Neverwhere Friends

Today has been too nice to be in work all day and then stuck in traffic until gone 6pm! By the time I get home I am knackered and cannot be bothered going out in the garden for an hour or so (this is after the allotment), so hopefully it will be nice over the weekend so I can do some of the garden then instead.

We had a fabulous time on Sunday at the Think Parrots Show, although I did get lost and so missed the first masterclass, and I think I now need to re mortgage the house after the money I spent lol. However I did get my cats insurance claim through, so not too bad really. Chucky is currently enjoying a woven willow ball stuffed with parrot toys lol. Cost £5 - longevity 5 mins.

I have made an ATC collection following several challenge themes. Each ATC card also has it's own challenge theme that it represents. The collection is 'My Friend' and is a trio, shown below:

 These ATC's follow the sketch 113 from Atlantic Hearts, although improvised on each ATC.  They also all use digi stamps from a free CD Rom.

They are all also to be entered into the following challenges:

papertake weekly - Trio-tastic ~ 3 ATC's with 3 strips of background and 3 different textures on each

Simon Says Wednesday Anything Goes
scrapbook stamp society #69 Handmade flowers

crafty ribbons #122 Anything Goes
addicted-to-stamps #107 BINGO - Flowers/Bling(or pearls)/Lace
abc-challenge L for Lace
card mania#69 Use a metal embellishment

ATC #1

This ATC used a pale indigo base card and I added cream lace down either edge and a cream polka-dot ribbon down the centre. I then coloured the stamp in using indigo and cream promarkers and used purple ribbon to make petals. Cream/yellow twine was used to anchor the stamped greeting and a metal charm was added to finish.

This ATC also followed the themes for the following challenges:

creative card crew 90 CAS
country view Shabby Chic

ATC #2

This ATC used a background ATC design from the free CDRom, using the Popcorn features. I used a bunting paper for the three background strips. The stamp was coloured using bright promarkers, in the colours of the rainbow. I used a thick lace to make a flower from this sentiment stamp before mounting with the twine. Finally a silver and red flower was added.

This ATC is also being added for the following challenges:

Passion for Promarkers 302 Rainbows (colours)
Quirky Crafts #13 Quirky Rosettes

ATC #3

This ATC used the Souffle Duck ATC background from the CDRom. I used sheer golden ribbon and a patterned beige ribbon for the background stripes.The stamp was coloured using the skin toned Promarkers and mounted again using the twine. Paper flowers were layered and pearls added for the corners and a metallic heart charm added to the bottom.

This ATC is also being added to these challenges:
deep ocean #106 Monochrome

I also made these envelopes from the Souffle collection on the CDRom;

for the Fancy Folds challenge at crafty calendar.

Audio Book Review

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Richard ‘Dick’ Mayhew is an everyday London worker from Scotland, who manages to find himself in a whole new world, under the streets of London itself. He has a reasonable job, a fiancé and a nice flat, but when he stops to help an injured young lady his world turns upside down. He finds that his normal life has just stopped being and nobody knows who he is, but there is a whole other world where people can see him, and some people wish to kill him in the most painful way possible. This is a world of angels, demons, monsters and girls in black velvet and Richard has to untangle the mystery surrounding the girl he helped in ‘London above’ in order to find his way back to his own life.

I found this a very enjoyable and captivating read. As a fantasy book it incorporates the very far-fetched, but it uses elements from many previous fantasy books, and alters them slightly, making them unique. A brilliant book to listen to in the car.