Tuesday, July 31, 2007

A Treasure

Firstly, let me just thank everyone for their kind words and even kinder emails. I'm feeling a little better today.

I thought i would share this blog that i came across which looks fantastic! Please go ahead and take a look.

SKULLS

Tomorrow I have some updates to share on the knitting front as well as some very interesting places that i have been visiting on the web.

God Bless you.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Local Discovery

I bet this is true for so many people. Why is it that we miss the things that are right under our noses? This is a street that Stu found in town while walking from one side of town to the other. He has lived here all his life and he never knew this road existed. I have lived here for about 5 years and i have never seen this road.

Sunday morning we got up and went into town with my camera to discover this little road and all that surrounds it.








At the end of the little cobble road we found an old grave yard. The tomb stones were amazing. Some of them going back 200 years. Some where so old and degraded that you could not read anything on it while others were so clear that it looked like they had been written yesterday. So many people buried here, so many different ages. 7 Weeks, 16 years, 27 years, 32 years and 68 years. Very interesting and all this time it has been in our back yard!

Saturday i wrote my first exam. Difficult but alright. I should get the results in a few weeks. Stu also bought me some Armani Code perfume. I love it! Thanks babe.
Feeling very low today as this morning I spoke to my gran before i left for work. She sounded so sad on the phone. I hope she knows how much i love her and how i wish i could be closer to her at this difficult time. I am going to do something over here in place of the funeral but i have not yet decided what.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Good Bye


In Loving Memory of Robert Owens who has passed away today at 11:30 am. You will be missed by all of us.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Living the art that you create

Every minute starts an hour and every minute is a new opportunity. Each time the clock ticks you have a chance to start over, to say, do, think, or feel something in such a way that you and the world are better for it.-- Source Unknown

I found this quote about a week ago now, while i was searching through the world wide web for a quote for a completely different theme. The moment my eyes spotted this quote, i knew that this quote was meant for me. It was exactly the right thing, at the right time and in the right place. I hope that this quote touches you the way that it has touched me.

The problem with addictions, and i don't mean the very big and dangerous ones, is that you feel as if you never have enough. Enough yarn, enough scrapbooking stash, enough time, enough projects, enough layouts, enough books, enough, enough, enough. I have been working on this as i have become very conscious of waste. Wasted money, wasted time, wasted efforts. Now don't get me wrong, i love to shop and spoil myself and do all these cool things but i am first asking myself if this is really something that i want and that i like and if i am getting it for me or am i getting it because it is the latest rage and everyone else is getting it. I feel this helps to keep myself in check.

So bearing that in mind, this is my next project that i want to do once i have finished Tomato. This photo and pattern is from Knitting Lingerie Style which is written by Joan McGowan-Michael.
I have bought some special sock needles off of eBay for a really good bargain. 8 sets of 4 dpns for £9.01 including postage. When i went to my local yarn shop i had a look at the needles and they were £4.99 for one set!! I love bargains.
I also have my eye on some sock yarn on eBay which ends in 2 hours 6 min and counting so hopefully i can get the cheap and then give these ago. A nice addition to my fall wardrobe.

Now, while we are still talking about knitting, let me introduce you to Shawn. Shawn is my sheep who helps me to keep count of my rows while i am knitting. Earlier this week i went to my local yarn shop looking in particular for a row counter. I had imagined something a little different to Shawn but there he sat in the Simply Knitting Magazine and so i decided to go for him instead and get the bonus of the magazine. I am pretty pleased with him.

Moving on to some scrapping..... This is a mini journal that i started about three weeks ago. The cover is done with embossing powders and a mask. Its called "Bring ME" and is all about different parts of my daily life.



I still have two double pages and the back page to do but seem to have come to a bit of a stand still with it. I am stuck and not sure what to do next. The theme of the journal is I....(fill in the blank). So far i have - I am, I live, I eat, I cherish, I must and I believe.

Please feel free to leave me some suggestions for my last few pages.

Well that is it from me for now. I am writing an exam tomorrow so please keep me in your prayers. Other than that i have some knitting to do, house cleaning, scrapping and a bit of sewing that i want to get done. Oh yeah, and we are off to watch The Simpson's on Sunday night.

Take care and be blessed.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Shout Out

I just wanted to give a shout out to
Pauline
from UKS. Thanks for stopping by and
i would love for you to come again.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Giving

I love giving gifts to people. Little unexpected treats for no reason at all. This is what i bought off of eBay for Stu - an XBox 360 game that he has been looking for. It came through the post yesterday, i wrapped it up and left it on his keyboard for him to find sometime later today.
Yesterday, I finished my Pencillines # 42 challenge. I really enjoyed using my new making memory items and also the orange.
Last week i put a post on UKScrappers asking them how they organize their paper scraps. I hold onto every little bit of paper and have piles of it on my table. Its difficult to find anything in particular and i spend hours looking through it only to find that i have somehow managed to bend the edge in half...argh. So after some reading on what people do, i decided to sort them into primary colour and then put them into 12 x 12 clear bags. I have a red, blue, green, yellow, pink and earthy colour bag. This is working so well and makes it so much quicker to find what i am looking for. Plus i now find that i am using a lot more of my scraps. Such a great idea!

During my lunch hour i managed to nip into my local yarn shop. I only went to pick up a row counter and some more yarn for my Tomatoe but this is what i came out with on top of what i went in for.....Don't you just love the colour. Oh, and let me tell you how soft the yarn is. I could lay in it all day.......
And a closer view.

I did some work on my art journal last week and decided to make my own paper. This is what it ended up looking like.

I know that i got some of the items , definitely the bird, from 2peas but i cant remember where i got the flowers from.

I have a few other projects that i want to start but this is all for now. Happy Wednesday!

Monday, July 23, 2007

A new woman.....

Yup that is how i feel....like a completely new woman! I spent Saturday cleaning and reorganising my home. I sorted out the lounge, sorted out my kitchen cupboards and fridge, gave the bathroom a good scrubbing and sorted out my scrap room. I feel organised. I feel inspired and i feel in control.

Friday night started off with a trip to Waterstones, to stand in the Que for 135 minutes so that Stu could get his hands on the new Harry Potter book. This is the photo that was taken early hours Saturday morning so i apologise for the bad lighting.....

He has had his nose in that book ever since.

After all my hard work on Saturday i managed to do this layout for this weeks Scrapjacked challenge.
Journaling reads:
" Your days off are just not complete if you don't manage to get an afternoon nap in"

After doing this layout i went downstairs to show Stu and low and behold there he lay fast asleep again.....i just had to laugh!

Sunday evening we made some flapjacks. Back home i would call these crunchies but over here in the UK they seem to call them flapjacks for some strange reason. Anyway, these turned out so nice and there was hardly any mess to clean up afterwards.

I also managed to fit in a lot of knitting time during the evenings. I am now onto my third ball of yarn and need to get myself to my knitting shop to pick up some more yarn and also a row counter. Here is my progress so far.......
I am so pleased with how it is turning out and hope to have it finished by the 13th August.

The week ahead has a lot of studying in it as well as some knitting time and hopefully enough sewing time to make myself a skirt. Hope your week ahead is looking good!

Friday, July 20, 2007

My Secret Place

Do you ever wish for a secret place to just rest awhile? Somewhere that you can just sit and relax, somewhere that you can be alone with your thoughts and sort out of of the things going on in your life. I do! This is something that i have always done. I am a big thinker and often i find that when i have a lot going on, a lot of big decisions to make....i get this feeling of needing my secret place.

When i was living back in South Africa i had a spot, a spot just for me out in nature. When i moved to the States i found another secret place, once again a place out in nature but here in the UK - i am still looking for my secret place. Sometimes i feel very lost without it and so in the last six years that i have been over here I have started to keep a diary. Somewhere for me to write down my thoughts, to just explore myself and my situations.

A little over a week ago i finished my current journal. I hate starting new journals - they are so clean and perfect (i always worry about putting that first lot of writing in them) Weird i know. So this time i decided to do something a little different. I decided that i would give an art journal a go. I don't know if i will do something arty every time i write in it but what i have done so far I have really liked.

So for now, this is my secret place. The spot i come to when i need some space, some clarification. I hope that soon i will find some place a little more to my liking but for now, this will do.

*** I wrote this entry a few days ago and this is what i received in my inbox today. And people question whether God still talks to His children - He definitely does. This is an excerpt from the Christian Woman today email that i received.

"God has a quiet place for us. It's called the secret place. It's a shelter, a place to sort out the day's happenings with His perspective and with His wisdom.It is the secret place of His presence.

Psalm 91:1 says "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty."

God's secret place is not hard to find. His promise is for rest right under the shadow of God Himself. It is a place to sing your praises out or cry your heart out; a place to ask the things you do not understand or to pray deeply for needs He puts on your heart. It is a safe place. A place to release your spirit from the tight hold of controlled emotions; a place to let His calm envelope you and His strength fortify you.

It is truly a place of rest. A place where, once you have found it, you want to return over and over. It is the well of spiritual refreshment for a thirsty heart.

How do you get there? How do you find this place of rest for your soul? Psalm91:2 "I will say of the Lord, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.'"

You can only arrive at this place of refuge when you have put your trust in God. Oh, not only trust in His grace to save you, but trust in Him completely and absolutely. Trust in Him for the details of your life even when the pieces of the puzzle don't seem to match up.

"My God in whom I trust!" This is personal, confident trust. If you doubt God's goodness toward you and believe He is somehow out to default you or simply doesn't care about you...you will never find the secret place. The secret place can only be accessed through trust in a very personal God who shelters you under His wing and is your refuge from the storm.

Are there any details in your life you feel you cannot trust God with? Why?Where can you go to spend some time giving God your cares and your emotions? Find a quiet corner and get on your knees or go for a walk, sit in the tub...it doesn't matter where you are physically. Find a place to release your emotions to God and allow His Spirit to calm you. What would you like to tell God as you sit under His wing of love? Write it out to Him. Give Him the cares of your world completely. Sit in His presence, be sheltered and fortified and leave with a peace that the world does not understand (John 14:27). Leave with a rested soul."

Wow, God cares enough to send me this when this very thing has been sitting on my heart. What a wonderful God I serve.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Happy post day

Wohoo!! What a fantastic post day i had yesterday. I placed an order with A Million Little Things and within no time at all it arrived at my door. I was expecting it to take between 6 - 8 weeks as it was coming from the US but no, just short of a week and i have this lush stash in my hands.



I feel that it is important to add that i have been so good this year with buying scrapbook stash. I have not had anything for four or five months now and am so pleased with the items that i bought. Thanks Jill.

Make sure to visit Donna Downey's blog today as she has got some exciting new items to show off.

Peace.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Perspective

With things being so busy as they have been for me these past few weeks i have been feeling very overwhelmed and very tired. The tired part is my fault to be fair. I have been getting up very early to take Stu to work, coming home and getting some study time in before going to work. Then working a full day only to come home, run the house and then follow that on by more studying which eventually got me in bed for about 11:30 or 12. I am one of those people who need a solid seven hours of sleep a night to be productive and happy and right now i have been lucky to be getting four and half hours a night.


This was rectified on Sunday afternoon when i could just go no further. I had an afternoon nap, something i only ever do if i am extremely sick, which lasted over four hours and then was back in bed for about 9pm the same night and had another twelve hours of sleep.

To say that i am now feeling alert and well refreshed is an understatement. This morning after i dropped Stu off at work i decided to grab my camera and go for a nice walk in the fresh morning air. Here are a few photos that i took along the way.

And unfortunatley, this is NOT my house. wish it was but perhaps one day.
Nothing in particular, just images that i liked and colours that caught my eye.

It is amazing how much tiredness can effect your perspective on situations. As i said earlier, i have been feeling very overwhelmed and so much so that i had started to feel like i could not cope with life. Nothing too serious but just that the things that i used to be able to do i was finding myself battling with. After getting the much needed sleep, i put aside some time and put a little perspective back into my life. I have made some changes to my priorities and i think that this will also help to make things feel a little easier for me.


Onto knitting....Josephine has not been going so well. Eventually, after many attempts i got the hang of the patter. Now after knitting about 8 inches into it i have realised that it is going to be WAY to big for me. I could just not face having to frog that lovely thing one more time so instead i have put it into its own little bag and i will come back to it another time. For now, i am going to be working on my next project.


She is called Tomato and i found her on the knitting daily website. I must say, i really love this website. I get an email every day, or every other day, and it has patterns on it, questions about the patterns and all sorts of stuff. The pattern is simple, at least so far, and i think it is going to be a great project. I will try to upload the .pdf file of the pattern to my sidebar so feel free to use it but please leave me an update of your progress so that we can see how you are getting on.
This is the yarn that i have decided to use for my Tomato. I love the feel of it and i just love the colour. I am not entirely sure what colour i am going to use to do the strip with but i will decided that when i get there. For now take a look at my yarn and my gauge that i did for it...
She knits together like a dream and the gauge is perfect!
I have some more photos to show you of some other projects that i have been working on but i think that will wait for another day. For now, this will do.
Peace.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

A long weekend.

This weekend has been a little longer than normal for me. I took Monday and Tuesday off work to study as i am having my first exam next Saturday and i still had a lot to get through. I am so proud to say that i have managed to finish all the work and assignments that needed doing and i now have 3 days to revise before i have to sit the exam.

Saturday was a good Mail day for me. I have heard so much about this book and so i just had to get my hands on it. I jumped onto eBay and picked it up for a real bargain. I cant wait to find some time to get stuck into this.
Because of all the studying that i have been doing i have been a little behind on my circle journal that needed doing last weekend. Saturday morning i had to get it to the post office and get it posted out so after dropping Stu at work in the early hours of the morning i came home and did this....
The circle journal was titled "the year I was born". What a great idea. I had so much fun putting this together.

Tuesday was Stu's day off work so after i had finished doing my studying we got some time to spend together. It was nice. He fell asleep on the couch and i managed to get some creative time in as well being able to begin to sort out my scrap space.
I am by no means done yet but i am closer right now than i was this morning! Hope you all had a great weekend.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Inspiration all around

Lately I have really been seeing images. I don't mean just looking and thinking "oh that's nice" but i mean feeling them, admiring the art and the images for what they are. We live in such a diverse world and if we are able to keep an open spirit and an open heart then i think that you will find so much more than you bargained for.

Please note that none of these images are mine and that i have picked them up off the Internet and off emails from friends over the past few months. I have given credit where possible.

These photos one of my best friends sent to me.....

Shopping Cart Art - I LOVE it!
and how about this one as well. The entire art work is made from only Shopping carts.

Then we have this photo. I found this on Google images a little while ago as i was working on a mini album (that i have yet to finish and share). I love the greenage of the photo and i love the angle of the shot. Makes me feel like i want to get out the lemonade, pop a few ice blocks in it and relax while sipping my drink.

This image i just happened to come across while i was blog surfing a few months ago. I cant remember where i saw it but i loved the "thinking outside of the box" mentality that went into the image and the shot. Very funny and very clever.

And then we have fabric. Oh i am just loving fabric at the moment. The colours are so inspiring and i am finding that the more images i see the more i want to try different, out of the ordinary, colour combinations. This image was found on the PurlSoho website. I just love the colours. Another great website for fabric and a few free patterns is Amy Butlers if you are interested.


The next thing that has caught my eye are these journal covers. Again, i think it has something to do with the entire fabric thing i am feeling at the moment but to me, these are just fantastic.
The instructions on how to make these lovely covers can be found on the Kirin notebooks blog along with some more photos. This is definitely on my to do list for my next new journal.

How about this little guy! My mom and dad went to the London Aquarium two weekends ago and this is who they saw there. This is a photo from the brochure that they brought home which i have played with the colours in photoshop on.
We are in a baby boom in our family at the moment. Would you believe we have two babies due within four days of each other!! Because of this i am on the lookout for gifts for them. I thought about knitting a baby suit for both of them but i was wanting to do something a little different. What do you think to this cute Ribbon Baby Blanket (Evelyn Clark for Fibertrends)
or how about this cute little hat which i found on Sara's blog along with her pattern?
They don't know if they are having bouncing boys or gorgeous girls yet but i can work around that. Plus i think these will be really cute and unique gifts to get.

I have so much more to share but i think i had better stop for now. If you have read this far then i hope that you have enjoyed it all.
Yes we did go and watch Harry Potter last night and yes were were there and hour and a half before the film started and yes we were the second couple in the que and yes the movie is really good and yes i am so glad that we have seen it. Pretty good, i didn't let any details slip. Definitely a must see!
Have a great weekend.

 

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