Glenda had a little lamb - a country saga

Living in the country does sometimes make for an interesting day. I was working at home most of this week and on Wednesday lunchtime I decided to hang the washing outside, something I don't think I have been able to do for about two years thanks to our wet summers. While I was out there, I could hear the lambs bleating in the field next to the house, but after a few minutes it dawned on me that one of them sounded awfully close.

I looked out of the gate and sure enough, there was a lamb on the drive, yelling its little heart out for it's ma-a-a-a-a-a-a-am. As I approached her, she headed straight for the road, so I stopped. Her mother was calling from the other side of the hedge and there was no way I could get past the lamb without spooking her and making her run straight out onto the road.

In the absence of a shepherd's crook, I went and fetched a walking stick - the aluminium hospital type with a straight handle - I had no clear plan, but figured it might just allow me to get the handle round it's neck and stop it running onto the road.

However as I tried to creep around her, she ran straight into the hedge, so couldn't see me. I skipped past her and finally got between her and the road. We have a cattle grid just at the entrance to our garden, placed there by the previous owners who presumably had some interesting episodes like this before they put it in.

Now this might all sound like I'm farm bred and have some kind of clue, but trust me, despite living in a rural backwater for ten years, I have no experience of this kind of thing and was making it all up as I went along. The closest I get is a subscription to Country Living!

She kept up the bleating, eyeing me distrustfully and obviously in sheep-speak she was telling her mum that there was a human threatening her with a stick. I couldn't for the life of me work out how she had got out of the field, but the gate into the field opens up wide enough to form a barrier to the road, so I thought if I could get the gate open, I might be able to herd her through it before her mum (and the rest of the field of sheep) came charging through.

So, I managed to disentangle about four feet of chain that was holding the gate shut and opened it just a little. I then politely suggested to the lamb that she might care to "come by" (see, I was paying attention to One Man and his Dog), but she equally politely declined. I then insulted her intelligence and told her in no uncertain terms to get through the gate and into the field. She took instant exception to being spoken to like that and charged straight into the hedge again.

The hedge is leylandii, planted up against a wire mesh fence. I don't know how she did it, but this little lamb managed to squeeze through into the space between the leylandii trunks and the wire mesh and what did she do then, but run all the way down the hedge. I thought she was trapped, but all the while she was bleating and her mother was bleating back and their cries were getting further and further away - much further than the bottom of the garden. Phew, I thought, she's found the gap she got through and made it back to her mum.

I realised at this point I'd left the gate to the field open, so I had visions of sheep swarming all over the drive, but they were all safe and sound. I went through into the field so that I could see if she'd made it and to my horror, I realised that she'd found a gap alright - into a different field!

There was mum and little sister pressed up against the fence and on the far side in the field behind our garden (rather than the one to the side) was my little lamb pressed up against the other.

Well at least she was away from the road and I suspected that she wouldn't be heading near our hedge again for a while, so I decided to leave well alone and pop round later to see the farmer who owned the back field.

So I headed back in and got back to work and thought no more of it. Little did I know that the story wasn't quite finished.

When Adrian got in I told him all about it and mentioned popping round to the farm. We both went out to get the washing in before we went, and blow me, there's the same little lamb on the drive again, in exactly the same place, still crying for ma-a-a-a-a-a-am!

Well surely the two of us could herd one little lamb back through the gate where it needed to be? At least this time I knew not to do anything to drive it into the hedge, so we carefully inched ourselves into position, got the gate open and once again attempted to drive our poor little lamb towards the gate.

On our side of the cattle grid the hedge is all leylandii, but outside it is a scrubby hawthorn hedge that has grown around a wooden fence. So what does she do? Bolt into the hawthorn hedge! As we saw her wriggle under the rickety wooden fence, we realised how she must have got out. Just about to sigh with relief that she'd made it back through, I saw that she had managed to get herself trapped again. Because the wooden fence is a bit old and wobbly, the farmer has tied an old metal gate against it on the inside of the field. We can't see it from our side, but I was in the field at this point and couldn't believe she was so close to freedom, but had got herself into a dead end.

The old tied on gate was at an angle so I could reach down and I hooked the walking stick handle around her neck to stop her bolting back out again. She stopped bleating and struggling and looked completely calm. I was just congratulating myself on my shepherding skills when I found myself on the receiving end of a large disgruntled mama sheep bellowing at me to unhand her baby immediately while the lamb's sibling bleated an alarm from a distance.

As fast as we could manage, Adrian reached down, grabbed hold of the lamb and hauled her over the gate. The minute her feet touched the ground the whole family were off. Our little lamb (who had been separated from mum all day) made a brave attempt to feed immediately, but you could see that mum wanted to get as far away from us as possible. The sibling lamb was skipping around and I swear she was saying, "you are SO grounded".

Well, I guess it beats television - we both felt quite good about reuniting our little sheep family - it's one way to get to know the neighbours, though they are rather hard to distinguish in the mass of sheep suburbia that surrounds us.

Both herding operations were supervised by Sesame who found a convenient gatepost vantage point.


I got some great photos of him up there - up on a pedestal, looking down at the humans, yes, this is the camera angle that he will happily pose for.

Basil meanwhile just has no dignity

here he is in a Graphicus shopping basket. I think we may have a new "Add to Cart" button on the website soon!

Good thing he's cute!

Peacock Fan giveaway!

Sorry, that was a long tease, wasn't it? It has just been one of those crazy weeks with lots happening, but not a lot I can share yet. I've just finished a magazine project and I find it quite hard to come up with something that I know isn't going to be published for three months. I want to share it the minute it's finished!

All I can say is it features a stamp from this new set of stamps, Peacock Fan:

This is the final peacock plate which will be launched alongside the Peacock Summer Party CD next month. I've been playing, sorry working, with this for a couple of weeks and it is so versatile and of course coordinates beautifully with all of our other peacock plates.

Carrie has been on holiday, so there are a few items for her to get on the website when she's back in next week, including this plate. But if you want to WIN it, the usual rules apply - leave me a comment and I will draw a winner at random from the comments list on my birthday! I'm not telling you when that is (trying to protect myself from identity fraud), but let's just say the winner should know about it before next weekend.

If you can't wait that long, we have stock so you can order it by telephone right now - well, during office hours anyway.

Quick Derrick update: he is doing great! He's now on crutches which he still hates, but it is infinitely preferable to a zimmer frame. "Zimmer frames are for old age pensioners" was his comment (he's nearly 77, so he's obviously one of the young age pensioners). He even managed to go for a short walk with the dog last night. Adrian has been relieved of bedtime duty during the week, thanks to the wonderful neighbours, so we're getting some normality back.

He's still bored though - he's worked all his life (as a painter and decorator) and never been one for hobbies - he loved working more than anything and his whole aim now is to get fit enough to get back to it. We are trying to come up with things to keep him occupied, but that don't leave him frustrated because he doesn't have the fine motor control he used to.

Anyway, I need to go and write up my magazine project now, but don't forget to leave a comment to go into the draw - I use a random number generator to select the winner, so it could be anyone!

Blog Candy Alert

I have been working hard on new stuff, a lot of which is still under wraps. But I am so excited at the new stamps that are coming out next month and in the next few days I will be giving you a sneak preview and running a little blog candy giveaway.

In the meantime, here's a card I made using Glimmer Mists and Tim Holtz stamps. I actually started typing Wild Meadow stamps, then realised it wasn't, but they do go very well with these. I love the subtle colours on this.

We had a great time at our crop on Saturday and celebrated the big five-oh for one of our croppers, Sue. She had brought in a cake decorated by a friend and it was absolutely stunning with beautiful sugarcraft flowers on it. And in typical scrapper's tradition, I didn't have a camera with me! I think Lynn got some pics, but I know she's been having terrible problems with her computer and Blogger. I then spent most of Sunday in bed feeling rather unwell (wasn't the cake, I resisted), but I'm fine now and getting my craft room licked into shape after the great computer exodus last week.

Along the way I have unearthed lots of things I (a) forgot I had; (b) never even knew I had in the first place; (c) knew I had somewhere; (d) had stashed away as too precious to actually use - they will be reverently stroked and put back for future stroking on special occasions.

I also came across a bunch of stuff that will be going to charity and another bunch of stuff that will be going on Ebay. Sorry, not exciting stuff like paper, boring stuff like laptop bags and suitcases. I think my husband has a laptop bag fetish. We have about six, plus various messenger type bags, conference folders and briefcases. Anyone would think we had a corporate past life or something.

Anyway, watch this space for a fun new range of stamps coming your way soon! Sorry, I just can't resist being a tease :)

Million Dollar Woman

I didn't win an award at the North East Digital Awards last night, but I am featured on one of the winning websites - I am a Million Dollar Woman! We sat with Charlotte, founder of the site, and her husband last night, so we did get to give a large whoop when Charlotte won.

Millon Dollar Woman features some great business run by women and I was honoured to be an invited founder member when Charlotte first set up the site. Charlotte is a specialist adviser at my local Enterprise Agency in Barnard Castle and has provided some very useful and practical advice over the last few years. She is a worthy winner and I'm thrilled to bits for her.

It's thanks to your votes that I was shortlisted though, and that means a lot to me. There were other worthy sites that didn't get shortlisted because they didn't have the voting support, so thank you.

And thank you too for the feedback on the whole forum issue. I had a lot of private emails about it too and I hope I didn't get anyone's hopes up because I have no intention of starting a forum in the immediate future. Actually, the balance of opinion definitely swung towards me not starting a forum as most people love the blog and didn't want anything to jeopardise my blogging. Aw, shucks!

If you are in Barnard Castle tomorrow (Sat 17th May 2008), it's my turn in the shop as it is our monthly Saturday Scrap 'n' Yap club - a great bunch of people who love scrapbooking, drinking tea, eating biscuits (and cream cakes) and drooling over scrapping stash. There are some spaces tomorrow as some of our regulars are away, so if you fancy dropping in, we'll make some room for you and show you where the kettle is. (Tea, milk no sugar thanks!) Even if your not into scrapping, you could bring your stamping stuff and join us for a laugh.

I've got a real busy three weeks ahead of me - on 11th and 12th June I'm filming three shows for Create and Craft (none of them live shows I'm afraid), so I have to come up with lots of stuff with three completely different themes. One is the Season's Greetings CD from last year, one is the Peacock Summer Party CD and one is a complete secret for now. So I'm off to play.

... prepping Christmas in May, this is just crazy ...!

Questions from you, questions for you

You asked about the technology I use - I have an iMac and a Mac Pro with 8 processor cores, 1.3 terabytes of storage and 6 gigabytes of RAM (you asked!). The graphics tablet is a fairly recent addition after spending years complaining that drawing with a mouse was like drawing with a brick. Now that I have it, turns out I'm actually quite good at drawing with a brick!

The things I find invaluable are (1) my big screens - the colour on a Mac is so much truer on screen than on a PC; (2) iPhoto for intuitive organising of all my photos and (3) the off switch so I can get on with some crafting and not get sidetracked by all those gorgeous blogs out there.

Another question I was asked a while ago, but have avoided answering was about whether I have ever considered setting up a forum.

Now I know that a blog is a bit of a one way street sometimes, but forums worry me. There are a lot out there and in the past I have been active on several. At the moment the only craft forum on the internet that I am a member of is Joanna Sheen's and to be honest the main reason was originally to keep on top of any queries about my CDs - Joanna and Richard are good friends of ours and I didn't want Richard to end up fielding all our tech support when they have enough of their own to do. (I think he does end up answering more queries than he lets on actually!)

I think forums can be fantastic support groups, but as the head of a forum, how many people could I inadvertently offend if I didn't respond to their post about losing their job, their dog's broken leg or the death of a family member? They can suck a vast amount of time out of your life, they require constant moderation and they will inevitably wander off topic at least 80% of the time.

I have also seen how easy it is for people to take offence at a written message on a forum. There's no facial expressions, no body language, no tone of voice to soften a written message and it just takes one person to knee-jerk react for a whole cascade of misunderstanding to arise, turning things nasty. (There are also questions over the legal liability of libellous comments on forums which haven't yet been thrashed out in court, thanks to an out of court settlement a few years ago leaving a very grey area.)

Yet on the flip side, I know that when people find something they love, they want to share their excitement, talk about it, share ideas on how to use a certain stamp, show off their creations. I totally get that. In fact, there is actually a Graphicus Yahoo group which I started off years ago for Graphicus customers. Unlike a forum, it is completely private and membership has to be approved before you can get in and see anything. I am just about to close it down as it has only ever been used for sending email newsletters out and I have a different way that I do those now.

So what do you think? Do you belong to any forums - more than one or do you have a favourite? Are you a lurker or an active contributor. What do you get out of it? And be honest, how much is it about the crafting and how much is it about chatting? Do they stimulate you to try new things or do you spend so much time on the forums you don't get any crafting done? I'm curious.

See - the blog isn't completely a one way street, you comment, I listen ... eventually I get back to you. Mostly. When I'm not too busy. [Note to Blogger: could really do with forum style smiley face thingy right now.]

Mission Control

I didn't explain in the last entry why I was cleaning out my cupboard under the stairs. It might sound crazy, but it is where Graphicus began eight years ago. I really could stretch the Harry Potter analogy by saying it has been a magical journey of discovery, complete with occasional Voldemorts, unexpected explosions and lifelong friends, but I don't want to get all trite.

You see, our cupboard under the stairs is actually pretty big and when I began the company it was my office. It has a very high ceiling and we put shelves up one wall which originally had all my creative and admin stuff on. Then as we grew, Emma and I worked in the large front room that it leads off and it became a stock room. I can remember putting Sizzix dies and Xyron cartridges on the shelves - everything in numerical order!

When we moved the business out of the house, I got the big office as my craft room and the little stock room became a bit of a dumping ground. OK, let me rephrase that, a complete glory hole where all the rubbish got thrown in and the door quickly shut - very useful at Christmas when my craft room goes back to it's original function of being the dining room.

Anyway, I finally had enough of having my computers in the middle of my craft room, plus the recent sunshine highlighted (literally) the fact I couldn't see the screen very well if it was sunny. We had planned to do this at Easter, but of course other things rather got in the way.


So it may not be a very exciting tale, but it is SO exciting to me because it gives me a dedicated computer space where I can do all my designing and blogging. And more importantly, I get my crafting space back!

So, between sorting out the chaotic mess that erupted from the glory hole and working out which cables belong to which computer, printer, hard disk, graphics tablet, etc, this is the first chance I've had to get back to the blog!

Thank you everyone for your blog details - keep 'em coming. And thanks for voting in the little poll - it's interesting to see the two leading answers - if you can't see the results, don't worry I'll be posting that when the poll is closed.

And talking of polls, you must head over to the Graphicus blog and vote for our website winner. Our regular monthly contest is getting some lovely submissions, so we want you to help us decide who should win the Graphicus gift voucher for April.

Oh, and my cupboard isn't really mission control - this is!

Derrick Holtz?

I have to pass a message on to blog readers Chris and Lucy from Derrick - he says thank you very much for the lovely hand made cards. He's been home less than a week and he is bored rigid! He's not enthralled by TV, doesn't read books, can't handle technology so computer games are out, doesn't really have any hobbies, other than painting and decorating, his trade for the last fifty odd years.

Today we decided to take him down to Graphicus to see if I could find anything to interest him. He still doesn't have great control of his right hand, but I managed to find something to keep him happy - painting Grungeboard!! We had an opened pack in the workshop so I broke out the Lumiere paints (a recent addition to the shop - they should make it to the website soon) and handed him a small flat brush and he was soon happily painting away.

He's taken the rest of the pack and a selection of paints home with him and Adrian left him this evening busy pressing the letters out of their backgrounds. So I'm going to have to come up with lots of projects to use up all these painted letters and numbers! Any ideas?

We took him home for afternoon tea in the garden - here he is spoiling Basil rotten.

And Basil is just lapping it up ...

Rollcall - your blogs

A while ago I road tested Wordpress to see if it was any better than Blogger and it does have certain features that, in my opinion, make it more versatile.

I have therefore decided that I will be moving house sometime in the next couple of months. However, unlike a real house move, the great thing about a cyber-move is that I can re-furbish and decorate before I move in and get the place just the way I want it. Of course, being a typical crafter, that process could go on for a while as I flick through the paint charts getting lost in colour swatches ...

And that's where you guys come in!

If you have a blog of your own, now is the time to tell me about it. I am going to have a section on the new blog called "Readers' Blogs" so I need to know who you are and more importantly, the address of your blog's homepage.

Leave me a comment with your blog details in and I will gather them all up, pack them in a tea chest and hire a virtual van to take them all over and settle them in to the new place.

(NOTE: I am only interested in your own blogs at the moment, not other people's blogs that you want to recommend - I might come back to that later, but for now it's your own I'm after.)

I am off to enjoy this superb sunny day - by cleaning out the cupboard under the stairs?!?! I must be mad! Well maybe I'll find Harry Potter in there and he can wave a magic wand and all the spiders will scurry away, taking their cobwebs with them. A girl can dream.

Light inspires me

You know, I sometimes wonder if I have seasonal affective disorder. The weather at the moment is just filling me with joy and energy. Adrian had a night off parent-sitting (thanks Tracy!) and we went to our nearest pub for a quick meal. Driving across the moorland to get there, looking at the wide open spaces bathed in a hazy evening light, watching the wing-nut-eared little lambs frolicking, then sitting down to proper whitby scampi and chips, ah, this surely is the good life!

We went to a pub called the Three Tuns at Eggleston, one of our favourites round here. Good down to earth pub grub, well cooked and with a dining room that has a huge (and I mean HUGE) panorama window looking west over the dale. I was highly honoured tonight when the pub cat (a little female version of Basil with one eye) graciously accepted my offered fuss, then just as the landlady warned me to watch out as she is bad tempered and tends to go for people, she climbed up onto my lap!

Do you think I offended Basil?


Well both the boys were enjoying the sunshine in the garden today.


and I can't say I blame them. Let's just hope it lasts until the weekend.

I couldn't wait to try out the Tinkabella inks on my gessoed house tonight. I used lots of white and mixed teal blue and a touch of yellow to get this.

I don't think the photo is quite bringing out the colour right, overall it's a duck egg blue sort of colour with patches of the others. Surprisingly, it's just the colour I was after.

I'm off to watch Heroes now (anyone else got caught by the Heroes bug?), but Carrie has updated the Graphicus site recently, so you might want to check out the Graphicus Blog for all the new stuff.

Glorious Sunshine

I seem to have had a little bit of a blogging dry spell, but I am still very much alive and kicking. Derrick came home on Tuesday and it would seem the sun has come out to celebrate. I was wearing cropped trousers today and I'm sure I was wearing thermals just a couple of weeks ago?! He is doing well and delighted to be back in his own home and sleeping in his own bed.

So, creatively, I've been doing lots of bits and pieces. This is the state of my studio at the moment:

Today was our monthly Wednesday Crop (we also do a Saturday one) and I spent ages measuring up an album I made in a class last year in Las Vegas. It's called a page plan class - you get all the materials and copies of the suggested layouts and you stick each page together before you add your photos. It's an A-Z album which is going to be called My Boys - Basil and Sesame.


It took a while as I created a document with a black box the right size for each photo. I can go through my photos and see what letter they are going to represent (Adorable, Bandana Cat, Cute Boy, Drool Face, etc) then I put the photo into my document and resize it to match the black box I have done for that letter. When I'm finished, I will have several pages of photos to just print, cut and stick. I'm not in a hurry to get this completed as half the fun for me is the photography. I love getting down to their level and I seem to have a thing about paws, I just adore photos of their cute little paws!

On Monday I made the first of several Japanese stab bound books for a course I am teaching next month (it's a private class, sorry!)

And tonight I got home to a parcel from Lesley Riley - some cabinet cards and cute little wooden houses that I won in one of her Ebay auctions. I have some vague ideas about what I want to do with these little houses so immediately grabbed the gesso and started giving them a base coat. I want to see how the Tinkabella inks look dripped over the gesso as I can layer the colours as each one dries.

I want to create pale, serene, interesting pretty little "rooms" to represent the kind of rooms I would like my own house to have. Not cluttered, disorganised messes like they seem to be most of the time.

Then there's (shhh, sneak info alert) the new plate of stamps that are coming out to go with the Peacock CD so I have been playing with those too. They will be released in June alongside the CD - tentative release date looks to be around June 14th, but I will let you know soon. And there will be blog candy fireworks when that gets launched, so watch this space.

Finally, I must say thank you to everyone who voted for my blog in the North East Digital Awards. My blog and two others have been shortlisted for the "Best use of Blogging" award, so I'm off to the awards dinner next week, which should be a good evening as it is at the Comedy Club in Newcastle and the menu for the evening is, wait for it ... fish and chips!! We will enjoy having a night out together, a rare treat!

Basil and Sesame

It's turning into a rather busy weekend for various reasons. The mess finally got to me so I have donned the marigolds and squared up to the spiders and had a bit of a cleaning fest. Just how much junk can two adults accumulate?!!!?!? Well, I have dusted the junk and moved it around from one place in the house to another and doubtless in the next year or two, it will all be have to be done again, sigh ... Then, as if I was actually getting some weird kind of satisfaction from this (trust me, I'm not), I went and did it all over again at Derrick and Alma's, so he has a nice clean house to come home to on Tuesday.

I haven't tackled my craft room yet, but I have a lot of projects coming up in the next two months and NEED to clear some space and get organised. I can feel some ebay bargain packs coming on...

So in the quest for photos of Basil's little pink tongue, I realised that he has an uncanny knack of putting it away when the camera shutter clicks. However trawling through my cat photos was fun and I mad a couple of little collage pictures, with a view to printing them out for my A-Z cat album that I made in Las Vegas last year, but which still needs all the photos putting in.

And all that photo sorting has made me want to go play with my scrapbooking stash. After all, Saturday was National Scrapbook Day and we are having our regular crop at Graphicus on Wednesday, so I need to get some practise in. Have a great bank holiday Monday everyone!

Moisture is the enemy

Now this may look like a finished book,


but it's not quite that simple. Last week I got the leather on the spine and put it in the press with a piece of string tied around it to create the 'french groove' you see at the edge. The leather looks wrinkled in places, but when it's finished, I will dampen the leather again and smooth the wrinkles out.

This week I put the cover papers on (My Mind's Eye - isn't that paper gorgeous), but the covers need to dry before you actually glue the inside to the cover.

I'm sure the purists will cringe at the state of the inside at the moment,


but all that mess will be hidden when the book is finished.

The spine of the book is reinforced with brown manilla paper and scrim. The spine is the part of the book that gets the most stress. It has to be strong, yet flexible and the reason that a lot of old books have broken spines is that the rabbit skin glue they used to use is not as flexible as modern glues. (It is also considered a flavoursome delicacy to certain nasty critters who like to munch their way through books.)

The red and grey trim you can see is the headband which is placed at the top and bottom of the spine to give a nice finish, and it hides any imperfections in the paper or the spine. You actually hit the edge of the spine with a hammer when the leather is first put on to gently round it and form a 'cap' around the headband.

Here's the back of the book. I got the front and back covers from one sheet of 12x12 paper.

Whenever you need to glue any part of a book, you want to use as little glue as you possibly can, but still with enough to make it form a strong bond. You should allow 24 hours after glueing the covers to glue the inside as the moisture from the glue needs to dry out completely. The boards will start to warp, which is why you need some kind of press to hold the boards flat while they dry out. A brick wrapped in a carrier bag on top of a piece of MDF makes a perfectly adequate press for this kind of thing.

As always, some of the lessons in bookbinding can be applied to other aspects of crafting. Have you ever wondered why things warp and curl when you get them wet or put embossing powder on them. Why doesn't it go flat again when it's dry or cool? Well we are taught in bookbinding that whatever you do to one side of the greyboard (or chipboard as it seems to be known now) you should do to the other side to balance it.

When you introduce moisture to any kind of paper product the fibres swell on the side with the moisture, but remain as they were on the other side. So if those fibres are left to air dry, there is nothing pressing them back into a flat shape and they will happily remain slightly swollen and therefore out of shape. If you apply the same moisture to the reverse side, you stand a better chance of the whole thing going flat, but as paper is a natural material, it can simply 'cockle' which means you have lumps and bumps all over.

If you apply embossing powder to one side of a sheet of card, you have introduced moisture from the inkpad, then heated it up and trapped it under a layer of waterproof material. It's no wonder the poor thing curls up. However, I do find that as soon as the embossing is cool enough to touch, stick it under a weight and leave it alone for an hour or two - overnight if you can. When you come to stick it down to something, use a wet glue brushed evenly all over the back - that will compensate for the curl on the front. Make sure the glue isn't oozing out, and put back under a weight to dry overnight.

Sometimes though, you need to do something which can't be put under a weight, such as the slip case I'm making for this book.

The slip case is made from greyboard with all the joints reinforced with bookcloth.

but it's hollow, so when you glue the paper on, you can't really put any weight on it. I've been advised to wrap my book in clingfilm (to protect it from any excess glue) and put it in the case while the papers are drying out so that it doesn't 'suck in' too much.


Well I seem to have gone into teacher mode there - sorry, I hope that wasn't too boring!

Tune in tomorrow for more photos of Basil's little pink tongue which he does leave hanging out on a surprisingly regular basis.

A girlie card

We have some great news - check it out over on the HubbyBlog. I second what he said about all your kind thoughts and well wishes - thank you, they worked!!

Ooooh, looks like I made lots of cards...

..but no, these are just snaps of the same one so you can see it in all it's detail.

This is the Impression Obsession set I mentioned in yesterday's post, stamped in black Versafine onto white card, then painted with Pearl-Ex watercolours.

It's a gatefold card, made with my favourite pale gold pearlescent cardstock


and decorated with a page printed from the Damask Delights CD which had the perfect mix of the pale blue and dusky beigeish pink that I had painted the two dresses with. Totally deliberate of course (yeah, right).

I stamped "shoes" with the Hero Arts alphabet using Adirondack wild plum, then wrote "are a girl's best friend" in a stardust pen. I stamped the swirly bit from the top of the shoe stamp around the words in a pink chalk ink.

A bit of bling was needed - I added some little diamond crystals to the dresses, some pink ones to the shoes and glitter peel off stickers (yes, I admit, I do use peel offs) down the edges of the backing paper.

And finally, I found a little brass charm of a shoe which I coloured with a solvent based marker pen and stuck on with silicone.


I finally got round to sticking my dragon card together, after I solved the "but there's something missing" problem. I put some Hambly rub-ons top and bottom. Just finishes it off and I love the orange and brown combination so much (I'm a child of the 70s) that I've already used some more of the same rub on pack on another brown card.

I forgot to take my camera to my bookbinding class today - I thought I had it, but it turned out I had an empty camera case - doh!

So over the weekend I will take some pics of where I'm up to so far with the book (I used My Mind's Eye paper on it, looks stunning) and I have started a slip case which I should get finished. I love the slip case and can see me making more of these in future, so watch this space.

Introducing Derrick

Let me introduce you all to Derrick. Any resemblence to the Specsavers Thunderbird character is purely coincidental ... oh, and he's the one sitting down in the middle, in case you were wondering.


Yesterday was his first time out of the hospital in over five weeks - he was escorted home by a physiotherapist and an occupational therapist to assess the house and what his care needs will be at home. It was Alma's birthday, so of course we had a little celebration which naturally included cake.

The trip exhausted him, we could see it in his face, and he made no protests when he was taken back to hospital. Last night though, he was chomping at the bit to get back home and his couple of hours out had given him a taste for freedom.

The brilliant news is that following his home visit, they are talking about sending him home next week, yay!! He is termed as a "complex discharge" (charming!) because of the home situation, so they need to make sure the care is all in place first. Our social worker has been great - I feel incredibly frustrated by the whole fragmented, bureaucratic (not to mention unfair) social services system, but everyone who I've met within the system is doing their best to help and our guy, Dave, has been a star.

So this afternoon, they let Adrian take him out for a drive, as long as he stayed in a wheelchair when he was out of the car. He had already said that as soon as he was out, his first port of call after home was to Graphicus to see all the team. As you can see from the photo, he had them swarming round him the minute he came through the door! (That's Emma, Judith, Denise and Lynn with him in the photo.)

So finally, we see light at the end of the tunnel and have high hopes that with time, Derrick will be walking normally and get the full use of his right arm back. Until that time, he will have to learn his limitations and knowing him, it's the mental battle of dealing with that which will be hardest for him once he's home. Lovely as the nurses are, we are all looking forward to saying goodbye to the hospital!

I actually did some crafting this evening. This morning we all got together to do a stocktake of the shop and going through all the stock reminded me of some of my stash that I haven't played with in a long time. (It also had me shopping at the end of the day for some of the new products that I NEEDED to add to my pitifully small stash.)

At our last open day I was using Heidi Swapp masks with Glimmer Mists. We sold out of the masks so they never made it to the website. Now we have more in, and new designs too, including this large floral design (approx 12 inches long).

I grabbed the nearest thing to try it on - I used a tag which had been glimmer misted in pinky red tones, and a white glossy ATC card. I used a stipple brush (another new product, one of Lynn's favourites) with Adirondack dye inks in Cranberry, Raisin, Wild Plum, Terracotta and Espresso. The masks are made from vinyl and have a light repositionable adhesive on the back. By moving them around and increasing the depth of colour, here's the backgrounds I managed to achieve in about five minutes. You can click on the picture for a larger image.


I don't think the photo shows the tag very well, the shimmer from the glimmer mists is just gorgeous. I think they'll look good with Wild Meadow stamped over them in a strong black. Or maybe some gold embossing would look good. Hmmm, more playing needed I think.

I also dug out some old friends I haven't used for a while. A good old faithful clear alphabet from Hero Arts - not the cheapest stamp company in the world, but great quality.

And a classic dress and shoe set from Impression Obsession - another top quality company with a lovely deep etched red rubber.

[Since taking the photos, I've actually put a card together with the dresses and shoes and the damask delight backing paper you can see in the background. I will try to get a good photo in daylight tomorrow as I'm struggling a bit with the flash bleaching everything out at this time of night.]

I finished by playing with my new dragon stamps with Derwent Inktense pencils. If you haven't heard of those, they're like watercolour pencils which go like a paint when you wet them. Unlike watercolour pencils though, the water mixes them to an ink that dries waterproof, so you can lay one layer over another. I coloured the dragon with felt tip pens first, then put the inktense pencils over the top, then blended it with a Tombow blender pen, but a wet paintbrush would do the same job.

I loved colouring him in, but found it a bit hard to decide how to make the card. This isn't stuck down yet and I will probably faff around for ages trying different layouts, then come back to the original one. Anyone else do that?



It's bookbinding again tomorrow. My book has it's leather spine now, and tomorrow should hopefully see it finished. Someone asked what the title of the book is - it's a blank book made from scratch, not a restoration. I leave the restorations to my friend Sue - she introduced me to the craft about seven years ago and she's a bit of an expert now. I am hoping there will be enough time left on the course for me to make a slip case for the book, as I haven't made one of those yet.

There seems to be a bit of a Mexican standoff going on between Basil and Sesame at the moment, I can see tails twitching, so I'm off to take their minds off it with cat treats!

We have a winner!

Using a totally random number generator, we have a winner ....drum roll please for...


... Maggie Stearn!! Whoop, whoop! Congratulations Maggie, you have won the K & Co paper pads!! Maggie, I'm thrilled for you and you do such lovely work, you deserve it! (Maggie made me a gorgeous box card last Christmas.)

And well done to Deby who correctly identified the photo in the last entry. It is a wooden suspension bridge at Whorlton near Barnard Castle. I don't know where you live Deby, but if you are not from round here, I really don't know how you guessed that!


The surface of the bridge is made from wood - literally two lots of planks running lengthways and across, like a lattice, with gaps you can see through! We walked on to the bridge to take some photos and the whole thing just rippled whenever a car went over. I don't have very good balance, probably due to my feet (I wear built up inserts in my shoes), so I almost keeled over every time a car went by. I'm sure the drivers thought I was overreacting!



Anyway, onto matters of much more import - Derrick would like his fans to know he is thrilled to bits with all the messages for him. Slightly bemused as he really doesn't understand the technology at all, but delighted none the less. I have strict instructions to say thank you to everyone. Thank you from Derrick!

I will leave you with some more images of our beautiful Teesdale and happy memories of a precious Sunday afternoon.

Celebrity Stroke Patient!

Derrick is doing really well - so much so that the nurses are going to ask the doctors on Monday if he can be allowed out with supervision during the afternoons. He is going home for a visit on Tuesday for an Occupational Therapy assessment in his own home. We've arranged it all for Tuesday because it's Alma's birthday, so they can spend the afternoon together.

I told him that people were following his recovery like a soap opera and he was thrilled to bits. Likes to think he's a celebrity now - so to cheer him on, if anyone wants to send him a personal message via the comments, I will print them out and take them in for him to read. It will really make his day!!

Meanwhile, if anyone can tell me where or what this photo is, I will be seriously impressed. Quite frankly, I'd be amazed enough that I might have to send you something.



We made some time for ourselves today and went out for a pub lunch, followed by a mystery tour around Teesdale where this photo was taken. Well, it was a mystery to Adrian as I was driving! He needed some time away from the hospital, so it was a treat to just be normal for a Sunday afternoon.

We finished our tour at Thorpe Farm where we had a look around the falconry centre which is run by Phil and Tracey - the wonderful neighbours who have been so kind to Derrick and Alma.

We had tea and cake (obligatory when you visit these places) and I fell head over heels in love with a fluffy lop eared black and white rabbit, which was actually for sale. I was sorely tempted, but I know Basil and Sesame would take one look and think I'd brought them supper. It could never work ...

I managed to squeeze in a little stamping time this weekend, but the only card I put together was this one. The cyclamen stamp is the Graphicus Guild members limited edition stamp. I managed to get a lovely inky finger smudge on it after I spent ages colouring it in (with pencils), so that's why there's a great big flower - it's hiding the smudge!

Multi-tasking!

So here I am facing two computers. My new one is compiling CD files which is a slow process. On the other, I am scanning in new drawings to make into stamps. As each one is scanned, it is saved, then sent over the network to the other computer. While the file is scanning, I am cutting out or colouring in some stamped images, preparing for my next lot of TV filming. I have a document open in the background to jot down ideas as they occur to me and occasionally I check the blog and publish any comments. I-Tunes is blaring out music and I admit I sometimes go online to a lyrics website so I can sing along at the top of my voice.

This is more like my normal pace!

I've had an ongoing battle of wills with Sesame today. He came in this morning with a loud self-satisfied chirruppy meow, usually a sign that he has once again reduced the wildlife population by at least one. He looked disgusted that I was in HIS chair, so he claimed the second best chair and began to wash. The minute I stood up he was in my chair curled up in best cute sleeping position. Nope, I wasn't buying it today, I needed my chair, so he was deported back to the other one. This went on for a couple of hours - each time I vacated the chair, he took it to mean that I was offering it to him. I went to make a cup of tea and came back to find Basil had joined in and had to evict them both!

Deported to the red chair, Sesame is not impressed

No photos, please!

The minute I'm up, he's straight back on my chair

And so it goes on ALL day!

For followers of the Derrick DramaDocuSoapamentary, here's the latest news, reporting live from Bishop Auckland General ...

Derrick was moved from his snug little private ward yesterday afternoon back into a shared ward. They needed a bed for a woman and there weren't any on the main wards, so Derrick had to be moved. However, sharing a room with people who are coughing, snoring and hooked up to machines that go ping all night has made him more determined than ever to get home as soon as he can. He's doing extremely well, his cellulitis infection is slowly going away and he's getting his strength back day by day.

Win five K&Co designer paper pads!

So, here's the prize I mentioned yesterday


five cute little K&Co 6x6inch paper pads, all different, all gorgeous.

So what do you have to do to win them? Leave me a comment before Sunday 27th April and I will name a winner on Monday - simple! Just 'cause you guys are great.

So, today was bookbinding. Making a book is a slow process. As someone who is always on the go with a million project deadlines crowding in on me, I find myself forced to work at a different pace and it is taking some getting used to.

Today was the first time that I took my camera to class and took some photos as I went along. Here is one of the books I am working on. I've sewn together the book block and applied scrim to the spine. It has been guillotined, the spine has been rounded and the headbands have been glued on.

You can see the sharp corner of the book board in this photo.


Well that needs to be chamfered as sharp corners can wear through the leather.


This book is going to be quarter bound in red leather. That means that a quarter of the surface area has leather on, the rest is paper. The spine gets the leather to give the strength and flexibility where it is needed.

When you attach leather to book board, the paper slightly overlaps it, and if you don't pare the leather first, it is too thick and you get an unsightly ridge under the paper covering.

So here is the piece of leather with the edges pared. That is done with a very sharp knife, just gently scraped to thin the very edge down.


And that's about as far as I got today. I told you it was a slow process!

Blog Candy Alert

The mobile broadband wasn't very stable over at Adrian's mum's tonight, so I couldn't get online til I got home.

So I shall keep it short and sweet tonight, 'cause it's late and I need to be fresh when handling bodkins, scalpels and sewing needles tomorrow (my bookbinding class). But I wanted to let you know to check back tomorrow for a little blog challenge with a yummy prize from K&Co!

(Derrick made a cup of tea in the stroke ward kitchen today!)

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons ...

... for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

We have new stamps - of dragons!

Just a little something in honour of St George's Day on the 23rd. Yes, I know one of them has a chinese look and the others are probably inspired by welsh dragons, but hey, it's topical even it it isn't accurate!

These stamps are on offer in the April issue of the Graphicus Guild newsletter and they should be on the website in the next week or so. The plate is called "Here be Dragons" and Lynn has made a great card using it with some of our other historical plates. You can click on the image above for a closer look.

Derrick walked for the first time today! Heavily assisted by two physiotherapists and a zimmer frame that he can hardly grip yet, but what a boost it's given him. He's having to wait for an infection in his arm to calm down before he can have more physio, but he was so pleased, it's a joy to see.

Yes sir, very good sir

Our current routine involves Adrian having a lot of late nights as he stays with his mum in the evenings until she goes to bed. Sometimes I'm already asleep when he gets in, then he's often up early and back over there to get her up in the morning, depending on which carer has the early morning shift. We are getting there, but now and again, the carer is someone new, so Adrian needs to be there.

So on one of the days last week when we knew he didn't have to be over there early, I cleared the kitchen table (normally a general clutter magnet), put a fresh tablecloth on it, set the table for two and left Adrian a little note.

For us, breakfast is usually one of those meals that is grabbed rather than savoured, so sitting down to eat breakfast together, actually at the kitchen table, is a rare treat. It's usually something we only do when we have friends staying. It was lovely and made us both appreciate that in the midst of our current chaotic life, we have to create these little oases of calm and take time to treat ourselves well.

Basil thoroughly approved,

but he was slightly miffed that there was no place set for him.


Then he realised that of course the whole table was set for him, he would just get up and sit on the table ... er I don't think so!


But maybe just a little bit of butter for his lordship ...

... well it saves running the dishwasher!!

Eye Candy

I was at work til after 9.30pm tonight, which may sound excessive, but don't worry, I'm not overdoing it, it was social, not real work, well sort of work, but in the company of friends, oh it's easier to explain!

Graphicus is a sponsor of The Castle Players, our local community theatre group. We've been involved one way or another since we arrived in this area in 2000. Every year they put on an impressively professional performance in the grounds of the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, and every year a team of CP members get together to address, stuff and frank over 2000 letters to invite their audience to book again for this summer's performance.

For the last three years, Graphicus has hosted the mailshot party and tonight we did it again! We had a great turn out, pizzas and wine and a good time was had by all. Adrian even organised his Mum's carers so he could be there. Funny, he's the one who's been on stage several times, while I've always been more involved on the marketing side. I can happily do TV, but the thought of acting on stage just terrifies me - probably because I can hardly remember what I had for breakfast, never mind a whole load of lines. (Did I even have breakfast ....?)

But as I have only just got in from work, I don't have too much to say tonight except to tease you with a few pictures.

We have new Glimmer Mist colours in stock right now, with details coming to a website near you very soon. Here's a sneak preview of two new sets

Jellytots