Ooops sorry!

Ooops, sorry! And thank you to Sarah for pointing out that I had put the address in wrong! My new address is http://sarasandberg.typepad.com/time_for_crafting/ - I hope you'll pop in and visit!!!

I have moved!!!!

Hi there!! I've moved! You'll find me now at http://sarasandberg.typepad.com/time_for_crafting/ - see you there!!!

Thank you Sally!

This card was made to say thank you for the gorgeous Altered Book Sally sent me! The instructions on how to do this are in Issue 6 of the Time for Crafting Online Magazine, available at www.timeforcrafting.co.uk - you can see Sally's altered book at http://www.timeforcrafting.co.uk/sally.html

Where's my bounce?!

My get up and go has got up and gone! I know when it went, just not where it went! My bounce left as I stood on the bathroom scales this morning. And it turns out - it didn't weigh anything!

Scrabble Card

Here is proof that it is worth buying crafty bits 'just in case'!!!! I found these scrabble pieces reduced at Craft Central years ago, and knew they'd come in handy one day!!! This is a card my Mum asked me to make for a friend from her scrabble group. I took a photo of her scrabble board, printed it onto white card, splodged a Versamark pad all over it, then chucked Crystal embossing powder all over it, which when heated gave the board a lovely sparkly look! Mum gave me the instructions for how she wanted the words to be!

If anyone should need a scrabble board background, you are welcome to email me and use my photo.

Sunglasses Template!

The theme of the Art Raffle http://www.ryan-kesler.com/swaps/ArtRaffle/index.php this month is Summer Sun! Well, I've completely forgotten what that is! But for summer sun, you have to have sunglasses, so I used the template from Issue One of the T4C Online Magazine

http://www.timeforcrafting.co.uk/magazine.html

Christmas Photo cards

I was just reading a post on Christmas Photo cards, and started to reminisce about my own efforts over the years! I don't have a photo of last years - I took a photo of the three of them close together and made it into a bauble, but here are how the cards changed through recent years! Most recent through to oldest;

This is my favourite one! Holly is only balancing on her knees on the photo, but it looks like she's jumping. I felt people might be getting bored of seeing the children every year, so did a dog photo instead! It's supposed to show them having had the carrot left out for Rudolph and knocking over Santa's sherry and eaten his mince pie! This year was really hard - I needed the extra layer, and couldn't get JoJo to hold it in the right place!!! So I had to do a cut and paste job in the end!!! Good job we didn't have Sammy then, or I'd have had to do Peace and would have had no chance of getting the photo!!!
I took a picture Nicole had done at school, and popped pictures of the children around it. I was trying to get away from posed looking at the camera here, so created a scene.This one was when they were really litte! Max must have been about 3 - he loved that dinosaur bath robe!!! I had only just discovered playing with photos on the computer.

So now I just have to decide what to do for this year!!

Latest project

This is my latest addition to my website, a card that won't do a Bambi Splat!!! It you'd like the template you can find it at my www.timeforcrafting.co.uk website. It is decorated with alcohol inks on acetate, and stamped with trees from the SU Lovely as a tree set. You'll also find tips on using alcohol inks at the website.

Five Days to go!

It's a beautiful view from my kitchen window today - a lovely crisp morning. I should be taking my camera and the dogs for a walk, but I'm wimping out until it's warmer!!

Last night Holly was at a party from 7.30 - 9.30, so I decided to hit M&S after dropping her off. It was a good time, no crowds, and I got freezable bits and pieces for Christmas, as well as lots of other yummy stuff!! My new chest freezer was delivered on Tuesday, (that's the shape of it, it's not a freezer for freezing chests!!! Although it would if you leaned in too far!!) and it's aready stuffed with yummy things!

The dogs are in festive spirit too! I hope you are all non-stressed and ready for Christmas.

Still Christmassing!!

Well I'm glad to have got this project done - it's been in my head for ages and I've been wanting to get it out!! It's more fiddly than the Starflake, but it's worth the effort!! I've put the instructions at www.timeforcrafting.co.uk in the Christmas project section if you'd like to have a go.

Let's get Christmassy now!!!

It's time to get Christmassy now Halloween and Fireworks are over!!! I have adapted the star book to resemble a snowflake, and so given it the name Starflake!!!

If you would like to make one of these, I have put instructions in the Christmas section of www.timeforcrafting.co.uk

Scary Fun!

The Children and I went up to London to do a craft table at Sidley's company Halloween party. Although there were 175 children at the party, luckily there was so much for them to do that they didn't all arrive at the table at once!!! The table was 8 metres long, and I had to sew the plastic table cloths together to cover it!!! The projects went really well though, thanks to Holly, Nicole, Max and Zoe, who were fantastic with the children and were absolutely brilliant.

In fact the scariest thing that day was driving through the middle of London!!!!!

They're Here!!!!!

They're here!!! How fantastic is that!!! The Kwik-Thread is such a useful tool, and once people own them they will love them. Not only great for threading ribbons and fibres, but the handle is a bone folder. Go to http://www.kwikthread.com and order yours now!!!!

They were nearly here!!!

Today was Max's first day at Wildern! It was just the year 7's today, so he didn't have his sister's bossing him about!!! He said he wanted to catch the bus home, not be picked up (because he wanted time to spend with his girlfriend!!!), so off he went with his bus fare, and his mobile phone as I was sure he'd need it!! He is so much in his own world, I could just picture him sitting on a bus heading in totally the wrong direction!!

While Max was at school the girls and I headed for town - I had put off the school trousers shopping trip to the last minute! 3 hours later we had successfully bought them and we got home - there was a phone message to say that a delivery company had tried to deliver my craft tools but been turned away!!! I quickly tried to ring my contact, but his phone was on answer phone, so I could only leave a message and wait for his call.

As time ticked on, I realised that Max should have arrived half an hour ago. Now, should I go out looking for him and risk missing the call, or stay for the call and hope Max turned up sometime? Of course, being the good mother I am, I stayed for the call!! After a while the girls convinced me that I should go and look for him, and they would ring my mobile if the call came. As I drove up the drive, there was Max with a huge grin on his face!!! He'd gone to see the teachers at his old school, which was why he was so late!!! Lesson number one of big school - turn your phone on when you get out so your Mother can ring you!!

So where were my Kwik-Threads? Well, apparently they had been delivered to another road of the same name! A little old lady had refused to accept them! And so they will be delivered again here on Friday. FRIDAY!! My tools will be here for real on Friday!!!

Nicole!

Holly made a pottery likeness of Nicole, and as you can see it's captured Nicole perfectly!!!!

Question of the day - how many minutes after insisting on having a go cutting the grass was it when she mowed the power cable??!!!

Big news this week - the craft tools are in the air and will be here in a few days!!!!

Listen to this!

I was just clearing out my outlook folders and found this one I sent to my sister who is an e-bay addict (oh yes you are!!!!!). In the black box at the top of the page is a very small button called 'play' - click on that, turn the sound up - and this bit is very important - read the words and sing along!!! http://www.geoffellis.com/ebay.html

Exciting news!

A double dose of exciting news this week! Firstly, Holly had her braces off, and is now sporting a beautiful metal free smile!!! Doesn't she look lovely?

More exciting news - I see in the paper this week that trouser waistbands are set to become higher up! I really think these fashion designers are having a laugh at our expense you know - for years they have put us in low cut trousers that only the skinny could wear without masses of flesh overflowing from the top. They even convinced some to flash the top of a G-string over the top!! Now we should all be in maternity wear, with tops flowing from under our boobs, and to top it all, they are finally giving us a higher waistline to our trousers - but unfortunately miss the waist completely and shoot straight up to the same area our tops are flowing from! Barmey, I'll have to wait another few years to buy fashion!!!

Even more exciting news - my new craft tool will be here in a couple of weeks!!! I can't wait to tell you all about it - I'd better get that website up and running!!!!

Here at Last!!!

Well, after chatting to each other on messenger for all these years, we have finally met each other for real! I was slightly worried about Linda's visit, as extreme weather (of the bad sort!!!) and mishaps have followed them wherever they have gone on their UK tour!!!

And true to form, our first day together was a wet miserable day - but we are British, and rain doesn't stop us, so we still went for a walk in the forest, and showed them the countryside! Of course we finished off in a lovely pub for a nice meal!

Luckily the next day was gorgeous, and so we jumped into action! We went to Gunwharf Quay, and followed the millenium walk to Southsea. The millenium walk is a trail of rope embossed paving slabs, that leads you round interesting sites and ending up at a funfair - it was a lovely walk. I'm not sure who had more fun at the funfair, the kids or Alby!!! Actually, I think it was Alby!! Unfortunately, time flew too fast, and today they have left to move on for the final leg of their tour before returning home.
They must be absolutely shattered!!! But only a couple of weeks and Linda will be back in her box in my craft room chatting away again!!! Let's hope it's not another 6 years before I get to see her for real again!!

New Zealand Baby News!!!

I thought I'd better put 'New Zealand' in rather than just Baby News as a title - I could just picture my friends spurting their coffee all over the screen at a title on my blog called 'Baby News'!!!

Here's a welcome to Xyon Manaia Charles Hart!!! Alby and Linda's first grandchild!!!

Fun with Year 6!

It's been a hectic week! On Tuesday I went into Max's school to make Memory Books with the Year 6's. It's their fun week, and Tuesday was their day at school doing fun things. I had suggested the idea to Max's teacher, but did question my sanity last weekend when I found myself punching holes in 130 board covers!!!!

The children did the books in groups of about 10, and we had such fun doing it. They were as good as gold, and really enjoyed using the Sizzix machine and paper punches. It was just a shame that with only one Sizzix machine they didn't all get a go - but I'll be going back in to make sure they all get a turn!

I took some paint and sponges in so that they could make their own background if they wanted - some did get carried away and what did look a nice pattern ended up as just a dark mush!!!! They had fun doing it though! Here's my Max cutting away - unfortunately I can't post pictures of the other children here. Sign of the times!!!

As you can see, the finished covers look great! Inside they are going to have pages with titles such as 'My Favourite Teacher' 'My Moste Embarrassing Moment' etc etc. Then some blank pages for their friends to sign, pages where I will print off adress sheets so they can swap mobile phone numbers and e-mail addresses, and finally at the back we shall make a pocket page. I have given the teachers lists of the children's names, and the idea is that they write something they like about each child next to their name. I will then cut those sheets into strips, and put the strips in their pocket at the end of the term, so they can take it home with a pocket full of nice things to read about themselves!

My reward for doing this with them was a day in Chessington with them all on Thursday - the weather stayed dry and we had a brilliant time!

Forum Friends

This weekend has been a bit surreal! For years I have chatted to friends on the Cards Inspirations forum - and this weekend I met some of my favourites! I chat to Linda Hart who's in New Zealand several times a week on messenger, we sit there with our webcams on showing each other what we are making, and nattering away! (unfortunately for Linda her evening is our first thing in the morning, so the view on her webcam is not a pleasant one!!!)

This weekend it was as if I had been granted a wish, and the little lady on the computer screen could step out of it for two days to play - after which she had to go back in the computer screen!

She looked just like a real life version of the MSN Linda, spoke the same and everything!!!

I thought it would be really emotional meeting her in person after all these years, but it wasn't at all because she's the same as she is on webcam and we know each other so well!!! It was fab to be able to give her a big hug and see her in real life, a real treat of a weekend. Liz Gale came to stay here on Friday night - what a nice lady!! Completely mad, really good fun and lovely!!! We drove up to Cirencester on Saturday morning, where we met up with Linda, MizGeorge, AlisonG and Flo (Sarah) and the lovely Su Naylor at the Stamp Bug for a day of workshops. As I write this Jane Pinder must be lying in a dark room somewhere!!! She gave us a fantastic day, we had such fun, and her workshops were just brilliant. We played with art moulds, caught in crystal, stamping, friendly plastic - lots of fun things!! It was not a quiet day for Jane, I think she realised what she was in for when we were nearly approaching lunch time and still on the introductions!!!

And of course it would have been rude to be stood in the Stamp Bug and not to have bought anything!!! Have you ever been there? It is fantastic, so many stamps, so many lovely things. I bought Jane's new book which looks very exciting, and I can't wait to explore it - and a few other things sort of fell into my shopping basket too! Jane did workshops, lunch, till - the lot, and smiled all the way through! I wonder if she just locked the door behind us and crept into her dark room there?!!

After a lovely meal Linda, Liz and I went back to George's for a sleepover!! What a great time we had! We discovered the Wii games console, and how me managed to play tennis, table tennis and golf without breaking anything or knocking each other out I don't know!!! It was certainly a weekend I will never forget!

Weekly roundup!

Well it's been a busy week this week. I did Tori's wedding thank you cards for her, which took longer than expected. I used a photo I had taken at the wedding and played around in PaintShop Pro.

I've also become obsessed with building my website!!!! www.timeforcrafting.co.uk I spend all my time thinking about what I am going to do next there!!! In fact we are going out to dinner tonight, and I have to paint my nails (which I haven't done for zonks!) as my fingernails are covered in butterscotch alcohol ink - which isn't a good look!!!

The camera course is going well when the weather behaves!! There was finally a dry evening before the first picture had to be in. I wanted a good silhouette shot, so got the children bouncing on the trampoline. I got this shot from it; The photo got some lovely comments from others on the course, but it was agreed the picture was a bit 'busy'. I think next time I'll take the safety net down and get Holly to jump higher!!!!

The final shot I took was this one, which looks like a very pensive Holly - she's actually muttering "Mum, can you hurry up so I can go in now!!!".

Learning to use my camera!

Here I am! Back again! Hopefully internet and computer willing I can carry on blogging again!!

Today I signed up for a Photography Course which I heard of through UK Scrappers. Jesper bought me a fab camera for my birthday, and so hopefully by joining this course I'll be forced to work out how to use it properly!

So our first assignment it to take a self portrait, holding a piece of paper with our name on. As my camera didn't come with a remote control thingy, I tried to do this using the self timer button. So I had to put a chair where I was going to be, focus on it, push the button and when the beeping started, shoved the chair to one side and lie in it's place, holding my paper. The dogs, of course, thought this was great fun!
The first try had them both jumping on my head, the second shot was going so well, until JoJo just calmly walked in front of me and stayed there looking at the camera!!! So I'm off now to shut them away and have another go!!! Wish me luck!

Splodgy fun!!

We had another fun day with Anthony on Saturday. We were shown a lovely abstract painting of sun, beach and sand, and then let loose to create our own masterpiece! As you can see, everyone had their own style. We were all thrilled when we got home that we had managed to create these little masterpieces!!!!

Max's is here on the left, with lovely sunset and reflections in the sea. Nicole's lovely textured sea is gorgeous - and took a while to dry!!!

Holly's painting puts you right on that hot Carribbean beach!

And I painted Jesper and me walking on the beach with the dogs (if you are wondering where Sammy is, he's in the water!!!!)

And the next big piece of news is that the following successful testing, the order has been placed for my new tool! How exciting!!!! (and a little bit scary!!!)

Eye eye!!

Well, I've got my new glasses! Although they are only reading glasses, it took ages to choose the frames! I was very conscious of what the girls would say when they saw them! Max probably wouldn't notice I was wearing glasses!!! After a while of choosing frames, I asked the assistant if he was bored yet, and he said "no, you're fine" in that distant way with a glazed look in his eyes!!

I had to pop something to Holly at her school today, and who should I bump into but Anthony, the artist we worked with on Saturday! He leapt out of his nice warm building, and said he wanted me to finish the painting I'd started!!! Oh dear!! I watched him go pale as I told him I'd actually cut the bit I'd done out of the canvas with a stanley knife and put it in my memories box!!!

Had a lovely chat to Caroline on the webcam today - she managed to show me the deep snow they have over there near Geneva. It's so lovely to be have this modern technology so that I can chat to my overseas mates. I did do some work too - honest!!!!!

More painting!

More painting today, but this time the fun sort!! Holly, Nicole, Max, Rosie and I went to Wildern school to take part in a Still Life workshop, run by Anthony Kawalski. If I'd seen his website before I'd gone, I'd have been far too scared to attend!! He is so amazingly talented.

Here's Holly and Max - Nicole had left to go to gym by the time I remembered my camera!

Rosie really enjoyed the session as she doesn't get to do art at school any more.

It was amazing that everyone involved in the class produced a completely individual piece of work in their own style. Here you have Holly's on the left, Nicole's in the middle and Max's on the right.

I ought to show you my attempt - in fact this is less than a quarter of the canvas - I didn't get round to doing the vase of roses next to it!!! When I showed Jesper he was most unimpressed and said "is that all you did?"!!!

It maybe all I did, but I had a lot of fun doing it!