Just in case you're curious......

Thought some of you might like to see where I'm off to tomorrow.

A little known part of France, where you get amazing scenery, historical architecture, and really, really good cheese and wine!

Many of you will be familiar with the area of the Dordogne, but less familiar with the departement of the Lot which is right next door. The location for many battles during the 100 Years War, the region is crossed by several rivers (including the Lot, from which it gets it's name). Created from part of the province of Languedoc, it is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution. It also forms part of the historical region of Quercy (many people still refer to the region as that).

My parents have owned a house in this region for almost 20 years now. We started off first in a little village called Grezes - it had 100 inhabitants on the electoral roll, but even that was too busy (mainly because of the neighbours and the main road at the bottom of our garden!). About 5 years ago (I think!) they moved to the other side of the departement to a tiny little hamlet, composed of 6 houses (only two of which are lived in all year round!). The hamlet is perched on the top of a limestone plateau known as the Causses and we have 360 degree views of the valley - absolutely amazing! And the sunsets have to be seen to be believed.........

So, this is where I'm off to tomorrow for a bit of peace and quiet!!! Anyone jealous yet??

New toys (and tagged - mark II)

Morning all! Finally have a chance to sit down and just breathe after what seems like total madness for the last three weeks. We've had a variety of in-laws visiting from far-flung places, work has been slightly crazy, I've had a really nasty cold, DD has been teething and DH has been grumpy due to having too much on at work. Phew! Thank goodness we're off on our holiday on Friday - one week of rural bliss, with my Mum's cooking and Dad's babysitting services thrown in - really looking forward to it!

DH came home with a new toy for me last night - a new Panasonic Lumic TZ5 digital camera! We've been debating buying this for weeks now, as our trusty Olympus C-60 is really starting to show it's age, and I want to learn how to take really good pictures. This new one has a 'multi-shoot' mode which will hopefully help us get action pictures of DD while she running around! It's still in it's box, but I promise to read the manual before we go on holiday......

The postie has bought me some gorgeous goodies in the last week - just had to share some of them! First a whole load of coordinated Primas and Prima daisies from my favourite seller on eBay- I love how she does little packets of flowers which means you can buy a much larger selection for the same price as a 'normal' size pack.















I also got these gorgeous grosgrain ribbons from the US - 50 yards of plain and spotty in colours of my choice - think they'll be appearing all over the place in weeks to come!





















Last but not least, I was tagged ages ago by Jenny - and have only just found the time to answer the questions. So here goes:

1. If a movie was being made of your life who would you like to be cast to play yourself?
Errrrrmmmm - this is a toughie! Let's think - would be unrealistic to say something like Audrey Hepburn (yes, I know she's not with us any more!) I'm going to say Julia Roberts (even tho' she looks nothing like me) or Sinead Cusack because I love the spunky roles they play and I think they would do me justice! :-)

2. You are spending a whole month on a desert island for charity and you have to choose your favourite celebrity to spend the first two weeks with & your least favourite celebrity to spend the second two weeks with, who would they be & why?
I could definitely spend two weeks with Stephen Fry - with that amazing mine of trivia that he has stored in his brain, and his cynical sense of humour, I'm sure I'd be in stitches the whole time. Least favourite would be someone like Katie Price (aka Jordan) or Jean-Claude van Damme - there's no way we would have any common ground for even vaguely sensible conversation!

3. What are your three favourite crafting products? Rub-ons, buttons and Primas!!!

4. If you could invent something to do anything what do you think it would be? Self-cleaning glasses (very useful when you have a toddler with permanently sticky fingers who always wants to take them off your nose!)

5. What are the last three books that you read? 'Death's Door' - Quentin Jardine (the latest in the Skinner series); 'High Noon' - Nora Roberts (my favourite author); 'Temple' - Matthew Reilly

6. QVC or Create & Craft?Neither thanks.

7. Docrafts or Dovecraft or DCWV? None of them are high up my favourites list, but I guess DCWV (I like their cardstock)

8. What is your claim to fame? I have met Prince Andrew and John Smith (the man who should have been leader of the Labour Party)

Now I'm supposed to tag 5 more people, so this goes out to Annette, Karen, Jo, Ladybug and Feline!

Have just realised this is quite a long post - congratulations to you all who made it this far! Will see you all when I get back from my hols!

Specially for Grandad!

Some of you may have already seen this LO over on UKS, but I wanted to put it up here coz I just love it sooo much! Have just realised that the photo in this layout was taken exactly one year before the ones in the 'strawberry patch' LO - how quickly time flies. So, June last year - my Dad hadn't seen DD since she was about 5 days old - and they seem equally impressed with each other! It was sheer fluke that they were wearing matching outfits - it just had to be scrapped really! The title is made up various die-cut letters kindly provided to me by my SAD teamie Cheryl - she sent me a HUGE boxful and I'm slowly working my way through them........

Stuff and nonsense........

I'm feeling a bit low and grumpy due to a foul cold that I have picked up in the last few days. Really not a good time to fall ill, and I'm just not in the mood to be dealing with it either! To cheer myself up, and as an antidote to the awful weather we've been having, I made the following cards on Wednesday



















My SIL (visiting from the States) snapped up the flower one as soon as it was made!! Ha ha!

Tonight, I finished this LO for the weekly Scrummy Stash Cafe challenge. I've been rediscovering the joys of my Craft Robo - so much fun!! Most of the elements come from the kit that was sold for the UKS Cybercrop 'Holes' class (which I couldn't get my head around at the time), plus some Bo Bunny rub-ons, K&CO felt embellishments, buttons and lace from my stash



And last, but not least, DD achieved another first tonight - I had to sign the accident book at her nursery for the first time........ Apparently, in her ongoing quest to climb every mountain and ford every stream, she tried climbing onto a chair, fell off and bit her lower lip really badly. Her lip was still all swollen with a big purplish lump in the middle when I picked her up tonight - poor wee thing. Naughty I know, but ice-cream for dinner seemed the best option - if only to heal her wounded pride.......!

Thank you LadyBug!

The absolutely gorgeous LadyBug has given me this award!!! This is given to blogs that provide inspiratiion e people - so I am very chuffed!

The rules for this award:

1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the boys/girls you've nominated.

So, my nominations go to:

1. Scrappy Fairy (coz she makes me laugh and I think she's one of the most artistic people around)
2. Karen (coz that's what friends are for)
3. Kirsti (to help her mojo come back home)
4. Debly (coz I would like to scrap like her when I grow up!)
5. Joanne (coz I love the fresh look of her blog)
6. Annette (it's the new blog banner that did it!)
7. Jo (for her dedication to scrapping and uploading cool pictures on an almost daily basis)

Twinkle Twinkle........

..........little star book! Yes, after much prevarication, I have finally finished the star book for little sister's 1st wedding anniversary. I'm not sure why I was so scared about doing this (something to do with mucking up the glueing of the decorated pages I think) but it was actually really easy to do in the end and I'm really, really chuffed with the result! The hardest thing was picking the photos to go in (landscape pics just didn't work, so we're missing some group photos). I'll definitely be making more of these in the future, but I think they might be a bit larger next time!

Here's the list of materials: Costco papers on the covers, sage green, cream and pale grey cardstock, Basic Grey Periphery (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Bordeaux) on the inside pages, rub-ons from just about everyone you can think of (Basic Grey, Lil Davis, K&Co, Papermania - I think the only ones missing are Doodlebug!), plus buttons and blossoms from stash and lots of Stickles!!!

Tilda time!

I originally sat down this morning to finish making a star book for my sister's 1st wedding anniversary - but I got bored with that, so ended up making these instead! Yep, three lovely Tildas - and they're all pregnant for some reason! And no, I'm not trying to tell you anything ROFL!




















I also managed to get a bit more done of my lovely needlework project - lots of lovely sage greens, dusky pinks and fuschias, using all sorts of different textures like pearl cotton, fine sparkly braid and ribbon. It's all laid out like a formal garden and I'm loving every minute!



Thanks for looking as always!!!