Noooooooooooo

It's my birthday and I'm 34!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am overweight, getting hot flushes as I've had a hysterectomy and my HRT isn't the right dosage (any story for another day), die my hair as I'm to grey for my age, still getting spots as I LOVE chocolate and everybody thinks my nails are false, which I may add ARE NOT, as I put gel over them as they are to soft.

On a more positive look, I am married to a man who I have loved since I was 17 although at the time we were both married to other people (took us 11 years to get together and have only been married 1 year 6 months and 28 days but who's counting?) have got 2 brilliant kids, Kelsey 11 and Joe 4, oh and Monty the cat that vanishes for 6 days, breaks my heart and re-appears as if nothing is wrong (grrr), have a lovely home which will be extended in a few months (awaiting planning permission) have a wonderful family who have supported me over the past year while I was under enormous pressure from outside sources, my business is slowly but surely starting to take off (mobile craft workshops for children and adults, still building the website) and I love love LOVE my crafting buddies who I have met over these past years, in particular Kath and Lorraine who live in Bonnie Scotland but are only and email away with support, inspiration, shoulder to cry on and a kick up the backside if I need it!!!!!

If I could have just 1 wish for my birthday, it would to have a magical rubber that I could rub out the things that I don't like about my body and re-draw myself. My hubby reminds me by saying "if you were a horse, they would have put you down years ago!" I know he's only joking but no matter how much time I spend in the gym, I'm never happy with the way I look and just can't justify nor afford spending thousands on the way I wish I was. :-( Plus I don't think I would stick the pain to well.

On a more positive note, I love my life now as I can do the things I want to do, when I want to do, live how I want to live, and spend more time with my hubby, kids and my crafts.

My late grandfather always said "SMILE as life is to short to CRY!!!!!!!!!" and this is true :-)

Back to Butts

Well after a very busy couple of days, I am now back to normal. Just finished all the washing and ironing, took 3 hours for the ironing, hate it big time.

Had a brilliant time in Nottingham meeting up with Kath, Lorraine and her mum Kay. We stayed at a nice hotel in Nottingham but outside it sounded more like Miami Vice with all the police sirens, car chases going on outside. No sleep and up and about from 5am.

When we got to our "training" hotel with all the other Fiskar Frillies :-) we were all pretty tired and the last thing we wanted to do was work, but needless to say when all the Fiskar toys appeared, the lovely Heidi Grace papers we could feel our eyes opened wide and were ready to take on the crafting challenges that had been set for us.

Unfortunately the time that we had for crafting, 4 hours, went to fast as normal and soon Jill (our commanding officer) was telling us to leave everything past :-( I did however manage to persuade Jill to give us some of the papers that we could continue playing at home, and at the bar the 3 frillies (Kath, Lorraine and myself) split the goodies that we had just received.

At the end we were all given our official Fiskar aprons and I sneaked a few pics of Lorraine and Kath wearing theirs, although I'm not quite sure what they are trying to do in the second picture? I think they were trying to re-act a scene from Dirty Dancing, naughty girls. Now don't be cross with me you 2 as you knew fine well that I would be posting these pictures.

Anyway I have so much more to put onto this blog in the next couple of days, please keep watching.

Karen

Away to Nottingham

Well my dear friends, this weekend has been manic so far and it's not over yet!! Had my first "official" Arty Party yesterday and it went really well. Will do a new posting for it in a couple of days but something more important is about to happen - I'm meeting up with my fellow Scottish Pals Kath and Lorraine for some catching up on the goss, oh and yeah doing some Fiskars training also.

The 3 of us originally met each other in September 07 and have stayed in contact ever since so it will be really good to share a wee drink or 2 with them. Flying out today at 2:30 pm leaving kids with my dad as mum is insisting that she goes with me (Lorraine's mum Kay is also going and they 2 Mothers act more like kids when they are together - embarrassing)! Not be back in home until late Monday night, 10pm I think?

Anyway, won't see my husband now until Monday night so I have left him a wee message under the duvet that he can find tonight, nothing naughty just a wee note to let him know that I love him and will miss him, all the sloppy kissie things you do.

Have to wash the kids clothes for school on Monday, hoover and dust the house, pack my suitcase, tidy up the mess from yesterday, pack my suitcase, iron the clothes, leave them past, oh and yes PACK. I hate packing but it shouldn't be that bad this time as I'm only goin' for 1 night.

Will take my camera and leave some pictures of us on a new posting on Tuesday/Wednesday, when I get time I promise.

Anyway, please don't forget that it's my birthday on Wednesday the 23rd, St George's Day, Shakespeare's birthday and also the anniversary of my great grandfather dying. Told you my life was depressing, he passed away 10 minutes before I was born and my mum wanted to call me Willamina as his name was William, thank goodness that my dad decided on Karen, much plainer I think. Anyway I was going to see how many people actually do read this blog site and leave a comment for my birthday as I only get 3 cards :-( would love some "blog" cards if you want to, the choice is yours.

Ta ta for now, Karen

Oh I have to pack and leave in 2 hours, kids still in bed, still in my pj's and it's raining HELP :-(

Birthday Candy

Mornin' all, just be blog hopping and found this brilliant site called pinkangel. To celebrate Tracie Jane's up coming birthday she is giving away rubberstamps to celebrate. All you have to do to enter is post a comment on her site and leave a link on your own site. This is open to everybody and the closing date is the 30th April, so go ahead and give it a go. If your not in you can't win !!!! Just click the "Birthday Candy" link above and it will take you straight there. GOOD LUCK:-)

Free stamp give away

Found this wonderful site http://katharina1704.blogspot.com/ and to celebrate Katharina's 30th Birthday she is giving away one brand new, original Hänglar and Stänglar stamp! Yes, you are reading right a real stamp of this very hard to get beauties. I know from experience that it is very very hard (especially in Northern Ireland) to get a hold of one of this cute little Hänglar stamps and here we have someone giving one as free blog because it's her birthday? I LOVE HER!! :) So please go and take a look, wish Katharina a happy birthday, and you could win this wonderful stamp!!

Just messing with my Sakura

This is another decoupage that I bought at the trade show recently, but to jazz it up a bit I have water coloured my sakura stardust pens over the blue flowers (don't know if the picture can show this). I have used a K&Company backing sheet (yet another new purchase) used some clear stardust and souffle pens to highlight some of the areas. Layered the flowers onto blue glitter and then onto matt silver paper. I didn't use mirror board as I thought the dullness of the silver paper highlighted the flowers better. Just to finish off I wrote "Love" using my black souffle pen. I like the way that your eye is drawn towards the flowers and that the backing papers are just lifted slightly. It's amazing what you can do when all the ironing, house work, dishes etc are left alone (oops better get them done before my hubby comes home as I am out tonight) :-)

It's like Christmas come early

Well after 7 months waiting my Fiskars demo kit, it finally arrived, 4 days before training may I add, better late than never I suppose. After kids went to bed I started to unpack everything and see what had been supplied. Originally quite disappointed as I have a number of the items already but maybe our kits will improve with time. Played around with their new wire shapes last night and these are 2 samples that I came up with. The first one was using some gold wire that I have and their flower template, a few brads added into the center of the flower and stem to hold the shape in place. Mounted onto black card with foam pads behind the brads and decorative scissors down the edge to break the blackness. The second card was using their stars wire template, black stripped card, black ribbon as boarder, peel off and black brad. Not bad I thought for 1st attempt, maybe after time I will get better at it, who knows?