Blogtober Day 31 - Memorandum Monday or Hooray I have managed to do four blog posts per week for the last month!!!

Yay today is the last day of Blogtober and I managed to meet my goal of four blog posts per week.  I still have a backlog of stuff to blog but at least the amount is not so daunting now.

Today is also Monday, so it is time to reflect on the weekend and pay a visit to Sian over at From High in the Sky.  It was a very busy, packed crafty weekend at the A Trip Down Memory Lane retreat.  They hold two per year at the beautiful Stoke by Nayland Hotel.

Wendy was my chauffeur and we took a rather loaded car with us (PS the back seat was pretty loaded too!!!!)

The rooms are beautiful but you don't spend much time in there

The crop rooms are large and there are lots of shopping opportunities

 I was very productive, did 6 classes and got 12 layouts done and a thirteenth is almost finished.

And Monday finds me with all my crop unpacking to be done - I think I travelled quite light really!!

I have a busy crafty week ahead, WI craft class, my monthly scrap class and a crop to look forward to.  Hope you all have a great week and if you get a chance go and visit Sian and give her a wave.

Blogtober Day 30 - Asilah

This was one of Anita's classes from last year.  The paper range is Bo Bunny Rose Cafe

 As soon as I saw the small tiles that Anita had cut from the paper I knew that it was going to be the perfect layout for some of my photographs from Christmas Eve 2012 when we visited Asilah in Morocco.  

The circles were made with Liquid Pearls in Rose Gold.

Thank you Anita for another great class

Blogtober Day 28 - using up kit leftovers

I had lots of bits and bobs of a magazine freebie paper pack leftover, so I started out by covering a load of card blanks with the papers.  Then I matched stamped images (all of them Penny Black) that I had coloured a while ago with the card blanks.

The sentiments are a mixture of Stampin' Up, Hero Arts and Personal Impressions

Punches used are EK Success butterfly, Stampin' Up scalloped border and small flower.

That's a few more cards to restock my for sale box.

Blogtober Day 26 - Beat the Christmas Rush - the October Edition

I need to up my production rate of cards the closer we get to December as I still have one more fundraiser to do plus I have my own cards to send.  So I made 10 cards for this month's edition.

I used a lovely doily die from Penny Black and mounted a snowman from Stampin' Up set 'Snow Place' on top of it, the little santa hat is also from that stamp and die set.

The little white peel off sentiments are from Woodware and the sequins are from my stash.

If you would like to join in with Beat the Christmas Rush please leave a link to your blog post below -

Blogtober Day 24 - Memorandum Monday

I'm dashing in with my weekend round up and waving hello to Sian over at From High in the Sky.

It was another fairly quiet weekend, the weather was very autumnal and a bit wet at times so we mainly stayed close to home.  I did go to my parents on Saturday evening to watch Strictly and as ever did a bit of multi-tasking and coloured in a load of stamped images ready to be turned into cards for my next fundraiser.

I also worked on another big batch of Christmas cards and it is a good job I started these as I have just realised that tomorrow is the 25th and I need to blog Beat the Christmas Rush - guess what I will be finishing off as soon as I have finished this blog post!!  Hopefully I will get them blogged tomorrow.

Today has been a fairly quiet day, I went over to Brighton with Mr P this afternoon to the funeral of one of his friends' Dad.  I hadn't realised that it was half term so the roads were pretty quiet and we had a very good trip there and back.  I have a busy week ahead - I am going on the ATDML retreat on Friday so I have to sort lots of photographs out ready for my chosen classes plus some spare kits for if I run out of work to do.  Luckily I keep my tote semi-packed most of the time so I just need to check that I have my favourite scissors, a trimmer and plenty of glue/adhesive packed - though there is a very good shop on site if I run out of anything - now repeat after me 'Karen you do not need any more patterned paper, Karen you do not need ......................'

I hope you all have a good week and I will hopefully have lots of retreat photographs to share next weekend - sadly the retreat does not clash with Halloween this year so there will be no dressing up.

Blogtober Day 23 - Dukes Farm Table Gifts

When we have our little crafty meet up each year in Wales we usually all exchange small gifts and this year was no exception.

I had some little packs of nail gems which are great to use for crafting so I made a little box to put them in with my WRMK gift box punch board.

I decorated the boxes using SU Perpetual Calendar stamps in Daffodil Delight and Smoky Slate.

I then added a sweet treat on the top - white chocolate coins decorated with punched scallop circles and a LOTV round sentiment stamp.

In return I was given these lovely gifts -

Decorated mugs by Jessie

Journalling prompts from Jules

Easter chocs in a basket from Fiona

 A box of embellishments from Gemma

Decorated pringle tubs from Sy (they didn't last long LOL!!)

Post it note pad from Dee

A brooch from Lisa

Mini bottle of wine from Mr P and washi tape from Lee

Quilted coaster and pot holder from Tara

Blogtober Day 22 - Gorgeous Grunge meets Papillon Potpourri

At the beginning of the year I went to the Littlegreen Crop retreat which was held at a lovely hotel on the outskirts of Arundel.  One of the make and takes was this lovely card using Stampin' Up goodies.

When I got home I decided to make some more in different colour combos.

These use Pool Party, Smoky Slate, Wisteria Wonder and Blackberry Bliss

And Tip Top Taupe, Delightful Dijon, Mint Macaron and Watermelon Wonder

And Smoky Slate, Basic Grey, Melon Mambo and Bermuda Bay

The stamps used are Gorgeous Grunge and Papillon Potpourri with a mini flower punch and the butterfly punch that co-ordinates with the stamps.  All the greetings are from Personal Impressions. These are great cards when you need a quick batch in a hurry - thank you Sarah for the inspiration.