First day blues

My 'baby' (Hollie 3) had her first morning at nursery yesterday, she had been looking forward to it for ages, got dressed and headed of to school with her little bag with spare clothes (just incase!) with big smiles. No problems leaving her, one of the teachers who had come round the day before for a home visit took her hand and showed her where everything was, so off I came home. Boy was the house quiet, I didn't even have the builders here making any noise outside as they couldn't do any more until the scaffolders had been. The phone rang at 10.30 it was one of the nursery teachers telling me Hollie would like to come home she 'wants Mummy' and was very very upset; and when I picked her up she was sobbing, think it stemmed from her spilling her drink at snack time.

This morning she didn't 'want to go' and get dressed, after a lot of coaxing we managed to talk her round by telling her she could take a dolly with her, and take her own juice bottle that way she wouldn't spill her drink again, she was fine with this. Daddy said he would come with us to drop her off to, she went in with no problem, and sat with her dolly playing with the playdough when we left, and she stayed the whole session, when I picked her up she was really smiley which was a huge relief.

She even had a treat of having a ride in daddy's lorry (which the girls love!) he passed us as we were walking home, although he is on holiday to help with the building, he borrowed the lorry to pick up the roof trusses and plaster board, so we hitched a ride for the fun of it!!

I'll end with a card, I actually made this yesterday for the 'Daring Card Makers' midweek challenge, you had to add something folded onto your card, so I made this shirt card, I hadn't folded one of these shirts for ages so it was a bit of guess work!!

Finally time to show that award!!

A week or so ago Mel (blog link on the right) gave me the Arte y Pico award bless her, it's about time I gave it to some people to.

There are 5 rules attached to this and they are:

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone. Click on her name above to visit her blog.
3)Each award winner has to show the award that she has been given, by the one aforementioned.
4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

I would like to give this award to the following people as I frequently visit their blogs to admire their work and for inspiration.

Mandy (Little space of my own)
Heike (Stampingbalou)
Kim
Kimmie (Kraftin Kimmie)
Caro

All links to these blogs can be found on the right.

What a mess!

Yep the builders came bright and early this morning and by mid afternoon they had got as far as they can go with the build, we have to wait now until Thursday first thing for the scaffolders to do the '2nd lift' to enable the boys to finish the brick work. The carpenter has been and measured up for the roof trusses etc so by Friday afternoon (weather permitting) we should be ready for the roofer early next week! But boy have they left a lot of mess, bits of brick, cement splats etc so Matthew is out with the brush having a quick clear up as I type!!

I tried to take Lillie back to school a day early today LOL!!!! We were ready on time with no rushing about no fuss, and on the way to school I saw no other children, no other parents and no lollipop lady?? Nearly turned back but thought perhaps the clock was considerably slow and the children by chance had gone in a parents gone home. But no we saw one of Lillie's teachers and she said no they start back tomorrow derrrr......!!!! But I do have a school list of dates saying that the summer term starts on the 8th, all be it an old one!!! Hollie played with one of the teachers whilst I did the paperwork with the other, we are going to have no trouble with her at all, she can't wait, and to my surprise she is going full time from the off no breaking them in this time, they said they will keep an eye on them and if they think it's too much to soon then they'll reduce the days for a while.

Only got one card made today (in between making coffee and bacon rolls and teacher visits, oh and shopping!) and that's for a friend from the forum, whilst out with another forum friend she fell and broke her hip, so this is for her wishing her a speedy recovery

it is also my offering for the 'Time to Craft' their challenge this week is to add stiching to your work, be it real or not! The flowers are cut out from the backing paper and I curled the petal with my nails, they look nice in rea life!!

The following picture is of the 4 decoupaged atc's that I have made for an organized swap on the forum

va va voom or 'vroom'!!

Another couple of cards today, mum phoned this morning, she is still unwell, she reminded me that it is my auntie's birthday tomorrow. Ooppss I forgot, I have a birthday book that I look in regulary to check upcoming birthdays, then go and forget half of them!! I did the same thing with Bil's last month! Still my auntie went on holiday today so she's not to know I didn't drop her card in on her birthday is she?!?

Such a quick simple card, and knowing my auntie's love of flowers (she is a qualified demonstrator) this is just right!

The following card is for the latest Cute Cards challenge, which is 'planes, trains and automobiles' I received this image from Jilli as part of my PIF candy and I am loving this card at the moment

I made up the inserts to the baby cards I had made, and packed them up in their cello bags and took them up to the shop along with 10 other childrens cards from my storage box. She had sold 3 so far and said people were glad to see she had cards to and said they would know where to go when they needed any, so that was good news. She had also sold our child bed with safety rail and also the cot bed which was brilliant news.

Well it's all systems go for the builders to start in the morning, so fingers crosssed we will be up to roof height by the end of the week.

Birthday card and gift

Nothing much to report today, so will just show the following card and name plaque that I have made today for Matthew's brothers little girl whose party we are going to tomorrow, bet you can't guess how old she's going to be LOL...!?!

layered with foam pads, I think it's so cute and apart from the cutting out it was sooo.... easy to put together, I have these 3d sheets from '0 to 9' so will be making several for the shop!We have bought Rebecca a dress but I thought this plaque would be nice to hang in her new bedroom (they have recently moved), I will make one for Thomas (her brother) for his birthday next month. If you haven't guessed it started out as a cd, a rubbish freebie that came with the paper!!

More baby cards

Quite liked making the baby cards today and quite pleased with the results

The one above I am going to enter as my late card for the 'Daring Card Makers' midweek challenge which is to make a card using pastel colours, I think the blue is quite a pretty pastel!

Sis and the boys paid us a visit this afternoon, they were itching to see the pigs as they hadn't seen any of the babies, they brought theirs over with them (our first 2 babies) so we could see how much they had grown!! Whilst they were here Jordan (8) saw the footballer card I made and asked if he could make a football card (he quite enjoys card making!) he ended up making the following 2 cards

Then Ethan (5) made a couple
And of course the girls wanted to make one to, this is Hollie's (3)

and finally Lillie (5)They all had a bit of help paper positioning and thoroughly enjoyed themselves!

Oh and I forgot a few days ago I got tagged again, thanks Carol (Peanutnut from the CM&PC forum) I struggled to come up with 6 facts about myself the last time so will pass this time but thanks anyway. Also been given another award from Mel but more on that one at a later date as I've haven't had chance to check it out on her blog yet.

Baby girls

No I'm not having any more, or any more piggies expected, I've made a couple of baby girl cards for the shop I have some of my childrens cards in. The shop is in town and sells both new and 2nd childrens items, I wasn't brave enough to ask but hubby did and the owner (a friend of a friend) said yes she would be delighted to have some in the shop, mainly baby to about 5 as that is the sort of age group people would shop there for. Why am I having so much difficulty doing baby cards?? The first 2 I made today have gone on the scrap pile as I really think they are awful, these 2 aren't so bad

Apologies for the bad pictures the lighting is bad at the moment but I think you can see the general idea. I've looked on ebay for baby stamps as I'm loving my stamping as you know, but there was nothing there I liked. I thought about investing in the Penny Black baby hedgehog in the hammock stamp but it was sold out on the website I looked at. If any of my lovely readers can help me out with a few baby images of any kind I would be eternally grateful, I could swap some Sugar Nellies in return, pleeaasse.........?!?

This morning I spent most of it chasing around town for mum and dad, the main thing was to pay the electric and water bills, I went to 4 post offices before I found 1 open!!!! Got back home and had forgotten to do the blooming lottery, headed to the nearest shop which is round the corner from our house only to find the blooming machine wasn't working so ended up going to the supermarket!! Parents who'd have 'em? We would or we wouldn't be here!!