beautiful today, there is a burn that runs through the woods which is running down bank and it has little waterfalls along the way.
Isn’t it gorgeous? you can see that is goes down in stages forming shallow pools, as children we would grab our bathing costumes and play in the shallow pools, once I had children of my own they also played in the pools cooling off in the hot summer sunshine.
A place to sit….
Of course not all of the adults would get in the water with us so they needed somewhere to sit and possibly dip there toes in the water for a paddle and to cool down, just a little further up the bank and they would find a sitting place.
Next year…
Time for to introduce Grandson Jack to Slit Woods, I think he would love it.
Maybe I will be the Adult who sits on the rocks and dips in my toes to cool off just as my Grandparents did whilst watching over me having fun.
Until my next walk….
Come walk with me…………
I headed out in my new car, I’ll show you that in a moment, I didn’t get very far, as I passed by the sea front I realised that the tide was going out and before I new it I was turning into the car park, reminiscing about my childhood on the beach.
Most summers we went there and strange as it may seam we used to take both the dog Major (Golden Labrador) and cat Kitch (Siamese). We also often took a dingy and a massive tyre inner tube and long lengths of rope for when we went into the sea on them.
So I was stood on the sand remembering all of this, good old fashioned family days out, the beach used to be crammed packed full of families enjoying the sunshine, wind breakers and picnics, buckets and spades and every one playing games building castles and burying each other so that only heads and feet were sticking out of the sand.
Today however a beautiful day, warm and barely a breath of wind and I could count on one hand how many people were on the beach sometimes when you need to gather your thoughts it is good to go back to your roots and that is just what I did.
Loads of seaweed, we used to collect the black bobbly one and pop it like bubble wrap.
My Dad would take me by the hand and we would go crabbing, he would point out all of the different shellfish naming them for me, we would scoop up the sea water in a bucket and pop the little crabs in it, I always had to show my Mam my finds.
These are the rocks we used to search, always holding my Dads hand as some of the rocks were sharp.
Everything was so exciting, you forget that feeling as you get older. it was lovely to be exploring both my mind and the places that brought me so much pleasure as a child.
I walked a little further and found what I was looking for.
The caves, oh how I loved the caves, playing hide and seek, making a den, it could be a castle a home a shop the possibilities of the mind as a child is endless.
I decided to once again explore, I could smell the sea and there was a gentle breeze and I could hear the waves beating on the shore.
This one has a hole right through the rock face, it made me feel young again just being there, I could all but hear my mam shouting for me to come and have a sandwich (always egg and tomato).
The secrets of the cliffs, I’m sure these caves would have tales to tell.
Not a soul to be seen, it was refreshing looking out across the water.
Hiding, now one knows I am here, you can’t find me……. however they always did.
It looks like the birds have claimed this spot all to themselves, they had been doing a merry old dance before I got here.
I also spent many a day or and evening walk with my Grandparents and my cousin Susan, searching for pretty glass pebbles and shells, once we had enough we would bring them home and decorate plant pots and also the top of a little wall in my Nanna’s garden.
Still pretty pebbles to be found but not so many shells.
Pinks, blues, greens, reds, browns, knobbly and bobbly and striped, rough and smooth. the seas treasures.
I hope you enjoyed our walk together, I know I did. how far did we go?
this far….
Right to where the cliffs jut out into the sea.
You know how it is.... You search for something to finish the room off but just can't find exactly what you want wrong colour, wrong size, wrong shape etc...
So in my head I knew what I wanted and kept trying to explain it to Chris but couldn't get the vision across to him.
So I started by cutting out some wording in vinyl on my Silhoette Portrait in two colours and then went in search of some planks of wood.
I used a roller to paint on my darkest colour of Matt paint and then left it to dry.
Once dry I retreated to my craft room and started brushing on the PVA Glue
Before it dried I painted over the top with the lighter shade of paint.
The the magic begins, using my heat gun I started to heat over the glue and paint and before your eyes it does this brilliant crackle effect.
Making the planks of wood look all distressed. Now for adding the wording once the paint is dried, I kept the backing paper on my vinyl until I was happy with how it looked.
Once I was happy I applied the vinyl then started to rope up my creation.
With the finale knot being tied it was ready to hang on the wall.
As you can see, I'm a tad proud on my new wall hanging.
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