Christmas Wreaths for CCC!

Hello once again to Everyone, hoping today sees you all well and enjoying your weekend.

It's time again for the girls at the Christmas Card Club to show their latest creations, and this time it's our lovely Rita who has chosen the theme and she would like to see Christmas Wreaths and one that I could manage no bother at all as I have quite a few images, so here is the first of them,

All the images and sentiments are from the free stamp sets from a couple of Creative Stamping Magazines and coloured with Zig Water Colour Pens and SN Sparkle Pens/ The paper is from a Papermainia pad of a few years ago, and matted on to CE Graphite card.

Another lovely wreath from the magazine, coloured with Zigs , Papermaina paper again and a few pearls all mounted onto Kraft card.

I hope they'll do Rita, I enjoyed the challenge so thanking you for our choice, as it let me use papers that have been around for yonks and these lovely stamps.

Just want to thank all of you who have visited and left lovely comments, I do appreciate each and everyone of them.

Scheduling this post now for tomorrow Sunday, when you can see what my teamies have made, take care and see you soon,

Prancing Rudolph!

Good Day to Everyone, hope you are well and having a good day.
I've spent a bit of time colouring, so relaxing, and in between washing floors. I've eventually learned to take tasks a bit more slowly, doing a wee bit, then a rest before I carry on with the next. I have to keep reminding myself that there is no need for me to hash and bash to get housework done any longer now I'm retired. That's been a slow process though.

Thank you all so much for the lovely comments on my Wedding set. I wasn't given a remit in any way so just decided to do my own thing.

I wanted to join in with the Rudolph Challenge this month, so here is my card;

I've use this lovely prancing stag from the free stamps from Creative Stamping Magazine, the sentiment and snowflakes from the same set, all embossed with Wow EP in Silver and Gold. On to black card and the base card is silver from Dovecraft. I drew a silver border with a Kuretake pen.

I buy this magazine almost every month.... well depending what the stamps are, and don't get around to using them, and they are really, really good, so I've decided to try and give them an airing.

Nothing much planned for the weekend, food shopping will be the most exciting thing happening I think. What about you, anything planned? Whatever you do, enjoy it and see you for the next CCC cards on Sunday,

I would like to enter my card into;
https://scrapsoflifebyscrappymo.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/april-rudolph-days-challenge.html

The Bride and Groom!

Hello Everyone, it seems an awfully long time since I was last here, how are you all anyway, fine and fit I hope. Though if you're not, sending kind thoughts that you will feel better soon.

A cold dull and wet day here, where oh where did the good weather go??? I think I've come out of my woolie socks to soon.

Our concert went well and everyone enjoyed it, it was a pity though that there wasn't a bigger audience, perhaps it was do to with the concert being on a Sunday, or it might have been the unfamiliar piece of music, we always have a full house which is 850 seats when we sing the Messiah, but we can't keep doing that.  Anyway, that is us finished for the Summer, only the AGM in June, it's good to get a break.

Thank you all so much for the lovely comments on my last card. Today I've got a a wedding card that our friend Dougie asked me to make for him to give to his daughter for her wedding in June. it's a bit photo heavy;

The new Sara Davis Rustic Wedding range came out just at the right time for me and dies and papers are from the range, Wild Orchid flowers, gold pearl hearts and tiny pearls. The background is kraft card embossed and matted on to chocolate Centura Pearl card. I had some gorgeous stick pins that I'd won from Wendy from Spanish Crafter which were just perfect.

Inside of the card with one of the beautiful papers from the paper pad, printed onto velum. Sentiment generated on PC and cut out with a heart die. The Cherish sentiment is from Die'sire.

Of course the card need a box;

The large heart die is from the Rustic range, but the little heart with the sentiment is from The Works. Lace and chiffon ribbon for the bow.

And a bag to put it into;

I used one of the larger bags to take the 8x8 card and decorated it with the same papers and heart die, but this time I used the fabulous tag die from the range.

It's amazing the time all this took, I'm well out of the way of making these sorts of cards and when asked to make it it's got to be just right. Serena doesn't look at my blog, so I'm confident to show it here.

Off now to make Normandy Pork for dinner, that's pork and apples in a casserole, but Delilah has given it a fancy name.

Take care everyone and see you soon,

Star of Bethlehem!

Hello Everyone, I hope you are well and having a good day. Have you all been enjoying the run of lovely sunny warmth that we have been having? It's a bit dull now although it was really lovely early this morning and I had a sit out in the garden with my book and breakfast.

Anyway, it's almost the weekend, they come around far too quickly don't they, I hope you have something good planned. I have the Choral concert on Sunday, and I am so looking forward to the performance, as it's a fabulous piece by Handel... Alexander's Feast and just a little bit different from the usual Handel. it will be interesting to see how it's received by the audience.

Thank you all for the lovely comments on my last card, always appreciated and eagerly read.

My card today is made for the Flower Challenge;

The challenged asked for shaped cards so I've used this lovely SB die to make a circular card. The lovely floral image is Star of Bethlehem from Hobby  Art and coloured with Zig watercolour pens, sparkle and white pens. I splashed some gold watercolours from   Gansi Tambi watercolours over the finished piece.


Well my goodness, the heavens have opened,it's chucking it down outside, so pleased I brought the washing in.

Here's a photo of our concert flyer;

That's all from me just now, have a super weekend, 

I would like to enter my card into;
http://theflowerchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/the-flower-challenge-19-shaped-cards.html

http://bbbchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/challenge-1-matting-and-layering.html

For Beautiful Eyes!

Hello to You All, I hope today finds you happy and well, but if not, lots of kind and healing thoughts are sent to you.

Sunny but awfully windy today, great for the washing going out, but I'm up to date there, thankfully. The weather map is showing some very hot spots over the country, so hope you are in some of them.

Thank you so much for the lovely comments on my last cards, love reading them and appreciate everyone of them. 
A wee update on my GP telephone call of yesterday...... left me furious as it was all about selling me statins as my Cholesterol was higher than what they would like. OK of course it is as everything about my diabetes is out of kilter. I tried to tell him that it was my BG that was the worry, and if I could get some support there, I'm sure I could manage to get it all back into line.  Now years ago I did some research into statins and decided not to take then, well the doctor at that time was trying to put me on them even although my Cholesterol was excellent. apart from the scientific info about them, which included detrimental to BG levels and muscle pain, I also found out that GPs are offered incentives by the pharmaceutical   companies  for every patient they manage to prescribe statins for.

So that was a waste of time as far as I was concerned and just compounds my negative thoughts regarding some GPs. However, seeing the Practice Nurse this morning was different, she could see I was struggling, and has referred me to the Diabetic Clinic at the Hospital where the experts are. I was so relieved as this is what I felt I needed. I felt listened to by the nurse, and she knows that I am able to turn things around with a bit of tweaking, and although Cholesterol is important, it will come down when I'm tweaked.  Thanks for all your well wishes on this.

Now to my card;

I thought this lovely image based on the most wonderful Audrey Hepburn was just perfect for the new challenge at Stamping Sensations "one for the Girls".
It's an image from Stamping Bella and I've coloured it with Procolour Pencils from Derwent, with a bit of Sparkle Pen. The fab sentiment is from the same set.
Background paper is from Crafty Individuals Travels in Italy paper pad, and of course you can see that it's a Venice scene with the gondolas. A bit of ribbon and some gems and that's it.

So, that's me for today, I'm having a relaxing day now that I've got the diabetic review behind me, I must have been worrying a bit in the back of my mind.
Have a lovely day and see you soon, 

I would like to enter my card into the http://sirstampalotchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/april-challenge.html  

Poinsettias for the CCC!

Hello Everyone, hoping all is well with you and that you are enjoying your weekend.

Can hardly believe that two weeks have gone by and it's time for the Christmas Card Club Girls to share their latest cards.  This time around it's our lovely Mary who has chosen the theme and she would love to see Poinsettias or other Christmas Greenery. There is also the option of Anything Goes if you can't manage the chosen theme.

Poinsettia stamps I do have so that was what I used and I've made two cards;

This lovely image is from Woodware and I've stamped and heat embossed in white on to Kraft card, and coloured with pencils, matted on to black card and then on to a tartan paper from Papermainia. 

Another of my favourite Poinsettia images, this time from Papermainia, bought lots of years ago. I stamped and embossed in gold EP and to a background made with Oxides. I then built up the colour on the leaves with Zig watercolour pens. Heat embossed the sentiment and added  sequins and a few white spots around the image with a white pen.

I love Challenge Mary, so thanks for choosing it.

Thank you all for the lovely comments on my last card, always appreciated. Take care of yourselves and see you soon,

Hedgehog Hugs!

Hello Everyone from a very wet and dull Inverness. I hope you have better weather where you are. Yesterday was glorious warmth and sunshine, what happened? Well it's a day at home for me today.

Thanking all who left lovely comments on my last card and about my health issues, all very much appreciated.  I will be having my telephone appointment on Monday afternoon, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's only going to about the BG being high and what I'm going to do about it, rather than anything sinister, which I would guess would be an appointment at the surgery with a face to face with the GP rather than a phone appointment. Time will tell.

I have another Spring card to share;

This little Hedgehog is from a Hobbyart stamp set called Hedgehog, and he is coloured with Zig Watercolour pens, which I have to say are fabulous. There are lots of little images in the stamp set which you can see in the picture.
I've also used some of the floral images from Hobbyart's Nature Walk around the aperture of the front of the card, again coloured with the watercolour pens and some Sparkle pen. I've also used Sakura pens on the berries.  I felt the lovely images didn't require anything additional by way of embellishments. I love the sentiment too.

Not much to tell you on this post, getting ready for another weekend, and our only plan is going to see RSC Macbeth at Eden Court theatre on Sunday. Alistair tried to get tickets for the live performance that gets streamed in, but all tickets gone, so it's the encore showing we are going to.
Christopher Ecclestone and Niamh Cusack are in it and I would imagine that they will be playing the title roles, so really looking forward to that.
When we were visiting with Mr. and Mrs. Duck last year and they took us to Stratford upon Avon we were disappointed that the plays didn't meet our schedule, so it's great that we can see it away up here in the North.

I hope you have some lovely plans for the weekend.....mind you even doing nothing can be a brilliant plan, so take care of yourselves and see you on Sunday for the next CCC post,

I would like to enter this card into:

http://www.fashionablestampingchallenges.com/2018/04/08/challenge- 134 Animals

and http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/69-springtime.html

Mistletoe Bridge!

Hello Everyone, and hoping all is well with you, if not sending out kind thoughts and hugs.

Well it started out a beautiful day, warm and sunny, guess what, yep it's now raining, pleased I got my washing in before the wet stuff came on.

Thank you all so much for the lovely comments on my bauble card, I do appreciate your time in visiting and commenting, we are all busy these days.
I've been busy in the kitchen today, between baking, soup making and chilli for our dinner tonight I've had no time for crafting.
I'm going to visit a former colleague and friend tomorrow, so I wanted to bake a teabread cake to take with me.  It's made with Earl Grey Tea and is scrumptious, but the amount of sugar in it makes it a no no for me, but I know Jenny will love it.

Talking about sugar, I had a letter from the surgery to say that they had my blood results back and that one of the GPs would like to discuss the results, so to make a phone appointment. Never, have I had that before, I usually go to see the Practice Nurse for the results and take it from there. Now I know my blood glucose wouldn't be  good as I've taken my eye of the ball, but, there must be a concern for a Dr. to want to discuss it. Anyway, I've never seen a doctor in years about my diabetes and felt that I should really as I've been struggling for the best part of a year to keep control, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise. However this particular GP is on leave so it will be next week before I can speak to him.  Diabetes is such a complicated disease, and even the best of control can go array, and I'm now not the best controlled. I have been feeling quite unwell and sometimes can't pinpoint what's wrong, so perhaps now there may be something showing up.

Enough of me, I've got a card:

One of my favourite stamps by Justinkdlined...Mistletoe Bridge, I've inked it up with DI and drawn the ink out with water. I've added some sparkle and little pearls to the bud on the Mistletoe. Sentiment from Inkylicious.

 Choral rehearsal tonight, we are getting near our concert later this month, in fact only two rehearsals left, where has the time gone..... so I'll sign off now and see you soon, take care of yourselves,

Christmas Baubles!

Hello Everyone, I hope you are well and enjoying your day.
It's been a driech sort of day here, not a wink of the sun, and I've felt cold, a sort of damp coldness that seems to seep into the bones.

Nothing all that exciting happening here, all quiet for me although Alistair took himself off for a cycle around the Firth yesterday amounting to around 40 miles.....and he wonders why he's tired. I really don't know where he gets his energy from, but I wish I had some of it.

I have a Christmas card today;

Not a great light today for taking photos, so sorry about that.
Woodware stamps for this one and water colour colouring, with some silver gel pen.
I've kept it very simple as I would like to enter into ;
https://caschristmascardchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/cas-christmas-april-challenge.html

Thank so much for all the lovely comments on my last card, I do appreciate the time it takes everyone.
A short and sweet post today, thank goodness do I hear you say lol!!

The weekend is almost upon us once again, don't they come around too quickly, anyhow, I hope you have some lovely plans and enjoy it, take care and see you soon,

Glorious Spring!

Glorious Spring! Well I think not going by our weather today. Woke up to Snow, than hail and smirry rain, but it is the school holidays so what's new.
Anyway, Hello to You All, and I hope you are well and that your weather is better than ours.  Did you all have a lovely Easter.... whatever you were doing?  It was all Lindt for us with chocolate bunnies and a orange egg. Very scrumptious, but for me only a little at a time.

We had a lovely lunch with my cousins Peggy and Alastair and Peggy's son Steven. My Alistair had asked me would I recognise them, well I would Peggy anywhere as she is he mother's double. We were amazed at how much time had past since we last met up.  We then jumped into our little Micra,,, which is actually a Tardis and took them up to Culloden Battlefield, where they had expressed a wish to visit if they had the time. Bitter cold, good job we were all wrapped up warmly. It was lovely to see them again and not at a sad occasion this time.

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments on my CCC cards. It was a very popular theme as it turned and the ladies came up with fabulous cards and a bunch of different animals, so thank you CCC Ladies.


I've got a very colourful card today;

I've used one of the newer stamps from Hobby Art, A Walk with Nature and you can find it here bought when Jenny Mayes brought them to Hochanda the other week. It's all water coloured and  stamped on to water colour paper and cut with a SB die. The background is made with Oxides and brushed on with Inkylicious brushes, then one of the small stamps from the set stamped around the edges. Matted on to black card with Sparkle pen and sequins to finish.  Now, I'm so annoyed as there is a lovely sentiment  that comes with the stamps set which I peeled off and put on my desk and turned to look for something else, turned back and it had gone.....hunted all round for it and had to finally give up, so this is a CB sentiment from their Glorious Spring set of stamps,which I've embossed in White.  Do things like that happen to you?

I'm off to have my bloods taken for my Diabetic review later this afternoon. I dislike this part of the process than going back in two weeks to hear the results. I don't seem to let my blood go easily, but needs must.

Off to have some homemade lentil soup now, it's that kind of day, take care of yourselves and see you soon,

Animals at Christmas for CCC!

Well Hello there Everyone, I hope you are well and enjoying your Easter holiday, and not feeling too cold. We are very cold up here and there has been more snow on the mountains which is where it can stay as far as I'm concerned.

Would you believe a fortnight has passed since our last Christmas Card Club post, time just flies by so quickly doesn't it. Anyway, this time around it was my choice for the challenge and I've chosen Animals at Christmas. I reckoned there would be lots of scope for all the girls, cos you can really have any animals at Christmas, even a tortoise, so I'm looking forward to seeing what my teamies come up with. Here are my cards;

Both images are from Animals at Christmas CD, and although I've told myself not to make too  many cards, I just couldn't resist these two toppers, they are so cute, and most of my favourite animals too.  The sentiments are both from Chocolate Baroque, and I've just added sparkle and gems. I have to say I love the first image, the expression on the little pig's face is brilliant, and all the animals are so excited at seeing the baby in his cradle, Whoever drew these animals have done an amazing job.

My two cousins are in Inverness this weekend to see St. Mirren playing Caley Thistle. Now I've not seen either of them for around twelve years when we went down to Paisley for Alastair's wedding, and sadly his wife died a few years ago. Anyway, we are off to meet up with them tomorrow. It's just a Christmas card communication, so it will be lovely to see, Alastair, Peggy and her son Steven tomorrow. 

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments on my previous card, I do appreciate each and every one of them.

Have a lovely Easter Day, whatever your plans are and see you soon,