Patience is a virtue..!!!

Ok, finally after 3 days of I will stay calm, I will stay calm, I will stay calm, I think I have solved this months Blogger glitch... Blogger is a fab thing to use , but every now and again it wont work as it has always done. No explanation, no nothing..!!! Really frustrating as you need to persevere and work out a new way.  This time it was with the photos, it would print 2, but when I printed a third it would delete the first two.!! Talk about 3 steps forward 2 steps back, lol.  You nearly ended up with 10 posts a day with 2 photos on each lol.. Any way I have discovered that if you post your photos backwards way round then they stay where you put them. I quite like that quirky way, that you start at the end and end at the finish, lol. My kind of life...

So big apologies to all those who thought I really had self combusted, heres the latest news and snippets in the Art from the Heart world...

First a big thankyou to Cockney Blonde for her lovely pressie and card. She said she saw it and straightaway thought of me .  Aww..

Ha ha , cool isn't it. My own  little pop up western town... Thanks hunny..

As many of you know, my Art Journaling Regulars and I are all participating in an Art Journal round robin. Here are 2 of the pages I have done in the last 2 journals to swing my way. 

This last one was made completely from my new range of downloads.

Think its time for a new challenge, don,t you..?? So here it is. Make something using any or all of the new downloads, send me an image for the blog and we,ll have a fabby prize for the most inventive.. You game..??? Go get cracking then (after you,ve read the rest of my blog obviously), lol.  You will find the downloads HERE . I am already working on the next lot which are reeeeeaaaaalllllyyyyyy exciting..!!!

As you all know I love the clothing ranges of Orla Kiely, and heres my latest wish list...One day I will own an item of hers, honest, its on my bucket list..!!! lmao

2nd from the left is my fave

This is soooo cool

And, yes, I would wear this even though it is pink, lol

I want to move in and live here

How fab is that wall paper, mmmmmm can feel a bit of painting may be called for..!!

The classes over the weekend were great. Saturday saw us all making a multi pocketed book with gorgeous 7gypsies products, it was definitely a hit with the ladies...Saturday night saw me in Blackpool, dancing my little ( ok not so little ) ass off at a Mecca Revival night.  Yayy love my Northern as you all know. Didn,t get home until 4.45 am, and was back for the Art Journaling class at 9am.!!! oops.

But lucky, lucky me, I got my breakfast delivered to me. How cool is that, a bacon butty, with the required brown sauce, personally delivered..???

It was sent from one of my favourite and highly recommended hotels to stay at when you come to one of my weekends, The Alexa House.  Dave and Sandra who own it are great, one of my ladies, the lovely Christine was staying there and they sent the breakfast with them. Obviously I didn,t enjoy it one bit and would have preffered half a grapefruit and a crispbread..!!!!!

Art Journaling was, as ever, a riot of fun and laughter, and the occasional bit of work.  Olive was holding court, and she was hilarious. I am amazed any body got anything done but they did. I was teaching them how to frame pages with collage and they all loved it and picked it up really quickly.  

This weekend sees loads of ladies returning for their 2nd Art Journaling weekend, yayy, can,t wait to see what they have been up to in their journals.

Last night I spent in the company of a dear friend who is going through a real crisis and needed an ear. I answered the call at about 5.30 and popped to see him, and after a while we decided to go up town for something to eat. It was 9.40 and 3 reataurants wouldn,t let us in as they finished at 10...wtf..???? I live in a conference town, where in the centre there are more bars and restaurants than there are shops, and they won,t let you in at 9.40 on a Sunday evening..!!! Anyway he spotted a Bangledeshi restaurant who allowed us through their doors. The food was absolutley fabulous, similiar to Indian, but with really rich flavours.. I will definitely be going back there again. But yet again a late night..!!! So this morn ing I am sooooo shattered, lol, and I still had all the clearing up to do from yestaerday, as I only thought I was popping out for a bit, lol.  But I am always available for my mates in a crisis, you have to be don,t you. Its important, and so many where there for me and I really appreciated it. As my Dad used to say

"Its nice to be important, but its more important to be nice..!!"

I know I,ve been very slack at shoewatch lately ( spending all my dosh on  Vintage Union Jacks, doesn,t leave a lot in the budget, lmao) but I couldnt resist these Gladiators.

Think an early night is called for this evening, crisis and Northern Soul permitting. I,ll leave you with a little modern sound I am rocking at themoment.

Enjoy xx

not quite what I intended to post...

What the frikk is going on with Blogger tonight....???? To be quite honest, its right doing my head in.. So instead of getting all harassed about it, I am going for a long soak in the bath and I will try again after. If you don,t hear from me I may, quite possibly, have self combusted in a fit of despair and it may take a while for normal service to resume...!!!!! lol

Hopefully see you later xx

Ooooh I,m a happy bunny today...

Oooooh finally the letterblock trays have arrived from 7gypsies...Yayyy. We have them in black

and in Brown

And these reciept holders are just too scrummy for words.

And we also saw the long awaited arrival of the Petit Carnet. I fell in love with these at CHA waaaaaaaay back in January. Luckily Tim Holtz had been given a full set (how jealous was I. ??) But I steeled myself to only think kind thoughts and was rewarded with him letting me have the choice of one. Mwah, I take back everything I have said about you, lol. Well for now anyway..!!!.. They are gorgeous little blank stitched journals, which come 2 to a set. There are 6 sets to choose from , but I wouldn,t leave it too long as they are flying out already..!!

 

I tried to acquire as many as I could, but I was spotted and wrestled to the ground. But not before I manage to snaffle this set, tee hee..!!

Talking of 7gypsies, I am just putting the finishing touches to Saturdays class , A Gypsy Adventure. It is really cool, a large book filled with pockets, tags, this, that , the other, and anything else that was in reach lol. I am real pleased with , so if you fancy a day at mine, playing, laughing, eating chocolate, and having fun, give us a ring to book on.

Thought I would just give you a little glimpse of the state of my desk (err actually desks..!!)

Yup thats right I have messed up 3 desks this afternoon, lmao.

On one of the clean desks are some beautiful lilies. They were a present from the lovely Katies Mum. One of these days we will get around to actually meeting each other..Ooooer..!!! I,m not sure if she is ready for me yet, lol.

Look at what else arrived today for me...Yayy new magazines for my Art Journaling (as if I need anymore to add to my collection, lol.) So I will be bidding you goodnight, switching the sky+ to back to back prison documentaries, grabbing my trusty Tim Holtz scissors and doing an extremely  accurate Edward Scissorhands impression...!!lmao..

Enjoy xx

New downloads are in the building......

Whey hey, they are here...Even more of my weird and wonderful downloads. They have just gone live on the website and are proving extremely popular. Seems that lots of you think the same weird way as me..Now that's a litle bit worrying isn't it?? lol.

The first 3 are legs because well to be honest you can never have enough legs, can you..??? There are legs for every occasion, with loads of my fave spots stripes and chunky boots...

Then there is a sheet of elements...some collage, dickie birds, hats and toadstools...

A random block alphabet for all those titles, all taken from my personal collection. It takes me hours collecting all of these, lol. There are 2 different styles of each letter and extra vowels.

A sheet of eclectic collage images, for you to play around with.

I have constantly been asked for large borders, so here they are... And yes I have included a long strip of vines for you.

And here's a cool selection of quirky phrases and quotes, in a selection of fonts and sizes. I have tried not to be too weird with my selection, lol. I will phase you in gradually.

All of the downloads can be bought direct from HERE

Remember they can be altered to any size and colour, black and white always looks stunning. I will be posting some examples as soon as I get them made, lol, and would love to see what you do with them... I will be holding a download challenge for you all, details later in the week..

Which leads me to the two hat winners from the weekend. Everyone did a brilliant job and I was amazed to see so many of you enter into the spirit of it all.  I still have mismatched painted nails and the dye ink is ingrained into the skin of my hands. I have the hands of a throwback from the psychaedelic sixties, lmao.

Any way overall prize had to go to Teresa who turned herself into a living hedge. It was amazing, she got up wrapped chicken wire around her head!!!, ventured into the garden with a pair of secataurs, trimmed a few bushes and stuck them in. Just like that..!!!, lol

And 2nd prize goes to the lovely Sandra who built her hat from a tower of Starbucks mugs. She had her husband Andy stalking people at their local cafe and purloining their cups, lol.  It was a masterpiece of construction lol.

Well done to both of you..

Well after the shock of writing a blog before midnight , I feel as though I should have a lie down, lol. But I still have the kids class to teach and then my regular Tues night ladies.  See you tomorrow

Enjoy xx

The ups and the downs of life....

Oh yes the hats are surviving the festivities.

Can you guess who had the honour!!!! of being the white rabbit today...?

No...???? Maybe this reknowned pose will help you all..

Ha ha , did you guess...??? How pissed off does she look...????? you see thats why shes one of my best bezzies... Kirsty you looked gorgeous and you are a little star...XXX  And , guess what she actually spent the whole day wearing it whilst teaching my mini workshops..!!!

The other fantabulous tutors were, The lurvley Mrs T

Pouty Marie

The lovely Katie

Here was the Golden teapot full of the chocolate currency you needed to gain admittance to a workshop.   The tutors were having a little competition to see who could collect the most coins. A good plan, severley thwarted by students eating them..!!!! lmao.

Yet again we had a fabulous turnout of hats. The first 2 travelled especially all the way from Lincloln.!!

Toni is a bit camera shy...lol

I spent much of the mornig apologising for my attire and stating that I didn't actually dress like this normally... And then I realised, bugger me, I actually do...lmao... Minus the coat and flashing bow tie, of course.  Yes unfortunately I am often to be found unintentionally impersonating the Mad Hatter..!!!

We had a whale of a time oover the weekend and by the sounds of it so did all of you. Thankyou to all of you for making such a wonderful effort. We raised loads for my fave charity...Young Carers.. A big big thankyou to everyone who worked and helped out over the weekend, you are the frikkin, fabbiest, bestest peeps in the whole wide world... Mwah, mwah, mwah..XXX

These are the results of the raffle.

Set of my downloads     green 21 - Sue Cooper  n/c
decorated sleigh             white 223 - Marie   c
Tim's new book             white 41 - Margeret Walton n/c
decorated box with mini books    225 Mrs T   c
paper artsy stamps    224 Marie  c
journal kit and alphas   180 Belle  c
Memories box             182 - Belle   c
Tim,s paper pack         68 - Ruth   n/c
Art box                        47 - Lorna  n/c
Grunge boad alphas and bead chain    101 - Debbie  n/c
Paper Artsy minis         49 - Amanda  n/c
Heart wall hanging         187 - Belle.  c

Exciting news, that should have been today, but now slightly postponed until tomorrow, lol. 8 new download sheets, Yes I did say 8....I,ve been a busy beaver. I just got waylaid a bit with the final  touches...They will be on the website tomorrow, in this section  promise ya..!!!

On a more serious note I,ve had a real sad afternoon. It was the interrment of my Mum and Dads ashes. They have finally been laid to rest. My Dad hasn,t been with us for over 8 years, my Mum just didn,t want to be parted from him..!!  Its bad enough that it has taken 15 months to lay Mum to rest without raking up the emotions from 8 years ago. Their individual funerals were hard enough to endure. But seeing both of your parents placed in the ground at the same time was tortuous, and I wouldn,t wish it on anyone. I couldn,t bear to hang around so dipped out as soon as I could, and then felt guilty for it....and have ended up trying to fill that big empty hole inside me, with lots of crap...!!!!!! yup I know, I know, you don't need to have a go...!

Gonna leave you with a Jim Reeves song. I will never ever forget listening to my Mum singing this, with eyes filled with tears, to my Dad the night before he passed. He wasn,t conscious of anything, but I know he heard everyword she sang. they had a very turbulent and challenging relationship, but they stuck beside one another through thick and thin. And horrendous as it was it is nice that they are laid to rest together.

Night, night Mam

Night, night Dad

God Bless and Peace in head and heart  XXX