Great Day

I went along to the Stampin' Up! Experience in Edinburgh on Saturday and it was brilliant, I won't reveal more just yet since there are a couple more happening this week.

I got to meet Shelli Gardner who co-founded Stampin' Up! She is sooooo lovely, I had to get a picture of her - I'm the one that has the hamster cheeks on the left!

She obviously knows how to pose for a picture but I look like some dopey fan! She really inspired me to get cracking with my first SU! workshop. If you are in or around the Edinburgh area I am taking bookings now so please get in touch. I am also planning a workshop at my house, so if you want to come along and not have to host at your own house, please email me and I will send you details.

Ginger

Well I have been busy taking pics of lots of stuff with my new camera,still on the ol' Auto Mode but still quite chuffed with what the camera can do. Just had to share this picture, this is Ginger who lives down the road, he/she is quite a character and very nosy.

Dental Trauma

OMG I am soooo embarrassed, I went to the dentist this morning to get "scaled and polished" and for them to prep my front tooth for a new veneer. A couple of months ago I was chewing my nail in a meeting and PLING! the veneer on my front tooth broke in half and fell onto the desk. I was gutted!

Any how I go to get my veneer-less tooth prepped and my god I think I would have preferred root canal work and that SUCKS! The dentist needed to take an impression of my top teeth and they use a kind of plastic horsehoe filled with putty like stuff, now despite the fact I am quite a vocal person (aka BIG GOB) I have small "dental arch" so they had to use the smallest one. I have had this stuff done before and I don't like it. I'll tell you why, they fill that bloody horseshoe to the top with that stuff then thrust it in and up into the roof of your mouth and the stuff squidges out the back and is very prone to making me gag - I am really vomit phobic and I was scared to death. So it happened this morning, I am horizontal in the chair and dentist shoves it right up into the roof of my mouth and the unthinkable happens I start to gag and can't stop, I sat bolt upright heaving away, waving my hands about saying "take it out, take it out" ARRGGGHHH! I have never seen a dental assistant jump back so fast. It was horrible. I can laugh now but at the time it was a nightmare. They were making a false veneer for me so I had to do it another 3 times after my gag fest. They had the sense to sit me upright for the rest but each time they did it I had to endure it for about 3 mins for the putty to set and I had to concentrate REALLY hard so I didn't barf.

So now I have a false veneer that quite frankly looks like Bubba teeth, and tomorrow I am hopefully going to meet Shelli Gardner from Stampin' Up! she is from the USA and has the all-American perfect smile..............I shall bring a fan and hide behind it like Emily from Little Britain.

New Camera

ooohhh my new SLR arrived today, a Nikon D40 - I am a newbie to the digital SLR brigade, Kirsty Wiseman advised the D70 but I wimped out cos they are only available via ebay and I was SCARED of being ripped off.....soz Kirsty I is a scaredy cat xxx

I am very excited about it, but even though I am a gadget geek I am a bit scared of all this ISO, focal length blah-de-blah, hey ho I shall learn dammit!

Ohhh this Saturday I get to meet the CEO and founder of Stampin' Up! Shelli Gardner in Edinburgh, it's OK I don't have a private audience but I still get to meet her. If you want to come along , it's free just drop me an email!

Rant Alert.....................You have been warned

Ohhh I just love Sundays, I love the Sunday papers, well I love the Sunday Times mainly. Now we have moved to civilisation, i.e we have a corner shop and not one of those dreary Tesco Express jobbies, we have our paper delivered every day. It's bliss, I am in love with Caitlin Moran, Giles Coran , AA Gill and even gobby Jezzer Clarkson, their writing often has me giggling and thinking too.

SOOO yesterday I am reading this piece about how a school in Scotland has stopped making Father's Day cards for fear of offending single parent families and lesbians!!! I just about choked on my toast and went "oh my God look at this PC nonsense rant rant rant...." then OMG I realised they were talking about the school our son currently attends.!!!! I am flabbergasted, stunned and frankly bloody angry. How DARE they!! Alex's class all made cards, but some other classes did not. Has the world gone mad, why is is the minority rule? It'll be Christmas cancelled next by these interfering mad people.

I was ready to chain myself to the school gates in protest, I was hoping for a queue of TV station vans lining up with huge satellite dishes, I did my make up and had it all planned out, my impassioned speech about how mad people are diluting our culture and wrapping everyone up in cotton wool.............................................but zilch.............nowt.................the worlds media stayed away and apparently no-one I spoke to reads the Sunday Times. So my preparation was in vain, not even a squeak from the school either. WELL if any of the teachers responsible for this idiotic idea read this - SHAME ON YOU FOR BEING SUCH IDIOTS!!!!

Thank goodness we are moving schools this year, good riddance I say........................I did warn you of the "rant fest", I am orf to bed...

Yo Ho Ho............and and a bottle of rum

Check us out......................... Alan and I were invited to a "pirate party" last night by one of our new neighbours - what a flippin' hoot we had. Pity I look like Vanessa Feltz in my wig ROFL!


Fancy Dress is such a flippin' hoot. Alan and I have been together for about 12 years and never been to a fancy dress together. He is "ginger" and looks so funny in this outfit, plus I persuaded him to have eyeliner, what a palava getting that applied on him - his eyes were watering like mad, ha ha!

Some of the outfits were just brill, 3 people came dressed in sheets with min-fans on string round their necks, they came as........................"3 sheets to the wind". The host was dressed up as captains birds eye I spent the first half hour laughing my socks off at all the outfits! Not laughing so much now though - got an ickle bit of a hangover bleurgh!

In Love With Stamping

Just a quickie post this morning, just wanted to tell you about a great new forum for stampers its here www.inlovewithstamping.com . It's a forum for all sorts of stamp addicts and for Stampin' Up! demos and "fans" too, check it out!

One of those Days

Yesterday we went to an "induction" afternoon at Alex's new school. We are going "private" next year, never thought we would but it just happened and it seems very right for us.

His new school is very old and very traditional in the centre of the city and I have fallen in love with it, kinda reminds us all of Hogwarts!!

So we had the head of the school give us a talk in the most gorgeous school hall yesterday and I was totally choked up. It was such an inspiring speech delivered by the most charismatic man I have ever heard speak in a school and I am beside myself with excitement and pride and can't wait to be a part of it.

5 mis before we arrive some silly sod reversed straight into the front of the car - as we were waiting to park......................grrrrrrrrrrrrrr it nearly spoiled the "ambience" and I swore like a trooper (nice!!) thankfully it was only minor and we had such a nice couple of hours I didn't care at all.

Total Witch

Yesterday I was a complete COW! Yes indeedy, with deadlines looming, piles of ironing and a house that needs to be cleaned I was HORRID. Have to be nice today since it is of course Fathers Day.

We have been invited to a Pirate Party next weekend to meet the neighbours - we went shopping for fancy dress yesterday which was a hoot. The shop in the middle of Edinburgh was run by a bunch of "very pierced" individuals. It was good fun and Alan who hates dressing up finally got into the swing of things and was picking out stuff to accessorise his outfit ha ha!!

Hopefully I can get some pics and post them next week.

It's a lovely day here in Edinburgh and we are only 2 mins from the sea so we are hoping to go on a boat ride this afternoon.

Techno Geek

Sometimes I wonder about myself. Now I work from home most of the time I am surrounded by technology, I have 4 email accounts, 3 types of instant messenger, I text using my iPhone (dratted Apple just brought out another version - gee thanks!!), and I have just signed up for Twitter (go on try it).I think I am definitely a geek, but I just LOVE technology.

Thanks to that Kirsty Wiseman woman, I am now hankering after a digital SLR too, so I am scouring ebay for second hand bargains, I really want to learn more about taking photos.

So what else have I been up to? Just had another project published in Quick and Crafty using the fabulous downloads from Pink Petticoat. I always buy my patterned paper, but the super talented Liz, designs papers and "digital stamps" that are so funky and modern I decided to have a go at using them. I was really sceptical about it to be honest, I have a very simple colour inkjet printer, but the print outs looked really good. Anyway, pop along to her website and get downloading.

More Crafty Stash

UH-OH, I have discovered a new way to empty my bank account.............................beading!

Discovered not one but two beading shops close by and I am hooked. I love jewellry and have nearly finished my first necklace.

I went to a shop on Saturday, then discovered another on Monday. The only downside was that when I came out of the second shop I had a flippin' parking ticket - I WAS SOOOO Mad!

My hubby who is not very arty said "huh! well at least it is more exciting than card making ,beads are quite interesting" and admitted he might even cross the threshold of a bead shop.

I'll let you know.

Artstamps Scotland

Blimey I have been really busy with projects, my craft room looked like a bomb had hit it today so I tidied up and it looks much better.

Yesterday, feeling "starved" of an opportunity to shop for "real" i.e not from t'interweb, I decided to go to the Artstamps Scotland Show in Edinburgh. Quite frankly it was AWFUL (stand by for a Sam rant)

I paid £3.50 to get in and the quality of the exhibitors wasn't up to much. It was a great venue and not busy but most of the stands weren't well known or high quality. I felt this way the last time at the SECC show in Glasgow. I don't know why, we have some great stash shops in the UK but they very rarely venture North of the Border.As an avid crafter I get very angry when I see the "Low" end crafting retailers making up the bulk of the exhibitors. These people are very much the "pile it high, sell it cheap" type. They have no real interest in crafting, they don't have anyone demoing the products, they just want to make a fast buck and they put other shops out of business - and OK I am a craft snob, but there must be a better way to run these shows.

The shows are not cheap to attend so I really feel for our stash sellers, it costs a huge amount of money to have a stand, then there are travel and accomodation bills and (unbelievably) they do have to factor in a certain percentage for "shoplifters". Yes you might not like the fact that some of the retailers breathe down your neck at a show, but there are plenty of light fingered people out there. Times aren't easy for our craft shops at the best of times and the credit crunch is hitting us all, so we shall see how it all pans out.

All I can say is, I really hope that the shops that do the shows have a think about allocating a small part of their budget to attend a show North of The Border, we need you. Most of the feedback on UKS this weekend about the show was that it was very much below par, and I am certainly going to be in touch with the organisers!