Weddings at the weekend

Well a pretty boring week up until Thursday evening when I got a text from Laura asking for me to take Bailey Balls the large puppy over to the doggie grooming place the following morning. This was because Wayne (who had expected to drop him over) ad not been able to get an hour off work to do so. A good early start to the day then? He is a lovely dog though and sat in the car beautifully as I drove him there, and he went off with the strange lady with no problems whatsoever.


After dropping him off I took a run out to a new venue that has been recommended by the caterers for Laura's wedding. There is nothing wrong with the venue we had picked out except that it needs a marquet plus porta loos plus catering tent plus walkway plus.... well the costs just keep piling up. Its also a far cry from what Laura actually wants which is an old rambling country house with rooms to put up guests and a bit of garden to wander around in if its lovely and sunny. Its not lack of money stopping her turning her dream into reality. and its not that these places do not exist. They just dont exist near enough to the church she is being married in. So if we ever win/earn enough to do so, we are going to buy a place and fill this gap in the market. Kent is such a beautiful place full of old oast houses and such it is just a real pity. Anyway the new place is another converted barn which has only just started doing weddings, so we have an appointment to veiw on Tuesday. Meanwhile I crept up the drive and took a quick photo.




I took quite a few photos on Friday because Shimmelle has a class going on UKS for the cybercrop which involves mapping out the 25th of every month for a year and scrapping it. I didnt take that many photos as I didnt think cleaning out the cooker was going to make much of a Layout. I did take a few of the seeds I planted though

and my square foot garden which I have just planted up with onions, leeks, carrots and beetroot to go with the cabbages, and peas already in it.



On Saturday Kelly had asked if she could lend our Wii remotes as they were off to a Wii party that evening and would I also drop them over as they had to stay in and wait for their new cooker to arrive. Well the new cooker apparently was broken before being delivered so they have to wait until next weekend for it to come. It was a beautiful day though so after a cuppa with her and Ollie I went off on a little jaunt along Sittingbourne High Street. A pleasant surprise as the Round Table were holding a fund raiser and the whole road was full of stalls, clowns, punch and Judy and about 30 vintage cars!

Anyway home to try out my hand at the cybercrop classes. Unfortunately try as I might I just could not get the pdf files to open until it was well past scrapping time. I did finally get one class finished this morning.

Now you think you have read all this drivel and cant see why I called it Weddings at the weekend. But its because I finally got taken to the wedding Fair. I have never been to a wedding fair, they didnt exist when Martin and I tied the knot - you just got on with it. No wedding planners, toastmasters, bands or chocolate fountains. It was a village hall, a disco if you could afford to hire one or some aged uncle bunging records on your home hi-fi system and a buffet with tons of cheese and pinapples on sticks and sausage rolls. If you were a bit posher (like us) you opted for a sit down meal but not many people did that so you were pretty limited in choice.

So the whole fair thing is a totally new experience on me .... and although it was interesting, not one I think I want to experience again. Laura already has many ideas, they are adamant they want more novely rather than traditional things so much of what we saw wasnt really appropriate. We did come away with three bags full of leaflets and info though, and were very impressed with the casino tables (casino tables?????) and cocktail bars.

Lunch time by now we stopped off for sunday lunch at our local country pub where Martin joined us, and we had a huge platter of roast beef each followed by apple pie and custard.

Such a shame we have to go back to work next week.

Oh and good vibes for Laura who's school are being Ofsted'ed on Wednesday and Thursday. Good luck babe although I am sure you wont need it and will come out with a glowing report.

Tagged

I have been tagged by the lovely Soojay.

1. If a movie was being made of your life who would you like to be cast to play yourself? And why?
To be honest I am absolutely hopeless with A and B list celebreties, I dont keep up with the gossip or the photo pages, so dont really have much of a clue who is who in the land of Hollywood superstars and leading ladies. I'm the same with books, I can read them, and enjoy them, but wont have a clue who wrote them. And since the kind of movies I like are either in Black and White or U/PG rated I dont think any of the child stars will work LOL


2. You are spending a whole month on a desert island for charity and you have to choose your favourite celebrity to spend the first two weeks with & your least favourite celebrity to spend the second two weeks with, who would they be & why?
See answer to one. Same problem, dont know who is who. If a cleb is mentioned on a forum I have to do a google image search I am that hopeless.

3. What are your three favourite crafting products?
I like making most of my embellishments myself so I guess that after my computer which I use on every LO either for ideas, printing out photos/pattern paper, or images, or for the journalling, its got to be my small provocraft non-stick scissors, my inks and stamps (they class as one as stamps are pretty useless without ink). If I ever manage to get a cricut or robocraft I susspect that my rocket to the top of my list.

4. If you could invent something to do anything what do you think it would be?
Something really small but incredibly useful which would change peoples lives, bit like velcro did. If it makes me incredibly rich in the process I wont say no because I could give heaps of money to a ton of charities then.

5. What are the last three books that you read?
Tricky one because I really am an avid reader but for the past year I have been putting speaking books onto my ipod. This means I can 'read' and craft/garden at the same time. So if those books count I have just finished re-listening to all 7 Harry Potter books as read by Stephen Fry and have just started on The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan

6. Qvc or create and craft?
I used to watch lots of QVC then I changed aliences and moved to C&C. Now I dont tend to watch either if I can help it.

7. Docrafts or Dovecraft or DCWV?
No idea, cant say I have bought any of it, except from a couple of See-D stamp sets.


8. What is your claim to fame?
Only by association. My mum is related to one of the Beverly sisters in some way. My eldest daughter lived in the same flat complex as Jade when she was on Big Brother, and DH was Shaun Williamson's boss before Shaun went off to actor school and became famous. DD2 and I once spotted 'Ricky' from Eastenders, standing in a car park in Herne Bay!

Ok if they havent already been tagged I am going to nab Jen and because I think both of these people should visit their own blogs a little more and give me some of the stuff I like reading - Boo and Kelly.

Red Noses

I just want to upload my version of the sketch class for this weekends upcoming cybercrop on UKscrappers. Please excuse the bits of glitter and glue, I really need to do some housework on my scanner.

sniff sneeze sneeze sniff

Yes a week full of cold/flu type symptoms, probably caught from Kelly who suffered last week. So glad she shared it.
So I didnt do much at all for the second week of the holiday. Mainly sleep and watch telly. We did go out and buy a heap of card so that Laura could make her 'Save the Date'cards, but that was about the highlight.
.
On Friday Martin and I had been invited to the wedding reception of a girl I had known well through Uni while I was doing my teacher training. Although still in touch we dont see each other often as we have now moved off in different directions. Still feeling like death warmed up we headed out to find the venue. I wasnt sure why we hadnt been invited to the wedding as well, but that soon became clear. Just as she had always said she would, they had had the actual marriage ceremony on the beautiful Island of Mauritus.

It wasnt a bad do either despite the band being an hour late arriving, and the venue being rather like a pub bar and really squashy. The hog roast was to die for, and the 4 songs we did get to hear the band sing were terrific. Sadly by the time the food turned up though, the flu/cold bug had claimed me again. Plus we didnt know a single soul other than the bride and groom, both of who were busy doing the hosts with the most bit. So we quietly slipped away and I was tucked back up in bed by half ten.

So this week, back to supply work and now the cold has gone, suffering from rape seed alergy. Oh well. Summer cant be that far off now can it?

Fun playing

I am having so much fun playing with my new toys from the BSASB show at Ally Pally. These are not really for cards, more experiments. I actually dug out my brayer and used it for the first ever time!

Used Kaleidacolor inkpad to brayer over background then stamped over the top

And this one is a lesson on the Stampscapes web site.

As lesson on website, I just added some sukara souffle to give a slight snow effect.

I was already making this LO - I scraplifted it from Scrapdolly's blog but its actually a class designed by Karen Russell so credit to both talented ladies. Its interactive so the side opens to reveal more photos and journalling. And sorry yes the scanner managed to knock off the 'a', its sitting on my desk ready to be glued back on.

Crate paper, Bo Bunny chipboard letters and swirl, painted , covered in crackle glaze and then inked, embossing paste corner and florish, tapestry stamps to make dragonfly background.

Anyway I was playing with my new Dreamweaver embossing paste and discovered a Creative Memories drawing template of corners and borders which I thought might work as well as a brass stencil (as had been demo'd to us at the show). I added some of my new cosmic glimmer powders and am so pleased with the result. It was pretty daunting doing it straight on to a finished LO though.

A break

Martin has been on holiday this week, so he started off with a very long list of household maintenance jobs to do. Mean while I have been spending time with Laura sorting out wedding type bits and bobs. On Tuesday auto glass were sorting out the broken windows on her car - seems the police finally caught the kids that did it, unbelievably they had damaged 30 other cars! I had to take her car keys over to her in-laws-to-be house as that is where it was parked, and at the moment the keys were requested, the folk buying Laura's house turned up to discuss fixtures and fittings. So I got to spend a pleasant hour with Graham and Di discussing wedding ideas so far
!
Dress shopping
On Wednesday even more wedding excitement as Laura, mum and I went into Faversham to help Laura try on wedding gowns. Gosh there is so much to choose from nowadays. I took a few photos but obviously cant upload them in case the groom takes a peep and she eventually chooses one of the many she tries on. Laura did find it hard work though, those dresses are heavy and so many decisions to make. So I can see a few more trips out before 'the one' is discovered. Laura has such a beautiful figure that she can carry off practically any design, the problem is this does work against her though as none of the shops carry sizes small enough and we are having to wrap a size 8 body in a size 14 gown which doesn't really give a clear indication of what they will look like.


Day out
On Thursday Martin had all but finished his chores so we decided on a day out. We settled for Nando's, The Dickens World, and then the pictures all at Chatham Dockland. Laura came with us as a treat, but I was so so angry and disappointed. Dickens cost £12.50 per person, we were told to allow at least 3 hours to go round. WRONG - OH SO WRONG!! We lasted for 3/4 hour and the only reason we were in there that long was that we really couldn't believe we had paid that much to enter and there was nothing to look at!. Honest, if you are thinking of going - save your money!! Having gone in you are treated to a large warehouse that has been converted to look like a Victorian market place - since London consisted mainly of tiny alleys this in itself is not right. Still, it has been made using fascias with only two places to go into, a tiny shop mainly selling ponchos at a quid each, and other rubbish souvenirs, and the other 'shop' is the photo place to view and buy your photo of you on the water ride.

There is a haunted house but since the queue for this was over an hour long we didn't bother (its this long because other than the water boat and the 3D cinema there is literally nothing else to do/see apart from the pub selling meals!) There were a few people dressed in costume but they didn't interact with the visitors that much, in fact none of them talked to us at all.

So we cut our losses, came home and went to see the Spiderwick Chronicals at our local bug hut. Which we really enjoyed.


Holiday booking
On Friday we spent 3 hours in the travel agents with the lovely Michelle who is very patient with us considering we had no idea where we wanted to go. Just a date and the idea that we wanted to go stateside. We finally settled for 12 nights in California, fly-drive starting at Los Angeles and ending in San Francisco. We still have to book hotels as we go but we can explore to our hearts desire.

Stamp Show
And finally yesterday I travelled up to Ally Pally with Kelly to the Big Stamp and Scrapbook show, where we did lots of walking, saw lots of demos, and spent heaps of money. For those who want to know I bought:

3 stickles at 3 for £5 (sadly I duplicated a colour I already had so Kelly if you want a green?)
A refill for my black Stazon pad (really pleased about that as I thought I was going to have to buy a whole new pad)
A set of stampscapes - I have already been playing! This is my first attemp using a mix of TH distress inks and cats eyes.


A set of cosmic shimmer powders
Some dreamweaver embossing paste, and a christmas stencil to play 3d stencilling with
Some cheap card blanks ready to make wedding invites
and a bag of lush gold glitter.

Today I am very worn out and its back to basic housework.


NB I do have a LO to upload but it will have to wait until I have scanned it in.

Its all happening here!

Two weeks of supply work have left me little time to blog, and plenty of other stuff has been happening too. It was great to be part of a school and not just doing day supply because I really got to know the children, and Friday I even got to dress up with them as part of National Book Week. I was Mrs Lather from Mrs Lather's Laundry (although not many people recognised that fact LOL). But it was enjoyable even if travelling 40 miles a day round trip was rather tiresome.

Looking forward to two weeks off and some time with Laura started well as we took a quick evening shopping trip together to buy her something to go out clubbing in. I ended up with a new handbag and purse, she got some shorts.

This happy start to the holidays was rather ruined when she had a huge row with Wayne, resulting in some lost hours sleep for us and the wedding in limbo, but I am pleased to say they are happily sorted out now and the arrangements for the wedding continue. We are still researching the price of marquees, and hopefully this week we are off out together to take a look at wedding dresses.

As if that wasnt enough, and as if it has only been a couple of weeks since she got her car back from the bump at the round-a-bout, she came home from the cinema yesterday to find vandals had smashed in most of the car windows. Poor Laura is now car-less for the holidays until autoglass get it fixed.

Meanwhile it is too cold to do much even though Martin is off this week. I have given him a list of tasks but they are mostly minor ones and he has covered many of them already this morning. I have been sewing instead of scrapping, continuing to make decs for my 'folk' based Christmas this year.

Felt stars for the christmas tree

These, when sewn together and stuffed will be
little applique sacks to strew about the house.