A little update

Hi folks, life is a little less hectic around here, thank goodness! My OH is slowly improving, but it will be a long haul. I've been getting back to crafting, but most of the things that I've been making, I can't show you yet, as they are on their way to other people, or I've been working on Design Team projects.

My little chicks are growing fast, running about here, there and everywhere. We had put mesh around their compound to stop them getting out, so that the cat couldn't get to them. They keep finding escape routes, so we have given it up as a bad job, and given them the freedom of the garden. The cat sleeps most of the day anyway, so they are fairly safe!

The chicks are starting to grow their feathers now, and are even getting little wispy tails! I took a few photos out in the garden yesterday, and thought that I would share a picture or two with you. Even the non bird lovers amongst you might think these are cute!

Anyway, enough cuteness! Onto matters crafty! I can show you two items that I made recently for swaps on the Chocolate Baroque Guild. Each month, we set challenges, and swap tags or ATCs to a certain theme. This month, we pushed the boat out, and also did an altered matchbox swap too. this is my take on the matchbox swap:

I have coloured my elements with Distress Inks, and then stamped over the top with Versafine Ink, embossing some key areas with clear EP. I covered the box with French poetry, and added a couple of little charms.

For the tag swap, the theme was 'Baroque' and the colour choice was 'hues of blues'. I still had my Venetian lady stamp sitting on my desk from my Forgotten Friday project last week, so I decided to use that stamp again, as it doesn't get to see the light of day very often! I coloured some white card with some Distress Stains in two shades, ran it through an embossing folder, and coloured the raised areas with Inka Gold, in Old Silver. I used a piece of  printed paper from an old Guild pack to finish backing my tag. I made some jointed pieces of beading for the bottom of the tag, using gold and turquoise beads. 

Hopefully, as my recipients receive more of their items, I can reveal more of what I've been up to!
Thanks for stopping by today, and I'll see you tomorrow for my Forgotten Friday post. Judith xx

Mother's Day and a Golden Wedding

Well, I've had a busy day today; I've been invigilating at the school, and making cards. It's my in laws' Golden Wedding Anniversary tomorrow, and we're all having a meal with them to celebrate. My MIL has just had a big operation so is not 100%, and it will be very tiring for her. Her family consists of three noisy sons, three daughters in law, seven granchildren, and there will be three boyfriends and a girlfriend tagging along with the older granchildren, Michelle who made the lovely card).

I'm putting some card pictures in this post of the anniversary card, made with two linked hearts created with paper sprayed with Glimmer Mists. (I used parchment scissors to get into the little areas for cutting out). The background paper is from a GG paper pack and I used a computer generated greeting, as I don't have an anniversary greeting that I like. I'm also including my mother's day cards, both similar but in different colour ways to reflect the different tastes of my Mum and MIL - My Mum likes turquoise, and my MIL prefers stronger colours. The Daisy collage stamp is another Elusive Images stamp, and the background paper is from the Damask Delight CD. I've used Inktense pencils, and decoupaged the butterflies and daisies. Finally, there is a card with a Ventian flavour to reflect my recent trip to Italy. I want to do some scrapbooking with these stamps as I mentioned in a previous post, but time is against me at the moment, so a card was all I could manage. Anyway, I wanted to show Michelle the joys of stampboard at the class last night, as she made an identical card.

We had a sad day yesterday, as a dog got into the garden, and attacked one of our chickens, and she died. This happened back in November as well, and we ended up losing three chickens as a result of the attack back then. We knew which dogs came into the garden before, but the police did nothing about it. We don't know what happened yesterday, so therefore, we can't do anything. Our chickens are very much like pets, and so it's sad for us when something like this happens; they have their individual characters and they are very quirky. All of our animals today appear a bit spooked, including the rabbit and the cat, and it will take them a few days to settle down. Life goes on, but it's sad.

I'm looking forward to Mother's Day, I won't have to cook at least. My poor hubby has just been diagnosed with IBS, and the dietician has given him a strict short-term diet taking away all of his favourite foods. He is not happy. He made her write down the bit that said he didn't have to eat vegetables as he told her that I wouldn't believe him! He is not allowed beer either, so there you go, you win some, you lose some! Have a happy Mother's Day everyone, Judith x