My how time fly's when you are having fun.  Where did Christmas go?  Not long to New Year, then we can get on with the rest of our lives.

We are expecting a new baby in 2013.  My lovely niece Lauraine is 20 weeks and cooking.  Cant wait for May 17th 2013.

2012 was a fab year wasn't it?  My Pal Lyn went to NZ for 6 months in November, I went three times to the Olympics, a beacon lighting for the jubilee, went to see the Rolling Stones at the O2, but the biggest event for me was the magical wedding of my Niece to her Big G. The Hiya girls went on the ATDML retreat in April and once again it was a lovely weekend. 

So what for 2013? Well I have nothing planned.  When I say that, I mean I have nothing booked.  The Hiya Girls did a year book last year and once again, I find myself having to finish it.  It mainly the pictures.  I never seem to print them off for scrapping. So I have bought myself a small cannon printer and a cheap little Nikon camera. No excuse now. So I will continue with the yearbook for 2013 and plan to have it completed buy Jan 2014.  So what to include in it. This is my list of things I would like to do in 2013 that I could include in my year book.

• go up the Shard which opens to the public in February. Its a 1016ft high so can you imagine the views?
• I want to visit the Faero Islands and the Isle of Sky.  I want to visit Scotland more as I love it there.  I have family living in Grangemouth and my new nephew is stationed in Scotland so have no excuse for a visit.
• I want to visit the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.
• I want to visit the Ice Bar in London.
• I want a day trip from Southend Airport.  Perhaps to Belfast.
• I want to do an advanced driving course.
• I would like to learn to do Patchwork.
• I want to knit or crochet a modern poncho and finish it for next winter.
• Go with my Friends to the V&A Hollywood Costume Exhibition.
• Visit Family more.
• Learn more about my DSLR and take more pictures with it.

So lets see how I get on and how many pages I get done and posted here.

Happy New Year to you all.
xx

The Craft Palace

I can't believe its nearly a year since I wrote any thing here. So much has append in this time, too much to write down here and bore people with.

My Pal is in New Zealand spending quality time with her family.  Its only been three weeks but it seems a lot longer than that.  And I miss her.  She better come back.

I'm in the process of turning my garage into a craft room.  Just look at it at the moment. EEEEEKKKK!!!!  A lot of work ahead.  Ive got to get rid of all this junk.  I have been dumping stuff here since I moved in and OMG look at it.
 

The thing is I need all this stuff!!!!  Yeah right.  There are two little Jayne's sitting on my shoulders.  The little fairy Jayne is saying get rid, you don't even know what is in the cupboards and the little devil Jayne is purring keep it.  I have to say the fairy is winning, so I am just off to the tip to dump three bags of stuff.  A dent but a small one.  This is my project for the next six months, change a tip to a Craft Room or as my pal Claire has named it "The Craft  Palace".

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone that follows my Blog. Hopefully there are still some of you out there, despite me failing to blog for a good while.

New years resolution? To organise myself and give myself more time. This is one I have to keep as 2010 was hectic and I kind of lost focus on things.

2011 has started well. A new role at work, a weekend away with the Hiya Crop girls and the first of the multiple TT tasks completed.

My aim to to make at least one card and one layout a week to post on this blog. Please look at two new blogs I follow. Major Mole is my friend Lyn who is off to New Zealand via LA and will be posting her trip with pics. The second will be the Hiya Crop made up of friends Claire, Fabby, Lyn and myself. This is in the process of being built as we speak.

So yes, I'm back to blogging. Please leave comments on each of our blogs. Its nice to keep in touch.

Sprinkles of Love

Auntie Fairy

Eternal Maker

I have just spent a lovely weekend away with my friend Lyn while house sitting for her brother in West Sussex. I have to mention West Sussex and I never know which county I am in and she is always telling me off.

When out exploring, we found a lovely shop namely Eternal Maker. It was a hot, hot day, and as we walked in through the door, the two ladies welcomed us and offered us a seat and a cold drink. These two ladies were so helpful. They told us how the shop was founded, the classes they run, about the Button Company and all about their products. Customer service was 110%.

Needless to say, after a few hours in the shop and a pub lunch, then back to the shop, we made a few purchases. Apart from paper crafting items, we bought off-cuts of quilting materials.

This is my card made with the Woodware set of stamps purchased and a piece of the material. I liked the fact that the off-cut of material is not square. I frayed the edges to add more texture. After colouring the little houses, I purposely cut them off-square, for me to make it more interesting. With a white gel pen, I feux stitched around the blue card to pick up the stitching on the little houses.

I added to the sentiment by drawing a squiggly line making it look more like loose thread.

Hope you like it.

Sprinkle of Love

Playing With Prima's

Yesterday I took my niece shopping and hairbands were on the list. Yep we bought one but, I was not going to pay £6 for a screwed up bit of silk pretending to be a flower, when I had prettier in my craft room. I had a number of packets of pretty Prima flowers and butterflies bought because they were beautiful and not with a project in mind. You get two large flowers in a pack for an average £5 a pack.

So, I bought a packet of five elasticated hairbands for £1 and sewed my Prima Flowers to them. Simples. Much cheaper and far prettier than the shop bought hairbands.

Have a look at these four.

Happy Birthday Marion

How many of you save a bit of this and a bit of that to use for a card or layout later. I've tons of it. The ribbon used on this card was originally wrapped around a box of soaps that a dear friend bought me.

This was my friend Marion's birthday card. Unbeknown to her, that the ribbon used was from a gift given with love and it has been re-used on a card sent with love.
This card is so so simple. The card used are from Craftwork cards, which are reasonably priced for a pack of 50.


I lightly inked the edge of the card using a dauber. I prefer daubers for inking as I can control the application better and I don't over ink. In fact, there is enough ink left on the dauber to just give a subtle edge for a few applications without re-inking. I prefer the daubers from SU as they fit my finger like a thimble and I can control its usage better.

Sprinkes of love

Hi, Long Time no Speak

God its been a long time since I blogged. How have you all been?

Whats happened? Well I have been away on a few holiday's and had some lovely long weekends away with friends. I now don't design for Sugar and Spice. Marion has decided to go it alone.

The Hiya Crop has been formed; Fabby Claire Lyn and Myself are the Hiya Crop. Why Hiya? Well Fabby asked if we fancied a weekend away cropping. The e-mails between us always began Hi Ya, and as simple as that, we were named.

We had our first weekend away in Graystone in Kent. Fabby found us a lovely house right on the beach. We filled the cupboards with chocolate and the fridge with wine, and scrambling over boxes of craft stash that we had each brought. So organised we were not. Well thats not true, Claire was. We had made lists so that we did not double up on things. Somehow I think the lists went missing. And and we did not go to a craft shop. No, we could not believe it either. We shared everything we had.

There were lots of virgins; stuff we had bought and never used. Now set the scene; 4 tipsy ladies, giggly, and shouting out "Yes another one gone" each time we broke one in. Mmmmmm to the neighbours it must have sounded like something reeeeeeeeeally dodgy, other than four ladies playing with paper.

We recon that we should not need to buy anything for at least a year looking at everything we have. That we should just use each others stash. Its one way of using it up. So the Hiya are meeting once a month and have booked another Longer Weekend away in October.

I will be posting some cards and Christmas tags later tonight.

Byeeeee

Sprinkles of love