Art Calendar - February and March

My pages for my art calendar are coming along, I am still a little behind but catching up bit by bit.

This is february's all filled in with journalling

And March all filled in, sorry I forgot to take photo in progress

I have started Aprils pages but still have some details to finish so I will share them with you when I do have them completed.

As always I must mention that this project is inspired by Kate over at the Kathryn Wheel.

Boxing Clever

Today we had a really fun day making these gorgeous boxes

They belong to June, Jane, Myself, Beryl and Margaret

Jan taught a fun and inspiring class, the boxes originally being biscuit boxes.

This is mine.

I can't thank Jan enough for her unlimited patience and her gorgeous class, thankyou Jan.

I received this beautifully embroidered bag this week from Joan, thankyou so much.

The detailing is gorgeous, she made the whole thing herself and it is beautifully lined with pockets etc inside.

Before I disappear for the night I have one last creative exploit to share.

This is a little organiser Beryl shared with the tuesday afternoon girls recently. Beryls was made in bright primary colours, we all chose different styles, mine was intended for Amy so I went with the black (still her favourite colour)

This is the little matching notebook which tucks inside one of the folders.

From the top you can see we made folders, spaced with little beads, to hold papers etc, there is also a little holder for a pen too

And that's it for me tonight.

I will be back tomorrow with a catch up on the class cards from the last couple of weeks.

ATC swaps and Easter treats

I can't believe it is a whole week since I last blogged. 

I hope you all had a lovely Easter.

Ours was  a hard one this year as Easter Sunday fell on my Grandads birthday, the funeral isn't until Monday and we all still feel rather empty and very sad.

With that said, I did make an effort to resume a little normality for the childrens sakes and created these fun little baskets full of treats. The basic basket shape was one YeeTing showed us in a recent class, I changed up the decoration a little.

I filled each one with the recipients favourite goodies

I added a little ribbon on the handles and a bow at the back

Mum and dad came for the day on sunday and I did my best to stuff everyones bellies. We started out with a full roast and all the delish trimmings, had pudding and then set about a game of charades, much silliness ensued ! We then completed the obligatory egg hunt. With 70 eggs to find, it did keep the kids quiet for a fair while ( although I have a sneaky suspicion that dad enjoyed hiding them as much as the kids did finding them) After a brief rest we did our best to demolish the buffet I had prepared for tea.

March saw the theme of 'Woman' for the Running With Scissors atc swap

Here are the ATC's I made

I stamped out the images, coloured them with polychromos pencils, die cut them into ovals and then used the cracked glass technique with embossing powders.

Here is a selection of the gorgeous ATC's we received, so many beautiful variations on the theme

We had two new players again this month, so welcome to both Carole and Beth, thanks for playing girls.

And the winner this month was Beth, here are the ATC's Beth made

Each one was totally individual. I loved the spring like colours and layering so the prize below is winging its way to you Beth - congratulations !

Please email me or message me on the forum to submit your chosen theme for August Beth, you can nominate a colour too.

I will be back later in the week with an update on the last couple of weeks card classes and a list of the upcoming months ATC themes

We have a winner

 I found some images today on my camera that I have not yet uploaded to my blog.

Here are the first two of a couple of projects I have been working on recently, these are the little accordian fold cards I made my mum and Neil's mum for mothers day last month.

First up - my mums version

And a similar version for Neil's mum

Thankyou to everyone who took part in the IACW Spring Blog Hop, us girls had a blast - I hope you all did too.

I used a random number generator to choose the winner

The winner of my prize goes to number 14 on my comments list and that means Jim Jams you are the winner, congratulations honey, email me with your postal address and I will get your little prize in the post to you.

Thankyou to everyone who took part and made the hop a lovely fun start to Spring.

On a personal note, thankyou to everyone who has taken the time to send myself and my family messages of condolence, your kindness is truly appreciated and will never be forgotten xxx

God Bless Grandad

This is a personal and non-crafty post, so please feel free to skip if you are looking for creative inspiration today xxx

I lost my beloved grandad yesterday.

Grandad fell asleep just after lunch time holding the hands of my mum and dad.

Dear Grandad

Grandad I will miss you every single day

I will miss your oversized hands, the ones that taught me to fish, to play dominoes and cards, they built scaffolding dens in the garden, hid sweets and soothed scrapes

I will miss that cheeky smile, that heralded your tall stories and adventures. The smile that always lit up a room when we walked in to see you, the smile that you saved when we were disobeying Nanny and staying up late or chomping illicit wine gums.

I will miss that twinkle in your blue eyes when you helped us get into mischief and helped talk our way out of trouble, the same twinkle appeared when you let me sip your beer, stay up after the news to watch the cowboys when we had both been sent to bed, and when we ate more brambles than we brought home for the pies Nanny used to make.

And I will miss your huge heart, full of love and patience, you spent hours teaching us to swim and dive, you taught us to love camping and outdoor fun and never gave up.

You taught me so much grandad, about life and family ( cowboys and indians too!!!)

You will always be in my heart and have filled my head with so many happy childhood memories.

You were never one for saying good bye and always preferred to say God Bless

So, God Bless Grandad - I love you with all my heart xxx