Heavenly Crafts

Well, my daughter and I have just got back from a fantastic three day break in London. This time, we visited the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, St Paul's Cathedral, the Globe Theatre, the Clink Museum, Buckingham Palace, as well as Oxford Street, Regents Street, Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square.

DD managed to fit in some shopping time, and we saw "Zorro, the musical" and "Jersey boys". Both performances were good, but if ever you get the chance, you really should go and see Jersey Boys. The audience was dancing in the aisles and the cast had a standing ovation. The language was somewhat ripe at times, and some of the jokes/innuendos would not have been understood by my 12 year old (who thankfully wasn't there!), but the music was awesome. It was as if Franky Valli and the Four Seasons were singing right in front of us. I would definitely recommend it - just close your ears when they use the "F" word!

DD and I very rarely use the underground when in London, which meant that for the first two days, we walked everywhere. I reckon we did at least 12 miles the first day with another 10 the second day. Mind you, every time we tried to work out how far we walked, the estimates kept going up! We only managed about 5 miles the last day and succumbed to the lure of the underground as our legs and feet had just about had it! I am sitting here at my computer now and can still feel my bones aching and the blisters on my feet throbbing! It was definitely all worth it though :)!

Anyhow, after those few days away, I came back and finished off my part in the ADSDesigners blog train: Hurry up and get here, Spring! Here is a preview of my part in this. Firstly, the elements:


and then the papers:

Just click on the previews to download them.

Woah, I can hardly believe it has been so long since I last blogged! I was busy in December and January trying to get a million and one tax returns submitted. Well, it felt like a million and one at least ;). Then at the beginning of February, hubbie agreed to put a false ceiling up in my office, which meant a complete redecoration job, including a late night trip to Ikea to get some new office furniture. I was hoping that we would have it all finished in a weekend.....how wrong I was! DD and I did most of the redecorating once the ceiling was up, but it involved moving furniture around every time we wanted to decorate a different wall!


We'd had this great idea that we if we put all the furniture in the middle of the room, then we could work round the outside. Whilst in theory this proved to be true, because I have a huge office desk, a large corner computer desk, three filing cabinets and then all the files, etc that were on the bookcase and shelves before we moved them, we had very little space to manoeuvre in! We managed, however, to finish all the painting (apart from the ceiling which has still to be done....) by the Sunday night. However, I was so exhausted by the end of it (I found muscles were aching in places where I never even knew I had muscles!), all I could do for the next few days was just sit and look at the boxes that needed to be put away!

It has taken me about 10 days to finally sort everything out, and there is just a little more to do and then it will be all finished! Not bad considering I have had to be out of the office working at a client's for much of that time.

So, I have not had much time to do any scrapping or designing, although I am in the process of designing a kit for the next ADSDesigners blog train. This has a spring theme, so I have put together some Spring papers for you:





They are very plain and simple, with slight variations in colour but should make lovely background papers (or at least I think so:)). Just click on the preview or here to download. Enjoy!

Happy New to you all! It's been really busy here over Christmas, trying to fit tax returns and accounts in between spending time with the family. Our eldest son came home for Christmas, which was lovely, and then he and his girlfriend came over for the New Year too (he had to work between Christmas and the New Year).

I still haven't managed to find the time to go and see Twilight. I've read the books (thanks to our daughter who passed them on to me!) and am debating whether or not I can ignore work and go see the film. But I still have 43 tax returns to do between now and the end of January, so things are a bit panicky here, to say the least.

I reckon the one thing I need to do this year is to get organised, so I have signed up for en e-course which should, hopefully, get me started. If I was more organised, I wouldn't have this mad panic every December/January, and would have more time for designing and just messing around on the computer!

And talking of messing around on the computer, that is what I was doing this morning as I was given a Bamboo tablet for Christmas, so I have been trying it out. I'm still getting used to using both the pen and Art Rage (which came with the tablet), but I reckon there are loads of things I could do with it once I get the hang of it! So watch this space!

In the meantime, I was out this morning and managed to get some photos of the frost and ice, and came up with these:




It's a set of six papers, and here are some closeups of some of the papers.

I really like them, and hope you do too. To download, just click on the preview or here.

Hope you have a truly happy and peaceful New Year. I'm off to listen to Viva La Vida now whilst tyring to finish off a set of accounts. My daughter took me to see Coldplay in concert for my Christmas, and I've been playing the CD non stop ever since! If you ever get the chance, go and see Coldplay live, they are brilliant!

Well, Christmas is only 11 days away and I am totally disorganised, with very little done and a to do list a mile long! It seems like it was only yesterday that I was getting ready for last Christmas (and panicking as usual about how much there was to do!) and here we are, a whole year later. I just don't know where the time goes! And yes, I know I keep saying that, but it is so true.

I have, however, had a few minutes to spare and made these glitter ogverlays. They were so easy to do - two of them are from commerical use overlays I have, and the other two I created myself from scratch. It actually took longer to save them, zip them and uplaod to 4shared than it did to create them all in the first place! And in case you are wondering (although I realise you are probably not bothered!), I made the two on the right.

As promised, it is commerical use friendly, so feel free to download either here or by clicking on the preview.

I'm off now to finish off a set of accounts and then perhaps make some Christmas cards (long overdue, I know, I should have made these weeks ago!).

It's been another busy day at work here - the list of accounts and tax returns to do seems never ending! However, I went shopping with my daughter last night as she needed to get a Secret Santa present for someone at work. It is absolutely fatal going shopping with her! I ended up buying a pair of shoes for myself, a small Christmas tree (plus ornaments and tinsel) for my office, a birthday present for a friend of our youngest son (he's at the birthday sleepover later today), a small stocking filler for hubbie, a Christmas present for my mum and a large teddy bear for our daughter (who wasn't really with me, didn't fall in love with the teddy, suggest it would be a good present, and most definitely was not standing right next to me at the till when I was paying for it!. All of this came out of the food budget too! I guess we're not eating this week!

So, since I'm getting in the Christmassy mood, I thought you might like some glitterflakes:





Just click on the preview or here to download. I'm afraid it's personal use only as some of the glitter effect I used was not commercial use. I'll try and make sure the next thing I do is commercial for those who prefer that.

I'm off to work on making calendars for Christmas presents, a birthday card for our son to go with the present he is taking later today, writing a tutorial on either creating drop shadows or using overlays (can't quite make up my mind which one to do), doing our church notices, and trying to get some more tax returns done. Sounds like I'll be somewhat busy!

Hope you have a lovely weekend and if you use the glitterflakes, let me know how you get on. I'd love to see what you create with them!

Well, today sees the release of the latest ADSDesigners collaboration, Holidays at Home. As you would expect with such a name, it is full of holiday themed papers, elements and alphas, so if you collect the whole collaboration, it will probably set you up for several Christmas's to come!

I've just uploaded my part of the collaboration to 4 shared, and the links here below. I kind of got carried away with the glitter, and the elements are huge! I had to split them into two zipped files as 4shared wouldn't take them in one file! The whole collaboration looks amazing, and you really don't want to miss out on this one, especially if, like me, you still have loads of cards and calendars and gift tags and so on to make!

My part of the collaboration contains:

• 16 papers (patterned, plain and ruled)
• 4 Christmas bulbs
• 2 Christmas decorations
• Christmas tree
• 2 glitter splashes
• 6 glitter frames
• 3 glitter strings
• Notebook
• Notepaper
• 3 presents
• 5 ribbon wrappers
• Snowflake overlay
• Star
• 4 tinsels
• Alpha

I did warn you that I got carried away with the glitter! The links are:

Papers
Elements 1
Elements 2
Alpha

My thanks to Laura Skathi, Kim B, Marianna Banos and Megadoodle for some of the brushes, actions and elements.

The complete list of designers in the collaboration is as follows:

Adele of Blind Sight Designs
Adventures in Scrapland
Amanda of Amandas Scrappy Creations
Amie of Amiebear
Beaconscrap
Beckmoores Scrapalittle
Becky's Scraps
Bits'N'Bobs
Bouquet of Pixels Brooke at Ahhh Scrap
Busyscrappin
CMB Designs
Creative Digital Scraps by Chiara
Deanna at Flower Scraps
DesignsByAmilyn Digital Keepsakes
Doodle Designs
Elemental Pixie
EmCee Scraps
Erika {aka PinkuPixie}
HeatherStokes at HSDesigns
Jayden's Mama
Jessie
JIC Creations
Just Another Scrap Kathy Goldstein
KittenScraps
Lei at Fairydustprincess-Magicmaker
Linda at Linda's Dream Designs
Lynn of Heavenly Crafts
Lynn at TMA
MagsGraphics
Manda at Disaster in Designs
Mariscrap
Merrilee Wheaton Designs
MsBhvin Scraps
My Little Corner of the World
Oase Panda Bear Designs Pamela Yates at Pammy's Playground
Rachness
Scrapping with Jen
Shabby Tagger
Shel at Shel Belle Scraps
Stacy at Kalo Designs
Teri at Teris Thing-O-My-Jigs
Wendi at Willow Grace Designs
WillowRaven at Purple Dragonfly Creations

Thank you so much for your lovely comments about the robin and other freebies:). I am pleased you like them!



Today, I have to admit I have finally succumbed to the cold that my daughter brought home from work! She very kindly gave it to hubbie, who was generous enough to pass it along to the boys, and they in turn have been good enough to let me have it too! What a lovely kind, sharing family I have! I'm sitting here feeling all bunged up, and wishing I was back in bed, but I am now right in the middle of tax return and accounts preparation (it's the tax return filing deadline here in the UK on 31 January) and I currently have about 65 tax returns to go (and a lot of those need the accounts doing first)....... I reckon I will be busy everyday until the end of January and even then I may not get everything done....:(.



But, I have managed to have a play with Photoshop and I know I will have to get a move on, as the ADSDesigners December collaboration is due for release on Monday and I haven't even started my part yet! I've been playing around with brushes and glitter, and this is what I came up with:




They are just some swirls and pixels with added glitter, but I reckon they definitely have a Christmassy feel to them. Feel free to download them either by clicking on the preview or here. The drop shadows are on the preview only and the background papers are not included in the download.

I was fortunate enough last week to be given four tickets to the Living Crafts at Christmas Exhibition at Blenheim Palace (thank you, Crafts Beautiful magazine!), so spent yesterday attending the Craft Fair and exploring the house and grounds of Blenheim Palace with my parents and daughter.



These are just a few of the two hundred or so photos I took (I am so thankful for digital cameras and memory cards!), much to the disgust of my mother and daughter, since both Dad and I kept stopping ever few minutes to take yet another shot!









As you can see here, the weather was not too good to start off with, as it was very grey looking, cold and windy. Mind you, in Britain in November, could you really expect any less?!!!

This is the courtyard with the main entrance of the Palace:

It was really impressive! And the family still live there!

This was the fountain and I managed to catch the rainbow in the water!

This was a really beautiful place and I am determined to visit again next summer, when it will be warmer (hopefully!) and we can take our youngest son (who will be 12 by then). He would have loved it yesterday.....well, not the Craft Fair, obviously, as I can't think of many 11 year old boys who would enjoy a craft fair, but he would have loved the Palace (provided we walked through it at breakneck speed), the maze, the miniature village, the lakeside walk, and the train, and would only have got mildly frustrated at his mother stopping every few yards to take photos!




Anyhow, the Craft Fair was lovely, although it was all very expensive - kind of what we expected, really, but it would have been nice to have seen more affordable items on sale. There were lots of gorgeous knitted sweaters and jumpers, in unusual designs, but at over £100 for each one, we decided to give them a miss! There were some beautiful paintings and photographs, lots of Christmas crockery, and the food hall was scrumptious!

However, the exhibition did give me lots of ideas for Christmas, and I have made a start with a Christmas robin:


Feel free to download him either by clicking on the preview or here. Personal use only, and the drop shadows are only on the preview.

Well, here (at last!) is the acrylic frame set I mentioned a while ago. I was having a play with acrylic styles and some brushes, and finally managed to find the time to trim them down and save as png files:

Just popping in to let you all know about the one a day giveaway from Bootiful Stampz.

Everyday for the rest of November, Sally from Bootiful Stampz is going to give away One Stamp EVERY DAY!!!! There are conditions of course! You have you to tell people about the One Day Giveaway on your blog and link back to This Bootiful Stampz Blog! You will have until 11/12pm on that day to put your name down, only once per day please but you can enter EVERY DAY!! and of course for EVERY DAY that you do enter, you will have to post on your blog! You could win once/twice or three times who knows! All names that have answered that day and have posted on their blog (links will be checked) will go into a hat and the winner announced the next day! A new post will be made each day and you just add your name to that post!

So of course I'm entering!