What is this life, if full of care.......

.....we have no time to stand and stare...indeed....here I am...... it serves to remind us all that some staring is necessary once in a while....one of the photos is also of the woodland walk...and I kept saying to my husband...'it's so quiet here!'...while unknown to us in another woodland not that far distant over two strips of water something utterly sinister was taking place...what a shock we got to hear of this when we got home...there we were walking in a peaceful woodland and ...well, I've already said it all. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Norwegian nation at the moment.

Summer came - a day out.

When the forecasters said last Friday was going to be the best day of the week we headed off...and en route I managed to replenish the cardstock and dp supplies. We visited Rowallane Garden where there is a beautiful walled garden full of a plants to charm any gardener's heart. There are lots of old stone walls bursting with little ferns seeking the light of day. Rowallane is one of the old houses and estates owned (mostly but not exclusively) by the National Trust.

A Couple of things I made today.....

Well, I made these after spending some time making the templates last night....I know you can get templates on the web but sometimes the things available to us in the U.K. are not American sizes so sometimes they don't work...for instance....a certain stamp company has their own notepads and I ain't going to pay postage for them so, we have perfectly good alternatives at Tesco.....and one of the photos shows my attempt to cover one up for a little gift....the paper is Washi paper attached to thick cardstock. I bought this so long ago at The Paper Ya on Granville Island, Vancouver...what a shop....www.paperya.ca - I've also managed to include the flap inside the cover which can hold receipts or something else you need to keep alongside it. This was the last piece of this paper in my possession.
The other photo is the cover on the 100 size post-it notes - some felt flowers and a leaf (both Papertrey) and a couple of petals off a corsage I bought a long time ago - coupled with a ric rac and an edger panel as well. You know we see these things on the net all the time....I may be slower than some but don't underestimate the time it takes to come up with even the simplest little offering. All this when I should be making some of the 15 cards on order....so I better get back to that.
Kind regards from a wet Northern Ireland where the weather has been glorious for a few days and now we get more rain to make the grass grow again!! It's endless!

At Last A Card!!

Life is so busy at the moment but in the nick of time for this Engagement Card came a little package from Claire holding little beauties in the form of Cameos and Ovals compatible with Spellbinders....oh my!!
Managed to get a photo in half decent light as it is not a bright day hereabouts.
Hope you like!!

Cyndie's Wish LOL!!!

Well, here you are dear girl....we are having an Assistant Pastor soon and within the Presbyterian Church after they go through Union College they have to be Licensed......this was my gift to ours and I also gave one to another man who we know well....so recently did two of these and of course Shaz you will realise that I've managed to do the gilding a la PVA....the main text is in Foundational Hand which is very plain...not like Shaz' ornate letters which she has hand drawn. Endless patience to do those. Hope you like - lettering is not 100% but I was in a hurry...when am I not?

A fishy tail.......

Look what someone gave us last week....two were 1 1/4lb each and the other three were smaller....I had 'fun' cleaning them all out....we ate one each for dinner and the rest are frozen....so thank you Tom and friends for your tasty gift and thanks to Ailsa (she of the Easter ring on an earlier blog) for driving here to deliver them. They tasted absolutely delicious!
I'm also posting a photo I forgot in last post....this is the one with the painted word on it!

This and That

Well folks, sorry for the non-posting - life gets in the way but thought I'd show you the little town of Malin in County Donegal....we were passing through this beautiful little town with it's 'triangle' of green in the centre of the small town - this is typical of so many Irish towns. Sadly it appeared that there was only one little supermarket open in the town...one small hotel too but lots of small shops closed up. We headed on up the road to Malin Head which was a communications point during WWII. It's a wild and breezy place so we didn't stay too long...it's the most Northerly point in Ireland. Ireland was neutral during the war and to deter planes from dropping bombs meant for the port of Londonderry in Northern Ireland (a few minutes by plane away) someone had the bright idea of painting the word 'Eire' (this was the old name for Ireland) on the rocks (you may see this vaguely in one of the photos) - wouldn't be much use in the dark when most bombs were dropped!!