Photos of my spring garden

this is my first post since last November. I have been battling continuing poor health and also bipolar disorder which is so crippling.

One way I try and help myself is to do a little bit of gardening. Last autumn I planted lots of spring bulbs and my garden is looking so pretty right now, I garden on a tiny budget so wait for special offers from bulb catalogues, here are some photos of how my garden looks today, the bright colours make me smile even on dark days when I don't feel up to doing anything. Last Sunday I managed to re-stain part of my picket fence, I sat on the pavement in my own little world, I find it very relaxing and therapeutic.

this last photo was put on the docrafts forum last week, think it came from a newspaper originally, I loved it so much as it made me smile so I've made it my screensaver, now I can see this cheery, cheeky little chappie every day, he looks so glad to be alive!

thanks for any comments, fi x

Two autumnal swap tags

After making 2 tags yesterday, I was still in the crafty mood and made both of my autumnal swap tags for October.

Both tag bases were made using cream pearlised card and stamping a Personal Impressions Chestnut leaf stamp, stamped using VersaMagic Mango Madnesschalk ink pad, Tim Holtz Shabby Shutters & Fired Brick distress inks. The tags were also edged with the Fried Brick distress ink.

This first tag was also stamped with Personal Impressions Swallows stamp using Fired Brick distress ink & the tag was embellished with coloured lace and leaf brads and finished with ribbon.

this second tag was embellished using tiny flower brads and die-cut leaves, and finished with thin red ribbon.

Two 'Back to School' swap tags

I am quite behind on my monthly themed tags for the swap on the scraboooking forum on the Do Crafts website, mainly due to poor health, but today I sat and really enjoyed making two tags for the September swap.

                    The first tag uses House Mouse decoupage.

I layered the decoupage onto Websters Pages 'Petite Papers',(a 6" paper pad which came free with Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine) then onto copper pearlised card for tag base.

I embellished the tag with a Docrafts 3D tag, a leaf brad, paper scrabble letters which came free inside a craft magazine, and finished the tag with chiffon ribbon from my stash.

This second tag, I used a donated stamped image of a schoolgirl (sorry don't know the brand name) and coloured her with Promarkers. I 3D'd her onto lined floral school paper and again used the paper scrabble letters (both free in a craft magazine), then onto copper pearlised card for the tag base. I finished the tag with East of India maroon twine.

I enjoyed my crafting afternoon and aim to make some more tags tomorrow, Fi x

where has the year gone since I lost my best friend Deb?

On 29th October 2011 my dearest friend Deb died and left many broken hearts behind, she was only 55 years old, she was so full of life and lived each day to the full, too young to die.

 Tomorrow those who loved her will cover her grave with wreaths and tears, these are my flowers for my best friend, love you forever Deb, RIP, Fi xxxx

Made 4 tags for monthly swaps this week

It a bit of a week, on Tuesday teatime our irgin tivo crashed, along with their internet and our landline phone. Most houses in our road were reconnected in 2 hours, but 2 houses weren't and one of them was ours! We were finally reconnected on Friday lunchtime, butonly after the 2 Virgin tecvh guys came back 3 times.

One bonus to not having any internet, meant that instead of chatting to my dear friends on DC, which I really missed, it gave me the excuse to craft whilst watching DVDs we had had for ages and never got round to watching, my favourite was 'Atonement', but I also loved the cartoon 'All dogs go to Heaven' (our daughter is called Anner-Marie, like the girl in the story, and she had the film on video as a child and then bought it on DVD for her daughter, and mum!)

I belong to a monthly tag swap on the scrapbooking forum on DC, but had had no mojo and some poor health recently so had got behind.

August's theme was magical, we make a tag for our swap partner and the host.
This first tag is the tag I made for Kelly

It features, a ready-made tag, fairy pyramage, holographic peel-off butterflies and Papermania adhesive gems, and finished off with pale blue satin ribbon.

My 2nd tag was made for June our host this month

I coloured a donated stamped fairy image with promarkers. The tag is made from white hammered card, I stamped a frame acrylic stamp with clear embossing powder and brushed over it with Perfect Pearls 'Blue Patina', the first time I've used Perfect Pearls, saw the technique when Chloe was demonstrating on her Ideal World craft show last month. I used 3D sticky pads to attach the fairy to the tag and finished it with blue fibres.

September's theme is 'Back to school', which had me stumped, then I found some pyramage of a teacher. This tag is for June, my 1st partner for September. I aim to make my 2nd partner and the host tag for September next week.

This is a very simple tag, just using pyramage and red satin ribbon.

In December we are going to make 11 Christmas tags, one for each partner we have swapped with all year, so to save postage I made June's Christmas tag.

I used a donated Penny Black Christmas mouse (adore this image) and coloured it delicately with promarkers, I embellished the image with Papermania adhesive gems and layered it onto pearl card then made the tag from Kanban 'Blue Christmas Paisley' card, I finished the tag with with pale blue fibres.

we are away all weekend visiting our son Dan and his partner who live in Bristol and are in their final year of their law degrees, so will try and leapblog a bit Saturday morning, before we go, but then will try and catch up on Monday, have a wonderful crafty weekend everyone, and thankyou for any comments, your comments are so encouraging and each one is so appreciated, Fi xx

a thankyou and a birthday card (both using promarkers)

This week Andy and I went on a mini break to Herefordshire and stayed in a superb 4* farm guesthouse for 2 nights, I took some of the dfonated stamped images and enjoyed sitting on the bed in the early evenings colouring with my new promarkers which I just LOVE and can't wait to add more colours to my collection. this first phot ws taken at a superb pub where we had dinner on Tuesday evening.

This 2nd photo was taken just before we left the guest house to come home on Wednesday morning.

The first card I made was for our church admin manager Mike who has been arranging for homemade evening meals to be brought round to us til I'm well enouight to prepare evening meals myself, either cooked by himself or from other memebers at church who know us, all have been yummy, I gave him this card card and told him  I tried not to make it too girly, to which he replied humourously "I'm in touch with my feminine side!"

6" scalloped card and floral paper edged with TH shabby shutters distress ink. donated image coloured with promarkers and embellished with London Line gems, card finished with red card candi, red spotty grosgrain ribbon and printed 3D sentiment. the message on bouquet of flowers says "thanks Mike".

The 2nd card was made for our great-niece Grace's 1st birthday, image coloured Friday evening, card made today.
I used another donated, diecut and embossed LOTV image and coloured it with promarkers, added grosgrain robbon, blue card, and London Line pearls, the paper is from Wild Rose Studio 'In Love with Japan' 6" paper stack, all on my favourtie 6" scalloped edge card base.

Been a bit of a month!! and first attempts using promarkers

As many of my friends already know on Wednesday 29th August I had a mild TIA (mini stroke) won't bore you with details, but got wonderful hubby and great support from family, friends and neighbours, excellent paramedics, fab new GP and superb pain consultant and slowly taking it a day at a time, I will recover. Still waiting for ressults of CT scan ths week from my ENT consultant. For now Carrie is living with her dad and other grandma as I'm not well enough to have her home yet.

Been left quite weak but hubby Andy and my mum gave me craft stash funds, so I bought tons of craft mags with fab cover gifts and also subscribed to Quick cards, purely because the subscription gift was 20 promarkers, which I've wanted for ages but couldn't afford til now. the other night, when unable to sleep, coloured my very first topper with promarkers and today made it into a quick card for a dear friend Sylvia on Do Crafts.

 Blogger won't let me upload the card, but this donated PB hedgie image was my 1st attempt at promarker colouring a topper, enjoyed it and it relaxed me, tho know I've a LONG way to go and so much to learn and more promarkers to add to my collection of around 30 so far!

I also received some die-cut embossed images from another DC friend and coloured 2 of them in this afternoon, making one into Andy's anniversary card, sorry don't know brand of stamps.(poor quality of images is down to scanner, and marks are on scanner, not toppers. Andy accidentally left our camera in our car and took it to work today, thats my excuse).

top image hasn't been made into a card yet, bottom image 'together forever' has been made into my anniversary card to Andy for our 28th wedding anniversary on 22nd September,when our daughter has booked a restaurant for 9 of us to go out and celebrate his 52nd birthday and its a double celebration as we got married on his 24th birthday! I've coloured the topper as close to our hair colours and the clothes in our fave colours too.

Promarker colours used:
Satin
Dusky Pink
Blush
Coral
Cinnamon
Cocoa
Pastel blue
Duck Egg
Amethyst
Aubergine
Poppy.

As Andy doesn't like anything too fancy I just added distress inks and put the topper on a pre-printed card

Tim Holtz distress inks used:
Shabby shutters
Tattered Rose

Happy anniversary and birthday Andy for this Saturday, you are my rock and so good to me, love you more each day and hope we have many more happy healthy years together, no matter what life throws at us!!
Fi xxx