Get Well Soon Card

Look what arrived in the post yesterday!

A lovely homemade, get-well-soon card from Cathy. I absolutely love anything handmade and this really cheered me up. Do you think she knows how much I love pink!

I have Covid, Cathy has had Covid so it has been lovely to have someone of my vintage to compare notes with.

I have not been too bad, mainly lacking in energy. I am pretty sure I caught the virus at a family wedding, as my son, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and several other guests all got it at the same time. And it was SUCH a magical day!

Little Miss M was a bridemaid and here we are comparing headdresses

and footwear

She had smarter shoes for the formal bit.

My daughter also loves pink!

I was so pleased to be able to wear the same jacket, skirt and fascinator that I wore to her wedding 16 years ago.

The decorations in the marquee were spectacular

so was the cake

Which I was glad to be able to taste at the time.

With Covid, I briefly lost my sense of taste, which was very strange.

I could taste salt, sweetness, bitterness and spicyness in curry and mustard, but all with no flavour. The colours, texture, and temperature became very noticeable.

Milky is silky. Bananas were the weirdest, crisps were luxury!

My taste is gradually returning but I still can’t smell anything (especially not something burning!).

How are you all?

Take care.

 

Advertisement

Doodles and what to do with them.

This is a page out of a sketch pad that sits in my back pack in the car. I tore it out and folded it in half to make a quick little card to go with a gift.

Drawing these crossing leaves/fronds is a beautifully mindless relaxing doodle to create. It might be obvious how this develops, but in case it isn’t – here it is, step-by-step.

I start with a line – not much thought goes into it

adding more lines whilst thinking of branches

and then joining them together – as you can see I don’t feel the need to be exact – little mistakes don’t matter

The bit I like most is drawing these wiggly fronds to go under ones already drawn.

I can drift off into a reverie whilst drawing these, so absorbing.

And then the colouring in …

and adding a few spirals and dotty flowers to the background, ready to tear out and

make another little card.

Not great art, but very enjoyable to do in odd moments.

In a Vase on Monday: Happy Birthday

It was my daughter’s birthday last week and I picked some asters and cotoneaster to pop in a jar for her.

The bees are going crazy for those asters but the birds are not eating the cotoneaster berries yet. There is a Mrs Blackbird tucking into some pyracantha berries just outside my kitchen window – so they must ripen earlier.

I used an old doodle book of the children’s to make the birthday card

The book had been filled and discarded so I took out the centre to reuse the neon pink cover

I could easily reuse the holes for sewing in a new centre.

With a bit of neon yellow embroidery thread. My daughter loves a bit of neon!

I came across something called ‘block writing’ on Instagram, so I had to have a go.

When my daughter was born, I was reading a beautiful book about Native American practices: Voices of Our Ancestors. by Dhyani Ywahoo.

A was born at 3.45am and when I got back to the ward, the light of dawn was beginning to glow in the sky. I looked out of the window, feeling so happy and relieved and grateful to have a healthy baby girl, and I saw one bright star, which I now realise must have been Venus.  I gave A a Native American name ‘Bright Morning Star’- a secret name – just between her and me.

For her birthday I gave her a rooted fig tree cutting that I bought in the market – hope it grows well and tucked a note in the card for her to go towards her lunchtime meal at The Station Kitchen, West Bay.

I am definitely going to try and take some cuttings from my fig tree next year.

My daughter lives just across the field from me, so I walked up quite early to give her the card.

This was the scene over the village as I walked back – autumn mist in the distance.

Joining in with Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for In a Vase on Monday.

In a Vase on Monday: Altered Art

In my vase today is a posy of Pink Dandelions, thank you so much for the seeds Cathy, they are such gems! And twigs of snowberry bush, well that’s what I called it as a child, don’t know its proper name.

These were picked to accompany a card and three figs from my fig tree, for a dear friend, for her birthday. I also gave her a book, ‘Waterlog’ by Roger Deakin, which I forgot to take a photo of. She loves swimming, in fact she was a swimming teacher and taught all my children to swim.

She is an artist and I absolutely love her sketches and paintings, but she often struggles to like them herself. She tore up one of her paint sketches and gave me a piece folded over into a card for my birthday in November, I tore it on the fold line and did some stitching to make a card for her.

Then I took some of the paper I coloured with Koh-i-Noor, watercolours,

looking for colours that would make a good background

I chose this one

I was a bit apprehensive to see what J’s reaction would be to what I did to her painting

It took her a little while to realise it was one of her painitngs. I think she liked it.

Do you have any blooms to pop in a Vase this Monday?

Joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

Scrap Happy

Joining Kate at Talesfromchiconia for her Scrap Happy gathering on the 15th of every month.

A friend’s birthday was approaching and I knew she would appreciate the recyle/reuse ethos behind this meme, so I went to my vast collection of bits of crochet I have made as experiments with either pattern or colour.

I have a similar collection of art experiments with acrylic paint on paper, so I chose one of these for the basis of the card

Folding the card into 3, I tried out a couple of ideas

I decided to use the flower which is the centre of the Amanzi block, I lined up all the ends and marked the positions of the holes I wanted to make in the card

sitting it atop a ball of yarn to pierce the needle through

Then I sewed the threads through and tied them at the back

Ta dah!

The present was some handmade soap I had bought in St Davids, Pembrokeshire, from the force of nature that is Julia Horton-Mansfield who owns the Really Wild Soap Company.

I first met Julia on one of her guided wild food foraging walks

The soaps and card were wrapped up in a page from an old magazine

Pop along over to Kate’s to find others who can inspire you to usefully use up bits and pieces of this and that.

Happy Scrapping

Mother’s Day

Yesterday was Mother’s Day here in the UK. A belated Happy Mother’s Day to everyone who is a mother or can celebrate their own Mother. I know it can be a difficult day for some and I never take for granted just how lucky I am. Love and hugs to all. ❤

My Mother’s Day celebrations started on Friday when my daughter A took me out to lunch at my favourite local eaterie ‘Feed the Soul’ in Godmanstone.

That’s Nick preparing our matcha green teas with great care and panache – he co-runs the restaurant with his sister who creates the most beautiful and delicious vegetarian and vegan foods.

A had a matcha latte with oat milk, I had a plain matcha.

And look, my nail varnish matched the pottery – I love little moments of serendipity like that.

We took a while to decide what to have as everything is so good. The soup of the day was Pea Soup and I was very tempted as it was cold and raining outside …..

In the end we both had a Buddha Bowl full of healthy deliciousness and amazing flavours and textures

Let me tell you – those kale crisps were surprisingly gorgeous and oh so tasty!

It was just wonderful and a rare treat to have some quality Mother-and-Daughter time – it felt a bit like my birthday!

I don’t normally go for puddings – but at Feed the Soul they are unmissable!

A chose an apple and ginger square

and I could not resist the Strawberry Cheesecake

I wish I could send you all a piece – Yummmmmmmmmmmmm!

What a lucky Mum I am!

And then on Sunday I was in for a very special Mother-and-Son time, with my Farmer son who lives close by. (not my Marathon Running Son who lives in London) For the first 37 years of my life I lived on a farm as a farmer’s daughter and then a farmer’s wife. My husband and I ran a dairy farm and it is a long time since I was out checking on cows to see if they were about to calve – that’s what I did with my son on Sunday morning – such a wonderful nostalgic trip down memory lane. 

First, we looked at the young stock, munching away at their haylage, then after a lovely tour round the farm we went to look at the cows who are all mothers in waiting.

My son had had to help this little one into the world at 5 am that morning

we were pleased to see her up and about and looking lively

she seems to take after her father, Mitch the bull

I was delighted that I seem to have retained my ability to spot a cow that was about to calve. I spotted her on the way in, standing in the midst of the others and by the time we had looked round the other cows she was lying down and had popped out another Mother’s Day calf

The cow got up straight away and started licking the calf …..

there is always an anxious few moments waiting to see if the calf is ok, but just a mintue later it had raised its head and wiggled its ears

and was being visited by the other mums-in-waiting.

Must just show you my cards

The one on the left from A the one on the right from my son, HaHaHa!!!

both with lovely messages inside.

A truly Happy Mother’s Day.

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

 

What on Earth have I made

 

You are my sunshine

melody of flowers

Whilst I was putting together yesterday’s enjoyable jaunt through the year’s galavanting, I skimmed past photos of all the things I have made.

When I started the blog it was mainly to keep a diary of creative adventures. As you can see I have a grasshopper approach to creativity, jumping hither and thither, following thoughts, ideas and inspirations. It is easy for me to forget what I did and how I did it.

Here I can store projects and methods, should I ever want to re-create them at a later stage. It is also particularly useful when I re-visit abandoned projects. I can remind myself of the tools I used and the links I followed.

Going through my photos, gathering together all my 2017 makes in one place, has been fun. Many are still works in progress, but I have finished four crocheted blankets one for my grandson, The Wizard; two of them for my nieces The Mermaid and The Country Girl; and one, of my own bold zig-zag designs for my daughter’s best friend who wanted a blanket in Mexican colours.

Nuts About Squares

Ripple

Moorland as Hedgerow

Wild Zig-Zag

Creative collaborations make my heart sing and working with others to create new colour palettes is such a joy. Well I say a joy – the Wizard caused me some struggles as you know – but we got there in the end.

I gain so much inspiration and knowledge from your blogs and Pinterest pages, it is thrilling to me if anything I share inspires you. Creative sharing has to be one of the BEST feelings ever! Please let me know if you think we could work together, that would be very exciting. Joining forces with Judy for our Silly Saturdays came about through a ‘Comment’ conversation and it has been such good fun inspiring each other in our shell art and poetry respectively.

I thoroughly enjoy joining in with Cathy’s ‘In a Vase on Monday’ when I can. Flowers from the garden not always ending up in a vase.

summer flower mandala

Lavender and Lychnis

I’m looking forward to a creative 2018 and feel so very grateful for all the wonderful support and inspiration that comes from this fabulous community.

A huge and heartfelt thank you to all the Wild Daffodil visitors and followers which makes this blogging journey such a joyful delight. I really do appreciate each and every comment and connection.

May 2018 bring you happiness, joy and fun in blogland and beyond.

Happy New Year!

More Notan inspired designs

Put three different coloured sheets one on top of the other and cut through all three layers together. Then have fun arranging the pieces you’ve created.

Add a few doodle decorations if you like.

Use camera settings, photo-editing or Photoshop to play around with different effects.

Have fun!

And then there are the offcuts to play with….

Great for greetings cards.  And I’m wondering about printing some out on canvas. They remind me of 1960’s designs. I think they would look good in a child’s bedroom or playroom, do you?

Click on any picture to see it larger

There are quite a lot of You Tube tutorials about creating Notan designs – This one is a simple one to get you started.

Notan Butterflies

This gallery contains 4 photos.

Letter

My entry in our One-a-Week Photo Challenge. 

The Letter A

I came across the Japanese Art of Paper Cutting called Notan, which uses positive and negative space. Go to Pinterest to see the most amazing examples.

The photo was taken using the ‘Sketch’ setting on my Nikon D5200.

Step – by – step:

A piece of A5 coloured paper and an A4 background

It needs to go on a coloured background

Couldn’t resist a bit of doodling, and then it needed to go on a black background. Now some of the doodling looks like cut-outs.

This is such a good activity to do with children aged 4 onwards.

The designs would make great greetings cards.

Please leave your link in the comments – Cathy and I always look forward to seeing each interpretation of the prompt – she has a corker this week!

Silly Saturday: Meet Pete

Hi Everybody, I’m Pebble Pete

The cheeriest chap you could hope to meet

The beach is where I spend my days

With my crew I like to play

We often meet up on the shore

For fun and games, never getting bored

Riding on the waves in the clear blue sea

You’ll find the Stone and the Shell family

I will introduce you to everyone

So you can join in with our fun

Whether in the sea or on the sand

I want to welcome you to Seaside Land!

 

poem by Judy E. Martin

photo by Sandra Dorey

 

Welcome to another Silly Saturday!

I just LOVE working/playing/creating with Judy. I sent her the photo of a pebble and she not only created a fabulous fun poem but gave him the perfect name. I’m always excited to see what Judy does with the images I send her.

Judy and I have been thinking about creating a little ebook of our characters and we thought Pete was just the right character to introduce the Stones and the Shelleys and possibly take up the role of narrator, we’ll have to see where he takes us.

AND

Hot off the press

The first batch of cards have been printed!

They are blank inside and all come individually packed with an envelope.

What is it about seeing ones work in print – it’s thrilling!!!

The guy who prints the cards hadn’t read the poems at first as he gets so many to do, but as he was checking through the proof he read them and just couldn’t stop giggling – he was still laughing as he was telling me how funny he thought it was. Lovely to get such a spontaneous reaction.

The cards will be appearing in my Etsy shop soon.

You, my lovely Daffodil followers, can have them a little cheaper at mates’ rates if you send me a message via the Contact Me Page.

I do hope you are having a wonderfully Silly Saturday – if you are doing anything Silly, I’d love to hear about it!   😀

 

Silly Saturday: Maggie Dreaming

Maggie fancied trying something new

And thought about what she could do

Dancing around a steel pole

Was becoming quite dull

But what, she hadn’t a clue

 

In her mirror she struck a new pose

Standing on the tips of her toes

With a graceful demeanour

Like a beautiful ballerina

She imagined being the star of the show

 

poem by Judy E. Martin

Edwina’s Episodes

~

Judy and I have teamed up again to be Silly on a Saturday. Our Maggie has started to dream of new areas in which to expand her talents….. I wonder where she will take us next ….. any ideas of what she might get up to?

~

Encouraged by your wonderful comments and support I am getting some of the Maggie pictures printed on Greetings Cards. I’m wondering how many to print? If you would like to buy one/some, it would be great if you could let me know by email.

Which picture you would like and would you like the cards with or without the poems?

Direct from me they will sell at £1.90 with poem and be 8″x6″ and at £1.50 without the poem, measuring 7″ x 5″.  Postage will be added depending on quantity.

I will put some cards in my Etsy shop, but they will have to sell for a little more there to cover the Etsy costs.

Please go to the Contact Me Page to send me a private message if you would like any of the cards – thank you.

Here are the Maggie Pictures to choose from, click on any to go large:

Hi, I’m Maggie!

From the top left

1. Ballerina
2. Stretch
3. Pole Dancer 1
4. Pole Dancer 2

 

Playful Butterfly

 

When I took Little Miss M and Little Bro to the park, after school yesterday, there was a Red Admiral butterfly that seemed to want to play with them. It kept fluttering back to them, around their heads, landing near to them: on posts, the grass and the climbing net – this went on for at least 10 minutes – it even landed on Little Bro’s arm at one point.

A school friend joined in and all three were first chasing, then leaping and dancing around with delight, then creeping up slowly and at one point the butterfly was on a post and all three were putting a finger on the post edging closer to the butterfly to see if it would hop on, totally focussed on that moment when time seemed to stand still.

 

Magical, utterly magical.

But – did I have my camera with me – no!

A beautiful memory to hold in my mind’s eye.

As I was writing this I remembered that over 25 years ago, when I was doing a City and Guilds Embroidery course, there was a competition

to create a greetings card with butterflies as the theme.

(apologies for the quality of the photos, something has gone wrong with my ‘Photos’ programme and I am unable to do any editing – so far long phone calls to Apple, whilst they have tried to sort it out – with more to come)

We had to show our folder of workings as well (click on any photo to see it bigger)

and after much experimentation, this was the card I submitted into the competition, it has lost a few star sequins

these were some of my experiments made on thick watercolour paper

Well – I won!

It is the only competition I have ever won, so I’ve kept that folder dear to me and never used the cards – I’m wondering if I should send them now and let go ………..

……………   No, I can’t just yet.

Have you ever won a competition? Or danced with a butterfly in the park?

Paint Party Friday: Birds and other animals

I am extremely proud to present my sister Caroline’s paintings.

She sent me an entry for into our One-A-Week Photo Challenge, this week’s prompt is BIRD, and I knew she had been painting so asked her to send me some pics of her paintings too – Wow! So glad I did

I’m wondering if this magnificent chap will appear in a painting before too long. Caroline tells me she photographed him at Come to Good Farm in Cornwall.

I’m lucky enough to have two sisters, and now they have both appeared on my blog this week: Sue who I am going to Chelsea Flower Show with and Caroline. We are all quite creative, I think we get it from our Mum.

Caroline is on Instagram @clthistlethwaiteart, where you can keep up to date with her latest works, which include silver jewellery as well! She has only just started sharing her work in this way and I know it would give her a tremendous boost you to take a look and leave a message.

She also sells greetings cards and some prints.

I’m joining this post in with Paint Party Friday.

 

Hearts and free downloads

Valentine’s Day is on its way. I’ve been having fun making cards for my 8 grandchildren aged 4 – 9.

Photos of Love Rocks and sketch book pages were printed onto 160gm A4 white card.

I measured the card into 2″x 4″ sections

and cut with a craft knife

giving me enough pieces to make 5 cards.

Using double-sided sellotape in each corner

I fixed the two layers together.

Then added some heart stickers and made 5 cards

They still need a little more decorating to personalise them.

On the next batch I used a doodle page

Would you like to have a go?

Here is the link to the You Tube clip  I learnt from,

and some PDFs for you to download, just click on the title.

pinks

tendrils

love-rocks

If you download them I’d love to see what you make.

 

17 for 17: January

My targets for the year:

17 – walks longer than an hour

3 Done (14 to go)

Walks in Wales

1. 2nd. Jan nearly 90 minute walk on Newgale Beach
2. 3rd.Jan coast path from Nine Wells to Trelerw and back.
3. 4th.Jan Newgale in drizzle, back to Number35 for delicious Apple Crumble and cream and a pot of good strong Welsh tea.

16 – handmade greetings cards.

DONE

I’m a bit taken aback by this but I have already reached my target! It took me all year in 2016 to make 15 handmade cards, but I suddenly got the urge to make Valentine’s cards for my grandchildren and churned out a few more at the same time. 18 Never-Ending Cards and one (top left) made with a photo of some Love Rocks printed on A4 card and folded once.

15 – beachy things (split into 3 x 5s – 5 pieces of beach related art, 5 beach cleans on new beaches, 5 beach clean sculptures, assemblages or mandalas)

14 – items for my Etsy shop

13 – drawers, cupboards, shelves or boxes sorted out.

1 shelf (12 to go)

from this 

to this

I found 4 pots of Wood Glue – so that’s where I keep it.

The rest of the cupboard needs doing now

goodness knows what lurks in that repurposed veg rack

12 – WIPs finished

11 – paintings/ art works   Working towards an exhibition in May/June 2018

10 – house and garden tasks (split into 5x 2s – make two quiches, paint two chairs, complete two house projects, complete two garden projects, raise two pumpkin plants)

9 – textile books worked on.

8 – hand written letters to grandchildren

7 – find 7 interesting objects

I have already found masses of objects which interest me on my beach cleans, every item has a human story behind it, but it’s hard to choose ones that I think might be of more general interest ….

Does this qualify?

a rusted aerosol with the outer casing having completely gone, apart from the top. I have taken loads of photos of the colours and textures of this object. There are a couple more in this post on my Beach Clean Art blog.

I might count this as Number One find, haven’t decided yet.

6 – items made for Pippin or improvements to Pippin.

Pippin is the old caravan that sits in the garden. I got her when I was having renovations done on my house and now she is a perfect spot to store lego and be a lovely little haven or playhouse – I do have a fondness for caravans.

Her interior is very drab, I’m hoping to cheer things up a bit with patchwork and crochet cushions and curtains.

5  – random acts of kindness

4 – new National Trust properties visited

3 – make three up-cycled items of clothing 

2 – meet two fellow bloggers

Meeting fellow bloggers is great fun! In 2015/6 I had the very real pleasure of  meeting Mrs Snail, Judy of Edwina’s Episodes, Deb of Country Ways and Cottage Days and Sheila of Sewchet.

Who will it be this year? Exciting!

1 – car boot sale

0 – Buy zero new clothes

 

There are ELEVEN others joining in with the 17 for 2017 list of targets that I know of:

Mrs Snail,  Nanacathy,  Gillyflower,  Murtagh’s Meadow.,  Ouch My Back hurts,  Ruth’s Arc,  Cherie Langlois,  Erin’s Big World,  A LifeLessSimple,  TheWillowWitch, OntoMyNext40Years

Let me know if you are too and I’ll add you to the list. It will be fun to see how everyone gets on.

Cathy of Nanacathy and I tend to give an update each month but is is entirely up to each person to post or not as they wish – the joy of this is that each 17er makes up the rules for themselves as they go – so come on in and join us – it’s never too late!

Ammonites

Eleonora over at Coastal Crochet has created a cute Ammonite Pattern.

Of course, I couldn’t just make one. Once I had the pattern in my head I started making bigger and smaller ones.

I thought they might combine well with my seahorses, or make some beachy greetings cards.

Ideas are swimming around …..

Thank you Eleonora for the inspiration.

Linking in with Ginny’s Yarn Along 

Ginny suggests we add a book to the post. I haven’t got a book on the go but whilst I am crocheting I’m also watching/listening to a DVD: River Cottage: Edible Seashore

Yes, I’ve been eating seaweed – yum!

 

Card

A textile birthday card

With a pocket where a piece of card can be inserted with a message written on it.

And another piece of decorated card behind it,  left blank so that this card can be re-used

Joining in with our Photo Challenge prompt of CARD

Please leave your links in the Comments.

 

 

 

16 for 2016: October

Here are the targets I set myself for 2016, inspired by Cathy at Nanacathy

16 WALKS (of more than an hour)

13 done, 3 to go.

Walk 11. Glorious October afternoon walk with my walking buddy, on Maiden Castle, an Iron Age hill fort just a few miles from me.

Walk 12. 2 hour Beach clean walk on Ringstead Beach with Master R in his beloved Woodland Hoodie .

Walk 13. All day on Brownsea Island, walking, wonderful day with my daughter and her 3 kiddlies, we even saw a few red squirrels and some goooorrrrrrrgeous trees.

This oak got first prize as far as I’m concerned

I only had my little pocket camera, so the pictures don’t really do them justice

and the sweet chestnuts – wow

a feast for the squirrels.

15 HANDMADE GREETINGS CARDS

12 done, 3 to go

A card made out of two collaged postcards taped together with a duck tape hinge.

14 NEW ITEMS IN MY ETSY SHOP

8 done, 6 to go

I added this wig

13 SWIMS

11 done, 2 to go.

12 GARDEN POSTS

6 done, 6 to go.

The least said about this the better!

11 HAND MADE TOTE BAGS

Zero

10 TYPES OF HANDMADE BEADS

This one was made by simply sewing two crochet circles together an stuffing with yarn offcuts – simple!

7 done, 3 to go

9 PIECES OF TEXTILE ART (started)

3 started, 6 to go

None this month. This feels more like a wet weather project and the weather has been glorious! I was gardening in T-shirt and shorts today – bliss.

8 MORNINGS of SORTING and STORING

5 done, 3 to go.

Two more done this month: a weekend spent sorting out my workroom. I am trying to get some order in there. Trying, but not succeeding – I need someone organised to come in a set up a storage system – it is plainly not one of my skills.

7 PAINTINGS (or other pieces of art)

4 done, 3 to go

You can see them here.

6 BUS RIDES using my Bus Pass

2 done, 4 to go

None this month

5 NEW TYPES OF EXERCISE TRIED

4 done, 1 to go

No new ones this month. So far I have tried Pilates, Belly Dancing, a Dance Class, a Zumba-like class.

I think this target will probably stay at 4!

4 NEW PATTERNS for my ETSY SHOP

1 done 3 to go

At last! I have put a pattern on Etsy (and Ravelry and Craftsy)

No prizes for guessing which one …..

A couple of seahorses made for my sister to hang on the cute little tree in her kitchen. The house is a sewing box and the cupcakes are pincushions.

3 MASSAGES

1 done, 2 to go

2 WAYS TO HELP REFUGEES

The plight of so many people fleeing for their lives hurts my heart. The way our government behaves towards the refugees in Calais, especially unaccompanied children, hurts my heart. That I can do so very little hurts too.

Energetically I feel I am still recovering from a month spent by my mother’s bedside, in and out of hospital. I now know that I will not be going to Calais or Greece to volunteer as I had thought I would back in January when I made this list. The situation has not gone away, nor will it for many years, so there will be other opportunities in the future.

I will continue to crochet blankets and collect clothes to send and wait to hear what Liz Clegg does next, now that her Children’s Centre in Calais has been closed.  I am sure she will pop up again somewhere and when she does I will make another donation.

This article in the Guardian tells of her work.

Money is a form of energy, so although, I have not done what I set out to do, I will say that for the purposes of this challenge, donating money to Liz’s work, and to Calais Kitchens and sending blankets, squares for blankets and warm clothes are ways I have helped – even though it feels so sadly lacking.

1 NOVEL READ

DONE!

Hurray! ‘Enchanted August’ by Brenda Bowen got me there.

0 BEADS BOUGHT

Zero

Thank you Cathy for this idea, it is good to look over the things that have been achieved and review what hasn’t. I’m already compiling 17 for 2017.

Never-Ending Cards

As part of my 16 for 2016 group of challenges I have given myself 15 greetings cards to make. On our half-term family holiday we had 5 birthdays to celebrate – a perfect inspirational push.

My son, E, became 40 during the holiday. (I have a 40 year old son! It doesn’t seem possible, it feels only 5minutes ago that I was 40), my sister became 60 in January, and her son was 20 just 2 days before E. So we had a 20, 40, 60 party, with my sister and her son staying with us and we were also joined by the parents of my two d-i-ls.

M and P, parents of my London d-i-l, share the same birthdays with E and my nephew.

You can see, my new go-to craft material, Duck tape, was put to good use again, I just love that stuff! Here is a link to my previous post about it:

Never-ending cards are fun to make, hugely impressive, well received but very hard to photograph.

You can see how to make them and how they work on this You Tube clip.

Update: I first wrote a post about these cards in Dec 13, here is the link.

Click here for another YouTube tutorial.