Jaunt Home

The last two weeks saw us at home in Scotland visiting family. The first few days were spent in Edinburgh visiting Billy's brother. On our first day, Wednesday, we stopped for a bite to eat and seated at the table next to us was Rory Bremner. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera to get a wee snap. Thursday with the sun out we headed into the town centre wandering up the Royal Mile with a wee pit stop in Princes Street Gardens for an ice-cream.

Friday it was bbq time and as per norm back home when you plan a bbq, the weather changes from sunshine to rain. We didn't let the rain put us off and barbecued under a gazebo. Our nephew, Ian and his family came round and we were introduced to the latest member of the Gibb clan, Great-niece Orla. When we arrived on Wednesday were introduce to the latest member of brother-in-law's household, Doughnut.

Orla

Doughnut

Jordan & Abbie

On Saturday we let the train take the strain and headed back up north to spend the last week of our holiday with the rest of the family. Sunday saw another bbq, but this time the sun shone for us.

Thursday was out for lunch, a silver wedding present, at Eat On The Green where the food and service were excellent. Another one to add to our list of favourite restaurants. On our way for lunch we dropped by our local radio station - Waves Radio - based in Peterhead and met Kenny King, who we listen to online on a Friday. We arrived bearing gifts - a prayer mat an a mosque alarm clock which Kenny was tickled pink with. Maybe some day he will use it on air to wake up some of those sleepy listeners.

Trouble with a capital T

Just back from a trip home to Bonnie Scotland, more of which in another posting, with some goodies to play with. Today's playing resulting in a card for my eldest daughter's friend's birthday. When the two of them are out on the town, we call them 'The Trouble Twins'. When I saw the Naughty but Nice papers from the Say it with a Smirk range by Kyla May, I just had to use some of the papers for this card.

I think it is one of the quickest cards I have made recently. For the backing trimmed one of the sheets to fit a 6x6 inch card and for the wee topper cut out one of the squares from another sheet.

Orange Lily

As I said yesterday had a couple of cards to get done before we fly home to Bonnie Scotland tonight. This morning while the washing machine was churning away, got the last of cards done for the July birthdays. This one for a good friend, Ulla, who we are hoping to meet up with Abu Dhabi either in July or August when she is on her way back to the Philippines from Germany.

Inspiration for the layout came from Karen Watson's Knowhow on Heat Embossing in the July issue of Cardmaking & Papercraft. The papers I used came from K&Company's Citronella 12x12 paper pack which I bought yesterday when I was out at lunch with Linda aka Pinklilacs, my cardmaking buddy here in Bahrain. The image is Lily with present from the Lily set by Digistamp Boutique and coloured with Copic pens. The sentiment is a silver peel-off coloured with an orange peel-off colouring pens from Imag-e-nation. The distressing is done with an orange Whisper pen.

The Palace Noticeboard might be neglected over the next couple of week as I think things will be hectic whilst we are home in Bonnie Scotland, so apologies in advance. So signing off for just now and go and get the last of the laundry done and the case pack.

Some Candy

Just a couple of line about some lovely candy that Jak over at Crafter's Kitchen is giving away. You will have to hurry and leave a comment before 6.00pm tonight to be in with a chance of winning.

I have got everything crossed, lol.

A Special Friend's Birthday

Been a bit lax with on the cardmaking front just recently, things have been a bit hectic here in the Palace, what the school year ending, packing up our school section [KS1] to move to a new building. Oops! I have to stop calling it the 'new building' as it has now got a name - Sunflower House. I was asked to create a logo, have done a selection and just waiting for the final choice to be made by the Principal. If that wasn't enough also have to ready to fly out tomorrow night, Monday, heading back home to Bonnie Scotland for the first of two trips home over the summer. On this one I will be accompanied by Billy and the next will be a solo trip, although I will have Sarah as a travelling companion on the the homeward leg, who will be heading home from the second of her twice yearly holidays out at the Palace.

Anyway back to the cards, have to get a couple of cards done before tomorrow for the July birthday's. This card, the first, is for two days after Billy and I are back in Bahrain but want to deliver it to Doug while we are at home. Doug is a long time family friend, godfather to my girls and 'foster dad' to my three kids. Didn't know what to do, until a I saw a card called 'Rectangles' done by Kim Dellow in Issue 43 of Papercraft Essentials. Used the measurements and layout and added a couple of extra bits to make it my own. For the rectangles I used Bo Bunny's Abbey Road range - both sides of the Dots sheet and stripe sheet. The sentiment was created in Word and mounted using foam pads. Distressing was done with Stazon Timber Brown.

Although I didn't use scraps I think this style of card would lend itself to using up those scraps of cardstock that we seem to accumulate.

One card, One Birthday, One Competition

Thought I would get 'two birds with one stone' so to speak with this card. As the school breaking up next week for the summer I had to get a card done for Emy, my Classroom Assistant in Nursery. It is her birthday in August but I won't see her till we go back to school in September so thought I would give her her birthday card before we break up and she can open it on her birthday.

Digistamp Boutique is running its monthly competition using one of the images, this month's image has to be one of the three Olive images. I picked 'Olive and flowers' one, which I coloured in with copic pens. Yep just want to play with them all the time lol. Made the mats using plain, scalloped and inverted scalloped circles, assembling them together with foam pads. Added some gift wrapping ribbon to the base mat and decorating this mat with some brads. Finishing off the card with a metal sentiment.

Just to say

One of the girls at work asked if I could do a card for her. She wanted something to say thank you for a friendship. Let her see some of images I had and she picked this one from Digistamp Boutique, which have been coloured with copic pens. The bottom two mats have been embossed with the Cuttlebug Forest Branches folder, with the top mats being cut using the deckled rectangle nestabilities.

Just Snoozin' Birthday

Sunday is Billy's birthday and I was struggling with what to do for his card. Whilst having a browse in the Digistamp Boutique I saw the 'Just Snoozin' image and it just spoke to me. I am sure Billy will see why.

As I have recently got some copic pens, I have gone a bit copic and digistamp crazy. I coloured the 'Just Snoozin' image with some of my copic pens. Printed off some more of the 'Father's Day' downloadable papers from Crafter's Companion. Using both the plain and scalloped octagonal nestabilities cut out several layers mounting them various thicknesses of foam pads. For the sentiment coloured a silver peel off with a blue pen. The navy speckled paper came from my stash.

For our birthdays we usually go out for a meal and Billy has chosen to go out tonight to Trader Vics, one of our favourite eateries in Bahrain. The food and cocktails are excellent.

New Arrival Update

On Friday when I let you all know that I was a Great Aunt again I didn't know my Great Niece's name. Well I am please to announce that she is called

Orla Jean Gibb.

Yesterday I managed to get a card to celebrate her arrival finished. The card is couple of firsts for me - using an image from Digistamp Boutique and colouring with Copic pens. I do think for a first attempt I did okay. I coloured in 'Tilly' with four copic pens, two from the yellow and two from the red violet ranges.

I used the largest of the 'Blossom' nestabilities to cut out the image, but had to cut off part of the pram handle, and edging the blossom with a copic pen. The two square mats were cut from a sheet of Bo Bunny's called Ella Butter Blossom. For the embellishments I used some pink ribbon, flower and brads from my stash. At least this time I didn't manage to spill the brads and flowers all over the floor, LOL.

Canasta Farewell

In all expat communities there are always new people arriving and others leaving. One of those leaving Awali in the near future is Trish, who is one of the ladies in the canasta group that I play with in Awali. Trish and her husband Dave are heading back to England to retire. One of the group, Pat, organised an afternoon game of canasta by way of a farewell do. There were 8 of us there and we had a great afternoon. Pat's husband took a photo of all us so that it could be put into Trish's leaving present from the group, a photo frame.

In the photo from left to right are Eileen, Lynn, Leah, Barbara, Pat, Kathy and myself and seat is Trish.

One arrival and One departure

This week I am proud to annouce that I am a Great Aunt for the second time, another Great Niece, no name as yet. Looking forward to seeing the new addition when we are home at the beginning of July.

Had to the kind of card that everyone hates doing, a sympathy one. Was shocked when I read our local paper online that one of our old neighbours daughter had died, she was only two years younger than me. Make you realise how important how important it is live life to the fullest as you don't know when you have to leave this mortal coil. As it she was a young person decided to do something quite simple and modern. So out came my trusty 'bug' and on an offcut of cardstock embossed the flower image from the Cuttlebug 'with love' selection. An image I find so suitable for so many different occasions. Highlighted the flowers with purple chalk and the stems with a pale green Whisper pen. The sentiment was printed off on the same cardstock as I used for the flower and both were mounted on white cardstock.

Father's Day

Can't believe that Father's Day is only a week away. At last I have managed to get my Father's Day cards done for my Dad and Billy's Dad and will get them delivered to Barbara, an Awali neighbour who is heading from the UK on Monday, to post when she lands in the 'Old Blighty'.

The inspiration for my Dad's one, came for the verse -

Any man can be a father

But it takes someone special

To be a Dad.

The backing papers were from a selection of papers which I downloaded from Crafter's Companion. For the top layer of the matting I inserted the checked paper into a text box in Word and then lightened it a wee bit and adding the text, using different font sizes and colours. Also inserted the bunny from Bee Crafty, adding a co-ordinating coloured border to both the text box and image.

My second Father's Day card is for Billy's dad. The first six lines of the poem express exactly the man he is -

A man of strength

A man of pride

A man of courage

A man of wisdom and ideals

A man of faith

A man of honor

All the layers were done using the drawing tool in Word and inserting the background papers that I downloaded a long time ago. Can't remember exactly where I got them from as at the time I downloaded I hadn't started including in the filename where they came from.

Cally Cuddies and a Thank You

Last Thursday, 4th of June, saw the Cally Society's big annual fundraiser. Every year around this time we hold the annual 'Cally Cuddies' horseracing evening. This year we raised just over BD1000 [approximately £1,500] which will be donated to charity, still to be decided.

In my role as Secretary and 'official Thank You Cardmaker' I had to get a card done for Barry, without him and his computer the commitee's job on the night would be so much more difficult. Barry does the computerised odds on the races. Used the image that I had used for the posters of a jockey been thrown from a horse and tagged on a silver peel-off coloured green.

Three from last week

The first of the three from last week is for Rita, whom my kids affectionately call their Foster Mum. My inspiration for this one came from the verse which I came across when looking for a verse for my friend Jane's card. The verse being -

Take each birthday with a pinch of salt

This works much better

if the salt is accompanied with a margarita

Why you ask why was this verse my inspiration? Well, Rita loves her cocktails and her 'Sunday Name' is Margarita.

The papers are from the Bo'bunny's Summer Breeze range, card and vellum and used lime green ribbon as a decorative touch. The sentiment was typed out in Word, cut out with using the Nestabilities 'Blossom' die.

The next card was one as I was asked to do a card by Pat, one of my Canasta buddies', for her brother's brithday. One of the things that I was told that he liked was motorbikes. Instantly knew what I would do for this card. I still had some papers from a pack of a set of Harley Davidson backing papers, which I used for another big project. And also the 'Motorbiker's Prayer' which used the 23rd Psalm as its guideline and et voila the end result.

Card has been delivered and Pat was delighted with it and as I type it is winging its way to South Africa.

The last card from last week was again a request from a friend, this time my best buddy who lives over in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. She wanted a anniversary card one for her good friends back home in the UK, Corrine and Dave's. Annie had said that she like the card I had done for one of my friends, Fiona and Stephen's anniversary. I did a similar card style of card for Annie, using Dorothy's instructions over on Amazing Paper Grace. For the insert inside the card, I incorporated a photo that Annie had sent to me that was taken of Corrine and Dave on their wedding day.

An Award and some Candy

Can't believe that I haven't posted anything on the Palace Noticeboard since the 15th of May. My mojo decided to jump on the nearest camel's back and go out on a wee desert trek. Can see him in the distant so hopefully he hasn't worked the camel too hard and will be back home soon.

Anyway a good friend of mine, Louise over at Lou's Asylum has awarded me with the Lemonade Award for 'Great Attitude as well as Gratitude'. Thanks Louise ever so much. She has had a three week stay in hospital getting treatment for her Rheumatoid Arthritis which has greatly improved her mobility. Louise, if you are reading this, hope the improvement continues.

Speaking of hospitals, Dorothy over at Never Enough Rubber Stamps is also heading for a stay in hospital. Dorothy wish you a speedy recovery. Despite the impending stays in hospital Dorothy has decided to have a weekly blog candy spot. To be eligible for the candy all you have to do is leave between 1 and 5 comments a week on her blog. The commentators will only know if they have been the weekly winner when Mr Postman makes a delivery.

Another June Birthday

Another June birthday card ticked off my list. This time it is for my niece but before I could get started on this card I had a wee disaster. As I was getting all the bits together to make the card and going through my tins of buttons, brads and flowers, I somehow managed to tip the whole lot on the floor. All I will say is that there was a slight navy tinge to the air around me as I scrambled about on my hands and knees trying to pick everything up.

I got a wee delivery from Cropstop, some new embossing folders from QuicKutz, one being the Scallops and Dots and this was my inspiration along with some gift ribbon from Hallmark which fitting nicely between the dots of the embossing folder.

After running the embossing folder through my trusty 'bug' I punched out the holes before fixing on the ribbon. Then matted onto cardstock from the Amy Butler Sola range and Remake Ocean Blues, both from K&Company. I distressed the edges of the Ocean Blues cardstock with Timber Brown Stazon.

The button embellishments are from Bo Bunny and the sentiment is a silver peel-off which I coloured with a brown marker pen and mounted it on a strip of the Ocean Blues cardstock.

Bee Crafty Challenge

Last night will doing a bit of surfing, looking for sites that sell Digital Stamped Images, as I can't get decent stamps out here and to buy them online can mean having to pay a lot for postage, I came across a lovely site, Bee Crafty. Her digital stamped images are fab. She is also running a challenge which finishes tomorrow noon - UK Time. For the challenge you have to use her 'slice of cake' image (a freebie into the bargain), so thought in return for downloading the image I would enter the challenge and get one of my June birthday cards done into the bargain.

I started off colouring the image using both watercolour pencils and sakura pens. The cake layers and icing were done with the watercolour pencils - Cadmium Yellow and Leaf Green. To give the edging icing on the cake a bit of texture I used a Sakura Souffle pen as well as the white icing. For the candle and the decoration on the side of the cake it was Sakura Glaze pens, watered down with a Koi brush.

Out came my trusty 'Bug' and Deckled Rectangles from Nestabilities. Highlighted the deckled edge of the rectangle with the same green watercolour pencil and blended it using the Koi Brush. As I did this the edges turned up slightly, so decided to keep this effect when I matted it on to the back of Bo-Bunny's Back to Backs card stock - Alissa Look At Me, using foam pads just down the middle of the image. Mounted this onto another piece of Bo-Bunny's cardstock from the same Alissa range, this time, Alissa Spunky. The sentiment was done on Word and again used the Deckled Rectangles and highlighted in the same way using the green watercolour pencil.

Mounted all this onto plain white cardstock, again highlighting the edges with the green watercolour pencil. For a finishing touch, I added crystal stickers from my stash.

Hope Merrigan approves of my use of her digital stamp.

Been a bit quiet

Have been very quiet this week as I have a severe chest infection and have been signed off my work and have been put on a course of heavy duty antibiotics. Got to go back to see the doc on Sunday.

Today is the first day that I have felt like doing anything. It was a bit of a struggle, as I still feel a wee bit weak, but managed to get two cards done. This first card I did was for a friend who has had some knee surgery. Decided on a blue theme as he is a Glasgow Rangers fan. I used blue cardstock for the base and printed off a sheet of striped paper from Printable Heaven for the background. Then being a thrifty Scot, I used some of my scraps of card and with my Nestabilities - circles and inverted scalloped circles - cut out three sets. On each set stuck on one of the words of 'Get Well Soon'. Using more scraps cut three strips of navy blue cardstock which I stuck on the background stripes and at the end of each strip mounted one of the circle sets.

The second card I got done was a friend of one of our neighbours. The neighbours are organising a birthday party for him tonight and to which we have been invited but as I am still feeling a bit weak have declined. Don't know where the inspiration came from. When I was doing the 'Get Well Card' I was going through my stamps drawer for the sentiments and spied 'Claudette the Camel', which I stamped onto some scrap cream cardstock using brown ink. Then coloured it in with watercolour pencils. The Nestabilities came out again - deckled rectangles - and cutting out Claudette and the mat below. For the background of the card I used the darker section of the background section of Fred, She Said's Dancing Daisy and the 'Happy Birthday' sentiment came from the same sheet.

A Thank You

After having such a wonderful night on Thursday at the St George's Society Red and White Ball, I thought it would be nice gesture to send the Society a thank you from Billy and myself.

I found my layout inspiration at the Fab Friday spot over at Cuttlebug Challenges. As with any inspiration everyone's interpretation is slightly different, mine turned out slightly elongated. My colour scheme colour could only be based on the Union Jack, red white and blue and my image a Beefeater. We were greeted by two Beefeaters at the door to the Ballroom.

I settled down to get the card and out came my trusty 'Bug'. The sentiment is from the 'With Gratitude' die. I used the Nestabilities Large and Small labels for the matting for the sentiment. The matting for the image was done by just cutting out rectangles and rounding off the corners with a corner punch. For the red background, used mulberry paper which I embossed with the D'vine Swirl folder. And voila the end result -

Red & White Ball

A day late but Happy St George's Day to all my English friends.

Out here in Bahrain it was celebrated by the St George's Society with a Red and White Ball. Billy and I were there, seated at the top table, representing the Awali Callies.

Billy and me in front of the Union Jack

The Top Table with Beefeaters

The evening kicked off with a champagne and canapes reception. We then sat down to Cream of Broccoli Soup, followed by Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding. Dessert was a Chocolate Mousse. Also on the table was a selection of cheese and crackers. It was all rounded off with coffee or tea with petit fours.

We then danced into the early hours to music by Krazy Kevin, who was suitable dressed in a red and white suit.

A Birthday Party

Sunday evening saw Billy and I off out to a birthday party. Not just any ordinary birthday but Queen Elizabeth II's at the British Embassy here in Bahrain. Not a casual affair but not stiff upper lip one either. We all turned up in our 'Sunday Best'.

The Official Invitation

I didn't take my camera with me as I didn't think I would be allowed it into the Embassy grounds. However I do know one of the guys who covers events in Bahrain for one of the glossy monthly magazines was there and who has kindly passed on the photo taken of me and Sarah, the British Ambassador's wife. You will see Billy just 'teeting' over Sarah's shoulder.

Me and Sarah

For those with a sweet tooth!!!

Bev, at All The Things I Love, has some fabulous candy on offer to mark her blogoversary and passing the 200,000 hit mark. If you would like to be in with a chance of winning pop over and have a look, leave a comment and put a link on your own blog, if you have one.

Better hurry though, as it is only available until the 23rd.

Blog Candy - Limited Edition

Dorothy over at Never Enough Rubber Stamps has some exclusive candy on offer. I have never seen such a large inkpad. I hope you will drop and have a look.