Busy bees

We have both been very busy with prep for Mum´s birthday party

Chris has been sitting for hours on end at the computer, firstly making a photo album ready to be sent off for printing, then making a narrated video for screening at the do

Last time we were over he took images of the old family photos and even managed to re video some footage of their old cine movies of the 60´s and 70´s.

Using todays technology, he is a whizz at making them look like new by taking out the grainy bits he has even managed to colour her original black and white wedding photo. It starts out in b/w then gently turns into colour.  A bit of clever conversation being used to find out the colours of her bridesmaids dressses and flowers

He has made it into each decade with music suitable for that time, with a short narration, he has even taken a photo of Mum taken when she was in her late teens and at the end of the video this fades and turns into the latest one wishing her a happy birthday.

Think she will be blown away when she sees the video on the day

He is now putting the newspaper together using font from the era and all the research I have done over the weeks. We will then need to get it printed

Me? well I have been busy too, making decorations for the venue, the colour theme is purple, lilacs and silver

I decided to make a flower swag for the buffet table

just need attaching to ribbon now

I am going to make little posies for the tables, I have asked for glass jars to be saved and will decorate them and add coloured water by mixing some acrylic paint in 

In my stash I found some little lacy flowers so sat there separating the gems and putting them in the centers, unfortunately their sticky backs wouldn´t hold them in place when they were moved, so I had a rather laborious job of finding the ones that had pinged off then removing them all and reattaching using a glue gun. Now ready for the jars with some butterflies

Then made a little brooch for Mum to wear

Organza spheres - going to put different colours together ready for hanging

I punched out butterflies and added a little bling, wound organza around an embroidery hoop and made it into a mobile

(cant find that photo at the moment, have to add it later)

I found some really pretty wrapping paper so am hoping to make some paper fans with them. I shall have to make them and then assemble together when we are there

Luck was with me that day as I also found in the chinese bazaar, an English happy birthday banner with balloons attached, thought that could go on the outside patio, 

although the bunting is the wrong colour, it has given me the template, the card is cut just the lettering to do

Right, well I had best be off then and crack on

take care

xcx

What a day

Oh my word, what a nail biting day yesterday was!

I had a niggling feeling in the morning and messaged Daniel to see if everything was ok

only to find him waiting in the doctors in great pain

He was given a letter for immediate admission to the hospital for appendicitis 

He had to wait in surgical triage for hours before being seen by a doctor, luckily he hadn´t had any food etc since 8am so he was whisked off about 9pm for surgery and returned about 1am.

They warned him that they would try keyhole if not it would be the traditional method, but I´m really pleased to say that the keyhole was successful as the recovery rate is much quicker.

They gave him hot chocolate during the night for which he was grateful for as he was feeling really dehydrated. I think its a 2/3 day stay then at least 2 weeks recovery.

Daniel and Shine have spent a lot of the last three weeks moving house. They overlapped the move to make it easier to do it themselves. He now tells me this pain had been rumbling around for several weeks but he put it down to strain moving all the furniture and boxes. He is so lucky that it didn´t burst.

They will have to call in some favours to finish the move as he will be on enforced rest.

Our bodies do have a way to tell us when we are pushing the limits, perhaps we should all listen a little earlier.

They have also cancelled his scheduled dental surgery for wisdom teeth extraction on the 10th May and he now has to wait another 6 months. He did suggest they did the two things together but they declined! lol

It´s at times like this that makes the distance between us really hard at not being able to offer help

Four year old Leocia was collected from school yesterday wanting to know where Daddy was, when she was told she demanded to be taken to see him immediately for a cuddle 

aww bless

take care

xcx

Playtime

I haven´t really been in the mood for experimenting or hand stitching for ages, but I decided to have a ´play´ with some plastics and fibres.

I randomly cut some carrier bags and plastic wrappers, no thoughts on design, just to see the results

quite a thick material which could be embellished and stitched, certainly well fused

Then I cut the ends off bags, folded them and fused, really strong and could be folded and stitched making a waterproof pouch

This one is a single layer but with the plastic motifs cut out and fused

Next was some Merino tops between two sheets of cling film

the fibres were a bit too thick to fuses properly, but would take stitching

think the quality of the cling film would make a difference

This one is a mixture of plastic pieces, merino and Angelina threads again trapped between cling film

I do like the Angelina threads, so sparkly and they fuse to themselves, easy to stitch through too 

I have a needle felt machine, which takes the pain out of punching by hand, again I havent used it in ages, after randomly laying the fibres and felting I cut some flowers and embellished with beads. As this was just an experiment, the base fabric was calico but it would look better with a base of the same colour

The nice thing with felting is you can add more fibres to get the colour effect you want

This one was a bit more arty

I made a flower shape but only felted the center to give a 3d effect.

Well playtime over so it´s back to the lacy bolero, I have been putting life lines in which has saved the day several times, just the decreasing doesn´t seem to be working for me, so yet again taking it back and try again. It is not a project to attempt unless I am in the mood, too much concentration and getting a little bit frustrating!

Perseverance  I think is the word I am looking for!!

take care

xcx