Wednesday 23 February 2011

Two Lovely Awards and a lot of blurb.

Good Morning Everyone,

I managed to get an extra hour in bed this morning now I don't have a little nose pressed to mine, little arms round my neck and a plaintive voice saying "I'm hungry Mamma.  You need to get my breakfast." only for it to go untouched while Izzy gets Mamma to play with the jigsaw puzzles, lol!  I just read through my last post and from the number of uncorrected typos I can tell just how tired I was.  I wouldn't have missed the weekend for anything though, the cuddles alone were worth it but there was other lovely stuff happening as well.

On Saturday I went up to Harrogate to spend the afternoon having a tasting session with my daughter and Kelly (the Wedding Planner who's worth her weight in gold) with the chosen caterers.  My lovely SIL to be very kindly gave up his place so I could go and we were treated to the Wedding Breakfast more or less as it will be served on the day.  What a fab idea this is because although in the main everything was fine and the food was lovely, there were just a couple of points that we decided needed 'tweaking' a bit, like having extra gravy available and either cream or creme fraiche available with the deserts.  It also gave Jenna and Kelly the chance to double check with the caterers what they would be providing in the way of table linen, glassware, etc., etc.  The lady we discussed everything with was very professional, helpful and obliging and at a later date (probably after the wedding) I will do a post which folk can read if they are interested (or avoid if weddings bore them silly, lol) and list all the various providers with links and whether I am impressed or otherwise.  So far it's looking like they will all get gold stars!  One link you already have is to the Wedding Stationery Designer extraordinaire, lol, 'cos that's me, together with table decorations, bunting and other bits and bobs.

When I returned home Saturday evening, Jenna and her little family followed me down the A1 and as it's half term (Jenna works as a teaching assistant) they stayed until last night.  One important errand they had to do while they were here was visit a local jewellery designer (another link I will provide later) and they came back totally impressed and very excited about the designs they had seen but what is very special is that Jenna has her late paternal grandmother's very worn and fragile wedding ring and this is going to be melted down and used to make Jenna's wedding ring.  I think this is such a special idea and she could go and watch the process if she wanted but as it's not going to be possible the jeweller is going to take photos of the process for her, although I might go and watch myself.  Well, I think that's enough wedding blurb for now so I'll get onto the crafty stuff which I have sorely neglected of late.  Either I am getting old and very slow (Hmmmm!!!) or my days are going twice as fast as they used to because I am definitely not cramming as much into a 24 hour period as I used to.

Over the past few weeks I have very kindly been given two awards from two very talented blog buddies which I am only just managing to blog about.  I am really chuffed to receive awards like these from people I admire and whose blogs I love to visit.  The first award is from Suzi B whose blog I discovered a while ago through our mutual membership of the Graphicus Guild (soon to be given a new name).  Thank you very much Sue,  I'm really honoured that you thought of me.  This award is to bring attention to worthy blogs with smaller numbers of followers i.e. less than 3,000.  Well, most if not all the blogs I follow have less than that and they are all extremely worthy so as usual I find it impossible to pick the necessary five.

 
Sue's lovely blog is called The Making Room, please give her a visit and see the wonderful things she has been making recently.

My second award comes from another blogger who is a member of the Graphicus Guild but I think I found Lynne's gorgeous blog (Creative Lynks) whilst blog hopping before I realised we were fellow GG'ers.  I have a beautiful card which Lynne sent to me quite a while ago now which is carefully looked after in my box of treasured creations from other crafters.  Isn't this gorgeous!  This card was responsible for me buying the Cuttlebug folder and die set for the lovely embossed butterfly.
                     
                                             

This is the award from Lynne.


Thank you very much Lynne I am really thrilled you included me on your list.  As always I cannot comply with the rules properly because I see so many fabulous blogs and so much talent out there in blogland I find it impossible to choose and always feel bad about any I leave out. However, this award originated from the Digi's with Attitude Challenge Blog so do give them a visit.

I don't know about everyone else but I get so much pleasure and inspiration from visiting other blogs.  Every page seems to contain something that makes me go 'Ooooh, that's lovely!' or 'How did they do that?', 'I must have a go at that',  so thank you again Lynne and Sue for including me in your award lists.  Love to you both.

And now,  I must get back to the wonderful world of housework (sorry for the bad language, lol).  After 3+ days of a houseful and not even a hoovering the place is disgusting!  I'm almost glad it's a miserable day 'cos I'm sure it would look a lot worse in the sunshine, Ha! Ha!

Have a lovely day and I'll catch you again soon.

Lots of love and hugs
Lesley  Xx

Tuesday 22 February 2011

Much Awaited News!

Good Morning All, (it's just past midnight, lol!)

I'm sorry I've not been around much recently.  Many reasons for this but I won't bore you with the details but suffice to say at the moment I have one of those 'stop the world I want to get off for a rest' feelings, lol!  Helping our daughter plan her wedding and making the invites and table decorations, etc., is taking up a lot of my time but I wouldn't miss it for anything really.

Anyway,  the main reason for this particular post of to announce Glenda Waterworth's new company name.  It is ............... tada da da dada ........................... CHOCOLATE BAROQUE!!!!!  There is a little while to go before the website is up and running  (mainly due to technical delays) but it is only a matter of days now.  However,  if you click on the name or click on the gorgeous new button in my sidebar you will be gently transported to the new Design Team blog when I and my teamies have been posting examples of our work for this month.  They feature the first sets of stamps which will be released under the CHOCOLATE BAROQUE banner and they are really lovely not to mention very useful.  They are four set of mini stamps, some of which are completely new but others are miniatures of previously issued stamps and they work perfectly to create backgrounds for the main size images.  If you visit the new DT blog (that's if you haven't already) and scroll down through the new artwork until you get to Glenda's post, you will find out how you may be able to win a set of these lovely stamps.  Glenda has also very kindly added a freebie download to the blog and if we reach 200 followers she will add another one, so hop over and see what we have been up to.  There's also a tiny peek at a few more new sets that will be issued over the coming weeks.

Here's a little sneak peek of the card I posted on the DT blog last Friday when the new name was officially launched.

                                      

I hope to be back tomorrow with a couple of awards that I have been thrilled to receive over the past couple of weeks.  Till then ...........................................

Night, night and love to all.
Lesley  Xx

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Portrait of a Lady

Well, I hope you are all keeping warm just now.  I've been perished nearly all day and taking the dog for a walk was not pleasant.  There wasn't much of a wind but the windchill was awful.  I really could have done with a ski mask, Lol!  I can't imagine how daft I would have looked though.

Anyway, as I've not been making anything I can show you this past week or so I thought I'd share a card I made for the Elusive Images DT last year.  I used stamps from an A5 set called Portrait of a Lady together with a bird and branch and the Let Your Heart Sing set and the words from Sing Your Song set.



I also used some Artylicious papers for the punched border, flower and the lady's dress which I stamped, embossed and cut out.  For the bird and branch and words I inked up the stamps with Cats Eye chalk inks choosing specific colours for specific parts of the images.






I'll probably share a few more of last year's DT makes till I can  get Jenna's wedding stuff done but I'm having fun with it all now.  I'm also working on new DT designs so I'm pretty busy in the wings at the moment.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow is a tad warmer although my OH said that wet, windy but milder weather is on the way.  I can do without the wet and windy bit, Lol!  Stay warm and well everyone and thanks for visiting.

Warm hugs
Lesley  Xx