Mam's Birthday

My final family birthday card is for this year is my Mam's, two days before Christmas. Needed to get it done before I fly home for Christmas on Tuesday and won't have any cardmaking stuff with me.

The image and backing sheet are from a fellow imag-e-nationer, Jade Woodward. Mounted the image of the young girl on the same backing paper and gold pearlescent card. Printed the sentiment off, and used the classic rectangle nestabilities to cut it out, then mounted it on the same gold cardstock, the mat cut using the scalloped rectangle nesabilities. Finishing the card off with cream organza ribbon.

Silver Wedding Celebrations

Billy and I celebrated our Silver Wedding Anniversary in October but due to work commitments we didn't have the celebration party till the middle of November. We had a great night surrounded by family and friends, about 90 in total.

We did say to everyone that rather than giving us a present, that they put in a donation to Think Pink Bahrain and as a result we raised BD500 (almost ₤900). We also arranged for a photographer to come along from Bahrain This Month, one of the monthly magazines in Bahrain to take some photos, some of which have appeared in the December edition of the magazine.

Will, Me & Billy

The Neighbours

John, Fran, Rod and Barbara

Mel, Trish, Denise, Betty, Barney, Allan, Davie, Nigel, Jim and Barry

Ally, Debbie, Alison, Will, Me and Billy

Tuesday's efforts

Haven't made cards for ages, so settled down this morning to get a couple of outstanding orders done.

This one is for a 60th birthday for a guy who is very much into vintage cars and Harley Davidsons. Printed off a photo of an vintage card and mounted it on red and black cardstock. Used the same red and black card for the sentiment. Under the car put the Harley Davidson slogan - 'It's not the destination, it's the journey'.

The second card a female on this time. Used Bo Bunny cardstock 'Cosmic snowdrop' to the backing and mats and Bo Bunny's Cosmic Poppy for the flower - Bosskut Large Daisy - and finished off the flower and mat with dewdrop gem stones. The sentiment was silver peeloff coloured with a green peeloff marker pen.

Canasta Morning & Pot Luck Lunch

There have been a few birthdays on the Palace calendar. Not all had a celebration but one that did was my friend, Pam, who reached 60. Her canasta playing buddies organised a surprise canasta morning followed by lunch for her. We all gathered at Mel's and were all adorned with party hats when Pam walked. Had a great morning playing canasta and rounded the day off with a pot luck lunch, with all of us bringing along something.

Some of the gang

Pam and Rose looking at her pressie

Happy St Andrews Day

Where do I begin, what a hectic few weeks this has been and as a result the Palace Noticeboard has been quite neglected.

Well today is St Andrews Day, a special day for us Scots, as it our patron saint's day. Not only is St Andrew the patron saint of Scotland, but he is also the patron saint of Russia and Greece. Although in Scotland there doesn't seem to be a lot done to celebrate St Andrews Day, for Scottish expats it is a day of celebrations. This year our celebrations were held on Thursday night with the Awali Callies holding their annual St Andrews Night Ball. So out come the kilts and posh frocks. Have to say I think Billy and I scrub up well, mind you I am a wee bit biased!!!!

The Awali Callies' Committee.

Andy Doherty, Me, Brian Tierney, Alistair Woods, Debbie Macleod, Jamie Bowden (British Ambassador to Bahrain), Sarah Bowden, Alistair Macleod, Nancy Shepherd and Billy.

For me, the preparations for the ball are quite hectic as being Secretary of the Callies, one of my jobs was to make the placecards, menus and seating plan lists done.

Not only that I had to the thank you cards to the guest speaker, John Rutherford, who gave the toast to St Andrews, the Glencraig Scottish Dance Band providing the music for the dancing. I have to say thanks to Jak, for the thistle image and backing paper.

I think John Rutherford summed up how many expats, not only scots but any nationality, feel about their heritage by finishing up his speech before toasting St Andrew with the chorus from the song 'Caledonia'

Let me tell you that I love you

And I think about you all the time

Caledonia you’re calling me, now I’m goin’ home

But if I should become a stranger

Know that it would make me more than sad

Caledonia’s been everything I’ve ever had.

Been Tagged

I've been tagged by Val.

With this tag I have to give 7 interesting facts about me. And pass the tag on to 7 more people, so here it goes:

1. My four favourite people in the world are, my darling husband of 25 years and my three wonderful works in progress, Tara, Sarah and Will.

2. Was born an expat brat. Boy does it cause hassle when I have to renew my passport.

3. Glad I was born a girl as my Dad always says that if I had been a boy I would have been called Basil.

4. Am Secretary of the Awali Callies, well someone needs to get the guys in order.

5. Am petrified of snakes.

6. My favourite places to eat are Trader Vics in Bahrain and think I would have to say Simpsons in Aberdeen.

7. Don't mind doing the supermarket shopping, but hate having to put it away.

Phew that was a struggle, now for the next struggle, tagging 7 blogs. Well here goes.

1. Louise's Asylum - well she did start this thing

2. Liz'sWeeScotchCorner

3. The Cazz Bar

4. Jak's Kitchen - she is such an inspiration

5. Cullen Crafts - close to home

6. Anne Marie

and finally

7. PeeJay

Cuttlebug Challenge

As I had a few bits left over from the card that I made using sheets from Funky Birthday Prints by Printable Heaven and seeing the Cuttlebug Challenge 6 which I thought I would put a card into into the challenge. So thought I would kill two birds with one stone so to speak, as I had to do a 60th birthday card for one of my canasta playing girlfriends, who happens happens to be the same person as my reflexologist friend had asked me to do a card for earlier in the week.

Anyone with a sweet tooth

If you have a bit of a sweet tooth and fancy a wee bit of candy, nip over to Funky Fairy Inspirations corner shop for a bit.

The Last Of This Week's Cardmaking

After getting the family and friend's cards done for November settled down to get the cards I had been asked to do done. These first two are for one of my canasta playing friends daughter and son-in-law's birthdays. For the daughter's card used various sheets from Funky Birthday Prints by Printable Heaven and used the Boss Kut Large 50's Flower, Medium Flower and Diva Flowers dies for embellishments.

For her son-in-law's card followed the instructions on how to fold shirts and used matching papers for the backing - unfortunately I can't remember the name of the paper range.

The last two are for my reflexologist friend who has two girlfriends with birthdays this month, one being a 60th birthday. Went back to K&Company Designer Paper set by Amy Butler called Sola. On the square card, first of all cut a square of the designer paper just slightly smaller than the card. On top of that matted another square, slightly smaller again. Then cut four squares which I embossed with the D'vine Swirl embossing folder, then another four smaller squares again. Then topped it off with the Large 50's Flower from Boss Kuts.

For the final card, the 60th birthday one, matted on a C6 card base a rectangle which is slightly smaller that the card base. Then cut 7 strips which I embossed using the D'vine Swirl embossing folder which I stuck down in an offset pattern. Torn a strip of co-ordinating paper and then used a dotted line to give the impression of stitching. The embellishment from was from a flower set from Accessorize. And finished it off with the sentiment - Here's to the 39th anniversary of your 21st birthday'.

November's Family & Friends

Can't believe November is here already and ahead of me a busy month. Spent the last few days getting the cards done for November, so that I can spend some time with Will who is arriving on Friday for a fortnight. While he is here, we have the party to celebrate Billy and my silver wedding and his birthday. Then we finish off the month with the St Andrews Night Ball.

November is one of my busy month for birthdays and anniversaries, 5 birthdays including mine and 1 wedding anniversary all in the space of 8 days.

We kick off with Will's birthday and on the same day it is Kelly Ann's birthday, Sarah best buddy. Will's one, was a difficult one to come up with a theme for, until I saw the image of the Singapore Sling. All I did was matted the image on red and cream card and mounted on brown card stock and printed off the sentiments on cream card and matted it on the same red card as the image.

For Kelly Ann, used a Paper Nation Kimono Lady decoupage sheet and mounted it on chinese/japanese style wrapping paper and used the scalloped oval nestability to cut out the sentiment which I had printed out.

Then 5 days later then next on my card list is my mum and dad's wedding anniversary. Now looking at the card colours, I should maybe keep it for next year for their golden wedding anniversary. Used an image which I have used before which I call 'Lovers Kiss', matted it on the same brown cardstock that I used for Will's card. I embossed a piece of coffee coloured pearlescent card and use the bosskuts tag ties for the sentiment and finished it off with a cream ribbon bow.

On the same day as mum and dad's wedding anniversary, is Shona's birthday, a long time family friend.

The final one, 3 days after mum and dad's anniversary, it is Sarah's birthday. As Sarah loves shopping thought the image fitted the bill. The backing paper is from contemporary christmas range from Printable Heaven. Finished it off by printing off the sentiment and then used the oval and scalloped oval to the topper. Finally finished it off with a peel off saying which I coloured in pink.

My First Craft Fair

As I said a few posts ago, I was helping a friend out at her stall at a local craft fair and she allowed me to sell some of my cards on the stalls. So on Saturday morning off I toddled to the fair with my stock of cards. After a really busy day on the stall selling my friend's goods and selling a few of my cards, I came home shattered. Didn't realise how much I sold till I got home and counted up my takings. I made just over £100, so was well chuffed with myself.

Tags Galore

Thought I would have a day away from making cards and got some gift tags done. All the tags were done using Fred She Said's new Poinsetta range in Red and Blue, printed onto plain white card. Thought I was being quite thrifty as I managing to get a few tags out of each sheet and set of flowers.

Get Well Wishes

Well at least got away from sympathy cards. Had to two get well cards to do, one male and one femail. For the male one, I googled 'hospital bed' and found an illustration by Roz Davies that I thought would amuse the recipient and added the sentiment to tie in with the image.

The second one, a female one, I used a topper from a pack of various toppers and decoupage sheets from 'The Country Diary Of An Edwardian Lady' range which I got as a freebie with a card making magazine. The backing sheet was a freebie background from Fred She Said.

Please Add Your Name

Maybe some of you have seen the recent coverage on the news back in the UK about the Gurkha's right to live in Britain if they retired before 1997.

The Gurkhas have served all across the world in the defence of our Country for nearly 200 years and still doing so in the Army today.

If you feel strongly that they should be granted the same rights as others who have fought in defence of our country please sign the petition on Gurkha Justice . It takes less than a minute.

Many thanks in advance.

Heartfelt Sympathy - Two More

Following on from Thursday's post I have done another two sympathy cards, one from Billy and me and one from another group that he was a member of.

This one used an lily image from an Imag-e-nation member, whose name I can't remember at the minute and matted in on blue pearlescent card and then on white pearlescent card which was embossed with the versatile Swiss Dots folder. The sentiment was printed on the same white pearlescent card and die cut with a die from the Nestabilities Classic Ovals - small set and then using a cotton wool ball softened the edge with blue chalk, although I don't you really see it on the photo.

This second one used one of the embossing folders from the Cuttlebug With Love set, using pale blue and green chalk to highlight the flowers and stem and matted on blue card, a freebie background from Fred She Said. The sentiment was printed off and mounted on the same blue card.

Heartfelt Sympathy

Got some sad news today, a good friend and a former Cally Society member passed away this morning after a long struggle with cancer. So spent the afternoon making a card for the committee to sign to send to the family. Out came my trusty 'Bug' and ran through the embossing folder from the Friends Forever combo set which I then chalked and mounted on blue and white pearlescent card. The sentiment was just printed off on a piece of card and then cut with classic oval nestabilities.

Blog Candy

There is some lovely candy float about in blogland. If you want a chance to win this selection nip over to Rach's, leave comment and post the link to Rach's on your blog.

Closing date for entries is 28th October.

Been Busy

After a few weeks with not making a card, and only getting one done last week, which by the way Billy really liked, have got a couple made this week.

Need to build up a wee stock of cards as a friend has asked me to help on her stall at a craft fair at the beginning of the November and if I wanted I could sell some of my cards on the stall. Although I have a few christmas cards done, I need to get some everyday type cards done, especially male ones. Here are the results

Also did a couple of ones for kids too.

All the backing papers, motifs and shirt folding instructions can be found at Printable Heaven .

Finally Found Some Inspiration!!!!!!!

The title says it all. One of the hardest cards I have had to do for a while - a silver wedding anniversary card for my hubby, Billy. What kind of card to make - Oh the dilemma and I kept putting off sitting down to start. So having to be very strict with myself, sat down this morning. Out came out my 'Bug' and used the concentric hearts die and the heart block embossing folder and an image from a fellow 'imag-e-nationer'. Boy, was I lucky that Sarah was here today, to give me an unbiased opinion on my layouts and between us this is the final result.

Now just have to sweat it out till Sunday to see what Billy thinks.

Say No to Word Verification

Although I had turned off the word verfication option in favour of moderating comments myself before reading the post on Liz's Blog and the arguments put forward by Jane at Doodles and Scraps of me I have decided to join in the campaign. I know that the verification process was set up to stop spam comments, but I found it was beginning to put me off commenting on friends blogs as it took up a fair bit of time. Hope that when you read this and if you haven't already done so, please join the campaign. Thanks for taking the time to read this and your support.

The Original Singapore Sling!!!!!

The final leg of our holiday was an overnight stopover in Singapore. We did manage to fit a couple of bits of sightseeing while we were there.

First stop after we arrived at the hotel was a trip to the Singapore Flyer, with great views over Singapore.

Then it was off to Raffles Hotel, a must stop for any visitor, for an original Singapore Sling.

Saved The Best Till Last!!!!

Kota Kinabalu was definitely chill out time, apart from visiting some cheeky chappies, we spent most of our time lazing by the pool recharging our batteries and watching the sun going down.

Thought Friday's sunset was fabulous but all I can say is that as each day went by they only got better.

Friday's Sunset

Sunday's Sunset

Monday's Sunset

Tuesday's Sunset