Hung parliaments and hanging wallpaper...

Both have been on my mind for the last day or so, whilst watching the fascinating (not something I ever thought I would say about politics!) election coverage last night, I was also browsing for THE wallpaper for my dining room. Found this site - www.wallpaperdirect.co.uk - some beautiful papers, easy to browse and they offer a shortlist function and they will send you samples if you want them, they also do paints and curtains etc, so making it much easier to end up with a co-ordinated room. However, that is not the way I work!! I start with a picture in my head of how the room should look, then have to spend weeks finding things that fit with that picture. The only definite decisions are that the red-brick fireplace is going to be painted white, and that I am going to have a very dramatic,wallpaper on the chimney breast. From such small beginnings are beautiful rooms made. Watch this space...

Back to the election for a moment, with stats like these: 5.9m votes gets labour 178 seats, 4.8m votes gets libdems 36 seats and Votes needed to get one MP: Lab: 33k, Con: 35k/seat; LibDem 126k/seat, Greens 200k. you have to think that perhaps it is finally time for some kind of electoral reform, although I can't see the big 2 going for it - why would they? They certainly wont gain by it...

One thing I have decided on, though, is my next crafting project. Can't say too much here as it's going to be a present for a member of my family, but I will treat you to the occasional sneak peak, just to keep you interested. Will post a pic of the finished item after it has been gifted.

Although I haven't done a lot of crafting recently, I do have a few pics to share with you: First of all, a couple of canvases for my front room

A few cards:

Some knitting, yes - I wield the occasional knitting needle...

And finally, a clock made from an altered tin.

Haven't been crafting...

Because I've been too busy studying for my MA in local history. I've got a break now til October, so will hopefully be doing a bit more in the crafty sphere.

I have, however been blog-hopping, and have a few I think you should all see!

http://www.vintagefabricmarket.co.uk/index.html - absolutely gorgeous, all sorts of vintage stuff to drool over.

This one is great if, like me, you are more of a domestic slut than a domestic goddess!

http://www.domesticsluttery.com/

Another of my fave things is looking at other peoples' homes, I try to kid myself that it's to get some inspiration for my own home, but actually I think I'm just nosy...

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/

More yummy things for your (dream?) home!!

http://www.bellemaison23.com/

I hope you enjoy these as much as I did, and please let me know of any other blogs/sites etc you think I should see.

Well, here we are again!!

I cannot believe how long it's been since I last blogged. I know life has been busy, but really, where has the time gone?
Since I last blogged, my eldest daughter has married, and my eldest son has got engaged to his childhood sweetheart - must be something in the air...
On a personal note - despite leaving school at 17 with only 'O' levels, I have been accepted to study for an MA in local history - the only problem is, I can't get any funding, despite the fact that this would be my first degree. I have contacted various organisations, foundations and charities, am doing boot sales, table top sales, saving loose change and anything else I can think of to raise the money. I don't know if any of you have seen milliondollargallery.com - it's a website that sells pixels to companies to advertise their products. Having had it pointed out to me, I thought perhaps it would be worth trying something similar to raise my tuition fees - I know it's cheeky, but short of selling my (rather ample) body, there' s not much I won't try at this stage! The idea is in it's infancy just now, but the idea is that companies or individuals pay a very small sum to advertise on my blog, or to send messages to loved ones - anything legal or decent, in fact!

I must be getting old...

Not only do policeman look ever younger, but time flies so fast! I can't believe that we're halfway through September already...
The last few months have been interesting - to say the least! - but at least I will never be able to complain that my life is in any way boring. For the first time in more years than I care to remember, I don't have a child in infant school any more. My youngest is now in year 3, and my youngest son has made the move to High School. Boy, do I feel old now! My eldest daughter is pregnant with our second grandchild, probably a girl. Now all she needs to do is to sort the rest of her life...
We have 2 new additions to the family, in the form of 2 very mischievous kittens - Rafi and Sasha. Naughty they may be, but they are soooo cute. :)
I haven't been totally idle on the craft front, although I haven't done as much as I would have like to have done. I'm very proud of the fact that I managed to create a template for my craft robo with which to cut a pyramid shaped exploding box. Little things and little minds...

Grand store re-opening!!

Well - sort of! I've renamed my ebay store and generally sort of played around with it to make it more user-friendly etc. The new name? Les Barbes de Chat. There's also a new offer in the store - spend over £10 on cards and stationery and pay no p&p! It's got to be worth a look...
Some more stuff I've made recently:

How time flies!

I really can't believe that the last time I updated my blog was February! What happened to the last 4 months? Anyway, one of the things that happened in the last 4 months is that we finally redecorated our bedroom - we moved to this house nearly 5 years ago and, apart from taking up a very nasty rag (I think at one time it may have been a carpet!) we've done nothing to our bedroom. It had got to the stage where it was being used as a dumping ground for everything we couldn't find a proper home for - I guess lots of you know that feeling, eh? I kindly allowed my husband to do all the donkey work - I chose the colours etc and he did the work - but I did make some wallart.

The letters were made using a technique described by a very talented artist on UKS, Maddy Hill - they're made from foamcore, hand cut then covered, coloured and embellished. Because they're so light, they are simply stuck on the wall with sticky dots. I'm really pleased with the way they turned out. The last picture is not really very good, but in real life it's pretty good - I painted an acrylic painting board in a scrumptious pink metallic acrylic paint. Once that was dry, I used a Heidi Swapp mask - the bird and branch, then masked off 3 equal horizontal stripes. The bottom stripe was painted in the palest colour emulsion we used for the walls, the top one is the dark colour we used, and the centre stripe is a custom mix of the two. It took a while, because of the masking and waiting for bits to dry, but I think it was well worth the wait. I then painted a piece of thin cardboard in a metallic rust colour, and placed the picture on top of it, then added a glass clip frame. To alleviate the huge expanse of plain glass, I used some foam stamps with stazon inks and stamped a frame onto the glass, around the edge of the picture. We are really happy with the final result - not only do we have some personalized art, but it cost a fraction of the price we would have had to pay had we purchased something ready-made.

Love is in the air!

Lots of romantic happenings at the moment - my friend Anna got married yesterday in Plymouth. Apparently it was a fabulous day, everything went to plan, the weather was fab and Anna looked amazing! Lots of love and best wishes to Anna, Phil and the children.
Still on the wedding theme, it appears that another friend is planning to get married in late august/early september - I'm already planning my outfit!
Had a call from a UKS friend this morning - we've only chatted online up til now, but this morning we spoke on the phone - for at least an hour, and we could easily have kept on going...
And, I had a call from the car dealership - everything seems to be on course for me to collect my brand new car on tuesday. This is just sooo exciting, we've never had a new car before and never thought we would. How wonderful was it to be able to choose the colour of my car, instead of having to take what was there. We finally decided on a very grown-up black pearl (they don't do it in pink!). If you are in South Wales and are in the market for a new car, you could do worse than Evans Halshaw, Phoenix Way, Swansea Enterprise Park - we've been dealing with Jenny Price - what a lovely lady, nothing is too much trouble, and she has a wicked sense of humour, too...
We're taking Maddi for her first ever eye-test tomorrow, she's really excited about it, but I'm hoping that she isn't going to need glasses. We'll also be picking up Loaghans new pair. Very cool, kids glasses these days are very funky - not the horrible nhs things I remember from when I was a kid!

Some cards and ATC's

Look what we got today...

Well, you can imagine how delighted we all were when it started to snow this morning! We had a call from the school at about 9:30 to say that the school was closing because of snow. I thought they were joking, because at the time all we had were a few very light snow showers, apparently it had been snowing really hard in Carmarthen, which is where our teacher lives (yes, we do only have 1 teacher!) By lunchtime, we had 4 inches of snow and there was no way any vehicles were getting out of the village, unless they happened to be tractors! The children spent the entire day playing out in the snow, and even I ventured out for a while to get some piccies.

I've also managed some ATC's and some greetings cards, so I'm feeling quite pleased with myself, but as I haven't managed to get my head round organising photos on here, I'll put them in a separate post...