What happened to summer ?

Here on Anglesey we seem to have gone from a brief glimpse of summer, straight to autumn, with rain, strong winds and cold weather !! I've even had to go back to sleeping under my winter quilt, instead of the sheet and thin blanket I'd been using a few weeks ago.

The most annoying thing is that the weather is holding up further work in the garden. The main part of the shed is finished now, and all that needs to be done is some breeze blocks covered up just to make them look less ugly. The next thing was to build some decking, the base of which will also be pallets, but this horrible weather has stopped all our plans in their tracks. Very annoying as we've got family visiting next weekend and wanted to be able to sit our on our decking and have a BBQ. Mind you I don't suppose sitting out in almost gale force winds would have been much fun anyway lol.

My daughter in law, who found out she had cancer in October 2014 at 34 yrs old, has just started a blog about what she has been through and how she's coped. Despite being diagnosed with secondary breast cancer and then even worse cancer of the bones, which isn't curable, she has written this blog not only telling the reader about her journey through various treatments. How it felt and how she felt, she has also managed to inject a sense of humour  into it, which I am amazed at. If you know anyone with cancer who might find some comfort in her story, or you'd just like to read about this brave woman then pop along to her blog http://living-with-secondary-breast-cancer.blogspot.co.uk/

I've slowly but surely been building my stock on Etsy and now have almost 100 hundred listings. As I find jewellery quite hard to do because of the numbness in my finger tips I occasionally go back to doing the odd bit of needle felting, so todays picture will be a mixture of needle felting and jewellery.

You can as always go and have a look at all my thing by popping over to my Etsy shop >> Etsy Shop

Wow lovely sunshine

Well I for one have welcomed this past few days of sunshine, what about you ? The only trouble is, if the suns out so am I, so no jewellery gets made ....ooops. My partner and my daughter have made the most of this lovely weather to crack on with building a shed, big enough to hold both my mobility scooters and a load of boxes of stuff that there's not room in the house for. It hasn't been an easy task, as they've made it all with pallets, none of which have been square. This wasn't such a problem when doing the walls, but the door frame was another thing altogether. It took all day yesterday to get a door frame that was square, and seeing as my partner isn't a joiner, believe me it wasn't an easy task. Todays project is building a door for the said shed.

Anyway, these are a few of my latest bracelets, I've also got a sale on at the moment of some pendants, reduced from £6.50 to £4.50, do pop over to my Etsy page if you'd like to see them

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CosmicCrafts2014

Christmas rush over

Now the Christmas rush is over it's given me a bit of breathing space at long last :) My most popular thing this year was definitely my rainbow fairies, I did a series of 4 of these in different ethnic groups, which is what made them so popular I believe. Out of the 4, by far the Chinese one was my favourite.

I also did some more woodland scenes as they were popular too, but very time consuming.

Do pop over to my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/cosmiccrafter and have a look at my latest things.

Never enough time .....

My blog always seems to get neglected, as I get so busy at times. I've been doing a lot of needle felting lately, as this is ok for my hands which are getting riddled with arthritis. Anyway, the weather is terrible here on Anglesey today, torrential rain all night and gale force wind, on the upside that means I can sit crafting all day. Here are a few of my latest makes.

All can be seen on my Cosmic Crafts page here >> https://www.facebook.com/cosmiccrafter I also have an Etsy page now too https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CosmicCrafts2014

These are little needle felted woodland scenes I have been making all are One of a Kind and proving to be quite popular too. 

I've also done a few Christmassy things of course

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.

New Year and new projects

Happy New Year to my followers and to the many people that pass through my blog. I hope you all had a good Christmas, ours here was a very quiet affair as always, the big day itself included a trip up into the mountains, a little tradition my daughter and myself have. This year the scenery was even more spectacular than usual with the heavy snow we'd had, so I make no apologises for all the photo's on this post. The first 4 photo's were taken just before Christmas in and around Anglesey after a night which dropped 10" of snow on us, which was very unusual for here.

After two weeks of having all my art and craft stuff tidied away, I always find it hard to get back into creative mode, so the time has been spent turning out cupboards and drawers and tidying them up, something that was well over due lol. One job I really enjoyed doing was the large cupboard in my front room which stores most of my arty crafty stuff. This was a job I'd been dying to do for ages, but I needed to have the sliding doors off it, so as my son was floating around I got him to get them off ....which trust me isn't an easy job !!! Now everything is all sorted labelled and tidied up and for someone that's natural untidy I'm getting a lot of pleasure of being able to see exactly whats what and where for a change lol.

My latest project is going to be a painting for my bathroom which is going to get decorated at long last. This is the only room that hasn't been decorated since we moved in just over 12 months ago. The delay was caused by us not being able to decide what colour to do it and not having the money to do it either. But the arrival of a bill I was dreading ( gas and electric )has come and gone, and I was really pleased that I had managed to save enough to pay it !! So the extra cash I'd put to one side incase this bill was even higher than I thought, can now be used to decorate the bathroom. The colour is going to be a bright lime green which will contrast nicely with the black tiles in there. I'm going to do an abstract painting in there, but I'll also be using copper wire, glass tiles and goodness knows what else on it, as I want it to have the wow factor.

Anyway enough waffle from me, here's the photo's I mentioned earlier.

Cable Bay



Hermon



Two photo's of a mass of icicles in Cable Bay





Snowdonia





These icicles were huge at least 6or7ft and very thick.



A stream that produced some very unusual ice formations.

Thunderstorm

We had an brilliant thunderstorm here on Anglesey last night. One of the best I've seen, I think. At the first when I heard the quietish rumble of thunder, I thought for a while it was my dog snoring at the bottom of my bed. When the next rumble was considerably louder I knew he wasn't the culprit. I lay in bed with the window open listening to the rain lashing down, and the light show in the sky, it was pretty amazing. When I got up this morning, and went outside, my carrots I've been growing are looking a little worse for wear, the wind has knocked all the feathery greenery down, my runner bean pot had lost the battle with the wind too and was lying down. A small fence had got blown down and our wheelie bin was in the middle of the garden lol. Everything's been put to rights now and won't suffer any lasting damage I don't think, isn't nature wonderful.

It was only when I was reading yesterdays blog I realised I'd forgotten to varnish the heart..... oooops. Oh well maybe later, when its cooled down a bit. My daughter cut out the 4 pieces of wood for my African themed mosaics, but two of them are slightly the wrong size as she had to use a very heavy circular saw, which she isn't used to and it made the job pretty difficult. But no matter it'll be a set of 2 mosaics now, and I'm sure I'll find a use for the other two panels. I also got left with rather a nice long thin piece of mdf, which I may do a flower panel on for a change.

The reason I forgot about the heart yesterday was because I decided to tackle a long over due job. Namely tidying up the small room with all our tools and a huge part of my arty crafty bits and bobs. As more stuff had got added to this room, the harder it became to even get in there, and closing the door on the mess was a long ago memory lol. Although there's still a lot of crafty stuff I seem to have lost track of somewhere in there, it is at least looking tidier !! I was planning to sort out the huge double cupboard in the front room which houses the rest of my arty crafty stuff today, but it's just too hot and humid especially as I know I'll have to drag everything out of the cupboard, to make any headway into tidying it up...... maybe tomorrow lol.

Amazing recycling

Yesterday I spent some of my day surfing blogs, one I came across was written by a lady that worked at Proper Job I was so impressed by this website, and wondered why this kind of thing can't be implemented all over the UK, in particular on Anglesey ?

Time after time, after time, when I go to the one or the other of the local recycling centre's on Anglesey, I see perfectly good things thrown in the skips. It's complete madness, especially when there's so much unemployment, people just haven't got the money to spend on new things these days.

This kind of scheme would create a few jobs, and provide an excellent source of affordable items to the people of Anglesey, not least of all it would keep things out of the landfill sites !!

Early Morning

After having about a week of waking up at a normal time, I'm back to my 4 am start to the day. Oh well it was nice while it lasted.

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, but there was a really cold sea breeze blowing across our back garden, did that stop me sitting out there all day ... course not !! My daughter Jenny joined me and being one of those unfortunate people that feels the cold at the best times, she had a double layer of goose pimples lol. Today looks set to be another glorious day, with the sunrise sending beautiful orange and pink colours through my bathroom window as I type.

While in the garden yesterday, I managed to cut out 21 angel bodies and 42 wings and then a further 6 bodies and 12 wings at night. Miraculously I only cut my fingers once, but this one cut is in a really awkward place and keeps splitting back open every time I cut more glass...one of the hazards of doing stained glass. Today I think I'll clean off any sharp pieces of glass and copper foil the ones I've done so far, ready for soldering. I wish I'd have thought to get some sticks of solder while I was down at the gallery last week though.

My poor old dog Zacs back legs, seem to be getting weaker by the day. When we took him down the beach yesterday he started off ambling around at his usual pace, after only 15mins he'd slowed right down, bless him, and I've noticied he seems to be having more problems getting up too. But apart from a sigh as he sits down, he doesn't appear to be in any pain. I wonder if there's a doggie equiverlant to cod liver oil capsules that might ease his joints a bit for him, time to check it out on my friend google me thinks.

Last night I managed to find a code to make thumbnail photo's to pop up as bigger photo's by using a mouseover effect. This is something I've been wanting for ages and looked for for ages too, but after a quick word with the ever helpful Tony it seems I was looking under html scripts, rather than dhtml scripts I needed. So armed with this knowledge once the stained glass things are done, I might actually start building the well overdue website. All I need now is a name for it, I've used Anglesey in the name of all my other websites, but as it's by no means certain that I'll be living here forever, I'm reluctant to use it on this website. I need an easy to remember name, but something that covers all aspects of the arts and crafts I do, all suggestions on a postcard please to ........ lol.

Adventures in the Highlands Part 1

Well here I am back in Anglesey, my week in the Highlands of Scotland with Andy and Mel went in a flash it seems. Far too quickly for my liking, and since I've returned after a pain free week there, I seem to have got all my usual aches and pains back again I can't believe it !! So either this stupid little desk I sit at to go on the internet is the problem or my body is missing the overwhelming heat in the bus. I'm sure Mel and Andy were trying to cook me alive lol.

Anyway .... I digress, I arrived at Inverness airport after a pretty bumpy flight and got a warm and friendly Highland welcome from Andy and Mel who I'd only ever chatted to online before. For someone who usually gets very nervous meeting new people, this time I had no nerves. As we drove back to Muir of Ord where the bus is based at the moment, heavy snow started falling, a great omen for me I thought as I love snow and we get very little here on Anglesey.

I settled in very quickly and the bed Andy had made specially for the visit was very comfy. But a little too close to the roaring log burner for my liking. This fire blasts out more heat than a 100 electric fires, at least it felt like that. Within 5 mins of arriving I was stripped down to a vest top, the sweat dripping off me, as i am so unused to being in a hot room. I eventually managed to get to sleep covered only by sheet. With Mel fretting in the background about whether I'd be warm enough enough bless her lol.

The next day we sat with our fingers and toes crossed, hoping that the horsebox would pass its MOT on it's 3rd try. Whooooooo it passed and that was us off for a trip to Loch Ness somewhere I've always wanted to visit. What a beautiful place, surrounded on all sides by snow covered pine tree's the loch seemed to stretch on forever. Mel and Andy took the boys Dylan and Custard down to the lochs edge for a run while I stayed at the top of the snow covered steps. Dylan, who is a collie with a strange fetish for licking people's feet lol, stood in the freezing cold water barking for all he was worth. After driving a good way along the loch it was decided that it was time to turn round and head for home via a chippy for dinner. But just before we got to Beauly and the chip shop the horsebox chugged to a halt, by sheer luck it happened right by a small layby ..... we'd run out of diesel !! Andy as resourceful as ever had two 5 gallon jerry cans of spare fuel in the back. Once refuelled, the engine turned over and over but wouldn't quite fire up. I lost count of the number of times Andy tried to get it going, but eventually he decided there was an air lock and he would have to bleed the pipes. Even that didn't seem to help and almost ready to give up and get someone to come and fetch us Andy got Mel to fire Quik Start into the engine while he had one last go, sucess at last and off we went to get some well earned chips with Andys words " Well that was one way to get to know my new van " echoing in my ears.