WOYWW #469

Good Morning everyone, I hope the weather is good wherever you are. This is the post-birthday edition, and as such, features a whole bunch of Birthday ATC's. Stop off at Julia's place, The Stamping Ground, for all the links, and also information at the top of her Blog about this years Crop in Llandudno, in September. If you've never been- you really will enjoy it, it's a fab day of chat,cake,Coffee & Tea,chat, Cake,Crafting,Dinner,chat, Cake- you get the idea?

This one arrived before the Birthday, and is from Nikki. Included some of her fabulous artwork, and bits of ephemera. As well as a host of gorgeous stamps on the envelope!

Nikki also produces the fab birthday badges for our blogs every year- this years 9th ones are available on Julias blog, if you missed them on Nikkis last week.

Diana's (Velvet Moth Studios) came in a beautifully decorated matching envelope, Heathers in a little card, as did Annie & Jo's( Wipso & Twiglet), with a lovely little verse.

Margaret (Glitter& Glue), LLJ, Sarah Brennan, Helen (Stamping by H) and Cindy. Awesome little cards with them too.

Kim Young, Neet (Hickydorums) and Angela (Felix the Crafty Cat). Angela also included some pieces of ephemera, and some die cuts!













Kyla was actually my PIF, then she sent me one in return, along with some fab pieces of her backgrounds.  Love the moths on the envelope too!













Zsuzsa (Inkydinkydoodle)  also included some goodies in her ATC, which came in a gorgeous envelope of handprinted paper.





Thank you so much everyone, for the swaps, and the amazing goodies so many of you included. I need to up my game next year, clearly! 😀







In other news, how many of you ladies, and I'm pretty sure it will be mainly the Brits, and ladies 'of a certain age', lol,- remember the PG Tips Tea monkeys from (a lot of )years ago?
My late youngest brother was crazy about them as a small child, and they once ran an offer to buy a toy version, which was actually quite large- probably as tall as your average 2 year old.
 Anyway, this pic, which my niece took a few days ago, is of her daughter playing with it now. 47 YEARS LATER!  Yes, that's how old it is, and it looks pretty much the same now as it did when Darrell got it. They don't make toys like that anymore.
The real monkeys from the ads used to live at Twycross Zoo, and I remember my Dad taking us there a few times, so Darrell could see them.

Did a little gardening over the weekend, and this old fashioned Aquilegia, I think they are called Grannys Bonnets, were very much flavour of the day for the bees! They were loving them. I also have some in white, and two shades of purple, and they are quite shameless about spreading their seeds all over the garden, which I rather like.

I also made some Christmas cards for the Fortnightly challenge, and they are in the post below.






And finally..............following on from last weeks Viking revelation............................

Christmas Card Club #11- Christmas Trees

Hello everyone, and I hope this finds everyone well. This fortnights challenge is from me, and is for Christmas Trees- Indoor or Outdoor.
I've used both options, and the first one is a card I case'd from one I saw Gina K of Stamp TV make, using one of her own stamp sets.

My tree is froma set by Indigo Blu,called Winter Wonderland. The hills were sponged with torn paper and Archival Cornflower Blue ink.
 The sentiment is from Phill Martin, Scribbled Christmas Petite set.
 A few baubles added to the tree with Red & Gold Stickles. The embossing folder used for the mount piece is from Crafts Too.

 This is a Sweet Poppy stencil called Mistletoe tree, and was done using home made glitter paste.
 Some half pearls finished them off.

Another Sweet Poppy stencil, Snowflake Tree, this time in silver glitter paste, and a few acrylic gems for some extra sparkle.




I'm looking forward to seeing everyones take on the theme.  I missed the Christmas Wreaths week, while I was on holiday, and the next one, Sentiment as Focal Point, due to a burst water pipe- not indoors I hasten to add, but a lot of upheaval nonetheless. I'll be trying to catch upon those challenges, as I have many wreath stamps and dies I'd love to use, and the Sentiment one is a style I've been meaning to try for a long time.

WOYWW #468- The 9th Birthday Edition!

 Indeed, a HUGE Happy Birthday to us all, but especially to our amazing leader, Julia, from The Stamping Ground, whose baby this blog hop was, and who has kept it running for so long.
 Looking back on my blog, it looks like my first join up with WOYWW was back in January 2011, which was week number 84! I was doing terrible posts back then, lol, no info on what I'd made, no labels, nothing. (Hangs head in embarrassment). But, as I blogged I learnt, especially from other blogs, so I grew. I only started my blog as Beloved Hubby kept telling me I should- I saw no reason anyone would be interested in what I did, and tbh, looking back at early posts, I would not have blamed them, lol.
 But here we are, in my case 7 years later and still going strong. And we still get new people joining in, which is lovely, and there are a number here who have been visiting for many years, so whether you are an old friend or a new one I'm always happy to visit everyone  pretty much every week.
 So, onwards then. All my ATC's are in the post Tuesday afternoon, apart from my PIF, of course. I've already received 2, which I'm not opening till Wednesday. What else has been happening? I'm not sure if I've already shown you these, the medallions I die cut and layered.

Managed to get them in a patch of sun so you can see the sparkle from the Foil & Glitter.

Visible Image had some new stamps & stencils released last week, so a couple of each fell into my basket.

In one of my planters I have a Goth Petunia!










At Christmas, one thing Doug & I bought each other was a DNA testing kit. Due to me being on antibiotics for weeks, we waited till I was off them to do the test.
 This week we got the results back,Doug posted the results on FB a few days ago, but for those who haven't seen it, you may be interested. Dougs was exactly as he expected- mainly English with about a quarter Welsh-his Dad came from a Welsh family.
 But mine- WOW! was mine a surprise!
I'm a Viking! And given that the Vikings invaded pretty much everyone else on their World Tour, that explains the others as well😀😀 So, go me.😈  If you need any invading & pillaging, you know who to call. 😏😏

               And finally...............

WOYWW #467

Well here we are again, and now it's just one week away from the big 9! Links over at Julias, The Stamping Ground, to desk hop, and also info about the ATC swap for our birthday.

 I finally have mine finished this afternoon.
 The names on my swap list are, My PIF, then
Julia, LLJ,Margaret (Glitter & Glue),
Annie (Wipso),Jo (Twiglet),Cindy,Suzanne Alexis, Angela Radford, Sarah Brennan, Neet,Nikki, Heather Marshall & Zsuzsa. Thats 14 all together, and I have 3 more spare, so if anyone else wants to swap, let me know.

Friday afternoon we spent at the RHS Spring Show at Malvern. Vast number of gardens to look at, sculptures galore and a huge variety of plants to buy.










  This garden sculpture was amazing, so beautifully done.

A bonsai, I took the photo to show my son, as it's his hobby these days. Quite a selection of magnificent specimens.

Needless to say, we came home with a good selection of plants for the garden, which will be this weekends job, as there has been digging on our back patio to fix a water leak. Not ours, I hasten to add, a couple of doors up, but as we are on an old Victorian street, 3 houses run off the same supply, so we all have had new piping laid.

 This card was quickly put together for a work colleague who was retiring on Friday, but had kept it quiet until Wednesday! Those Stampscapes scenes I did came in really useful here, and are perfect for this subject. Especially useful when the retiree isn't someone with hobbies you can theme the card to.



....And finally......

Right, I'm done. See you all later!

WOYWW #466

Hi folks, I'm back, and hoping you've all had a great Bank Holiday weekend, with some fabulous weather. Didn't have very good weather for our week away, in fact it wasn't till Sunday that we saw any sunshine. Speaking of which, I have to show you this. Facebook friends will have already seen it, but I thought you all deserved a laugh! There was a really interesting Science Museum close to where we were staying, so we went for a visit.

They had one of those Static Electricity gadgets there, and needless to say, Hubby was determined he was having a go.

 Even the attendant asked to take pictures, as they'd never had anyone with hair as long as Dougs have a go on it.

On the desk, I've die cut and layered up all those medallions, now they just need to go on cards.











But first-

yes, I've finally started my ATC's. So anyone else who would like to swap, leave me a message, and send me your snail mail, and I'll do the same.

Right then, pop your link over at Julias at The Stamping Ground, and let us all come look at your desk!



And finally.....................
That is so true, 😁.