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

My First Christmas Card of 2012!

Sorry I know it is supposed to be June, but it feels more like October! I really wanted to have a go at the colourQ  challenge this week and my new dies lent them so well to a Christmas tree, so I just couldn't help myself. So here are the colours for this weeks challenge

And here is the card I came up with

I think everyone has made fathers day cards, but I always like to be different! Now all I have to do is try to link it to the site, I have never done one of these challenges before and looking at the instructions I think the biggest test is actually loading it on, but here goes!


Thanks for stopping by

Hayley

Fathers Day Cards

This evening I have been a busy bee making fathers day cards, both for my Dad and for my boy's to give to Gary. I am definately making good use of my new Papermania "Dad" stamp at the moment.

This is my Dad's card, it needs to go in the post tomorrow!!!!

And one each for my boy's to give.

My new scallop pennants dies arrived today and so I just had to squeeze them into the designs, I can't wait to experiment with the 2 larger dies, I am going to have to make some bunting I think.

Hope you like them, thanks for stopping by.

Hayley

Cake as Promised!

Well as promised here is a pic of my sister holding my dad's birthday cake that she made. It really was as gorgeous as it looks.

She is getting rather good! I am glad there is a stretch of water between us, otherwise I would fear for my waistline!

And yes we do look very alike and no we are not twins!!!!



So what have I been making? You may remember a couple of weeks ago I made this cute owl box to store some of my cards in.

Well I couldn't resist having ago at another:

It's a really simple design, but I am pleased with it and I love the flower, this was my first attempt at one. Again the inside is segmented to hold a varied size of card. I have a feeling this will not be the last box you see on my blog, I have really enjoyed making them both.

From homemade to homegrown, I just have to share the most gorgeous spray of Pink Peony's that I cut from the garden. They were beaten to the floor in all the wind and rain, so I bought them in. They looked sooooo perfect they didn't look real. I had never noticed how fragrant Peony's, they made the house smell lovely. I will definately be making space for some more peony's so I can cut them again in the future and I am really glad that I took the time and space to plant around 200 iris and gladioli bulbs around the allotment, some plot holders thing this is a waste, they obviously haven't seen the price of cut flowers in the shops and I adore having flowers in doors.

Aren't they beautiful!

Thanks for stopping by

Hayley

Hello!

Hi Everyone, I have been sooo busy over half term that I haven't had time to post, so here is a little update.

My Niece Amber came to stay and it was lovely to spend an evening crafting with her. I bought her some card making stuff for Christmas and so she had a field day using the Cuttlebug, dies and embossing folders and getting a little stash together to take home, she also made herself a little note pad for school. I have a feeling a Cuttlebug will be on the Christmas list this year and I may have got her hooked on Stampin Up at the age of 12, she is destined to be poor!

Despite the horrendous weather we had on the island at the end of last week and a lot of disruption to the ferry services we did manage to get home for my Dad's 50th Birthday celebrations. We had a lovely weekend catching up with all the family and the boy's had a great half term spending time with their cousins.

Whist I do the cards and decorations for celebrations, my sister manages the cake department and she done a fab job at the weekend, making a stonker of a chocolate malteser cake for Dad as well as  some gorg gluten free cup cakes for my youngest Sam (parties are a bit of a nightmare when catering for a coeliac). I will share some photos, but it will have to be tomorrow as I can't find the camera lead at the moment!

For that reason I am going to share some cards from a couple of weeks ago that I haven't posted yet.

These cute little "for you" cards are made yet again with the sale a bration papers, but I am not going to apologise for it because I still love them! I have also used the "Apothecary Art" stamps set, this is actually the smallest one, my group have just bought the framelit dies to go with them, but It wasn't my turn to have them, so I cut these out easy enough with my snips. I was taught the patchwork background technique by Sarah at a workshop some time ago and often use it to make use of off cuts and scraps. Sarah is now demonstrating again after having gorgeous baby Summer last month and the countdown has begun for her first party, after her break, next Wednesday at my friend Pat's house! Can't wait to see what we will be making. (I may sneak my camera and take a pic of us all)

Anyway got to go, hope you like the cards, feel free to leave a comment.

Thanks for stopping by

Hayley

Finley & The Frog

As promised here is an update on the plot, ready for lots of photo's!
This year everything is slow at growing normally we are struggling to walk along the paths in June, but as you can see in some of the  photo's not this year. Finley has been very helpful with his new fork and spade and helped me put the main crop spuds in. We came across our first frog of the summer, we normally give them a little health check before we put them somewhere safe, they usually have leaches stuck to them, this one was covered, me and Finn managed to get a few off, but then got a bit worried they were going to attach to us, urghhh. So we took a quick photo of him playing dead in Finns hand and then popped him safely in the rhubarb.

Please excuse the way the boys dress on the allotment, they are not scruffy all of the time just most of it and both live in wellies!

On the plot we try and leave tree stumps and natural objects to attract wildlife the boys love looking under them to see what they can find.

 At the back of the plot we have sown grass seed this is going to be the boys area to play, we have a lovely mini bench to go between the tress and they have made some pretty ribbons to hang from the trees.

As the grass thinkens up I will be adding more things to make this area nice for the boys. Ok her are just a few general pics.

Earlies, Squashes, Sweet Peas, Strawberries and Small Fruit Bushes.

Main Crop Spuds, Purple Sprouting Broccolli, Sprouts (they are diddy and under the net)

Garlic, Onions and Leeks

Sweetcorn, Peas, Cougettes, Runner Beans, Bollotti Beans

We are finally picking a few strawberries

The Peas are in flower

As are the beans

Thanks for stopping by, the weather doesn't look great today and no work tomorrow so I feel a late crafting session coming on!

Hx

Masculine Cards

The weather is still fair here at the moment, but rain is due tonight so I have been busy on the plot trying to get everything in the beds before they get too leggy. I will be back later with progress photo's, but first I wanted to share some Masculine Cards that I have made. I usually struggly with cards for the other sex as my stash is all girlie, so I am quite chuffed with these.

This one is for my Dad's 50th next week, but I guess that was obvious! I love my new wood embossing folder, it comes out so lovely.

I made a couple of these little pirate cards, so that I have spares. I still adore the pirate set, we have it our stamp share library and I think we have all had loads of use out of it.

Sorry the light isn't great in these pics, these are just so simple, but I really liked them, the stamps aren't SU! but do still print nicely. I am not going to list all the products I have used on these cards, just drop me  a line if you have  any questions.

Thanks for stopping by, pop back later for an allotment update.

Hx