That is definitely the week that was - and I never want to see it again!!

Hi all

Well that was the week that was! - or wasn't in our case : (((

Our house was visited by the dreaded and awful Covid 19 last week.  

Goodness knows how or where my husband got got infected - but he did

We don't go out except to walk the dogs, have our shopping delivered and are extraordinarily careful - yet still my husband tested positive almost 2 weeks ago now.  Thankfully he wasn't too ill- but it was bad enough.   Thankfully neither myself nor my son got it - again goodness knows how, not so much after the test came back but don't know how we avoided it in the days before he knew

We all self isolated, my hubby in the bedroom with ensuite where I provided a meals service - I will be billing him the £1750 which seems to be the rate set by the government at a later date : )))

I made camp in the spare room and used the family bathroom and spent my days in the kitche n and conservatory with our two puppies.  My son who is disabled and has support workers daily holed up in his room which has it's own bathroom and kitchen. We did exactly as we were told to do and we all came out intact.  I don't ever want a week and a half like that again, I was exhausted at the end of every day.  It was lovely to have the puppies for company but no joke having a 6 month old cocker spaniel who needs lots of daily exercise and a 10 week old Cavalier King Charles not yet house trained and all it did was rain! - they and I  spent the week covered in mud and I spent more ours than I can count freezing in the back garden - that and cooking, cleaning and running around after everone else - with my mask on -in my own home !!

But I'm thankful we are all fit and well, the stress and worry of the situation was enough let alone the horrible illness.  So I join with those who say

Stay safe, stay home

Believe me it's an awful experience

I didn't get time to post my card for Fab'n'Funky challenges last week and the challenge ends today

The theme is an easy one

Anything goes

chosen by our lovely N-Eva

I  had made this card for my husband's birthday just the weekend before all of this happened.

I had treat myself to the lovely Young at Heart collection from Heartfelt Creations when it was on offer around Christmas.  A collection I always wished I had bought first time round - even better as a bargain second time around!

This is what I did

8x8 inch card

Papers all from the young at heart paperpad

Die cut sentiment words - Crafters Companion

Black card

It was a quick, easy masculine card that looked great on our mantlepiece!  

Hurry along to Fab'n'Funky to enter this week - it closes tonight

and here are the puppies

Bruno and Hamilton

believe me they are far far more trouble than they look lol

Hugs Judith xx

So are you looking forward to Christmas

Good morning all

Lets all roll forward to the end of 2021 - it must  be better than the begining of it!

We're doing our usual once a month motivational challenge

at 

Fab'n'Funky Challenges

in a bid to get us all prepared well in advance for the big day 

our theme is 

Christmas

I still have some old art pads from LOTV so decided to make some quick and easy cards - and this is number one!

This is what I did

image -LOTV art pad

Burgundy card from Papermania Christmas pad

papers - very old - lost the cover

Leef dies - Johnnext door

Poinsettia die - Heartfelt creations

twine, jingle bells and embellishments all very old stash

Hope you'll join in with our challenge this week

Hugs Judith xx

Lets all be kind and think of each other - goodness knows we need each other more than ever

Good morning all

Well we've all made it to 2021 - goodbye and good riddance to 2020!

We have our first challenge of the year over at 

Fab'n'Funky Challenges

our lovely Chris has chosen the very appropriate theme 

Thinking of you

it's so relevant to these times we are living through with so much going on,

 where ever you might be in the world.

Living in our third lockdown here in the UK we have so much time to think nd reflect, some good, some very challenging - i'm sure we've all had our moment.

So when Chris suggested a thinking of you challenge i decided to make the effort and treat it in the spirit it was intended.  It helped me because I got my pencils our to colour this pretty image and it gave me a few moments of peace and quiet and I thought about who I would send it to.  This card will go to my mother in law Joan who suffers from dementia, she is 92 and lives in a carehome and also very recently recovered from dementia.  That alone gives us a lot to think about.  She has had no visits in person over this whole time and only very sporadic visits 'in the pod'  from her 3 sons. but we get regular facetime and mostly she is doing well. My DH likes to write little updates for her when he can because she can't remember any of her visits but a written update can be read again and again.....

this is what I did 

8 x 8 card

image- Tigerlily from Pink Ink designs

Coloured with prismacolour pencils 

spaarkle added with Spectrum Noir clear sparkle pen

Papers Bohemia from Dovecraft 

Orange card from Crafters Companion orange cardstock

I'd love to think that Chris's challenge will inspire people to send their thinking of you cards to someone who needs just a a thought right now

Hugs

Judith xx

Thank You or Thanksgiving Challenge at Fab'n'Funky Challenges

Hi All

We have a new challenge this week over at 

Fab'n'Funky Challenges

the theme is

Thank You or Thanksgiving

(so either something for the holiday season or just a little 'ole thank you- either works!)

I made this simple 'any occassion' Thank you card very simply using die cuts and coloured card

Always a handy one to have in your card stash!

Hope you'll join in with our challenge this week 

Hugs

Judith x

Old MacDonald had afarm e -i -e -i -o!!

Good morning all

We have a new challenge over at 

Fab'n'Funky Challenges

the theme is

Old MacDonald

(so anything farm related - animals, crops. farmers, scarecrows - or anything you  can relate to a farm)

This is an 8x8 inch card made with a lovely big stamp from Pink Ink

I love big size stamps

This is what I did...

Image - Goatally Gorgeous from Pink Ink

Coloured with Prismacolour pencils

Papers from MME

large round and scalloped dies - spelbinders

Flower die - crafters companion

I hope you'll play along with us this week

Hugs

Judith x

Blog hop to celebrate our 500th Challenge at Fab'n'Funky Challenges

Good morning all

We have a fabulous celebration this week over at 

Fab'n'Funky Challenges

this week we are celebrating our 500th challenge - and we decided to do it with a blog hop

If you start the hop over at the first post at Fab'n'Funky Challenges you can see all the fabulous prizes up for grabs and visit the blogs in the correct order so that you can collect words along the way and enter our challenge this week.

I decided to make a Christmas card this week in the traditional colours of Christmas that I always love - if I'm going to hit that Christmas card target this year I really need to get going!

(Snowman dies and word dies both by Tim Holtz Alterations at Sizzix)

TWO 

The next stop on the journey is Neva's blog - click on the word above to link to her blog, then follow the links to each blog and along the way - 

• Note down the key word on each blog
• Leave a comment on each blog
• Make a project that fits with the challenge request that will be revealed in the words you collect when you have visited all of the blogs
• Make sure to link our challenge blog in your post
•  And link your entry below. (Please ensure your link is to your post for this challenge not just your blog, Thank you)
• No more than 2 entries per person

We're really so excited to bring this hop to you this week, 

I hope you'll play along - good luck on winning one of our fabulous prize bundles 

 don't forget to leave me a comment before you leave to be in with the chance of a prize

happy hopping!

Hugs Judith xx

It's a bunny day today!

Good morning all

I can't beleive it's almost two months since I posted here. 

But I thought I'd better make the effort to appear 

as it's my turn to host at 

Fab'n'Funky Challenges

I chose the theme

Anything but a card

So here's my ode to lockdown 

- meet Covid the Easter Bunny

He was made for my Grandchildren to go in a basket with Easter eggs and some little bags of caramel shortbread and brownies I made for their Mum and Dad

(I'm sure Jacob and Eva got some too!)

Covid the Easter Bunny and a basket of Easter treats

I've been doing lots of crafting and hobbying! - not so much papercraft (though I started an album yet to be continued) but knitting and sewing, lots of baking and cooking and growing my own little plants from seed and garden tidying and to stay fit a half hour work out in the morning and an hours walk in the afternoon - week sorted! .  I've never been bored and I'm certainly not veging out in front of the TV - though we've started a routine each night before bed we watch an episode or two of 'Parks and Recs' - its so funny - a great end to the day.

I feel like I've been living in a big bubble since our lockdown in March.  I'm actually doing OK with it and not all the changes in life have been bad ones.  I'm not missing the shops that much as I'm much more of an online shopper anyway and we've been doing click and collect for a big weekly shop then stocking up with fresh food in a small store locally once a week and I've enjoyed that too, planning ahead for the weeks meals is something I sort of got out of the habit of when I stopped working.  But I do miss my daily gym routine -  my spin classes in particular, the gym is right next to Tesco so I'd just call in to pick up whatever we wanted for dinner and now that I've had time to think about that I think the weekly shop is so much better use of my time.  So when gym days return I'll definitely keep up with the big weekly shop routine and go straight home to do something much more fun than shopping! 

There's so much time to think about things that have changed these past few weeks I'm sure so many of us will have found some things that have been forced onto us will stay when we get back to whatever normal is!!

I'm not huge on social media anyway but very early on when all the 'rubbish' started to be shared around I really felt a need to stay away and that sort of extended to my blogs as well.  My mobile phone and computer have been gathering a lot of dust, used mainly for recipes and online orders - it's funny the things we do to get through the days - but it works for me, just cutting out too much media has been my saving grace.

So back to the bunny and the sweets!

....This is what I did

Bunny

Knitting pattern is free from Deramores Here

Knit in double knitting wool it was a quick and easy knit 

I had all the wool in my stash anyway - so a total freebee

The recipes for the sweeties 

both from BBC Good Food which is my go to for recipes

I cut each into little 1 inch squares - perfect with a cuppa

- but not too bad for the waistline : )

Chocolate Brownies

Recipe HERE

Easy Millionaires Shortbread

Recipe HERE

Thank you so much for visiting me today - I'll pop round for a visit to you all - its been a nice change to be here today : )))