Walk Like An Egyptian!

So now I have the time, here's the start of my Egyptian Adventure. I'll post every couple of days the next part of the tale with pictures, rather than give you a total run down in one:-

Day One - Departure
So the adventure started at 7:30am on Thursday 29th November, when my oldest brother took me and my best friend Claire to East Midlands Airport to catch our flight. It was freezing! not helped by the fact we'd dressed so as to be comfortable when we arrived in Egypt, so our first stop after check in was the coffee shop for hot drinks and breakfast! Well, you all know how boring departure lounges really are, so after a little over 2 hours of chatting - one two many coffees and a really numb bum we finally began boarding the plane. So far so good.

5 and a bit hours later, having flown through/over a stunning sunset we landed in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt - bring on the holiday! having cleared customs, handed over visa cards and made our way to collect our luggage we were in high spirits and ready to get on board ship, sadly things went a little awry at this point. The luggage took an hour to reach the belt from the plane and then we had to join the back end of a VERY long line to board our coaches- the reason for it? well, the gossip in the line was that the ship wasn't even in port and they were shipping us out to hotels in the area - what?no!

The gossip was all rubbish! thankfully, but we did have a long 2 hours from the airport to reaching our cabin. It turned out that the ship had been delayed by port authorities the day before and that it had only arrived in Sharm about 2 hours before our flight had landed. All the passengers on board at had thus missed their flights and they were been put up in hotels over night as Thomson rearranged their flights home, at the same time they had put the early arriving flights from the UK into 2 of the local hotels for complimentary drinks and dinner whilst they cleaned and emptied the ship. All in all - the crew were having a tough time of it, whist we - on the other hand - just had to stand chatting, sit on a coach and accept refreshments whilst standing in line to get our onboard cards and photos sorted. Whilst many of our fellow passangers were in full scale rant mode by this point, Claire and I were steadily becoming more excited again and by the time we reached our cabins? well it was 10:30pm their time (Egypt is 2 hours ahead) and we were ready to start the holiday in style - bring on the cocktails!

Our home for the week - Thomson Celebration

After a quick supper (where we were presented with paper roses from our waiters - aww!) we headed out on deck to join the party already in full swing - the cocktails kept coming, the crew kept us laughing and our feet didn't stop dancing - with Claire being informed by a show team member (we later discoved he was called Alistair) threatening to throw her in the pool if she sat down - until the early hours of the next morning - it was a night that pre-defined how we would be spending the remainder of our evenings on board - through we didn't know it at the time! So the holiday had really begun and as we moved out to the sea to travel overnight, we looked forward to what the following day would have in store and prayed we wouldn't be suffering too badly from sleep deprivation and cocktail consumption!

Our Room - (much bigger than the picture shows)

Our Rose's - Awww!

Next time - 4x4 Adventures and Oh my!

I'm Back! And Look What I Got!

My first award! Thanks Lynsey!

 

1.copy this award to your blog - Done!
2.Link to the person who gave you this award - Find Above Please
3.Share 7 interesting facts about yourself: -

1. I live in the West Midlands
2. I play the flute and own 3, of which 1 is a copy of the first wooden baroque flutes
3. I adore books of all genre but my all time favourite is Pride and Prejudice
4. I adore fall - crisp air and fallen leaves
5. I hate been out in the rain but can sit and watch it for hours
6. I love giving people cards I've made and watching their faces as the open them
7. My favourite animal is a moose - purely because of the stuffed toy one I got when I was 7 (and still have)

4.Choose 7 other bloggers to pass this award on to.
5.Link to their blogs.

1. Aunty Sue - Because she befriended me from my first day on DC and her cards are an inspiration
2. Betty Boop - Another of my DC peeps whose blog is a joy to sit and have a look through
3. Coops - Just fabulous
4. Mo - Whose cards are fab and whose digital doodles are soooooooooo adorable
5. Eisbarentraume - her blog is fab and her cards such an inspiration
6. Pinkpuds - Just go have a look, no need to say more
7. Tabby Craft Designs - If I could make cards like hers i'd be one happy bunny
   

6.Leave them a comment so to let them know about this award - Please check your blogspots

So thats it :D Egypt update will follow but I got into my bed at 3am this morning and I have work in 3 hours so I must finish unpacking and eat before then so just watch this space.....

Take care and happy crafting! x

Off to the sunshine - See you next week

Just a quick note to say bye bye for a week *waves*. I'm off on my hols at some unhuman hour tommorow morning - but it will all be worth it, a week of heat and sunshine in Egypt - so overly hyperactive at the moment, I can't wait! :D

I hope you all have a lovely week whilst i'm away and i'll try and send some sun in your direction. Take care of yourselves and happy crafting!

xx

First Easel Card

I've been admiring everyones easel cards of late and I kept putting off having a go. Afterall, I don't need to make any cards at the moment, and my stash of spare cards is large enough, but with nothing better to do this morning I figured why not take a shot at it? So here's my attempt:

Its not as great as most of yours but I didn't think it was too horrific for the first go - what do you think?

The card is 5" squares on plain black card stock. Purple and patterned paper from stash, as are all the ribbons, buttons and gems. Tilda image was coloured using my whisper pens - sadly not one of my own stamps, but an image sent to me - its on my Christmas wish list!

Thoughts, comments, opinions always welcomed! just click that little button down below :)

Hope you have a good day, thanks for stopping by and happy crafting! x

Sunday Ramblings - A Movie Review!

It's coming to the end of another weekend and I’ve shockingly done no crafting! Sadly I really needed to write a report up yesterday for the museum I’m currently doing volunteering at, as it needed to be emailed to them, as I won't see them now before I go on holiday and they really needed it. And then today.... well today has been playing catch up on housework and doing some online Christmas shopping and now I just can't be bothered to do any crafting as the light is awful and I have a headache from the bad weather. Oh well! maybe I’ll get some done before I fly to Egypt on Thursday.

So onwards with the movie review: last night, mum and I went to see the second part of the Twilight Saga - New Moon and it didn't disappoint. For those who know nothing about this series (which can't be many of you I'm sure) the Twilight Saga is based on a series of bestselling novels of the same name by a lady called Stephanie Meyer. The books took the literary world by storm, really hitting it off last year in the UK following the launch of the first movie 'Twilight'. The books are, to sum them up in one word, incredible! Now don't get me wrong, I’m not a screaming twi-hard fan who faints at the thought of been bitten by a vampire (well, I probably wouldn't say no, but....) and I'm not a lust-filled hormonal teenager (who the books were originally aimed at) but I am an avid reader - I’ve lost count of the number of books I’ve read through the years and I’m nothing if not critical of everything I read and as such few authors or books every get the highest of praise from me, but I can't fault these books and as such I was waiting to be disappointed by the movie - after all, how could it compare to my imagination of how the story plays out?

Nevertheless, the movie didn't let me down. For all the hype I’ve read in recent weeks about this film and how the cast aren't right (yet they were perfect in the first movie - so how does that one work?) and the director failed to produce anything of note, I think it's the fans who really should have the final say - not a critic who has failed to read more than the synopsis of the book. Whilst there are elements of the story missing, it simple remains the case that you cannot transfer the book line for line to the screen, it’s just not possible without dragging it out and boring the viewer and besides, these movies aren't aimed at generating a new audience, they simply need to please the fans who know the story inside out, back to front and probably better than the author now! as such, missing elements don't matter as they are easily filled in by the preset knowledge of what takes place in the books. As such, I thought the scripting was brilliant, it was enough to keep the tension going throughout all 2 hours 10 minutes of running time and heartbreaking enough that I wanted to adopt a werewolf before the end of the movie!

I won't spoil the film for those of you who have interest in seeing the movie but for those of you sitting on the bench about it (or the books) I’d recommend borrowing/buying the first (of both the book and movie) and seeing what the hype is about. This isn't a 'teenage' book, adults of all ages have read this series and fallen in love with it - when I was still working for Waterstones I had a lady of 85 talk to me about how much she had enjoyed the series and how her husband was just working his way through them, their grandchildren thought they were the coolest people ever! lol!

Having rambled for far too long and most likely lost everyone’s interest I’ll leave it here. But I’d be interested in hearing anyone else’s views - if you have one.

Anyway, I hope all are well and had a good weekend. Take care and Happy Crafting x

Can't you tell I have free time?

So here are two more cards I made last night, its shocking what being unemployed does for your crafting time! lol! I mean, don't get me wrong, I love being able to settle down and make cards and know that I don't have a report to type up or anything else, but really...... I want a job! sadly museums are all in a budget freeze and christmas jobs are thin on the ground....But enough of the moaning! The first card I did was using an image I was kindly sent and its probably one of the most simple layouts i've done in a very long time.

So the question is - does simple work? image is a PB coloured with watercolour pencils; backing papers, gems, ribbons, peel off are all from stash.

The second of my cards is a none traditional colour schemed christmas card. It was inspired by some papers I've had for a couple of years and I thought it was about time I did something with them so this is what I came up with.

The image was another I was kindly sent - love this little fellow- and was coloured using watercolour pencils and highlighted with my whisper pens. The wording on the right side is from a cuttlebug embossing folder and cut out, double mounted. All papers, ribbons, gems and buttons are from the stash.

All comments are welcomed. Thank you for looking.

Take care and Happy Crafting x

Anchors Away!

Today I made a birthday card for a good friend of mine who is an avid sailor. I wanted to make something that was a little different so I settled on this fabulous stitched design.

The image was stiched with gold and black metalic threads, mounted on black card with brads in each corner. The backing papers, base card and brads are all from stock but I think the simpleness of this card is effective - or am I totally going bananas?

All comments are welcomed, just click that little button below.

Thanks for looking and happy crafting! x