Flowers, friends and a new floor

Oh what a beautiful day today has been, I hope you are all enjoying the warming rays of the sun as much as I am. I arrived at the shop today to begin the refit and was welcomed by this gorgeous bunch of lush tulips - what a beautiful start to the day. Thankyou June, they are so pretty and cheering up my fireplace at home as I type this.

The tulips make me want to paint,

Something about the way they drop

Their petals on the tabletop

And do not wilt so much as faint.

A E Stallings

First up today I have my mum's mothers day 'card'

Anita came round on one of our recent craft days and gave me these shaped chipboards to make something with, and this is what I created. ( Thanks Anita)

The flower is one I made from a multitude of layers of tissue paper.

Within the covers I created six little pockets to house my tags

I kept the tags simple with some quotes about mums, writing my own mothers day greeting on the back of the first one. And as the finished creation was an odd shape I made a co-ordinating box to present it in.

This next card is one I made for my dear friend Margaret. I used the same range of papers I had used for mums card. The card was for a special birthday (21 + VAT). Margaret has become know as my other mum, she keeps her eye on me and looks out for me when my own mum is not there to keep me on the straight and narrow. In fact since having the shop I have inherited three extra 'mums', Margaret, Bonnie and Rose who have all taken me under their wing.

There are two extra pages, meaning additional space for some special words.

The final page, the friends Stamp is one by Stampin' Up. As is the flourish around all the edges of the nesties, I used Weathered Wood Distress ink for all the inking and stamping.

And the gang at yesterdays celebration, we all met for lunch and laughs, the photo shows ( left to right ) Margaret and her lovely friend Janet, My mum and Dad, Nicki and Anita. Chrissie was there also but had to leave a little earlier than the rest of us. It really was a lovely day, we all laughed so much we went home with aching ribs , there was lots of fun and frivolity and the usual amount of banter and teasing.

Brian turned up at tea time to whisk Margaret off to the second part of her days celebrations, I managed to snap this photo just before we left for home, I love the way they are both looking at each other.

Finally a little shop update, this was the lovely supersmooth and level floor after the screed went down at the end of last week. The floor covering started going down today, gorgeous Camaro tiling, it is looking fantastic already - can't wait to see it finished. We began preparation for the painting and refit of the shop fittings so hopefully with a bit of hard work we should be open again in about a weeks time (fingers crossed) Class dates will be announced as soon as I have all the new stock in place.

Happy Mothers Day

Warning - very long photo heavy post

Once again I am playing catch up, just can't seem to get into the old blogging routine I used to have and a week has sped by without any posts

I made this little plaque earlier in the week, you can see how it started out a couple of photos down

I covered it in white card, sanded and inked and then threw a mass of flowers onto it, added liquid pearls for the centres, added some punched hearts round the back to create a fancy frame and finished with a computer generated sentiment. As the shape was bought for me by my friend Margaret and the ribbon was a gift from Anita, it seemed fitting to use a friendship quote to finish the piece off.

Here it is in unaltered form.

I also challenged myself to use the free scrapbooking papers in this months Scrapbook magazine.

I made my own background for the first one, using distress inks and a dotty stamp and then aging the edges with ink.

The photo is 10 years old and was taken at a zoo in Southport, Amy was doing a lions roar which turned out really cute and funny hence the title 'rarrrrr'.

I didn't have a digital copy of the photo and it had been cut down to fit an old album ( pre scrapbooking mistake !!!!!!!)

The background before adding the free papers, I used Victorian Velvet and Bundled Sage Distress inks for the spots and Frayed Burlap for the edges.

This second page is again using old photos that had been taken without much care and attention and had been cropped just as sloppily, so I used three on one page as one looked a little lost all by itself.

The photos were quite garish ( all the fun of the fair !!!!) so I didn't add too much in the way of clutter, I added stitching instead and kept plenty of white in the page to balance it all out. Second layout in a week that hasn't contained flowers !!!!!! That must be a record for me.

And these are the A4 freebie papers I was working with, not bad two pages that only cost me two sheets of cardstock and some bits and bobs from my stash !

Anita came for the day on friday, we didn't really have a crafting agenda, so we kind of drifted into making flowers.

These were made from tissue paper, we used the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die to cut them out and then layered lots and lots together - attaching all the layers with a brad.

Lots of lovely dimension and each one turned out slightly different.

And a different kind of flower following a tutorial on you tube

Pansies using the Stampin' Up butterfly punch

Finally, it has been the best and worst Mothers Day ever, for reasons that are far too long and involved to write here. The important thing is that all turned out well in the end. Quite fittingly one of my gifts this year from the children ( helped of course by daddy)was a gorgeous gemmed heart for my new Thomas Sabo charm bracelet, so I carry my childrens heart on my wrist as well as in my own heart.

Thankyou Neil, Amy, Robbie and AJ, love you all so much xxx

Also thankyou to every single person who was by my side last night, in spirit if not in person and for those also who gave up their night to help. Especially Neil and mum and dad also Amy who showed an amazing amount of maturity and composure. And to the Police, who often get bad press and a lot of stick but last night proved they are worth their weight in gold.

Happy Mothers Day to all you mums ( especially my own special one), do me a favour and hug your babies extra tight tonight, no matter how big or small they may be - I will be !