T is for trapped in the rain

Hello ladies, hope you are all keeping safe and well as we are here. Many thanks once again for your cheery comments last week, it’s good to have friends out there and hear how everyone is coping.

This is our weather, it was forecast rain but not torrential, just when things are finally drying out it starts again! The wall on the other side of the pool is my mosaic, I think a few of you may have already seen it, the wall is 2 metres by 12 metres and it took 10 months to complete doing two hours per day! Usually cheers me up when I see it but today it reminded me that even the loveliest place can look miserable in the rain.

steve had to go out for his five weekly blood check, the medical centre is only open for blood tests and cancer patients, otherwise I think you have to go into the town, well good news is that his levels are very good and when he walked in the door Anna the receptionist ran out to take his temperature, all normal! great news!

After reading the local news that said the next two weeks in Spain would see a spike in cases of the virus I decided to go to the supermarket so I wouldn’t have to go out again, firstly the line was quite long, although it looks worse because of all the space between everyone, I arrived home and then took an hour to put the shopping away, not that I had so much but after seeing the video about germs on shopping I wiped every plastic wrapper before opening and dropping into clean bags, then all plastic was put into a bin bag, cardboard cartons were opened and the inside package was put on the disinfected worktop, then all cardboard and paper went straight into the log burner! I had to wipe all my bags and then clean all the worktops again before cleaning the kitchen floor where the bags had been! Then I got paranoid and put all my clean clothes in the washing machine, It’s enough to put anyone off shopping for life, LOL

I have been have a tidy up in my craft room so when I’ve finished I will show you what I’ve been up to, actually it’s made time fly the last couple of days, I’ve really enjoyed getting stuck in, so much so that I lost track of time!

My link to the tea party this week is my kettle, our son and DIL lived in Boston when they first left the Uk, on our first visit to see them, which was very scary as it was during 9/11, they bought me this lovely kettle, I really love the cow prints, I haven’t ever used it as we have an electric kettle but I have it on the top of the kitchen cupboards, it always makes me smile.

I hope you are all finding ways to pass the time and none of you getting to the point of counting cereals, yet. Stay safe Jan x

Friday Smiles 364, but a first for me

Hello Ladies, I thought I would join you for the first time, We have just finished our second week of lock down, it hasn't been too bad, we are waiting, hopefully for this bad weather to change so we can start on the jobs around the garden.

After seeing Elizabeths garden I thought maybe I you would like a walk around my garden in Spain. This what I call Tthe cabbage, it started out very small, about twelve years ago.

It is pretty big and we are worried it will pull the wall down so when we are actually allowed out of captivity!! I'm afraid it will have to come out. I will be very sad as I really love it. This is one of two babies that Steve is growing for me, we took them off the main plant about 18 months ago so we will replace the big one with one of these.

This is the Bird of Paradise, I do love it, we did have a giant Yucca there when we moved in but it's roots started to push up the floor tiles so unfortunately it had to go, it started life really small in a pot, it took two men to pull the roots out!

You might noticed the walls behind are covered in stone, I did it with Steve's help, mixing the cement etc, also the bricks around the gate, Steve made a wooden form and a paper plan, he cut them all to fit and I cemented the bricks in place, when it was dry we took the wood away and, a with a big sign of relief it stayed in place.

Our front garden is just gravel and fruit trees, we have Orange, Lime, Pink Grapefruit, Lemon and here you can see the Kumquat, It's quite a young tree, maybe only four years old, the old one was near the pool but grew so big we had to take it out, the old tree had so many fruit on it I would fill shopping bags up and send them round to friends to make marmalade. I waiting to make these last few into marmalade when I can get enough sugar.

This our pool. it's filthy at the moment with all the rain we've had bringing down sand and dirt with it, we have to wait for it all the settle to the bottom before it can be cleaned, we are hoping for good weather so we can start to swim every day to get some exercise as we can't leave the house.

The mosaic behind the pool I'm quite proud of, it took me ten months to complete, it's two metres high and twelve metres in length.

I took a photo of the beach where we live to give me some ideas. I started by roughly drawing in the palm trees and when they were finished I started on the islands and boats before filling in the sky, sea and sand. We used old pool tiles for the sea and sky, the pool people would leave any spare ones behind when they finished and so we would go around the empty villas at night to find more, you can imagine how many we needed! for the sand we used some floor tiles.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend, after our DIL sent a video of what to do with your shopping after you bring it home I will most likely be spending time cleaning my food packaging so no chance of boredom here LOL Keep Safe, Jan x

In bloom

I'm joining Eileen in the Art Journal Journey, to use the colour Green I hope my offering is acceptable as I made it into a card, that will teach me for not reading the rules. It is still just over 8" x 4".

I used some DP for the BG as it was green and lilac, i added my stamp and some sand Texture Paste through a stencil, it actually stained the white paste green, I decided to add some glitter to the leaves to make them stand out and coloured the girls clothes using glitter markers! I've only just started to do some art Journal work so it's a work in progress until I make anything worth showing, Take Care Jan x

T is for tired of the never ending rain

Hello ladies of the T gang, hope you are all keeping safe and well as we are here. I hope all you all managed to have a good Mother’s Day in the UK, I had a lovely email from my DIL in SF, she calls me her second MUM, she is a lovely kind and thoughtful young woman, we bless the day she joined our family!

our GSs had written Happy Mother’s Day in the sand for me! Both sons rang too so I got to see all the family even though we are all in different countries.

We are now on an extended lockdown here in Spain, it’s been extended until April 12th, we were due to go back to the UK to look after our GS again on the 14th but obviously we have cancelled our trip and as our son is working from home they don't need us anyway! There has been a message to say that although our small local medical centre has closed for general appointments, anyone who has to have regular blood tests will still be able to go there, that’s good news as Steve has to go next week for his five week test, they are also still seeing cancer patients which is good news!

I must say Brittany Ferries have been very helpful and have let me transfer our sailings free of charge to a later date. All hotels are being forced to close today but unfortunately the Spanish hotel in Santander have said they will not give us a refund, I asked if we could transfer to a later date they said yes, but want another €88! we’ve already paid €74 for one night. I not only told the manager no thank you but also that we will not ever use the hotel again, we have been staying there for about five years and sometimes three times every year. I just hope that if everyone else had the same response that they will lose business when they are allowed to reopen.

We are having awful weather here, rain started on Saturday and it’s still going off and on, it’s been raining all night and our garden is flooded, so the song about the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plane certainly isn’t true???

I’ve also been crafting, making a page for my journal and some cards for my stash. The BG is coordinations paper, sanded down after I had embossed it,

All our fruit trees on the front garden have new buds, well they did before all this torrential rain! and we still have loads of grapefruit, kumquats and lemons on the trees, I make marmalade but I didn’t want to buy sugar while there may be shortages, we still have plenty of food in The supermarket. While I was looking through the food cupboards I came across this packet of Pumpkin Bread mix, we love it and I always buy a few packets from Trader Joes to bring home.

You wouldn’t believe how excited we were to find it, luckily I had some eggs, smells glorious, we made it last and savoured every slice!

Seeing as we can’t go out I found this photo from my birthday meal last year, this was my starter, Oysters Rockafella, is that how you spell it?? Anyway they were delicious and the first time I’d tried them, persuaded by our DIL, her favourite. It’s also my ticket to join the T party, the glass of iced water, I also had a glass of wine to celebrate!!

I hope this makes you all smile, steve spotted it online, gave us a giggle.

To be honest I don’t find it boring to stay at home all day.....but I don’t understand why in one box of Rice Krispies there are 22,456 and in another there are 22,466, (and before anyone asks I have triple checked my figures).

Stay Safe Friends Jan x

T is for Total Lockdown

Hello Ladies, it has been quite traumatic for all of us I think since we were all at the T party last week, I hope that you are all free from the virus as we are here.

We are on total lock down here in Spain, we are only allowed out to go shopping, the pharmacy or the hospital, we've just been told that we aren't even allowed to go shopping together! The police are patrolling around and it's a fine if you are caught, we didn't realise this, we went shopping yesterday morning although Steve stayed in the car, I wouldn't risk him mixing with anyone as he has heart problems so better to be safe than sorry. It is was very organised, only 40 at once in the shop, it's a big supermarket so I was never close to anyone, they have plenty of food but spread out on the shelves, I think they are keeping some back to keep filling the shelves to stop people buying everything.

They sprayed our hands with sanitizer and then gave us plastic gloves, they are so big on my hands I could't actually open the plastic bags to put my veg in them so I just stuck the price label on and gave them to the girl separately, she laughed when I told her why!

Luckily we aren't social butterflies so it's not a hardship to be together, that's our lives since we retired doing everything together although we are missing our morning walks along the paseo but it's a small price to pay to be safe.

Seeing as we haven't been eating out since we returned to Spain because of the risks I haven't been able to take any photos so I found a digital image and decided to make a card.

This is for all of you lovely ladies from the T Party, to say thank you for all your visits and kind comments, it's much appreciated.

The last two weeks I’ve been inspired to make a start on my travel journal, I’m making this one from our visit to Disneyland and Universal studios 18 months ago with our DIL and DGSs, our DIL organised it all and she did us proud, we flew to Burbank from SFO where she organised a car to drive us to Anaheim where we stayed for two nights, we had one day in Disneyland so it was a hectic day. Then she organised a stretch Limousines to take us to the Hilton hotel close to the studios, it was amazing, unfortunately our DIL doesn't like fairground rides and Steve wasn't allowed on most of them, they went on the log flume and the space ride but after that I had to accompany our 11 year old GS on them all. I must admit it was amazing whizzing around behind Harry Potter and feeling you were going to be crushed by a giant boulder in the film Raiders of the Lost Ark but I was totally freaked out when our GS wanted to go on the Mummy, we had a long wait and when we finally got on the ride we asked if we could go at the back, by the time we got to the end our GS had his head on my knee and I had my eyes closed! We never saw a thing, LOL

I've also been making Birthday cards from the free papers I got with my craft mag, let's face it I think most of us could be on lock down for a year and not run out of stash, By the time we are let out I will most likely have enough cards to last my lifetime, Ha,Ha

I was quite pleased with this one as I also used some twine, I usually struggle to use that and ribbon! That's all for this week, take care and have a good crafting week! Jan x

T is for I forgot it was Tuesday

Happy T day, I totally forgot today was in fact Tuesday until I saw Elizabeth's post when I was drinking my coffee on the Paseo this morning.

It’s been a fairly busy week here, we seem to have been spending quite a bit, on updating the villa mainly but I’m very happy with the results, well I will be when it's all finished

I mentioned the new lights in the bedrooms, they look lovely and make the rooms look bigger now the fans aren’t hanging down, although I chose bulbs or lamps as my son tells me to call them, well he is a lighting and design Engineer so I suppose he knows what he's talking about! Anyway I decided on natural light but they give out a strange glow that I'm not sure I like but as they cost half the price of the lights I know someone will not want to buy more! Fitting was also included in the price and the man came and within twenty minutes they were all done.

Steve’s new chair looks good, although he is still going on about not having the colour he wanted. We have cream leather sofas but they are a very creamy colour, so the chairs only came in off white or dark brown, seeing as our carpet is a dark cream, brown and terracotta I thought the brown would look better, which it does, I’ve also bought two brown cushions for one of the other sofas, I’m really pleased with how it looks. I know he’s only trying to wind me up really but he is colour blind so would you let him loose with choosing!!! lOL

I made this card from some free papers I got in a craft Mag, The tiny spotted paper I already had in my stash, I thought it matched the flowers better than the turquoise stripe paper they had put in to use, the circle and the flowers were on a sheet to just push out so no cutting needed as was the silver sentiment. I used some stash to line the inside too. A quick card to put in my box for an emergency!

This is my ticket to the T party over with Elizabeth and Bleubeard, I've had these mugs for years, our DIL bought them on her first trip abroad with work, from Germany, I very rarely use them as I would be upset if I broke one, they must be about 18 years old LOL! I know, crazy but I was very touched that she bought them as she had just left Uni and didn't have much money.

This is all the way from Japan, it originally contained Tea Leaves. Our son's VP in San Francisco is Japanese and travels over there quite a bit with work and visiting family. Our son was telling her that I craft and that he saves fancy boxes and tins for me, the next day she gave him this tin to give me and also a couple of boxes but by that time my case was too full to fit them all in. I'm not sure what I will actually use it for but I can never resist a fancy box or tin!!!

The temperature has been in the 20c's so we have switched to solar water and cleaned out the log fire, next week we will order a ton of logs ready for next winter, that's what I love about Spain, winter doesn't last very long here on the south coast.

Have a great week, thanks to all my visitors last week, I hope I managed to visit everyone but it's always a challenge on my ipad but I'm back on my PC now so fingers crossed it will be easier to comment. Jan x

Try it on a Tuesday

After seeing some lovely techniques on T for Tuesday I thought I might join, it’s a first for me!

Products used

Glossy stamping card

Peacock feathers distree ink

Versamark Dazzle watermark pad

’Ive had the watermark stamp pad for a few years and only used it once before, I wasn’t overly impressed but seeing this challenge I decided to give it another go.

After the stamped image was dry I wasn’t entirely happy as the stamp only covered the bottom half so I used the spot stamp too. This was a freebie from a craft mag I bought in the UK.

I love the Peacock Feathers distress ink so I used it to cover the stamped images.

I did ink a little Antique Linen distress ink over parts of it as it seemed a little bland, I cut the silver outline and stamped the sentiment, and stamped the butterfly which I them fussy cut.

Have a great weekend Jan x