What happened to January?

They always say that a mess looks worse before it gets better! Hope so ! This is my craft room!

January has been a month of viruses. I had just got over the first one, when I was hit by a second one which was even worse. It's now February and I am still coughing,  I think I possibly might be suffering from yet a third virus..although this one is mostly just a sniffle and a cough. As it has been making it's rounds, this has slowed down our progress somewhat with the house as we have not felt well enough to do things.

However...in the last week with the help of my husband and older daughter, we have finally fitted the shelving in the craft room so that it is now usable. After getting a price for someone to build custom shelving all down one wall, we decided to get 4 shelving units from Argos and pack out the 2cm space between them with wood. It worked out at at least half the price...and it is amazing how well it fills the space. I raised up the base with wood too,  so that I can now place a bit of skirting board at the bottom to make it look custom fitted,  and I will be using moulded trims between the uprights so I'm not finished it yet...but...I have unpacked  my craft boxes. (Only to find I have too much stuff and not enough space)...but I'm working on that.


So, as you can see, I  have a LOT of sorting out to do, I may be in here for some time!  I'll let you see it again when it is a bit tidier..I do hope that's soon!

Have a lovely day.

New Year, New House

We are finally in...it took a while longer and a lot more stress getting here than we had anticipated, but we have been here for 4 weeks now.
This is a view of the back of the house from the field behind. The house is lovely, the usual kind of little things needing attended to, the land is a whole other story. Our builder has left us with water logged sub soil and a variety of different levels that you cannot see from this picture. We are hoping that they will come and rectify at least some of the issues we have. However...I don't want to start of the year full of moans, so I am choosing to be thankful. Rather than going on about all the things still needing done, I will  now list ten things that I really love about our new home and that I am very grateful for....

1. It is bathed in sunlight...when it shines , (this is Scotland)

2. I love the Juliette balcony in our bedroom and the outlook it gives us from our bed.

3. I love the black door handles on our interior doors...(I'll try put up some pictures another post.)

4. I love having a kitchen peninsula unit and the space for preparing and serving food.

5. The showers work really well.

6. I love the dark wood flooring we have chosen for the ground floor. (well...wood effect actually)

7. We have a lovely large fridge freezer...our rental home for the last year had a tiny and poor under counter fridge that you could hardly fit a thing in. It is such a luxury to enjoy such storage now.

8. The air source heating is so easy to control and is doing a good job.

9. I can see sheep in the distance...I missed the countryside.

10. We are so conveniently situated for popping out to shops etc.

I am thankful!

So...there won't be much in the way of crafting happening at the moment. I am still waiting for shelving to be installed in my craftroom so I can unpack the large stack of boxes. I look forward to that very much.

Time for me to go put up some hooks. Now ...to find the spirit level...I know it is somewhere in the garage....among the boxes!!! Fun, fun, fun!

Have a lovely day

Getting closer

We are currently waiting on completion of the garage for our new home. We need this to be in place before they install the Air Source Heat system. We now have an alleged handover date for the 7th of December. This is the garage at the end of daylight today. Still needing harling on the outside. Removal van is booked, carpets are booked, washing machine is now booked. We'll see what happens. Watch this space...

That wraps it up

 Using just dies, glue and paper, it is so easy to turn a plain box into an elegant gift box. The pattern on this Tonic Studios Moroccan screen die  is gorgeous. You don't really need much else by way of embellishment.

That just about wraps it up for me with my craft room in this house. I need to get it all boxed up now and ready for the removal men, but I will continue to blog about the progress of our house build / move, so please do pop by my blog to see how we are getting on. See you there!

Have a lovely weekend.

Candlelight with a little help from Tonic

I love candlelight. And I love the look of decorated candles, but I also have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about fire safety. I'd hate to gift a decorated candle only for someone to leave it lit unattended in a moment of distraction, and have the paper catch fire. It doesn't bear thinking about ! That is why I absolutely love these battery operated real wax candles. You can decorate these in exactly the same way and light them in complete safety. They are not too expensive to buy either, so quite viable if you are making a number of gifts.

I bejewelled and layered the Rococo butterfly (from the die and stamp set)  and layered up the flowers cut from the Simply Screens Clematis Vine die so that my decorations are quite 3D. (All Tonic Studios card of course! )

It looks pretty from the back too if you feel like a change. Or if you want to use it as a centerpiece it will look pretty at all angles.

I hope this gives you some ideas of what you can make. 

Have a lovely day

I Miss you card

Just popping by the blog with a quick card today. It's very useful the way Tonic's patterned papers coordinate so perfectly with their solid colour card packs. It makes putting a card together so much easier.

I wonder if I will be saying "I Miss You" to my craft room once I pack it all up. Just a couple more makes to show you before I do that.  Actually, I am planning on leaving my watercolour paints out in case I get the creative urge, so that should hopefully tide me over until I get set up in the new house.
Don't forget to check out the rest of my blog for inspiration and ideas.

Have a great weekend

Thanks a Million

Thanks a million to Tonic Studios for all the wonderful dies, paints, pens, papers and all the other tools and goodies so that all us crafters can have such a fabulous time making cards and so much more. 

I love this paper from the Simply Patterns pack. It reminds me very much of the Kelim patterned sofa we had in our last house. 

I'm going to make one or two more cards in the next day or so, and then I have to begin sorting out and boxing up all my wonderful craft supplies. How will I cope without them!

This is what one corner of the craft room looks like so far ! We still have a few weeks to go here, but I have so much to organise and it is amazing how time flies. We have been in our rental home for just over a year now, and I would say that we have definitely expanded to fit the space we are in if you know what I mean!

It seems that my craft room is the only place where we can stack all our packed boxes without infringing on our other living spaces.

Well, I must get on...talking of time flying, I don't know where my morning went!

Have a lovely day.