Thursday 26 November 2015

Beat the Christmas Rush - November

This is the last Beat the Christmas Rush for this year, thank you Wendy for joining in last month.

I recently had my last fundraiser of the year and I needed some more cards to sell.  I used some new to me Penny Black 'T for Transparent' stamps.




The papers used are a mixture of Craft Creations and magazine freebies.






All of the sentiments are by Personal Impressions, exept the last one which is Stampin' Up



If you would like to join in please leave a link to your Christmas cards in the linky.






Tuesday 24 November 2015

Me on Tuesday - the winter offers up its first bite edition

Sorry I'm a day late this week - we were travelling home yesterday and I was just too tired when we got in to blog.  

It was a relaxing weekend spent in Wolverhampton, getting the Christmas shopping finished and meeting up with some of our lovely Marillion family.  It was a weekend of the first snow of winter, as we left the pub to do the short walk back to the hotel on Friday it was chucking it down.  Not sleety stuff but proper big fat white flakes!!  It got heavier and heavier but then at about 1 am it stopped and by morning it was glorious sunshine and it had all gone (though had gone south, as I checked Facebook I could see everyone at home either upset or excited by the first snow).  

Sunday was the reason for our little Midlands trip - as there are no Marillion Christmas gigs this year, some of us were doing a pre-Christmas meet up before seeing StillMarillion (Fish era tribute band) that evening.  As usual our meeting place ended up being a Wetherspoons with friends old and new travelling from all over to meet up - some even getting on planes from Germany and Northern Ireland to join in.



It was also the weekend when secret craft project was revealed - a birthday card for Tony which everyone was able to sign



(I will share detailed picture of the card later this week on the blog)

The gig was fab and I hoped that the really sore throat that I woke up with on Monday morning was due to too much singing but alas it wasn't - so not just the first snow of winter this weekend but my first lurgy of the winter too!!




So Tuesday finds me doing the unpacking, the weekly laundry and throwing Sambucol, Vitamin C and whatever else I can lay my hands on to defeat the lurgy!!


I'm now off to give Sian over at From High in the Sky a belated wave and find out what the other Mondayers have all been up to!!

Monday 16 November 2015

Me on Monday - The Blue Monday Edition

It's Monday so time to go and give a big wave to Sian over at From High in the Sky.  Today will be remembered for a long time but before I go into that I will just share the weekend.

It was a weekend of no photographs, a weekend of awful wet and windy weather, when I was grateful for mainly staying at home in the warm and dry.  I'm still working on a secret project that I will be able to reveal in just over a week's time.  I did venture out to watch Strictly on Saturday night with Mum and Dad and took a huge mending pile with me, which I completed - there is something very pleasing about fixing clothing rather than consigning it to the charity shop or recycling bin - I'm a bit of a thrifty old bird on the quiet!!!  Sunday was yet more staying out of the weather, more secret project work and rustling up a lovely roast dinner.

And so onto Monday, the day started out just fine, my Avon delivery arrived and I popped back to bed for a little while as I do have to get up rather early for the delivery.  Later just as I was about to start unpacking the Avon, the door knocker went and it was Hermes with my Wilko's parcel - we don't have one anywhere near here so about once a year I do a big order of all sorts of goodies.  As I started opening the parcel I realised I had blue ink on my hand and I straight away thought uh oh!!!! Remember I said I am a thrifty old bird??  Well about every two to three years I dye all my jeans back to a lovely dark blue colour, I can't stand faded jeans and would never get rid of them, I just dye them.  Wilko's have the best price on Dylon's jean machine dye at the moment so I had ordered two packs!!  I hastily moved the parcel from the lounge into the kitchen and this is what greeted me when I got the parcel properly opened.



One of the dye packets had developed a leak inside the parcel and everything was totally covered in this fine blue power - powdered dye that the slightest bit of moisture in contact with it, turned it into an indigo ink.  Of course the first thing that happened was I noticed that I had it all down my shirt - thank goodness (and I am not sure why) I put on a really old shirt this morning and intended to get changed before going out to my chiropractor appointment.  So goodness where to start - I rushed back to the lounge and hallway with the dustbuster and hoovered up the little bit that had come out of the parcel, then back to the kitchen to work out what to do next.  I wanted to get the packaging out into the garden so I removed one of the large storage boxes, washed it clean of the dye, dried it and started to fill it with all the damaged stuff.  Once again thank goodness for my thriftiness and I have a large pile of really old tea towels that are used for cleaning, painting and boat trips - they were great for mopping up and drying off.  I managed to rescue all the storage containers and clean them of the dye but everything else was ruined.

The next job was to ring Wilkinson's customer services and I must say they have been really great.  I sent them photographs of above plus this one of the empty box.


I explained that I had to go out so the lovely girl who was dealing with things promised me that if I got the photos sent to her before I went out, she would ensure that a manager saw them and would ring me back after 6pm.  Sure enough I got a phone call just after six, profuse apologies for the poor packing and sorted out what was damaged.  They are now going to resend my order less the storage stuff that I was able to save and clean up, plus will be sending gift vouchers as an apology/compensation.  So fingers crossed that all goes OK - I have finally finished disposing of the parcel contents and cleaning my kitchen back up - I was impressed with how well the dye came off of the floor.

And now I need to make a start on some of the things that I was supposed to be doing today like dealing with my Avon and more work on secret craft project!!  Have a great week everyone, mine can only get better after today!!

Monday 9 November 2015

Me on Monday

The weekend was mainly spent getting over the fundraiser that I had held on Friday.  I was so busy on Friday I never got a photograph until the end of the evening. I sold plenty of cards and so far have made £97 with some more to come once I have the commission on the Avon orders placed.


The rest of the weekend was spent getting the house straight and going to our monthly crop on Sunday at Cardinal Colours.



And Monday finds me starting to sort things for our Christmas cruise, the trying on of evening wear and hoping that stuff from the last cruise still fits


Finishing off the crop coffee cake when my parents popped in for coffee (maybe I shouldn't have anymore cake between now and the cruise LOL!!)


And starting work on a secret craft project


Have a good week everyone and if you get time go and give Sian at From High in the Sky a wave.

Monday 2 November 2015

Me on Monday

It is Monday so time to pop over and say hello to Sian at From High in the Sky and give her a wave.

It was a very exciting weekend, I went to deepest, darkest Suffolk for the A Trip Down Memory Lane Retreat.  It was a fabulous crafty weekend, Wendy was my chauffeur and companion for the weekend and Barry my Marillion mascot came along for the ride too - his very first retreat!!  I think I packed fairly lightly - that was all the craft stuff I took.


Found it funny to be in room 101


Lovely big rooms for cropping in and shopping



Barry enjoyed helping me with my work


We had fun dressing up for Halloween even 'Stick' joined in


Took advantage of the Halloween photo booth




Learnt to fly


And all too soon it was time to come home


So Monday has brought loads of unpacking, the usual weekly laundry and doing a roast dinner for Mr P as he has had to fend for himself all weekend


Now if only I could really cast a witchy spell and magic all the housework and laundry to do itself - that would be lovely!!!  Have a great week everyone!!


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