Ups and downs

Well, August has turned out to be a month of highs and lows in every area of life. My health has been bad and the heat has been unbearable, but the flip side of that is I have been indoors in the aircon amusing myself with lots of lovely craft.
Apart from crafting, I also do my Family Tree in spurts and while I was browsing through some old photos to catalogue I came across some gorgeous pics my father had taken at the seaside when I was little. So I was inspired to get out my seaside stamps and do a scrapbook style card for my brothers birthday (exactly a week after mine) It is winging its way to the UK right now..

On the scrapbooking front, I have been very busy with more pages for Noah's book as I can deliver them in person in a couple of weeks!

I have also done a couple of pages for my daughters Family Tree scrapbook, but no pics yet I'm afraid.
I've been busy on the card front too, trying to find new things to teach at Craft Club when we start again in September. I LOVE stamping, but not everyone in the club does, so I have to push myself to think of other techniques to do. Here are two sample cards using peel off flower stickers  (from Dawn Bibby) cut out of pretty papers I had in my stash.

 The top one is done using white stickers and a mauve theme and the one on the right is more blue in tone and done with sliver stickers, not easy to see on these scans, but they do look pretty in the flesh. I hope the girls enjoy doing these!












A blog that I look at frequently is written by a lovely American lady called Sue Wilson, who demonstrates how to use Spellbinders dies on Create and Craft regularly. Today she has posted a gorgeous card and the instructions on how to make the flowers here

Aren't they gorgeous? So realistic looking too. Soooooo..... I'm going to try them out this week. Will let you see the results next time.

On the garden front, a little miracle, remember I posted back in the Spring about an hibiscus that was almost dead, but showing one little green shoot? Well finally, months later, here is the flower!

And the fig tree is producing hundreds of these beauties........yummy!

I've cooked some in Amaretto and frozen them for the winter as there are so many.

On the down side I have no knitting or crochet to show you this time, its just been too hot to hold any yarn in my hands, but I have been browsing patterns and planning my winter knitting, nice!

Because I was feeling so rough on my Birthday last week I didn't go to the beach for the day as is my habit, but I did get treated to a lovely fillet steak in the evening at one of the best restaurants in the area

The best present I had though was the news that I am to be a grandma again! Whoop, whoop, now all the baby patterns will be out again, so excited. Don't know the sex yet but I plan to make a neutral coloured sleeping bag (or bunting as the Americans call it) first.

So......I think the highs outweighed the lows after all.

Until next time, take care.

XXX