At Long Last ... Some Creations!

Hello Strangers

I haven't created anything for ages - it has been soooo busy at work since I had a week's annual leave - I don't think I've caught up yet, and don't see much light at the end of the tunnel at the moment either.  But never mind, just keep plodding along doing the best I can.

Over the last week, I made myself take some time out and create some birthday gifts and a card.  And here they are:

First of all, my niece's birthday gift:

My niece loves owls at the moment so I made her a bag charm, and two macrame bracelets - the one braceket has amethyst and clear quartz, and the gems on the bag charm also include some amethysts and quartz gemstones.

Below is a close-up of the bracelets on my wrist.

I really struggle if I make a gift - I can never put a value to it and always worry that it is not enough of a present, so I add some money too!

And this is a card I made for Eleri's friend:

The image is a Sassy Cheryl's digi called Serving Up Birthday Cake.  The papers were from a book of papers I had free with a magazine aaaages ago.  I love the purple glitter card I matted the layers onto.  I can't remember where the sentiment is from - it was already printed out so I made use of it as it was perfect LOL!

I would like to enter this card in Natalie and Amy's Challenge - Birthday bling.

And here are the gifts I made for Eleri's friend - another owl bag charm, this time made with macrame and fluorite gemstones:

And I also covered a notebook.  The front, using another Sassy Cheryl's digi, That's One Big Flower, and papers from the same book as earlier.  The flowers and pearly brad were from my stash, and some more glitter card, this time a gorgeous pink.

And here's the back - personalised - not sure what's happened to the colour on this photo though.

I would like to enter this notebook in the following challenges:

Digital Tuesday - Say it with flowers - the image and flowers on the front of the notebook.
Cute Card Thursday - Letters and Numbers - I used peel offs to make the word notes on the front and also the name on the back.
Creatalicious Challenges - Colour pallette

Well, I think that's it from me for tonight - I hope it's not so long before I'm back again.

Love, Andrea xx

We've Been to the Paralympics

That was our exciting event last week - we went to London to the Paralympics on Thursday.  I was so nervous as it was our first trip to London as a family - I had only been to London on a school trip or a bus tour and one overnight trip with work, Andrew went with school last year, I'm not sure when Richard had been, and Eleri had never been before.

Here are a few photos:

We only had tickets to the Olympic Park but at least we were able to soak up some of the atmosphere there.  We are very disappointed that we didn't manage to get tickets in to a venue to watch a live event, but we were able to watch some events on the Live screen in the park.  On the day we tried a couple of times to get tickets in to an event, but there weren't any available :(

I was so nervous about travelling - my palms started sweating when I went to book the rail tickets a couple of days before we left LOL!  I was worried about how we were going to get from Euston over to the park but, actually, it was very simple.  We just got off our train and followed the pink signs for the Olympic Park.  Although, when we arrived at Stratford International Station, we were told that the travel tickets we had weren't actually valid for the train we had travelled on - apparently, we weren't the only people who made that mistake, lots of people had, and the staff decided to let us all through but advised us that we would need to purchase new tickets if we wanted to travel back from that station.  Then I had my suncream confiscated as we were passing through security at the entrance gate - I had taken a bottle that was too large!  As it happens, the weather wasn't brilliant, so I didn't need it anyway LOL!

We'd settled down in the afternoon to watch some events on the big screen and then it started pelting down with rain :( - we got saturated, and then decided to make our way to our hotel.  On the way back, we followed the advice to walk to West Ham station instead of using the Stratford stations which were really busy - we were told it was only about a 20 minute walk - all I can say is whoever said that must speed walk LOL! - we'd been walking about 20 minutes and then one of the volunteers who was waving us goodbye and wishing us a safe journey home said "You're half way now!!!"  The moral of this story is, if you manage to get to the Olympic Park and someone advises you to travel back in to London via West Ham station, don't believe them when they say its only a 20 minute walk!  It was a straightforward journey on the underground though.

I have to say that all the volunteers who were around the park were soooo pleasant and helpful, and they were all really cheerful.  On the way out of the park, one of the volunteers offered Eleri her pointing hand so that we could take a photo.  And there were also lots of people around the train stations giving advice about which trains to catch/how to get to places - I don't know if they are normally there or if its just throughout the time of the Olympics and Paralympics.

On Friday, we visited the Natural History Museum - I don't think we saw even half of it, and didn't manage to get in to the dinosaurs section because of the queue.  We'll have to do that again sometime.

We had a lovely time, and we really want to go to London again!  Have to save our pennies!

Anyway, enough from me - thanks for taking the time to visit.  I hope to be back soon.

Love, Andrea xx