Getting back to normal

The children returned to school and I went off to work, a typical Monday morning except for having a house husband! Yep Hubby is at home at the moment and how great is that? Well he took DS to school (plus his friend!), took the car to the garage for a service/MOT, did some shopping and cooked dinner. Beef bourguignon!

I did the mash potatoes and the veg plus veggie option for DD! I really should have taken a picture of what was on our plates rather than the half empty casserole dish!

I even managed a belated birthday card for my neice, again a fairly simple one using up some more of that ol' stash paper! Just need to start a scrapbook layout and I will really be achieving things!

Quick crafting

I still need to send some more Christmas Thank You cards, when do you think it is too late to send them out? I suspect any time in January is probably good enough to show your gratitude. I do think thank you letters/cards are few and far between. My S.I.L has always encouraged her children to send them and we have had 4 beautifully written cards from them already (they are all teenagers too!). No-one else has sent one and that seems to be pretty much the norm unfortunately. Is that the same for you in your household? Do you get many? Do you send any? We have made and sent around 20 so far and still have a few more to organise.
This is a quickie pink version of the ones I made earlier this week.

and this is one of Molly's fantastic cards, she too tried stamping and embossing. The coaster calendar was made especially for her grandparents as an extra thank you!

Last lazy day

The snowy weather has definitely made me want to curl up in front of the fire, snuggle under a blanket, often joined by the cat, watching films with the family and eating chocolate! Needless to say this is exactly what I have been doing. So todays photograph 10/365 is to remind me...

I know it is a really dark photograph and to most people it will look like a mistake or poor shot, but we tend to sit with the light off or turned down low and this is how the fireplace appears. It isn't a real fire just a gas one but I we love it anyway!

I just couldn't resist this picture of Tinker looking over the top of the sofa as he keeps us company, laid across the top of a sofa cushion! Not far from the fire of course!

The children's schools are reopening tomorrow and they are both going in wearing Mufti. We will finally be getting back into a routine and I will be working, which might mean I don't eat as many chocolates!

More snow and farewell tree!

I actually made it into work yesterday, although I wasn't brave enough to try and get the car out of the close so I walked! It took about an hour and was fairly pleasant although it was very slippery in places. I contemplated catching a bus part way but despite the fact there were people at every bus stop en route, sadly not one bus passed me on my journey. Because I am attemptin a partial project 365 ie I am blogging rather than scrapping I took my camera with me! I only took one photograph and that was of a large dead tree very close to home.
I decided it would be intersting to photograph it at different times throughout the year in varying conditions ie light,weather, seasons etc etc.

Today I decided the children really needed to get out the house as they had been in all day yesterday whilst I was working and were in their PJ's all day. Molly was not amused at the plan as she didn't have time to 'do her hair' and we were sooo embarrassing as we decided to carry the Christmas tree with us. We always take the tree to the local park for recycling but always in the car, this year we thought it would be fun to carry it there, then continue on to the local supermarket and stock up on a few provisions.

Molly stomped off and was always at least 10 feet away from the tree carriers.

Elliot and Hubby did the transporting initially but Elliot's hands got cold and wet so he wasn't very happy.

It was dragged the rest of the way by hubby, well I had to take the photographs.....

officially Christmas has gone for another year.....

TQ cards and old stash

Over on the wonderful card making forum on Moneysavingexpert.com, Rainmac posted a sketch from here as our first challenge of 2010. I really enjoy sketches as challenges, I don't have to go out and buy new things and it helps me to use up what i have! Which fits in well with a challenge that Kate from Liberty Cottage came up with. Initially aimed at scrapbookers, her 'old school stash scrap' was broadened to include the cardmakers too

I decided on the basic idea really quickly as a layout for my thank you cards, tho' initially I was going to use a scallop circle I changed my mind and used my new Nellie Snellen die. I have previously only stamped/embossed twice so I am not really that good yet but used a cat image (a freebie from cardmaking and papercraft magazine this month). Coloured with promarkers (I also need more practice with these and need to study some u-tube tutorials me thinks!) these were all the newer crafty bits. 'Old skool' was the dark reddish brown card (from one of those mystery parcels again!) and the circle shaped paper (from one of those huge 12x12 stacks by Papermania that seemed a good idea at the time!) I have a wee collection of buttons too so I sorted some out

then made my own embellishments by tieing some gold ribbon (recycled from Christmas Crackers!) to them with some creamish crochet type thread. These are very simple as I have several thank you cards to make so I actually went into a bit of a conveyor belt and made all these. Once I had the idea they were fairly easy to mass produce, although I still have a lot more to make!

Kate I guess I have to come up with another idea for the Feb 1st 'old skool stash' blog hop so will try and use up some other old/unloved stash for then.

I would also like to enter this into

one stop craft challenge 'something beginning with B' and I am using B for Button!

cute card Thursday 'all new' challenge as I have used my new die, my new stamp and I am new to embossing and stamping!

Christmas is finally over

Well, all the decorations are down and waiting for a final sort through, I have stopped watching Christmas films and have recycled all the good bits of the cards for crafting. I love Christmas sooo much and I look forward to it all year. I try and learn from each Christmas I have now, so I hope to remember what worked or what was missing and adapt for the next time.

One thing I want to do for 2010 is start homemade cards and crafts a little bit sooner. I will cut out some things completely, make present buying easier (I have a plan but just in case any of my family are watching will share it nearer Christmas!) and I will not buy as many crisps/snacks and cakes!! I say this every year but still seem to find myself feasting on Chocolate and other naughtiness way beyond New Year so it takes me ages to kick start the ol' healthy eating regime (no point starting until you eat every single morsel of badness up is there??)

I wanted to share the selection of homemade cards I got for Christmas

made by family and friends, young and old, digital and 'real' and every one brightened my day. Thank you all.

Snow day 2

Both the childrens schools were closed again today and after speaking with work colleagues I also stayed at home. I was really busy initially and on the telephone for 4 hours talking to all the patients I had booked into see me today, resceduling their appointments.

Here is the 'finished' igloo, now known as the Fort.

Inside

and out.

Elliot really didn't like the snow today, he said it was 'different' (there had been no snowfall since last night and it was very icy underfoot, temp this morning was about -8 brrr!) and not as much fun to play in. So he has had a great day playing with new board games and putting together meccano type vehicles. Molly was happy to go off to play with some friends so it was a quiet house.