I'm not 80 yet, but.....

I received this email twice this evening, just a few minutes apart...I thought it was so lovely and just wanted to share it with you..xxx


One day I had lunch with some friends. Jim, a tall, baldinggolfer type about 80 years old, came along with them---all inall, a pleasant bunch. When the menus were presented, we ordered salads, sandwiches,and soups, except for Jim who said, "Ice Cream, please. Twoscoops,
chocolate. I wasn't sure my ears heard right, and the others were aghast."Along with heated apple pie," Jim added, completely unabashed. We tried to act quite nonchalant, as if people did this all thetime.. But when our orders were brought out, I didn't enjoymine. I couldn't take my eyes off Jim as his pie a-la-mode went down.The other guys couldn't believe it. They ate their lunchessilently and grinned. The next time I went out to eat, I called and invited Jim. Ilunched on white meat tuna. He ordered a parfait.I smiled. He asked if he amused meI answered, "Yes, you do, but also you confuse me. How come you order rich desserts, while I feel I must besensible? He laughed and said "I'm tasting all that is Possible. I try to eat the food I need, and do the things I should. Butlife's so short, my friend, I hate missing out on
somethinggood. This year I realized how old I was. (He grinned) I haven't beenthis old before.""So, before I die, I've got to try those things that for yearsIhad ignored.I haven't smelled all the flowers yet. There are too many troutstreams I haven't fished. There's more fudge sundaes to wolfdown and kites to be flown overhead. There are too many golf courses I haven't played. I've notlaughed at all the jokes. I've missed a lot of sporting eventsand potato chips and cokes. I want to wade again in water and feel ocean spray on my face.Iwant to sit in a country church once more and thank God for Hisgrace. I want peanut butter every day spread on my morning toast. Iwant un-timed long distance calls to the folks I love the most. I haven't cried at all the movies yet, or walked in the morningrain. I need to feel wind on my face. I want to be in
loveagain. So, if I choose to have dessert, instead of having dinner, thenshould I die before night fall, I'd say I died a winner, becauseI missed out on nothing. I filled my heart's desire. I had thatfinal chocolate mousse before my life expired.." With that, I called the waitress over.. "I've changed my mind,"I said. "I want what he is having, only add some more whippedcream!" This is my gift to you - We need an annual Friends Day! If youget this twice, then you have more than one friend. Live well,love much & laugh often - Be happy. SHARE THIS WITH YOUR FRIENDS including me if I'm lucky enoughtobe counted among them. Be mindful that happiness isn't based on possessions, power, orprestige, but on relationships with people we like and respect.Remember that while money talks, CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM SINGS!

A Joy Forever

I spent some time at my Sister's house on Saturday, the little ones played in the pool there and I had the pleasure of this young mans company :).

He is such a jolly little fella, even though he is teething again at the mo, he still has a sunny smile and a big hug for us all, I just love having a big squishy hug with him. Donna had taken some smashing pics of him earlier on in the day and decided to take some snaps of me and him having a huggle.....awwwwwww......so I thought I would scrap a couple.

I have gently sponged a large doily with brown, blue and gold inks to co-ordinate a bit better with the papers...but I am still not sure about the doily bit, think its a bit OTT? The blue bow is made from some nylon crochet ribbon, I got a 90 mtr roll at the market on friday and wondered when I might use some lol.

Anyway....after having a lovely cuddly, loving hug with his Aunti Neek....he turned into a wee savage beastie and decided to try and terrorise me and maul my face LOL....good job he is cute eh ;)

Feelin' Hot! Hot! Hot!

Phew! Thank GOODNESS it's cooled a little today, yesterday was almost unbearable for me ( I don't cope with the heat very well :( ) For most of day I sat in shade or in the car with the air con on LOL. I reckon Chloe had the right idea....we haven't got a pool at the mo....and no space even if we did have one as I recently bought the girls a biiiiig trampoline..... so what's a girl to do?
Simples.....get a biiiiiig softy bucket, fill with water and immerse ones youngest daughter, sit back and enjoy ;) he!he!he!....kept her happy( and comfy) for a while anyway!




About 4 years ago I bought a strawberry plant, which i had in a terracotta pot on my patio. I wasn't very lucky with it the 1st year and it withered away :(, but.....it had a couple of runners that shot out from it and lo and behold.....they grew into the crevices in the patio!


And I am getting a little crop of strawberries now :), not quite enough for a lovely pavlova, but hey, we all start somewhere....and they are nice and juicy :)

Right, just popping out for a little bit, hope to be back later :)..xxxxx

Morning Glory!

Just a very quick fly through from me tonight! Now I know I sometimes have a whinge about getting up early each morning for work ( I get up mon - fri at 3.30am), I know I have great big bags under my eyes ( that I could fit my weekly shopping in lol) and I know I get knarly and scratchy through being tired( so whats my excuse at the weekend when I can lay in til 7am??) BUT....when I go into work first thing and then a little later on go into the yard and see sights like this....well....it kinda makes it all worth while. Infact I feel sorry for people who never get chance to see such truly beautiful colours and scenes because they are tucked up inside 4 walls. Early morning really can be a very special time of day, even though the beauty may only last for a few minutes at times. Roll on tomorrow morning, I shall make sure I tuck my camera in my bag again.....along with matchsticks....to keep my eyes open LOL.

I am sorry to not visit everyones blogs tonight, but I SHALL visit them and catch up tomorrow hopefully ok. I am off to bed for an early night....sleep well everyone, sweet dreams :)..xxx

A Handsome Chap...A Fast Car...and a Christening!

Good evening :), I hope you all have a super weekend? Ours was very busy....what with the carnival on saturday and then yesterday we had the Christening of a very special little man, our nephew Joshua. Both Dale and myself were very lucky to have been asked to be Godparents to him.
I posted a little sneak peek a few days ago of something that I was working on for the Christening and now I can show you what it was.......
I made the prototype design for these favour boxes that Donna bought as blanks for gifts for all the ladies that came to the christening. I used various punches and layered the flowers and glittered these and the butterflies. Thankfully Donna liked the design of the original favour that I decorated and she took away all the finished decorations and decorated the rest of the boxes in the same way( and of course she gently inked all the edges with a soft baby blue ink ;) )
The 30 boxes were all then filled with delicious Thorntons choc.....yummy!




Here is Joshy's card that I made using the left over flowers and butterflies, I was inspired to make it a personlised card after seeing fabby ones on Linda's blog, the swirls on the paper( MME Penny Lane) in the background are all glittery and very pretty.

Donna had a Christening gown made from parts of her wedding dress, its to start a new family heirloom that hopefully will be passed down through her generations to come, its really beautiful and my photos just do not do it justice unfortunately.


Check out the wheels!!!!! This was the transport to and from the church, isn't it gorgeous! It belongs to a good friend of Donna and Ian's called Jim, he is such a nice guy and totally looks the part too, he dresses in authentic 50's style clothes and his house is incredible inside, it's all decked out in true American 50's style, sporting a diner style sections, jukebox etc. Its the same car that we were lucky enough to have to take Lauren to her birthday party for her 13th a couple of years ago.

A little bit of a cheeky moment here, I think he is going to be a right little pickle lol.

He is such a handsome little chappy isn't he....always a sparkly smile for everyone.

Chloe sat with Nanna in the front pew :)

Just look at him now....he fell asleep very peacefully just before the service started AND slept all the way through the blessing at the alter, signing the cross with the oil ( that was done 7 times too!).....and then he stayed asleep at the font too.

Nope, its not a snarl or a shout.....just a yawn from a little smasher who was rudely awakened by having Holy Water poured over his head.......bless him, but you know what? He woke ready with a smile for everyone.xxx

Here is the sweet little crib blossom from the top of the cake ( sorry the photo isn;t too great), look at that teeny baby under the blankets of leaves. Its really delicate and is entirely made from sugar paste by my mega talented and lovely sister....she never ceases to amaze and inspire me.

And here is his cake. The photo of him is printed onto icing( i always said he was good enough to eat lol) and isn't that just THE best way to use glitter Thickers....and the band round the cake was made using a Martha Stweart punch.....gosh, my sister ROCKS!!!

Donna, if you read this Hun, just want to say THANK YOU sooooo much for allowing us the honour of being Godparents to that scrumptious little man..xxx

Carnival Capers.....and Cupcakes!

Today has been Carnival day in Hailsham and Chloe joined in with her school float which was themed as Alice in Wonderland, she had the choice of being a playing card, a flower or a butterfly....and so the obvious was to choose the butterfly lol. As it was so cold she had to wrap up in a lilac velvet hoody aswell.

I delivered her to the start of the procession and then returned home to watch the Carnival with Dale, my Mum, Sister, Brother in Law and their little ones.

Now if you get bored easily looking at photos i would suggest you run away now as fast as you can LOL as there are a few to follow, although I didn't actually get photos of all the groups taking part.!

The Mad Hatter himself! Although you can't see it in the photo he even has the bright green contact lenses in....he looked VERY eerie up close I can tell you.

The front end of the float, this is where the Queen of Hearts sat on her throne, all the committee made such an amazing job of decorating the float, such a lot of work involved. And I am delighted to say that they earned 1st Prize in the float competition......

The Mad Hatters Tea Party ( watched over by Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee)

A very tall man came strolling along next!

And every tall guy need a tall girl to walk next to him.

We have a new charity shop in Hailsham, its called Thank the Forces...and this was their float.

Ug!Ug!Ug! He hads his spinach for breakfast me thinks!!!

Joshua watched the procession sporting his England strip ( I don;t think even he was impressed with their performance so far, lets hope the next match sees them get their act together eh!) just look at those gorgeous little chubbychunk leggies he has, all squishy and lovely.

After watching the procession we followed it down to the playing fields where there was a fun fair and various stalls and arena events....unfortunately a few mins after arriving there the heavens opened and we got soaked in just a few moments........such a shame.

Before trying to escape home wet and cold we saw a gorgeous cupcake stall....and it would have been rude to have run past without stopping to buy some wouldn't it. Mine is the lime green one, it was Elderflower...and delicious!




I just knew Chloe would choose one of the chocolate orange cupcakes, she can devour nearly a whole chocolate orange in just one sitting!!!
,

Lauren LOVES cupcakes, she is a girl after my own heart. Check out her nails! She loves painting them in various designs and wanted to use the England colours, but didn;t want just a Geaorge cross like lots of others have done.....so she made leopard print instead....I tell you that girl IS talented!


After being at home for a while the skies cleared and I took Chloe back to spend some pennies on the various tombola stalls. We met up with Lauren and she bought herself a hog roast roll( which looked and smelt fantastic!)




So that was our Saturday....hope you have all had a lovely one too. Tomorrow is Joshua's Christening, both Dale and myself feel very honoured as we are going to be Godparents to him :) ( we are also Godparents to his brother and sister), so I hope to maybe have some pics to blog soon. Have a lovely sunday everyone..xxxx Warmest wishes Anita..xxx

Especially For You

I nearly blogged this card yesterday....but didn't, just incase it didn't get to its recipient until today lol. Anyway, here is a card I made for my lovely friend Lynn :).

I am not sure what the stamp is as I bought a handful of stamped images a few weeks ago from a lady at our local community market....its cute though isn't it? Its not a very good photo unfortunately and the colours are much prettier in the flesh. The papers I used are from My Minds Eye and its the Penny Lane glittered collection, I coloured the image with Promarkers and used various punches. I also added a Papermania bow and gems from the Capsule Collections..... oh yes and some Ice Stickles....xxx

A little toilet humour........

I am feeling a little sorry for myself today....after sitting in the dentists chair this morning and having root canal treatment ready for a crown to be fitted I am feeling rather tender :(.....so I thought I would share something with you that makes me smile.
A few weeks ago we had a new toilet fitted in the bathroom....the old one was popped out in the garden and awaited removal to the local rubbish dump. Well I LOVE to find uses for other things, espcially in the garden. Normally in the summer you will find our garden is decorated with some of Dale's old Doc Martin boots which are planted up and overflowing with pretty blooms of various types. When the girls were small and outgrew their wellies I used to cut holes in the upper part of the toes and attach chains to the tops of the wellies and make hanging baskets from them.....so a lovely white porcelain toilet was too good of an opportunity to miss.


I got a bag of multi purpose compost and some trays of potting plants and I merrily planted away. They were only teeny little plants when they went in and I am really pleased with how they have grown. I have still got the cistern to plant up, not sure what I shall put in there, but fear not, it will be put to good use

Chloe has a half barrel at the bottom of the garden that she has planted some sunflowers in and they are sprouting quite nicely too.

Had to add a couple of boring close ups of some of the plants in 'the pan' lol.

So there you go, that's something you don't see in peoples gardens everyday of the week! Well, unless its my garden that is LOL.....Charmin innit ;)

.......I wonder what our girly is doing this evening at camp? I wonder if they are toasting marshmallows round the campfire and singing Ging Gang Goolie Goolie Gotcha.....or more than likely they are tucking into a pizza delivery and belting out to a karaoke machine lol. Whatever it is I hope they are having a smashing time....I know I am missing her..xxxxx Lauren xxxxx

Right I am off to bed in a mo, my face hurts, I want some sleep and more to the point 3.30am will roll around all too soon......ack!!!

Jazmyne in June.

This was the June class at Cardinal Colours. It was made using the stunning Jazmyne papers from Bo Bunny and is about a very special group of ladies that I am lucky enough to be able to call my friends :)

The layout was based on the Noteworthy sheet which I sliced down the scalloped edge and slid the Peridot Die cut sheet underneath and cut off the excess. I then cut several flowers and leaves from the Jazmyne sheet and layered them up in various places. The title was cut using a Sissix Sidekick and the Sizzlet Nouveau alphabet.

I used my Martha Stewart Deep Edge punch, MS triple butterfly punch and teeny little retro flower punch and then finished off the page with touches of Stickles in the colour 'Patina' and some Prima crystals.

These papers were just a delight to work with, such lovely quality and beautiful colours and the glittery embossing was just gorgeous.( of course it helped having a lovely subject to scrap too ;) )

Well I am off to take my Mum and youngest daughter to visit my Dad this evening, so hubby is left to fend for himself for tea( think we might grab a bag of chips on the way home lol) Our eldest, Lauren, went off to camp for the week this morning. They have gone to a huge outdoor activity camp and will be taking part in things like archery, kayaking,rock climbing, tunnelling, zip wires, crate challenges, abseiling and lots of other things. You should have seen the size of her bag this morning....it WAS huge! And I forgot to take a flipping photo!!!!! Oh well, I shall have to grab one upon her return. Keeping our fingers crossed that the weather stays fine for them all....have a lovely evening everyone....warmest wishes Anita..xxxx

You Are So Beautiful..........

This is a layout I created back in April when I went away on a fab weekend with a special bunch of girlfriends( roll on the next one eh girls ;) )
Its our eldest daughter, Lauren....and its a photo that she took of herself using our webcam. I just de-saturated the photo a bit and that was it! I really enjoyed making this page, using all the bits and bobs and ripping,distressing, inking and sewing. I was so chuffed with the result that I text her a photo of it as I couldn;t wait to get home to show her LOL.
.....and I am glad to say she loved it too! I know I am biased, but I think she is beautiful.

I hope you all have a super Sunday, whatever you are up too. Me? Well I think I shall be having a mega clear out in our bedroom, a session with the ironing board and then later on I shall be personal hairdresser to my lovely Hubby ;)..xxx

Been busy today......

I have been punching and punching and sticking and creasing........but I can only show a little sneaky peak as its for something special next weekend!

but I can tell you its to do with a very special little fella with a handsome face and a gorgeous smile ;)

Isn't he a little cracker!

You Are My Sunshine.........

my only sunshine...........................

.I just ADORE the colours in this range called Flower Child from Bo Bunny, soooo vibrant and lush. All I have added is a sheet of bazzill, some Doodlebug alpha stickers, Martha Stewart ounched butterflies and some crystals

oh yes...and a little bit of turquoise ink! I think that Bo Bunny are going to rapidly become my fave manufacturer :D.xx

A few bits and bobs.

Good evening all.....



I thought I really should start to catch up on some of the things I have been making lately, so here are a few bits and bobs that I would like to share with you.




Last month saw a very special friend of mine celebrate a very special birthday and this is the card I made for her
I think the image is a wild sprout from The greeting Farm and is coloured with Promarkers. The paper is a sheet of Scenic Route that I chopped up, the flowers are from WildOrchidCrafts and the little letter stickers are from My Little Shoebox....oh yes and I used some Eline Prima crystals....jeeez I love them, any colour or size, I am soooo easily pleased lol!!!

I had a personalised stamp made for Lynn for her pressie, she is a wonderful card maker( not to mention awesome scrapper!!) and I thought she would like it maybe for stamping her details on the back of her cards, I have one and I love mine, I bought them from BunnyZoe's....you should pop over and have a looky, they are superb quality and an excellent price.
I also made Lynn this little note book








I really enjoyed making this and think I can see some more of these in the pipeline :)


I thought I would show you this aswell lol, its a saucy card using a stamp called Bikini Babe, it was designed by the very talented Sandra Dry and is sold under the Kadoodle stamp name. I just had to buy her when i saw her. Its not a great piccy really as there is quite a lot of shading on her that you cant see. The bunting, ball, flipflops and words are cut from a sheet of Imaginicse papers.

Right, thats me done for tonight I think. Just got time to fly round a couple of other blogs then off to bed for me.....3.30am will be here all too soon again.xxx