Me Myself and I

Monday, 12 May 2014

Not a Lot and The Odd Card

It's been fairly quiet here as my Arthritis has been playing up a fair bit this week, which means I've not been able to knit as much as I'd like, and I've not been out much either, but I've been using my time wisely making some cards.

With Fathers Day due next month, I decided make up one of the decoupage kits I got as part of a recent Goody Bag purchase.

It was a bit fiddly to do, as my hand was suffering with loss of grip, but once I got going it was a fun little project that took no time at all.

I then decided to move on to an any occasion card for men, because lets face it, they're aren't really that many handmade cards for men around. I really love this Dad stamp with all the little pictures of tools on it.

This week I purchased some New Baby die cutters and really enjoyed having a play with them. I'm not so keen on the way the word baby is written on the girls card, the next time I'll chop it off and swap it with another one I have, but I think the stork is adorable.

Like I said not a lot has happened so only a short post today, I've not even been doing any digging down the allotment this week, although I went for a brief look yesterday and everything seems to be starting to poke through the soil at last.

I'm linking this weeks post to Handmade Monday and Creative Mondays.

Hope you all have a great week crafting.

xxx

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Monday, 5 May 2014

Little Monsters for Little Monsters

I've been busy crafting this week, it's great to be doing what I love the most. I missed posting last Monday as we were away camping, you can read all about it over on Badger Boo's blog.

I decided to have a play around with the ever versatile Owl Punch from Stampin' Up and these little monsters were born.

My Charity Shop Bargain of the week was, a brick embossing folder from Spellbinders, it's double sided and also has a really nice wood grain on the other side, I can see me using it a lot because I just love it.

The Little Monster cards were great fun to make, and as usual I got covered in glue sticking their googly eyes and arms on.

I've also found time to do some knitting and I've been making some Cabled Plant Pot Cosy's, but when I took the picture I noticed it would actually look better with a plant in the pot.

I only have one pot plant as I tend to kill them, but my good friend Michelle gave me one last year for my Birthday which is unbelievably still alive, although it doesn't actually fit in the pot I've made, hopefully you get the idea.

I'm in the process of knitting a larger cover but it wasn't ready for this mornings post.

Note to self:- Must buy a fake plant that fits in the small pot for photographic purposes.

In Allotment news, the heavy digging is now finished at last for this year, the back half of the plot will remain grass for the time being.

Things are at last starting to grow, so all we have to do now is keep up with the weeding and watering then reap our rewards at harvest time.

I'm linking this post to Handmade Monday and Creative Mondays.

Hope you all have a fantastic week.

xxx

Follow @ArthriticKnit

Sunday, 4 May 2014

Sunday Photo ~ Strawberries

It's always great to see the first strawberry flower appear in my garden, it's living proof that the warmer weather is definitely and finally on it way at last.

Yesterday I thinned out the Strawberry plants at home to replant at the allotment. Now we have the space, the plan is to grow enough to start making my own organic jam again. How I've missed the taste of home made jam since we moved to this tiny house with its miniature garden.

The the beds are now ready to plant, soon we'll be reaping the rewards of all the hard work we've put in.

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Sunday, 27 April 2014

Sunday Photo

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Sunday, 20 April 2014

Digging is Crafting!

I've been pretty busy this week, I started knitting my first ever pair of socks but I've not made anything else, I've been working hard digging at the allotment because I want to enter my plot in this year's "Godalming in Bloom" competition.

As always I had my camera with me and just had to take a picture of the beautiful Apple Blossom. We were lucky enough to have been left an Apple Tree when we took over the plot, I have no idea what sort of apples they are, but they're beautiful and crisp and very red and shiny, drooling at remembering the taste of last year's crop.

I'm really pleased to see the blossoms appearing, I had to give the tree a heavy ~~butchering~~ pruning in the winter, as it was growing out of control, was very straggly and we had a serious overcrowding of apples last year, many were far too small and bitter to eat as they couldn't ripen.

I don't know about you but I know nothing about Apple Tree's, but with the help of the internet and youtube I set about it with my loppers. I took loads off and got it looking like a sort of goblet shape with no branches crossing over, then I had to wait in anticipation to see if I'd killed it! I'm hoping the sight of the blossom means we'll be getting apples this year, but if we don't I'm just happy that the poor tree survived my ~~butchering~~ pruning attempt.

As I said before I've been doing a lot of digging with the help of Himself and now all the raised beds are in at last, it's been hard work but they'll look gorgeous when planted up. I've already planted my Sweet Pea seeds, if you look closely you'll notice my inspired (in my opinion) use of knitting needles to help them find their way onto the netting.

I think we'll leave the back half of the plot as ~~mown weeds~~ grass for the time being, although it's our second year we never got started properly until this year, due to Himself being so unwell over the last 18 months.

All that's left for me to do now is to tidy edges, plant the rest of the seedlings from the greenhouse, water and wait. Himself is in charge of cutting the grass, he enjoys doing it, I'll rake it up and that's it. The big old petrol lawnmower we got off FreeCycle is far too heavy and has a mind of it's own, it has a habit of moving off on it's own at a rate of knots and I can't keep up with it. I'm keeping my eyes peeled on Freecycle for a Sit on Mower, that'll be much more my style.

I'm so pleased with how much we've achieved, but I'll let you be the judge as this is what the plot looked like when we first took it over last March and why I titled this post "Digging is Crafting".