Christmas Celebrations

so I'm a bit slack these days with posting on my blog but inspired by another creative friends blog and challenge I'm updating with some of my creations starting here:-

My year started with knitting and it's stuck, i love it, i love wool and get very excited when i see all the lovely colours and finishes and combination of colours so below is a selection of my hand knitted scarves and neck wraps and I'm very excited about handing these out to various friends and family this Christmas :)

Here's my first creation using some paper clay i was bought in a block. Shivery snowman, i love how he turned out :)

This medallion card was made by stamping onto an old recycled Christmas card, i do love using these they always give such majesty to card especially when glittered :)

Some ornaments also made using my paper clay, hand painted/finished and strung and ready to adorn someones tree :)

And yet more clay creations, i already have another set of holey stars drying out ready to paint. You know me fingers in pies so to speak, and yes on my future agenda, baking, the festive kind :)

Linking up to Paint and Prayer, my dear friend Jennifer's lovely blog, please stop by and see her lovely creations. Merry Christmas to all and to all...................

Christmas Cards all year round

Well it's been a while since i made this many cards but i wanted to try something different with this tree stamp using a white ink pad and this is what happened. I love how they've turned out and some recently purchased bargain papers worked so well with them. I am entering this over at Christmas Cards All Year Round under their Five Card Challenge of 'Getting ready for Christmas' this is natures preperations :)

I 'Heart' Cake

Ok so to explain myself, although the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. Recently over on Facebook i volunteered to review the I 'heart' cake mould. The kind folks over at Find Me A Gift sent me the mould just this weekend so this afternoon i set to trying it out.

I used my ever faithful Flora (on the packet) cake recipie and 'sprayed' the mould before putting the cake mix in. There are no instructions on the wrapper and my experience using Silicone moulds is extremely limited, infact i think I've only ever used one once and didn't spray it i suspect and struggled to get it out, but it's a long time ago. I put the cake in the oven and left it about 45 mins (15mins longer than when in two split tins)

I left it to cool for quite a long time hoping not to have any problems and in the main it came out fine, just the tiniest little bit on about 3 corners where the spray hadn't covered.

Now the idea of this mould is that you can make several 'heart' shaped individual cakes/slices if you so wish. Due to my son requesting chocolate cake and me wanting to do what i had in the house, jam and cream (which we did have to get in the end) i hastily cut it into almost 4 quarters before i remembered the heart shaped segments. The idea being that i could accommodate his needs when filling the cake as well as ours, so he had a slice with chocolate spread in lol. I then did the rest as explained above. The piece to the left is a heart shaped segment but the nice thing about the edging is that you can easily slice smaller individual slices too making in theory 12 small slices. Anyway we've yet to try it but i'm told by family and friends that my baking is yummy so i shall be trying it real soon and will definitely look forward to experimenting with this mould. Thanks to Find Me A Gift for letting me try it. You can find the mould  here  :)

Blame it on the Weatherman

So the great British weather was my inspiration for this drawing on Tuesday after being woken like many in the early hours of Tuesday morning by rain, thunder and lightening. I know that god was playing his drum kit and so this followed. My son drew more cartoon characters, no surprise there then lol and since then we've had a day off from drawing and today has been all about food shopping, exciting stuff but one thing i will say is that so far, so good, it's been quite pleasurable :) You?

These came about yesterday after seeing this inspiration doyoumindifiknit it's taken some doing to get to grips with crocheting but progress has been made and for that I'm grateful :) Not sure where I'm going with them yet but I'll keep going, it's all good practise and I'm using up odds and sods of wool.

Creative Time

So here we are at the start of the 'Summer' holidays. A time i dread to some extent but i have a list of 'creative' ideas of one sort or another so I'm hoping that helps. The weather has been stinking hot which is never my cup of tea so suddenly the idea of spending time at the park in this heat is pretty off putting. So far bar the weekend we have had two days spent at home. Yesterday we largely spent all day at home bar a walk into town to get some necessities.

I found a list of creative prompts on Pintrest 25 Days of Drawing and Journalling and i thought they would be a good source of ideas should we need them so yesterday i put it to my son and he was quite enthused. He went with 'Favourite Cartoon Character' and what followed was an abundance of drawings.

Here are just a few of them and not the first one he did lol

I went with 'A Colourful Bird' and of course this is what followed....

I introduced Brett to my watercolour pencils which he attempted to treat his crayons the same but as i explained water only works with my 'special' pencils and certainly not with crayons. All in all it was a most enjoyable bit of time.

Later in the afternoon he spent a short time in 'his' new paddling pool, recently acquired second hand from a friend, a good size for our 7yr old and perfect for warm days although i did peg his towel either side of the washing line in order to try and create a little shade. Sometimes the most insignificant things can be a great source of amusement if only for a short time and time spent together is of course 'priceless' :)

Whats it all about - Life?

So the other week my nephew who had just turned 16 that day said 'what's it all about, life? or words to that effect. What do you say to a 16 year old who is just starting out............

Life is a funny old game and i don't mean ha ha. In a nutshell this is how i see it. We spend our lives as kids wanting to be 'grown up' do 'grown up things' being a grown up involves having a job, earning our own money, having a boyfriend/girlfriend, getting married, having a house and kids in which ever order it comes to you. BUT having a job and keeping a job is a juggling act, whether you loose you're job through means beyond you're control or you give up work to have a child. Keeping a marriage alive is a tricky one to as in time it seems you go through the motions as we have just been discussing at home. My husband goes to work, i stay home and clean the house and my son goes to school. Every now and again and only then due to financial restrictions we do something different to break up the monotony of it all. Running a house, being a husband/wife/mother/father is hard work, being the bread winner is hard work, doing the right thing by your kids is hard work and this is what we spend our childhoods wishing to do. Explain that one to me!

So what is it all about? We are in control of our own destiny is what i see/read quite regularly, i have been 'searching' for that ideal job that fits round school and the holidays that follow. I was a mobile hairdresser but have lost interest and confidence in my ability to do that plus I'd quite like to be employed so i don't have to worry about paper work and the like. I have applied for dog walking, dinner ladies, cleaning, store assistant and yet no joy. I have done a bit of cleaning for a friend of a friend but alas after a year or so that came to an end. I offered my services to a baking company which for a few weeks kept things ticking over but increased the stress in my life no end, no training to mention and lots of very un business like behaviour. Marriage has been a roller coaster of 'stuff' some of which has been easier to get through than others but we are still married atleast unlike so many of my friends who have sadly parted ways with their partners. Issues at school have been an ongoing burden for what seems like the entire length of this school year and then it's no wonder that everything gets you down. I am not a negative person i do try to see the good and be grateful for everything that i have but at the end of the day I'm just doing the best i can one day at a time. I dont' have all the answers things would be so much easier if i did. So what are your thoughts on Life?

Its been a year of.............

yep knitting, pics kinda gave the game away. As is my nature so it seems nearly every year my creative nature takes me in a different direction and this year it was knitting. It's not that I've never knitted before but not for a long time. I got addicted and found a new admiration for wool in all it's amazing colours and textures. None of what I've done is perfect but I'm so over that and get the most thrills out of the fact that i created them. All of the wool in these pictures was kindly donated so i have enjoyed playing with it. Lots more going on with wool i chose myself and paid for, am hoping to get a head start on Christmas presents but just like me and looking at ways to make the word scarf a little less predictable.

What  are you all up to?

Friendship

Wow, don't faint i am posting on my blog. I know it's been like ages but somehow the novelty wore off and other things filled the void, as well as the fact that if no one is reading then what's the point.

So are you on Facebook? Does your feed consist of little photos and pictures with quotes and the like attached? I love anything motivational so many of those will filter and then get shared in the hopes that something connects with a fellow friend. 

One of the ones that always sticks out in my head is the one that goes something like 'friends are like stars you may not always see them but you always know their there' so how does that make you feel, do you agree or disagree?

I am a Dog according to Chinese astrology and they are seen as faithful companions and i would like to think that's me. I would like to think I'm here to listen to anyone that needs me to or even to reach out indirectly to. With regards my 'true' friends i would hope they don't need to just envisage me being there i would hope I'm a good enough friend to drop the odd message or text, this is the age of technology after all just  to say 'hi, how's it going' 'last time we spoke you were waiting on this, going there' etc etc I don't think it's a biggie and i appreciate the same in return, i would like to think their interested/concerned enough that if they haven't seen or spoken to me they would want to 'check in' atleast. Do you agree? Even those 'friends' i don't consider close (especially where Facebooks concerned) as you can see from someones status what's on their mind i will frequently say 'is everything ok, is there anything i can do, do you want to chat' 

Over the years I've often been reminded that not everyone thinks like me so maybe I'm the exception....