Where has the summer gone?

Went back to my main job a couple of weeks ago, and what a shock it has been! New routine, getting child to childminder, working and then either having to go and pick him up or go home (very rarely!)

But I have managed to get some crafting in, mainly on the sewing front.

I have made a waterproof bib that has poppers on it! Fed up of only finding bibs that had poppers on it that were not waterproof and got really fed up of having to constantly fix the velcro after Robert kept pulling it off!  At the moment they are out for testing.

At the same time, I found a pattern in Craft Seller for a travel set which consists of a bib, changing mat and bag, all made out of PVC. Found some pretty spotty material in our local Dunelm Mill, along with the white bias binding and made this set.

My friend is currently testing this for me. I later found some nursery PVC in Dunelm Mill which I bought and hope to make another set out of that.

I also went and bought myself a bias binding machine, as I thought it would be good to make my own for projects.

I ended up making Robert some trousers, I found a pattern online and then adapted for my. Originally I was going to use dark blue fabric for the inside but cut it wrong so used some light blue and found it worked better. The alien material I got from Hobbycraft, but unfortunately I cannot get anymore nor can I find it online in metre lengths.

 

Made a couple of crayon rolls using left over alien fabric and the dark blue material.  I had fun trying to figure out the instructions but got there in the end! In this one I sewed ribbon on for tying, but the first one I did, I used button.

 

Slowly getting into a routine, but finding it hard on my health, hopefully my body will adjust itself soon.  Robert is trying to stand and walk rather than crawl, but he is enjoying going to the childminders before going to granny for afternoons. I am enjoying being me again, although it is taking its time!

Bye

Kay

 

May 13

Well that time of year has hit us again - Dundee Food and Flower Festival - the book containing all the categories arrived in the post the other day. One category caught my eye, it involves using plastic carrier bags. So I contacted our local Asda, who kindly gave me some bags. Spent an evening or two cutting the bags into strips, and now have to loop them into a long strip ready for knitting, yes knitting. Once the project has been done I am to give them a picture for them to post up on their board as part of the re-cycling projects.

 Spent ages cutting the bags into strips and then making them into the balls. Knitting is well under way.

I am getting a unit from Storage4crafts. I am getting a bit of a windfall and thought this would tidy up the craft area, aka the dining room.  I have loads of the really useful boxes and this company make storage units that fit these boxes. Just hoping it makes the room tidier.  I just ordered the one meter unit. I also ordered Cropper Hopper ribbon boxes and have managed to store a good majority of the reels in them. I also ordered a metal ring and tag holder and have put a lot of loose ribbons on, need to get more boxes and tags.

*** update - unit here and fitted and it looks fantastic!

Made this beautiful card, from the Party Paws Luxury Card collection. I made this for my mother in law.  I had got the offer from Create and Craft, and then mounted the image onto an 8 x 8 card.  The image is decoupaged. I then used the buttons and paper ribbon from the pack along with gems. 

 

My little boy got christened in the middle of April, it was wet but we still had a fantastic day. My sister in law and her two girls made his cake and it was fantastic.

I go back to work shortly :-( but needs must.

See you all later

Kay xx

March 13

Did it again, have got into the reader’s gallery of Complete Cardmaking magazine, this time with the other entry for the nitwit competition last year. I was experimenting with the paper that I made, and came up with this card, I intend giving this to my mother in law for Mother’s Day. The image is from Angelica and Friends CD by Crafters Companion matted and layered onto black and cream card. It was put onto an 8” by 8” card. I then used red and black ribbon, black flowers with gold brad centre and made a bow. I made cards for Robert’s baptism. I got the CD that came with Complete Cardmaking and got the monkey image, and then matted on to silver card using one of my spellbinders die cuts. Then printed paper and made the you are invited to sign. This was then put onto small scalloped cards. The thank you cards I made from using images from Do Crafts “Woodland Folk” cd. Made everything in their digital designer. It is hard to believe that Robert is just over 3 months old. He is growing so fast, he has started to have bottom teeth but does not seem to be fazed by it, the health visitor is also suggesting that we start to wean him sooner rather than later due to his weight. He has already had two sets of injections and does not seem to be bothered by them. By 4 weeks he was sleeping right through the night and everyone keeps remarking how contented and happy he is. We managed a short trip to Sheffield over Easter to plant a tree in my late mother’s memory and scatter her ashes, he was a great hit with his auntie Jo and granddad John. Monkeys seem to be the theme with Robert, mainly because he act likes one! We have had to move him into his nursery as well as put him in the family cot as he has now outgrown the Moses basket.

My mojo went astray

Well it has been a long time since I last posted, hopefully things will be changing. After the death of my father in law, my mojo went awol, and therefore did not post or do any real crafting from that point. As my pregnancy progressed the sickness and tiredness disappeared after 4 ½ months but then came back along with swollen feet and hands. We took a fortnight off work in October to have a wee break and to visit my mum down in England. We went to York for a week and stayed in the centre of York and did a few sightseeing trips, unfortunely due to swollen feet and ankles I could not walk very far and at 7 months pregnant I got tired very easily. Unfortunely the trip to my mum was not a good one. I got a phone call from my mum’s partner, john on the Thursday of our first week. They had been away on a cruise for a 10 day break and on the last full day mum had not been well. They got back on the Wednesday and by the Thursday they had to call the doctor out, who thought she had a chest infection and was being admitted to hospital for intravenous antibiotics, and this is where she would be when we arrived on the Friday. We went to see her and although she was awake she was not very compis mentis, and could barely hold a conversation with us. On the Saturday she was barely awake. The phone went in the early hours of Sunday morning to say that her condition had detoriated; we then had a meeting with her doctor later that same day. The news was not good. It turns out she had advance lung cancer which had already spread to her liver and they thought it had already entered her brain. They were going to do a second scan on the Monday to confirm. We were told she only had days to live. They then took more blood and by this point a second consultant came along and that was revised to only hours. By teatime she had passed away. As you can image being 7 months pregnant, I was not really in a position to grieve plus I also had to deal with the paperwork and clearing out a house (another story!). Since coming back, I was then preparing for the birth of our child and trying to deal with two deaths in the space of four months. I ended up having a caesarean section on the 31 December and along came our son, Robert David James in honour of his two grandparents and my husband’s middle name. He has brought much joy to the two families and has helped making Christmas and New Year an easier time to bear.

Now, my life is my husband, his family and our son and totally complete. I had surprise in the post just after the new year, I had received my copy of the magazine Complete Cardmaking, in which I had subscription, but not getting to look at it properly did not see that a card I had submitted for a completion had made it into the readers gallery. I had used Nitwits products and had used some items from the Hey cupcake collection and the other items came from one of the Nitwit collections on a Complete Cardmaking CD. Obviously I had not won the completion but was happy on getting a CD called Magical Christmas Moments. A bit late for this Christmas but will be certainly using it for the cards this year.

I also did another couple of cards using the nitwit collections

I did a card for our wedding anniversary using the Docrafts Boofle CD, as my husband had commented that he had like the image of Boofle.

This card I had done for my youngest niece Ellie for her birthday. The image is from Crafts U print, but I mounted it onto white card with Black glitter card with silver peel off and black ribbon, apparently she loved it.

That is all for now, hopefully I will get back to you at the beginning of March. Kay xxx

Very big apologies – some good and bad news.

I am sorry I have not been on since March but unfortunately life events took over. Bad news - as stated on my last blog, my father in law was ill, sadly his illness took over and that we were very concerned about how long he had with us on this planet. He passed away at the beginning of June, we take comfort that his last days were made comfortable by the hospital and that he went peacefully and without pain. We had to be brave as the following day, his youngest grandson had his first communion. The last few weeks we have been slowly coming to terms with things and helping my wonderful mother in law deal with things. Good News – my husband and I are expecting our first baby between Christmas and New Year. To let you understand, we had been trying for a while and discovered last summer when my father in law took ill, that I would have problems in trying to have children. In order to get the necessary treatment I had to lose a lot of weight. In fact I lost over 2 ½ stones! I had been for some tests and was just waiting on getting to my required body mass index where I would then be offered fertility treatment, when we discovered that I had fallen pregnant naturally. Given all that we have been through it has been some kind of miracle. We found out six weeks before my father in law died. We took the decision to tell immediate family sooner rather than later as I had started to have very bad sickness, tiredness and exhaustion and given the severity of my father in law illness, we did not want to hide it from them. As you can imagine this made things very difficult for us to deal with, especially as we knew that his dad will never know his new grandchild but we hope he is watching. Four days after my father in law’s funeral, my husband and I went for our first scan. Little miracle is doing well, my edd is 29 December! My husband wants to call it Santa if it is a boy! Can’t understand why I object! Did not help that when we found out, I was celebrating my big 40th birthday, I got a bottle of pink fizzy wine from my brother in law, I then also won a bottle of Cava in a prize draw, have to leave them sitting on the kitchen worktop until Christmas :-(.

Fudge, Fudge and Fudge - found a wonderful recipe for fudge in the Craft Seller Magazine and have made it a couple of times, yummy. I did raspberry fudge with white chocolate drizzled on the top (sorry no picture, got scoffed at work!!! Nearly managed it as a bribe to the HEO!) I made Strawberry Fudge topped with milk chocolate. Ymmmmmmmmmm , although at that time I was aware of being pregnant and could not stand the smell of it and had to give it away at work! I got some free fabric squares with Sew magazine and made a pin cushion very quickly, slowly discovering my love of sewing again. This is what I used to make a banner for the business.

I made this flower background using Craft Artist, and it is for sale on my new website, made it by accident while experimenting with the Craft Artist and very impress with how it turned out. I have also been knitting some snoods and done various colours, they will be up on the website shortly.

Here are a couple of archive pictures

I have made some changes to the shop, for the time being I will only accept payments through Paypal, but you are able to make payments without having to register for an account. I am offering free shipping to launch the store. Will be back soon, honest! Kay (and bump!)

Cake Pops

Is this the new trend?  I think it is. The Pension Centre where I work recently celebrated 10 years of being opening, which is quite scary as I will have worked there for 10 years in October!  Anyway, we held some celebrations and I made some cake pops for the buffet.  The theme was countries and we did Greece as a team.  I picked up lollisticks from Hobbycraft as well as blue chocolate, yes blue!  I had treated myself to a proper cake pop machine to make a proper cake rather than getting cake and using frosting or cream cheese to bind together, mainly because I have to restrict my dairy intake.  I then used icing to make the Greek flag.

I have been doing a lot of knitting recently and especially scarves.  I found this simple pattern in the Create and Craft magazine, and have managed to find lots of colours to do it in.  The picture below is in a purple which has strips of gold thread running through it.

I got the new Paintbox Poppets from Crafters Companion, and do adore it, the images are fantastic, I also got it in time to make my cards for mother’s day

Her e is the card I made for my father in law’s 75^th birthday last month.  I used Docrafts Forever Friends Retro CD. I had taken out a subscription for a digital magazine and that was the free gift.

I entered a card into a Nitwits completion that I saw using some of their digi kits, and must say found it extremely difficult to choose which kit I wanted!

Finally here are some cards from my archive.

Some other news, I have decided to change they way my shop will operate and will be in the process of changing things over, if you want me to make you anything then just contact me through the blog or email me at kcardsandcrafts@live.co.uk   Things are still hectic and my father in law is still very ill so if I don’t reply immediately please be patient.

Kay xxxx