More Thanks

More thanks today go to Jan for also giving me the gold card award, thank you so much Jan.The pictures are my offering for the 'Trees' theme page in the Nature themed book Wendy, Jan and myself are putting together.

More Thanks

Double Award!

Double because two lovely people have awarded it to me, they are Margaret and Sue, it is awarded to 5 people, 4 who are regular followers of your blog and one from a different country who is new to your blog.Also link back to the blog that the award came from. I am passing it on to the following five bloggers :-
Connie
Doreen
Viv
Wendy
my fifth choice is from Germany and is Gabybee

Please ladies, pass it on to your blog followers.

Rushing about!

Seem to spend our days rushing from one place to another, have marched along miles of hospital corridors again in the last few days, takes me back to my days of nurses training in the 60's.I'm afraid in the evenings I'm just flopped in front of the TV, most unlike me but just can't make the effort to do anything else (must be getting old)then a quick check of blogland and then to bed. I see that my friend Margaret has awarded me a gold card, thank you so much and will make the effort to post it etc tomorrow. I had two more beautiful atcs from Angelique in France, her blog can be found here, her work is absolutely beautiful and I'm so privileged to be able to trade with her.

Just one more!

At the moment I'm trying to finish my Christmas cards, last year I said "no more making them" but then I think - just a few - now I've had enough so will put the finishing touches to them and buy some if necessaary, trouble is everyone expects handmade these days. I managed to make another altered playing card atc in the midst of everything else.

Back to visiting.

A week in the nursing home and Mum is back in hospital again, she looks as if she has gone 10 rounds with Joe Frazier after a fall due to her BP dropping suddenly when she stood up, 8 weeks in hospital and still not sorted, just back from visiting , her eyes are open today and she is talking but she has been so poorly, old age can be really unkind. I really seem to get on with things in a morning, before breakfast even,so today I managed two altered playing cards for a hosted swap, may try to get a couple more done for my atc swaps stash.

A crafty morning.

Had a free morning for a change and finished off my book pages and made these two fabric based atcs, for the gipsy one I have used a picture of my Gipsy wall hanging that I made in the summer and have put it onto a background of scrim and lace embellished onto felt.

Ornaments

I decided to go in for Beate Knapps ornament swap and ended up making five seasonal hanging ornaments as pictured here. I now must get on with some papercrafting, the next pages for the book are half done and i have committed to some atc swaps, a bit of fabric a bit of paper that's how I work, trouble is I want to do so much!

Warts and All!

One thing that I would love to do reasonably well is free machine embroidery and I really have problems with it, so annoying. Anyway at Ally Pally I did a Janome Embellisher workshop and the end result was what could be a spectacle case, I managed to make a semblance of an Iris but then brought it home to machine stitch, I really think it looked better before the stitching but I'll show it warts and all.

Unpacked at last!

At last I've unpacked my goodies from Ally Pally last week - did I really buy all that (see photo)??

Motivated.

Feeling a lot more settled today, have checked on Mum in her new 'home', or rather spoke to the Matron who assures me she's ok, I'm not to visit until monday to give her time to settle down so I am feeling more motivated to get crafty again, these things really Knock you for six.
The picture is this weeks MAMMA swap, a Vintage Tag ATC.

Back Home Again!

Well back for another round of reality, hopefully by the end of this week my Mum will be settled into her new 'home' so it will be a busy week get all her 'things' sorted out, I just hope all goes smoothly (please!!) We had a long weekend outside London and visited the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexander Palace, a great show and I met Dale Rollerson ,who I did the online Embellisher course with, and of course bought some lovely goodies from her. I haven't actually unpacked my purchases yet!!! The photo's I have posted here are of the wonderful 'Hyperbolic Coral Reef' that is being 'built' in crochet by people from all walks of life in the UK. The idea originated in the US and this project is to highlight the plight of the coral reefs from global warming and pollution. My contribution can be seen on the small photo, the sticky out bit underneath the fluffy pom pom piece.

A Beautiful Trade.

How beautiful is this ATC?,it came from Angelique in france,the embroidery is exquisite!!! I can't stop looking at it so at the moment it's propped in front of my screen.

Another Challenge.

Like Margaret I thought I would have a go at the Mind Wide Open challenge mainly because i loved the 'shabby' theme picture of the two little girls, anyway i ended up making a large tag using collaged papers, fabric and lace, grunge board and an embossed jigsaw piece.The title for the picture is 'All dressed up' All votes gratefully received on wednesday I think on the above site, there's a voucher at stake altho' as Margaret has said we are up against some mighty good artists so no chance really.

To brighten the day!

Have just posted this ATC, which has gone to France,to help brighten up a really horrible wet Sunday morning.

Theme Thursday

Thought I'd have a go at the 'Theme Thursday' challenge this week, Road Trip is the theme so I made an atc collaged with rubber stamped images from Paris and Italy then added a printed image of an old touring car and a title strip - it works for me!

This and That.

These two ATCs complete the mixed media fabric swap going off to the US, I've used a transparency on each one and like the effect. I'm still working on my 'Church' piece and also on an Embellisher made piece that will be going off to Australia for Dale's challenge, it has to be there by end of January so I should manage it. The news re my Mum, who is still in hospital, is that we have been advised that she needs ongoing care in a Nursing Home, I'm very sad about this but realise it is the best for her altho' I don't think she would agree.

Surprise packet.

I had a surprise packet of fabric sent yesterday from Viv, one of the pieces had stamp pictures and script etc on it and was crying out to be used in an atc so I made two, mixing fabric,paper and transparencies, they are to go to a hosted swap in America, I am pleased with the effect.