Meadow Flowers 2 – The Reality

Some of you may remember that a few days ago (during The World Watercolour Challenge Month of July) I did a little ATC watercolour painting of some Meadow Flowers(<—click) and told you how I’d been inspired to paint that particular little painting.  (click the link and it will open in a new window to actually read that post if you missed it).

The original ‘Meadow Flowers’ ATC (sized 2.5″x 3.5″inches)

I said in that post that if I got the opportunity I’d take a snap of the flowers next time I passed them.  Well I drove past them yesterday (1st August) and before I turned the bend I had a very heavy heart, telling myself that they’d have all been drowned by the awful rains (and the winds) we’ve experienced here in the last few days, ….  however, as I drove around the bend my heart began to flutter like a butterflies wings.  Yes, the rain had given them a bit of a knock and nudge but there they stood, nodding and swaying in the wind.  I pulled over and very quickly snapped a couple of pictures on my cell phone.  One through the open passenger side car window – so it was nice and crisp and clean … and another through the windscreen – which gave the photo a bit of a white haze … but you can kind of see them.

taken through the open car window.

This photo was taken through the windscreen of my car.  Hence the white haze

What you’re looking at in the last photo (above) isn’t the full length of the Meadow Flowers planted – there’s roughly about half as much again which I couldn’t fit into a photo.  So you can imagine what a total blast of colour and joy it is to see each day.

I saved these photo’s as quite large ones,  (so that everyone would be able to see the meadow flowers properly)  and I know I used to be able to open up photo’s by simply clicking on them here in WordPress, and they would open up in the larger size.  But … I don’t seem to be able to do that now … so if someone knows how to get them to open up in their larger (saved) size then please could you let me know so that I can let everyone else know.  Many thanks!

I’ve blurred out the background properties which face onto the green, as … well, they aren’t my properties and I don’t have permission to put them on the web.  So just being polite.

I missed the final days of the Watercolour Challenge as we had Little Cobs come to stay, and quite frankly, he’s enough to keep a whole host of Angels busy!  By the time I’d managed to get him into bed of a night-time and read him a story (or two), I was so plumb tuckered out that I felt like I needed putting to bed myself!

But today I had to take him home again.  My loan of the Grandchild time had come to an end.  So we made the best of the last few hours we had together by starting with a thoroughly unhealthy breakfast … of Toast (not me, just Little Cobs) followed an hour later by … McDonald’s breakfasts!   Then we played Lego (which I am totally useless at but I try my best);   then we made a packed lunch and took it to the sea to watch the boats, the waves and look for Pirates.  However …. on the way there, we just HAD to take a slight detour and visit Toys R Us,  with pocket-money supplied by Grandad, to buy as much as we could possibly buy and pile into the car.

Then it was off to see the sea. 😊

We couldn’t go and sit out as the rains had made everything so wet we would have got soggy bottoms – and it was still a bit windy, which Little Cobs hates  …. so we ate a picnic in the car with the windows down a little so that we could get that fabulous air and actually smell the sea (which I love)  …. and gazed out onto the water, as we played with some new toys.

This was the sea and the sky of blue with its cotton wool clouds….

picture taken 1st August 2017

…  that isn’t an x inside a circle, printed on one of the clouds … it’s the reflection of the corner of my parking permit.  lol.

Normal service will now resume, once I’ve got my body back,  because some bu**er has stolen my youthful, joy filled, light as a feather feeling body, and replaced it with some old duffers body,  – and they have to be at least 120 years old, by the feel of the body which mine has been swapped with.  This one is creaky, old, positively broken in rather a lot of places and totally damaged through over-use (see definition for ‘knackered’ – which OBVIOUSLY isn’t a word I use,  being as it’s such an unladylike word and all that).

All I’ve done is taken responsibility for a 6-year-old boy …  so it’s obviously while I was distracted that someone broke into my home and swapped my own body for this load of carp which they’ve left me with.  I don’t know who I complain to.  I mean …. would the Police take this seriously?  I doubt it.  In fact … I feel like I can hear them laughing from here!

Suggestions for getting my  “OOooooNLY 27 YEARS OLD”   body back would be much appreciated.  For I have a birthday … as you know … and I shall be  “OOOooonly 27”  again, so I need my  “OOoonly 27”  year old body back… because that really was some body, and this one I’ve got now is ….  broken in 50 Shades of Busted!

Till next time …  …  I send you squidges,  mentally.   … I just can’t seem to get up from my seat at the moment to squidge you properly  …  actually, I think my arm has just dropped off   … ut ohhhh . . . .   I think a leg might be about to follow it!   Oh gawd,   …  what next?!!   I DEMAND THE RETURN OF MY BODY!   (or at the very least … a new one).

 

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Racing towards a Birthday

Guess who had a play in their craft room?  [grins]  I’m still not feeling 100%  and the mojo is still M.I.A.  and hiding somewhere in the craft room, but I’m still on the case and, with the help of our dog (an animal who can smell a biscuit crumb from 30 yards) I’m hoping to find that missing mojo very soon.

In the meantime I put together a Birthday card made with components from Hunkydory.

It’s a 3D card which folds completely flat, so no need for a big box.  When opened up (into an X shape) the middle sections are hung from invisible thread (from my sewing threads box)  and the two dimpled gold rings, and the central disc picturing the racing car, spin around – in a slight breeze (from opening a door nearby), or if you blow very gently on them.

below are three photos which show each ‘quarter’ of the card so that you can see it from all sides.

So – finally,  one card done!  That’s a big move forward in the right direction.  I’m off again to the craft room this afternoon, so fingers crossed …  there might be something else to share on another day soon. [GRINS a very hopeful grin!]

Happy Wednesday the 18th of January!  Did you know that … on this day in History:-

• 1644 –  Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America’s 1st UFO sighting
• 1788 –  The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia arrives at Botany Bay to set up a penal colony
• 1896 – 1st demonstration of an X-ray machine in US.
• 1919 – Bentley Motors Limited is founded
• 1944 –  The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hosts a jazz concert for the first time. The performers were Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge and Jack Teagarden.
• 1964 – Beatles 1st appear on Billboard Chart (I Want to Hold Your Hand-#35)
• 1967 – ‘Boston Strangler’ sentenced to life
• 1973 – John Cleese’s final episode on “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” on BBC TV
• 1980 – Pink Floyd’s “Wall” hits #1
• 1981 – Wendy O Williams arrested in Milwaukee for on-stage obscenity
• 1991 – Longest tennis match at the Australian Open, Boris Becker beats Italy’s Omar Camporese in 5 hours & 11 mins

That’s just a little handful of things which happened on this day in history.  Wikipedia    have a huuuge list, and if you’d like to read more about todays date simply click on the name.

Hope your week is off to a good start and that the weather is treating you kindly, wherever you are on the planet.  But … if the weather is fowl and you have bills to pay you’d rather not be paying … just think … you’re in a better place than you could be.  So please look at what you’re blessed with, and have a truly lovely,  blessed,  rest of your day.

Sending squidges from me in my corner to you in yours.

 

 

 

A new blue bonnet for Christmas! (on a vintage style handmade Christmas Card)

I still have the Christmas Crafting Box out next to me on the floor where I’m sitting at my desk…  and since I was still in the ‘Christmas’ frame of mind from the last card I made, I began this card (above) on Friday afternoon, . . . but then Little Cobs (Grandson) came on Saturday, and, just like any fabulous grandchild does, he shares with me all the germs he’s caught during the week at school (he’s 5), and this week he shared the germs which gave him an ear infection – however they changed somewhere in the passing and gave me a temperature and made me feel like a wilted weed!  I woke up at 3am gasping for breath and absolutely drenched.  I have no idea what my temperature was but I’m pretty sure someone could have fried an egg on me had they tried!

Thankfully things are getting back to normal again, but I really think we should build a sheep dip at the front door so that we can dip him in antiseptic before he crosses the threshold in an attempt to remove all the germs he’s bringing with him!

Anyhoo  … I’m supposed to be talking about this card so I’ll get on with it.

Made on a 7″x7″ white card, using some Red Corrugated card as a layer to bring the Christmas colour into the card.

I bought a pack of decorative papers last year, with Christmas images on them and hadn’t used them.  There were 2 of each design in the pack.  And it was this little girl, in her new blue bonnet which was so sweet that I chose her to theme this card around.  I used both sheets of this design, layering one sheet onto the Christmas Red corrugated card, and then cutting into the second sheet in order to pick out some details and over-lay them using foam tabs, so giving depth to the card.

The large snowflakes are wooden ones, which I painted white, and while the paint was dry I gently sprinkled a little fine glitter over them so that they would have that more ‘frosty’ look.  The Red/pink four petal flowers around the left side of the card, I actually picked up in a charity shop about a year ago.  It looked as if someone was clearing some of their stash from their craft room and I found these flowers.  Didn’t know what I was going to do with them, but at 75p for a large cellophane bag full of them, I decided to buy them because I knew I’d use them at some point.  And … look!   I am!

I added the blue ‘crystal’ centres to the flowers, in a nod to the colour of the bonnet which the little girl is wearing.  I wanted a ‘conversation’ to be going on between the colours.

The little wooden frame is one from a selection by Docrafts, and the sequins are from my stash.  To finish the card off,  I added the little silver metal Christmas Stocking Charm (right top corner) with a Christmas Red Ribbon tied to it and … that, as they say, is all there was to it.

If I’ve missed anything or you want to know about something, please just ask away in a comment.  I promise I’ll reply.

Well Halloween came and went, and I was rather happy when the day had drawn to a close, because we had out busiest Halloween night, EVER, and I only had three bags of sweets left, and had begun to panic.

I went through my whole supply of cellophane C5 size bags and had none left!  I’d begun by making  about 12 cellophane bags, each filled with either a sucking lolly or a (drumstick) chewy lolly,  plus a pack of parma violets; a Roses chocolate;  a humbug; a chocolate eclair;  2 chocolate Ghost;  2 chocolate eyeballs;  and two chocolate coins.  We thought, judging on previous years, that those 12 bags filled with assorted sweets would very likely be enough.  Oh how wrong were we!

After just ten minutes I had to throw more bags together as fast as I could,  but before I’d managed to finish the doorbell wrang again and I had to leave Mr. Cobs to seal the bags up, while I kept the little ones and their mummies and daddies talking at the door (admiring their costumes and having a conversation about how wonderful the Princess’s were, and how scary the ghosts and ghouls were), while Mr.Cobs quickly sealed the bags and scrambled out to the door to bring me more supplies.  And that happened again, and again.

Sometimes there was just one little darling with a daddy or mummy, and sometimes there were five.  On one visit, there were five little ones, three girls and two boys, and as I was talking to the little ghostly bride she was doing a familiar jiggle.  I bent over and whispered in a stage whisper (so that mummy could hear what I was saying) …  “Oh Beautiful Ghostly Bride … do you by any chance need a wee?”.  “No,  no I don’t.”   ….  “You don’t?  Are you sure poppet?”  …  “Yes I’m sure…..  Uhm . . .   Actually …. I do!“   The jiggle had got ever-so more jiggly.  Mummy stepped forward and said … “Oh dear,  I think she does, yes”. So … not only did I have ghosts and ghouls at the front door on Halloween …. I even had a spook in my bathroom!  And I noticed that the jiggle had gone by the time she collected her bag of sweets from me on the way out of the front door.  lol.  Bless her heart.

They were all so, so lovely and so very sweet.  I couldn’t pick a favourite out of them all if I tried to.  I just wanted to scoop them all up and squidge them  …  which I think was because I was missing Little Cobs – who was still suffering with his virus so sadly couldn’t go out Trick or Treating.  Ah well … there’s always next year.

Aww anyhoo …  HAPPY WEDNESDAY all!  May your day bring with it some smiles, and a sense of peace with it.  May any mail you receive from the postman/lady be of the happy type, and may you find a parking space, sat waiting just for you, if you happen to go out in your car today.

Be good to yourself,  and each other.

Sending you a squidge ~

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A Classic in Times Nouveau, on an Easel.

I broke out the Graphic 45!  I did.  I really did.  Graphic 45 in their Times Nouveau collection, and made a Tag Card,  on a Graphic 45 large tag, and it’s all held onto an Easel which has a working stand, which ‘folds’ out from the back and holds the card like an easel would hold a piece of art work in a Gallery.  It has two hidden tags (one you can see in the picture above) and a little something special on the back, for writing the message.

I wondered if perhaps we could do another GIVE AWAY for this card – if anyone would like it.  I’ll explain in a minute how to enter the give away if you’d like to, but first … I thought I’d better show you how I made the card.

• SHOPPING LIST (roughly’ish’ – if I’ve forgotten to mention anything just point it out in a comment and I’ll let you know.)
• Pinflair Novelty Easel Card – minus the ‘canvas’
• 1 x Graphic 45 Lrg. Tag from a Regular Tag Album (9 pack)
• Kraft Mannequin from a pad of 45 (2 sizes: large, smaller, & either plane or foiled in gold and silver) by Craftwork Cards
• News Print card by Anna Marie Designs
• Olive Spot  and larger spot in black card – both by Anna Marie Designs
• Graphic 45 Times Nouveau Classic Collection – plus some chipboard tags and stickers from this collection.
• Very pale mint spot from stash.
• Tiny black with off white spots paper from stash.
• Ribbons and twine are all from stash.

How I made it:-  Take one black card tag … cover it on one side with Newsprint card,

Add a tiny piece of very pale mint spot paper, and a larger piece of olive spot card.  Making sure you leave a section for a tag to ‘hide’.  (shown by the bit of white and grey leaf card)

Add a piece of Graphic 45 Times Nouveau in the dog-tooth design.  (Again building in a section for a tag to hide in – not shown in this picture (above) but you’ll see the tag hiding place in the next photo)

Can you see where the little hiding spot is on the right hand side now?   Here in this photo (above) I’ve added some black card with very tiny white spots on it;  a mannequin which I distressed and wrapped in a little length of green organza;  I added a fussy cut rather stylish lady, which I mounted on first black larger spot card, then again on small spot card – just for the contrast;  A vintage Car – again fussy cut, but this time from some papers I had in my stash.  I then popped the chipboard ‘Swanky’ tag onto the card and pushed two pearly hat pins behind the card, so that they peeped out a the top of the chipboard tag.

Then came some finishing touches …  Added ribbon, made a bow and added netting in two colours and a couple of flower from my stash;  some tiny pearls around the neck of the mannequin and tucked some sequins into one of the folds of the organza so that they would catch the light.  I then made some little tags using both spot papers and some Graphic 45 Paper, . . .  and then came the easel for it to be displayed on  …

There is a little ‘making’ to the actual easel – but it’s nothing which is difficult.  They’re fabulous easels, and so beautifully made.  Everything is cut ready for you, and REALLY well cut too.

I had trouble lighting this card.  I tried it with the flash, without the flash, with desk lamps, with ceiling lights … and every combination of the previously mentioned ways.  I would say that the true colours are somewhere between the last two photographs above.  The one on the easel seems to have a little too much of a yellow tinge to it.  Where-as the photo before it is rather pale and wiped out by the flash I think.  It looks like it needs to be taking iron tablets.  lol

OK… here’s the  *instructions*   for entering for the give away for this card if you would like to throw your name into the mix and be in with a chance of winning it . . . .

TO ENTER THE GIVE AWAY HERE’S WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO

You MUST be a follower of the blog –  The Cobweborium Emporium. (This is because I have to keep in mind that I’ve made great friends with almost all of my blog followers and so have a great loyalty to them and would want one of them to win the card.  I think this is fair).

IN A COMMENT BELOW YOU MUST TYPE THIS WORD IF YOU WANT YOUR NAME TO BE INCLUDED  …. and that word is:-  GIVEAWAY.  ← Exactly like that.  One word.  Type it at the start or end of your comment.

You have to put it exactly like that –  one word, in capital letters.  Simple – and it makes sure that I don’t miss anyone.  🙂

And that’s it.  That’s all you have to do.  Simply make a comment with the word GIVEAWAY either at the start or the end of your comment.  It couldn’t be easier, could it!  Oh … and …   Please  DON’T  put your real name or address in the comments box.  I need to look after your privacy and security.  If you win, I’ll organise how to get your address afterwards.

To make sure that all is fair,  each entrant will be assigned a number in the ‘time order’ in which they make the comment, and  I’ll get the Random Number Generator to choose the number, and do a screen shot of the R.N.G and post it so that you can all see which number was generated.

I’ll ‘run’ this giveaway from today (Wednesday 5th October 2016), until next Tuesday – TUESDAY 11th OCTOBER, and it will end on that day at 6pm UK time.  Just a week – so that no one is kept hanging around waiting for the result. (We don’t have zones in the UK, we just have one time zone for the whole of the UK – so you’ll have to ask (perhaps) Google to work it out for you so that you know what time that would be where-ever it is that you are.)

This is open to ANYONE IN ANY AREA OF THE WORLD … so long as your country allows a card posted to you from outside your country through your customs. You won’t be asked for any postage or any monies what-so-ever.  This really is just a little fun between us friends.

Well, Wednesday has found it’s way to us all again.  I have a plan for today already ear-marked:   I’d love to show you, if you don’t already know, how to make your own professional looking Christmas Crackers.  Not from a kit …   not those kits you buy for making Crackers, which are from thin card and don’t look like proper Christmas Crackers at all.  I want to show you, if I can, how to make firstly a regular Christmas Cracker …  and then how to spice them up a little and make them into something way more special.  The problem is … can I do it in pictures?  I’ve only ever shown folks how to do this face to face, sitting next to each other so that they can see exactly what I’m doing.  And … I still don’t know how to do the video thing … and load a video onto YouTube – which perhaps would make things easier.  But … I’m going to give it a try and see if I can make it work, and hopefully I’ll be able to share the secrets with you.

So anyway ...  what are your plans for today?  Going anywhere?  Making anything?  Cooking something?  Sewing?  Knitting?  Anything?

Do share the information with me because I can then come to your blog and badger you if you don’t post the results of it for me to drool over!  🙂  lol – just joking.  Actually … no, no I’m not.  I feel, as your friend, that it is my duty to come and badger you.  So yes, I shall come and badger you and poke you with the end of my stick!  It’s a tickling stick and so will make you laugh!

If you’re still reading,  (well done),  I wish you an absolutely WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY!  May the day be bright.  May the winds be gentle.  May your day be easy.  And, until we meet again, may your God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Have a blessed day my friends,