Bug Boy at it Again!

Warning! Close up photos of Insects - Look away if you don't like them!

Anyone who regularly passes by my blog will know that my youngest son has a passion for bugs, creepy crawlies and anything you can find out in the garden, so it didn't suprise me when he came running in with this yesterday...  

See those lovely dirty fingers? Yes bug boy was back but with a snail this time! I rarely ever get my SLR camera out but with nothing better to do I took some more photo's in the garden.

Bug Boy feeding the snail, look at the beautiful colours of his little house!

And the snail going for a climb.

I have also bought some plants for the garden, this beautiful hydranga.

And these winter Cyclamen which had just been watered.

Finally, indoors I found these..

Not sure what it is, and neither did bug boy, but it obviously wanted a rest from being outside. I am going to enter this photo into the Macro Monday Challenge on Lisa's blog here. I only found this blog today and there are some stunning photos there.  I also found this hairy fellow..

Which I was not so keen on, but he sat still for a photo and then did a little dance with his back legs so must have been a bit of a performer! I hope that you are enjoying the bank holiday weekend, leave a comment and let me know what you have been upto!

Tracey x

Back from hols with some exciting news..

We have just returned from our family holiday in Italy. We are totally in love with the country, the food, the wine and the people!  We are also totally in love with the landscape and architecture, we stayed in Umbria, next to Tuscany. 

Fields of sunflowers are out at the moment stretching as far as the eye can see..

The weather was changable and there were some magnificent thunder storms that you could see rolling towards you from over the hills. Mixed with the sunset, they produced some magical colours and scenes that made me feel quite humble at the beauty of it all.

And most exciting was this sunset taken one beautiful evening...

When we took a walk up to our new adventure, what will be our home away from home, Hubby's dream. An old farmhouse with beautiful views of the valley. 

The structure is not great so the whole building will have to come down and will be rebuilt but all useable roof tiles, stone, beams etc will be set aside to be re-used in the new house. If you have an interest in property renovation then take a look a hubby's blog where he is going to record our journey with lots of photos.

Apologies for the non crafting post, let me know where in the world you love to visit!

Tracey x

A Coaster Album of My Fellas

Another Mini Album that I made at a class with Sugar and Spice Crafts in Barleylands Billericay is a coaster album. I love the papers we used they were girly and lovely and I decided to keep this book for myself and put photos of the special fellas in my life inside..

We choose a letter and cut it on their massive Die Cut Machine! Then inked around the edges. The flower and butterfly were added when I got home.

I even put a rare photo of myself with the kids in.  I HATE having my photo taken!

My gorgeous hubby and our fluffy little norfolk terrier or is it fluffy hubby and gorgeous norfolk terrier?

Four hearts, one for each of my family and a photo I took of the boys for photography class but they could not stop messing about long enough for me to get a good one!

And the back! We inked the edges of the coaster pink after we had covered them. We then used a ring to hold it all together and tied some co-ordinating ribbon round for decoration.

I hope you like it, I enjoyed making it and have already bought some more blanks ones to do some more!

Have a Wonderful Week.

Tracey x

What's on Your Work Desk Wednesday?

Hi fellow WOYWWers I hope you have been having a great week!  This is what's on my desk today..

Yes I have finally bought myself some copies of Craft Stamper magazine, after seeing all of your lovely creations I have decided to try to get a bit more inky!  I also made some purchases when I went to my fav craft shop on Saturday, they had 20% of everything so it would be rude not to buy anthing don't you think?

I'm really loving making mini books at the mo so I bought some little stamps that I can use to decorate them and a some words stamps too. Here is another purchase I made this week..

Twenty to 40 year old vintage buttons in the jar with the ribbon attached for £10! I love them! They were for crafting but actually look so lovely sitting on my fireplace at the moment so I may well have to order some more. They are from Cavania the link is here.

Finally that card that I had to make last week for my hairdresser, the one about either stick people, trains or morris dancers, well I finally came up with this..

You can't see it but its on linen card stock. It's not a great photo but here's a close up..

I googled stick men bride and groom and this came up so I printed it and drew over the lines again because they were a bit sketchy and used my promarker to shade around the edge. I have added glamour dust to her dress and veil, crystal flowers to her bouquet and used glossy accents on his hat.

Anyway she picked the cards up last night and loved it so I am a relieved crafter with a lovely haircut!

Pop over to our wonderful host Julia's blog to have a look at other peoples desks! The kids have friends round today so I will catch up with you all this evening and the coming days probably! Have fun!

Tracey x

A Star Shaped Mini Album...

Every Saturday for the last four weeks I have been going to my local craft shop Sugar and Spice, in Barleylands Craft Village to do the 'Off the Page' course run by Nina. I have had such a fab time, met some great ladies and learnt some new techniques.

This weekend, I made this!!

A mini book that folds out like a star!

Then folds back up like this

and contains lots of 3 by 2 inch photos

on each page

This really has been the most lovely mini book I have every made, and they are so easy to do! I am going to make some with Christmas papers and give them our families so that they can hang them up as a decoration. The photos in this one are of our trip to Lapland over Christmas three years ago we had a blast and the kids loved seeing Father Christmas on Christmas Day!

I hope you all have a great week.

Tracey x

Close Up of Cards

I thought I would show a close up of the cards that were in my previous post and give the details.

The cupcake card is a digi download from Pink Petticoat and so is the pink paper that I have used in the background called Flourishes and I have added some glamour dust over the flourishes.

The sentiment was printed from the computer and layered onto pink cardstock. The texture on the cupcake was made using Woodware's  Fluffy Stuff (thats what it's called!) I applied it to the cup cake, threw some glamour dust over it and then used my heat tool to set it.

I also printed the image onto the flourishes paper and cut the cupcake case out and stuck it to the original image to match the rest of the paper. The button was from Basic Grey and the leaves were coloured with promarkers.

The other card is one I have made for a Sapphire Wedding Anniversary

I stamped the heart in Versafine Magestic Blue onto white linen cardstock. I then mounted the image on some silver and dark blue card in layers, some with tape and some with foam pads to make it stand out a bit. Blue and clear gems were added to the heart. The image was printed from the computer onto linen cardstock and then mounted onto dark blue. I added a bit of blue organza ribbon underneath the heart to finish it off!

Hope you like them! Have a great week!

Tracey x

What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday!

Hello fellow WOYWWers, I hope you are all having a great week! My little one has been on summer holidays for over a week now and I think I have worn him out as he is still asleep at 10 am this morning! Oh to be 6 again eh?  This is what my workdesk looks like today..

I am just finishing some cards that my hairdresser asked for, these two weren't too hard but I am stuggling with the final request, a wedding card with stick men and a train or morris dancers! In my dear hairdressers own words it is a little bizarre and I am trying to come up with some ideas that still look weddingy if you know what I mean, any ideas are greatly appreciated!!!

This is a close up of the two cards I have made..

A saphirre anniversary card and a 40th birthday card that had to have a cupcake on it!

My eldest son finished school tomorrow and we are all looking forward to chilling out together, I can't wait, especially if they manage not to argue too much!

Pop over to our lovely host, Julia's blog to join in or just have a nosey at everyone else's desk.

Have a wonderful week and I will visit you later!

Tracey x