Happy Halloween!!!

Here's a sneek peek of a Halloween Junk Journal I have made for a swap on the facebook group Junk Journal Junkies:

 

Proud Parents!!

One of my regrets in life is that when I got my Degree we didn't have a Graduation Ceremony. However I was able to share in my Son Sam's today. A wonderful setting at Lincoln Cathedral and Castle grounds. The sun was shining and the day was perfect....

To Cheer you up....

I just wanted to share these lovely flowers I picked from the garden yesterday.... Hopefully they will brighten your day if you are experiencing the wet weather we have here today!

Hopefully the sun will return soon....in the meantime have a wonderful weekend!

Graphic 45 Botanical Tea Collection Journal

I love this collection by Graphic 45, so Shabby Chic and Pretty!
Heres a video of my latest Journal I made using this collection:

Thanks for watching!

“Welcome To Holland”

As my regular followers and friends will know we have a daughter who has special needs.

I recently came across this and thought I would share it with you:

“Welcome to Holland” By Emily Perl Kingsley

“I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……..

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says “Welcome to Holland”.

“Holland ?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there has been a change in the flight plan. You’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place , full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around ….and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills…Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy…and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will sat “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never,ever,ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things….about Holland. “

 

I know this is not the usual thing I post on my blog but I just wanted to share!

Have an awesome day! :o)

Kitchen part 2

Thought I’d do a couple of posts sharing the kitchen in more detail….

I painted this dresser a while ago and hoped eventually it could be in the kitchen so I am thrilled with it in its new home! The bunting I made at a craft class. Most of the items displayed on it are from local charity shops!

We had purchased these steps at Ikea so I pulled out the Annie Sloan Chalk paint and mixed Cream with Provence to get this lovely soft green colour:

I also used the same paint to revamp our old knife block which you will see in another picture.

We purchased the kitchen units, solid wood work surface and sink all from Ikea and were very impressed with the quality for the price we paid. The units above run along a wall which was in the original kitchen but there was also originally a door in the wall which hubby had to remove and fill in.(he now has the job of making good the other side!)

The corner unit was another piece that I had previously painted but fitted perfectly in the space and when I chose the wall colour I ensured that it complimented the colour of the unit.

The kitchen units are off white in colour so we decided to paint the wood work in a soft cream colour which I am thrilled with how it looks.

Well I’ll post more on another day. Thank you for all your lovely comments!

My New Kitchen!

Ever since we moved into our house back in 1999 we have wanted to extend the kitchen, for the size of the house it was too small especially when trying to cook and dish up dinner for 5 of us! This had always been beyond our means until hubby suggested doing as much of the work as he could himself to keep costs down. So about 7 months ago after getting permission from the council to extend the existing kitchen the work started.

First of all marking and digging out the footings with the help of my son.

  Sophie had to help as well ! The patio doors you can see in this photo were removed once the extension was built as this became the walk way into our dining room.

 

The bricking up was done by a neighbour who is a builder.

Hubby the did the roof structure with skylite and moved the existing window from the old kitchen into the new opening. Hence saving money for a new window!

We did get a roofer to felt and seal the roof.

Sadly I can not find any photos of the kitchen before we started the work and for some reason I didn’t take any !!!

Here is a small peek at the end result:

I will do another post of the kitchen in more detail so please come back soon!

16 Today !!!!!

Well my not so little girl turned 16 today!!!

Where does the time go?

Sneek Peek at a couple of my latest Journals

I haven’t had time lately to post any videos but I thought I would share a few photo’s of a couple of Journals I have been working on:

 

  This Journal was made using the Prima Life Time Paper Pack along with assorted lined and plain papers which have been edged with Tea Dye Distress Ink.

This second Journal was made from the Prima Printery paper collection that I have been hoarding! All the papers were Tea stained and as you can see it has turned out a very thick journal with 60 pages!

I hope to make a video to share these in more detail real soon! In the mean time thank you for dropping by! :o)

File Folder Album

First of all I would like to wish you all a Very Happy and Healthy New Year!

Now to share my latest creation with you: A File Folder Mini Album.

Please excuse all the photo’s but want to share all the detail!