Crabby Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Ian!

My husband's birthday card... Crabs are in "in joke"! The sand is covered in little mounds of Stickles stardust glitter, which is very effective - but not terribly evident in the photo. The stamped image is watercoloured. The tag used for the "snappy birthday" stamped image was cut using a Big Shot thick cuts tab die using some brown corrugated card torn from an old cardboard box. I thought the sand coloured raffia used on the tag seemed beach-like and a bit like straw.

It wasn't much of a birthday for him, as he was at work today and then continued the epic Painting-Of-The-Lounge-Ceiling saga this evening. I did manage to pick up a birthday cake for him, though - and some candles...

We hope to have the lounge painting finished by Friday evening and then the weekend will be spent moving the furniture back and cleaning up the random bits of plaster which seem to have been splattered everywhere by the plasterers.

Bank Holiday Weekend

We've been down in the Lake District for the Bank Holiday weekend. We left on Saturday morning and returned this evening. We were staying in Kendal, but spent most of our time in Bowness-on-Windermere and Ambleside. The weather was excellent on Saturday, but not great on Sunday and pretty bad (lots of rain!) today. It was a pre-planned holiday "birthday" trip for my husband, who is 36 next Wednesday.

Lilac Cards

It's slightly strange, perhaps, but I don't particularly like the colour lilac. It's probably one of my mum's favourite colours, though. As I don't like it, it is a colour which I rarely use in my card-making or crafts unless I am making something for someone who particularly likes the colour. Odd, then, that I produced two cards in this colour last Sunday... for no apparent reason! I am quite pleased with the one below, although less pleased with the one to the left - it's pretty mediocre. I'm not sure what I'll use it for, but I'll keep it in my stash and no doubt it will come in handy at some point. It's odd that I've used a rub-on for the centre of the card, as I rarely use rub-ons either. I must have been suffering from a creativity block or a desire for change! Or, maybe it was a sub-conscious attempt to use up some of the numerous craft items which I've stashed away but never used?

The square background with the oval cut-out in the above card is a Quickutz Revolution die. The scalloped circle in the centre is a Quickutz die from the "blossom" set, as is the rub-on in the centre. The stamps used for the background of the square background and the card itself are by Stampin' Up. There's quite a bit of Stardust stickles in the centre of the cards, but it hasn't shown up terribly well in the photos.

The card on the right also uses a Quickutz Revolution die (the scalloped square) and the stamps are by Penny Black (the flowers) and Hero Arts (the sentiment). I've used the new Cuttlebug circles embossing folder for the background of the card. I'm glad I bought the Quickutz Revolution and dies, as I seem to be getting a lot of use from them. Historically, I've always refrained from using die-cuts to any great extent and my focus was always on stamping.

On a related note, I've relented and ordered the new "big flower" Quickutz Revolution dies from Crafts U Love. http://www.craftsulove.co.uk/

Elections & Painting

Local election voting day today... Three votes required, including Scottish parliament and an assortment of local representatives. All rather complex, not least the new voting forms!

The painting of the lounge and the dining room post-plastering continues... a truly laborious task! The plaster on the ceiling is still not dry, so it looks as though it will take the full three days before we can paint it. It seems to have been a success, though - I see no artex shells! Let's hope it looks smooth once it has fully dried and been painted.

Meantime, the ceiling is a strange shade of pale brown (unintentional) and the wall is being painted an even stranger shade of dark brown (intentional) with a white cornice. The cornice is a pest to paint - it is taking forever to get the edges "straight". However, it's certainly better than having no cornice at all, which was the position this time last week. It looks a lot neater and "finished" with a cornice - I have no idea why the builders didn't include one as standard. We'll be painting the ceiling white, hopefully tomorrow. Meantime, the house is still like a bomb-site... stuff everywhere!

May Day Madness

Well... the plasterers turned up today - half an hour early at 8.30am! They left around 2.30pm and it's fair to say that the entire house is in chaos and will be for several more days. I'm trying my best to ignore it. We've moved almost everything from the lounge, with the result that most of its contents are split amongst each of the other rooms (and the hall and the garage). Only the sofas have been left behind. The artex is no more, although in its place is a brown layer of smooth plaster! I'm sure it will be fine when it dries, which I think will take a couple of days. We can't paint it white until then... although in the meantime we've started painting the walls etc. I'm trying to make sure that we do it properly this time, as last time was a bit of a rush job (when we moved in four years ago and we had the whole house to paint i.e we were very short of time!) and I don't want to paint it again for at least five years. I'd like to get it done right this time!

I made a few more cards on Sunday, although I haven't photographed them for upload yet. I've just checked the Quickutz web-site and it appears to have been up-dated with the new May die cut shapes... I love all of the new Revolution dies, particularly the flowers. I hope to buy at least some of them later in the month.

I met a friend for dinner in Edinburgh last night and made the mistake of trying the Glasgow Central train back (as opposed to the usual Glasgow Queen Street train), simply because a Glasgow Central Station train was due and the Queen Street train was not due for a further 20 minutes. It took 1.5 hours (contrasted with 50 mins for the other train) and seemed to be a donkey or camel ride equivalent. Never again! It stopped about 15 times at places I've never even heard of (including one place which seemed to be sporting festive/Christmas fairy lights about four months after the event). In the end, I didn't get home until well after midnight. Not recommended.