A bow for christmas

Good evening

I am back tonight with this weeks christmas card which I made yesterday afternoon

I used the Stampin' Up envelope board punch to create the bow

Thankyou so much to Linda for bringing in the instructions and giving us tuesday afternoon girls an impromptu class on lots of uses for the envelope board punch ( I think it is my current favourite tool)

Love and paper bows

Tracey 

xxx

Treasure trove class and GF cupcakes

We are holding the Treasure Trove class this coming saturday at the shop, all the details can be found HERE on the shop blog

Here is the treasure trove Jan made for me for my birthday, she will be teaching a version of this on saturday - you will be able to chose your own colours and style of embellishment

 In between glossing the radiators I squeezed in a little baking for the boys yesterday

Here is my latest gluten free endeavour

And they were the lightest, fluffiest cupcakes I have ever made so it will be gluten free from here on in

Here is the recipe for anyone who is interested

5 oz gluten free all purpose flour ( I used Glutafin White mix)

1 tsp gluten free baking powder ( I used Barkat)

4oz butter ( not margarine ! it doesn't work as well)

4oz sugar

2 medium eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

Icing for the topping, I made my own simply with icing sugar and water

Eggs and butter should be at room temperature, oven set to GM3/170degC/160degC fan/325degF

Cream butter and sugar

Beat in eggs and vanilla essence

Add sieved flour and baking powder ( I added half and beat til smooth and then folded the rest in gently mixing)

This mix makes 12 large cupcakes, bake for 10-15mins, keep your eye on them , mine came out after 13mins

Love and frosting

Tracey

xxx

Saturday night catch up

Hello all

What a week !

Totally exhausted this week, we had the extra cuttlebug classes at the shop and dad is still on his jollies,  I am decorating the whole of the bungalow, I think I could do with a lie in, might pop that on my never ending to do list !

We said goodbye to one of our class members at the shop this week

Inga-Lill is leaving us to go back to her homeland - Sweden, this is the card I made on behalf of the whole class

It is an 8in x 8in scalloped easel

Stamps are by Stampin' Up and Stampendous

Dies are Stampendous

Papers Melissa Frances and Magenta

Flowers are by Prima and Wild Orchid crafts

Pearls are Mark Richards

We will all miss Inga-Lill very much, she is such a lovely person and has such a fabulous sense of humour. She has even already given me my Christmas present as she won't be here to hand it to me in person - how sweet is that !

Good luck in your new home Inga-Lill, we all wish you all the very best

A few thankyou's this evening too, two great big fat thankyou's to my lovely friends Anita and Margaret who have both been helping me in the shop whilst dad is away

Thankyou to Jan who helped with the drinks on friday afternoon

Thankyou to Joan for the scrummy cakes for Inga-Lill's leaving and to her hubby Alan too for the rather lovely and large jar of chutney

And to June and Robbie who both brought in bickies and flapjacks for the classes to share

Thankyou to my afternoon Cuttlebuggers for helping me clean up after class

And also to Pat and Beryl who both slip quietly into the kitchen and do the washing up

Thankyou to everyone who has asked about Amy, AJ and Neil, it is so heartwarming to know so many people care 

Amy is doing much better, she has her pot off now and only has to wear her boot for long walks, she isn't in much pain at all now and has also had good news from student finance, they had made a massive mistake with her funding but it has all been rectified now and she will be receiving the missing funds in the next couple of weeks

AJ is doing brilliantly with his new diet, being very sensible and using his Coeliac app on his phone to make sure he is eating all the right stuff, he is starting to put on a little bit of weight, has had no headaches for over two weeks, he is eating enough to sink a small battleship! Great to see a little colour in his cheeks and a spring in his step

Not so good news for Neil, he has been signed of work for a further three weeks, his series of injections in his scapula and facet joints did not work, he is in as much pain as before but the Tramadol he was prescribed did not agree with him. He is now back on codeine based pain relief as his only other option is opiates which is a road we are reluctant to travel. The vertigo is still with him so movement on any level is utter torture for him, he can't do anything without the sickness and nausea, any advice from fellow sufferers would be very gratefully received.

With all that said I have had a very productive week craftwise so there will be some little nuggets of inspiration to share over the next few days

Happy weekend to all my lovely readers

Love and farewell wishes

Tracey 

xxx

Monday night round up

Good evening

I have a real mixed bag of an update to share tonight

First up is this weeks class card, I had been asked by a few class members to repeat this, as the only other one I have created like this in class was a christmas version, so I fashioned this one with a view to making it suitable for all manner of occasions ( bearing in mind that Mothers day is also just around the corner)

On friday we had a very special little guest in the shop and she was a little angel all afternoon, Carine April Foster came to visit, she brought along her lovely mummy Nicki too, thanks girls you made my day

On Saturday we held our Stampin' Up demo and make and take day, there are many more photos and details of the day HERE on the shop blog

Thankyou so much to Linda for all her hard work and inspiration and especially her patience, it was a busy day and Linda made sure everyone got make to make what they wanted

AJ got more happy mail this week in the shape of another massive hamper of gluten free goodies, this time from Glutafin

After Saturdays super busy make and take day I treat the boys to homemade ribs and pizza, the ribs were bought from the local butcher (Birketts) and the very kindly ( if a little cheeky) butcher kindly offered to seal them in bags with my own gluten free sauce

I dropped the sauce into the butchers in the morning and he added the ribs and vacuum sealed them for me to boil and then roast at home and they were delish !!!

If anyone is interested in the gluten free recipe for the sauce, this is how I made it

1 full bottle of Heinz classic BBQ sauce

Bunch of spring onions

Half a dozen small chopped pickled red chilli peppers (Pickled in spirit vinegar not malt)

4 cloves garlic

The ribs are marinated in the sauce and then brushed with it during roasting to maintain their succulence

The pizza was easy, we used the gluten free pizza bases from Juvela, adding homemade garlic butter and lashing of grated cheese

Finally I will leave you with a photo of the flowers Linda and Paul bought me - aren't they gorgeous and happy looking ! and not orange (thankyou Paul lol)

What a wonderful week, very full and busy but one with lots of little happy happenings

Love and happy wishes

Tracey 

xxx

Festive friday

Good evening

I am catching up a little with my christmas card for this week, I did have it made for my self set tuesday night deadline so no forfeits this week ( insert evil laugh here)

I used mainly scraps left over from other projects

Papers - Bo Bunny

Butterfly dies - Stampin' Up

Sentiment stamp - Stampin' Up

Ribbon  - DCWV

Pearls - Mark Richards

Punches - Stampin' Up

Embossing folder - Cuttlebug

A quick reminder 

Tomorrow is make and take day at the shop with the very lovely Linda demonstrating with some gorgeous Stampin' Up products

Everyone is welcome

Each item is just £1.00 each to make and you are welcome to make as many as you like

So come down and have some fun, we will be making and taking from 11am til 3pm

See you there

Love and butterflies

Tracey

xxx

New York, New York

Good evening

 I was recently asked to make a document wallet for a lovely young man to give to his girlfriend containing tickets to New York, he had been disappointed when he picked them up to see they were just computer printouts, so he wanted something to pretty them up a little

The whole thing was a surprise for the girlfriend - how romantic - awwwww

As there was quite a lot of documentation I made a 3D wallet with a little depth to contain all the sheets of paper, I created the basic shape from a single sheet of Tim Holtz kraft 12 x 12in patterned paper and then created a fancy belly band to wrap around and keep safe those tickets

It was a real pleasure to make these for such a lovely couple

Love and romance

Tracey xxx

Saturday night catch up

Good evening

Another special 'card' to share this evening

This time I wanted something a little different for my lovely friend Jan, who celebrated a milestone birthday this week

So, rather than a normal card I decorated a large chipboard tag

The chipboard tag and fancy die cut are both by Aspire Crafts

the flower spray is Prima

Special thoughts stamp is by Inkadinkadoo

And the back of the tag, where I added a couple of smaller tags, one for the sentiment which is a Stampendous rubber stamp and the other was for me to write my birthday message on 

Jan is such a generous person and does a lot to help the other ladies both on my wednesday morning class and in the crop on a friday afternoon, she has the patience of a saint and is always happy to demonstrate and share techniques which is one of the reasons I invited her to be on our design team. So, keep your eye out on the shop blog for some of Jan's stunning creations, she will also be teaching a regular saturday workshop, I personally can't wait for them to start - more details regarding those coming soon

You can see Jan's work HERE on her blog

I also have a scrapbook page to share tonight, I taught this one this week in our regular scrapbooking class and it also fits the challenge 'take three things' which we have running over on the Running With Scissors shop blog HERE

We have been receiving lots of lovely happy mail for AJ this week. When we were given AJ's Coeliacs help and information pack, it contained lots of manufacturers cards and we were advised to fill them in and send them off, Neil dutifully completed them all and we have been receiving sample packs ever since

They always contain full size and full quantity samples, no titchy little packets, but this one from Juvela really did shock us

All this for free, for AJ to sample their range of gluten free products

Very, very generous and much appreciated, so - thankyou Juvela !

Also three lovely friends from the shop also brought yummy treats for the family

The purple sprouting broccoli was from June who had grown and then picked it especially for us from her allotment this week

The utterly delish Victoria sandwich was a very thoughtful gift for AJ from Wendy and her mum Pat ( AJ says thankyou )

And finally the homemade chutney is from the ever lovely Alan and Joan, I don't think I will be sharing this as it is sooooooooo tasty, I keep trying to find new things to put a dollop on !

Amy is home from uni again as she had an appointment to review her foot at the local hospital, thankfully she has healed incredibly quickly and all her swelling has gone down. The done doctor decided another full pot was not necessary so now she just has a plastic boot for the next three weeks, so much easier for her

Her boyfriend Ben is home too, he has been an angel as usual and been there for Amy through all of this drama, just like he was when she was mugged

He baked and sent us cookies ( I am beginning to think she has found the perfect boyfriend - but shhhhh let's keep it to ourselves,  I don't want to jinx anything)

These were the nicest cookies I have tasted in a long time and trust me I have tried just about every cookie on the planet, so - thankyou Ben xxx

 Ann - thankyou for the box of eggs, far better than free range, farm reared or Tesco's finest

And yes ! There are still six in the box, I am going to treat myself to one a week if the scales show I have been a good girl for the rest of the week

What a lovely caring and sharing week it has been. I did get one other little gift too, it was a cute project from one of my class ladies Ann C but I will share that another day as I want to post a photo as evidence that I did indeed finish it (it is still a work in progress at present)

So I will end the post with a massive THANKYOU to each and every one of those people who made me smile this week

Love and thanks

Tracey

xxx

Flowers for a friend

Good evening

What a lovely day it has been today, the sun came out in the afternoon and chased those rainclouds away

I spent the day as always in the shop scrapbooking and cropping with my ladies

Lots of laughs as always

Tonight I have a card I recently made for my lovely friend Margaret, she is a rare and lovely friend who ALWAYS puts everyone else before herself, and, anyone who knows her will agree

This was one of those 'just because' type of cards - just because - I love her !

The papers are Papermania, the flowers were made from the Sizzix dogwood die

Before anyone worries  - Margaret is ok, the 'thinking of you' sentiment was because she has recently had a lot on her mind,  I just wanted to send a hug that would last and to let her know how much we all care about her,  all is well now

See you tomorrow with a round up of this weeks news and some more creative endeavours

Love and friendship

Tracey 

xxx

Footprints

Good evening

This card was made for one of my very special ladies at the shop who is a truly wonderful friend.

Trish recently celebrated a milestone birthday, in fact she is still celebrating this week as her family had arranged for her to be pampered at a health spa

Trish has been one of my ladies for the whole time I have had the shop and is always one of the first to offer help, not just to me but to others too, she is kind and funny and genuine so I am not surprised she has been spoilt on her birthday - she totally and utterly deserves it.

The sentiment on this card is one of my all time favourites and in this case is very apt as Trish will always have a special place in my heart

Much love and thanks to you Trish, I hope you have had a lovely, restful pampering this week

Love and footprints

Tracey

xxx

Turkey and tinsel tuesday

This weeks christmas card

I used papers left over from a class and some die cut snowflakes, a Hero Arts sentiment stamp and a little bling, easy peasy this week

Why not have two celebrations mentioned in one post, so, following on from Christmas I am posting my first ever gluten free pancake for Shrove Tuesday

Pancake day might not be a big thing in many households but in mine I can tell you it's rather a big deal ( so much so that number one son and hubby both felt the need to remind me that tonight was the night and not to forget the pancake ingredients on my way home).

I think I had only been in the door two minutes and the 'p' word was mentioned at least three times

Gluten free flour may pose a little of a problem with baking bread, cakes and pastries but honestly these were so yummy, after my resounding success with yorkshire puddings I can at least rest assured that the batter side of cooking has been mastered. We all had the same rather than trying to cope with two hot pans and simultaneous flipping and we all concurred that they were delicious, so much so that I have been coerced into making them for breakfast on Sunday as a treat.

I used :

200g of Doves Farm gluten/wheat free plain flour

2 large eggs

500ml semi-skimmed milk

And then cooked exactly the same as I would do regular pancakes

Love and christmas wishes on shrove tuesday

Tracey 

xxx

Sunday night round up

Good evening

It has been a super busy couple of weeks and I have had lots of cards and projects to sink my teeth into

I have a very eclectic mix of photos to share this evening

First up is the card I made for Robbie ( one of my lovely customers not my son)

Robbie recently celebrated a milestone birthday and she loves all shades of purple

This is the card in a box I made for my gorgeous niece Katie who has just celebrated her 16th birthday

And then a very basic looking design but one AJ loves so much it is still up next to his computer in his bedroom, he is Minecraft mad at the moment, Minecraft is a pc game that is made up of blocks, hence the design and the green critter you can see is a creeper

I have more cards to share but will save them for another day.

In other - non crafting news

I have been experimenting with our gluten free cooking

So far, the best recipe I have tried is the one for yorkshire puddings, I replaced regular flour with a mix of cornflour and gluten free plain flour

Light fluffy and a little crispy, these were even better than regular yorkie puds and got a thumbs up from everyone

I tried bread too but so far have had mixed results with texture being a little bit of a problem, it is notoriously awkward so I will be tweaking the recipe until I get a lighter and more open texture.

AJ has started to show signs of feeling a little better, he has a little bit of colour to his cheeks, his skin doesn't look quite so sallow, he has only had two days where medication was required for his headaches, whereas they were almost a daily occurrence and his appetite is slowly becoming more normal, his nausea after eating is also lessening so we are delighted that his diet is working as it should.

We all received good news this week too, the rest of the family are clear and not suffering from Coeliacs disease - our blood tests were all negative.

Finally I have one last photo to share

Iris-  one of my tuesday morning ladies - bought me an amaryllis for Christmas and for once I have actually managed to keep a houseplant alive

Isn't it gorgeous, nestled next to it, is a miniature rose bought for my birthday by one of my wednesday morning ladies - Joan, they look so pretty together on my kitchen table

So, thankyou very much to both Iris and Joan for my lovely gifts, they really bring a lot of cheer to my kitchen ( and they perfectly match my pink Ikea seat pads !)

Love and luscious blooms

Tracey

xxx