Happy Post and birthday gifts

 This gorgeous envelope arrived today, I didn't open it for ages and when I did I was careful to not damage the artwork by Bibi of Rubber Dance Art Stamps in the Netherlands, and inside....

Lots of lovely rubber! These are all the stamps I won in a recent celebratory giveaway on the Rubber Dance blog, WOW if I hadn't been so tired today I would have already got stuck into stamping with these babies! Thank you Bibi, now I need to enter the July challenge!

 I also won a challenge at Cute Card Thursday and got a £10 Bunny Zoe's voucher, Bunny Zoe's is having a 60% off sale so I got even more than I would have done normally, and at these prices I did add a little more to my order which arrived yesterday - thanks Nikki!

These are all of my 60th birthday cards and two ruby anniversary cards, which just goes to show that if you don't throw a party you don't get many cards! These are lovely and much appreciated though. The second from the left is hand made by Myriam - see below, the third was made by my Mum, the sixth is made by Marg - see below, and the eighth is made by Mum for Hubby to give me.

Today I decided to take them down and put them in a keepsake box, which is when I found I had so many more for my 50th, and even for subsequent birthdays but since I took early retirement I don't get any from work colleagues, and my remaining family members have all sorts of problems and haven't remembered I guess. Other friends who did know clearly only give if there is a party going on that they are invited to!

The keepsake box was slightly overflowing, I found some old photos in there and some keepsakes from the holiday to Prague that I had for my 50th - which I had forgotten were in there. I looked at another little keepsake box thinking there might be space in it, only to find it was full of embellishments I forgot I had. So another surprise today!

 Hubby's family didn't know about my birthday or our anniversary either, as the lynchpin of the family - mother in law who knows all the birthdays and dates to remember - has been ill and in hospital then a home for weeks and only returned to her home this week, so the news would not have got round to anyone, although she doesn't see much of the family these days so it might not have made much difference. MIL is the reason I am so tired today, after two good nights and days home she had a bad one and we were called out in the early hours, and she has continued to have a bad day so I had to call the doctors and get a home visit for her, but let's hope tonight will be better and she will settle down again.

 This sweet little card was made by Quirky team mate Myriam and came all the way from Costa Rica with the little gifts shown, Myriam I love it all - thank you so much! It even arrived just in time.

 This very elegant and opulent card was made by another crafting buddy, Marg Byatt, Thank you so much Marg, Hubby was much impressed with this one.

 These were little gifts on the day from Hubby, who is going to put money towards a new camera for me when I decide which one to go for, which could take me some time!

 My son Richard and his girlfriend Julie bought me a gorgeous rainbow seaglass bracelet by Seaham Waves, I have wanted one of these for a few years since I first saw them, I love it thank you.

I also had money from the parents, and my other son Chris and his wife Vanessa and little Kenny and bump, or I will have toward that camera - I really need to decide but so many things have taken up my time in the last few weeks and months I have been to the camera shop to try the weight of the ones I have thought about, but do I change to a CSC, big decisions!

I don't normally grow sunflowers, well not deliberately - the birds have planted the odd one in the past. This year I did, and these survived the onslaught of the moluscs, when this dark red beauty showed it's face I was quite surprised because I can't remember the seeds I bought being anything special, but they probably were as I got them from Thompson and Morgan. I will take a better photo of it soon.

This is another view of it. I have normal yellow ones growing too.

Finally - a while ago I bought The Cinch to replace the Bind it All, I am talking months ago too. I had not used it yet until I made this. Richard asked me for a list of birthdays and dates and I thought why not make a little birthday book. There are downloadable pages for this and instructions on the WR Memory Keepers blog. It was so easy, I am in love with The Cinch and think I will be making many more books. The Bind it All was a good little machine, and took up less room in it's pretty matching tote but I never managed to get the pages and covers quite lined up, or the right number of holes just where I wanted them but The Cinch has changed all of that. I covered the greyboard that I used for the covers with paper from a Sara Book, and I used a free balloon die from Simply Cards and Papercrafts magazine, part of set of two dies which are this month's cover gift. I added strings and birds in the sky with a Souffle pen and the birds, and die cut Birthday with a Spellbinders die and book with Quickutz dies. 

I have actually entered a challenge or two with this book:

Crafting from the Heart - #68 anything goes (Sun)

Papertake Weekly - don't be square (Tues)

Creative Fingers - #87 Anything goes (Fri)

Bunny Zoe's challenge blog - Summer breeze (Aug 9th)

Die Cut Divas - Summer (July)

Challenges won:

Incy Wincy - doodle what? 

Published in  Simply Cards and Papercraft magazine issue 140