Have you ever had one of those months when just about everything went wrong that could go wrong? Well, if so, you will know the sort of month I have just had :(. There seemed to be just one deadline after another, stress over clients not giving me their books and records until two weeks before accounts had to be filed at Companies House, other clients pressing for accounts by return of post (and then not paying me!), and I am still trying to get my craft website up and running.
Well, I am expecting great things from next week as I am taking a week off and we are all going to Wales for a much needed break. Naturally, I am taking my laptop - there is no way I could withstand the withdrawal symptoms for that length of time ;) and I also want to take my Wacom tablet to get some serious designing in! Plus, our eldest son will be joining us too, and will bring what he has done so far on the website. The idea is that we can move this blog over in a few days time, and then concentrate on getting the rest of the website up and running. So, I'm really looking forward to this as it is all really exciting. And yes, the family does think I need to get a life!
I'm also hoping the weather will be dry this week so that we can get some walking in. We'll be stopping in the middle of nowhere and have plans to walk up Snowdon, go to Lake Vyrnwy, visit Powys Castle and generally just relax and unwind. So watch this space for all those photos I intend taking!!!
Sorry, I'm a bit late posting these but here are my quickpages from the Freedom kit:
I hope you like them and can make use of them. You can download them here.
The other designers taking part in the quickpage blog train are:
Mags Graphics
Heavenly Crafts (You are here!)
Do go along and see what they have come up ;).
Happy scrapping!
Well, today sees the release of the July ADSDesigners blog train and here is my contribution:
It contains:
- 6 papers;
- 3 types of fireworks; and
- 2 wordart.
Heavenly Crafts (You are here!)
The links will be up all month, which gives you plenty of time to grab the freebies!
Happy Scrapping!
It seems an age since I was last here (nothing new in that, I hear you say....) but things have been, as usual, busy here. My youngest is recovering nicely from his op, and I can't get over how small his scar is. My appendix scar is a huge monstrous thing, but then after four children, most things in my abdominal region are pretty huge and monstrous ;). However, his scar s a really neat 1.5" and looks like a partially healed scratch! All I can say to that is his surgeon must be far neater at stitching than I am! I am dead impressed!
He's still not back at school, and is getting tired really easily, but hopefully, he will be able to go back sometime next week, just in time to get some revision in for the science exams they are making year 8 take. I can't tell you how much he is looking forward to those, not!
Anyhow, despite being really busy with work, I have still managed to find time to make some cards (I don't know how, other than the fact that work is probably suffering as a result), and this is what I have been up to:
It's only a very basic card, made with cardstock and ribbon from my stash but the toadstool house is actually made using a photoshop action from Dreamcatcher Designs. The action makes a fairy house, bow, flower and wings, and you can find it here. It's not free, I'm afraid, but then so few photoshop actions like this are :(.
I'm actually entering the card in the Craftalicious Challenges as I reckon since I'm now making all these cards, I might as well do something with them! One of the design team on the Craftalicious blog is Jan, who just happens to run the craft class I go to ;).
I've also been designing too, trying my hand at creating vellum. I do have some notepaper for you but haven't had chance to upload it yet. However, I have also been playing around with brushes, and came up with this:
It's a png file and you can download it here. If you do use it, I'd love to see what you do with it :).
Happy scrapping!
Well, it is that time of the month again when the ADSDesigners release the quickpages based on the last blog collab. Mine is slightly late, mainly because I was in Scotland from Thursday to Saturday last week collecting our middle son from University. Then when we did get back on Saturday evening, it was to find our youngest son had had severe stomach ache all day, so this necessitated a trip to Shropdoc at the nearest community hospital, then a quick trip to paediatrics at a different hospital where he was diagnosed with appendicitis. I finally left him at midnight Saturday night, but had to dash back early Sunday morning to sign the consent forms and spent most of the day there with him. He had his op about 11 am on Sunday, and has done so well, that they discharged him early yesterday (Monday) afternoon!
Anyhow, as a result of me spending most of the last week either in Scotland or at the hospital (and then when I was home, having to wash the large suitcase full of dirty clothes that my student son brought back from St Andrews!), this is first chance I have had to post (ie make!) the quickpages. Of course, if I were anywhere near as organised as I should be, I would have actually made these at the same time I did my share of the collab kit, but hey, what's life without rapidly looming deadlines and unforeseen circumstances thrown in, eh?!!
The preview is:
As you can see, I ended up with four quickpages, two of them are 12x12, and the other two are 11x8.5. You can find the downloads here and here.
The other designers taking part in this are:
so don't forget to check out their blogs and collect more quickpages!
I'm off to make lunch now for one poorly 13 year old, who is now feeling much better than he was on Saturday night!
Happy scrapping!
Well, I recall sometime ago promising to let you have a butterfly overlay and I have actually (surprise, surprise!) managed to get around to sorting this out. Here is the preview:
And the previews of the coloured butterflies are as follows:
Firstly, here is the view from our hotel window overlooking Albert Dock. You'll have to excuse the smudges as I took the photo from behind the window.
Here is the view from outside the hotel:
And Liverpool's version of the London Eye, somewhat smaller, but still very impressive. We actually didn't go on it because, to be honest, it seemed an expensive way to spend five minutes but I bet the views were glorious.
This was taken down on the ground more or less below our hotel room!
And these are more shots of Albert Dock.
Then we came across Queen Victoria:
There are some really beatuiful buildings in Liverpool. I just love this architecture.
I thought these were bird dogs - they look like a dog at the front (Labrador) and a bird at the back, but I have since found out that these are lambananas, a cross between a lamb and a banana. Don't ask me why anyone would want to cross a lamb and a banana, I guess that is artistic licence! Anyway, they are definitely eye catching.
But of course, Liverpool wouldn't be complete without a shot of the Liver Building....
....and a somewhat blurred photo of one of the Liver birds!
I also ended up taking some shots on the way back to the hotel at night. No mean feat considering I had never done this before and did not have a tripod! Of course, that makes me sound as if I know what I am doing, when in reality, it was a case of holding the camera as still as possible and taking the shot. Loads of the pictures I took are blurred - it is impossible to hold a camera still for the length of time it takes for the photo to be taken, especially when you are a novice like me. Still, here are a couple of the better ones:.
I had to lean against walls, fences and trees to get those unblurred shots! And then one taken from our hotel room:
But the real reason we were in London was to go to the OneRepublic gig at the O2 academy. The support act was Alex Gardner, a Scottish singer who has the reputation of being a Robert Pattinson lookalike (for those of you who are Twilight fans ;) ). Here he is in action:
He was actually very good, so if you get the chance to go hear him, it would be well worth it. But of course, the main act were even better. It was actually very pleasing to find out I wasn't the oldest person in the audience. I think my daughter was worried that I would be - she certainly seemed relieved when we saw a rather more elderly (and definitely more smartly dressed!) couple waiting in the queue behind us!
It was quite funny when we got in, because, as you probably know, there is very little seating at the O2 Academy, and everyone has to stand. DD and I rushed to the front, and ended up on the second row, whereas the Radio 2 listeners (as my daughter called the older ones, and there were quite a number of them too) stayed at the side leaning up against the wall.
Anyway, this was the first time I had used my new camera at a gig, and since were were near the front, I managed to get some really good shots (or at least I think they are!). Here is Ryan Tedder, the lead singer:
As you can see, he ended up very close to where we were standing. He is probably wondering here who that old woman is with the camera! Not that I am, of course, old, because in reality, I am only about 21 (or at least, that is as old as I feel), I just look somewhat older;).
I love this shot. You can really tell that the lead guitarist, Zach Filkins (at least, I think this is him ;)), is enjoying himself. It makes all the difference when you go to a gig or concert and you can tell they are having fun on stage!
And back to Ryan, this time with (I think) Brent Kutzle and Drew Brown in the background.
All in all, we had a whale of a time in Liverpool and OneRepublic were brilliant!
But now, if you have managed to struggle through all those photos (or just scroll her to the bottom) back to the butterfly overlays which you can find here. The zipped file contains the original overlay plus two coloured versions. I'm off to do our church notices now, and then have to work, so have fun and happy scrapping!
ADSDesigners Blog Train: Sunflower Patch now available!
9 comments Posted by Lynn at 5/01/2010 11:40:00 amWell, as promised yesterday, the latest ADSDesigners kit, Sunflower Patch, has been released. There are some gorgeous papers and elements created by the designers and what better way to spend a Bank Holiday weekend than in downloading lots of freebies?!!!!
The weather forecast here is for thundery showers this afternoon. Well, that really has scuppered our plans to go to Church Stretton and go walking up the Long Mynd :(. Instead, we are going to go visit a National Trust property, Wightwick Manor, in salubrious Wolverhampton, and since none of us has been there before, it should be really interesting. Of course, I will be taking my camera with me, and after taking night shots in Ironbridge as part of the digital photography course I'm attending, I now know how to put my camera into manual mode, and use a tripod!!!! I also have an inkling, just an inkling, mind, of how to change the shutter speed and aperture too. I haven't got a clue what I should be changing them to, I just press or twiddle the buttons and see what happens when I take a photo.....you never know, one day, I may actually know what I am doing ;).
I will let you see the photos of Ironbridge later as we have to do a pdf slideshow ready for the next lesson anyway. I bet you can't wait, eh? But in the meantime, what you really want to see is the Sunflower Patch kit, right? So here is my part:
And here are some close ups so you can get an idea of what it is like:
You will find inside the zipped file:- 5 papers
- 1 notepaper
- 2 butterflies
- 1 sunflower plant
- 1 sunflower
- 1 cream flower (not shown on preview)
- 1 tree
- 1 paperclip
- 1 straight stitching
- 1 stitched frame
- 1 flower frame
and you can download it here .
The other designers have come up with some lovely papers and elements, so go check them out:
The kit will be on offer for the month of May, so you have plenty have time to collect all the parts ;).
Happy scrapping!
Just a quick note to let you all know that the ADSDesigners blog train, Sunflower Patch, kicks off today. I'm in the process of sorting out my share of this kit but the internet problems earlier this week delayed things, plus I've had horrendous work deadlines resulting in me working until for instance, 2:30 am this morning.... ;(
I'll be back in a short while with all the links, etc. I need to check blog addresses and so on so I send you to the right place!
See you shortly :)
Just to let you know that we have been having major internet problems these past two weeks and have a very hit and miss connection, more miss than hit, to be honest. Despite having a brand new hub, I can currently only connect at an unearthly hour in the morning, and even that is intermittent. The BT engineer very kindly did not turn up yesterday, so I will have to ring them shortly to see what is happening and to get an engineer to actually make the effort to come and sort this out, although, of course, this being the weekend, they will probably not be around until Monday at the earliest. All this and I'm paying for business broadband too........
This is sooooo frustrating, especially as I need the internet for work and am currently unable to send in P35's and amended tax returns, as well as send payroll figures to clients by email. Oh, I lead such an exciting life - P35's, tax returns and payroll - I bet you're green with envy!
Anyhow, I will try and get back online later today, but it seems to be that as soon as the temperature warms up (and I use the phrase "warms up" very loosely here), the connection goes.
Oh well, at least I have a craft class to go to today which will take my mind of the internet problems!
I was so excited on Thursday morning as when I switched on my computer and checked my emails, I discovered I had been selected for the Little Dreamer Designs Apprentice Program!!!!! If you had been anywhere near me at the time, you would have heard me squealing with excitement ;).
We each had to design a mini kit of three papers and five elements to reflect our personal style. This was my entry:
You can see all the contents in the preview:
- 3 papers
- Flower frame
- Umbrella
- Bird
- Rainbow
- Rain cloud and rain
There were a total of 88 entries and there were 27 accepted so I am really pleased to get through to round 1. I'm realistically not expecting to get much further, but am so pleased to have got this far! All the mini kits made for the contest are in the Little Dreamer Designs gallery and can be found here along with the download links. There are some amazing kits there ;).
Anyhow, actually made far more than the 3 papers and five elements we were asked to do, so though you might like to see what else I came up with :
It seems a bit silly to call this an "add on" when in reality, this was one kit with 10 papers and 23 elements which had some papers and elements taken out for the designer program. This add on contains:
- 7 papers
- Bracket mat
- Notepaper
- Sheep
- Chick
- 1 broken egg shell
- 1 half egg shell
- Sun
- 2 clouds
- 2 rain showers
- Flower frame
- Butterfly overlay (can you tell I like butterflies, ;)?)
- 4 flowers
- 1 Grass and flower border
You can find the downloads here:
The minikit is, as already mentioned, in the Little Dreamer Designs gallery and can be found here.
Happy scrapping!
Well, it's Easter Sunday morning and it is looking like a very mixed day weather wise here. the sun is shining over the front of our house, yet there are dark clouds looming ominously over the back garden....I reckon we are in for some heavy rain today. So what does Easter mean to you? Is is just a other day, part of a bank holiday that means you don't have to go in to work, a day when you can spend time with the family without worrying about everything you have to do, or is it something more than that?
For me, this is the day to remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ, to be thankful yet again for all that he has done for me, but for my children, it is a day for chocolate and Easter eggs.....and a trip to grandma's for tea! Looks like that trip will be made in the rain though. Mind you, today the children (and hubbie ;) ) will be disgusted with me as I want to get to mum's early enough to use some of those punches and stamps she bought at the NEC last week. She went home with some gorgeous Martha Stewart punches and a beautiful set of owl stamps and I am sure she is feeling the need to share today! So I have to pack a bag with ink pads and card, plus a couple of boxes or two so I can use the punches and get some stamped images to take back home with me! And with the wonders of modern technology, I will then be able to scan the images into my computer and print them off whenever I need them! Isn't technology great?!!!
But in the meantime, here is the second set of quickpages I promised you:
I hope you like them. You can download these quickpages here.
Whatever you are doing this Easter Sunday, I hope you have a truly blessed day. I'm off now to get ready for church and then need to rush back home to make Mum and Dad an Easter card. I know, I know, it's not as if I didn't know Easter was coming either!
Happy scrapping!
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