My Sweet Pea Cards

I haven't got much time, but here is a little look at some of the projects I made last night. They are all really simple little cards made with the long retired "sweet pea" papers and stamps, I still love the Toucan (?) birds. I have also used the sprinkled expressions set for the 'love you" message.

I felt a little guilty as Gary was frantically painting the hallway all evening whilst I was crafting, but I had a good excuse with my foot!!!

Thanks for stopping by.

Hx

Crafty Wednesday & Putting my feet up!

Wednesday was my crafting evening when a handful of my lovely friends come over to craft. We usually do this once a month and it is a chance to catch up, have a chat, have a glass of wine and eat cake! Our group have been going for about 2 years now and there are 6 of us in total. We all bring our equipment to share with each other and we also pay subs into a stamp share and have a library of stamps that that we share between us, mostly of the more expensive SU! products or those products which you wouldn't use that often if you owned it yourself. We also order packs of papers and card and divide them out between us. In all 5 of us our technically SU! demonstrators, but only Sarah & Sandy are practising and they take it in turns to place the groups orders. All in all it works really well and we have acumilated quite a stash in the last 2 years. I will take a photo of us all next time we are altogether, but this Wednesday we had 2 members missing, Sarah who has just had a baby and Sandy who has just had a puppy! I should now have a photo of what I spent all evening making, however it was sooooo lovely we had the patio doors open and I sat with a cuppa chatting and looking down the garden! So no project to show either.

Wednesday was followed by a lovely weekend with family visiting and more gorgeous weather, what was not so great, is the infection in my foot caused by a small blister which meant I had to sit with my foot up most of the weekend. This may sound good, but I had tones of things to do on the allotment and although it is slightly improved today I shouldn't be walking around on it! I did however manage to take some more gorgeous photo's of saturdays sunset on the plot.

  Hopefully I will be back soon with a mended foot and some projects to share. Thanks for stopping by.

Hx

A Beautiful Evening

Apparently it has been a lovely day today, I spent all of it in an office with no windows, so I have had to take my husbands word for it. However it was very pleasant watering the plot this evening and we got to see a beautiful sunset!

This is taken from the plot looking over Parkhurst Forest, shortly before, I took this one of Carisbrooke Church (as the bells were ringing) through the branches of our plum tree.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hayley

Down On The Plot

Here are a few pics from the plot today.

The purple sprouting had to come out as I needed to dig the bed over, but I felt a little sad as the flowers looked so pretty and the bees were loving it.

This cute little Robin kept landing right next to me, he was only a couple of foot away, but wouldn't stay long enough for me to get a really good shot. Those aren't my weeds by the way!

The weeds at the front aren't mine either! Looking pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Thanks for reading.

Hayley

Sweet Storage Solutions

No allotment news again it has been raining pretty much all day here in Newport again and so I didn't even bother going down the garden. I have been crafting though and wanted to show you something I made this morning.

I'm back! I didn't finish this post last night as my friend came round for a little drink and we got a bit carried away! Where was I?

This was a nice box I already had, I took it apart carefully and then recovered it in some Stampin Up!  papers, I really love the owl paper. I was lucky the inside of the box was already blue and so I didn't bother trying to cover it. I have finished it off with a simple bow, I didn't want too many fancy bits on the lid as it is likely to get bashed about. The sections inside were just simply made with two bits of card slotted in to one another. I am so chuffed with it I am definately going to make some more and now I have somewhere to store my smaller cards so that they do not get all bent up.

Please feel free to leave me a comment, I will be back later with some allotment shots as it has actually stopped raining here today!!!!

Have a good day and thanks for reading

Hayley

A Pumpkin Themed Thank You

Hi, I forgot to show you the other day, a little something I made as a thank you to our pumpkin party host's on Saturday, made with all SU! products and dies. I am really chuffed with how it came out. The pillows are filled with sweets and the little bag, which I may adapt for Halloween, is just the right size to fit one pillow. Hope you like them.

Thanks for reading

Hayley

Cute Baskets

We had a small frost this morning here on the island and my bean leaves have been slightly bitten. I have lots of sun flowers  and squashes in the greenhouse that should be going out, but it is just too windy and cold!!! and other seedlings that just aren't growing like sweetcorn and bedding plants. Look at my strawberries from this time last year

You can just about see red strawberries in amongst all the foliage, the plants are half the size this year and there is no fruit on them at all yet!

So the weather is depressing and I am just too tired to craft this evening, but here is a little basket I made the other day, which is really easy to make if you have the SU! scallop circle die:

 The little butterfly peg isn't part of it, it's just pinning it to my craft board, it's only made out of bits and pieces from my stash, but I thought it was quite sweet. It is really tiny and would have been great for little mini eggs at easter, but would be ok for little sweets and chocolates. I can't take any credit for the design, as I saw it on You Tube, but you can watch the instructions here. I hope you like it.

For those of you who read my post from the other day re the hatching of our earth worm eggs, so far  seven have hatched and they are soooo tiny, now we only have 43 to go! I am going to try and get a picture of our next hatchling before it goes into the wormery and is never seen again.

Thanks for stopping by
Hayley

Pumpkin Party 2012

Well we actually had some lovely sun shine here on the Island this weekend, it was the annual walking festival "Walk the Wight" and there were quite a few pink people at work this morning who obviously didn't apply their cream, but well done to them all.
I had a lovely weekend, not only had the sun finally come out but my friend Sarah had a little baby girl who she has named Summer Rose, Congratulations Sarah, I can't wait to have a cuddle!
This good news was followed by us going to the first of our pumpkin parties of the year. This has become somewhat of a tradition where we go to our lovely friends Mark & Jules who host parties in both May and October. The May evening consists of everyone paying ten pounds and drawing a number out of the hat, the number corresponds to a selection of giant pumpkin and onions plants. In October we all meet back up and do the weigh in when the growers of the largest pumpkin and onion wins the pot of cash. Here are our little beauties:

 Unfortunately we were all a little worse for wear in the mini bus on the way home, I was carefully holding our plants in a carrier bag in the aisle when my friend and fellow competitor fell off her seat and squashed our onions, which is why their leaves are all bent over, I personally think it was an elaborate attempt at sabotage. Anyway we have a nice little spot ready for the pumpkins, with plenty of manure dug in and then they will be fed on compost tea!!! We are hoping to regain our title this year as we are not the reigning champions, but we do hold the record at 124lbs with this monster!

I also done loads of digging and pricking out yesterday and the plot is looking lovely, we are still feasting on purple sprouting broccolli and have started picking rhubarb and asparagus, which is our favorite sprinkled with garlic and chilli and then griddled, delicious! Luckily our neighbor keeps giving us her spare.

Just wanted to finish by sharing this gorgeous view of Samuel running on the downs yesterday. This is looking out over Sandown and Yaverland.

Thanks for reading

Hayley

Baby Worms!!!

Ok, not every post is going to be about worms, I promise, it's just that my boy's happen to really like like worms and this week has been one of a lot of worm activity. Finley likes worms so much that he had a wormery for his birthday, since then we have been nurturing 50 worm eggs, for those of you who have never seen worm eggs here is a pic:

Sorry this is not the best photo in the world but they were quite hard to capture. They are slightly smaller than an apple pip and you can just about see the worm in the egg when you shine a light on them. After several weeks off waiting we had 4 hatch last night and another was pushing it's way out of its egg. We then had to transport the smallest worms in the world into the ready and waiting soil, today we will  be feeding them a granual based food which arrived with them. I will keep you posted on the worm's progress.

We are off to the first of our annual pumpkin party's tonight, I will explain more tomorrow.

Thanks for reading

Hayley

Wellies, Worms & Wall Art

Where did the Sunshine go again today, whilst I didn't venture down to the plot in the awful weather Sam followed his Dad down in his wellies and bought me another present, for those of you who do not like snakes (or lizards without legs) look away now!

He loved this "golden one" so much he was kissing it! it took some time to talk him into to taking it back where it belonged.

With work, shopping and DIY today there was no time for crafting again, however here is a project I made a few weeks ago, which is now hanging in my newly (almost finished) hallway.

I made this again with the sale-a-bration DSP, the daisies and scallop circle die, notice a little bit of a theme of my favourite SU! products. Its finished off using the "hope & strength" and "notably ornate" stamp sets. I had to buy the Hope set as my initials are HH and I think the butterfly is gorg!

Hope you like it.

Sushine and Slow Worms!

As the sun was out today, finally! it was straight down to the plot after the school run, whilst I was trying to get runners in and do a bit of weeding Sam (my youngest) was on his normal mission to find slow worms, which he succeeded in! He either always picks the dopey half dead ones or he is the slow worm whisperer of the isle of wight. He has been making them homes and feeding them slugs and when he goes back sometimes a few days later they are still there, he really seems to charm them.

I didn't take this one today, but here is a picky of my plot taken last week. I am glad it is zoomed out it looks like there are no weeds lol.

As you can see it is still quite sparse due to the lack of Sun, so much for the islands sub tropical climate! My fingers are now crossed that we do not get a frost or the runners will be gonners!

Needless to say there was no time for crafting today, but here is a card I made a couple of days ago, it was Finley's birthday at the end of April and I made a small bundle of these for him to write thanks.

I made this one with all SU! products. "Crumb Cake' and "old Olive" cardstock some of the retired sale-a-bration DSP and the daisies 2 die. The 'thank you' stamp in old olive is from one of the old hostess sets, "because I care", which has the lovely hyrdangia  in it. I am really pleased with these little cards and I am still in love with the daisies die, which as my friend pointed out the other day they are turning into my signature as they end up on a lot of my cards.

See you soon

Hx

Hello and Welcome to my first ever blog!

Hi I am Hayley and very new to blogging! I enjoy looking at other crafters blogs for inpiration and thought I might give it ago. I love crafting and am a little obsessed with stampin up! products as you will see. I hope to post all of my crafty projects here as well news and pictures from my allotment.

This bank holiday weekend has been a bit of a washout with the rain meaning not much has happened on the plot apart from the odd bit of watering and picking. So me and the boys have been doing a little baking and I have been getting ahead with my crafting so that when the gorgeous Summer arrives I can be amongst the veggies.

Here is the first project I wanted to share:

I made this cute little cup cake card using the SU! scallop circle die for the big shot, although I use it in the cuttlebug. I simply cut it out on plain white card and cut it in half. Using the retired "Everyday Enchantment" DSP from the recent sale-a-bration and the scallop border punch I made the cup cake case. The rest of the materials are a miss match from my stash finished off with the cherry's stamped with the retired set "on a pedestal" and the happy birthday stamp from  the "happiest birthday wishes" hostess set, which I received free when I hosted a party for my Stampin Up! demo Sarah. You can view here blog here for tons of inspiration or to place an order, although her first baby is due tomorrow, so she maybe a little pre occupied for the next fews weeks. Good Luck Sarah! Anyway back to the card, I was really happy wth how it turned out, but will be making them entirely from SU! products next time as the colours are not quite as well matched as I would have liked.

These little bags are so cute, I have cut out and embossed the top note and then cut it in half width ways. I then made a template freehand for the bottom of the bag and then cut it out in the "beyond the garden" DSP. I added a little ribbon for the handle and a flower embelishment which I think are really pretty and surprisingly from poundland! Really simply, but perfect for little girls birthday's.

My last card for today is entirely SU! (well almost). the card base is "cajun craze" layered with a little bit of dark brown paper and then "more mustard" DSP. I have used "chocolate chip", the first ever ink pad I bought and still one of my favourites, with the "hopeful thoughts" stamp set and then embellished with leaves and ink splats from the "french foliage" set. I am not a lover of "cajun craze" and got it in a paper share, but actually I am really pleased with how it has come out.

And lastly for today, made with nothing at all from SU! here is the yummy gluten free banana loaf me and the boy's made. It really isn't bad!

Thats it for my first ever blog, thanks for reading ad hopefully see you back again soon.