"Summer is a'comin' in....."

Well maybe it is! The sun is shining and the temperature is rising at last, so lets hope! Whatever the weather I am so enjoying the lush greenness of England again, the trees are breathtaking at the moment, the blossom last month was gorgeous and now there are lilacs and clematis blooming, such a treat!
Apologies for the long absence from blog land, I moved back to blighty in January and have had several stressful months of finding a home and settling into it. My family have so supportive and helpful and I am at last happily settled
I am now living in a lovely little flat in a sheltered housing complex in Croydon, near where I grew up. I have joined a lively Anglican church in South Croydon and belong to a homegroup locally where I am making friends and feeling part of a community again. I've also joined a local fun choir and started a knit and natter here in the flats and joined a Craft club.
Here are the first splash of colour at my window sill when I first moved in....

                                                 

Needless to say I have been crafting where ever and whenever I can! Firstly for my new granddaughter born on the 16th March. Here is the sleeping bag I knitted for her while in transit

and some little bunny bootees....

And a little crochet amigurumi bunny

A begonia that is flowering continously on my windowsill...

The gorgeous blossom in the park right next door to me...

One of the greatest joys of being home is spending lots of time with my gorgeous grandchildren, here is Noah using Nannie's stamps and loving it!

A little Olive chuckling on my sofa!

A birthday card for a little girl I know, made from the Angelina CD by Crafters Companion

Another joy of being on the outskirts of London is being able to go to shows etc, I visited the Kaffe Fassett exhibition in at the Fashion and Textile Museum near London Bridge, fabulous colours and textures in knitting and crochet, patchwork, tapestry and mosaics, would recommend a visit to anyone,

Cup caking making for a visit to friends (rhubarb and custard flavour) with new silicone moulds to make the flowers and leaves, so easy and  very pretty. Needless to say not a crumb left!

My latest creations from a CD called Fabulous Fashion by Katy Sue Designs.

My crafty skills were soon discovered at church and I was invited to help at Rendezvous, an outreach activity day for elderly and disabled people. I decided to do shaving foam marbling and it was a great hit, several people made book marks or cards from there inky creations and were very proud of their achievements. It was a very happy and satisfying day for all, to be repeated in the Summer.

I still have lots of WIP's (works in progress) around the place, but the priority is a little pinafore dress for little Olive, pics soon!

I hope to write much more regularly now, please send your comments and questions, I love to read them!

Bye for now and enjoy the weather!

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