Got the new plates

We got some plates from John Lewis that are the same design as our Asda set, slightly different white but who will know except us, but it means we don't have to replace everything. They are smaller so we could end up losing weight!

The average size of plates seems to be 27cm diameter, and yet the dishwasher is not big enough to take that and this is not a cheap dishwasher! We managed to get 24cm plates instead.

Here is the dishwasher, isn't that pretty! Now I also got away with getting a technologically advanced model, himself normally prefers simple things!

We also bought new bath towels, bath mat, bread bin, duvet and suitcase (nice red shiny one for me, 20% off and I had some vouchers so it was only £19, I can hold my head high in Torquay now!). Did want new duvet covers and sheets, and to look at a new sofa for the conservatory to replace the very old battered threadbare one the dogs love so much. The duvet covers in JL were lovely but a bit pricey for the spare room, and we can manage for now. Did see some in M&S that were nice too. But there could be some in Wilkinsons that are much cheaper and just as nice, so we will go and look there first. My back is painful so I didn't want to go trying sofas, I did try one and that was a mistake, so another day.

We spotted some dog proof bins, if they will fit and open under the counter. The dog would have to work out how to do the pedal and get his head in at the same time, if he can reach that high! Sooty dog is on a diet too, Alfie is fine but Sooty will eat anything he can get his teeth on!

Slight technical hitch

The new dishwasher washes great, sparkly clean everything with no water marks or rust, but there is one teeny tiny snag - our lovely white plates are too big and the arm doesn't go round, so unless we can adjust it we are shopping for more crockery today!

The new dishwasher is on

and it is so quiet. Thank goodness for that. I don't remember what the first dishwasher was, I know it matched the washing machine, think it was Zanussi. The washing machine gave up, the dishwasher still worked but we had a kitchen makeover and got a stainless steel Maytag to match, bliss, so quiet, big inside, washed well (no dishwasher is perfect), but it kept going wrong and tripping the electricity off. Countless times we had the contracted engineer, he never knew what it was, rang Maytag, tried a few things and off it went again so off he went again! At the end of the 2 year warranty period it went wrong again, so having had enough hubby said get a cheap one. Got the Kenwood, not that cheap but I had heard of the brand. Biggest mistake I ever made in dishwasher terms. It was noisy, can't hear the TV with it on in the next room, didn't wash properly, and it is not nice eating your breakfast then finding the spoon had something stuck to it all the time from the last meal, and as I said before bits fell off so the basket never was in properly. Then it started flashing up error codes, usually when it had finished the cycle.

So this new dishwasher comes with a lot of promises and I hope it lives up to its spec. It is Whirlpool and even the delivery men acknowledged it was a nice one when they unpacked it. It is so attractive you could keep it in the lounge, very space age, no sharp corners, and it remembers where it was if you switch it off to add something, the Kenwood did not, so you had to open the door when it was going and duck!

The new one has steam functionality to get the most stubborn of bits off, and I was in the kitchen with it and I could hardly hear it going at all.

I am looking forward to seeing the results!

I was picked out on The Crafty Pad

I just found out I was picked out with my card below on The Crafty Pad challenge 34, and I have accepted a spot as guest designer as a reward, great reward as I will get to use the stamp that the DT use for the challenge.

Don't you just love this Percy Penguin stamp? He is one of the new Christmas stamps available for pre-order now on The Crafty Pad blog. There are more Percy stamps, and Percy's friend, and some lovely Little Ted Christmas stamps too. At under £4 each they are good value for money too.

So they say good things happen in threes, or is that just things happen in threes?

I was MIA yesterday thanks to migraine, spent most of the day in bed, and I am suffering the after effects today. DH wondered if it could be the paint (it has taken him two weeks of him decorating and me feeling ill before he could work this out!).

We had a new dishwasher delivered yesterday, 8:15 pm, or 20:15 on a Saturday, amazing, was supposed to get here an hour and a quarter before that but it is here, looks stunning and is being filled up now for the first try.

The last dishwasher was by Kenwood and has been very disappointing, bits inside fall off so the drawers don't stay up, doesn't clean well, small inside, noisy, altogether a bad buy and it is still working but we can't bear it any longer, two years old and going out, anyone want a dishwasher from hell?

Many challenges card

Don't faint, I made a card.

This card is for my niece who loves yellow and buttons, though it isn't her birthday until November so unusually for me I am ready in advance by more than two days!
Image is The Crafty Pad, Paper and chipboard is Basic Grey, Coloured with Trias, ribbon tags, buttons from stash, ribbon is Papermania. Embossing is done using brown inked Cuttlebug folders and brown inked Sizzlet alphabet dies.

I think I can also enter this in a number of challenges:
1. The Crafty Pad - a recipe of three buttons, two ribbon and a piece of embossed paper and anything else you want. The stamp is by Debbie Moore and available at The Crafty Pad (Belinda Garden).
2. Basic Grey Challenges - a colour challenge of yellow, pink and brown and something by BG.
3. ABC challenge blog - C is for circles.
4. Cute Card Thursday - Lazy days of summer
5. Lots to Do - paper craze
6. Stamp Something - Birthday Somethings.

How about that, I have never managed to make one card to cover 6 challenges before, and I didn't actually plan to cover them I just looked at all the challenges in my links and this had something for all 6!

Off to post my links now.

Wowowow won more blog candy!!!

I just found out I have won this amazing wonderful stash from the Basic Grey challenges blog!

I am also going to try and enter their next challenge which is a colour combo one pink, brown and yellow, and there is a fab pile of stash up for grabs for the winner, maybe I am on a roll!

It truly is my lucky week! I am so excited, this is wonderful, if I could leap about and turn cartwheels I would be doing it now!

Feel better soon card

I am not totally happy with this card, I made it as a result of a colour combo challenge which I am far too late to enter but I wanted to try the combo, as it pushes me outside my comfort colour zone.
I was trying to get it posted and rushed it to a certain extent, in that it took me a week to finish but I could have spent more thinking about it!

Sometimes there are good cards, sometimes not so good, and I am showing the not so good today.

I die cut the peony Nestabilities dies in red and teal, and felt they needed a contract panel behind to seperate them from the teal card, but I could have put the flower on a different colour card blank, or a large panel that covers most of the front with a better effect perhaps.

I did start off with a long thin panel behind the flower and the stem, but that wasn't quite right, so tried several different shapes both die cut and like this one which was just a rectangle with the corners clipped with a MS border punch called cornice that I have just bought after seeing it used like this!

I do like what I managed to do with the flower, which was to use the handle of my eyelet setter pushed into the middle to round the petal layers a bit, so it is not so flat.

The flower centre is a teal button with teal cord, the greeting is Dymo tape written, and the small flowers are Papermania with teal Papermania gems.

Paula, if you see this before it arrives I hope you like it. Its the thought that counts - right?

I just noticed that the ABC challenge blog has a challenge this week of B is for Buttons, so I have entered this card, has a button so I can! The link to the challenge blog is in my side bar.

I won blog candy from Just Rite Stamping

Wow, I just found out I won the blog hop Christmas candy from Just Rite Stamping blog! Jumps up and down squeeking loudly! The link to the post where you can find out what I won is here on the Just Rite Stamping blog, I am so looking forward to trying this stamping system for the first time!

The stamping system is designed to be used with Spellbinders Nestabilities dies I believe, and they do look good. I will probably have to add to my new collection, there is a darling Christmas set called Something Sweet, I would need the bigger size wood handle too.

I don't beleeeive it!

Yesterday I got 4 packages. One was bookends, not very exciting you may say, but I think there are definite possibilities for decorating these and they will keep up my books and stamp boxes.

I got a funny looking mouse which I hope will be better for my wrist problems, but it doesn't seem to be working, maybe after it has charged for a few more hours it will work.

I also got these: 4 Craft Stamper magazines and two binders.

Now I thought I was missing a couple of Craft Stamper Magazine and was so certain I had the one with the owl stamp that I spent a couple of hours looking for it, and I didn't recall having a letter about the subscription - so I rang them and found out I was actually missing all issues since May. Bought all 4 (5? one is to follow but I hope I don't get it twice), paid for direct debit and will get a free gift which I now know is stamps - logical. I also got talked into buying two binders. This is the only craft mag I put in binders and keep, and the last two years I have bought DoCrafts binders which are very cheap and used those, he must have caught me at a weak moment!

Today I had two lovely jars of Prima flowers and a Martha Stewart punch, cornice. These were from The Glitter Pot.

I also ordered my shopping online from Tesco, booked the wrong slot and when I got home (early for me) the shopping was nearly all on the dining room table. After I had signed for it and he had gone I started looking in the bags (should have triggered alarms as I asked for no bags) and I saw asparagus, which looked very nice but I didn't remember ordering it. Thought perhaps I had clicked the wrong thing! Then looked in the next bag, and the next - not my shopping! 5 wrong bags. All the chilled and frozen stuff.

So I rang Tesco, the person I spoke to said they would try and get the driver, and would put me on silent hold for a bit, ages later, 10 or more minutes, I hung up.

I rang back and got Neil who promised to sort it out, ring me back etc. He did ring back, twice. Couldn't get the driver he said. The driver then turned up, he had a missed call so came back and swapped the stuff over.

I really think I should get a voucher for the trouble, I rang again to tell them the driver had been back, got someone who told me they had tried to contact me and got no answer - well it could be when they put me on hold for ages at my expense!

Seems I have been banned from blogger again

Sigh, don't know if I will be allowed to post this now. Looks like I can, just can't visit my blog, or anyone else's blog, and I was just checking out blog candy that has ended in the hopes I might have won some.....

See you soon, hopefully, maybe, if I am not banned anymore, bye then, cheerio, ta ta, nighty night.....bon nuit,

Wedding butterfly book

Here at last is the book I have been working on to put those butterflies in. It isn't completely finished, there is more I can do on some blank pages but this will give you an idea.



First the covers were made with chipboard packaging which were covered one side with pale green and one side metallic brown, then punched with the Cropadile Big Bite and laced with the thin ribbon, which was the same as that used to hang the butterflies, I used the Bind it all to punch the spine side of all pages and the covers even already assembled which was thick!

You can also see one of the butterfly pocket pages empty and with butterflies tucked into it.












Inside the front cover is the photo of the butterfly tree surrounded by small butterflies followed by the dried roses from the base of the tree, with a chocolate wrapper.

The next page holds the wedding invitation, closed with ribbon, but here are three pictures to show the design.

First without the ribbon, then open so you can see the stamped butterflies.

Finally with the ribbon tied in a bow as they went out.

Here are the roses I dried in my Sunwave that were round the base of the butterfly tree.

Cutting the cake page.

Just before the back cover is the table plan and a shot of the tables with the lovely green bows tied on the chairs, matching the bridesmaid in the picture.

Inside the back cover is the menu from the day, here it is closed and open.

I hope this will provide wonderful memories of the preparation and the day that maybe would otherwise be lost in the other keepsakes and photos.

Work in progress

I am working on a special book to keep the wedding butterflies in, and using my Bind it All for the second time, the first being a little book for my neice when she was here. I have a way to go but hope to show you pics soon.

I am trying to include all the elements used for the wedding so that it is a real memory book, and I need to print off a few photos to go in, I have also pressed the roses in the Sunwave, though they are a bit difficult to work with even cut in half first. Have ordered bigger wires that I hope will do the trick, think what I have now will probably not do it, but it needs to be finished by the weekend.

Torre Abbey part 3

Torre Abbey - more

But is it art?

Torre Abbey

The one attraction we visited when in Torquay was Torre Abbey, some of these photos show what I expected, but it was part manor house and there were art displays going on!