It's been a long time !

How have five months managed to pass by since the last time I posted.

Things haven't been good in my household in that I lost my mum suddenly in June - one minute she was fit and well and the next she got a "tummy bug" which turned out to be C.diff and there was nothing that could be done. We got her to the doctors and hospital on Tuesday and she passed away Friday without having come round from the sedation she was put under because of the pain.  I spoke to her doctor recently and she couldn't believe it either. We're slowly coming to terms with it but it's so hard.

On a brighter note my daughter has just started Uni in Cardiff, although that's not been without problems to, especially when her boyfriend broke up with her last week and she promptly hopped on a  train and came home! Still it's her birthday next week so we're off to see her for a couple of days - just hope weather improves a bit.

Obviously for the reasons above I've not done a lot of crafting but sometime ago I went to a demo on art journalling and promptly decided to have a go so rather than no piccies at all I thought I'd show you my very first page background - hope you like it, just got to remember how to do this for next time.

Not a brilliant picture, but better than nothing.

Take care everyone andI hope to be back soon.

Good Intentions

Why is it that I start off with such good intentions about blogging and then immediately let myself down :(
It's been a while since I last dipped in here but life just gets in the way sometimes.
Anyway I have been blog hopping still and noticed that this week at Less is More there is achallenge to produce a card which includes dogs or cats - well I couldn't resist as I have such a cute dog stamp that rarely gets used.  I bought it to use for a card for my sister some years ago and it hasn't really been used since then, especially now her dog has passed on - this stamp is the spitting image of him.

I have made a couple of cards but couldn't get a decent picture of the other one.  Hope you like this and I'll try my hardest to post again before too long.
Take care
Trudi

2013 Calendars

Well I'm trying to be good and not leave it too long in between posts and although I've not done much crafting in the last week or so I have remembered some calendars that I did just before Christmas so thought I'd pop them on here and see what you think.

I got the idea and the template for the calendar pages from the One Lucky Day Blog and thought I'd make a couple for Christmas pressies - the top one however I did make for myself and the second one was originally intended for my son to give to his girlfriend but then he went and did a more personal photo calendar for her so I've now got a second one for home.  The recipients of the ones I gave away seemed to like them - hope you do too.

Have a good week and I hope to be back soon.
Thanks for any comments left, I really do appreciate these.
Trudi

Happy New Year

Hi not been a very good blogger at the end of last year although I was dipping in and out of other blogs.  Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year and that you haven't broken all your resolutions yet - I haven't made any as they inevitably get broken!!

Had a very senior moment at Christmas I got all my cards made and then thought I really ought to take some photos to blog these and then what did I do, promptly forgot all about that and wrote and posted them instead :(

Life is still hectic - daughter had two uni interviews in the run up to Christmas (and has got two offers no less yeah) She has another three interviews in the next few weeks so fingers crossed - she will then have the difficult decision as to which one is favourite and which one is her insurance choice - glad its not my decision!

Anyway getting back to my blog hopping I noticed that Tim Holtz is continuing his 12 tags series for 2013 and having seen his tag I realised I had the quote stamp if nothing else so being brave or foolhardy (I'll let you decide which) I thought I would have a go at this challenge.  This is my effort, although the photo isn't very good and I've realised I've taken the picture before putting the ribbon in it - what am I like!!

I hadn't got any gear die cuts or a time piece embossing folder so instead I reversed the format and came up with this - I've used glossy accents on the watch faces and a fragment over the arrow and all in all I'm pretty happy with it - let me know what you think I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for looking and I hope to be back here again very soon.

I'm back with some cards to show

At last I'm able to show you some cards I've made recently - thought I'd better do it now as we've got a busy few days coming up.

Tomorrow we're off to Cardiff to look at part of Glamorgan University for my daughter who, all being well, hopes to study photography next year. In the next few weeks we've got Norwich, Portsmouth, Falmouth, De Montfort in Leicester and Coventry all lined up for open days - wish me luck, I think we might need it.

This morning we were at the hospital for my daughter to have MRI scans on her shoulder and neck and on Monday morning she goes off to another hospital for soft tissue and nerve ending tests.  She has been suffering with a bad shoulder for quite a while now and eventually after a couple of bouts of physio we have been referred to a consultant to get to the bottom of the pain she is in.

Anyway on to these cards I've promised you.

This first one I made with the intention of entering the Less is More Challenge for 3,2,1 (being three stamps and squares, two words and one flower or gem) but needless to say I got the card done and then didn't enter it in time!!  The image stamps are by Crafty Individuals.

The next two were just a general play one evening after I'd been blog hopping and seen some white embossing so out came the distress inks and the embossing powder.  I think these were Kaiser stamps but I'm not 100% sure.

More play with distress inks and papermania stamps (I think)

And last but not least some Lavinia stamps again onto a distress ink background - the silhouette fairy was stamped in black and then clear embossed which makes her stand out.  I added some stickles to this but hadn't let the distress ink dry enough so instead of being clear and sparkly its got sparkly pink patches.

Right off to print off a route finder for our trip tomorrow.
Take care and thanks for visiting.
Trudi

No cards to show in this post either

Well its been just over three weeks since my last post, husband was out of hospital the day following his operation but has been signed off work for 8 weeks - because his is not a desk job and he does some building maintenance work they have said he cannot go back until mid October - sure he'll be bouncing off the walls by then.

With hubby out of hospital I managed to get to the Paralympics with the children and had a fabulous time.  We also went to see the rehearsal for Russell Howard's latest series which was hilarious.

The Olympic stadium was absolutely awesome, the children got some brilliant panoramic shots on their phones which I must get them to send me - no prizes for guessing this is the Olympic flame.

We got to see field and track events including the club throw, discus and shot putt - GB got a bronze for the shot putt and we saw the medal ceremony for this - in fact I felt sorry for the silver and gold medalists because you can guess who got the loudest cheers.

We also saw Hannah Cockroft winning her heat for the T34 100m - that girl can really move

Right I have got a few cards to show you as well but will save these for another post - which means I cannot leave it so long again.  Thanks for dropping by.

Trudi

I can't believe it

Has it really been so long since I last posted here??? Where time is going to this year I really don't know - it just seems to be passing me by.
Think I spend more time blog hopping than actually sorting out my own blog, but I did say when I started this thing that might be the case.
A quick visit tonight to say hello to everyone and a promise to start posting some cards soon, just as soon as things calm down a bit in our household.
OH is in hospital tonight having had a half knee replacement today - seemed fine when I went to see him earlier and already planning his escape (he's hoping for tomorrow but I think it might be Wednesday).
We've all been on tenderhooks recently with daughter and her pending exam results but we can now breathe a sigh of relief for another year - she has just done her AS levels and did pretty good if I may say so - bless her she did work her socks off so deserves her results.
Since completing his first year at Uni son has been like a yo-yo - he's managed to fit in a couple of holidays and some weekends away (he's just got back from the "V" Festival at Weston Park where he had a brilliant time and the weather was good which was an added bonus.
And finally to mark the end of the "holidays" we've got tickets for the paralymics which I was lucky enough to win via Sainsbury's, only downside of that now is that OH will not be fit enough to cope with all the walking that will entail so we will have to leave him at home :(
Right off to get a bit of crafty time in while the going is good.
Thanks to those of you who have left comments even though I have been a very bad blogger indeed.
Speak to you soon.
Trudi