Fathers Day

So it's Father's Day today and my hubby's first. Compared to the father's day of 2 years ago this has been fantastic, 2 years ago we miscarried our first baby. So I thought I would make it extra special and have made his gift for him.

Deciding what to do was difficult. But I noticed on a friends wall that they had a picture frame with a mount saying Family in and some pics of them all. So I decided I would do Daddy with some pictures of Jake and Jake and Jeremy.

I had a spare photoframe (well it wasn't spare but I will find new frames for those photos) and some lovelly quality pearlescent card. So using a large bold font I printed off a template that was 3 x 5inches for each letter and then drew them onto the card, cut them out and then started the fun of finding suitable pictures for the letters. Y was by far the hardest to find. I then cropped them and produced them how I wanted and then printed them off...... That lead to SO many printer problems that today it has virtually gone out of the window and I will be getting a new one in the week.

However, Jeremy is thrilled with his pressie and we now have another picture on our walls.

Computer work

Been experimenting in Photoshop again. Have discovered the water colour brushes. Oh they work really well so with some work in layers and the brushes I have come up with a couple of Name Canvases. In the Range I managed to find some lovelly Canvas ink jet paper so will be printing and framing them.

Jacob's one I've already got a frame in mind for it. A lovelly oak one with a pale blue mount... just got to find them from somewhere. For Faith's (a friends daughter that this is a christening gift for) I'm really not sure I think either a cream mount or a pale lilac would be good with a wood frame of some description. But we will have to see what is available.

Knited cube

So I have finally finished a project - well a third of a way through finishing a project as there are 3 cubes. But I have done one.

I finished it off yesterday whilst my mum visited and so far it has been an unbelievable success both with Jake and his little girlfriend Ronya.

Now to just finish off the other 2 of them.

Out on the deck.....

Well the garden development continues - it appears we are working from the front garden round. So next step was the patio.... This was a mess, uneven, never dryed properly in the autumn/winter so was covered in slime and algae. There were slabs missing and it was surrounded by a fake stone wall. The pond was to one side and the dinning room to the other.


Well you know that the pond went - it was filled in thanks to the front garden, my family and their friends but what to do with it now.......

The original plan was a new patio and a deck where the pond was, but that worked out more expensive than decking both areas. So instead of a patio and deck we decided to do a split level deck.

The original patio area was re-enforced with railway sleepers as a retaining wall, then the patio was removed all 60+ slabs and the hardcore underneath (they will be recycled elsewhere in the garden) and then the frame was put down. Instead of 1 frame as the area is so big it's made out of 4 separate frames. Then steps were added it and a "seat" placed around the edge.

It's amazing - so different and for the first time in almost 3 years of living here feel comfortable sitting out in the garden if only the rest was done..... Next job "Jake patio/play area".

Exploding Photo Box

I have been seening loads of ladies creating exploding photo boxes on Crafty Bums so I thought I would have a try at one for my mother-in-law.

First hurdle was all of the tutorials I found were in inches... and for some reason I don't have a single tape measure, or ruler in the house that has inches on apart from our huge 7m one for use in the garden. So after trying to adjust all of the measurements for cms I got started.

I haven't done the decoration or added the pictures yet (minor issue with the printer running out of ink) but that is next weeks project. I really like them. In the end I used a recommended tutorial on Glitter Adventures it's an old one but it works.

Clearance project

A couple of weekends ago we had a "garden party" but with a difference. The gardens were getting over run with the plants, you couldn't see a path and the patio which I was lead to believe was black, green and pink slabs was green with algae. So relatives were mobalised from around the South East of England and on a lovelly April Saturday the work began.

It quickly became obvious that our garden would never be the same again - and what a joy that was. First to go was the over grown area between the veggie patch and the lane...... From not seeing the greenhouse to a few fruit trees left in an afternoon.

The lane was attacked at the same time and from a mess that was over hanging and difficult to get pass if you needed to go a wide open space soon became visible.

The veg garden was transformed from a prime weed growning spot into a bonfire pile and raised beds made from decking boards. The path infront of the greenhouses needs to be widdened although I think that is a project for another post.

The last part that was tackled was the pond...... Gone are the waterfalls, gone is the 5ft 6+ hole that was the pond in it's place will be.... A DECK but that is another post as well

Digital Scrapbooking

Well I have finally got around to doing some digital scrapbook pages for Jake's book. I'm making them in 12 x 12 size and then will be printing them out with Shutterfly.

After sourcing everything that I wanted for the pages I managed to find an amazing Summer themed blog train going on in May which is perfect for the pages that I have coming up.

It's now 38weeks and 5 days since I gave birth at 38 weeks and 5 days so Jake has been born the same amount of time that I was pregnant. But these last almost 9 months have gone so quickly compared to being pregnant.

Fathers Day Card

I have managed today to make a fathers day card (wow forward thinking I hear you say) but wanted to make sure I had one ready to give to my Father-in-law when they come and visit at the end of May.



I looked around for inspiration and saw Men's shirts everywhere so with a bit more searching I managed to find a video tutorial on how to fold a paper man's shirt . It was really easy to follow and I managed to fold 3 shirts and make the card while Jake has his afternoon nap (30 mins in total), that including getting everything out of the crafting room and set up in the lounge so I could keep an eye on him.

A vast improvement

The front garden has finally been finished. It's taken since the week that Jacob was born to do it but we have managed it.







The garden was a mess of plants. This is once we had removed half of them (the big bare patch of earth!) but still loads to go and also this was before the new path had been put down so you can see how difficult it would be to get the wheelie bins out of the side of the house.





Finally we have light into the lounge and something that is easy to maintain and looks nice. We have my Dad, father-in-law and uncle to thank for helping.





BUT Oh what a difference it makes. Gone are the plants that hide the street from view. The holly bush that scratched you as you came to do the door. The flowers that come summer made it impossible to walk past without getting pollen on your legs. Although I will miss some of the spring bulbs it's going to take so much less time to make it look nice.

The final finished garden

Scrapbooking......

Well my aim this year is to have 12 scrapbooking pages done. I so far have managed one - but then the garden has taken up a lot of my time. But I'm really pleased with it. It's my first ever paper layout.

Mind you there was some great inspiration - Jacob's birth and his first picture. I'm about to start on my 2nd and 3rd pages have everything collected to do them. One will be on our first zoo trip which was in November for my mother-in-laws birthday, and the other Jacob's first Easter. I have such a cute picture of him unwrapping his first ever present. He was way to young at Christmas to do it so it was the first time.

The pond has gone

So we have made a decision the pond that we spent a weekend in february clearing out and getting the pump working again is going.

In fact today it is half way gone already!

It's Easter weekend which means garden work - so the front garden is being finished - a lawn laid, gravel beds created and it leveled. The spare earth is being used to fill in the pond. Once that has been filled in and the front garden sorted we will start on the back garden design.

It's mad doing up the house over the last 2 and a half years has meant that the gardens have gone to pieces, so it's a jungle out there and means almost starting from scratch.

Disaster with the sewing machine..........

So I'm in the process of trying to make some finger puppets for my nephew's first birthday to go with his Noah's ark play mat that I have made.

But it is turning into a disaster. Firstly I have managed to run out of the correct colour thread whilst winding the bobbin! Then I'm experimenting with the different stitches so thought that a satin stitch would be good around the features of the animals - but this has turned into a complete mess, the tension isn't right but it is for the rest of the fabrics that I am using so had to unpick the mess and restart with an applique stitch or a straight stitch.

Now I need to get some more threads as I have wasted so many trying to make the one puppet I have none left to make the rest. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A busy weekend and some birthday gifts

So the first weekend in March was lovelly - loads of sunshine and reasonably warm. Saturday was great I had a little lie in and Jeremy and Jake took a walk with the dog using Jake's new back carrier (Thank you Cousin Jo!).

We then headed out to the garden. The corner of the near part of the house or aim. Little did we know that there was an out of control rose to contend with and so many bamboos and grasses. First the pampass grass had it's yearly chop - then the rest of the stuff started to go - who knew we had so many different pots as well - at least that means for my herbs I don't have to get some new ones. Well eventually it was cleared and now we've decided to get rid of the little brick patio completly.

Today (8th March) was my birthday - so got some lovelly crafty stuff, 2 paper trimmers, a safe one and one that my dad has warned me to only use whilst under adult supervision. Some lovelly new sizzix stuff including a 3d snowflake for pop up christmas cards and books on scrapbooking and cake decorating. Also got some tops and a pair of gardening clogs to replace the ones that the dog ate.

Been Brave

So I have been really brave and I have set up a facebook page to showcase my cards and crafts with the hope of selling some of them. I've managed to find an ex student to do some graphic work for me and a lovelly friend to work on a website for me all for free.

I've also been busy in the garden. We've so far emptied the pond, which we found out was 5ft 6" + deep - ummmmm there goes the plan of keeping it - too deep and dangerous for Jake I think so it will go - never mind will put a new pond in the other part of the garden when it comes to that part. Plus cleared everything from behind the pond so we can gravel the area and put some pots or even plants in the gravel.

Started to plant some seeds - so done some potatoes chitting, herbs, leeks, courgettes, and some flowers. This year from the summer I WILL NOT need to buy fresh stuff apart from foreign stuff.

First Sale

Ohhhh I'm so excited one of my friends from TPM has seen the cards on my facebook page and has asked me to create some samples for her to have a look at for her little girls christening. So spent this evening doing them and she loves them, she's getting back tomorrow with the numbers and which design.

I'm so pleased.

Card Making Crazy

So it's still snowy outside - and although we managed to get to Baby bounce this morning and the physio this afternoon we still can't really get out of the house much and into the garden.

So instead I have been card making. I've experimented and come up with a new design for New Baby cards and I'm quite pleased with them - think I need to get some new papers though as the ones that I have are quite boring.

The Thank You cards are really sweet I'm pleased with them and can't wait for my mum and dad to see them tomorrow.

Snowy again

Another snowy day today - but a little warmer so we managed to get out in the garden with Jake and took some photos.



Gemma (our lovelly retired greyhound) thought it was great fun, nicked the carrot from the snowman that we had built and proceeded to go crazy around the garden with it. As well as clawing the snowman and jumping on it as it was being built - so we have a very collapsed snowman in the garden.

I've finished the Thank you cards from Jake for his lovelly christmas presents and I'm quite impressed with how they have turned out.

Now to get on with knitting the legs of the teddy bear so it's finished by next week.

A New Year

Well 2009 was a year to remember, I had my Little Boy Jacob Isaac Jeremy in August (15th August 2009) and it was the most perfect moment either. However, having him has made me want to rethink what I do. I've always loved my crafts and now want to do them even more than before. I also want to work on my gardens now the house is virtually complete.



So decided the easiest way was to use a blog to record what I am doing, thinking now I have a little more time.

So my first project of the year is to make a teddy bear - I started it while pregnant with Jake, but never finished it now I want to get it finished by the end of next week but need to get some stuffing to finish it off.