Just been to see a comedy!

I finished off a rather busy, but successful (at least in terms of the holiday club) week with a trip to the cinema en famille. The kids sniggered and giggled all the way through... Harry Potter 7b. I don't know WHAT they were on. Carys found Voldermort's face highly amusing and I think the other two just found bits of it ridiculous. When Voldy came to his end I said to Carys he had been danduffified and she said "He should have used Head and Shoulders" and I am afraid the tow of us lost it just for a while. If you were at the Vue Lakeside and disturbed by the muffled guffaws from row M this evening I do apologise. (Interestingly they were running late so dispensed with adverts and previews. I quite liked that!)

So I am a tad behind (again) with my Daring Cardmakers card this week. Sharon has chosen her very first dare - Cute as a button: Use buttons as the main feature of your card. Now I love the "button bits" style of rubber stamp but don't have a set so decided to have a go at drawing my own lines - and here is what I came up with
a bunch of balloons (hope you can tell that is what it is meant to be!)
The buttons came from a button jar but I think they are all Doodlebug - they have a lovely shape and nice matte finish (and yes it is rather sad that I can recognise a particular type of button). Papers are all MME Lime Twist, stamp is Waltzing Mouse and I also used some nastability dies and a Sharpie black pen.

I've now taken some photos of the wonderful present the highly talented and all round wonderful Sue Hyde made for me. Its a bumper size exploding box
which means it is gorgeous on the outside
then off comes the lid and ... pouff!
and each little box (and the centre "stem") are filled with crafting goodies
Isn't it fab?

This Sunday the gospel reading is the feeding of the 5000. Which does make a Minister sigh "how much more can be said about this event?". But one thing that the Noah's Ark week told me was that hearing the same story 4 days in a row brings new dimensions and I was still learning things as we put everything away. (ie why is Noah's boat called an ark and the tent that held the commandments called the Ark of the covenant. Fiona said something like it being a place of safety that reminded people that God was with them. Apparently "Ark" is a latin based word that means container. According to Wikipedia). So perhaps there is more to say about the feeding of the 5,000 as well....

All aboard the skylark!

All aboard the skylark!
Which for those of you of a certain age will be a reminder of this - one of those bittersweet programmes that came at the end of kids tv and let you know that the boring stuff like the news was coming.
That and this are going round my head at the moment. Aaah. Even that Thames TV opening credit is like a Proustian Madeleine wafting me back to days gone by.
And why am I whisked back to my yuoth? Why we are doing a holiday club at Church.
Three guesses on the theme...
Well done.

I love doing holiday clubs. I may moan a bit in the morning. (What me, moan?) but these kids are really lovely - even if some of them were only born in 2006! We are doing a Messy Church style of club with lots of craft, song and retelling of the story. It is a reminder of how short the attention span can be. And what children are prepared to tell you about their families (so Mr X has a nipple ring does he?)
BUT I also have had to remember how completely shattering they are as well! I was trying to study leadership and the church for my MA this afternoon and kept dropping the book (then gave up and had a quick nap!)

Its a funny story though isn't it Noah and the Ark?
There's a gurt big boat
and lots of cuddly animals.
And a beautiful rainbow.
And the annihilation of most of the population of the world apparently
Yet its one of the ones we love to tell to children.
Maybe its a good reminder that life is not always sunshine and rainbows. But I do struggle with the thought that God would be so cruel.
Most of the countries around Israel have very similar stories of the floods e.g. the Gilgamesh one so it is pretty likely that there was a devastating flood at some point in history that people were trying to make sense of. But did God really cause it?
(NB the above paragraph will not be making its way into the holiday club!)

When I haven't been trying to get my head round the size of the ark (football pitch big) or how all the animals would survive 40 days, I have been doing a spot of crafting. I have also been doing a spot of meeting up with the lovely Sue H who gave me the most amazing birthday present that will have to have a post of its own in the next few days.

Here are two of the upcoming wedding scrap pages - many more to come!
I save sketches on my computer and put them in weekly folders with the name of where they come from on them. Except I failed with this one and it only says "July sketch" on it. if anyone recognises the sketch would you let me know please?
I pretty well slavishly copied it
Details: Cardstock: Bazzill; Papers: MME and Pink Paislee (one side coloured with distress inks); Mists: Tattered Angels and Cosmic Shimmer; Punches: Martha Stewart; Glitter: Glamour dust; Letters: Websters Pages; Pearls: Prima
and this one is from this weeks Pencil Lines Sketch 247
(Carys and I had our fascinators for £14 in total. I must do a page on how cheap her whole outfit was!)

Details: Cardstock: Bazzill; Papers: Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934; Stickers: Cosmo Cricket; Punch: EK Success; Swirl: Tim Holtz; Paints: Deco Art and Ranger; Embellishements: Craftwork Card Candi, Mei Flower gems

Wish I was there again

The wedding was amazing. Such a fantastic day that I wish I could do it all over again. Almost everything was perfect - apart from Matt and Max being back in Canada obviously. The sun shone in the afternoon - I reckon it was about the only part of the UK where that happened! Everybody scrubbed up well. The bride and groom were so, so happy. And so were we. I'm afraid you can expect to be bored rigid by photos and layouts in the next few weeks as I try and capture some of the day!

Here is one of my family and we are all smiling (Phil is smiling not eating Carys' head thing!)
(We don't know what the stuff on the bottom of the photo is. I reckon it is our angelic aura but Phil says no)
I've already done one page - where I just tried to write down as much as I could of the little details of the day and using the lovely confetti photo from above. You can tell Carys is a Nevard in that photo - she looks like she could be Terry and Erica's daughter I think!
Here is a close up of the writing. Still not that clear but I'm not typing it all out!
Details: Patterned Paper: Basic Grey, Prima, Pink Paislee; Paints: Glimmer Mists; Sticker: Prima; Pens: Sharpie and Wilkinsons; Letters: American Crafts Thickers and Adornit stickers; Stamps: Imagine That; Ink: Versamagic

The words "these are" are done with some of Imagine That's new stamps which you will be seeing A LOT as I love them so. This layout is a sample for a class featuring another wonderful new set as well - number one
Details: Cardstock: Bazzil; Papers: Prima (actually only one double sided); Punches: Martha Stewart; Embossing folder: Cuttlebug; Dies: Nestabilities; Inks: Distress Ink, Memento, Versamark; Other: Black pens, embossing powder and heat gun, foam pads.

And here is my Daring Cardmakers card for this week: the theme is "Wish you were here" and I remembered that I still had some Mr Campy stickers left so made use of that Cosmo Cricket set of papers as well.
I'm not sure if I will keep this sentiment on - I don't usually send "wish you were here" cards but I don't know what else to have either - "Good luck with your move"?
The colour balance is off as well. It is a cream card base rather than slightly green. serves me right for another last minute photograph.
Other details: Cardstock: Craft creations; Stamps: Waltzing Mouse and Imagine That; Dies: Nestabilities; Pen: Sharpie; Dies: Nestabilities; Gems from stash.

I've had quite a full week this week with meetings and planning things. I'm starting to get to grips with next years preaching calendar which means finding out the school holidays for 2012-2013! I had a wonderful 24 hours with my amazing mutual support crew. I'm getting ready for the service to celebrate becoming a group of 5 churches and being part of a team ministry with Phil and Martin.

And I took a funeral for a lovely man I didn't know called Vic. Vic made violins and one his creations (number 7!) was played beautifully at various points during the funeral.
His nephew read "The Old Violin" as part of the tribute - which I now discover is called The Touch of the Masters Hand. I want to use it in the morning services where there are lots of short parable stories that Jesus tells, like the pearl of great price.
Its kind of the opposite meaning - in the parables the man recognises the value of the pearl and gives up everything else to have it. And in the poem the worth of the violin is not recognised until it is used. But the link is there somewhere. Just need to work on it a little more I think!

Best of times, worst of times

We have our big family wedding tomorrow - we are so excited. Here are the happy couple
Although the forecast says rain it will NOT raid it will be sunshine and roses all the way!

The only raincloud on the horizon is that my nephew and great nephew (yup I'm that old) got as far as Heathrow to find their documents and money had been stole ON THE PLANE. I can't talk much about what happened next as there are going to be repurcussions but the upshot is that they were put on a plane back to Canada within a few hours of landing and before much could be done about it. And a little while later the documents turned up at the airport - but that is too late now. They have been treated appallingly (can you imagine having to entertain a 20 month old on two consecutive 7 hour trips? and that is not the half of it) and we will miss them so much at the wedding.

So be warned - your possessions are not safe on a plane.

Onto nicer things though!
This week we had another corker of a challenge on Daring Cardmakers when Nat asked us to pick a pin from Pinterest and use that as our inspiration. I have been trying to avoid Pinterest as I know I will get sucked in - and it was all rather overwhleming when I had a look. Too many lovely images in one place! But I was drawn to this image of what I think are creamcicles (we don't have them in the UK)
from here. Which was pinned to start with but now is from tumblr. Which all makes me feel very old and confused! Anyhoo here is what I did with the inspiration
I made an A6 stand up card and cut lots of rectangles out, rounded the corners and then trimmed off a bit. I sewed some lines kind of where the sticks were and added a simple label greeting and a Prima resin flower.

Details: Cardstock: PTI; Papers: MME Stella and Rose and Line Twist, various collections; Inks: Vintage Photo distress ink and Roan Brown coloursnap Chalk ink; stamps: Personal Impressions; Punch: EK Success; Dies: Nestabilities; Resin flower: Prima; Thread: Ribbon Girl

Here is a recent scrap page which records my various fun outfits at Church fairs over the years.
"Happy" was already on the paper which helped me choose a title
and I wrote about the fact that I didn't buy anything to make up the outfits, somehow everything was in the house. I needed to write down the moment that I felt in the pocket of the tail coat and found a little pencil that my "Pop" (what I called my Grandad) must have used. He died 33 years ago (as it happened we were married on the anniversary of his death which brought him into it somehow). I lvoed him so much and still miss him and finding the pencil made me cry - but in a good way.
Details: Cardstock: MME LOst and Found paper; Template : That special touch; Paint: Distress Stain; Images: Echo Park and QVC; Letters: Webesters Pages and Cosmo Cricket; Ribbon: Kaiser coloured with Distress Ink

The other slight downer about the wedding is that I can't attend the new stamp launch at Imagine That. Emma has excelled herself this time. I was able to borrow some stamps to make up new classes and didn't want to give them back. There are 7 wonderfuls sets! And tomorrow she is offering 20% off everything and demos and make and takes so do go along if you are near Upminster. (or even if you are not. The train/tube station is only 5 minutes walk from the shop!)

Gay social whirl

My sister in law and new brother in law to be arrived in Britain on Wednesday. The big wedding is next weekend (so excited!) and they are spending almost a week with us exploring London and all things old. Terry has never been to the UK before so it is fun showing him real history (he was blown away by the tower of london) and laughing at each other's accents. He is a great bloke and makes Erica so happy which is wonderful. So as well as lots (and lots) of work we have been out and about too. The whole family went to watch the Mousetrap on Friday which was much funnier than I had expected. I recognised one of the actors as he used to be in rep in Hornchurch - our local theatre. we have also checked off a proper country pub with real beams and from home we filmed them walking along Abbey Road - a must do for Terry.


Funnily enough later that day Phil and I walked along another version of Abbey Road - in the new MandM store in Leicester Square. We went in as we had a little time to kill before the play and we couldn't believe there was a whole shop dedicated to MandM's. Plus I was secretly hoping that there would be a packet of peanut butter MandM's as I had a yearning to try them. As far as I could see there was not one ordinary MandM packet on any of the four floors. Let alone peanut butter. Wierd

(My lovely in laws found a packet in the Mr Simms sweet shop on my road. They are truly delish but at £2 a packet they will have to be saved for special occasions!)

All of which is to explain why although I made my Daring Cardmakers card last monday it is Monday again before I am blogging. Sigh. Anyway Rein came up with a lovely idea - Suitcase. And as we had problems with the Inlinkz code last week you have a chance to win a prize again this week - find out more on the DCM site.

Here is my take on the dare
Yes it uses Lime Twist again. But I so love those bright and cheerful colours! I made the suitcase by die cutting rectangles, rounding the corners and making handles by die cutting two circles at the same time. I did make the inside of the suitcase match but you can't really see it.
It is held open by the use of many foam pads.

Other Details: Craft Creations cardstock; Nestability dies; Woodware heart punch; Martha Stewart border punch; Tim Holtz ticket die; Imagine That ticket stamps,; Adornit letters ; Paper and String button

I'm teaching at Imagine That this afternoon. Which means I had to forgo a day trip to France. Still it means I can get on with some chores before perhaps having a crafty play. Being out and about means that I haven't done anything for a whole week!

Bringing up the rear

that was always true of me in school sports and rien ne change pas (as I think they say in France) as I am last AGAIN with my Daring Card this week.
but I have been keeping busy with birthdays (thanks to those who sent greetings and cards), trips to the Wizard of Oz to celebrate the double birthdays (Carys is 15!!!!) work, loading up my new Kindle, work, a successful choir concert and work.

So here is the card. As it is now July (eeek) the theme was the flower of the month at Daring Cardmakers which for July is Larkspur or Water lily. I looked up Larkspur and saw one that looked a bit like this


Details:
Card: Craft Creations; Paper: MME Lime Twist; Dies: Nestabilities and PTI (scallop); Embossing folder: Cuttlebug; Punch: Stamping Up; Stamps: Imagine That; Distress Ink: Pumice Stone, Ranger; other tools: white Ranger enamel accents, white pen and green thread

Here are two layouts I managed to do last week
This one uses some VERY old Basic Grey paper. They are the sort of colours that Alison liked given the Lythan treatment (aka the black pen). I can't believe it is almost three months since she died. I haven't done much scrapping lately, I think because I had put the bits to do this page ready and couldn't bring myself to make it for a while. I'm glad I did though.
Details: Cardstock: Bazzill; Paper, letters and tags: Basic Grey Lily Kate; Pebbles: Prima; Chipboard: Cosmo Cricket; Punches: Martha Stewart; black pen and word pebble from stash.

And one that was much quicker in the making...
based on Pencil Lines sketch 243
Details: Papers: MME Lost and Found, Pink Paislee, Lily Bee; Die Cut: Lily Bee; Crown: Grungeboard coloured with gold Dabber; Bird: Pink Paislee; stick on brads: Imagine That; ribbon: Scrap Revolution; stickers: Adornit; stamps: Banana Frog

I'm hoping to do some scrapping in the few hours I have before Movie Night time. (Its the Social Network. We all loved the last film - the A team but the one before that Death at a Funeral - we had to switch off before it finished as we all hated it). Trouble is it is so warm in the conservatory that I can't stay in for long. (never happy are we?)

It'll be a mixed week of work and fun this week as my sister in law and her partner Terry arrive from Canada. We are the first stop on their visit Britain/get married/have honeymoon holiday and it is so exciting. Would you believe it though, Terry would love to see a football game (he is a sports journo) and this is the only 5 minutes there are when there is no football to be had!