Back from Cleethorpes

Just got back from a few days in Cleethorpes.  All of this was a surprise for Sam (one third of the trio on Artful Times) who lives close by.

It started off with my trip to the Lincoln Show which I thoroughly enjoyed and have already blogged about but omitted to say that I saw my dear friend Ali from Ali-Crafts with whom I am doing a workshop in a couple of months time.  Got some gorgeous stamps from her to use in the workshop and bought some too.  You should check out her website.

Sneak Peek

Also didn't put the photograph of Tom and Liam up so here it is now

or the one of Tracey and Tara

After we left the show we made our way to Cleethorpes to enjoy an evening of sunshine in a seaside resort. I had been longing for a bit of sea air for weeks and this lovely weather we were having was perfect for it.  After a lovely meal at Steels (Sam said we could not go to Cleethorpes without a meal at Steels - lovely food, loads of prawns on my dish and you should have seen the size of the fish and chips everyone else had!) it was a quick stroll down on the pier and then back to bed for a well needed sleep.

Next day it was exploring Cleethorpes for Chas and myself.  Here I am by the boating lake and below is Chas playing some musical pipes by the childrens sandy area.  I did want to take photographs of the play area but with the way things are I did not want to upset any parents.  Shame, but that is the way it has got now.

Below - a couple of poppies in the wild garden area

and not a clue what this is - Chas went down to photograph it for me

Bet you thought Spencer had been missed out - well no, how could I not take him, here he is sat on a rice peasants hat (the rice peasant was not in Cleethorpes, just the hat)

All too soon it was time to say Au Revoir to Sam and Fraz.  Here we are, not sure why he is sat on my knee but isn't he a beauty?  You should have seen him with Chas, why do dogs always make more fuss of him than me?

See you soon Sam!

WOYWW 156 WotAMess

Well, what about this lovely weather we are having?  I am sure it cannot be any hotter abroad than it is here today.  The weathermen tell us it is set to break - hope it soon comes back and we get more of a summer than we have had in previous years.  Back to how it used to be when I was a child and my son was a child and ..... even before that ...

Anyway, all you WOYWW'ers out there - hope you are all well and that Julia's dad is healing with this lovely sunshine filtering through to him.  What am I talking about and who the heck are WOYWW'ers? Well pop over here and you will see just what I am on about.  You might catch the gist of it.  You might even swap an atc with it being the THIRD birthday of WOYWW.  Congratulations Julia and all you WOYWW'ers!

This is my desk today.  No crafting for me!  I am waiting for Ian to come and build me another set of shelves like the ones he built a couple of weeks ago.  These will not be as wide and certainly not as deep but I am hoping they will house a bit more of my stuff tidily. So, as you can see, this is normally the area I craft on and there is not an inch of space.  Everywhere else is full too (including the floor in our bedroom) so I just hope I can find everything when I come to put it all back.  At least I am hoping I can put all my books together for once.

click on the picture for a bigger one and see the mess

Now a couple of weeks ago you might remember I asked if anyone would like to meet up in Manchester.  I didn't post about it then as one of our number was over here on holiday.  She and I had been corresponding a bit and she wrote to say she would be over in Manchester for a few weeks so we decided to meet up.

Here she is - that gives you a clue as to where she comes from

So who knows what flag this is?

This was taken in the Northern Quarter in Manchester where Ann, Donna, Jo, Shaz (yes, it is Shaz from Oz) and myself had lunch.  And a lovely lunch it was too.  Here we all are

Me, Ann, Jo, Donna - Shaz took the photo.

Must say that the photos were taken after Shaz and I had spent a good hour in Paperchase (she loved those papers and I think she went back at least twice before she left for home), and we had met the others in Cafe Nero and had gone on to Afflecks Palace where they were all WOW'ed with the Jewellery bits.

In Afflecks

The Diner in Afflecks

We had a wander around the Galleries, marvelling at the prices of the goods, and then made our way to Abakahn where some of us bought rubber stamps (and someone got so hooked on them she bought more at another place another day).

All too soon it was time to say goodbye and as Sharon headed back to her family I took Jo and Donna into Paperchase.  I just left them there - they never disclosed how much they spent or how long they stayed!!!

It was lovely meeting Shaz, especially as we had chatted and emailed before we actually met up, and now I have my own little Australian corner in my craft room.  Thanks Shaz - you are one in a million!

Loving memories of a great meet up

and the Brits are making it a regular occurrence!

Today I Went to Lincoln

Yes, today, in glorious sunshine saw me heading to Lincoln to see my friends, the Oyster Family, and surprise another friend, Sam, from Artful Times. Mind you with hindsight I would not have been surprising Sam (and her lovely friend Maz) as they very nearly didn't see me and I certainly did not see them.

It was lovely when I first walked in to see George at the door and then to see Tracey with Pam, a Design Team member. Pam was in the blog hop with me and we met for the first time - she was as lovely as I thought she would be and before long we were working alongside Barbara, giving Martine a break. Unfortunately I did not get a photo with Pam but Tracey took one of Martine and Barbara with me.





After a quick stint on the stand I went for a recce of the show and saw Wendy from Cardio and Ali with her new designs on her own stand. No Sam or Max though!

Back to Oyster and a hope that Sam would see me. Nothing. A visit to the cafe with Pam, still no sign of the elusive pair. Nothing for it but to demonstrate some of the lovely new dies - and there are some beauties. You want to see the Cheery Lynn flowers, lots of them and the individual ones are so reasonably priced. Loved a new fairy one too and forgot to buy it so I am afraid there is going to be an order wending its way down to Kent shortly. Now don't you be getting your order in before mine!

Not long before it was time for me to pack up and collect my purchases I just looked up and there she was - Sam. It had been her friend Maz who had seen me - and she had only seen me the once before. Here we are





in front of the stand, well a bit of it. It was huge.

It's a shame I can't show you all the photos now but I will load them up another day. Before I go, however, I will leave you with this one of me strangling Tracey - not really it was Tracey who gave me a big hug but only coming up to my shoulder it looks as if I am strangling her.





Will post some of the lovely lads tomorrow. A great show hope I get to go next time too. Before I go, Sam was so pleased to know that Oyster had now got the 20 sized trays in for the Pan Pastels. You really want to check out Oysters website for the great prices and the offer they have on Pan Pastels, but not until I have got more of them myself.

Toodlepip!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Oyster Stamps Blog Hop - And We Have a Winner

Well, last night at 6 pm it was all happening on my computer.  The Oyster Stamps Blog Hop ended and the latest edition of the Artful Times went out.  That meant a couple of hours trawling through all the comments to find a winner.  Are you ready?  Really Ready?  Sure ...

Drum Roll   ...

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and the winner is ...

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...

The Winner is - Wendy - aka Flowergirl.

Congratulations Wendy - now Tracey will get your dies off to you as soon as possible next week - they are all exhibiting in Lincoln this weekend so give them the chance to get back and put everything in order and then two of the CFT dies will be coming your way once you have made contact and given them your details.  Well done!

Here's an idea you might like to copy for the Jubilee Weekend -

I was going to post this earlier on Friday but then decided to schedule it for Saturday and give you all another peek at the CFT dies, used similarly to what I used before, but just a couple more ideas.  This was my tray on Thursday evening with my latest cutouts ready:

To get the ones on the white circles to show up with red, white and blue I cut them out in red first of all with a card that had a white backing.  Then I coloured the bits that were to be pushed through to the other side with a blue felt tip pen.

Here are my plant pot markers which are the dies mounted on white scallop circles with a satay stick behind and a plain set of circles on the reverse.

and some more

We've not got the big table out yet just the Bistro set for lunch today.  Here are the napkin rings - all made with cardstock.

Now you can see the garden a bit better

and how about these mobiles blowing in the wind?

These are just the middle and small sized dies, mounted on circles of contrasting card and then another one placed behind with a piece of cord running down the centre and a loop at the top.

Think I need more of these mobiles ... Hope these pictures have given you some ideas for the Jubilee Weekend and how you can use your CTF dies to help you celebrate. Congrats again to Wendy.

Hope the sun shines where you are!  And many thanks to all who entered the blog hop!  Maybe next time it will be you!

Ribbon & Lace

First of all, thanks to everyone who entered our challenges the last four weeks - we had over 30 in the last one and it was lovely to see so many terrific entries.

Sam's choice this time and I must admit I did like the thoughts of Ribbons and Lace - kind of Vintage or Shabby Chic.  What did I do? Well I made an atc because at Vicky Stampers we are doing Vintage for our next swap and so I can actually use this one (hope nobody from Vicky Stampers sees it before next week but don't think any of them come on here except Jo and Ann and they are not going to the club that week).  But then there is Paul - he won't tell.  I hope!

Here it is

I used a new stamp (think it is a Whimsy) from Oyster Stamps and stamped it in Black Archival Ink on a piece of white cardstock.  Then I cut another piece of card to ATC size and using an oval from my Nestabilities (Spellbinders) cut out a frame. I then put some lace on the bottom and re-cut the length of the atc as I wanted the lace to hang over the edge.  A tiny strip of lilac ribbon, some flowers pushed through pin holes in the top left corner and it was almost done.  The final thing was to pop dot the frame on top of the picture and then mount the whole on a piece of lilac card so that it showed through the lace.

Hope whoever gets it in the swap likes it.

Now what will you make for our challenge at Artful Times?  Remember it is ribbons and lace but does not have to be Vintage - do what you will and enter our challenge, we love to see what you create and each and every one of you will get visits from the Design Team.

The Blue Mallard

As I said yesterday, here are some photographs of our day out with Jo and Dave at Burscough.  I posted pictures of the "deelish" food we had (real good stuff check out the website here) yesterday so hopefully whetted your appetites for a trip there if you live within striking distance.

When Chas and I arrived, there was Jo in the old fashioned sweetshop buying her favourite Cinammon balls and some Cherry Lips (I used to buy those when I was in white ankle socks) and Midget Gems.  The shop also stocks the cordials from Fitzpatricks in Rawtenstall where I used to live. That reminded me of the time my son was still in his pram and I used to go there for a "hot stingo" with my friend Lillian on the way back from shopping with the toddlers.  He's all grown up now and 6'5" tall so you can see it is a long while ago.  In fact Micah, the man who owned the store, passed away quite a long time ago, he was such a lovely gentleman, a proper one too.

After the meal we went for a walk along the canal banking - what about these for retirement flats - wouldn't it be idyllic living? Without the hassle of the locks you are on the canal banking -  my imagination would run riot as I sat in those gardens.

Look at this lovely Mallard - I got up quite close and he didn't jump in, guess they must be so used to people with living here.

Look at his lovely colouring.

This poor white thing must have been trapped or savaged as there were no wing feathers.  Just broken quills left in their place, but he was an adorable thing with a little white tuft on his head - leading to much debate as to whether he was young or old.

Could not resist showing you this picture, what a way to spend a Tuesday afternoon cruising down the canal.

Once we left the canal we went in search of the charity shops having been talking to Jane in the Gallery who was sporting the most gorgeous necklace she had bought from there.  It looked quite expensive but was a charity shop buy.  Needless to say I got nothing, Jo got a Rag Doll for one of the grandees and a necklace she might pull to bits for her crafting.

Then we went to the little square and Jo got side tracked running around the circular monument reading what was written on the ground.  Here she is in deep contemplation

and here on her way round reading

It was here I spotted a white owl

not real of course

and then all too soon it was time to wave goodbye again

A lovely day out with Jo and Dave

and great views on the way home

as James Cagney once famously said "Look Ma, Top of the World"

Parbold Hill looking across the Douglas Valley

WOYWW

Well, I had hoped to show you lots of things on my desk today but to be honest I went out yesterday and came back too tired (it's the glass of wine I had) to do any more crafting and so all that you see is what I left yesterday morning before I went out.  Before we go there all you WOYWW'ers I must show you some photos of a table yesterday.

Occasionally we have a day out together with our 'respecteds' and so yesterday Jo and I  met up in Burscough. I thought we were having lunch on a canal barge but NO, we were having lunch in the canalside restaurant The Blue Mallard (can recommend).

Here is Jo with her starter (look at her fabulous nails)

Then the three of us with our main courses (Chas did not get a photograph taken as he had the same to eat as Jo and he was sat at the side of me so I would have had to get up)

The food was delish!  (Jo had the pork belly, Dave the duck and I had the pan fried hake with mussels)

Afterwards only the men had sweets but I will leave it for Jo to show you what Dave had - yum yum!

Then we went for a stroll along the canal before making our way home but I won't show you those photos as it really should be about my workdesk.

Here it is as it resides this morning

I am going to make some napkin rings with my CTF dies in red, white and blue and maybe some decorations as well for a barbecue we hope to have to celebrate the Jubilee weekend (weather permitting).  You will have to wait and see what the finished results are going to be like but you can always go back a few posts to http://hickydorums.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/oyster-stamps-blog-hop-starts-today.html when I did something similar in black, white and gold for the blog hop I was involved with.  There is still time for you to enter if you want as the final unfold is today and there are a couple of days left to go to all six blogs to see what we did - but you need to start with me.

Now I think it is time to shut up shop so that you have time to visit other blogs as well so I will leave it there for now but show you some more piccies from Tuesday tomorrow.