my family and other animals

Had a lovely little trip out yesterday with Kim and Vanessa to the Otter and Butterfly Sanctuary. Made more exciting for me because I finally managed to locate the macro setting on Mark's camera and got some nice snaps:

Today I made a quorn and mushroom pie for tea and as I was finishing it off, Mark came home and annoyed me. So I wrote 'twat' in pastry letters on the top of his pie. That'll show him I'm not to be trifled with.

Went to the allotment where I walked into a spider's web and screamed so loudly, the man digging spuds on the next allotment called over to see if I was OK. Felt a bit embarrassed to be honest. I keep telling Oliver that spiders are good, and helpful to our fragile ecology, but my screams of terror and shudders of revulsion whenever I happen upon them must confuse the poor boy. I quote from Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen: 'that's the trouble with the outdoors, it's so full of nature'. I have to agree.

SLYMI this week:

Write in white. I had it all planned out - the journalling was going to be all curly and stylish, and sit beautifully at the bottom right of the photos, thereby balancing the title at the top. However, my crappy white pen refused to co-operate with my artistic flow, so I had to have a re-think amongst two days of sulking and scowling at it. Not quite what I had in mind, but fairly happy with the outcome.

Tomorrow morning at the crack of a sparrow's fart, Oliver and I are off to the back of beyond (well, out past Tiverton way) to look at a kitten. Apparently they have a couple of fluffy females and a tabby short-haired male. I am inclined to go for the boy, since think this will work better with Tabba, but Oliver will get the choice, so I hope all works out well. They are not ready yet, and we will have one in early September. Aaahhhhh. Hopefully they will let me take a photo or two....

Chutney & Cards take 2

Since I was up early (again) today, I cracked on with another batch of chutney - this one I have my doubts about since the apple seems to have broken down too much by the end of cooking, and I fear it may be 'fuzzy' in texture. Also put chilli flakes in this one, which I don't normally use. We'll see....

AND I made French Yoghurt Cake as in Hilary's blog (not tasted it yet) & Nigella's choc birthday cake for my Mum for tomorrow - I have to do the ganache tomorrow so here's hoping it won't resemble chocolate cat sick like the last one I did ha ha.

I made one of those box thingys - you know the ones, where the ends kind of flap down and you get a neat sort of oval-ish parcel. This involved lots of swear words and several bits of paper since I had no template nor idea of what I was doing. Still, I am happy with the finished thing: I used a piece of the Once Upon A Time stack, and the finished article will house Mum's pressie for tomorrow:

second (and realistically the last) card of the day

And here is card number 2:

For my Mum's 60th on Monday. Nothing like leaving it to the last minute....

The inside is actually a pop-out piece, there are flowers and a second butterfly on the other side. It's OK, but cards not really me, I'm afraid....

Have decided to leave the wedding card until later in the month - enough's enough - phew!

third post

of the day. I see that Sarah has passed on a blog challenge - pick the 4th photo from your 4th file (where you store your pics in cyberworld) and publish it on your blog. And tell a bit about it. In my case, this is said photo:

I have actually scrapped this before, for SLYMI:

But I never really liked it, although I liked the photo (taken at St Michael's Mount) & title. It was a sketch challenge, and I have to say, they are not my favourite sort of challenge. Sacrilege to say so in the scrapping world, but hey - I am NOT a Pencil Lines Sketch Fan lol.

Anyhooo, I will pass this challenge on to Sarah, Jill, Linda and Kathi, all of whom are far better photographers than me and no doubt will have stunning pics to show and tell.

happy days

Chutney made, and one card. Not bad. Here is the chutney:

And the card:

And now you see why I am not a cardmaker ha ha. Back off to the craftroom methinks...

cards, scrapping and chutney

well, you join me, reader, on what will hopefully be a day of a few blog posts and making a few bits & pieces. I have been up since 7am, and been to Tesco's to stock up on sugar and vinegar because today is the first chutney day of the season! Mark has taken Oliver off on a jaunt for a few hours pertaining to his new hobby (more about that later) so I am alone - positively unheard of on a Saturday, and at lunchtime my nephew comes for the rest of the day and night so Oliver will be therefore occupied for an entire 24 hours! The excitement is almost unbearable....

My rough timetable is:

- am: chutney making (a fiery one I've made with some success before)
- am: card making (for my Mum's 60th, a friend's 50th and a friend's wedding)
- afternoon: SLYMI for this week (with a glass of wine and a DVD)
- pm: watching You've Been Framed and Total Wipeout with Oliver (and cousin) and a glass
of wine.
- pm: pizza for tea so no-stress cooking!
-pm: preparing my marrow for marrow ginger and cardamom preserve tomorrow

And I've already managed to squeeze in a row with Mark before breakfast over shifts at work, so hey - a very productive morning already I say ha ha.

and here it is

the finished layout for SLYMI, something old: