Saturday 25 December 2010

Happy Christmas

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and a very Happy New Year.  xxx

Saturday 18 December 2010

Some Christmas cards

Hi all
I made a lot of Christmas card over the last month or so and was really pleased I'd got everything done early.  Then my friend Sue came along and bought a lot of them, so I had to make them all over again!!

These are the original ones that Sue bought:








This one above I made from some free papers I'd got with the Christmas edition of Creative Cardmaking magazine. 




This card is made from the Cute Companions Adorables CD by Jayne Nesterenko and the one below comes from Crafters Companion Winters Tale.



This picture doesn't really show the card at its best.  There's lots of sparkle and decoupage put onto a stepper card I adapted myself and the picture is of a beautiful snowy cottage scene by a bridge from the Joanna Sheen Thomas Kincaide CD. 


And this is also from the Adorables CD.

So I had to get making again.  I'll show you some more later.

Bye x

Monday 13 December 2010

Thank you

Hello

On the way to visiting my grand-daughter in hospital, I popped into Cardinal Colour Jilly's crop which I was meant to be going to that Saturday.  We were supposed to be having a celebration for Sue's birthday as well as our Christmas crop.  I was so lucky and was given the most gorgeous Christmas cards and hand made Christmas presents from my lovely friends at the crop.


Linda                                              Anita


Sue                                                      Jill



 Lynn                                    Karen

 

Chris

Aren't they beautiful?  What clever friends I've got.  But that is only the beginning - just look at these gorgeous presents I was given as well:



The cream box which the red and green bauble is on is from Linda - it contains the most beautiful candles - smelling of cinnamon and Christmas spices.  How beautiful it will look on my Christmas table.


The interesting looking Father Christmas is from Jill.  He is sitting on top of a lovely wooden box full of fruit jellies and wine gums - yummy yummy.


This one is from Anita  a lovely big mug full of goodies, love the gingerbread man with the label 'the Perfect Man'!!


The beautiful green and red Christmas tree bauble has been made by Chris.  All that bead work must have taken her a long time. 

The cute pink doll behind Chris' bauble has been made by Sue.  It is also a tree decoration - it is so delicate and looks nice on the Christmas tree.


This little box is from Lynn - she has made these tree decorations from half walnuts and polymer clay.  How clever are these?

They all look sp beautiful on my Christmas tree, thank you very much.

Thank you to all my good friends for all the beautiful presents you have given and made for me.  They are absolutely gorgeous and I am very lucky.  Thank you, thank you, thank you. xx

My poor grand-daughter

Thursday we had a bad shock.  
My daughter, Kate,  received a phone call from Chloe's (my eldest grand-daughter) school to say she had been knocked down by a bus!  Initially they said Chloe was OK, just battered and bruised as she was moving and trying to get up. 

However, the next phone call I received was that she had been air-lifted to Brighton Hospital for scans.  There then followed a long gap until I heard from Kate to say they had found a small bleed in Chloe's head and the film had been sent to King's Hospital. 

The next thing I knew was that Chloe was in great pain in her tummy and she had been taken down for an emergency laparoscopy through her tummy button.  She had lacerated her kidney and spleen, and her spleen was leaking, hence the pain.  Anyway that was repaired and things looked on the up again.  Then we heard her pupils had started dilating oddly and down she goes for an emergency CT scan.  Anyway that showed an improvement from the previous scan and everyone was happy.

I went to visit Chloe on Saturday with Emily, Chloe's younger sister.  Poor Chloe looked very battered and bruised.  Her tummy was still hurting but that was because of the operation and nothing sinister.  She didn't want to eat nor drink and was very sleepy.

Sunday Kate texted me to say they were coming home that evening!  I cooked a shepherd's pie and took it with me.  The hospital told Kate Chloe had to have bed rest for the next six days, she can't walk about until her spleen has settled down.  No school for two weeks, which has worked out well as Chloe's school breaks up next week. 

The Headmistress told Kate she didn't want to see Chloe back at school until next year.  The School have been very kind - they sent a big basket of fruit, a teddy and some chocolate for her and all the school groups Chloe belongs too have sent her 'get well' cards and because Kate lives very near school, some of Chloe's friends may come a see her from school.  As the accident happened as Chloe was coming to school lots of her friends saw what happened and some were very upset and traumatised. 




Here's the weary soldier lounging on the sofa watching the television or reading all the messages her friends had put on Facebook.  Everyone has been so kind.

Considering what could have happened Chloe was exceptionally lucky but at the time we didn't know that.  We are all very grateful and hopefully Chloe will pay more attention crossing the road.  x

Monday 6 December 2010

The beginning ...!

I know I'm getting my blogs round the wrong way but hey, ho!!  This shows the beginning of the snow - on the Sunday when it was all novel.  I had my grand-daughters with me as they'd stayed overnight.  I'd popped outside and noticed we had some snow flurries.  The girls were very excited, well Emily really, Chloe's a bit too old to show she's excited (she's 11!).  Here's Emily outside, skipping and jumping around.




Their dad collected them soon after and off they went.  That afternoon this was what I saw through the window




It was really snowing!!  How exciting!

It didn't come to anything though and Monday was showing very little extra snow.   I got into work on Tuesday and there was a bit of snow there as the hospital car park shows - but we got there OK.




However Wednesday was another kettle of fish (or snow!),  This was what I woke up to that morning!  I had a doctors' appointment so had to get the car drive-able!






I know I shouldn't have, but I did take a photo from the car on the way back from the doctors.

And this was by the roundabout on the way to work.



We left work early as the snow continued.  I was due to go to Jill's at Cardinal Colours as Anita was doing the Christmas scrapbooking class which was using a canvas for a change.  We all got there no problem, but as I arrived at 7pm it was snowing in the air. By about 8.30 we could see it was snowing again and then Jill's husband, Richard popped in to say the snow was settling.  So we all decided to finish early.  I have to say that journey was rather hairy - heavy snow, at night and no gritting!  Anyway I made it. 

This was the sight in the middle of the night:


Whilst I was looking out of the window at the snow a tractor came up the road - it was the school caretaker - there is a infant and junior school to left of this picture.  He stopped when he saw me and asked if I wanted any milk.  I said I was fine but he said as the school was closed he had all the little 1/3 cartons of milk to get rid of otherwise they'd be thrown away.  He was driving round seeing if anyone wanted any.  So I took some and stuck them in the freezer - they would always come in useful.

The next morning I got up to sort out the car - this was my car.   Of course because the school was closed my road, which is a dead end, had no traffic on it, so I had to boldly go where no one else had been!  Quite an interesting experience, I must say!  It was stopping at the end of the road that was a bit hairy - luckily there was nothing on the road.  Getting into work took rather a long time, but at least there was very little traffic.

Then after a day came the rain and the thaw and it had all gone!  Still I've got some memories!!
xx








Old fashioned snow!

At last the snow has gone.  Can you believe how much we got this year?  Unbelievable.  I just wanted to pop some photos on here, just for me, really.  I am sure you all have your own pictures These I took about 3 am on Thursday morning -I couldn't believe it and I thought it looked just like an old fashioned picture.




I think I will have to scrap these some day! x