Smile at TIOT and T stands for a trip!!

We are hoping you can Make Us 'Smile' at Try It On Tuesday's new challenge - the design team have been having fun and I am sure will make you smile! 
I have made a tag with my new stamps from Indigo-blu.

If you are cat owner you will know all about this!
I smooshed some Blueprint Sketch ink over my mat, spritzed it and ran the tag through it. A checkered stamp made a wall and I added little bit of muslin inked black.
I used a dots stencil and a white pen to give some highlights then spattered some black paint. 
The cats were stamped and fussy cut and then I coloured in a few cats. I cut the sentiment up to spread it out a bit.

I am also sharing a drink, a meal and some photos from our visit to Nottingham  with Bluebeard and Elizabeth for T stands for Tuesday. It's a celebration day today!

We arrived at lunch time and met my Uncle and Aunt for lunch but I was too busy catching up that I forgot to take any photos!!
It was lovely to see them as it was about seven years since we had last met. 
Later in the day we caught a bus from our hotel into Nottingham centre. 

We headed for the Lace Market Quarter, which was once the site of many lace factories but now is a much modernised area.

St Mary's church still looks impressive but had shut for the evening when we got there! It is the largest Mediaeval building in Nottingham
It was good see that many of the buildings had been converted into apartments.
The old Unitarian church has been converted into a restaurant 

There is a beautiful window that we ate directly under.

Designed by Philip Burne Jones for Morris and Company, it is what has made the church a listed building. Nottingham council owned the building and £2,000,000 was spent on the renovations by Pitcher and Piano and they have preserved most of the original features.

The food was good too, although we didn't want a lot as we had eaten quite a substantial lunch.

These would have been great otherwise…
We both chose a club sandwich with fries and although the fries were delicious they didn't all get eaten.

Our drink was water

Yes, hubby did have that resigned look on his face!!!
The table had this lovely candle in a cage

The next morning we went back into the city centre and went to the castle area - many changes here too!
They have imported a house from another area and also moved the road away from Robin Hood's statue

 I still haven't managed to get inside this pub!!

We didn't have time this visit to look around the castle.I had hoped to go in the grounds but it is now part of the admission price. When I was younger my family would eat a picnic in the grounds before going in the castle.
We went back past the Council House where they are preparing for Nottingham by the sea!!

This theatre used have great pantomimes as well as plays and concerts.

I hope you have enjoyed this quick tour - I still have Southwell and Lincoln to show you!

I hope you will be tempted to 'Make Us Smile' at TIOT 

Of course you can always bring your drink along to The Altered Book Lover


Thanks for looking, Chris

A garden journal page

Hi everyone, I have a had a great nostgalgia trip to the East Midlands! I had such a busy time I didn't touch my journal that I took with me and my bedtime book wasn't required to settle me for sleep!!
We arrived home late yesterday evening. Today I have had some time to play in my journal…
I love to visit gardens and of course I love being in my caravan garden so Yvonne's theme at Art Journal Journey is right up my err…garden!
This page started as a mop up, had some gelli printing added to it but I just didn't like it.
Today I lightly gessoed over it and added some more of the same stencil -a Tim Holtz one)
The stamps are from Paper Artsy Hot Pick HP1602EZ and the sentiment is from Lin Brown's ELB22. The main image was stamped and then parts of the ledger stamp stamped randomly around the page

I used distress ink that was still on my pad to go around the edge.
The butterfly was stamped onto tissue to make it stand out more - I used gel medium to attach it then caught my finger on the bottom - I think I got it back together OK

I am linking to 
Art Journal Journey  'In My Garden There Is'
Moo Mania - Anything Goes
Craft Stamper - Take it, Make it July challenge - Anything goes

Hoping to get some visiting done tomorrow - looking forward to catching up!!

Thanks for looking, Chris

A weedy journal page

I love Yvonne's theme this month at Art Journal Journey - 'In my garden there is'. My caravan garden often has very large weeds in it as we don't always manage to do any gardening while we are there!!

I started this page with a much darker colour but decided I didn't like it so covered it with some Paper Artsy Fresco paint ( Bora Bora, Hyde park and Wisteria)by putting blobs of paint and blending with an old 'credit card'.
I added some blobs of Pearl Glaze and some sprinkles of Royal Blood Infusions and used the credit card again.

I stamped some patterned stamps and blotted them and also used ink through some stencils - again blotted, before using a heat tool to dry them off properly
I stamped the Lin Brown Paper Artsy ELB22 flowers and teasles using black Archival ink and left it to dry before adding some white pen.

  
The sentiment is one I bought at a show and sad to say don't know whose it is!

Thanks for looking, Chris

Time out!

I'm not here…I am visiting my Aunt and Uncle in Nottingham and then on to my brother's in Lincoln. Nostalgia all the way!
I was born and brought up in Lincoln and moved to the North West of England when my ex hubby got a job over here and I went to college in Liverpool.

My ex hailed from Nottingham and my Aunt and Uncle live two roads down from where he used to live - although they moved from Lincoln after he had left and moved to Lincoln himself(to marry me!)
I spent many weekends at his parent's house and it is where I became friends with his sister - a friendship that lasted longer than my marriage!
I am now of course happily married to my present husband!
We haven't seen my brother for a while so decided to take a little break at the same time! 
I am so looking forward to see some of my family! 

I spent some time yesterday searching for my mojo - started a few backgrounds but little else - today, with a little help from my lovely friend Elizabeth, he edged his way into my craft room.
I still haven't made a great deal of headway on the things I should really be doing but I have done some of it - AND - I have plan!!!

My page started with some random spraying with Dylusions sprays in my large Dylusions journal.
Before going to bed last night I stuck on some ripped book page but didn't glue the whole of the paper. This morning I ripped off the bits that didn't have glue on and got a little bit of texture.
The rest of this page was made in between doing other things!
I added more spray and some texture paste and transparent gloss gel through a stencil

Some more stencilling with gold paint through a text stencil. I grabbed my Paper Artsy box of stamps and did some stamping with parts of a clock and a number stamp.
The main image is a favourite PA Lynne Perrella stamp.
The quote stamp is from Visible Images

I have realised that Family and Friends are what really matters….and of course just playing…

Thanks for looking, Chris

T stands for tea and coffee!

It's time to join Bluebeard and Elizabeth for T stands for Tuesday - if you have a drink related post this is the place to come! 
Last week we were away at our caravan and Thursday morning we went up to Kendal, about a 25 minute drive and we managed to get free parking by the river(which last time we saw it was a raging torrent)

We are here for a drink at Elizabeth's but….my post this week doesn't have a drink in it as I forgot to take a photo of the drink and the food we had - there was a mix up and we didn't get what we wanted which totally put it out of my mind!

The place we went to though, was Farrers, a company established in Kendal in 1819. They supply coffee and tea to many cafes and restaurants as well as their own tea rooms.

Coffee first - of course! They serve some of these on the menu.

Of course if you are a tea lover your tea is in these old canisters.. 

…or these boxes..

….or even these shiny packets!

 Lots of nice mugs and cups to drink out of!

I hope you enjoyed looking here - if only you could smell it too!!

As for me, I am searching for my Mojo - I want it to come back - I have things I need to do!!

This is all I have managed - a 3 x 3 inch mini journal page, well this and few backgrounds that are nothing like anything I want to use, so all need work on them!!! 

Can't even seem to catch up on blogging either….I will try to get to you all soon! 

Thanks for looking, Chris

In a green garden

My caravan garden seems to be waiting for something! 
I looked out on it at the weekend and there are so many shades of green it inspired me to start a journal page for Yvonne's theme at Art Journal Journey -'In My Garden There Is'

I had taken my Derwent Inktense watercolour pencils and my journal with a gessoed page prepared.
Lots of circles mixing colours as I went along. I doodled into them using some Uni-ball Signo sparkly and white pens(bought in the sale at Paperchase) from my pencil case.
On returning home last night I stamped two of the Dina Wakley scribbly birds and coloured them with Derwent coloursoft pencils while watching 'The Help' on TV. I must say that is all I did colour as the film gripped me totally and made me wonder whether we have progressed much over fifty years!
Today having cut them out I added some bees and the sentiment from an Indigoblu set - Bearhugs 
The birds are standing on part of a circular stamp that I repeat stamped over the bottom of the page.
The skies were quite grey this weekend but we did manage to clear away three bags of weeds!!

Whoops! Some bits of daffodil leaves got left behind!
This is at the end of our caravan - before we bought our new caravan three years ago we could see this from our bedroom window.
This is what I look out on now, the greens that inspired me!

 My hydrangeas are coming on nicely though.

My only gripe at the moment is that the farmer who owns the field in front of us hasn't cut his hedge and I don't get to see the curlews that land there occasionally!

Before I go I would like to welcome my latest followers- Nancy, Angela and Jo.

Thanks for looking, Chris

A trip to Paris

I love the theme at Moo Mania and More but this is the first chance I have had to join in.

The theme .. Paris, my favourite city!
It started out with some random stencilling then I ruined it by making a horrible black mess! Thank goodness for some paper that I keep around my work area for getting ink off stamps and stencils! I tore a scrap and covered the mess!

I have added some stencils from Crafters workshop that have some great French themes and a magazine image that I have here at our caravan.

Thanks for looking, Chris


 Moo Mania and More