Crop Night

My crop ladies have just gone home and I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of us all. It was very exciting as we all had Stampin Up bags full of goodies from last weeks party. As per usual there was lots of chatting and cake eating as well as everyone making provisional orders in their heads as we all thumbed through the american SU catalogue. I can't wait to sign up as a demo again in October for my birthday and take advantage of another starter kit!!! The best birthday present ever. Well here is what I made this evening.

Followed by a card inspired by last weeks Play Date Cafe Colour Splash challenge

I really need to get my timings better with these challenges as I keep missing the deadlines, but I am pleased with the card anyway, I will try harder to get it made in time this week!

Thanks for stopping by.

Hx

A Snippet of Summer

Although the weather is still not great I am enjoying being away from work this week, the boy's were both off school yesterday and we managed to have a BBQ in the garden. I caught them playing light sabers with their Ice lollies and managed to catch them on film smiling, which is an achievement!

I love this one of Finn

And here is the usual attempt at a nice family pic

Stupid Faces made by all!!!! This was at Amazon world we took our own monkeys.

Tomorrow's agenda is Sports Day, Blackcurrant Jam Making (first of the season) Swimming Lesson followed by crafting crop at mine, so Thursday's blog should be bursting with Homemade Happiness!!

Thanks for stopping by

Hx

2 Challenges!

Today I have used a couple of the online challenge sites for inspiration. I loved this colour challenge

from The Play Date Cafe, unfortunately it's last weeks one, so I have missed the deadline to enter, but here is what I came up with:

Stamps used: Triple Treat Flower, Posy Punch (hostess set)
Colours Used: Rich Razleberry, Island Indigo, Perfect Plum.
I really enjoyed this colour combo as you can see! I thought I would then move onto the ColourQ challenge this week and I wish I could say I was as enthusiastic about this combination of colours.

It certainly took me out of my comfort zone, which I guess is the whole point. This is what I came up with:

Stamps used: Everything Eleanor, Curly Cute, Springtime Stems.
Not loving it, but I will enter it anyway!
Thanks for stopping by
Hayley

Pat's Stamin Up Party!

Last night was my friend Pat's Stampin Up Party and our good friend Sarah was our demonstartor for the evening. We had a lovely evening of chatting, card making and lemon drizzle cake eating, which was delicious! My evening was made even better by winning  a lovely door prize that Sarah had made.

So we made this lovely little nautical themed birthday card, using the open sea and wood background stamps, the steering wheel (do boats have steering wheels?) was quite tricky, but very effective once on the card.

There was much excited chat about the new American catalogues and the hope of us getting a British Christmas mini, so my group is going into saving mode so we can have a money pot at the end of the summer to go mad with!!! But last night we took advantage of the June paper offer! I also ordered a stamp set which I have wanted for so long and last night I finaly gave in to the make a monster set, with 2 boys and halloween round the corner it just had to be done. Now I have to wait for it all to turn up, I am on holiday after today so will be chomping at the bit to get my hands on it all.

Thanks Pat & Sarah for a lovely evening and thanks for stopping by, I may be back this evening with some crafting.

Hayley

Plot Progress

I have no children this morning, which is a rare treat and the sun is shining so I have been pottering on the plot. Although everyone else might, we never tire of taking photo's of the plot. We keep them in albums for each year and we look back on them as a visual diary to see how the plot looked in previous years. Here is what it looked like when we took the first half over!!!!!!! back in 2007

It was bad!!! Little Finn looks tiny up against the brambles. We have gained another plot to the left hand side since.

As I have mentioned in previous posts the weather has held everything back this year, nether the less it is probably the prettiest it has been and it is finally as we want it. I have taken loads of photo's this morning, I won't bore you with all of them, but here are a few of my favorites

Some of you might remember a post from a few weeks ago when I had a friendly little Robin who kept landing next to me whilst I was digging. The last couple of days he has been replaced by the most crazy looking Blackbird, who has been quite happy for me to take snaps of him whilst posing.

Thats it for today, thanks for stopping by.

Hayley

Cute New Home Card

I have had a great day today, for a start the sun was out so thats a bonus straight away, which also meant we were all on the plot all afternoon, mostly weeding (Me and Gary) or getting muddy (Finn and Sam). After de mudding the boys I have had a quiet evening crafting.
My cousin has just moved into her first home with her boyfriend and whilst chatting to my Mum on the phone I realised I didn't have a card to send and new home cards are always ones I forget about, so I set about making a few up. Here is what I came up with:

and of the course the envelopes

Colours:
Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery, Cherry Cobbler, Sahara Sand
Stamps:
French Foliage, Easy Events

Oh no tidy up time arghhhhh!

Thanks for stopping by

Hayley

Fancy Frames

What can I say about the weather? I am not sure how much "homegrown" I am going to cover in my blog this year, this really is the worst summer we have had since we have had our plot. Not only are we battling against very little sunshine or warmth, but loads of rain and high winds and our produce is really suffering for it. Anyway I am going to look on the bright side and where as I am normally picking 10lb  of Strawberry's a day at this time of year and making jars of jam instead I am wrapped up warm making Christmas cards! Joking aside I have managaged to stay clear of Christmas today and instead decided to frame a couple of school photo's of my youngest 3 nieces. These have been pinned to my notice board for ages and I thought they could do with a stampin up make over.

This photo is still in one of those navy cardboard mounts that school photo's always come in. I have simply cut a piece of DSP large enough to be able to fold to the back and cut a top note out of the middle. I have used the label from "Everything Eleanor' and then decorated it with stamps form the "Hope and Strength" set. The "Hope and Strength' set was a must have for me as my initials are HH, my gorgeous niece pictured is called Hope and some of the profits from the set went to Breast Cancer Research, which is also close to my Heart (not to mention the stamps are beautiful). I have then attached 2 small flat magnets to the back so that I can pop it back on the notice board without the aid of fridge magnets on the corners.

This photo of Erin and Nieve wasn't in a frame, so I have mounted it on a top note that I have trimmed to the stitch mark and then mounted that onto some DSP. I then attached the outer frame of the top note and left a small frame of DSP. A few brads, a non SU flower and a little ribbon loop at the top to hang it by. My notice board now looks loads brighter and prettier.

I hope you like my fancy frames, thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave a comment.

Hayley