Shopping at Primani

Hehehehe did you guess?  Yes that's what some people, including my niece, call Primark.  It's not a shop I often go in, I think it's ok for younger people to buy cheap clothes, as many of them would look good even in a bin bag!  However sometimes Primark do have stuff that I like.  I've had a pair of sandals and mules which were great and some vest tops.  Today I bought 3 t-shirts for £8 and the material is good.  Do you remember that programme, 'Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width'? LOL Well I always feel the fabric.  As well as this striped t-shirt; photo taken in a mirror; I bought a brown one and a white one.   All long sleeves, but I'll probably shorten the other 2.  The brown one I plan to embellish and the white 1 to dye and embellish.  The striped one and the brown are cotton with 5% elastane while the white is 100% cotton.  In the interests of research for anyone who may wish to pop round to their local Primani and buy some, I have washed the white one and can tell you it has retained it's shape and has not shrunk (handwashed but I feel it would be fine in a washing machine at a low temperature). A word of caution though, buy a size larger than you normally get ;-)

I thought I'd show some of my plants.  The hydrangea is in the front garden, but the colour is much deeper than it looks here.  The clematis and passion flower are on the wall from of my balcony thingy.  There are 2 clematises actually but one has finished flowering.  I usually call it a verandah but apparantly that has a roof but somehow balcony conjurs up images of something projecting out from a wall; mine doesn't, it leads out from the living room via patio doors and then there are steps down to the garden so is it a balcony or indeed a patio?
Little note - I do usually have my hair straight, but when it's overgrown sometimes I just wash it and leave it; sometimes just too lazy to blowdry it then straighten it!

WOYWW - July 27th

Eek mine's a right mess again.  Firstly the eyes are still on my wonderful easel - I won't be decorating mine.  There's a piece of paper with an imprint of a flower that I pounded onto a piece of fabric but it didn't turn out very well, too many petals so it wasn't definite enough, but I will have another go.  You just pound it with a hammer so if you've lots of pent up frustration have a go.  Then there are some stencils I've been using and lots of bits and pieces some of which  have been laying around for weeks!  Pop over too the magnificent Miss Julia's and see just how many people are proudly showing their workdesks and then join in.  Oh you may have heard that it was my birthday on Sunday LOL well I blogged the cards I'd received up till then in Mondays post but here are the ones that arrived Monday and Tuesday - thanks be for cyber friends otherwise the pile would be a lot smaller!

I went to Ikea yesterday and found some cake stencils and masks which I bought but not for cakes ;-)  I've sprayed the 4 large ones - approx 11" diameter - onto one sheet.  The green ones show negative and positive, those 2 are 81/2" x 81/2" and the blue ones are 5" diameter.  The 3 small and 2 medium were in 1 pack for £1.99 and the 4 large in 1 pack for£2.99 - bargain!

 

For pics of York and recipe for Tiffin see previous post.  For USA visitors after looking on the internet I think Graham's Crackers may be a reasonable alternative for digestive biscuits in the recipe ;-)

xx

Out and about in York plus recipe for Tiffin

If at first you don't succeed! Lots of pics so if you just want the recipe for Tiffin fast forward to the end ;-)

I love the little slices of life we get when Elizabeth is 'out and about' so thought I'd do a similar post.  As I was in York yesterday for the monthly meeting of our cloth doll group I thought it was an ideal opportunity.  We were sadly depleted by about half yesterday.  2 of the pics show 2 vessels that members were working on, one completed one almost completed.  I cut mine up (shown a couple of weeks ago) and have decided to sew it onto some background fabric and may make a purse.  One of our members had been to Turkey and bought some beads at £1 per pack, the packs are about 6 inches long so a real bargain - hope I find some when I'm there next month :-)  There's also a pic of a doll in progress - not mine. I've included a couple of pics of York St John University where we meet.

 

York is a walled city and you are able to walk round the walls.  You can just see some people walking along the wall in one pic.  There are 4 gates through the walls into the city one of which I'm showing here.  York Minster is an impressive piece of architecture and took 250 years to complete.  It has been ravaged by fire a few times, most recently in 1984 and took 4 years to repair the damage.  It's currently undergoing some renovation.  I've included a pic of a statue of Constantine the Great which is situated outside the minster; he was Roman Emperor in York in 306 AD.

There was a bicycle race in York yesterday and I managed to get quite a good picture of some of the cyclists. We were only allowed through the barriers to cross the roads when there was sufficient gap in the race.

Some of the pics of the shops I took just because the window display caught my eye, such as the 'dog'. I've included the Cath Kidston shop just because I know many crafters love her style. Little Betty's is part of the famous 'Betty's'.  I took a photo of the inside of the shop to show the variety of teas and coffees they sell, but I should've got a little closer.  The confectionery display was sea-themed.

The last few pics are small ones, but the rest you can click on for a larger view.
Can anyone tell me why the text keeps aligning itself in the centre?  Can't believe how much HTML code there is when you go into 'Edit HTML'!  For the most part the pics placed themselves where they wanted!  If I tried to move an odd one it always jumped to the bottom of the post, that's why the pics are higgledy piggledy :-/

Finally - Tiffin!  I've never met anyone that didn't love it :-)  I'm showing the cards I'd received up till Saturday, I've received some more today so may add them tomorrow.  Thank you for all your good wishes and to all those who sent cards, it's very much appreciated.  It's Chrissie's birthday today (just to let you know she's a year older than me ROFL) so why not pop over and wish her happy birthday.  It's also Angela's birthday on Wednesday and Nicci's on Saturday ;-)

Recipe

1/2 lb digestive biscuits

3 oz butter

1 tabs syrup

1 tabs cocoa powder

1 tabs sugar

2 tabs sultanas (I use raisins)

4 oz chocolate

Put all ingredients in a pan, except digestives and chocolate, and melt slowly crush the digestives and add them to the mixture give it a good stir to ensure biccys are all coated then turn into a tin (magic eh? - turning it into a tin!!! duh!) or whatever.  Melt the chocolate and pour over.

Sorry it's not metric measurement but I'm sure you can work it out if you work in metric :-/

xx

Arrrghhhhh!!!

Having a nightmare placing pics where I want them so please pop back later for pics of York and recipe for Tiffin ;-)

Happy Birthday to me ;-)

Just a quick post today as I'm rather tired.  I was going to do an 'Out and About' a la Elizabeth, but that will be tomorrow now.   Please pop back tomorrow for pics of York and the recipe for Tiffin ;-)
Thank you to everyone for my birthday wishes and cards.  See you tomorrow I hope xx

Anything goes week 8 - Stars

DD asked me to make a card for a little boy she's been looking after for a few years as a childminder.  I'd made one with stars on for another boy that she only looked after during the holidays but had already given it to her when I saw this week's challenge for Anything Goes so thought I'd put stars on this one too.  I've usedholographic card behind the checked paper, to mount the greeting on and for the stars (I find holo can look like striped/patterned paper in photos) The monkey and snake are dimensional stickers from Poundland - 2 sheets per pack  :-)

WOYWW 21st July

Firstly I'm going to be blatant and tell you it's my birthday on Sunday, yay!  Why should I miss out on as many good wishes as I can get? hehehe

I've gone for the full frontal this week as opposed to the aerial view of my desk so you can better see how messy it is.  Centre stage is my July page for my 365 journal - check out Kathryn's blog for more details; you can join in anytime don't think you have to have started in January.  For the beady-eyed amongst you, I'm not cheating by having written something in for tomorrow, it's just to say the tap dance class has finished now till Sept.  Pop over to our delightful host Julia's pad and then join us by showing what's on your workdesk ;-)

xx
Edited - the orange and brown piece on the right is chipboard and was my entry for Hels' Sunday Stampers challenge (2 posts down)
Just in case Doone passes this way - I was unable to comment on your blog :-(

Is this weird? or what?

Yesterday a film popped into my head it's called 'I Confess' and is about a murderer who confesses to a priest, but as the priest cannot divulge this he is himself accused.  Then today I'm watching 'Diagnosis Murder' and it's about the same thing!  Just coincidence?  What do you think?
dododododododo - supposed to be spooky music LOL

Sunday Stampers - Believing/Journey

If you'd like to join in the Sunday Stampers challenge and why wouldn't you ;-) pop over to La Casa de Hels.  For the challenges you can make anything you like so long as it includes the theme and at least some stamping, simples!  We have a choice this week, either 'Believing', 'Journey' or both.  I cut the end off a piece of chipboard using one of Tim's 'On The Edge' dies -  well it's not Tims' it's mine but YKWIM ;-)  I used DIs on the background, stamped Tim's butterfly and my dotty stamp from The Artistic Stamper.  I coloured some Golden gel medium with pigment powder and used it to stencil the flowers; been doing a lot of that lately, I love it and it adds dimension.  Can you guess what I made the flower from? No?  Well I'll tell you then - a Primula cheese spread tube :-0  I think Elizabeth; 'The Queen of Recycling' will be proud of me LOL  The little round frame is really plastic that looks like metal on one side (got them yonks ago from QVC), coloured with alcohol inks.  The sentiment is my own printed off the PC - however if I have half-remembered some famous quote I apologise!

x

Sunday Stampers - Blue

Check out Hels' blog for more info about the Sunday Stampers challenge. Last Sundays theme was Blue.  I couldn't decide what to do for this then remembered I had one of the little tag books that I won some weeks ago on Hels' blog.  I started off with gesso on the base and stamped things into it for some texture - but you konw how these things go sometimes; you haven't totally decided on the end result so now most of the texture is hidden.  I sprayed with the Altered Originals Sky Blue then when it was dry sprayed the same again through a stencil.  I decided on just simple stamping and have used 3 of Tim's minis.  Did you spot the deliberate mistake?  hehe  If you haven't seen the mini stamp with the skull on you may not notice as it's not really clear here, but that one is upside down.  I will rectify it but wanted to get my entry posted.

x

WOYWW July 14th - Bastille Day! and my sister's birthday

Pop over to Julia's to find out what's going on on desks round the world - tidy or messy we don't mind.  I've got 2 pages for my 365 journal  for July - for more info check out Kathryn's blog.  I decided to join in last month but when I got to the last couple of days I decided I didn't like the pages so was going to cut all the 'days' out and stick them on these 2 pages, but as I didn't get time to do it I thought I'd forget June and start with this month.  Also on show of course are the eyes proudly displayed on my beautiful easel and the gubbins for a new baby card :-)

Still AWOL

Hi all, DS is in hospital in Southport so I've been travelling down staying over a couple of nights and coming back for one night.  He's on the mend now.  But he needs to sell his house and as he works away most of the time and then sees his girls at the weekends he hasn't got round to sorting things out, so my sisters have been helping me tidy, clean, paint and sort the garden out (for garden read weed patch) - still not finished.
xx