Dolly's Dreamings

Learn Something new everyday Cover

I have had a very productive day today.

I have been in to work and feel very positive and energised about the forthcoming year (not an easy thing when you are as old and jaded as I am LOL)

I have been shopping and bought several things I have been searching for including brown tops, a navy skirt (not to wear together I might add LOL) and two new bras that actually fit.  And the tops were size 12 and the skirt a 14 (the bra sizes need to remain very very much a secret as they are numbers and letters I am not proud of!)

I also - under duress - emptied the firdge and freezer for its annual defrost (yes it is a forst free but apparently they need defrosting as last September proved whent he fridge stopped working and it was due to a build up of ice) It is no mean feat as it is a huge American fridge freezer, but everything is in the freezer in the garage which was empty or in cool bags with all the ice from the freezer so still really cold.

And I have also made my LSNED cover.

The cover was interesting. I had no real idea what i was going to do and had spent days thinking and getting nowhere.

I knew the size - 6" x 4" and cut the chupboard and then it just suddenly happened.

I had no idea what colours or style it would be but I started on setting up the digital dates ready to use each day and from there it evolved.

And as it happens it is totally right for me as it is a similar style and colour as my 5210 album which you can see here  and that is just as it should be as they go hand in hand this year.

I am planning a special September with the last push of my diet and I know that is going to be hard to keep on track so i am using my LSNED as a part of this. hence the idea that it is a motivational journey for me as well as the usual LSNED

I will be recording my exercise, eating habits and weight loss on each day as well as everything else.

It doesn't look like a book yet as I won't bind it till it is finished on 30th September or, more likely, 1st october as I will need a bit of time to sort everything out.

But here is the cover

My quote for today is

Today I am thankful for

• New school years and new beginnings
• bras that fit

Paper Roses - a 'Marie Moment'

How many of you are humming the song now? Go on - admit it. You are all singing 'Paper Woses' now aren't you!

I think i am probably the only person in the world - well the crafting world - who has never made paper roses and today was the day. inspired by a few friends efforts I had to have a go. Now bear in mind I don't really do 'messy' with inks and glue and stuff, but actually they were fun to make.

I cut flowers by hand in several sizes and followed Sir Tim's guide. I used loads of colours of ink and new text stamps and I like the finished roses so much i was inspired to cover this little balsa wood box and add them to it.

I have news of a new kit out today by dawn Inskip too. It is called Ballet recital and has the cutest little ballerinas who also become fairies so easily as she even included the wings.

The kit was perfect for one of the challenges on PBP (where the kit is also for sale) and for a page about those cute fairy doors we saw the other day.

I also made another page but if you scare easily look away now.

I couldn't resist making it even though the photo is very scarey. Make up on a child! Horrid. In my defence the picture was a professional one taken when I was in a ballet show and so the make-up was de-rigeur but I still hate the concept.

I never did make a very good ballerina. I gave it up a year later and concentrated on modern, jazz and ballroom - which i have to say i was VERY good at and was a southern regional champion. Sadly (but maybe mercifully for the world) my successful dancing career was cut short when I shattered (yes literally) my leg. It was 2 whole years before I could dance again and I was only ever average after that so I stopped dancing. I so wish i had carried on now.

My quote of the day is

Today I am thankful for

• getting off my backside and cleaning and tidying the house

A class and a half

I went to the gym this morning. I often do a saturday morning class that is a mix of pilates, Yoga and Tai Chi. It gives a reasonable stretchy sort fo work out and leaves me quite tired but relaxed. i haven't been for four or five weeks and todays was a mix of pilates, yoga, tai chi and pure unadulterated hell! She had added so many new sections tot he routines which seemed designed to stretch parts of my body that are not meant to be stretched and having spent ages learning how to do and hold the tree for ages she introduced the eagle instead and could I balance .... could I heck.

Iam already shattered and starting to ache. If I get out of bed tomorrow it will be nothing short of a miracle.

I finished all my DT stuff for Karen at Charmed cards and Crafts today and sent that off and I know it is silly and I am a grown up but it always feels like handing in homework when you are a kid. You so hope the teacher will be pleased. I have quite lost my confidence - not that i ever had much - when it comes to paper scrapping so i am really pleased she liked the work. Her comments really boosted me and I am looking forward to seeing it on the charmed cards and crafts site. She had sent so much utterly gorgeous stuff to work with it was amazing. It has spurred me on to do more 'proper' scrapping now.  Having said that, I love love love my digital scrapping and I now have many digital albums printed out that I really enjoy.

This is the second page I made with dawn's new digital kit Home Sweet Home and is dedicated to my beloved Nigel who means so much. Nigel lost his job last year when the company he had worked for for 30 years went into liquidation. He has been at home sense as we wanted to see it is a blessing and as semi retirment, but it has been hard for him to adjust to. he does various free lance things, but i know it has been a challenging year for him. However, it means the world to me to have him home and happier and this page is dedicated to that sentiment.

I also made a new house card for a friend using the same kit - it was fun to make this little hybrid.

It is a lot more dimensional than it looks with lots and lots of layers which were fidly to cut but great fun to do.

Today my quote is

and today I am thankful for

• living through torture this morning
• Having the chance to be on design teams

and this is one of my favourites .....

Special mini album

I have had such fun making a gift for Nigel for Father's Day.

But he's not a father, I hear you cry. Well yes he is actually. He has three fur babies (look, by now you know I am crazy so it shouldn't come as a surprise!)

 

I saw the mini album at The Shabby Shop and it is absolutely gorgeous. I just had to buy it and play with it, adding my own bits and pieces.

 

 

 

It had turned out really nicely and I am thrilled with it.

 

 

 

I am starting to run out of steam a little bit to be honest - but there are at least four more prompts to come.

Have fun with this one and maybe some of you will still leave a little note.

And if you would like to make a donation to my Just Giving page for the local hospice so that my work and your fun can help others who are really suffering you can do so by following this link.

Donate to the Lewis Manning Hospice

 

A busy day

When it draws close to the end of the holidays I seem to go into overdrive. There always seem to be so many things I haven't done and I need to do. Today was one of those days when i got my act together and actually did stuff.

We are having a new bed any day soon - all singing all dancing, all folding, all massaging and sadly NOT all storage!!! The bed in the spare room has massive drawers which are ..... were ..... full. Our existing bed, which is the one we want to keep and put in the spare room, has smaller drawers which I had already emptied. Today was the day to transfer the stuff which meant quite a lot of sorting and throwing and rationalising. How did I ever acquire over 100 gift bags in assorted shapes and sizes .... I think I had kept every bag I had ever been given so I could re-use them and save the planet. And surely 20 rolls of wrapping paper will last me more than long enough! The drawers also contained not only my wedding dress, veil etc but all of the bookings for reception, the invitations, acceptances, cards etc. I really must get round to scrapping my wedding. I never have.

Anyway - job done, loads thrown out, everything sorted and old bed emptied in readiness.

I also had the dentist for the first of 2 fillings. next one next week! And I went into school to see how the playground was looking and sort the post.

I did, however, have time to make a quick card which I needed for a birthday. It is a hybrid card using new Lettering delights things I bought today. Couldn't wait to use them

Oh and I am tinkering with frames for my blog pictures. I have used some gorgeous frames by Dawn Inskip as a base. Not sure I have the frames quite right and not sure I can be bothered to use them to be honest but I have had fun playing.

I also found some scraps of material in my clearing out session so had a play with some flowers.

I can't wait to use them on a page.

A couple of cute cats for today

My quote for today is

That is quite heart-warming for an amateur like me.

Finally today I am thankful

• That the dentist didn't hurt
• That Nij didn't go too mad about all the junk i was keeping
• That I had a wonderful Daddy with me for 41 years .... it would have been his 83rd Birthday today and he is most certainly never forgotten

Not quite there

Well - we almost got to Salisbury today. Plans of shopping and doing a  walk with my camera round the city ...... but we didn't make it. We went to Wilton Shopping Village first and I bought everything I was looking for there.

I got a lovely black suit, loads of tops, a pair of trousers, a dress, a jacket,  and .... most amazing of all .... I bought the most perfect ballgown ever.

When I came home I then sorted my wardrobe out. Took me two hours because I had to try everything on. I filled three more bin liners (making a total of 10 altogether now) with clothes i can no longer wear. It was actually very sad as there were some real trewasured items that went.

But I now have much emptier wardrobes  full of clothes I can weara dn which look good. Don't sizes vary though. From the same store today I bought a top size 10 (No ... I am not kidding myself it is not a proper size 10 but none the less it says size 10) and a top size 16. The black  suit was an interesting deal. I loved the jacket - the cut was beautiful and very flattering and I was goingt o buy it anyway, but they said I got a free skirt. It was a skirt I would never have looked at - much shorter and very very straight. Not sure I have the guts to wear it but I have it anyway.

Yesterday I finally got round to making the recipe box I have been wanting to make for a while. The idea is to fill it with recipes that Nij can make which are low calorie, healthy and .... most importantly, something he can cook.

I bought the box for 50p from the market. It was a really sturdy box - I assume once had cards in - from the V and A but was damaged on the corners. That didn't matter because  it was just the shape I wanted and covering it would reinforce the corners anyway.

This is what it looked like to begin with

I used Cosmo Cricket papers and chose the colours because I didn't want to cover the inside. They matched the inside perfectly.

This is how it turned out in the end.

 

My quote for today is

Another one I really like.

Today I am thankful for

• My beautiful new clothes
• My sorted wardrobes
• The fact that it is Monday and I was not at work!

Finally  I hope you enjoy this e mail I received from Anita

AAADD
KNOW THE SYMPTOMS.....PLEASE READ!

Thank goodness there's a name for this disorder. Somehow I feel better even though I have it!!

Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. -Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. This is how it manifests:

I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing. As I start toward the shed for the hose pipe etc,
I notice letters in the mail box.
I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I lay my car keys on the table,
Put the junk mail in the little recycle bin under the table, And notice that the bin is full so need to take it out to the green recycle box.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the rubbish first. But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the rubbish anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my cheque book off the table, and see that there is only one cheque left. My extra cheque's are in my desk in the lounge, so I go inside the house to the desk where I find the can of Coke I'd been drinking.

I'm going to look for my cheque, but first I need to push the coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over. The Coke is getting warm, and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need water.

I put the Coke on the counter and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly

spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when I go to watch TV, I'll be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill. Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:
The car isn't washed
The bills aren't paid
There is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter
The flowers don't have enough water,
There is still only 1 cheque in my cheque book,
I can't find the remote,
I can't find my glasses,
And I don't remember what I did with the car keys.
Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today,
I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day,
And I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, nd I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail....

Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!!

 

 

Such a wonderful fun creative day

I have really really really enjoyed myself today. I have made a project I have been longing to do for ages.

I finally decorated my Advent House.

These advent houses have been very popular - they are incredible value at just £5 from Tescos. they are made of wood and very sturdy. But I think they look dreadful in their raw state.

I have now finished one (the girls may have to wait till next advent for theirs as one is enough for today!)

I am not into funky Christmas colours I'm afarid. I am very traditional and to me Christmas is red and gold and green and subtle.

I know exactly what I wanted to do with the house.

It was painted cream first to give me a blank canvas. Thanks go to my ever devoted hubby who did the painting for me in the week so i could have fun this weekend. he really is a star. It was just painted with left over paint from our recent home decorating jobs.

I couldn't find the right paper so bough at digital kit I loved and printed the papers and elements I wanted. A lmost everything came from the same kit - Joy to the World by Kristin Cronin Barrow at Sweet Shoppe Designs. It is a fabulous kit with such rich papers and I fell in love with the angel.

She looks cute with her wings edged  in stickles

This is the complete house

I haven't done so much sanding in a long long time ... and the curves and the chipboard swirls were a real pain ... but worth it

I cut loads of scallop strips for the roof, edged in brown ink and stickles which looks like snow (and hardly shows in the pictures)

and ... it is not often I say this .... I am thrilled with what I have created. It took a while to work out how to have the angel fixed on (she is double sided and just HAD to be there)

Thanks for looking and, if you have a spare second, I'd love to know what you think.

FREE class - something different

I thought I would share soemthing different today.

It would make a great little Christmas book, or can be adapted to the front of a card as well.

The instructions you need are all in the is PDF HERE

Flaming Splendour

Oh dear - yet another post from me extolling the virtues of Autumn. I do love it - can't get enough of it.

The house challenge on UKS is to scrap an Autumn theme without using orange and actually that is much harder than it sounds. It just begs for the Autumn colours.

Here is my second page I came up with.

The photos are of the acer at the back of the hall at school. It is a hybrid page. I printed the tree and grass and title and journalling block onto card and then cut them out.

The tree took and age to cut, but was worth it. I was quite pleased with the page.

I am suffering today - so no keep fit for me. I have done soemthing to my back. the last few eveneings it has been painful when sitting on the sofa but today I have a real pain right in my lower back. Not a muscle or disc sort of pain - but really really tender and feels very bruised. Nij has looked and there is no bruise but it feels like it should be black and blue in an area about the size of a camera lens. Plus I still have the terrible pain in my breastbone which also feels like a bruise.

So it apt that today, instead of using my new fitness dvds I just took a photo of them!

And yes - ten minutes is about as much as I can ever manage!

If you go down to the woods today

Well you might have met us in the woods.

We went for a lovely walk in Delph Woods this morning after a brief trip to Wimborne Market where I bought a gorgeous cardigan (will take a photo another day for a POD)

My picture of the day is of Nij on the rope swing across the stream.

Sadly the ones of him swinging didn't really come out as the light was very odd - sort of dappled and variable. But I have to say i kind of like the picture as it is.

Still on a wooded - or outdoor theme - I have finished my final page of my Go To Press class.

The theme today was peace and I knew just what I wanted to scrap (although I was tempted just to scrap my bed which is the only place I get peace from the CFH) Poole Park is my happy place - my refuge from bistle - a place to just sit and think. So it had to be a picture of the park.

I love this spot most of all - it is away from the main part of the park and one day I will have my very own bench there. I know that sounds morbid and I truly don't think of it as morbid at all,but I have said that when I finally shuffle off this mortal coil I don't want a gravestone etc. I want a bench at poole Park so other people can sit and enjoy what i have always enjoyed. Maybe it will become someone else's happy place.

I used the printables from the class, though just didn't want to print on t shirt paper and iron it on.

It took me ages to cut the large scallop border and it is not terribly even, but it was fun trying.

Still on a wild outdoor theme Dawn Inskip has a new kit released today at Pickleberrypop. It is called wild adventure and like all of her kits it is stuffed full of things to use including a whole load of cute doodled outdoor critters.

I  made two pages and one is this page about Canada.

We saw such a range of wildlife, some of which we managed to photograph like the ground squirrels, chipmunks, moose, elk, deer and, best of all, the bear. I hadn't realised how hard it was to see bear in the Rockies. I thought they were everywhere but actually there had been such a good programme to keep them away from places where people are that it is hard to see them. We spoke to lots of locals who had lived there years and had never seen a bear. So we were very very lucky that one sauntered out in front of us on the road on our last day. It was amazing.

The other page I made with the kit was showin my little CFH playing in their furry tunnel, which they love.

They hide, play chase, hide toys in it and it keeps them quiet for a little while.