What fun

I have had a fun packed evening trying to make my own stamps ha ha ha
whilst running the classes we (Joy & I) thought it would be a good idea to try to make our own clear stamps, so we bought a machine and it arrived today.
I didn't get a chance to try it out untill this evening and I had polymer from backside till morning time (lol) all over the kitchen clagged to the sink taps, all over my cutting mat and my hands even though I wore rubber gloves, I think I should have had guantlets lol!
Anyway I am now the proud owner of 5 brand spankling new clear rubber stamps, all be it not perfect but after testing with black ink the stamp beautifully.

I think I now also know why Joy gave it all to me to test out lol! Thanks Joy.

Below are a couple of quick cards chucked together so that I could show you the stamps I made

Lily Card

This is the card I made to attach the Hat Pin to.

I made the flower and leaves thenn coloured the with watercolours.

I was inspired By flower a tutorial that I saw on http://joanne-mainlyflowers.blogspot.com/ so thank you Joanne.

Passed from Mother to Daughter

I've always been proud that from an early age my Mam encouraged me to craft she makes some wonderful cards so I thought it would be nice to feature one of her creations,
This is a quilled bird that she first made for an Uncles Birthday and since then she has had many requests for her to make more, I think you can see why.
Although they take a long time to make she enjoys creating them and has made several in different colour ways.

I would love you to leave a comment for her, as she calls to my house on a Friday and it would be lovely for her to read what you think of her card

Lets Talk Hat Pins...

After seeing many of a card with a stick pin attached & plenty of discussion on the PTI Forum I decided to hunt out the pins and some beads to make my own, all materials used came from Jilly Beads

I started with a selection of beads and spacer beads.

Choose the beads you want to use and set them to the sideready to start adding them to your pin, The tiny lille silver tube that you can see is a crimping bead this will be the last bead you thread onto the pin shaft.

Start to thread the beads onto the hat pin shaft by adding the bead that you want at the top of the finished hat pin first, once you have all of the beads thread onto the pin shaft push them all to the top of the pin so that they sit tightly together.

The last thing to do is add a crimping beed to the pin, you push the crimping bead close up to the already added beads and nip it onto the hat pin with pliers this crimping bead will hold all of the other beads onto the pin and stop them from sliding on the pin shaft.

Here are 2 of the finished hat pins I will try to add a card with them attached very soon

June 3rd

Well Tuesday marked My late Brother, Russell's, memorial, he was in the Merchant Navy, a 17 year old young man who had a passion for the sea life, he wrote the most amazing letter he would describe the sights he saw in such detail that you felt that you were on the journey with him, He was 50 miles off the coast of South Africa when the alarm was raised that he was missing from the ship. The navy searched the sea for 3 days but unfortunately his body was never found.
I think it is always hard to cope with when someone dear dies but I always felt cheated that we didn't have a body to bury or grieve over.
It is strange that after 33 years he is still in my every day thoughts and

although we know that deep down that he is gone I still find myself

thinking " wouldn't it be nice if he just walked up the garden path one

day."

On the left is a very young Russel paying at being a cowboy I think his face is priceless on the picture.

The Picture on the right is one took on the ship he was serving, the picture isn't too good as it was took behind glass.