The past couple of weeks...

...seem to have gone by in a blur.... A quick recap of what's happened in the House of Yoo just lately...

• The planned trip to the falconry centre etc didn't go as planned as the boy was violently sick on the Bank Holiday Monday, so Mark and Jemma went by themselves leaving me and Tom to have a duvet day...
• The craft room finally has it's green wall, as I painted this week :) Also the Expedit my friend brought me from Glasgow Ikea has finally been put together and looks fab in the craft room :)
• Mark's Aunt and Uncle came to visit from Liverpool. We took them on a tour round the Glenfiddich Distillery, and the Speyside Cooperage, both of which have radically changed since we last did the tour about 15 years ago!
• The vegetable growing is going well, I have lettuce in a trough outside, along with a trough of peas. The strawberry plants I transplanted from another part of the garden are doing well in their new spot - I spied some flowers the other day :) I also found some raspberry plants too, which I moved to a sunnier spot. I also got a rhubarb crown - absolutely love rhubarb - so the "Good Life" experiment is going well :) We planted more seeds with the kids when Mum was up, and the carrots are just coming through, but the beans and courgettes have gone great guns, so will need to plant them out in the next few weeks! This is showing Mark that a raised bed is definitely something that we will need for next year!

I have been crafting as well, making some cards (that I forgot to photograph before I posted them) and also doing this layout for a blog challenge on Sarah's Cards Ltd blog. It was a sketch challenge (how could I resist?) and the sketch was provided by Rachel Ward, one of their design team.

I used Kraft Bazzill, and Fancy Pants and Scenic Route papers. The alphas are AC Thickers, and I made the top "lollipop" flower myself. The other flower is from American Crafts, and the other flower and buttons are ones from my stash.

The photograph was taken the day after Mark's cousin's wedding in 2008. It is quite unusual for the whole family to be somewhere, as Mark has a large extended family (well it is compared to mine!) who are spread far and wide - from us in Scotland, to his 3 German cousins :) Everyone was in Liverpool that weekend, so it was rude of me not to take a photo of the 8 cousins all together - the last time was probably about 20 years ago. I had to smile, as they were all pretty much colour co-ordinated too!

I have been on holiday from work this week, so I have been working on a paper bag book commission for my friend (the one who went to Ikea for me LOL). I have busted out the sewing machine, and I love how the book is looking right now. I need to finish off the inserts, and then I'll promise I'll share ;) I had to go to get more thread this morning, and more adhesive too - which meant a trip to my LSS, otherwise known as the House of Sugar ;) I'd already been in earlier this week to get adhesive and some flowers to embellish my project, and I'd resisted getting more stamps, but I ended up giving in today and got a cute little birdhouse stamp from CC designs :) I can't wait to ink it up and play! Especially as I treated myself to more ProMarkers this week too.... Well, I did get paid on Monday....

TTFN

xxxx