Getting bored already !!

Well it's only been 4 days since I said I was going to pack away all my messy crafty stuff, and I'm bored already lol !! I'm just no good at sitting around either surfing the net, reading books or doing housework. I need to occupy my mind doing some arty or crafty, I guess that makes me a craftoholic, well there's worse things to be addicted to I guess :-)

It hasn't helped that we went to the post office to pick up the parcel of china paints that I mentioned in my last post. They are sitting there calling to me on my little pc table. Who can resist those beautiful bejewelled colours ...not me by the looks of it lol. I shall have a go at decorating my herb and spices pots for myself first, just to get my hand back in again. China and glass paints have, for want of a better word a gloopey consistency, so you can't just use them like normal paints, they tend to streak very easily. Also you have to be extremely lucky to do more than one coat of them, as one layer tends to pulls off the layer below. So they aren't exactly the easiest of paints to work with, but I'm sure I'll get better the more I practice.

I'll share with you the mistakes as well as the successes of course. But for the time being, I'm off to put away some of the other boxes of crafty stuff so I needn't feel guilty about the china paints lol. These paints by the way can be fired in a normal oven, which then makes any designs fix fast and they even stand up to being put through the dishwasher. There are glass and china paints that you can just paint on and leave, but they tend to peel off if they're washed, which seems a bit pointless to me.

Anyway that's it for today.

It's that time of year.

It's that time of year, where I pack most of my crafty stuff away, and have a break from making things to sell. I do this every year, because I tend to spread anything I'm using to make creations, all over the place lol. Which of course makes the place messy, and no one wants a messy house at Christmas do they ?

Last weekend was our last craft fair this year too, so that's another good reason to pack most of my stuff away. Sometimes I just need to recharge my batteries and my idea's too. I've already started thinking about what to make next year. I think I might have to minimise the amount of stained glass I do as the arthritis in my hands is getting worse, and I know by experience that cutting and copper foiling glass aggravates it badly. I've been enjoying painting my cards, so maybe I'll think about going back to doing some glass and china painting.

One thing that needs addressing for sure is the layout of our craft stall. I want to be able to show off any stained glass things with the light showing through them. One idea I've thought of is getting some acrylic type stands, so the angels can be hung on it so the light shows through. It would also give some added height to the stall too. Jims also going to figure out a way of getting some light on the stall, which doesn't need an electrical socket as well.

The fair we did last weekend, was the first one for the organiser. I think he learnt some very valuable lessons. For one thing the stalls were way too tightly packed together. For customers to buy things they need to be able to stand and browse, this was NOT happening at the weekend. As soon as someone stopped to browse at one stall, there was pretty much no chance of someone standing and browsing at the opposite stall, without blocking the whole aisle. Most of the stall holders were pretty vocal about this, so it won't be a mistake he'll make again lol. The lighting also was pretty dire, for some people, it wasn't too bad for us, but some friends of mine had terrible problems, also lack of advertising for the fair was a key mistake too. Luckily the organiser asked for feedback and I think he's someone that will take on board what people will say. Despite all the problems, I only took five pound less than we did the weekend before, so on the whole I was happy with that.

Only a couple of  photos today, this is of the main hall at the craft fair, taken by the organiser. For me it was a pretty good idea to do this as it gave me a proper chance to see the stall as customers see it, which you can't really do by just standing in front of it. 

That's our stall bottom left hand corner.

And again

More cards and wooden Christmas decorations

Not such a long wait this time people :-) As before I've been very busy doing some more cards, and also some pyrographed wooden Christmas decorations, a new thing for me to try out. So far they have been very popular, in fact most of the ones in the photo's have already sold, but I thought I'd share them with you, as I'm already doing more of a very similar design.

Jim and I did a Christmas fair last week, and I have to say it was quite good fun. It was for the Green Party, so as you would expect there were quite a lot of alternative and hippy type people, which pleased me a lot. There was also live music of lots of different genres throughout the day, towards the end there was some music that I can only describe as medieval type music, much to my surprise a couple of lady customers started dancing lol, and they danced in between all the stalls for the whole set, which was sometimes quite difficult as the fair was busy right up until the end. But everyone took it all in good part and I think as much of the applause was for the dancers as the musicians lol.

Anyway here's my latest creations, the cards are £2.50 each the same as the others, and the pyrographed decs have got the prices on them, I put a 20p piece in the centre to give you some idea of the size of them. By the way these decorations were all made from fallen wood, and no tree's were harmed. The top set of decorations are £2 each, the 2nd lot £1.50 each, and the last lot £1 each.

 

 

 

I'm back !!!

Yes my readers I'm back lol, I've had a really busy couple of months. As always my blog has had to take a back seat till things calm down a bit. Most of the time I've been busy making crafty things for Christmas fairs. I thought I'd show you some cards I've been making, not Christmas cards as I think plenty of people make those, so I thought I'd do some blank ones. They are all hand painted ...no prints for me ( I haven't got a printer lol ) and all pretty much unique as I'd never be able to recreate them exactly even if I wanted too.

Here we go then, they are all 10.5cms by 15cms, they come with an envelope and are sealed in cello bags. Any of these are yours for £2.50 each plus p/p. A bargain for a hand painted card I reckon :) I'm happy to take paypal.

First a set of cats as I know  how many of you love cats. I'm also happy to do them in any colour combination you prefer.









Next some unusual mushroom cards.










A set of three tattoo inspired butterfly cards.







Finally a one off card just to see if they are popular.



I almost forgot, these are the three panels I did using wood chippings. At long last I finished them...took forever as I kept getting side tracked doing other things. It isn;t a good photo I'll try and take a better one soon with a close up of the detail.

Where does time go ?

Yet again my poor old blog suffers because the real world takes over !! I really don't know where the times goes these days. When I first started writing this blog, part of the reason was because I seemed to have so much time on my hands, it was like an online diary to keep track of what I'd been doing etc, Many's the time I've gone back through past posts to check and see when various events took place.

How things have changed since my first post. My youngest daughter who at times thought she'd never get a job she'd be happy in, has got a job which started off just as a work experience placement, and has now worked her way up till she is now the manageress of Redskin Tattoo's in Bangor North Wales, she will never truly know how very proud of her I am, despite me telling her.

My oldest daughter Emma has gone from just being content in bringing up her family, to someone who has now got an all time consuming artistic hobby, which has given her confidence and lots of new friends. Being one of those people who hates to see women, just becoming a mom or someones wife, I'm so pleased to see her adding another dimension to her life, doing scrapbooking and card making. Her tentative steps into making cards has now got her to a level where they are as good as many hand crafted cards I've seen in shops, and with a little encouragement from me, she's making in roads into selling them now.

My youngest son Billie has gone from being a gangling out of work teenager, to the father of two lovely little girls working his socks off at being a chef, sometimes working 12 to 15 hrs in a day. Him and his girlfriend have just returned from their first family holiday, happy days !! Three of my other sons, Ben Dan and Rich have successful full time jobs selling on Ebay, and my other son Jed has also ( when he puts his mind to it ) been selling his artistic creations too. Sadly my other son Chris continues his life through a haze of alcoholism, I can't help but think what a waste of such a lovely guy  when he's sober. He also used to work full time and had just been promoted when the evils of alcoholism over took him, and he lost his job. I'd like to think that one day somehow he'll find the strength and the willpower to kick this disease into touch and be happy.

Then there's me of course...... who would have thought when I started my blog that I would be change from a happy with my life, single woman into someone that's madly in love with the eccentric, humorous sometimes infuriating Jim lol. I'd previously had two big loves in my life, one was my youngest daughters father Hughie, who when he wasn't under the influence of drink or drugs, was almost my ideal man. Boy did we go through some tough times together, under the influence he turned into some kind of Jekyll and Hyde character, who didn't think twice about using his fists to get his point across !! Yet sober he wouldn't even hurt a fly and turned into a charismatic, loving gentle soul, which is why I stayed in an abusive relationship for 12yrs. But in the end I realised I would never come first in his life, drink and drugs gave him something I never could and we parted company for good. Despite us being apart for a good few years, I was still heartbroken when the stupid sod had an accident when he was drunk which resulted in his death. Silly as it might sound, my youngest daughter and I both get signs that he's looking down on us.

My second big love shall remain nameless, but if he should read this he'll know who he is. Although we never lived together or even had what you might call a traditional type of relationship, I thought the world of him. I often used to think that if he'd have just been willing to give us a chance we would have been so good together, but it wasn't meant to be. We remained friends right up until Jim completely unexpectedly came into my life. Even though he'd encouraged me to look for someone in my life, and we'd both agreed we'd always stay friends, when I told him about Jim, gradually contact dwindled which to this day still makes me sad. We had so much in common, loving to go off on long drives exploring the countryside, with him I saw my first and only moonbow ( a white rainbow only that can be seen at night if conditions are right )  he also encouraged me so much in my own artistic endeavours, guided me into my first steps into oil painting and so many other things during the time we knew each other.

Now there's Jim, who I met when I'd almost come to the point in my life where I thought there was no way I could ever have any excitement or adventures in my life due to my lack of mobility, let alone fall in love again. How wrong was I !! Jim has turned my life around, he's shown me the kind of love and affection ( as I've said before ) I've always longed for in my life. The trust and commitment I've got from Jim, I've never had before, it's so reassuring. In the 14 months we've been together I can put my hand on my heart and say we've never had an argument. Jim is a very placid type of guy and his mellowness seems to have rubbed off on me  to a certain extent, although I was already mellowing as I got older, as my kids have ocasionally remarked upon lol. I've never been this happy and content in my life before, and I can see me and Jim growing old and grey together ......oh hang on we already are old and grey, better say getting older and greyer together I think lol.

Quick catch up

Just a quick catch up for the last few weeks, since I last wrote on this here blog :-) The terrible weather that seems to have plagued the north continues, and I really have given hope of us having anything like a half decent summer.

In between plodding along doing stained glass angels and sun catchers, we have managed to get out and about a little bit. The usual ambles along the river and the canal of course then one day we decided to risk going to a place called Crock o Lune,somewhere that was at the very limit of my batteries. Off we set, and we were almost there when Jim decided to show me a lovely weir just off the cycle track, we'd just got to the bottom of quite a rough and pretty steep path, when all of a sudden there was an all mighty bang, it sounded almost like gunshot. We immediately started looking at the scooter, no smoke, no smell of burning can't be the scooter then we thought. Jim took the seat off just to double check, but no all looked well. After a little while of sitting by the weir and enjoying the little bit of sunshine that was showing it's face we decided it was time to finish our journey. I got on the scooter went to turn it round, and THEN discovered what the bang was ....the tyre on the front of my scooter had popped !! I wasn't concerned, Jim unlike me is the organised type and we always carry pretty much everything we might need in case of an emergencies.

The scooter got tipped over against a handy gate the little tool bag fetched from my rucksack on the back of the scooter, then disaster :-( When Jim had given the scooter a well needed service the day before, he'd forgotten to put the screwdriver back in the bag, without that, there was no way he could get the wheel off. Decisions decisions, should Jim bike back home and leave me there or should we try to get home on a flat tyre. Because I was in quite a secluded place we decided just to be on the safe side we'd get back on the cycle track and try to make it to the car park about 400yds down the road, much safer for me there as it was quite busy and then Jim would go home and get the inner tube that we'd bought the day before but I had stupidly left on the settee at home !! While we sat and had a quick roll up, I spotted someone who looked like he might have a screwdriver on him..... Jim went  to ask and he did, whooo no problem now a 10 minute job and we'd back on our way again. All done and dusted we thought, off we went heading for home, 10 mins later the tyre had gone down again. We decided this time to just go for it, with me leaning over to the right to hopefully keep a bit of my weight off the flat tyre. We did eventually get home and decided that despite what had happened we'd had a lovely day anyways.

Well that's enough ramblings for one night. Here's various photo's taken over the last few weeks.

A visit to a summer fair in aid of some kind of  wildlife charity found the next two lovely creatures.





Jim posing on our way to Crook o Lune



The tree's in the centre of this next photo, are reknowned for this area. They're known as the upside down tree's, simply because for some reason it was decided to plant them upside down lol.



This is a photo I took of the weir at the bottom of our road, after a particularly heavy rainy day with the sun briefly shinning on it.

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This last photo shows the cause of all our problems lol.

 

Our first anniversary

Today is mine and Jims first anniversary. I can honestly say it's been the one of the happiest years of my life. All my life I've looked for love, affection, loyalty and laughter from a guy, I consider myself extremely lucky that I've found all those traits and much much more in Jim. Never a day goes past without him showing me how much he loves me, with hugs, kisses and words of love. How I've longed for that in my life, and now I've found it my life is complete ....... This is my all time favourite photo of the man I love with all my heart.

Rain, rain and wind !!

What terrible weather it's been !! Here in Lancaster we've had nothing but wind or rain, or a combination of the two for the last 3 days. I was particularly gutted as I was supposed to do a summer fair on Saturday, with my friend Di. But on looking out of the window, I just had to admit to myself it wouldn't be a good idea to go off on my scooter to the other end of town, pushing my battery levels to their limits and getting soaked into the bargain. I'd had a sore throat for a few days and also the arthritis in my knee's has been particularly painful since last weekend. So I decided I had to be sensible ( not like me at all lol ) and not go.

The day wasn't wasted though, and I've been beavering away doing another new line, some pretty little stained glass and bead suncatchers. Luckily they just need some light and not sunshine, to show them off nicely. I'm very pleased with them, and once I've cleaned off any residue flux off them, I'll be showing off my latest idea. I also started restocking my little stained glass angels, as I was getting very low on them. I have to admit I don't enjoy doing them, they're very fiddly and also as they are so small I constantly burn my fingers when I solder them, but they are always popular no matter what time of the year, so I shall suffer lol, and probably curse a few choice words in the process lol.

Having got up yesterday morning at 5am, by 4pm I was starting to feel tired. Even though I was going to cook a time consuming roast dinner, I said to Jim I'll just have a little snooze for an hour........ two hours later I woke up !! Through bleary eyes I asked Jim to turn the oven on for me. It's already on he said ...what a sweetheart he'd already started the dinner. Lovely smells were soon wafting  in from the kitchen and my mouth started to water. Three quarters of an hour later, the yummiest dinner I've had for quite a while was put in front of me. Marinated chicken, shredded cabbage, roasted garlic, gravy and the most gorgeous roast potatoes I've EVER had. I do love  living with a man that just gets on with things, without huffing and puffing and making fuss because he cooked the dinner !!!

A christening, and some good and bad reviews !!

This weekend Jim and I were off to Anglesey for my little grand daughter Ruby Jo's christening. My son Ben and two friends were coming from Birmingham to pick us up, first spending the day in Blackpool, on their way.

Saturday night we went out for a meal in Lancaster at The Keys in Lancaster I cannot rate this place highly enough. The staff were very polite and helpful. The meal was superb, and the portions more than ample for even the biggest appetite.

 Sunday saw us off to Anglesey for a couple of days, for the christening and meeting up with more of the family that had also travelled up from the Midlands. The christening was lovely and Ruby was smiles all the way through the service even when the vicar splashed her with water at the font lol. The weather was beautiful, even though a lot of the uk was fighting floods, we were bathed in sunshine, apart from a few drops of rain early in the afternoon.

 Monday, although some of the family were fighting hangovers (not me *smirk*) from our usual sing song and heavy drinking session the night before, we went off to Moel y Don beach. After being dissapointed that our usual session at the go carting centre was a non starter as it wasn't open Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. We spotted a sign for RibRide Adventure Boat Trips, this would be a great alternative ..we thought. How wrong were we, because the boss was apparently away for a week, the guy that answered the phone said they could only do trips out for 7 or more people and that worked out at £24 per person. That was fine we had 7 once my daughter finished work, and my youngest son Billie had been collected. So we rang back to confirm it, only to find they couldn't find the guy that usually drives the rib !! But he'd ring us back before 3pm to let us know one way or the other, that didn;t happen so we'd sat around for ages waiting for nothing.

My son said there was another place in Menai Bridge that did rib rides, Porth Daniel Leisure Ltd so we rang that instead. Yes they did rib rides, but couldn't do another one because it was after 3pm, and they weren't doing any more till the Weds. You would think that with recession being as bad as it is and businesses closing down all over the place they would welcome being able to get the rib filled with one family, but apparently not !!

 Resigned not be having any kind of adventure on this trip, we decided to go for a meal before we left for home. We chose to go to a place called Parc Britannia Pub Restaurant locally known as Table Table as we'd heard good reports about the standard of the food. Well, I don't know if we hit them on a bad day or what but the main meal was horrible. The pies had very little meat in them, the plates were boiling hot but the chips were cold. My son who's a chef said the lasangne was horrible and left half of his. Jim and my daughter had the 6 oz burgers, both of them were over cooked and dry. We were extremely dissapointed and despite the starters being lovely, we complained and got our drinks for free. I'll put some photo's on in few days when I've sorted them out.

Lots of photo's of my latest creations

Lots of photo's of my latest creations for you today, just so you know I haven't been sitting around idle lol. Hasn't the weather been amazing this week. Just a shame I spent most of the time sitting inside doing all the things in the photo's for a craft fair today. Sadly the weather was so hot, people didn't want to wander round a craft fair, but it didn't matter I had a great laugh with the lady I shared a stall with. Starting with my trademark some mosaics, next two heat treated embossed copper panels, then a new line for me, stained glass panels with air plants. These air plants need no soil, just a dunk in water a couple of times a week. And finally some pen and ink drawings.