Arty-Forty

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012 to everyone out there!
I'm determined not to make any New Year's resolutions but I do have a few goals in mind...
One goal is to try and blog more - at least once a week, though if I had more time I'd love to do themed days - cooking, scrapping, drawing etc.etc. - but I'm realistic - my life is chaotically busy so if I get one blog post a week done that would be really good.
Today Jonathan fixed up my Christmas present - a Canon Powershot camera fixed on the ceiling above my workdesk in my craft room. It should enable me to take better pictures of my layouts plus take some of the effort out of photographing step by step pictures for classes.

Thank you Jonathan!

Exciting news...

2011-12-15T14:14:00.000-08:00

Back in October I sent three layouts off to the Scrapbook Magazine, submitting them for the the Scrapbooker of the year competition...

I am delighted to say that today the layout of Izzy appeared in the magazine as I finished as one of the runners up.

Yay!!

I got a fab bundle of stash for my prize - thank you Scrapbook Magazine!

ATDML retreat day 1 - Friday

2011-10-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

Friday was the start of yet another ATDML retreat and for me - 4 classes...
First of all was Ann's CD box calendar class using Echo Park papers...

Next was Mel's Simple Stories 'Generations' interactive LO...

Next it was Suzanne's turn to teach - and this time we did 3 LOs using MME Lush papers...

The last class of the day was Mel's Glitz 'Vintage Blue' class and I decided to stay true to the name and create a book of 'vintage blue' photos...

~Three more classes tomorrow plus teaching my Graphic 45 class!

A real trip down memory lane

2011-10-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

This coming weekend is the 'A Trip Down Memory Lane' retreat and as usual I'll be going. This time instead of just flying or driving down to the retreat we decided to have our own little trip down memory lane and have spent the journey visiting friends and family and going to old haunts.
We left home last Saturday and our first stop was to see Lou and Steph in the village of Quorn in Leicestershire. It was lovely to see them with the added bonus of meeting their newly acquired Guide dog puppy 'Hope' who they will have for a year. She was very lively and 'nibbly' but also totally adorable.

The next stop was over to Worcester to see Jonathan's Dad and Ann, and Ann treated us to a very lovely dinner at the King's head. Then over to Peterborough ~ In fact we stayed in Fotheringhay at the Castle Farm B & B which was right by the mound which is all that remains of the old castle of Fotheringhay where Mary Queen of Scots was executed.

And just along the road from Fotheringhay church...

We had a lovely dinner at the Oundle Mill with Andrew (a friend of Jonathan's) then, after a day of wandering round Peterborough, the next night we met up with Christine and Peter at The Cherry House in Werrington.
We left Peterborough and headed over to Norwich and to the Park Farm hotel in Hethersett (where we have a gorgeous boutique room). We went to Hethersett church first and put flowers on Jonathan's mum's grave.

We had no dinner plans so decided instead to have lunch out at Zaks where we often used to go when we lived in Norwich. It hadn't changed much - they still do a great burger. The place is filled with American memorabilia...

We then headed out of Norwich and along the Acle straight to Great Yarmouth where several pennies were spent in the tacky arcades (when in Rome...) - actually it was great fun!

Today has been spent shopping in Norwich and tonight we're looking forward to meeting old friends Jimmy and Julie at Nick's Diner (another old haunt) before we head down to Essex tomorrow for the retreat.

More Life drawing

2011-10-20T02:54:00.000-07:00

Last time I was at my art course in London, Rachel mentioned that I should try and get some practice, so I Googled 'Life Drawing Fife' and found a 5 week course at The Steeple in Newburgh led by Bruce Shaw. Although the drive there every Wednesday has been a trek, I've really enjoyed spending time doing more life drawing and Bruce has challenged me to try new techniques and develop my drawing style further.

Every week we start with some very quick 1,3 and 5 minute sketches to warm up then we do a longer drawing. This was week 1 (unfortunately I did this in charcoal and didn't fix it so it got very smudged in my portfolio, but I've tried to clean it up a bit)...

At week 2's class Bruce encouraged us to try a different medium 'Conti' - this drawing uses brown and white conti. We were also asked to focus on light and dark areas...

At week 3's class I was faced with my first male nude and Bruce showed us how to use hatching to shade. We worked in pencil using a bamboo skewer as a measuring stick to get proportions more accurately. Here's my effort...

Week 4 was another male model, but this time clothed. I went back to using charcoal and spent a lot of time trying to get the details of the folds in the clothing...

Finally, last night was the last lesson for this block. Bruce talked about composition of a picture and the golden section. Our model was female this time and we had a reclined pose...

I've really enjoyed Bruce's classes and am looking forward to the next block starting in November.

The 'C' word...

2011-10-16T07:25:00.000-07:00

...I know, it's only mid-October, and I'm posting 'Christmas' things - but if I manage to get a table at the Christmas Fayre, I'll need to be ready. So today I decided to decorate 9 little mini Christmas gift cakes!

I have another 9 to decorate - but these took a couple of hours so I'll get to the others another day!

G is for Graphic 45

2011-10-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite manufacturers at the moment is Graphic 45, here are a few of the projects I have done with G45 papers...
Altered IKEA mirror using 'Once Upon A Springtime'

Preserving Passion LO using 'Domestic Goddess'

Buckingham Palace book using a range of different G45 papers including 'Le Romantique'

ATDML planner using 'Once Upon A Springtime'

Recipe box using 'Domestic Goddess'

Gothic Arch using 'Steampunk Debutante'

mini cake box using 'Halloween in Wonderland'

Musical model circus using 'Le Cirque'

Rosslyn Chapel exploding tag book using 'Renaissance Faire'

Bilberry Pie LO using 'Domestic Goddess'

Our Favourite Christmas Ornament using Christmas papers

Advent calendar using Christmas papers

Christmas Card

Thirsty Thursdays over at ATDML

2011-10-13T02:20:00.000-07:00

The start of term has been pretty hectic and I can't believe that we're almost at the October break already. I don't feel I've been pulling my weight over at the ATDML blog so I wanted to make an effort to get involved with the 'Thirsty Thursdays' feature that Ann has started. So last week Ann posted 'F' and I thought I'd better get caught up...

A is for apples and for my Authentique class coming soon at ATDML...

B is for the Beach and also for Basic Grey (in this case, Max and Whiskers)

C is for cats and, of course, Claudia...

D is for Domestic Goddess...

E is for embellishments...

F is for 'Fearless' and 'flowers' - I love them on my LOs and cards...

Which brings us up to date with G

For me G has to be for Graphic 45, but you'll have to wait until my next post - a G45 special.

An artful weekend...

2011-10-07T15:50:00.000-07:00

In August I spent another fantastic day with Rachel Clark at her studio, we had a great model (Lesley) and as usual the atmosphere was calm and relaxed and very conducive to productive drawing.
As before we started with some 5 minute and 1 minute drawings which I found difficult to begin with but Rachel is so patient and such a good teacher and helped me through the tough times! We worked alot on visualising the body as boxes and using the charcoal stick to align features horizontally and vertically to enable us to get the body in proportion. Here are a few of my early attempts...

After break we did two half hour drawings, using the same techniques but just refining our pictures a little - the first was ok but I was happier with my second half hour picture.

Finally, after lunch we spent the whole afternoon drawing one particular pose trying to get better at all the things we had been taught. I'm reasonably happy with this though I didn't get the face quite right. I'm glad I managed to get some of the pattern in the fabric she was sitting on
Here's my final piece...

On Sunday I decided I should try and practise my skills and I headed to the British Museum to find a statue to draw, I found 'Hermes' and it was quite entertaining to sit and draw while tourists milled around me. The closer I was to finishing the more interest they took in my picture and one or two actually photographed it!!LOL - Sadly I haven't photographed it yet - if I get a chance to photograph it this weekend then I'll blog it.

After the British Museum I decided I had done enough drawing for one day and so I headed over to Buckingham Palace and did the tour around, which, at the time included the Wedding Dress, shoes, cake etc. It was lovely to see the dress close up and to find out about how they stitched cutouts from 6 different pieces of lace onto it. Buckingham Palace state rooms were beautiful and I loved all of the works of art (some very historic important pictures and sculptures).
Following the weekend I used an old book and lots of Graphic 45 papers to make a whole altered book to remember my visit to Buckingham Palace, it featured in the ATDML September Design Team Gallery...

Here are some of the inside pages...

Preserving Passion!

2011-07-29T14:55:00.000-07:00

So far this summer holiday I have been focussed on two things: 1 - managing the workmen who are busy replacing our bathroom and 2 - making jams, jellies and marmalades...

Mum and I have had great success in the past, selling marmalade, Jam and lemon curd at the fayres at school, so this year we wanted to get a head start on everything by making our preserves (which, obviously, keep for ages) now. Mum is in charge of strawberry jam, pineapple jam, apple jelly, mint jelly and will also make some of the orange marmalade.

I spent a very pleasant couple of hours at Blacketyside farm in Fife, picking blackcurrants, redcurrants, raspberries and strawberries, and that, together with some fruit from our garden, sugar from costco, veg from the market and jam jars from the jam jar shop and I was all set to get preserving...

I made onion marmalade, orange marmalade, chilli jam, raspberry jam, blackcurrant jelly and redcurrant jelly and I'm still planning to make lemon curd nearer to the Christmas fair.
I printed the labels onto sticky labels with my printer then punched them out using Stampin' Up! punches.

So the jam is made - and the bathroom is almost finished..!! I'm now on my way to London for another all day life drawing class with Rachel Clark. Can't wait. I thought I'd try to get into practice by doing a bit of drawing on the way in the train. To go with all of my other drawings of musicians in my music room I decided to do a drawing of the lovely Glenn Gregory from Heaven 17 (well, he's usually lovely but he looks rather sinister in the picture of him I found on the internet to use to copy).
So here's the internet picture...

And here's my version...(now that I see them side by side I can see all the flaws - I will do some more work on it tomorrow night!)

Thanks for looking :-)

Still Cybertripping!

2011-06-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

Today I've been working away on some of the fabulous cybercrop classes and here are three to show you...

This one is Ann's Sassafrass Paper frenzy class - I didn't have the exact papers but I tried to use some Sassafrass in there (the border & some of the stickers). Since it was such a crazy colour scheme I decided to go with the mad subject of my obsession with playing plants vs zombies on my i-pad!!

This is my take on Karen Moss's easy peasy mini book, which is ready to put in the pictures we have taken of the birds in our garden birdbox...

Finally this is my Take on Karen Moss's very floral LO, it is of cat number 6 who came into our lives at Easter when her previous owners asked our vet friend to euthanise her as they were moving house(!?!) ...anyway she is ours now - another diabetic moggie to add to the fold...

I'm almost finished Mel's 7 Gypsies travel book and have also made a start on Ann's triple frame - hopefully I'll be able to post again later with more pictures.
Thanks for looking!

Happy Father's Day...

2011-06-19T05:52:00.000-07:00

...to my dad!
And here's his card which is also my entry to the TAG IT challenge on the ATDML cybercrop...

I'll be up later with a present, Dad..!

On a cybertrip down memory lane...

2011-06-18T02:20:00.000-07:00

Having fun this weekend cybercropping over at 'A trip down memory lane' blog.
Here is my LO for the first class, Mel's interactive LO. I decided to just buy one kit for this cybercrop and use my own supplies for the other classes so I did this class using some Cosmo Cricket papers I've had for ages, but they worked well with my theme.
Here is the front of the LO...

And here is the inside, with the middle opened out...

Thanks for looking - I'm off to have a go at a challenge now...back later!

Final birthday experience

2011-04-09T13:29:00.000-07:00

Well with my birthday coming up in a few days, today I enjoyed the last of last year's 40th birthday experiences - I drove a Ferarri 360 at Knockhill racing circuit!
It was an absolutely gorgeous day for it - blue skies and bright spring day - so we drove up to Knockhill in the Porsche with the roof down, ready for a 9am start.
After a short wait (during which time I got myself more and more nervous) we were called through to go down to the 'helmet shed' to get our helmets for the day. Jonathan got to watch procedings from the pit lane while first of all Duncan Vincent took me round the track in a Seat - this was to teach me about racing lines, where to break and where to accelerate. Since there were little cones round the track to aim for it was quite easy to follow the racing line but I listened carefully to everything Duncan told me and tried to follow his advice (he later said I was a star pupil!). The other purpose of the laps in the Seat was for Duncan to assess whether I could be trusted to be let loose in the Ferarri - I'm pleased to say I passed the test though since it was the first time I've driven a manual car in many years it was quite surprising how well I did. The most disconcerting thing was probably that the instructor has the rear view mirror so it was hard to see what was behind.
Duncan also drove a couple of laps round the track to show the right and wrong way to tackle the circuit. The wrong way was very scary and we nearly ended up on the grass or in the gravel a couple of times, though Duncan was obviously expert at this and I never really felt in any danger.

Once instructed fully by Duncan it was time to put myself in the hands of Jonathan (Jonny) Adam who was my instructor in the Ferarri. Gear changing was a lot easier as the Ferarri has 'flappy paddle' gear changers beside the steering wheel and no clutch to worry about. I took the first couple of laps very gently, learning to handle the car and how and where to speed up, slow down and take the corners - Jonny talked the whole time, making sure I was positioning the car correctly and encouraging me to 'put my foot down'! My confidence grew steadily with each lap and gradually I was speeding up and enjoying the drive rather than being anxious. By the time I was finished and had to pull in to the pit lane I was really loving the Ferarri and could happily have driven round the track all day. It made me realise how racing drivers can spend a couple of hours driving their cars round the circuit without getting bored. Because of the speed of the car it needed full concentration all of the time and I don't think I looked at the speedo once - I was so focussed on those little cones and making sure I followed the racing line at each corner. So I don't know how fast I went but I know that my favourite part was on the straight past the pit lane where I came out of the hairpin turn and could really speed up!

So after a few laps it was time to come in to the pit lane and take off our helmets. Jonny said I had made great progress and that I was improving with every lap. I was amazed, that given how anxious I was about the experience I could have happily jumped right back in the Ferarri and driven another 20 laps! Therefore this experience is another 10/10!

I'll be back in a few days to give a summary of all of the birthday experiences. Until then, thank you for another great day, Jonathan!

2011-04-08T14:55:00.000-07:00

I've loved being on holiday this week - I've had time to be creative and even better - I've had time to be organised! I finally got round to sorting out 2 big baskets of scraps of cardstock and patterned papers and I used them to make almost 120 cards. While on a roll I decided to go through the whole of craft room sorting out every box and magazine file and having a really good clear out - lots of bits and pieces for papercraft club at school!
So when my copy of Scrapbook Magazine fell on my doormat I had a tidy craft room all ready to go. I'm not usually that keen on the free papers that come with magazines but these ones were Fancy Pants and straight away I knew that I wanted to do some hand cutting. The papers are very geared up to baby/ child LOs with the title 'Precious' but I thought that it would suit a LO of Claudia perfectly. To make it more of a challenge I decided to allow myself only one sheet of Bazzill and no other stash. So I used a lot of handcutting, creamy brown cats eye chalk ink, glossy accents and Diamond Stickles. Here's my LO...

When Jane met Tim...

2011-04-05T03:53:00.000-07:00

Ok - so this time, not a birthday experience - but a Christmas gift - in fact this treat came from Santa (he even sent me an e-mail to tell me I was getting it!!) ~Thank you Jonathan!

In the February holiday I Squeezy jetted down to Luton - hopped in a very expensive taxi up to Newport Pagnell and stayed in a grotty stain laden room in a hotel all because... well to have a workshop with Mr Holtz himself...

The squuezy jet flight, expensive taxi and grotty room were all worth it! What a day!!

I was in the first of the four Tim Holtz workshops (2 on Thursday and 2 on Friday) organised by Lin Brown and Leandra Franich of Artsy Crafts. We each had a pack of goodies from Ranger, our configurations box and lots of Tim Holtz goodies. Once lots of us had had our photo taken with Tim we began work, covering our boxes (with ready trimmed papers to save time), we then covered all of the joins with tissue tape before painting, inking and generally distressing our boxes. Tim was a great teacher - so patient with us, funny and very good at explaining what we had to do.

There must have been about 70 of us in the classroom but somehow there was enough of Tim to go round! This is the table where I was working - the empty chair is mine!

After a tea break (Tim seemed to get a kick out of the fact we had tea breaks!) we returned to our table to find a little calico bag - we weren't allowed to open it until Tim told us to - inside we discovered a treasure of ideaology bits and pieces and other little items with which to fill our configurations box...

We then had the remaining time to fill our box - I decided on my birthday experiences as the theme for mine since there were 12 boxes to fill inside the big box and I had some calendar tissue tape to hand. I think my favourite things in the box were the little bird cage and the way we taped a vintage photo printed on acetate to the battery operated tealight - it really made it look like a candle in a small glass holder. I also loved using the Studio Matte Medium to hold everything in place - I love the way it dries clear (and matte!) yet it really holds things down! Here's my box...

Boxes finished (or almost - I would add the feet when I got home) it was time for lunch, but first I gave Tim the picture that I had drawn for him...

After lunch there was a little time for shopping in Lin and Leandra's shop - then it was back in to class - this time in with Lin and Leandra to learn some paint techniques.

The afternoon session was great and I really learned a lot - I especially liked the very matte white paint (Frescoe Finish in snowflake) we used and the way we added colour to it using the adirondack colour wash inks. I've got to get some of that paint. We painted onto embossed metal then rubbed it back. It was a great class but I was on a different table and some were not as friendly as the lovely table I had been with in the morning. It didn't matter - I knuckled down, listened to Lin and Leandra and got my work done - this is what we made...

I also loved the waxy stuff we used to make the grungeboard hinges look metallic - going to have to do some Googling to find out what it was called and then buy some!! We inked them after we had added the wax and it gave a really aged metal result.

A big thank you to Tim, Lin, Leandra and all their helpers for a fantastic day and thanks to Jonathan for a wonderful gift!

February Birthday catch-up - Photography

2011-04-04T07:01:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the latest in my edition of birthday expreience catch-up blogs. February's birthday experience was a day of photography tuition with Philip Dunn over in Kirkcudbright.
We drove down on the Friday evening and stayed at a lovely B & B called Fludha - bizarrely enough the house used to be owned by friends of ours (Charles and Sarah) when they used to live in Kirkcudbright over 10 years ago. The owners were very friendly and we were very well looked after.
After a good night's sleep we headed a couple of doors down to the home of Philip and his wife, Norene who would look after us for the whole day.

I can't believe how much I learned in just one day!! We started off with theory behind photography, and Philip explained everything in such a straightforward way that even I could begin to understand f-stops, apertures, exposure, ISO settings. He taught us about using light correctly in our pictures and about using rectangles to frame our pictures. We won't forget the two little monkeys (light and rectangles) who from now on will be sitting on our shoulders reminding us about how to take a good photo.

After a delicious lunch of quiche and salad we headed down to the harbour to try out our new found knowledge and for the first time I took pictures purely using manual settings. It was a shame that it was quite a grey, overcast day, but we were definitely delighted with the pictures we took and with how much we learned from Philip. Here are some of my favourite pictures...

Thank you so much to Philip for a great day - this was yet another 10/10 birthday experience.
You can see Philip's blog here.

In linking to Philip's blog I note that Norene has not been well - I'm sure Jonathan would join me in wishing her a speedy recovery.

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-04-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

Today's blog is dedicated to my Mum - though as I'm originally from the North-East of England I call her 'Mam'. Whether you call them Mam, Mum, Mom - mothers are the best! Always there to talk to, give you advice, give you a hug when you need it. Since my Mum is also a crafter I love to spend time with her making things, papercraft, sewing and cooking - she instilled in me my love of making things and I will always thank her for that.
Above is the card I made her (- I'm just loving these coiled up paper roses at the moment). I also gave her flowers, a subscription to 'Simply Homemade' and the birdbox I made for my class at the ATDML retreat...

To any ATDML retreat readers, I haven't forgotten I promised to blog about my birdbox and put the template up - I will get round to it. Though there were some other things people asked me to put on my blog and I can't remember what they were - please leave me a comment and I promise to get round to it.

Will be blogging about my photography day, Tim Holtz day and the ATDML retreat in the next few days.

Anyway - that's it for now - have a great day Mam - and all other 'Mams', 'Mums' and 'Moms'.

Birthday catch up 4 - Spa One Edinburgh

2011-03-06T05:18:00.000-08:00

So for January's birthday experience I spent the day at Spa One at the Sheraton hotel in Edinburgh. I have been before but it never fails to impress - it's probably my favourite Spa even compared to some amazing spas in both this country and abroad.

I arrived around 10 and spent the morning in the thermal suite going between the aroma room, Turkish bath, tropical rainshowers, indoor and outdoor hydrotherapy pools. My favourite part is probably sitting in the outdoor hydrotherapy pool - it doesn't matter what the weather is like it is amazing to sit in that hot bubbling water and look up at the sky.

After a couple of hours I showered, used the body driers and got dressed to go to the restaurant. I had prechosen my lunch which was a 'superfood' Bento box. It was absolutely amazing. Probably the tastiest piece of fish (salmon) I have ever eaten in my life (sorry Goring hotel, Gordon Ramsay etc..) - there was also an amazing bulghar wheat salad, fruit muesli salad, chocolate betroot muffin...ahhh delicious yet healthy!! - I wish I could eat like this every day.

After some time reading and relaxing I was met by Kirsty who then took me to a treatment room where I was salt scrubbed, massaged with oil and hot stones, feet pumiced and covered in paraffin wax, more massage...it was sooo wonderful and kirsty was so comforting and reassuring - she even remembered that she had been my therapist last time I was at Spa One.

At 5pm I emerged from a cocoon of white fluffy towels and aromatherapy back into the real world where Jonathan met me to take me home - completely chilled out.

Another great birthday experience and a definite 10/10.

Birthday Catch up 3 - Hairspray

2011-03-06T04:52:00.000-08:00

December's birthday experience was another trip to the Edinburgh Playhouse, this time a trip back to the sixties to see the musical Hairspray. I had seen both film versions of Hairspray and loved John Travolta as Edna Turnblad in the most recent film. We were lucky enough to see Michael Ball as Tracey's Mum (Edna Turblad) and 'Monkee' Mickey Dolenz as Tracey's Dad and proprietor of the Har-de-har joke shop.

The whole show was amazing - I love the music but also thought that the show was well staged and both michael and Mickey were amazing. There was no 'weak character' in the whole show and the actress playing Tracey was just fantastic. The colour and energy of the show was uplifting and by the end everyone was on their feet singing along. What a great night 10/10!!

Birthday catch-up 2 - life drawing

2011-02-23T06:01:00.000-08:00

November's birthday experience was to attend a life drawing class with artist Rachel Clark. I travelled down to London by train and spent the night in a hotel near to where Rachel has her studio so that I could be up early and at the studio ready to start.
This experience was full of 'firsts' for me. It was the first time I'd had tuition from a proper artist, the first time I'd worked with charcoal, the first time I'd used an easel and the first time I'd had a live model 'sit' for me. I think I was most nervous about the latter - I wasn't sure what it would be like for either me or the model to have me staring at her naked body and drawing her. I did not need to worry - Rachel made the whole experience really natural and calm - the model was amazing, not a hint of any concern about being naked in front of people and her ease with the situation put me totally at ease too.

We started with some 5 minute drawings then moved to a whole series of 1 minute sketches. On Rachel's instruction the model would move and take up a new position. All the while we were drawing Rachel moved round the room helping us (there were about 6 other artists there). We then went back to 5 minute drawings which now seemed really long in comparison. Before lunch we had a 20 minute pose to draw in more detail.
Lunch was a wander over to Tescos with some of the other artists to buy a sandwich then it was back to work in the studio.
In the afternoon we did a much longer pose with the model seated. I found that I much prefered the short sketches when working with charcoal and surprisingly was not as happy with my longer pieces of work.

Time flew past - being absorbed in the drawing with lovely calming music on in the background. No-one was judgemental about anyone's work and I began to relax and not worry about doing my best drawing but instead tried to be a bit more uninhibited - I soon realised that my less careful work produced better results than trying to be perfect and get every line in the right place. Rachel did say that the day was not about producing a finished piece but that it was about learning new technique and trying new things. She said that there was a good chance we would not like anything that we drew and not to worry if that was the case. I certainly wasn't happy with my longer drawings but I'm quite pleased with some of the short sketches I managed to do. Here is a selection of the work I did, the first, a one minute sketch is probably my favourite...

I don't think I'd score my work that highly out of 10, but the whole experience of a life drawing class I'd give 10/10 to. I'd definitely reccommend one of Rachel's classes to both novice and experienced artists. Her website is here.

Birthday catchup 1 - Egypt

2011-02-23T05:00:00.000-08:00

This has to have been the most amazing birthday experience of them all (at least so far!). We have such fond memories of our trip to Egypt and we saddened to see the unrest in Tahir Square where only a few months ago we had crossed to go to the Cairo Museum...

We flew business class on BA to Cairo where we had a beautiful suite at the four seasons. We spent our first day swimming, reading and acclimatising to the 35 degree (C) heat which coming from Scotland we are really not used to.
This is the view of the pool from our hotel window...

The following day we met our guide Salwa...
... who took us on a tour of all of the antiquities of the Cairo Museum (no photos allowed), including the actual bodies of the Pharaohs and all of Tutenkhamun's treasures. We went to the grand bazaar which was beautiful and had lunch in an old Egyptian restaurant.

Next we went up to the citadel and saw the Mohammed Ali Mosque.

The next day it was down to Saqquara (Old Memphis) to see the huge statue of Ramses...

We then went to the step pyramid...

Then she took us to a carpet factory where we saw all sorts of rugs and carpets being made...

...and then to the pyramids at
Giza and the Sphinx - all quite amazing!!

We had lunch in a hotel overshadowed by the great pyramid then some souvenir shopping. In the evening we went to a restaurant called Kababji where we had Egyptian food cooked on a briazier at our table...
The next day we flew down to Luxor and met up with our cruise boat 'Sunboat III' which was even better than we had imagined. We had the Royal cabin at the front of the boat which was really lovely...and huge compared to the other cabins!

Our boat...

Our cabin...

Our first excursion was a big one, we took a small ferry across to the other side of the Nile where we went first of all to see the Colossi of Memnon...

Next we went to see the Valley of the Queens where we went into three of the queen's tombs - sadly we weren't able to take pictures in the Valley of the Queens. We then went to an alabaster factory where workers told us about the different types of alabaster and demonstrated how it is shaped. I bought a little alabaster cat.

We then went to the Valley of the Kings which really was amazing - again we couldn't take photos but I don't think I'll ever forget seeing Tutenkhamun's tomb or going into the long deep tombs which were beautifully decorated with heiroglyphs depicting the book of the dead.

The final visit of the day was to Queen Hapshetsut's temple. By this time it was the end of the tourist day and the temple was really quiet...

The funniest part of this temple was when the tourist policemen asked Jonathan if he wanted his picture taken holding a gun...he politely declined!

We returned to the boat and had the first of many dinners aboard 'Sunboat III' - the food was amazing!

The next day we 'set sail', first heading North up the Nile, to head back South a couple of days later. We cruised for the next few days and visited temples and villages along the way...Dendera at Abydos, Esna, Karnak, Luxor, Kom Ombo, Temple of Hathor. We also spent time just cruising down the Nile and this was probably my favourite part, watching the river banks go by, waving to local children and soaking up the sunshine on our private deck. I loved seeing all of the temples though by the end of the week we did feel a bit templed out.

The 'whirling dervish' show.

(the manager of the boat - on Galabaya night)

We eventually made it down to Aswan where we saw the Aswan Dam, visited the island temple of philae and went on a felucca ride around Elephantine island.

One evening in Aswan our Guide Tamer took me on a tour of the local marker where I did some spice shopping...

After a week on board we finally had to bid farewell to Sunboat III and all the wonderful staff who had looked after us so well. We then caught a flight from Aswan down to Abu Simbel where we saw the iconic temple of Abu Simbel - it really was breathtaking. There was no photography permitted inside which was a shame since the carving inside the temple was some of the most beautiful we had seen out of the many temples we visited.

After Abu Simbel we flew back to Cairo. We had another night at the Four Seasons - this time in a HUGE suite with sitting room, dining room, master bedroom two bathrooms and views of the Cairo Zoo. We had another trip to El Kebabji for our last serving of hummus, baba gonoush and grilled meat - then an early morning BA flight back home.

I've only been able to post a few of the photos we took and have left out many of the wonderful details of things we saw and people we met. The luxury we experienced and the sights we saw made this a once in a lifetime trip - so I'm giving this birthday experience 20/10!!!

Last Trifecta of 2010

2011-01-02T01:54:00.000-08:00

So it's a while since I did a Design Dollies Trifecta, but now I'm up and running on my blog again I wanted to get back into the swing of things.
So the last Trifecta of 2010 which has to be uploaded by today is as follows...

1. Colours - use the colours chocolate, tan, royal blue and orange
2. A recipe using the theme 'just one'

• Just one piece of cardstock
• Just one patterned paper
• Just one word in the title/sentiment
• Just one photograph/image
• Just one embellishment
and...
3. This sketch...

With only one piece of patterned paper allowed I had to look for something that included all of those colours. I trawled through my collection, eventually coming across an ancient piece of Basic Grey from the Hang 10 collection. It had tan, chocolate, royal blue and orange!! It also had green flowers but with some selective trimming I managed to get rid of those!
My one embellishment is my tag - hopefully that counts!?
So here's my attempt at the challenge - dollies - let me know what you think!

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T08:10:00.000-08:00

Happy new year to everyone out there in blog land and I hope 2011 is happy, healthy and successful for all of you. Apologies for the lack of blog posts in the last three months of 2010 – especially to Jonathan who is waiting for the scores on the last three birthday experiences. (I promise promise I’ll catch these up over the next few days now that I have my fab new pink Dell inspiron laptop!)

The last three months have just steamrollered past, first our trip to Egypt in October followed by a very busy November in which I was away from home for every weekend either at the ATDML retreat, my drawing course or the dentist for yet more crowns. Then came the end of November and the snow. And it snowed and snowed!! It was the most snow I’ve seen since I was a little girl in the 70s. In fact our back lawn is still covered in snow though I’m pleased to say that the roads are now a lot better and I may even get to drive my car again for the first time in over a month.

A couple of enforced days at home when school was closed did give me some time to finish off my shrine for the Shrine Swap I was invoved in.
Here’s mine… I added dolls house Christmas tree lights, batteries and a switch so that it would light up.

And here is the shrine I received from Clare – which I absolutely love and it’s spent Christmas on my hearth next to some of my other favourite ornaments.

My other creative outlet was to make a kitchen advent calendar. Here is the front…

And an example of one of the pages with my homage to the perfect hot chocolate…

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen in December and each page has a different recipe or menu idea. I’ll post the whole thing up next December.

In the meantime, I’m going to get back to work on my DT work for January which is using some fab retro October Afternoon paper. Here’s a sneaky peak of some of the LOs I’ve done so far…

Where there's a will there's a way...

2010-10-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

So how do you take part in the Design Dollies Trifecta when you're over 300 miles from home with NO scrapbooking supplies at all and don't even have a clue where there's a scrapbook shop? Well as the title says it, where there's a will there's a way...

On Friday I had to go down to London to have some dental work done...root canal...ouch! But on Friday night I was stuck in the hotel with nothing to do and didn't feel like eating (I was still very numb and sore) - so I decided to do the Trifecta. Hmmmm no craft room, in fact I hadn't even brought any paper or a pencil with me. I didn't know where I'd find a craft shop plus by this time it was after 6pm. So I decided to go for a walk to nearby Victoria railway station. Jackpot! There was a Paperchase (card/giftshop) and WHSmith (a newsagent/stationers) both open until 9pm. I managed to put together enough things including scissors and glue and giftwrap, envelopes etc to at least have something to play with.

I knew the Trifecta was lavender, tan and blue and hoped that kraft would be close enough to tan. I admit I had remembered blue rather than navy so, Dollies, I hope you will forgive my colour lapse on this one occasion (I'm usually very faithful to the colour challenge!). The elements challenge was a recipe: a ticket (yes - my one from the train down), words/journalling (I decided to base my LO on the card David [My BIL - the hotel manager] left for me in my room), yellow (I bought some yellow ribbon), polka dots (a gift envelope for a bookmark!) and paint (that would have to wait until I got home). I had a sketch of the sketch and must confess that I didn't have a doily - so I had to make one out of paper and a white gel pen - basically I drew my doily!

So, the result? Well, I know it's not my best ever Trifecta, but I have to score points for the fact that I had ZERO scrapbooking supplies with me, no photo or anything. As the LO says, the Goring is my home from home - especially now that I've scrapbooked in the room! And the best thing about my Trifecta?...Doing it took my mind off the pain of my root canal.

Gracie 365

2010-09-26T01:37:00.001-07:00

This is this week's trifecta for the Design Dollies. The challenges...

To use black, burgundy, yellow, and the option of white...

To include some autumn leaves...

And to use this sketch...

This week's subject choice was a 'no brainer' - on Wednesday it was the anniversary of finding Grace wandering on the road near Tescos. We now think she was probably dumped and being such a little kitten she almost certainly would have been killed had I not picked her up and brought her home. She is the best little cat and is great company (she's just followed me downstairs from sitting on my desk in my craft room while I was scrapping to now sitting on the back of my chair in my study as I type!).

Thanks to Jonathan, who came up with the title - Gracie 365.

Thanks for looking!

2nd Guest DT at LCOM!

2010-09-19T03:28:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm delighted to say that my school card (the basket of apples) was the winner over at LCOM and I have been asked to be a guest designer for the week again.

The challenge was to make a card using the sketch...

...and incorporating at least two different ribbons.

I decided to use some more of the Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante papers that I used on my gothic arch to make this vintage looking card...

Card Challenge Weekend!

2010-09-19T03:06:00.000-07:00

My first project of the weekend was to make a card for LCOM as I was asked to be their guest designer again. Their challenge (and my card) will go live on their site tomorrow so I won't put a picture of my card on my blog until then...watch this space!

Next it was the turn of the dollhouse and I found myself a little stumped with this week's Design Dollies Trifecta, the colours were...

These are colours I don't often work with all together. The theme was birthdays and not having children I don't take many pictures of birthday celebrations.

Then came the sketch...

This gave me inspiration for a birthday card. Instead of having the usual shape of card I thought the two semicircles could be the card opening.

So here's what I came up with, using the colours, theme and sketch...

And here it is opened up...

I also wanted to have a go at the Chicken Soup challenge thinking I might get a LO done at last, but when I saw it...

...it reminded me of my very glam friend Ali, who is a flight attendant with Virgin Atlantic. Her birthday is coming up so I wanted to make her a card which had the same glam but vintage feel to it. She loves pink so I thought one of these vintage adverts would be perfect...

Now I just need to decide which one to send her!

Thanks for looking!

Gothic meets steampunk!

2010-09-17T04:33:00.000-07:00

I was a little disappointed by the lack of interest in my last gothic arch daisies but I wasn't put off and decided to give the latest challenge over at gothic arches a go. The theme was matchboxes and I decided to recess matchboxes in the surface of my arch and then add 'bits and pieces' for them to hold. Having just bought the Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante range from A Trip Down Memory Lane I was keen to do something a little 'steampunkish'!

So I covered the arch with one of the papers, recessed matchbox inserts that had been painted with copper coloured glaze into the arch and then began to add ephemera and cut out flowers and stickers...I used an old key ring stuck onto some acetate to make the monocle, some Tim Holtz and 7 Gypsies metal bits and a variety of rusty things from my collection. Here are some close-ups...

Rusty wire wound round a mini cotton reel alongside a rusty safety pin...

My 'home made' monacle...

This was actually an old oven light bulb!...

This angled picture gives a better idea of the dimension involved...

Thanks for looking!

Let us prey...

2010-09-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

Today was birthday experience time again and this month my treat was a day spent at a falconry centre flying birds of prey. It was situated in the beautiful grounds of Dalhousie Hotel - a lovely little Scottish castle, and as you can see we had a beautiful sunny day for it...

We were met at the centre, first of all by an array of birds of prey sitting on perches. Owls, falcons, buzzards, eagles and crows. Here are a couple of my favourites...

Ruby the kestrel...

...and one of the 'little owls' - they were so tiny and so sweet!

We were then met by the falconer - whose name I can't remember! But she was incredibly knowledgeable and for the next few hours told us so many facts about birds of prey. She gave us our gauntlets and then gave us a tour of all the different birds at the centre.

The first bird we flew was a Harris Hawk called 'Brennan'. We went for a walk around the grounds of the castle and took it in turns to hold out our gloved left hands onto which our falconer would place a little piece of 'chick' and Brennan would swoop down onto our hand to eat, here he is swooping down to my arm to be fed...

After the hawk walk, we flew 'Dolly' the buzzard. Yes - that's a chick's foot on my hand that 'Dolly' is swooping down to eat...

Both the hawk and the buzzard amazed us because they were so light. You hardly felt them landing on your arm! The Eagle Owl was a lot heavier though...

Here he is getting to know Jonathan a little better...

After our Eagle owl flight, we had a break and it was lunchtime for one of their little owls who was very old with no sense of balance and arthritis, he hobbled around and was very sweet.

Watching the day old chicks being cut up with scissors for his lunch was not quite as sweet!

It was then time to fly the Merlin - the smallest bird we flew. Here he is on my hand just before he flew up to the trees...

...but he returned to the lure and was then rewarded with a mouse...

The final flight of the day was with Norris, an African crow who normally looks like a magpie, with a white back and chest. But he had recently done some filming for a tv series and had been coloured totally black. he was very friendly! This picture of him with Jonathan is one of my favourites of the day...

As you can imagine these are just some of the picture highlights, we took well over 200 photos in total and I'm looking forward to a few bird themed Layouts over the next few weeks!

The experience of having a bird of prey land on your arm was amazing and we were privileged to fly a great variety of birds and to learn so much about them. The location, weather and company were all excellent and I would definitely give my September experience 10/10 - maybe with an additional point for some of the excellent photos which Jonathan took (& some of mine weren't bad either!)

Daisy, Daisy...

2010-09-11T15:32:00.001-07:00

This fortnight's challenge over at Gothic Arches was on the theme 'Daisies'. I decided to use the sheet music for 'Daisy Bell' (Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do...) as a background. I clear embossed my daisies down one side and then used old linen and vintage photo distress ink to go over the paper - the embossed daisies resisted this nicely. I added a printed 'Daisy bride' from my altered art CD and a mini crown, a few gems and some letters finished off my arch...

Ok - off to charge up my camera ready for the birds of prey tomorrow, then off to bed!

Four cards and a canvas!

2010-09-11T07:54:00.001-07:00

First of all I want to say happy birthday to Ann, (my father-in-law's partner). It's a big birthday but I'm not going to give away the number! Anyway - I hope she has a great day, this is the card I made for her...

Well - definitely a busy Saturday. I decided I'd like to catch up on a few challenges today before tomorrow's adventure with the birds of prey.

So I started with the school themed card challenge at LCOM and following on from the basket of flowers I made for Ann's card, I made a basket of apples for a special teacher. Funnily enough my favourite teacher when I was young was one of my infant teachers called Mrs Applegarth - I don't know where she is now - but wherever she is these apples are for her...

I love making things 3D...here's a different angle on that apple basket. Each apple is handcut from Sassafrass lass paper and layered up with foam pads, and the basket is woven from 0.5cm strips of Bazzill...

My next project was to tackle the Trifecta over at the Dollhouse. At one point I didn't think I was going to be able to combine all three challenges - the sketch combined with an altered item and ATC just didn't seem possible. But I thought if I altered an old canvas it might just work. The colour challenge was grey, green and white...

The sketch challenge was...

And the elements challenge this week was to make an ATC and then use it in an altered project.

So here's my ATC...

I then painted an old canvas white, used grey and green paint to create the blocks of colour and added my pictures, painted letters and lots of gems. Adding the ATC as the initial letter of my title and obviously following the sketch and sticking to the challenge colours...

The pictures are of my mum with each of her sisters, so I've decided to give the canvas to her to hang on her wall.

I'd like to thank the lovely dollies for always leaving great comments on my blog - it's one of the reasons they're my favourite challenge blog!

The next pair of challenges came from the Chicken Soup blog...they have a DT call out at the moment too so go and check them out!!

The first - recipe 10 was based on this card...

Inspired by the grid format and the bright colours this is what I managed to produce...

and the next one was based on this image...which, sadly I think looks a little like the butterfly has flown into a window!

But I liked the idea of the bright colours and butterfly - so I combined these to give this card - the butterfly is embossed on acetate and only attached in the middle to make it more 3D...

I have one more project I want to work on - the 'daisies' gothic arch, but that will have to wait until after I've been to Tescos for the groceries and made dinner!

Back to school with the Dollies

2010-09-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

So I'm totally back in the swing of things at school - It's like the summer holidays never even happened!

Over at the Dollhouse the design dollies asked everyone to think back to their own schooldays for the elements challenge. The colours for the colour challenge were black, white, green and pink (any shades) and the sketch was...

So, remembering that I'm back at school and that it's been a really busy weekend, this is what I managed to do...

I might manage something a bit more involved next weekend, though I'm off on my September birthday experience - a birds of prey day next Sunday. Looking forward to getting some great pictures!

Chicken soup at the Goring?

2010-09-02T12:23:00.000-07:00

Well - I finally got round to doing the Chicken Soup recipe 9 (and hopefully I'm just getting my entry in in the nick of time!?!). It feels a bit 'thrown together' for me, but it is a school night so amazing that I managed to get a LO done at all!

The interior design picture in the recipe inspired me to do a layout about one of the most beautiful interiors I have photographed recently. My eldest brother in law, David, is the Managing Director of the Goring Hotel in London. Whenever I go down to London I try to stay there and am always SO well looked after - it's really a home from home for everyone in the Hewitt family. Last time I went David treated me to a night in one of the Goring's 'silk rooms'. The rooms are so beautiful - the walls, instead of paint or wallpaper, are lined with silk brocade fabric - I stayed in the blue room. All the special rooms also come with sheep (no they're not real). Have a look at the Goring website if you're intrigued by this!

Anyway - I'm so proud of David and the Hotel - The Hotel won a Catey - last year (like an Oscar for the hospitality industry) and David was named Hotel Manager of the Year. So it seemed like a very worthwhile subject to scrap.

I hope you like it...

My first award...and a Tricky Trifecta!

2010-08-29T08:16:00.000-07:00

As promised I'm back at the weekend. Yesterday was a busy crafting day at the crop, mum and I made just over 60 Christmas tags for the Christmas Fayre in Nov. I haven't taken pictures yet - will post some when I do.

Lastnight I had a go at making some Christmas photo albums - I'm just doing some 6" x 6" covered chipboard pages and cutting down cheap lever arch files to make slightly bigger ring binders. Once they're done I'll take pictures and post them up.

When I finally got round to my computer I was delighted that the lovely Sue had given me this blog award - I now need to choose some people to pass this award on to, so watch this space!

Today I decided to knuckle down to the Design Dollies Trifecta - a bit trickier than usual as the elements part was a recipe which included an additional colour, so the challenge was as follows...

Colours: Navy blue, Ivory and Mint green ...

Elements: Use the colour red, at least three ovals, use 2 patterned papers include a flourish and glitter

Finally...

The sketch...

I was pretty faithful to the colours and in the end decided that the red in the elements part of the challenge would have to be just a 'pop' of red in my title.

I fulfilled all the parts of the recipe and followed the sketch - though I did turn it upside down!

I'm pleased with the final result...(the blue is actually a lot darker irl)

Glitter is something I never use (except in the form of stickles!) and today I used two of the colours in my Martha Stewart 24 pack of glitter that I bought in Boston last year and haven't used yet!! Here's a close up of my glitter writing...

I'm hoping I'll get a chance to have a go at the 'Chicken Soup' recipe too this weekend, but I also have marking to do, so I may not manage it!

Back to School!

2010-08-22T02:05:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow is back to school.

In 'celebration' I thought I'd save this picture until today...

It's my interpretation of Gothic Arches' latest challenge 'Back to School'.

It's my first 'go' at doing a Gothic Arch. The base is chipboard, then a layer of old book pages, then some bits cut from Tim Holtz papers. The number seven is to commemorate the fact that I'm about to take over as Primary 7 year group leader - yikes!

Thanks for looking!

Final creative flurry!

2010-08-21T03:58:00.000-07:00

Well this last week of the holidays has seen a flurry of creativity, I finally wrote my play and did the artwork for the cover...

I have done all the planners for the year and prepared my display boards at school.

I spent some time with my Mum sewing things for the Christmas fayre.

I did my online class for ATDML - here's a teaser pic - don't want to show you the whole thing until after it's been on the ATDML site...

I managed to do this weeks Chicken Soup blog recipe. This was the inspiration...

And here is my LO...

Actually, Fred's crazy name has been crying out to be scrapped for ages. Don't ask me how we came up with this name, it just sort of developed - but he does suit it!!

And agian I tried my hand at the trifecta over on the Design Dollies blog. This week it was 1. Use royal blue, teal/aqua...

2. Have waves in the LO - there are waves in the pictures (well it's the sea!!) and I used the wavy design.

3. Use the following sketch...

So here's my effort...

So it's back to school on Monday, actually I'm quite looking forward to getting back to it, but I will miss having the time to be creative. I had a really good holiday and can't believe how much I got done (creatively speaking). That said I've still got trousers and a pair of curtains to make, the front door to paint, my Egypt scrapbook to prepare, my class scrapbooks to make...etc.

Anyway I will still try to spend time at the weekends doing a bit of scrapbooking - even if it's just to do the chicken soup recipe and Design dollies trifecta!

Sunny Challenge Saturday

2010-08-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

Well it's a gorgeous hot sunny day here in Dunfermline (rare for Scotland!) and for the first time I am blogging outside while three of the cats play in the garden and two (Claudia and Skye both females in season) enjoy the great outdoors from the safety of their enclosure. Today has been a day of challenges...First of all I managed to finish off Chicken soup recipe #6, it's based on this picture...

I used the scallops, and the pink colouring and the rough placement of text and picture to create my LO - I was pleased with how the pink turned out - it's just 'Worn lipstick' distress ink smudged onto the paper using a sheet of acetate as an edge mask. The lettering is cut out with my Craft Robo

Anyway here's my LO...

Then I powered straight onto recipe #7 which was posted last night...

I liked the idea of the mattresses as stripes - a few of the DT used this idea too, anyway I also had a 'stripy' photo of Claudia sitting in a patch of sunlight so, this is my interpretation...

Finally it was 'trifecta' time for the Design Dollies, the colour challenge was to use yellow, white and kraft; the elements challenge was to be inspired by a tv theme song - I chose the 70s and early 80s show 'Three's company' - remember that one? In fact there's a UK and a US version of the show - I know them both as I used to watch repeats of the US show on TV in Hong Kong. "Come and knock on our door...we've been waiting for you...where the kisses are hers and hers and his...three's company too..."

So I decided to use photos I snapped of our 3 bengals a couple of days ago - Roxy is lying on the floor, Claudia came up and started washing her, then Skye came up and started washing Claudia.Oh and of course to make it the 'trifecta' I used the sketch, though to make it work better to my photos I shifted the photo and paper cluster to the right hand side.

I'd already used my last piece of pure white Bazzill so I decided to scrap this on a slightly bigger than A4 sized canvas. I'm pleased with the result and being yellow it will go beautifully on my kitchen wall...

I decided since it was a canvas I could afford to make it a bit more 3D than usual - here's a side view...

In the last two LOs I was also able to use a couple of the bits and pieces that Karen sent me as my blog hop prize. Thanks again, Karen!

My next challenge is to focus my mind enough to write my history lesson planner for teaching a term of 'Victorian Britain'... maybe I'll just read a couple of blogs first though...?

Trifecta fun in the 'Dollhouse'

2010-08-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

Just a quick extra post today as I've been doing a little scrapping this afternoon...

I thought this week since I was too busy to do lots of challenges I'd give the 'trifecta' a go on the Design Dollies blog.

The first challenge was to scrap using purple, olive green and cream...

The second was to honour a best friend for friendship day on 1st August.

And finally the sketch challenge was this one by Kristy...

So I've combined all three challenges to enter the 'trifecta' this week. I hope you like my LO...

Creativity gone mad!

2010-08-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow you need to head over to Let's Capture Our Memories blog to check out their card challenge as I am their guest designer for the week. My 'upcycling' card won me the honour!

I won't reveal their challenge for next week but I will show you another card I made at the same time...

I used the 'Sweet treats' cricut cartridge for the cupcake and glued on some bugle beads as 'sprinkles'.

Another 'commission' I had this week was to make a sash and medals for my brother in law. He's travelling to USA on business and one of the events he's attending when he's there is a costume party. He is meant to wear national costume so David wants to go as a Lord in his suit with a sash and Order of the Garter or Order of the British Empire. Anyway - I got the job of fabricating his dubious honours (apologies, Your Majesty!)... So several hours and an empty bottle of diamond Stickles later here's what I came up with...

If you're curious to know how close I got to the real thing try looking at Order of the Garter on Google Images! All I can say is I bet they're not made from an empty Magners can!

This week sees me working on my next class for ATDML, designing Vicki and Jay's wedding cake, making jam and marmalade for the Christmas fayre, finishing my Hiawatha play er...starting my Hiawatha play, more school work and all those jobs round the house I was going to get done during the school holidays!

Cooking up a storm!

2010-08-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

So today was birthday experience No. 4 'Supper Suppers' at the Nick Nairn Cook School and as I type I am groaning because I am so full of delicious food! Since there was wine to be had for lunch Jonathan very kindly drove me to the school (about an hour away) and just before 10am I went in to meet my 23 fellow classmates for the day. There were refreshments including shortbread in the dining room then we were taken through to the kitchen classroom to have a familiarisation tour of each 'station'. First of all we had to choose a partner (a little worrying since everyone else seemed to be there with a spouse or friend already), but a very nice lady (and, I was soon to discover, fellow teacher) called Christine asked if I was there on my own and we agreed to partner up. I have to say that Christine was a fabulous partner but next time I would definitely want to go with Jonathan. Anyway - here is Christine at our station...

After we were shown where all the equipment was and a few kitchen safety and hygiene tips given we went to the demonstration area to start to watch chef show us how to make things. Our chef for the day was John Webber who was very entertaining if a little long winded at times and there were odd occasions where I would have liked him to stop talking so that we could get cooking. But his demonstrations were excellent - and it was great that the angled mirror above him showed us exactly what was going on in the pans on the hob in front of him.

First he made a custard based vanilla ice-cream, then he showed us how to make an amazing french toast ham and cheese sandwich. He then demonstrated how to prepare the tomatoes we would need for later dishes and how to prepare the marinade for Moroccan Charmoula chicken. We then took to our stations and prepared our tomatoes and marinaded our chicken. That done we were treated to a portion of the sandwiches chef had made plus scones with cream and jam!

Back in the classroom and we learned how to make brie baked in filo pastry with red onion marmalade...

We leaned all about knives and how to use them correctly and how to dice an onion correctly which we then had to practice...

I loved that the cooking was all quite a relaxed pace and we never felt hassled to get things done. Chef and his assistant Tristan were incredibly helpful and nobody ever criticised our technique. The other great thing was that all our dirty pots, pans, bowls, utensils etc. we simply put on a table and someone whisked them away to wash them for us!!

Anyway, to continue with the day...

Chef then demonstrated a linguine in white wine and cream sauce which we then cooked as our 'starter'...

After that we were shown how to cook our chicken and cous cous and how to make our main course of Toulouse sausage and curried puy lentils...

We had this, along with the Charmoula chicken, cous cous and baked brie for our lunch, eased down with a beautifully chilled glass of white wine.

By this stage everyone was getting very full and very hot but it was back in the kitchen to make dessert: Brioche French toast with maple syrup, cinnamon and vanilla ice-cream...

It was just before 5pm by the time we sat down to eat our dessert then there was time for a final chat with chef before we picked up our carry out bags of extra food that we'd made but not eaten, a quick look round the shop and then home!

We got our file of recipes and cooking apron to keep as souvenirs, and probably one or two additional lbs to remind us of the day!!

I thought the cook school was fantastic and would definitely go back to do another course.

The experience gets a 9/10 (losing only 1 mark for my partner not being Jonathan and the chef being a little longwinded at times).

Another great day!!

Almost too busy to scrap!

2010-08-04T15:04:00.001-07:00

So this week I've mainly spent in my classroom, putting up displays, tidying and preparing assessment folders. Sounds dull and why would anyone go into work during their holidays? Well, in a funny kind of way I actually like it and there's great satisfaction to be had from knowing that I'll be totally ready to go when the new school year starts.

However I've been so busy I haven't had much time for scrapping - but I squeezed a quick LO in tonight - it's for this week's challenge on the chicken soup blog (here).

It's inspired by the Glee poster - well I've tweaked it quite a lot but I like that I could put so many photos of Roxy on one page. Probably not my usual standard, but then it was a 'quickie'! Also - it didn't photograph that well in artificial light.

Ok enough excuses...

Off to spend the day crafting with my mum tomorrow...plus I'm posting on the ATDML blog tomorrow and I'll be doing a lot of thinking about Vicki and Jay's wedding cake which I'm making soon!!

Upcycling

2010-07-31T16:10:00.000-07:00

I had never heard the term 'upcycling' before, but it turns out that it means to recycle something and turn it into something better. I already do this quite a lot so when I saw that the card challenge on the 'Lets capture our memories' blog was to make a card by upcycling I thought I should definitely have a go.

My card is for Jonathan and I'm calling it 'pizza and diet coke' (two of his favourite things) - because it's made from pizza box cardboard and cut out bits of a diet coke can...

I used the 'Tim Holtz grungepaper flowers' idea that I learned from Jill at the last Trip down memory lane retreat plus flowers of my own design. What's amazing is that I didn't cut myself on the can once!

Anyway - I hope you like my upcycled card...

Blog hopping, bog hopping and rock hopping...

2010-07-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

Well, as usual we have had an amazing time here at the Isle of Eriska and big thanks to Beppo and his team for looking after us (and to Jonathan for paying!!). We love the Sage and Chive spa suites and this time we stayed in Sage. It's great because as well as the lovely big bedroom and bathroom we have a living room with a table I can scrap on, a conservatory and a Jacuzzi in the yard. The food here is amazing (thank you chef) and every night is 'Movie night' - so far we have watched 'Deja Vu', 'Dorian Gray' and 'Next' and tonight it's 'The girl with the dragon tattoo (I managed to read the last 300 pages of the book today in preparation!).

So back to the title of my blog - the weekend when we got here started off with me having fun taking part in my first blog hop with the design dollies web site and I am delighted that I won a prize from the superbly talented Karen (it's a shame she has to pay postage all the way from Australia - she's obviously very kind and nice as well as talented). I also had a go at their colour challenge which is here and this is my LO... (I thought I’d do a LO about Jonathan since I always seem to be saying thank you to him for things in my blog)… Hopping over to the Chicken Soup challenge blog their challenge for this week was to use yellow/black/white/ grunge style and I altered this cheap notebook as my 'entry'...

Ok, so the 'bog hop and rock hop' part of the blog... actually this entry could have been called 'a not entirely fruitless exercise' or 'slim pickings' because yesterday I decided to throw on my waterproof coat don my new walking boots and head down to shell point on Eriska to scour the scrub for bilberries. Having had so much rain on Monday the going underfoot was very wet and I ended up on my knees in the bog on more than one occasion (I'm better at blog hopping than bog hopping). I did manage to find a few bilberries but I think the birds had beaten me to it as all the ones I found were hidden down inside the bushes - so after two and a half hours of picking all I ended up with was a small sandwich bag of berries. But to be honest with a view like this you don't mind spending that amount of time out picking berries...

My bilberry 'haul' (by the way they are NOT the same as blueberries!!)... Oh and wait till you see them in the pie..!!

When I heard the air-sea rescue helicopter overhead, I looked in panic at my watch but I was still ok for time (Jonathan had said "If you're not back by 6.30 I'll call air-sea rescue!). However I decided that the best route back would be along the rocky coastline and that rock hopping would be preferable to bog hopping. After half an hour of rock climbing with the tide rapidly coming in I made it back. I didn't slip once and thanks to my absolutely fantastic new walking boots (thanks Jonathan! - I seem to say that a lot!) my feet stayed warm and dry even though I was wet up to my knees on the outside. I was delighted (once back on the path) to see one of Eriska's deer bounding in front of me and even more delighted to climb into the Jacuzzi when I finally made it back to our suite. The therapist at the spa massaged away the remaining aches and pains from all the jumping, climbing, crawling and reaching for berries!

My absolutely fabulous Salomon ortholite boots after their first real 'trial'!

Hello from Eriska!

2010-07-26T10:25:00.001-07:00

Today has been very rainy here at Eriska - no bilberry picking today (sorry Mum!) - but at least I got all my Design Team work done (4 LOs and some cards), leaving me a little time to play with the design dollies again...this time it was the sketch challenge...

So, another Sophie LO - well I did buy a few sheets from the 'So Sophie' range and since I had her photos out I thought I might use them!

Off for dinner now - hmmm I love being on holiday, no cooking or washing up!

A Mad day out!

2010-07-24T06:24:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was birthday treat no.3 and we headed down on the train to York. After checking in to the Cedar Court Grand hotel (which was lovely!) we took a taxi to the racecourse. After some wandering round to see the different facilities we decided that the champagne 'enclosure' would be our best bet. A bottle of pink fizz later and the whole place really was looking rosy. We had a little unsuccessful flutter on the horses - the closest we came was 'Bossy Kitty' who we had an each way bet on and came in 3rd. We accompanied the second bottle of pink fizz with a very good burger (the sandwich on the train seemed a long time ago by now!) and enjoyed the spectacle of ladies in glam frocks sipping pimms and champagne and the excitement as each race took place - we really were at the posh end of the racecourse and it was a lovely balmy evening.

Then when the racing finished we decided to take a walk to find the stage. It turned out to be right at the other end of the course, but we made it there with only a couple of minutes to spare before the horns blasted out the start of 'One step beyond!' and then the Madness really started - literally.

Madness were amazing and the concert flew by so fast with song after song and no breaks. The highlights were the old favourites: Our House, Baggy Trousers, House of Fun, Wings of a Dove and It Must be Love, plus countless others - I think I sang along and danced and clapped along with most of it.

The crowd were wild - down at the 'less expensive' part of the course it was jeans and t-shirts and a lot of beer being drunk and thrown around. Strangely enough I didn't mind it (could be something to do with having consumed an entire bottle of champagne?) and I loved that the crowd were so into the music, singing along and dancing 'nutty boy' style.

I got one or two good photos and a lot of blurred ones - but they were worth it to get the couple that turned out ok!

I have loved Madness for so long and always wanted to go and see them live and I wasn't disappointed. For me singing and dancing along to Nightboat to Cairo amongst a crowd of fans with Suggs only 20 or 30 feet away was about as perfect a moment in life as you get.

Definitely another 10/10 experience

So Sophie!

2010-07-23T03:02:00.001-07:00

When I saw the 'So Sophie' range from My Minds Eye, I of course thought immediately of our Sophie, who we lost three years ago. I also knew it would be perfect for this week's colour challenge at the Design dollies doll house!

So here is is, teal, brown, cream and a 'pop' of red.

The culprit...

2010-07-22T03:05:00.000-07:00

Ok so I'm fairly sure who was responsible for the treat jar disaster, so in her honour, here is my LO for the design dollies elements challenge - use a vintage movie as inspiration for a LO.

Claudia - my little pink panther!

Destruction and creativity weekend...

2010-07-19T02:13:00.000-07:00

To start with, the destruction - remember my treat jar that was part of my DT work on the ATDML July gallery? Here it is...

And here it is after 3 Bengals decide that they don't want anything to come between them and their Go-cat!

Ah well...I still love them!

But the creativity continues, This weekend I managed to get a few things done - amazing since I also got my i-pad on Saturday, and I love it (thank you Jonathan!).

The creativity started with my entry in the art journal I'm in. The theme was 'journey' and I decided to use some of my stamps and inks to create a Chinese page based on the saying 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step'. Appropriate for me having lived in Hong Kong and travelled in China.

I then spent some time assembling and painting a birdcage which I got from A Trip Down Memory Lane - but no photos yet since I'll be blogging about it on the ATDML blog at the end of the month.

I then decided to do a bit of felting and made a handful of black felted balls. I then sat lastnight while we watched a film and turned them into a necklace, sewing little beads onto each ball. I just have to add a clasp of some kind then it's done.

Anyway, today I'm off with Mum to check out a new craft shop in Kirkcaldy called The Crafty Bite...will let you know how we get on!

Having a 'souper' time!

2010-07-17T01:28:00.000-07:00

So lastnight, having realised I had not been too creative all day I decided to have a play with the two recipes from the chicken soup blog that I haven't done yet. I did No.3 first which was to produce a LO based on the David Bowie Album:

I decided to rotate it and not stick too closely to the the fromat - but hopefully you can still see that it's based on it - there is some white space! I especially enjoyed painting the little triangles of chipboard bunting...

Then I decided to have a go at their first recipe, thanks Ann for letting me know it wasn't too late! This was a fun LO based on the Coke World cup advert:

Since it was going to be a fun LO I wanted to use a funny picture - from the same day as the jester - when you see a cannon and you have both a husband and a camera handy - I think this is a picture you just HAVE to take!!!

Thanks again soup cooks - I had fun lastnight. Now I have to go and clean up the mess I also created!

What WAS on my workspace Wednesday...

2010-07-14T23:16:00.000-07:00

I was going to have a go at joining the fun with the WOYWW people - but with going to a funeral yesterday I didn't get the chance to blog. But I was still creative...

This was my LO for the UKS weekly challenge. I've used bright colours, flowers, buttons and my title is a Jet Li film 'Fearless'.

Amazing to think that actually being thrust a handful of snakes at age 17 didn't bother me in the slightest. This in the snake temple in Penang (Malaysia) back in the summer of 1987 - it was one of those photos that someone took, you paid them money and left your address - amazingly, a few weeks later the photo did come through!!

The papers are We R Memory Keepers White Out collection, Nonsense: Zig zag, Jingle jangle and Drip drop. Plus a few buttons, letters and a lot of time spent cutting out flowers (but I love doing this!). The focus on papers rather than expensive embellishments made it a time consuming but inexpensive LO and I love the way the petals stick up!

Today's creativity is going to be spent in my classroom, putting up wall displays and writing planners!

Day 9... chicken soup for tea?

2010-07-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already, you must visit the new challenge blog chicken soup, set up by some very talented scrappers (& lovely ladies they are too) to help us all when we lose our scrapping mojo!

I didn't manage the first recipe - but here's my go at their recipe No.2 based on the cover of a patchwork book. I love doing patchwork and one of things I love is that you can use up scraps of fabric to make something wonderful. So in the same vein I decided to use up some scraps of Graphic 45 Renaissance Fayre papers to produce this LO about my day at the V&A. The cream paper is actually parchment, but it doesn't show up too well in the photo.

Thanks for the inspiration, soup cooks!

Ok - I'd better really go and make the tea now..!

Days 6, 7 and 8 and now playing with dollies!

2010-07-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

Since my initial flurry of creative posts I have lately been a bit lax about blogging - though I have still been creative - though mainly in the kitchen. Sam from my UKS team inspired me to make some ice-cream and then yesterday I had a go at making my own pitta bread - it worked out really well too!! I've also been 'creating' tidy spaces round my house and 'creating' clean clothes aka housework and laundry!!

But today I have been playing with dollies - well at least having a go at the July colour challenge from the design dollies blog here.

The challenge was to use red, pale pink and black and this is my LO... (any nice comments gratefully received!)

Day 5…a day at the V & A…

2010-07-10T02:16:00.000-07:00

...well not the entire day, I had to spend 2 hours of the afternoon in the clutches of a torturer (aka the dentist) who gave me the single most painful experience of dentistry I have ever had. But enough about that… I decided since I was in London that I should take the opportunity for some artistic inspiration and go somewhere I’ve never been before – the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was amazing. To begin with, it’s huge and I only probably saw a quarter of what was there. I was a little disappointed that I had missed their exhibition of quilting by just a few days – but there were plenty of other things to see. The statues, frescoes, asian art and theatre arts were all highlights but probably the most amazing things were the huge pillars that filled the whole 6 storey height of the museum.
I loved the fact that you can go round and take photographs – so I did lots of that. I also sat for about an hour and drew one of the statues. Although I’ve done lots of portrait drawing from photographs I haven’t tried drawing a 3D form and with my day of life drawing coming up in the future I thought it would be a good chance to get some practise in! it is Eve listening to the voice of Adam… It was amazing how many people paid an interest to that statue because I was drawing it!! A few people tried to look at my drawing too, but only one sweet old lady managed it – I was almost finished and she told me I’d done an excellent job! Thanks, whoever you are, you made my day!

However, I think my absolute favourite thing there (and the thing I’d want to break in to steal if I was an art thief!) was in the 20th century design room. It was a book about cacti which the artist had cut out pictures from the book, but they still remained attached to the book – I’d definitely like to have a go at making one of these!

Still day 4...

2010-07-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

Thanks to East Coast Wi-fi I bring you...

Mark Knopfler, or at least my version of him. Drawn using a 4B pencil on plain white paper. He's not perfect, but the best I can manage on a train!!

It's great to have free Wi-fi and a power socket when you're travelling, however today it seems like the least they can do. I arrived at Edinburgh station ready to get on my train to London and about 15 minutes before it was due to leave - they cancelled it!!!

Although I had a non-transferrable advance ticket, I saw a very nice lady at the ticket office who validated my ticket for the next train. So an hour late but I'm on my way...

Creativity day 4...

2010-07-08T01:51:00.000-07:00

...with a little help from Google and Safmat...

I have finally finished my Fairy Tales Art journal entry and it will be posted off today (though I know a little bit late - but it was late getting to me.)

My favourite part is actually my wicked witch page. I found the witch picture on Google Images and printed it on Safmat. If you've never used Safmat, buy some right now and try it - I love it. It basically is a transparent sticker material (Self adhesive printing film to be correct). It comes in A4 sheets which you can print onto with your inkjet or laser printer.

You can buy it here!

I laid down stickers spelling 'witch' then painted the background in green, with an almost dry brush effect at the edges. I then cut round my witch's face, peeled off the backing sheet and stuck her over the green which then showed through the sticker to give her a greenish complexion - lovely!

The right hand page is another picture from Google images, this time, the cover of a Brothers Grimm fairytale book which I stretched to fit the 8"x 8" page - again it's printed on Safmat and this time the brown cardstock shows through.

I'm off down to London today and will be taking some drawing to do on the train - if I'm able to I'll photograph and upload it tonight or tomorrow.

Creativity day 3 - housebuilding

2010-07-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

I spent most of today sorting out my new classroom and unpacking my things, but this afternoon I had to get on with finishing my entry for the art journal CJ I'm in. The theme of the book is Fairy tales and I decided to make my entry a pop-up gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel.

This is the Karen Burniston house design that Jane Dean taught at the 'A Trip Down Memory Lane' retreat last November. I covered it in brown cardstock and embellished with lots of stickles and some stripy candy circles that I punched from Christmas paper.

I made my entry like a Brothers Grimm story book and when you open it the house pops up - will take a pic of this once the Stickles have completely dried!!

Managed to get all of my DT work sent off today, my favourite thing was actually an altered jar that I'm using to keep the Go-Cat in (Bengals can easily break into a box of Go-Cat!). Here are a couple of teaser pics of the jar... there'll be a proper pic on the ATDML shop July gallery.

Creativity day 2 - photo shoot

2010-07-06T09:15:00.001-07:00

Well, today's creativity had to be to get my Design Team work done to send off to Mel at A Trip Down Memory Lane - but since I can't show you that I'll show you some of the photos I took instead. The papers for the DT work were from the Max and Whiskers collection by Basic Grey so I thought I'd take some up to the minute pics of the cats to scrap.

Here are some of my favourites...

Skye - aka Bagpuss...

Roxy - looking wistful...

Claudia - playful as usual...

Gracie - working it for the camera...

and last, but not least...

Freddie - looking very regal...

Look out for them in the ATDML July gallery!

Do something creative...day 1

2010-07-05T09:43:00.000-07:00

So, for the first day of my 'Do something creative every day' I have created...

...aching muscles!!

...and a new front garden.

I don't have pictures of the proper 'before' when this little plot was full of dead broom bushes, grass and other weeds. But after a lot of digging over the weekend, here's how it looked this morning...

A lot more digging and 'riddling' out the stones and lumps of clay and this is how the garden looked by mid afternoon...

I mixed a bag of compost through the freshly seived soil and added some fertilizer before planting it with some Salvias, French and English lavenders and mixed heathers. I now just need to finish it with some chipped bark or cocoa shells.

I did also create a lot of mess in the process and so I ended up taking 10 bags of stones, gravel and clay to the local tip! Now just to clean up the soil trail I created through the house!

Do something creative everyday

2010-07-04T15:56:00.000-07:00

A few years ago when I first discovered the shop 'Paper Source' on Boylston St in Boston, I bought this great little rubber stamp. Like a postmark but inside the circle it says 'Do something creative every day' (edit: see photo above!). I've decided this is going to be my personal goal for my summer holidays. Working full time I don't always get the opportunities for creativity that I'd like and so I want to make every day of the holidays count. Whether it be my design work, scrap-booking, drawing, art journalling, sewing, gardening, cooking, photography, play-writing, home-making, playing my saxophone or even just displays at school.

Some of the projects I want to do over the holidays include...

Making my own trousers (I've bought a pattern!)

Re-planting part of our front garden (already underway!)

Making felt jewellery (wool tops ordered)

Writing a play based on the Song of Hiawatha

Making new curtains for our bedroom

Making 26 'Memories of P7' books ready for my class in the year ahead

Adding to my musician sketches (I'm thinking Mark Knopfler to start with)

Making a holiday scrapbook ready for our Nile Cruise in October

Finish my paper bag book

Start to make things with mum for the Christmas fayre in November

But before I can do all that I have my new classroom to sort & decorate - I'll try to take pictures along the way! That's what I'm off to do this morning

Of course alongside this goal is the challenge to try and blog abut everything I do.

I see you quivering with antici.........pation!

2010-07-04T00:49:00.000-07:00

At having to wait for my next blog post?... maybe - I know it's taken a while, but now I've finished making my 25 individual little scrapbooks for the children in my class and I'm on holiday I may be able to post a little more often (and actually have some sort of arty content).

No, today's post is a late update on my birthday present progress. June was 'The Rocky Horror Show' at Edinburgh Playhouse. Where else would I have the following conversation with my husband?...

Him: Jane, look at that man just wearing gold hotpants!

Me: Where?!?

Him: Behind the man with the basque and the beard!

Of course that was just the audience he was talking about and although we are not Rocky Horror virgins we did not dress up (both having come straight from work). The audience may have been good, but the cast were outstanding. For me usually nobody can compare to Tim Curry as Frank-en-furter but David Bedella was amazing. In fact the whole cast were excellent - and the staging was very well thought out and witty - I especially liked Brad and Janet's car.

We sang along, we danced the Time Warp and enjoyed the spectacle of Rocky in his leopard print pants! All in all a great evening and I have to give it a 10/10!

Janet: I don't like men with too many muscles.

Frank: I didn't make him for you!

Happy Father's Day!

2010-06-20T07:42:00.001-07:00

To all dads everywhere, but especially mine... happy father's day.

I've been a bit too busy to blog lately and will have to catch up with everything I've been doing once term is over (9 school days left!!). But I didn't want to miss the chance to say happy father's day to my dad.

This is the card I made him...

I baked him some cookies and covered this notebook for him to use when he's planning his DIY projects...

I suppose I mostly take after my mum but here are my top 5 things I got from my dad...

1. My curly hair

2. My ability to do sudoku and crosswords

3. My maths skill & general intelligence (- sorry mum - you gave me common sense though!)

4. My willingness to give any sort of DIY a go

5. My sense of humour (we find the same sorts of things funny)

Ok - back out to the garden to make the most of the fabulous sunny weather we have just now.

Shrine swap gorgeousness

2010-06-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much to Efemera who sent me this beautiful shrine. I love it so much because its different to shrines I would make myself. I love the use of printed pages and the china doll arm and the detail in the tiny bracelet. It has great texture contrasts - the background paper, the lace and the delicate little buttons.

Anyway - it spurs me on to get my own shrines finished and get the one for my swapee sent off - I only hope she likes it as much as I like this little treasure.

Ok - more pics...here's the back (I love the birdcage)

And a close up on the little 'ruff' which I think is inspired!!

Thanks again Efemera!

Five Go To Camp!

2010-05-24T23:15:00.001-07:00

Apologies for the interruption to normal transmission. I am here on the west coast of Scotland with 75 of my Primary 5 children. The weather so far has been glorious and as I'm off sailing and rock hopping today I'm hoping for more sunshine.

Yesterday the children did team challenge activities - here they are trying to get all of their team through the 'spider web'.

Here is Alexis - our drama teacher, fellow Bengal owner and my room mate here at camp - playing on the low ropes course...

Normal programming will resume shortly...

Afternoon tea, sunshine & showers

2010-05-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

What a weather day!?! - we've got bright sunshine now but had torrential rain when we were in St Andrews.

So today was 'birthday experience 1 part 2' - afternoon tea at the Old Course in St Andrews. We had a lovely little table by the window overlooking the golf course and duck pond (the ducks were very happy when it rained, the golfers weren't).

Not being a tea drinker I went for hot chocolate but I still loved how Jonathan's tea came in a see through tea-pot with a nylon pyramid tea bag inside.

The three tiers of diet busting loveliness arrived - we had ham & tomato sandwiches, egg sandwiches and cucumber sandwiches on the bottom layer. The middle layer had lovely soft warm scones (Jam and cream on the table to add to them) then the top layer had a selection of delightful cakes: pistachio chocolate brownie, white chocolate and passionfruit layer cake, coffee & chocolate layer cake, Dundee cake, chocolate & raspberry tart and a frangipan slice. MMMmmmmmm - maybe not the quantity of food you get for afternoon tea at Gleneagles but the quality was better and I felt happily full rather than stuffed at the end of it.

As with the concert additional entertainment was provided by those around us - this time a table of American girls who clearly had little idea of how to tackle a traditional afternoon tea correctly, Oh and a waiter who only charged us half the price (we were very honest though and pointed out his mistake). A drive down to the beach finished off our afternoon perfectly and this part of May's birthday experience earns 9.5/10. Not sure how it would get the other half mark - I just want to save my 10/10 score for a later month I think.

Thank you Jonathan...looking forward to June...

Shrine sneaky peek

2010-05-22T23:47:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd give you a sneaky peek of the shrine I'm working on for the Scrap pad shrine swap. Since it's a long way from being finished it won't be too much of a spoiler for my recipient. Also - she won't know which one is hers since I'm making two. I usually do this - make two of whatever I'm doing so that if I go wrong with a technique on one I still have the other as back up. I usually try and make them different though so that my recipient is getting a unique piece. Then if they both turn out ok I'll either keep the spare, RAK it or now that I have a blog, maybe it could be blog candy?I decided to go with the theme of past writers and I have Dickens in one and Robert Browning in another - these are from an old encyclopedia of literature - which I bought from a second had bookshop near Eriska for £4.50. I have used pages from the book to completely cover my foamboard construction.

So what next?...Well that would be telling, but it may involve some of the paint techniques I learned on my online course from Michael de Meng and a fair bit of embellishment. Once my recipient has seen it I will post a finished picture.

Money for nothing?

2010-05-22T23:32:00.000-07:00

Ok - so I have to blog about my first birthday 'experience' - I went to see Mark Knopfler in concert at the SECC in Glasgow. So was it money for nothing? Well - not entirely - though it would have been good if he'd played 'Money for nothing' (or 'Walk of life' or...). I know he has a new album out 'Get Lucky' which he wants us all to buy (and I probably will) - but I have to admit to being a little disappointed that he didn't play more of his old / well known stuff. He played 'Sailing to Philadelphia', 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Brothers in Arms' and 'So far away' (which he changed a bit). Apart from that it was stuff I didn't know. That, along with feeling very tightly packed into my seat (I know - mainly my fault!!), all the bars being closed by the time I got out to go and get a drink and the gradually increasing heat made it a concert which I mildly enjoyed rather than one which I loved and raved about afterwards (like I normally do). I have to say the music was amazing - violins, flutes/whistles as well as Mark's guitar. It all had a very celtic feel and suited the (very voiciferous) Glasgow crowd.

The funniest moments of the concert were 1. before it started when the dolled up blonde in front of us said "Ooh it's really busy, is he popular then?" and 2. When a punch up broke out a few rows in front (it looked like someone had gotten up to go to the bar/toilet one too many times) - someone was wrestled out by bouncers and ejected from SECC.

Despite not being very close to the stage - I managed to get one or two fairly decent photos which I can scrap!!

All in all I'm giving experience No.1 6/10

Finally a blog!!

2010-05-20T09:47:00.000-07:00

Ok - big thanks to friends on Scrap pad (& especially Clare) for help setting up my blog. So many people have asked me what my blog address is and I've always said that I don't have time for a blog. This is still true so I'll probably have lots of gaps between posts (after the initial novelty of having a blog wears off!!).
The other reason I decided to start a blog was as a way to record the next 12 months. I turned 40 in April and as a present my amazing husband gave me 'A year of experiences'. I was initially terrified about turning 40 but he said that as life begins at 40, this year would have to be amazing. So what do I have in store?...

April........Birthday celebration on The Isle of Eriska (Ok - I've had that - but I'll still include it)
May........'Tea with Mark' seeing Mark Knopfler in concert in Glasgow & Afternoon tea at The Old Course in St Andrews
June........Tickets for 'The Rocky Horror Show'
July........A day at the races in York followed by 'Madness' playing live
August........Cookery course: 'Super suppers' at Nick Nairn's cookery school in Stirling
September........A day with birds of prey
October........Cruising down the Nile
November........A day of Life drawing classes in London
December........Tickets for Hairspray with Michael Ball
January........A day at 'One Spa' in Edinburgh including treatments
February........A day of one-on-one photography tuition with a professional photographer
March........Driving a Ferrari 360 round Knockhill track