Missing In Action?!!….

It has been 19 days since my last post! Photo’s have been building up in my ‘To Blog’ file & scribbled notes now cover three pages of my ‘To Blog’ notepad!!! I have no excuses to offer other than ‘Life’ has just taken over & I’m only now able to pause for breath!!!

The main event to report has to have been a collision in my car! :(  I hasten to add that I was stationary at the time & the person who drove into me was an elderly lady…a mobility driver…who insisted on regaling me with the details of her previous accident, earlier this year…does she make a habit of it?!!  My poor ‘Ruby’ was left with a damaged headlight, shunted off centre bumper/skirt, a dented side panel & various bits of chrome trim short!!

She’s been with the repairers this past week & we’re having to pay the excess to get her back tomorrow! :(  To my mind there is no question at all that liability rests with the other party & that the excess will ultimately be refunded, but there are no guarantees either…just what we needed so close to Christmas!!  

I seem to have spent so much time on phone calls recently, to insurers, solicitors, repairers etc & will just be glad when it’s all over!! 

The silver lining to all this though, is the support I have had from family & friends…facebook messages….emails….offers of loans to cover the excess…one even arrived with flowers!! 

It all overwhelmed me at one point!  Whatever did I do to deserve all this?!!  I am truly blessed!  Thank you to you all…you know who you are :)

I’ve also had three visits to the cinema…

  
…’Tower Heist’ with Ben Stiller & Eddie Murphy is so funny & very clever!! I was a bit disappointed with ‘The Rum Diary’ (not with Johnny Depp…he could never disappoint!!!) as I’d expected a stronger storyline & it just sort of rambled!! Then of course part one of the final ‘Twilight’ episode ‘Breaking Dawn’…I’m surprised I’ve enjoyed all of the Twilight films as much as I have & this one was very engrossing!  It left me wishing that we didn’t have to wait till next year for part two!!! 

On the creative front, I took part in an online class over at ‘Get It Scrapped’ & put together a ‘Trivia Journal’ for 2012, using a paper weave technique & scrap PP’s!

 

In this same class, with the challenge of repurposing old bits of puzzle & toys I came up with this LO…

I also liked the idea of using leftover alpha’s to create a tone-on-tone textured effect in one of the earlier lessons so I incorporated that technique into this LO as well!

As part of this class we looked at our stash storage systems & one thing that always bugs me is ribbon!!  How to store it so that I can see what I have, so it doesn’t get all creased & tangled & that I can grab & go if needs be??!!

I’m happy to report my ‘Find Of The Week’!!! Taking a short cut through Primark, I spotted this in the accessory department…

...at only £2.00 & available in Pink or Lime Green, this velvet covered jewellery hanger, with it’s loops & hooks makes the perfect ribbon store!! Nothing Slips & it’s hung in plain sight at the end of my shelf unit so I can see what I have & grab it with no hassles!!!

On the subject of creativity, I attended my first ‘Merly Impressions’ crop on Saturday. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day spent with ‘old’ scrappy friends Dawn & Sharon…while making new ones…

 

 

 

 

 

 

The shop was fabulous! Lots of Kaiser Kraft & Tim Holtz goodies!!

Here’s Dawn rummaging through the clear stamps…because of course she doesn’t have enough already!! :)

 

 

 

Although this crop is very local to me in Bedfordshire, there were ladies there from as far afield as Leicester & Watford!!  As it’s a new Saturday crop & there were to be 28 of us, Chrissy had set us a challenge  to make a name badge.  There were some fabulous entries…

I had great fun taking apart an old greeting card to repurpose the fibre optic light thingy so that my badge flashed!! 

You can’t really see it here, but trust me…those little blue dots on the dark background are indeed flashing fibre optic tips!!! :)

The sneak peek for the two class LO’s in the fabulous kit was this…

Mainly featuring the new ‘Madame Boutique’ range from Kaiser Kraft & with the theme ‘Me’ I decided to go with sepia & use the photo that Karen took of me last month!

There was so much fussy cutting & using ‘glossy accents’ to create the beautiful rose embellishments, that I only completed the first one!!! (some of you won’t be surprised by that…I am, after all,  a self confessed ‘slow’ scrapper!!)

   
The next ‘Merly Impressions’ Saturday crop is on 21st January 2012 & I highly recommend it!  Maybe I’ll see you there?!!!

So that’s me for today….I’ve a busy week ahead so I’ll be back soon to report on my adventures…they involve both coach & vintage rail travel as well as lots of Christmas retail opportunities!!!

I do hope everyone is keeping well & staying ahead of the festive preparations!! Only 34 more days!!  I’ll try to get round to visiting everyone very soon…I have neglected you all very badly these last three weeks…SORRY!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by & come back soon! :)