A HAPPY FAMILY BIRTHDAY

Today is my step son's birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

He is an enthusiastic metal detecting bike /puss cat loving caring person. I made him a canvas board card and painstakingly painted a cardboard stand for it in camouflage. Hope he likes both.

The stand turned out really well.

I used all sorts of little 'finds' on his 'card'.

I'm on my travels again today moving sites but when I get more than a minute I'll tell you about the amazing weekend I've just had. 

SHORTER DAYS

It seems the days are shorter in more ways than one ie daylight and hours!! Where has this year gone? When I worked the days were so long but I managed to get all manner of jobs done but now I'm retired, nothing seems to get done and the days seem so short. No sooner is it time to get up but I'm back in bed again!!

The sun is slipping lower and lower and only just reaches my perennial border in the morning. 

The plants are fading fast except the verbena which is still providing goodness to bees and all manner of gorgeous butterflies. 

We managed a couple of evenings in front of the chiminnea and that was bliss. 

I now have 3 weeks holiday starting Tuesday so my garden will look very different when I get back in October. 

I'm off to 3 workshops next weekend with the amazing Finnabair and the equally amazing Wynyard crew. Bring it on.

12 TAGS OF 2014 - SEPTEMBER

September???? surely it's only March! Another year flying by it seems. Well just look at Tim's tag for this month, it is gorgeous. So colourful and so very different. I love it. May just need to get that butterfly die now. I struggled - once again - to make my background. For some reason I just don't seem to be able to make my blending solution achieve the result I want. It's a mystery to me because I have done this technique before with perfect results. Anyway, I continued and tried to make the best of it. I used an old stamp from my stash and the Autumn Gatherings strip die to cut tiny colourful leaves. This was the result:

It's such a change from the grungy style tags and a style I will certainly have a go at again.

CAN YOU BOAST 54years MARRIED

A great big HAPPY 54th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY to my pal Sylvia and her hubby Reg.

What a lot of years and they still adore one another.

I saw a lovely card a little while ago made by the very talented Tracy Evans and liked it so much I made Sylvia and Reg an 8"x8" canvas board to celebrate today.

It's not quite the same as Tracy's card but just to be sure I wasn't stepping on her toes I showed it to her and asked permission to blog it today. As you can see Tracy said yes.

I had no idea how she had made her card but I loved the colours so just literally 'got stuck in' with paints and a brush. 

All in all it was a pleasure to make and I hope it reached it's destination in Devon in time for today. 

HAD TO BE DONE

I've decided that housework really has to take second place to life. Not only that, but the big garden project we undertook in February and March really did my back. Took an age to get over the hard work but despite that, I would do it again and suffer. 

Some jobs didn't get done at the same time but the glorious weather today allowed me to climb to even greater heights! And clean the gutters

Not bad for a 65 year old eh?