WOW!!! Today has been great!!!

It started off with a lot of pain and also making a frustrating phone call to the post office to track down lost parcels!

Nigel, the delivery man brought them later on and there was 4 parcels!!! here are the contents

















Special Edition Chocolate swap from Y Are Crafty

























Community Chest - stash swap from silvercustard












Alun received his mascot today which was sent by lacemaker aka Daphne (the cute spotty dog!) and the lovely lady also enclosed an ATC folder/holder with a beautiful ATC in it for me, which i have added the ATC that silvercustard sent me and the twilight one i received last week from my friend on uks, Lee. I received my mascot on Saturday from Meg Baby ( a beautiful snowy owl that now has pride of place on the shelf above my desk!)



































Then I opened the last parcel addressed to me and in it was this gorgeous birthday book (each page/monthly pocket has a birthday card ready to be used!) from my friend Alison aka Alibri, it reduced me to tears, on a day when I woke feeling pretty rotten to have people send me all these lovely things, well it fair cheers you up!
































So Thank you to all of you lovely ladies xxx L

A visit to my sister and a day of haircuts....

On thursday we all piled into my car and drove to see my sister and her dh for a lovely lunch and an oppurtunity for tessa to show her aunt and uncle her new guitar












Then my sister brought out a chocolate cake with candles on, she has been unwell lately so was unable to come over for Ethan and Tessa's birthday teas but hates to miss any of their birthdays so decided to get a cake for them!












The kids played Jenga for a while then we realised it was gone 7pm so decided to head home back down the motorway...












The sat-nav sent us around the houses again but we managed a few nice shots of the sunset but not as good as i had hoped... blasted pylons and wires!!!








Also my sister gave me some ribbons, lace and buttons that she had found when clearing out my parents bungalow so i have something from my mum at least that i can call a legacy












Then on Sunday, I decided the hair had to come off!!! the boys were starting to look like ageing rockstars or scarecrows! And Alun needed his sideys trimmed too!






































































































I also cut off at least 3 inches from Tessa's hair and straightened her wayward fringe which she informs me, she is growing out! so here's a pic of all 4 new haircuts and what do i get???? a doll and a drum and kick up the bum!!! thats what i get!








And finally for all you true blood fans, here's a pic of 'My Bill!' and the original 'Bill'

swaps....

Today I've been making top hats and ball and chains! what for I hear you ask? well on uks we are coming up to a cyber crop and the current theme is monopoly! I made accessories for my swap and also Aluns too! The top hat is made from felt and is stuffed so it is firm(ish) and the ball and chain is a polystyrene ball, gesso'd and then painted silver, then I screwed in a curtain hoop thingy and attached a chain to it then made a loop and put around the soft toys left ankle!

The cream bear is for a lady called Dee















The pink bunny is for a lady called Gemma and also has a few tricks if Gemma squeezes its left paw!















I received the chipboard house in the post today too.... looks ok but I thought it would be bigger!

I'm waiting for 6 more things to arrive in the post that various people have told me to expect but I'm still waiting (cue Diana Ross!)

ATC!

Yesterday I faffed and played about with the idea of ATC's, i signed up for the monopoly ATC swap! (bit daft as i've never done one before in my life but must have had an inkling a while back i as found some v.good quality white chipboard ATC sized!)

So I painted on the Gesso to cover it then once dry I painted on Cranberry dabber followed by gold dabber distressed it a bit then another coat of each then loads and loads of UTEE (dipped at least 4 times!) then stamped the word LOVE into the warm UTEE and a 7gypsies winged heart too then rubbed gold over the LOVE word and red glittery stickles over the winged heart shape then out of grunge paper i die-cut a heart and inked it(with alcohol inks) then covered it in crackle glaze and waited for it to dry, i decided i wanted a bit of movement, so added a heart-shaped charm with so red embroidery floss to the card and when the crackle glaze finally dried (6 hours later!) i stuck it on to the ATC and wrote some info on the back, as is required!

Tell me what you think! this has an edition of 1 so it is truly unique!

The whole ATC(couldn't decide which was the best pic, so i uploaded both!)



































Close up of the top half (stamped and glittered wings, have to say still doesn't look as good as it does IRL!)
















Close up of the bottom half (grunge heart, inked and crackle glaze) with charm and LOVE stamped in the UTEE.

10 today!

Today is Tessa's 10th birthday so she got to chose what to do today.... first she had some guitar playing lessons and RJ brought her a present of some earrings! Then we had lunch and she wanted to go to the lakegrounds and spend some time there, then after we went to kfc for dinner followed by chocolate cake!!!

Now as i blog she has just sat and eaten the last 4 pieces of kfc chicken and watched True Blood!!!

It was the worst of times, it was the best of times!

Today Alun decided he was going to take Tessa to the music shop in Weston to buy her her birthday present! prior to that the kids wanted to have a look at his mandolin... So it was duly carried downstairs and they all had a play with in then in was left standing up against the desk, unfortunately Ethan then walked past it and with the movement of his feet on the floorboards the mandolin fell over and broke!!!.... totally separating the head from the neck!!! Poor Alun when he came up and showed me, he looked like he could have cried! not so much because of the damage but due to the sentimental value of the instrument! It was the first christmas present I ever bought him....












Fast forward a few hours and the music shop had duly lightened Alun's wallet by a goodly sum and I now proudly introduce our new addition to the family 'Peter' after Greenie himself!

















Tessa's 10th birthday present!

















Ethan was given a kazoo by Tom in the music shop for being so good and waiting patiently!

Sleeplessness!

is very frustrating so i have spent the last half hour adopting 2 widget wolves! be kind to them and feed them only once each then tap their heads to make them growl!!!

I may get around to doing the whole wolf-pack yet who knows!!!


ttfn

L x

Happy Easter Day...

Its also my Mother-in-Laws birthday too!

So Happy Birthday Mum, Irene, Granny! all these names you are known by, but i just wanted to say you are a fabulous person and really are a great mother in law and have always been there for us all when we have needed you!

so have a great day and we'll see you very soon xxxxx

And here is a little something especially for her!!!

Here we go again....

its CYBER CROP time and i'm a car, brmm brrmmm brrmmmmmmmm

Just a little lo i threw together today...

The fact that it took me about 6 hours is neither here nor there!!!

The photo's were taken on T's second birthday and we took her up to Noahs Ark Farm for the day, it was lots of fun but the thing that sticks out in my mind was it is always windy and chilly up there!!! Oh and I was 3 months to the day off giving birth to D...