BANG!!!!!!

One of the 'Bridemaid dresses' solutions was to buy silk flower corsages to hide Kelly's tat, so I had gone into town in search of something suitable. I finally found something in Debenhams but they only had two in stock. The sales girl was brilliant, searching through new stock, old stock and eventually getting one put by for me at their Westward Cross store. Too late to get there before closing though I went yesterday morning, taking my american niece Zoe and my mum.

Having had a good morning wandering around the shops, I stopped at the sea front in Herne Bay so she could buy some postcards to send home. The sea was a novelty to someone who lives in the Arizona desert so inevitabley we ended up having a bit of a paddle.




Martin had managed to dig out the tree stumps (finally and not without a fight) but none of his saw's were up to cutting the large trunk up. He had arranged for our friend Trev to come round after he had been at work, with his better quality saws. Apparently their daughter Joey, the one who fell off her horse and suffered head injuries, is not making as good a progress as first suggested, and it was very sad talking to him, and to hear how hard they are all finding the adjustment to their life as carers.

Already low from this chat, at that point we had a phone call from mum and dad to say they had been in a car accident. All three of them, mum dad and Zoe were unhurt (if a not shook up) but the car - my dad's pride and joy Merc, was a mess. The front wing and side passenger door were crumpled to within an inch of its life and although the car is perfectly drivable I suspect the insurance co. will write it off.

Worse still though was the attitude of the passenger of the car that caused the accident. A young girl driver had pulled into a parking place between parked cars in front of dad, but as he then overtook her, she changed her mind and pulled out the space again straight into the side of dad. Her brother, riding shot gun, apparently when ape, ripping off the number plates and tax disc of her car in order to prevent my dad getting any details, and continually shouting at both my mum and dad aggresively. A passing motorist stopped to tell him to stop shouting at 'that little old lady' (my mum) and soon ambulances and police had arrived to try sort out the situation.

What a fab end (not) to Zoe's first day in England!!

menus

Counting down

With only a few days left until W day, its all a bit rushed around here. We had been hoping to avoid any last minute panics but even with the amount of organising Laura and I have been doing, things have still managed to go wrong in the last few days and have left us scratching our heads for solutions or wishing we had more time.

On Wednesday of last week we collected the bridesmaids dresses. These were being hand made by a teacher friend of Laura's so we had to rely on when she was available to when they would be finished. Leaving the bulk of the making and fitting until the summer holidays meant that there was no final fitting and it was only yesterday, having given the 3 bridesmaids out their dresses that we discovered none of them fit correctly and all needed altering in some way. Unfortunately the dressmaker is fully booked with other things apart from a short hour on Friday - too late for us to use her, and also impossible for the one dress now residing in London to be corrected.

After a few tantrums, we hope the solutions have been found and that it will all be ok on the day. Aside from the man in the fish shop refusing to sell any fish if they are being used for a wedding, the bouncy castle letting us down, and a cancelled hotel room booking from one of the guests all seems to be on track (fingers crossed).

Friday and Sunday, Martin Kelly and Ollie had tickets to see tottenham play at Wembly. Martin went straight from his early shift at work, up to town but it took them so long to get out of the stadium after the match that they missed the train and Mart rolled home at 1.45 am!

On Saturday it was Laura's hen night and we had a very pleasant (if not a tad quiet for a hen) meal in a local restaurant. The younger girls carried on to a night club but us oldies headed back home. It was a 'Fame' theme event and we all had to go dressed up in probably the worst era possible fashion wise.

Laura and Kelly in fluorescent colours

Mum in her original '80s trouser suit and me wearing thick blue and pink eye shadow. Those are genuine '80's plastic beads too!

Zoe, my 17 year old niece arrived from America yesterday. She is staying for two weeks with Mum and Dad. They went up to meet her but there was abit of trouble at immigration because no one had thought to give her the address and telephone number of where she was staying, so they refused to let her through until Mum had answered heaps of questions. She seems none the worst for her ordeal though and today we took her shopping, stopping at Herne Bay sea front on the way home. She was fascinated by the lug worm casts in the sand, since she lives in the middle of the desert in Arizona and there is nothing like it 'at home'

Just a few photos.

A photo of my mum and dad's dog whistkie with his rosette for coming first in class (Best Crossbreed) at his very first dog show last weekend





A photo of Martin as he starts his attack on the trees in readiness for our hot tub. This is the best site but needs one tree and 4 stumps to be removed first. All he has is a blunt saw and an even blunter small logging axe. Methinks it may take a while. The tree itself is in a sorry state, since it was already split lenthwise down the trunk from the heavy winds last winter, and it would seem there was also some illness in the roots since the bark just fell away, so hot tub or no it needs to come out - but not a fun game by any lookout.





A photo of the second page to go with the one I did at Kate's class the other week using the left over bits.

Thought wrong!

I somehow thought I would be rushing round doing jobs for the wedding, but it seems not yet, so having cleared the decks ready, I now am at a loss of what to do. I tried a spot of gardening but there is a plague of black flies (like sand flies but bigger) which I was soon covered with, in my hair, down my bra, all over my arms and neck. So I had to come in and strip to get them all off. So that left little option other than to come in the scrap room and play. This is another of Pickleberry Crafts sketches. I pasted the sketch into photoshop and then used my new skills to make a clipping mask template of it, before using a Shabby Princess kit to fill it all up.

Celebrations!

We have had a few achievements this weekend worthy of celebrations. Trouble is everyone is so busy with weddings and holidays and other stuff, its hard to fit family together time in at the moment.

On Saturday Laura and I went to have the alterations on her wedding dress sorted out. Seeing the dress with the underskirt and pinned in where the alterations are to go made it look so much better and it already looked fab. She is going to be such a beautiful bride, and that is not all mummy bias, as she has a super figure!

Martin was on an early for a change so it was great when Ollie and Kelly popped in to see us on their way home from having lunch at Ollie's sister's. Kelly approved the stuff I was doing for the hen night, and they sorted out all the arrangements for the two football matches at Wembley their father is going to with them to see next friday and sunday.

After that the evening was pretty dire, we were dog sitting for Laura (Bailey was exceptionally well behaved) but the people down the road decided they would celebrate a birthday with a very loud and very boisterous outdoor disco and karaoke. This started at 4 and fianally stopped at 10. 6 hours of very very bad drunken reditions of stuff such as Welcome home, Dont go breaking my Heart, Country Roads and other 70's drivel!! Even with the windows shut and the telly up high we couldnt drown it out.

On Sunday Kelly was running in the Hyde Park Race for Life. She did it in 38 mins and 50 seconds (she said she could have done faster but people kept getting in her way and slowed her down.) She raised nearly £1000 for Cancer research, so well done my babe. Very proud mum here.

Laura was also raising money for charity, playing in a rounders match at the Cricket match. I dont know how she did, they were very hung over when I took the dog back and she had hurt her wrist on the dancing pole at the club, so she wasnt too enthusiastic about the chances of playing for very long.

Then I got a surprise call from my mum. As part of the Oyster week celebrations, there was a dog show running on the sea front. They had taken Whiskie along and he had won Best Crossbreed! I went along to see, as it was only a stones throw walk away, and watched him come no where in the Most Handsome Dog class. While dad and I were stood watching though a very friendly Huskie doggie decided he fancied the shape of dad as a lamp post and did what dogs do against lamp posts - all down dad's clean trousers. Of course I am such a loving daughter and did the best I could for him - collapse into laughter!!

I left them to it, and later mum phoned to say Whiskie had come 6th in another class (Best Long Hair Dog) winning another prize. Not bad for his very first show and just one more thing to celebrate.

NB Photos on camera to follow

Class and sketch

I have been sort of following the free Frames and Brushes class that Jessica Sprague has been running for the last 2 weeks and thought I would use some of what I had learnt (how to make clipping maskes) to do a digi LO. I used this weeks (week 3) sketch challenge on Kate's blog for Pickleberry Papercrafts and this is the result. I'm quite pleased for a first attempt. Paper and elements mainly from Shabby Princess and photos of our trip to see Charles Darwin's house soon after they opened the new exhibition.

Hot tub!!

A few years ago now, my scrapping buddy Joy bought a hot tub because her doctor recommended it for her health. I was so jealous and eversince then have wanted one in my own garden. When I gave up full time teaching I promised Martin that any wage I earned above and beyond his salary I was going to save towards my own hot tub. I dont think he believed me and I dont think he was that keen.

This month, finally, our sharesave scheme has been released and so on a whim I dragged him along to look at the tubs. He was still dubious even after I had explained all the health benefits, but when we got there, the saleslady mentioned how fantastic it was to sit out in one, under the stars late at night with a beer in hand. I think he remembered how great it had been doing something similar floating down the outside part of the lazy river at Centre Parks years ago, and suddenly his enthusism took off.

Today we went to the Kent County Show, because one of the dealers in Margate had said they did good deals at shows. He wasnt wrong. We thought we would only be getting LED lights free on the one we liked, but we got lights, the cover lift, the fitting and commission and free steps, and a little something else which is a surprise for the kids - round about £800 of extra goodies for nort!

We have to clear out a few trees, lay a base, get an electrician to put in a junction box and then in about 8 weeks time we will finally be lazing in our very own hot tub!!!

Dates and memories

Last weekend Martin started pressure hosing the patio. It is block paving and tends to get quite a lot of moss (it falls from the roof) growing between the cracks. This in turn gives the weeds a roothold so every 9 months or so we pressure hose it all down and refil with silver sand. Of course this makes a real mess, and pebbledashes the house, walls, gate, bins and anything else in his path with sand and mud. While I was washing down the conservatory windows it became apparent that the woodwork was way past the need of a quick spruce and needed lots of TLC plus a coat of white gloss.

Of course this got us trying to remember when we had last painted it, I reckoned 2004, and since this it the only year I completed a whole scrapbook album for, I hauled it out to look through. Gee it must have been before 2004 as it was already sparkly white in the photos. Oh well. Still it did remind me that for that particular album I made calendar pages for each month and filled in what we had been up to all year. I must start a few more year albums and wayhay I can use my blog to fill in any blank days ... well thats if I start updating a little more often! So stay tuned, I may get round to blogging a little more often!!

Finally! Some scrapping.

Today Kelly and I went to a class at
Pickleberry Papercrafts
in Faversham. Kate G who used to run the Bobbing crop we used to go to together has returned from Ireland and has set up a little shop and a crop/workshop/class place, so to get back our mojo, Kelly booked a class for us. Kate unfortunately had to go back to Ireland for a visit but she left us in the capable hands of Jane Dean, and we had a fab time. There is a well stocked shop, several crop rooms and tea was made for us to order!!



I loved this class, I have always wanted to be able to do a Carol Janson/3D effect LO properly and these beautiful Minds Eye papers really lend themselves to it. Ok I really need to improve on my cutting out technique but there was lots in this that I intend using again ..and again..and again.
Anyway while putting up the class I finished (at home because I am so slow at cutting out lol) I thought I would also finally get round to putting up the LO's I had still laying on the table. Please excuse photos taken in very poor lighting.

This one I started last week when I got my new SU! paper pack from my
mate Jo Friend


And this one inspired by the same holiday is a Pencil line sketch made wih some very old paper found in my scraps.


Suzanne got me into making my own journalling spots so I went the whole hog and made loads. Arrow is cut on my cricut, as are letters for the title.



New SU! stamps inspired this one, lots of cutting and 3d layering.



And one I thought I had finished ages ago only to find that the yellow cs base had already had a chunk cut off the side, so I finally after staring at it for months, got round to backing it further on to a true 12x12 bit of red and adding the journalling.