Beekeeping a Bee-ginner's Journey

Morning! For those of you who personally know me or who read my blog regualary, you will know about the new project we are hoping to branch out to next year in the shape of Beekeeping. I thouhgt it would be really nice to document our journey to beekeepers, but thought that "Happiness is Homemade" may burst at the seems if I add another hobby. So I have started another Blog specifically for our bee keeeping antics. You can find the blog here if you would like to follow it. Or I will add a permnent link to the right for future visits.

Thanks for popping by.

Hayley

Holly Berry Bouquet & Dasher Duet

I have the crafting bug at the moment and I am finding so much inspiration from Pinterest, Stumble Upon, In Love with Stamping and of course the new Stampin up brochures that I feel like I am trying to craft cram for the forth coming seasons. I adore summer and being outside on the allotment, but I do always look forward to being cosy indoors with the dining table covered in craft stash! Anyway I am waffling again, here is what I have been working on and I must say I love them (I know that is not very modest, but it is nice when an idea comes together).

I hope you like them as much as I do, feel free to leave a comment and thanks for stopping by. I will hopefully post pics of my Pumpkin collection later in "view from the gate" so pop back if you would like to see how they are all doing.

Hx

Cup Cake Rosette Birthday Card

I can't believe how much Crafting I have got done this week, I keep getting that cosy winter feeling as there is a definately that nip in the air now and I have properly started on the Christmas Card stock. In amongst all the Halloween and Christmas though I did make a birthday card yesterday for my Niece. She is going to be nine so I needed something Girly but a little bit grown up.

This was yet again inspired from a card in the new catalogue on page 51. It is a really simply idea, but I really like it and it didn't take too long to make.

Hope you like it thanks for stopping by.

H

Halloween Rosettes

Although I still haven't got my hands on the new "Googly Gouls" or "Googly Goulies" set, as my Friend Sarah has re named it (now that pictures up an image!) I am satisified as it has been ordered, as an early birthday present from Gary. However Wednesday was our Crazy Crafters night at mine and Sandy who is famous for not only owning every Stampin Up product, but also bringing them all with her to our gatherings had a "Happy Halloween" stamp in her bag and so I finished off some of my Halloween Rosettes, which is amazing as when we are all together we do very little crafting and lots of messing about, gossiping and eating cake. We did however have an important task this week as we had been saving up our stamp share subs in readiness for the new catalogues and and so we all had to choose one product each and the criteria must be that we all like it, but wouldn't necessarily buy it. No mean feit as we all love a majority of the book and Pat usually takes half an hour to decide what drink she would like let alone a product out of all of those pages. After much debating we all chose a product and will now be waiting for next months meet to try them all out. I chose "Memorable Moments"not my favorite set, but one that I think is good value and will come in handy for anniversary's and big birthdays.
Anyway here are some of the rosettes I have been working on:

I have made these with some plain DSP and the frightful sight papers, which I was quite surprised were still available at a discounted price on the retired list, pop over to Sarah's blog if you wanted to order any.

Thanks for stopping by
Hayley

Crafting Marathon

I have been on a crafting marathon the last couple of days, Quite a lot of it I can't show yet, but I thought I would share a couple of things I have been working on. Firstly a birthday card for one of my cousin's little girls. I struggle a bit with girls, as I mostly have stamps geared up for boy's. However I have improvised with the now retired "Easter Blossoms" Stampin Up stamp set. Although the little girl has a basket of eggs I think she is quite summery so I think I have got away with it???

This isn't my usual style, but I based it loosely on the card on page 53 of the new stampin up book (thanks to my friend Sarah who kindly gave me a copy), I quite like it, but it does look less larey in real life, my flash has made the colours look a little crazy.

Ok any one who knows me well, knows I love HALLOWEEN and I am definately in HALLOWEEN mode. I have lots of projects on the go, but here are a couple that are already finished.

Here are a couple of Mummy holders (for sweets, spiders, pop corn) I have made them from small squash bottles, I have cut the tops off, a bit of glue some bandages and some card eyes and here they are, my husband added the finishing touches of their noses which are white decorative marbles he pinched out of a vase and pushed under their bandages (quite a good idea, but I didn't tell him that). I am going to add to the collection, but it is dependant on the boy's drinking some more squash! I have another project on the go that requires them to drink milk so lets hope they are thirsty! Just need a project now that requires me to drink wine lol.

Finally here is a mini pumpkin wreath I have made by threading scrunched paper onto a wire and finishing off with some leaves and tendrels. I am hoping to decorate a whole tree with decorations like this so I have lots more to make, but it is dependant on me receiving one of the new Stampin Up HALLOWEEN stamp sets for my birthday (but before my birthday, hint, hint Gary), for me to finish some of them!

Thanks for stopping by, feel free to leave me a comment and stop back soon for some more creepy creations!!!

H

Beekeeping At Quarr Abbey

I am very jealous as Gary has been for his beekeeping taster session at Quarr Abbey, before he starts the full course at the beggining of next year. Here are some of the photo's he took  whilst he was there.

Ok, I am no expert, but what I have learnt so far is that these are all worker bees (female) as the drones (males) have all been pushed out of the hive by this time of year as they have done the dirty deed with the queen and are now useless and just slob about the hive wanting to be fed by the girls!!! On this super (the wooden frame) you can see the comb, some of the cells have wax caps, which means there are either eggs, larvae or pupae in them and the others are filled with honey. These bees have just been smoked, which falsely leads them to think there is a fire and instead of fleeing they try to gather their golden treasure (honey) and because they gorg so much on it they become dopey and laid back. I must admit before I started reading about bees I always thought the smoke sent them to sleep!

Gary is not in the picture as he is taking it, but he was wearing a fetching bee suit as well and a pair of yellow marigolds. We were very excited on his return and went to The bee Garden to look at what equipment we were going to need. We are now the proud owners of a smoker, so there is no turning back!!!! With no Bees yet to smoke the boy's went round seeing if it would work on numerous insects including slugs!

Boy's and their toy's!! I feel a new craft coming on, candle making is going to be a must.

Thanks for stopping by

H