STRANGER IN OUR MIDST!

Life is never short of surprises.  On Saturday afternoon we got a phone call from a lovely (elderly) couple in our church, inviting us for Sunday lunch.  To give a bit of background to this, one of the members - and part of the leadership team - in our church is a chaplain at Harmondsworth Detention Centre at Heathrow, which deals with illegal immigrants/refugees/asylum seekers coming into the UK.

For the past two years, we have had several Iranian guys turn up at church as a result, and various members of the church take it in turns once a month to host Sunday lunch for them.  Anyhow, we were invited to have lunch along with some of the Iranians.  In the event, only one of the Iranians was able to make it, a fella called Omid who we have got to know fairly well over the months that he has been coming to church. 

At different times we have wondered about offering him accommodation with us but it has not been practical at all as we have not really had a spare room (or rather we did but it was full of my clutter and needed occasionally when younger daughter is at home and has to have a ground floor bedroom.)

On Sunday we heard more about his heart wrenching story ... he is still going through the long process of trying to get a status in the UK.  We also discovered that in two weeks time he would  have nowhere to stay and so during the course of lunch, we also decided that we would offer him the opportunity to come and live with us!!!!!!  

We did not say anything to Omid on Sunday, but invited him to come round for supper on Tuesday instead.  (That would give us two days to realise what a rash decision we had made!!!).

On Monday morning I went into a frenzy of clearing out the room, ending up with 3 bags of *junk* and trying to make room for various bits of craft stuff which themselves had become asylum seekers!!!  We also needed to try and find another home in the house for a displaced tumble dryer that was also happily residing in the downstairs bedroom.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was spent at the council tip, getting rid of the stuff that did not make it as far as passport control!!!  Then came dinner (spag bol and chocolate pudding!) which was all going really well .... until we made the offer to Omid of living with us.  He started crying and even more alarming, elder daughter also burst into tears (even though she had only just met him and rarely shows emotion!).  Even the cat started flirting.

The long and the short of this is that in two weeks time our household will suddenly have grown by one ... and I will need to start learning how to cook Iranian food and speak Farsi !!!  Where crafting will fit into all this remains to be seen.  

*THE BOX* was duly finished and posted to my Mum who thought it was wonderful.  However, there is only one problem, which was that her Easter card was too big for it!!!  You can please all people SOME of the time ............... !!!!!!!!!!!!

TTFN,

Mandi xx

THE BOX!

Thankfully I don't think that my Mum reads this blog, otherwise she will find out what I have been up to.  The plain MDF box has now been transformed.  I have taken piccies of the lid (see below) and I am just waiting for the mod podge to dry on the base before taking a photo.

The paper and German scraps are from Calico Crafts.  I do miss their bricks and mortar shop (and my visits with Sarah C!!) but they still have some good stuff online.  These items were bought specifically with the box in mind so I didn't feel too bad at having a little splurge!  I also dunked a length of  white lace into a mug of tea (without milk or sugar!) to dye it to blend in with the background!

We had an interesting weekend.  We spent Saturday cleaning out the gutters for someone (well to be more specific, hubby cleaned them out and I just stood and watched for moral support!!!) and thankfully the rain held off until after we had finished.  Last night we went to the Anglican church that we have started attending in the evenings.  They had an ordination service, complete with 3 Bishops, and about 7 other clergy in frocks!  Thoroughly enjoyable (the service I mean!!).

Not much else.  Misha has slept all day, having taken one look at the weather and deciding that she would prefer to stay dry.  That suited me fine as I was not having to clean up muddy pawprints the whole time.  Our next door neighbour has decided to start breeding pigeons (in London for heaven's sake!!!) and so everytime Misha wants out, we have to toddle down to the end of the garden to see if the pigeons are on the loose.  Very stressful!

That's it for now, enjoy the box!

Mandi xx

AAAAAARGHH TO THE BLOG!!!!!

It has been two months since posting, and as ever I have not really known if I am coming or going.  Both daughters have had medical *incidents*, Bex has had her kitchen and bathroom gutted and re-done and I went to the rescue afterwards with a mop, bucket and copious numbers of old knickers (aka dusters!).

Even more frazzling is that yesterday when I went to try and catch up on a bit of blogging I was horrified to find a load of black warning triangles where some of my pictures had been so I am now in the process of trying to rectify that and restore the images.  I thought that the pics were saved somewhere in blogger but that doesnt seem to be the case.  The only trouble is that I have got rid of some of the photos!

In between times I have done a few bits and bobs in the way of crafting. 

The latest piece was a never-ending card which I did for my Mum for Easter.  Having declared that she didn't want anything and chocolate seems to get stored away in a cupboard, I thought I would try something special in the way of a card.  She loved it ........ but asked me not to make any more *nice cards* as she has nowhere to keep them!!!!  I am not quite sure what to make of that ..... and will probably continue to make them anyhow!

........ Since writing the above I have been to the Ally Pally show and bought an MDF box which will be altered in due course and given to Mum to keep her cards in!!!

  

TTFN

Mandi xx

Sesame Street - "The First Time Me Eat Cookie"

Gotta love Sesame Street!!!!!  Just for fun ........

TFL!  Mandi

ANOTHER QUICKIE

Good morning!  I am not sure where this year is going but we are now in the second month already.  Maybe I should start planning Christmas so that I am actually organised this year lol.

Ever have one of those days when your best made plans go awry?  I was just about to embark on climbing Mount Everest (AKA tackling the ironing pile!) when my darling daughter phoned up and asked if I could make a card for her boss!!!  (She makes better cards than I do ... the daughter not the boss!).  What was worse was that it was a Wedding Acceptance card, and had to be in lilac!

A few cuts and punches later, I came up with something that was reasonably presentable.  

Poor old Misha is still feeling under the weather after having her bits removed on Tuesday, so I will be phoning the vets today for some advice.  We had to cut her collar down and alter it with masking tape to make the edges a bit softer as she could not get her head in her bowl to eat or drink!  The up-side of all this is that she has become really cuddly and affectionate ... at the time of blogging she is curled up in our bed asleep!

  

Do I LOOK like an Elizabethan???

Keep warm and have a good day!  TTFN

Mandi

A GET WELL CARD

Just another quickie .. this time a get well card, although I am not sure if I should have made it for Misha as she is feeling very sorry for herself after being spayed yesterday.  For the first time in 5 months I haven't had help when making a card, which seems very strange, she just isn't up to doing a bit of crafting today!

I covered a Sizzix embossing folder in ink and ran it through the Big Shot, together with a Spellbinders shapeability label die and a few home-made paper flowers.

TFL, I will be back when the cat is better!

Mandi

BOX CARD

Just one thing to *show off* today ... which doesn't involve toastcrumbs or wicks for that matter!

I found some instructions on how to make a box card over the weekend and have been playing with my footprints stamps from Our Daily Bread.  


The box opens up to reveal the Footprints poem, and the front is embellished with gold flower soft for the sand, and miniature seashells.  The back has a pocket for a tag. 


I made it for some friends who are going through a bit of a tough time at the moment so this is one to give away rather than hoard!

TFL!  

Mandi xx

TOAST CRUMBS AND WICKS!

I have to confess that I have a pathological hatred of crumbs.  Bread crumbs, toast crumbs, biscuit crumbs, cake crumbs, crispbread crumbs and even cereal crumbs ... well any kind of crumb really!

We have a friend called *Duck* who stays with us.  Darling daughter has nick-named him that, and because *Duck* is a nice anonymousical name, *Duck* has *stuck*.  In every respect Duck is great ... apart from the toast crumbs!  When Duck is here, the cooker is clean, the sink is clean, the house is clean BUT the surfaces around the toaster are not!  A previous acquaintance did the same ... except in her case every other area that she used was left in the same kind of state.  Because crumbs seem to be Duck's only shortcoming, I will not make too much of a meal out of it and will resign myself to entering the toaster area with a J-cloth in hand.

I have tried to think of a resolution.  Maybe the toaster is in the wrong place?  Maybe the area is a bit dark to see crumbs properly (well I guess they do blend in to pine!!) so maybe I should shed a bit of light on the subject and move the toaster?  Somehow I doubt if that would help ... due to the ingrained breadcrumb mentality (theirs not mine!).

The problem is that the crumbs are on the surface where I do most of our food preparation.  Maybe the offenders think that I need to widen my culinery repertoire.  *Cooking with breadcrumbs rather than batter is a much healthier option*, or *home-made bread sauce is far nicer than packet-mix*, or *I am sure that your salad would go much better with micro-croutons*.  I don't think so.  I am very happy with my conventional toad in the hole batter-mix, Colman's bread sauce and my salad is *micro* enough as it is thank you very much.

Can you tell that this is getting on my wick?

Talking of wicks .........

I have been making candles, thanks to my younger daughter's former passion for GU desserts, the ones where you pay more for the packaging than for the contents, but I guess it gives you a *feelGU'd* factor to eat something out of a posh jar.

So ... these jars have been mounting up and taking over a whole shelf of a kitchen cupboard, but what to do with them?  More to the point, what to do with them in order to justify to afore-mentioned daughter, the horrendous cost of the GU in the first place.  

Initial thoughts were to make pin-cushions to sit on top of the jars which theoretically would hold a little sewing kit.  All very well but fixing the pincushion to the jar proved a bit tricky, and the cost of purchasing a little sewing kit for each jar was prohibitive.  It was also disturbing my sleep as I was trying to work out how to attach velcro in a creative and attractive ... or even invisible manner to both jar and cushion.  Things seemed very complicated at 2 o'clock in the morning!

And so the idea of using the jars for candles with candle-wraps entered my head.  Only one problem ... I have never made candles before!  

And so I did some research.  *Basic equipment* consisted of a double boiler, a thingy for centering the wicks, a thermometer (so that the kitchen does not catch fire), candle wax, scent, and colouring.  After reading up on all this, I worked out that for the cost of *Basic equipment* I could buy 150 sewing kits!!!

I decided that I could improvise and so, not one for doing things by halves, I purchased 5kgs of candle wax, (well bulk is cheaper right?) a bit of colouring wax, some wick, and a bottle of white musk candle scent, all for less than the cost of 20 sewing kits!  My improvisation techniques included using a saucepan, a metal colander and a pyrex jug instead of a double boiler, kebab sticks cut in half and tied together to make the centering thingy, and an old meat thermometer.  It worked, I now have 21 candles in little jars, (about 20 left to make) and the kitchen is still intact.  

Next problem.  The candles look naff just in their little pudding pots and quite frankly if I was given one as a gift, I think I would have preferred the original contents.  And so they need tarting up!

We have a wonderful new store which has opened *just round the corner* which sells everything except for the kitchen sink, although I wouldn't be surprised to see one of those pop up on the shelf at some point as it is so eclectic.  In amongst this mix is a sewing and craft section.  I discovered some jute upholstery webbing which was 40p a metre (and a few other essential items in the process!)  and duly purchased 3 metres.  Got it home and worked out that I could make 4 wraps for a metre and so I chopped it up.  Another problem ... I had mis-calculated and the jute strips were about an inch too short, BUT they would make wonderful napkin rings!  I played about with one of the strips and discovered that they look even nicer when they are frayed a bit (deliberately!), and the strands that came from the fraying process will make lovely little ties (I also used them to tie my kebab sticks together for centering the wicks so all in all very cost-effective!).

Anyhow ideas ideas ideas ..... and not a lot of sleep as instead of dreaming about punches (see previous post) and pincushions, I am now dreaming of making primitive candle wraps.

And now on to the financial side.  Why am I doing all this?  Elder daughter works in a high-school which has a sort of craft-fair thing at the end of the year, so a while ago she suggested that we did a table together as she is fantastic with card-making, crochet (Amigurami or whatever it is called) and by the end of the year will probably be proficient and prolific in knitting also.

£25 on the cost of materials (forget the fact that the GU would have cost around £100 as I didn't pay for that!) including the wraps, and enough wax to make around 50 candles (both large and small as the Bon Maman jam jars come in very handy also!).  A little package of a candle wrapped in jute along with two jute napkin rings (and maybe in placed in a little hessian bag ... but that's another story) would be priced at around £3.00 with the larger candle package being about £4.00 ... or maybe £3.99!!!  50 at a minimum of £3.00 would be £150 ...... and you can work out the profit margins yourself (except that in order to keep the feel GU'd factor half of it will probably go to charity).  

Can you tell that I have been reading Alan Sugar's autobiography?

So watch this space as to how far I get with these little GU-ey gifts ...... and pray for a bit of success, otherwise you know what YOU are getting for Christmas next year!

Phew!  That's all folks, am off to buy some more webbing!

TTFN,

Mandi xx

PUNCHES RE-DISCOVERED!

I have just re-discovered some old punches that I had, inspired by a blog which I came across called KITTIEKRAFTS.  I spent Sunday and last night playing, and this is what I came up with thanks to one of Kittie's tutorials on making a hydrangea.  

Am pretty pleased with it and I could get addicted to using punches to create flowers.  I have a lot of flowers from Wild Orchd Crafts, but sometimes they are just too big for what I want.  Punches combined with Spellbinders, Marianne D and Memory Box dies, I am in paper-heaven!

Tonight we are off for a curry with younger son, and are meeting his girlfriend for the first time, so I will be dreaming of flower-punching whilst gobbling a vindaloo (well not quite but you get the gist!).

TFL,
Mandi xx

Punched Flower Hydrangea Card

HAPPY NEW YEAR

First of all may I wish everyone (or anyone even!!) reading this a HAPPY NEW YEAR.

At the time of blogging, it is cold, wet, windy and ONLY 50 1/2 WEEKS UNTIL CHRISTMAS 2012 !!!!

Christmas 2011 has been and gone.  We enjoyed a family Christmas with quite a lot of variety, some good and some *interesting*.  (I love that word as it covers a multitude!).  My back was causing me mega-grief and I honestly am not sure how on earth I managed to cook Christmas dinner, but at least it made it onto the table.  It was Misha's first Christmas, so it was only proper that she joined us!!!  Paul still can't quite believe that he found himself cutting up Christmas dinner for a CAT!  

So what does the New Year bring?  Lots of good intentions and probably very few of them accomplished which is why I do not make resolutions!  I definitely need to get fitter in all sorts of ways, not least because my back needs it!  

On the crafting front, I don't have any plans as my styles seem to change so much.  Currently I am loving making easel cards as they can be used as a display piece when they are detached from the card base.  Over Christmas I found myself with all sorts of ideas BUT I didn't have any craft stuff with me at the cottage, and even if I had, I don't think that I would have had any time.  Now we are back, the ideas have deserted me and my creativity seems to have gone Ichabod but keep watching this space as it may return before too long.

Mandi xx

TIME FLIES!

Oh grief ... almost another two months disappeared into nowhere as far as blogging is concerned!  Again we have been busy bees, not helped by Misha who I am sure thinks that she is Stirling Moss at times.  She likes to muscle in on all the acts that go on in our household and is not too pleased when she is ignored!

She is not longer the tiny ball of fluff, skin and bones that she was when we found her in the nettle patch at the bottom of the garden and we are pretty sure that we know who the Mummy is due to her increasing Siamese looks and characteristics!  The question is ...... WHO'S THE DADDY?!!!  Again, we THINK we know who it is but not sure on that one.  If it is our prime suspect then his name is Hitch and he roams around the lane by the cottage!

WHO'S THE DADDY?


So .... because of the fact that this really should be a crafting blog, I have a confession to make ... I haven't done much!  I seem to go in fits and starts and lose my mojo at regular intervals, after which I have a growth spurt (a bit like Misha!).  Some of this is because my back has been giving me some major grief over the last few weeks and as I mainly craft standing up, the times when I have been *pain-free* enough to do it have been fairly few and far between.

I have, however managed to wrap presents and make mini Christmas cakes to give away as gifts to family and neighbours ... again with Misha giving a helping paw.  I am not sure if she is a help or a hindrance but she is very entertaining.

WRAPPING CHRISTMAS CAKES

Anyhow, whilst we were up at the cottage the other week (putting Christmas decorations up) we took a little trip out to Sir Stampalot in Peterborough.  Hmmm ... it was hubby's birthday and the poor darling took me craft shopping as a birthday outing!  Whilst there I spotted some easel cards that had been made and when we got home I searched online and found some which arrived two days later.  I have been playing with them this week and these are what I have come up with.  They look a bit naff in the photos but IRL look luverly!  One is a footprints one, where I have put small seashells on the *canvas* and the other was done with various dies.  Each can be removed from the card and used as a standalone altered easel.  

FOOTPRINTS EASEL CARD

VINTAGE EASEL CARD

Phew, that's my catch-up for today!  

TFL,

Mandi xx

GETTING THERE!

Good morning folkies!  A few blog posts ago I said that I had to try and get various cards done, including a New Home card, and a New Baby card.  Well, the New Home card was done (and blogged) a couple of weeks ago and I have finally got round to doing the New Baby card.  Wth a little moggy around things seem to take at least 3 times as long and I have to pick my moments - ie when I *think* that Misha is asleep because otherwise everything gets sabotaged by 4 paws!  I have discovered the true meaning of the phrase *cat nap* because Misha seems to have an amazing ability to be fast asleep and dreaming of mice one minute and then bouncing around like something on springs the next.

At the moment, Misha aside, things are frantic.  Tonight we are driving down to Kent to take daughter to a hospital appointment tomorrow.  She became seriously ill over Christmas and it has taken them this long to finally get down to the cause of it.  This year has been a huge round of hospitals and more hospitals, with a bit of messy art thrown in for good measure!  I think that getting messy is my sanity check but at the moment the chances to do that are a bit few and far between, and when I do have the space I don't have the oomph.

Anyhow, enough whinging!  Here is the New Baby Card.  I really don't like the way that colours scan in, as they either look washed out or too dark and this card is neither.  

TFL until next time!

Mandi xx

IT JUST AIN'T EASY!

It just ain't easy ... crafting with a cat!

I wanted to play with some Heartfelt Creations dies and stamps but was somewhat hampered in the process by Misha who insists on eating all thing to do with paper.  If she was not chasing a pen-lid round, she was chomping on the cardstock.  I eventually managed to put this ...........

....... together, which is the heartfelt creations hydrangea die and petals.  I had to cut out 24 of the stamped petals to layer on to the card.  The scan doesn't really do justice to the colours.  All this was interrupted by *thunderpaws* ... aka Misha as demonstrated below!

NEW HOME CARD

FINALLY managed to get round to making a New Home card ... which is not at all housey!  It hasn't scanned in very well as it is so bulky but the background has got lots of home-associated words on it.

I used my Heartfelt Creations die, and cut 6 lengths, which I then glued together and scored at 1/2 inch intervals.  I then glued these together, and made them into a rosette to fill an 8x8 card.  The sentiment is from Lily of the Valley stamps, and finished off with card candy.

TFL!

Mandi xx

WHERE DID I GO?

Disappeared ... that's what!  Disappeared in a sea of journeys to and from Kent, March and London ... oh, and the vet's!  Misha Moo is now very much a part of our lives and has managed to take over most of the downstairs rooms in the house, as well as our travel plans!  We can no longer *simply* get in the car and go ... we have to delicately plan every detail which also has to revolve around Misha!  The latest escape has been a two week trip to Cambridgeshire with Bex, which is normally quite a simple process but not any more!  Having decided that Misha would not cope with the journey to Kent from London, and then from Kent to Cambridgeshire, we had to do it in two stages ... all very precisely planned.  No longer do we simply pack a weekend bag, but cat litter, food, toys, feeding bowls, litter tray, scratching post, worming paste ... and cat has to come too - with an overnight stopover in the middle!

I have only tried paper-crafting once with Misha around and for me, it was not a happy, stress-free event.  For her, however it was a small piece of heaven ..... chasing screwed up paper balls around the house ... remnants of a project gone wrong.  On occasions such as these I wish that she was a dog.  At least she might bring the darn things back after chasing them!  The house is now strewn with little balls of paper, mini tennis balls, ping pong balls by the bucket load ... and pen lids which are her latest fad!

I MUST make a new home card, a new baby card, and a birthday card within the next week ...... or maybe I will just go to Tesco's and buy them!  Let me go and ask the cat what she would prefer!!!!!

I will TRY and be back soon!

Mandi xx

FINDING MISHA

Apologies for being somewhat elusive - owing to having been on holiday for the past 10 days at the cottage in Cambridgeshire.  

We came back last night with rather more than we bargained for!

We went out into the garden where there is a bit of wasteground at the back which we have not developed yet.  It has double gates, leading to a supermarket carpark, which have quite a large gap underneath.  Hubby pointed to something in the wasteground and said *look at that*!  I said *oh it looks like a dead cat* to which he replied *yes but it's breathing*.  This was on Saturday lunchtime!  A closer look showed that it was a tiny scrap of a kitten which was pretty much too weak to move.  We are assuming it had been dumped as it was too young to be out.  We eventually managed to pick it up, after a lot of hissing and teeth-bearing and the rest is history!  A quick visit to the pet shop to grab some kitten milk and food, and one ravenous kitten was somewhat pacified and quickly decided that it had got lucky!  Having asked around the neighbours and local pet shop as to whether they knew of an owner, and drawn a blank, the lucky moggy has now been adopted.  The logistics of getting it home have been interesting and involved various visits to pet shops and supermarkets to stock up on basics!  150 miles later (via a trip to Bury St Edmunds to visit my elderly Mum) and *Misha* has a new home and a new name!  We are still uncertain as to the age and sex of it (that will be determined tomorrow at the Vets) so the name might well change but the home won't!  

I can feel a scrapbook page coming on!!!

Love Mandi

JUST ONE!

Just one card today, owing to the fact that occasionally I need to feed the family (shop), make sure hubby has clean clothes (wash) and that we can see the carpet (hoover)!  

Just a quick Christmas card, made entirely with Marianne D's dies.  The colour contrast does not show as well as it looks I.R.L but I was pleased at how clean the black, silver and white looks together.

God bless,

Mandi

CHRISTMAS COME EARLY?

Well I did threaten Christmas cards lol!  Having not sent any Christmas cards or newsletters for the past two years, there are now probably several relatives who think that we have just *dropped off the planet*!  This has not been laziness, but sheer busyness, as we have been bombarded with unexpected hospital visits for all members of the family, as well as the more mundane things.  I used to love Christmas but in many ways that pleasure has gone, largely through the shops beginning their Christmas sales plug earlier and earlier, and as soon as the school holidays are over we will begin to see shops re-arranging their displays to make room for Christmas Decorations and gifts.  It is one of my big *beefs* and drives me NUTS! 

For us, last year's Christmas did not happen ...... well not on December 25th as daughter no.2 got rushed into hospital with very severe anaemia! (We only took her to the GP with a sore throat!!)  What with the snow, and the need for blood transfusions, Christmas Day got cancelled and we had it on 1st January to celebrate the New Year instead!!  I have to confess that I enjoyed it (preferred it even) as somehow it took the panic and exhaustion out of preparing Christmas dinner, and everything that goes with it.  

Back onto the subject of the aforementioned Christmas cards!  I spent the weekend making a huge mess, and so far have done 24 cards.  Thanks to the wonderful Cheery Lynn dies (Dies to Die For) and Marianne D, these were quite easy to make.

Cheery Lynn have a lovely *frame* and I discovered by accident when trying it out on fairly thick cardstock, that whilst it did not cut that thickness, it made a beautiful embossed impression, so I have used that as a background on a few of my cards.

Next job the newsletter!

And then maybe onto Easter cards? !!!!!!!!

Thanks for looking!

Mandi

MAYBE THINGS WILL CALM DOWN?

Maybe things will calm down now and I can get back to *business*!!!!!!  (In my case regain my mojo and make something but at this rate it might well be Christmas cards lol).

Living in West London we have been in the *riot zone*.  Just up the road from us a large PC World was looted, as was Curry's in the opposite direction.  We live on a main road and the number of police vans, cars and sirens passing the house have been unreal.  I have also been disgusted at the number of false reports and scaremongering on Twitter.  I imagine that less than 1% of Tweets have been truth ... and those posting questions to try and get the truth have been ignored.  I have never been on Twitter before this week, and will probably not go on it again, or certainly not as a regular occurrence after this.

*Calm down* also applies to having managed to get THE scrapbook out of the way and handed over ... it seems to have been well received and enjoyed by those who looked at it.  I did have some really neat comments and some not so neat ....... namely *you do realise that you will now have to make one for every wedding and christening that we have don't you?* and *now THAT would be an idea for my 80th*.  Ho hummm ...... and not on your nelly methinks!!!

I am hoping that I might be able to post something creative in the next few days, provided that someone returns my mojo to its rightful owner!

Until then, have a great weekend!

Love Mandi

ANOTHER DIGI

Another digi pic, this time of younger daughter in the garden!