SALE TIME

I am a long time user of Craftwork Cards products, the yummo stuff they sell really got me started on card making, and of course the fab Julie Hickey works for them and creates luvverly stuff. Anyway they have a mega sale starting tomorrow, read on.....

Sale starts 4pm Friday 30th November with over 500 items in the SALE area, loads of them 75% off!

There is also FREE P&P from Friday 30th November, 4pm through to Monday 3rd December at 4pm

find them at www.craftworkcards.co.uk

Busy Week

Lordy, I have had a busy day. Work has gone bonkeroonie, it's all exciting stuff but it has this nasty habit of interfering with my crafting - the nerve!

AND if anyone else tells me they have bought all their Christmas presents, wrapped 'em and written all their Christmas cards, I'll strangle them with tinsel! They've probably already got their sprouts on too.

I am heading off to the temple of retail therapy - The Trafford Centre on Monday to buy a frock for a Christmas "do" and I have decided I want fab smoky eyeshadow like the Spice Girls in their latest video. Every time I have tried "smokey" I have ended up looking like "I've been in a scrap" so we'll see. I'll have a mooch along to the MAC counter in Selfridges, that can be a right laugh cos they have boys who look like girls on that counter sometimes (yikes!!!).

I'll see if I can buy some pressies too. I am faced with the annual conundrum of getting presents for my "I want suprises but all the ones you get me are going back to the shops cos I hate them" husband. He is my major cause of Christmas stress I can tell you.

I met a lovely lady today called Tara. She lives really nearby and makes cards, really lovely cards they are too. She has a bloggy too here go check it out.

Right I am teeing myself up for I'm a Celeb, I wonder who will win tomorrow , OH MAAAAN! I hope it ain't Janice but since I missed it last night she may have been kicked out already!

Ohhhh my head hurts......
Yesterday I had a very productive day using all of my new SU goodies for a mag project. Nearly done and in record time!

Last night I went to a "candle party", gosh I remember the days when my Friday nights were spent at the Hacienda club in Manchester, now I am just an old saddo! The candles were great and when the candle lady left I showed everyone my SU catalogue and told them all about it. They were very enthusiastic yey!

I drank lots of wine and now I feel soooooooo yucky, Alan has taken Alex out for a few hours so I am watching an old movie and surfing the web, perfect!

Stash City!!

Gosh I have been the "queen of parcels" this week. First I got a big box from Stampin' Up! containing my demo kit, then a pizza box from Artbase and another from my gorge friend Sarah Davies from Sarahscards! This girl has twin babies and is still running her shop!!!

Also I got 2 mags from the States, I am expecting some more mags from my cousin and a yummo treat from Ebay - where the heck I am gonna put that lot?

High Chair
Awwww I sold Alex's high chair today, well being 5 he doesn't have much need for one now hee hee! I must admit to feeling a bit emotional about it when I thought about all that pureed gunk I lovingly made for him when he was tiny.

As for the rest of the day I am boring everyone stupid with Stampin' Up and I sold my first catalogue to a girl at work.

I am all up and running and it doesn't matter if you don't have a demo in your area, I can send catalogues to you and you can order from me no probs! Don't all rush at once eh???

What I am Thinking?

OK it's like TV heroin and I am hooked, I knew if I watched it I would be hooked -arrrrrggggghhh. I am a bit of a snob TV wise and I do not hold with this Reality TV malarky , quite frankly it's a waste of life just watching it (don't even get me started with Big Brother)

I am Celeb.........you know what I am saying! Can you believe that Mark has been voted out?? I reckon the voters have thought "ohhh he is going to get it when he gets out, so let's not vote to keep him in and watch the fireworks" Boy did I squirm when he was being interviewed, he was looking as sick as a parrot. Not a good situation bit of a tricky one all round isn't it?

I don't tend to watch much TV but it's been a bit of a coach potato night for me today. I LOVE "How to look good naked", I want Kwok as my best friend right NOW!! He is such a sweetie he rocks! I look rubbish naked I am signing up right now for that programme!

Living and Dreaming Stampin' Up!

Ohh it is such an exciting time, I am just waiting for my SU demo kit to arrive meanwhile I have been making some cards using the Be Happy stamp set and Rich Regals colours. Having the 4 colour sets make life so easy to create colour schemes!

Nice Weekend

Well Alan got home nice and early on Friday night which was great. We had a bottle of Champagne (hic!) I have bored the pants off him with my Stampin' Up! news.

We had friends round for dinner last night which was lovely, and today we took Alex to a party. After that we had a very lazy afternoon watching the new Harry Potter DVD - isn't J.K Rowling just a genius, she is like the modern day Enid Blyton, a total phenomenon! Enid isn't popular anymore but I just loved "The Famous Five" and all the St Claire's and Mallory Towers books. I so wished I could got to boarding school, play lacrosse and have midnight feasts from my "tuck box". Ha ha talk about ideas above my station.

Got my hair cut in Knutsford yesterday in the most amazing Aveda salon with chairs that give you a massage when you get your hair washed!!! The reason I mention this is that I am watching Cranford on BBC which was based on Knutsford, that is where Elizabeth Gaskell lived! If you ever visit Cheshire , pop along to Knutsford, it is soooo lovely.

Stampin' Up! Day

Well today was the day - the new UK Stampin' Up! catalogue is on the web - weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! V Excited. Been tidying my craft room again tonight and ripping up the hall stairs and landing carpet in readiness for our new carpet on Monday. We have lived with a HIDEOUS red patterned carpet for 6 years but to sell the house we need to "go neutral" great! We'll get to enjoy it for like 2-3 months and then have to move.

Right I am pooped with all the excitement of today, I am off for a glass of wine.

Stash Stress

OMG I wanted to show someone at work pics of my craft room today and so I showed him (yes a him) my blog (he's a computer geek just like me gawd love him) I have pics on here from Feb this year when my room was completed. I was so shocked to see how much more stuff I have acquired, it's awful. Of course I have all my Mum's craft stuff as well plus boxes of photos, it's a nightmare. I do have a friend who is just about to start crafting so she is getting a goodie box from me. I must NOT buy any more stash arrrgggghh!!!!

Well Stampin' Up! launches in the UK tomorrow I'll be checking the online catalogue tomorrow first thing - 1 more sleep to go!!!

Stampin' Up!

I have a new blog which will be devoted to all my Stampin' Up! activities check it out Stampin' Up! With Sam. Not much on here just yet but there will be soon I hope.

Stampin' Up ! launches this Thursday (2 more sleeps to go) and I have signed up to be a demonstrator , so soon I will be able to sell yummy stuff to anyone who is interested. Can't wait!!!

Waste of a day

OK our house is in serious need of a "de-clutter", the cellar is ram-jam full of books and other paraphernalia. We also have what we call "the baby mountain" which is a HUGE pile of Alex's stuff from 5 years ago.

I also have boxes of stuff from Mum and Dad's house and since we are going to put our house on the market very soon we sooooo need to de-clutter. Lots has gone to the charity shop but a neighbour mentioned that there was a "table top" sale today near where I live.

She had booked a table so I thought I would do the same to get rid of some of the junk. Well my neighbour is a total HOOT, I only met her on Monday, she lives down the road, she is a textile and design lecturer and she ROCKS, trust me to find someone arty to "play with" just as we are about to move (doh!)

ANy-hoo, I spent a couple of hours yesterday dragging stuff out of the cellar and boxing it up, god help my back tomorrow. I then dragged it all to the British Legion in Hartford eagerly awaiting lots of pounds and pennies for my packed table.

YEAH RIGHT, wise up Sam, most of my "stash" was books and I don't want to be a snob but most of the people that shuffled by my stall didn't look like they were culture vultures (if you know what I mean). The upshot was I took £10 and the flipping table was £6 . I had to drag all the stuff back to my car then haul it all back into the house arrrrrrrrrrrrghhh! I am off to the charity shop on Monday I can tell you.

Hubby is just back from a week long trip to China with work. Nice to have him (and his washing) home.

Back Home

Well Alex and I went up to Edinburgh for the weekend to be with Alan, what a great time we had. Poor Alan had to get up at the crack of dawn to go to Shanghai today. Alex stood at the gate at 8am wearing his little PJ's and waving, I think Alan was a bit choked up. He didn't want to go, but he was in business class, you know, I am very jealous!

This morning, Alex and I went to the most amazing "tourist attraction" in Edinburgh called Mary Kings Close. This is a place I heard about several years ago, the "story" was that there were lots of houses full of people with the plague, these houses were all "bricked up" and the people were left to die. Horrible eh?

Well the real story is that the "closes" or streets, were full of 8 storey tenement houses from the middle ages. New buildings were built in the 19th century and earlier on the same site, basically they "chopped" off the top storeys of these buildings, and so what remained became the foundations of the new buildings.

It was fab, Alex was a bit scared, of all the darks rooms we went into, but overall he loved it, check it out at http://www.realmarykingsclose.com/. It has to be seen to be believed.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH And!!!!! I got home tonight and found the latest issue of Quick and Crafty and my Xmas cards have made the front cover, I am very chuffed - thanks Lynn xx

I Made a Card!

Ohh blimey - I actually made a card!!! Here it is!

I cut the card out- the scalloped bit using my wishblade. The card base is made from "Kraft" card from Stampin' Up! Alan's cousin lives in the States and has a Stampin' Up! demo near hear, last year she was kind enough to buy me some yummy stuff and ship it over to me. I love the colour of this card and I am hoping to use it in some of my future mag projects. The chipboard letters are naked (ooohhhhhh!!!!) and embellished with green gems. Of course the patterned paper is Basic Grey all grunged up with a distress ink pad.

I am back up in Edinburgh with Alan and Alex, another 4 hour drive which I do NOT like. I am finally sitting in front of the TV with a glass of wine on the sofa which is FAB. Our lounge is being decorated which means I haven't been able to do this for the last week. I've been sitting at the table in the kitchen watching TV, not very comfy.

It's all finished as of today so I'll be moving furniture back in when I get home yey!!!

I LOVE JEREMY CLARKSON

OK OK I know - 2 posts in one evening is not "normal" but I have watched a little bit of TV tonight, The TV awards. Jeremy Clarkson won a special award tonight and I just LOVE him. He is clever, VERY funny and I never miss Top Gear. I love his non-pc way and the way he speaks. His column in the Sunday Times never fails to make Alan and I laugh our socks off !

He was so good, and of course I also love the Hamster (with his new gorgeous haircut - yum!) and James May!!!

Although Jezzer is known for his TV work with cars, I also really loved the documentary he did on the Victoria Cross.

He went through nearly an hour telling the story of the bravery shown by a guy in the second world war, it was one of those stories which ol' Jezza is so good at telling. He was saying "and then he did this" and "despite all that he still carried on", and "then, this happened" and "unbelievably faced with such adversity having lost most of his men he still carried on", and "in the face of all this he still managed to..." so you were hanging on every word he said.

And the upshot, the "punchline", the whole story about the most amazingly brave man...........................was his own father in - law. A man so modest that Jeremy did not know of his bravery , a man he knew as an executive in the oil industry was in fact a war hero, who never spoke of his medal. Great story eh??

Stampin' Up!

Well I have decided to take the plunge and become a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. This fabbo company are coming to Europe including good old Blighty on the 15th November and I am a huge fan of their stuff. Although I won't have time just yet to actually do demos and partys I will be able to supply stamps and accessories to anyone who wants to buy. I will post pics of what I manage to create so you can see the sort of products they produce. Check out the online catalogue at www.stampinup.com LUSH. There are lots of papercrafting gals just gagging for SU to launch here!

I am based in Cheshire at the moment - relocating to Edinburgh sometime in the next 3-4 months so I will be able to take orders for both places at the moment since I spend every other weekend in Edinburgh - yey!!!

Anyway enough of that - suffice to say I will still be using other products in my mag projects, which reminds me , I must add more pics of my more recent stuff to my Flicker account. I have just had some cards published in another mag "Complete Cardmaking" with the fabbo "Build a Bloom" set from Banana Frog. This set seems to have been a real fave with a lot of designers.

I popped over to see Sarah of Sarah's Cards on Monday,ohhhhhhhhhhhh she has just had a BIG delivery of the most GORGE stuff, I can't divulge what it all was since some of them are for here fabbo kits - she now does cardmaking kits as well as scrapbook kits. All I can say is keep your eye on her site for the new goodies to be uploaded. This kid has twins and is still doing the business!! She and Rebecca had made the most fabulous acetate mini book kit for the UK Scrappers cyber crop.

Right I am off - our road is teeming with trick or treaters

SECC ............grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Well I was fortunate to be North of the border this weekend, as I could go to the Hobby Crafts show at the SECC.

Craftwork Cards, Art from the Heart and Hobby Horse Crafts were all there, which was great and that was where I said hi and got big hugs from Julie Hickey but to be honest the rest of the show was very disappointing. The booths were tiny and it was very crowded. The organisers must have made a lot of money but I was not impressed! The crafters North of the Border are not well served with this show at all. I don't want to go to a show to see stands selling gold chains or nail varnish - come on ICHF make it easier for the "real" born and bred craft shops to have a real go at selling their wares in Scotland. OK so the NEC is more central and it is expensive to exhibit but it would be nice to see more shops at the SECC next year, there was a lot of cut price tat there this year and as member of the public I do begrudge paying £6.50 for that!

OK this post may not make me popular but I am mad!!!!

Brrrrrrr................

Well we are back (thank god you all say, no more pics of flippin South Africa!!)

We got home and the house was like a freezer, hubbie (Scottish - ahem!) likes to turn down the heating whilst we are away and this time the boiler had conked out. It was FREEEEEZIN'

I was so glad to get home after the overnight flight. I am such a pain when I fly, I am pretty high maintenance most of the time anyway (poor Alan) but I am a complete nightmare on a plane. First off on a 12 hour overnight flight I see no reason why I shouldn't be in first class, I actually feel extremely hard done by when I am not. OK so we can't afford it, it's ridiculoulsy expensive but I seethe with resentment at those who can. Silly but true. I couldn't sleep and as Alex was sleeping on me I couldn't move either. Eventually when I thought I couldn't hold on any longer for the loo I managed to wriggle out over a sleeping Alex and Alan. At one point I was stuck astride Alan facing the back of the plane, nearly dislocated my ankle getting out of that position!!

I consoled myself with 2 movies, "Knocked up" and "Vanity Fair" talk about from one extreme to another! "knocked up" is hilarious (lot's of use of the "f" word though).

So we got home, unpacked then packed again and driven up to Edinburgh for the rest of the half term hols. I have been thinking about all my new craft stuff that I got at Harrogate and so I have packed up my new Cricut and my 2 new carts that arrived when I was away "Zooballoo" and "mini monograms" so I am going to play with those later. I may be posting some pics of my efforts with some luck.I am also off to the SECC on Saturday for the HobbyCraft fair, looking forward to seeing some familiar faces there!

Last Day in Cape Town

Well today is our last full day in Cape Town, we leave at teatime tomorrow, we've had a wonderful time, the weather has been great.

Yesterday we went over to the V&A Waterfront for retail therapy and lunch. After that we stopped off at Clifton beach, well there are 4 beaches in Clifton, and they are all what you could call "the perfect beach". They are ringed by the most GORGEOUS beach houses, check out the ones behind Alan and Alex in the photo. How the other half live eh? Alan noticed that most of them had 20 year old blondes on their balconies (grrrr!) and wondered if they were included in the house price "ha flippin ha!".



Here's a pic of Alex writing his name in the sand.

Later on we went for dinner and Alex has been kept amused by a colouring book for most of the holiday (he likes to colour everything black and we keep remembering the sketch in the The Fast Show where Charlie Higson is an artist and says "black black everything is black!" and then tips his easel over). Anyway he has also been very taken with some teeny motorbikes which I bought a pack of for £1.50 . They come as something looking like a square credit card, you pop out the (microscopic) pieces and assemble them. Best £1.50 I have ever spent and I will be stocking up again on my return to Blighty. Check out the concentration!

Today I am off for a facial and some "me time" at the 12 Apostles Hotel and Spa (hark at me!) Apparently it was voted one of the worlds top 100 hotels so I hope it's good. Mind you having read a review on trip advisor one person said it smelled of "burger king" , however they were from Switzerland and probably have higher standards than a gal from Warrington.

I am hoping they don't "exfoliate" my tan off my face. The big joke at work is that I never have a tan - I'll be smothering my fizzog with "fake tan" if they do hee hee!

I am looking forward to getting home and doing some crafting, I saw copies of Crafts Beautiful and Simply Cards and Papercraft in the mall yesterday. I am awaiting delivery of 2 cricut cartridges and something EXTRA exciting from the US. I have also been given use of a Xyron Wishblade and will be creating some projects using that, it's great fun.

As soon as we land we'll be packing up and heading up to Edinburgh to spend the last few days of half term and look again at houses. Not looking forward to the flight home, it's an overnighter and I just can't sleep on planes at all. Well it's a small price to pay for such a wonderful holiday.

Penguin City

Well here is a pic of Alan, getting close to a penguin in Boulder Bay, it's a lovely place, a beautiful little swimming cove with penguins dotted here and there, I was paddling and one penguin shot past me underwater like a little bullet, it was brilliant.

They are such pleasant little chaps and just sit about quite tame , under the rocks, bless em!

We've been out for some lovely meals, here are the three of us, full of good wine and food (apart from Alex of course)

South Africa is currently gripped by Rugby World Cup Fever, as I type this, we are a couple of hours before kick off, there have been people driving up and down the sea front at Camps Bay all afternoon, posing, waving flags and beeping horns. There is a LOT of money here, lots of BMW's Mercs and other covertibles full of gorgeous young things!

Anyway we are having a Brai ( i think that's how you spell it) tonight, which is SA for Bar-be-que.

OH OH almost forgot, we were whale watching from our balcony this morning - what a sight!

So I am off to prepare for the rugby - may the best team win!!!!!!!!!!