Slumber Party and barbecue

Hello Crafters, 

how have you been?

As you probably don't know, my girls' Birthday is in summer. Traditionally we always had rather big parties in our garden. Since we moved, we don't have a garden anymore and rather more guests on top, inviting old and new friends. 

Therefore party planning was a bit of an adventure for me this year. I decided on inviting just a few girls for a sleep over on the night of the Birthday itself, and to invite all the other guests for a barbecue party a day later at a barbecue hut that is rented out locally. 

Running late with the invitations - as ever - I decided on a very clean and simple design. I let my girls do the ink blending with my new make-up brushes (I got the cheap option, not the original) and added two heat embossed sentiment strips on foam tape. We embellished the envelopes with the same patterns and that's it. I think they turned out gorgeous.

Above are all the designs for the slumber party, but the BBQ invitations were the same, we only changed the sentiment a bit. 

Both parties were a bit of a challenge for me. For the sleep over we played Exit - the game and it was huge fun, but also a bit hard to keep the girls happy and concentrated. There was always one feeling left out because not all could look at the material at the same time. 
It also went way too long, we had to break off just before midnight, when they became too tired. We finished the game the next morning, which was a bank holiday, so there was enough time.

After the sleep-over guests had left - amazing what a mess 5 girls can make in just one night - I had to finish preparations for the barbecue party. And the weather wasn't looking good. I had been watching the forecast with growing desperation for days, and it proved right unfortunately: rain and thunderstorms. 

At some point I had to make the decision to either clean up the place and party at home (35 person, OMG!) or risk the weather and go to the hut anyway. Had it just been rain, the hut might have won, but with thunderstorms coming I decided that was too risky. 

I have two wonderful friends who helped me a lot that day, one came over to help me cleaning up the slumber party mess and the other brought so many things I can't even remember them all. Plates, glasses and cutlery, so we didn't have to use throw-away things, salads and meat for the BBQ, the list is endless. She also kept constantly cleaning up in my kitchen during the party, so I hardly had any mess afterwards. Girls I love you, you're the best! Thanks so much!

Since I didn't own a barbecue, I actually had to borrow that as well. First thing I bought after the party is a gas powered barbecue for our balcony. We've used it so much since, that my girls are already growing tired of it. 

Meet my new baby, first time in use.

Despite having to improvise so much and not really having space for so many people, we had a lot of fun. I think next time I'll skip renting the hut, the weather seems never to be stable at our Birthday parties anyway.



Love
Ela




Challenges:
CAS on Sunday: #162 Use a Stencil
TCP Tuesday: #360 CAS 

Gardener's Birthday

Hello Crafters, 

as I mentioned a while ago, my new landlady is a marvel. 

My daughter and I visited her the other day at the optician where she works, and I saw a pair of glasses there I really liked. However, I didn't really need new ones, I wasn't even looking actually, so I didn't buy them. 

Two days later, I brought over some mail I had accepted for her, and she presented me with those glasses, just like that. She had secretly measured my old ones and ordered the new ones with the same parameters. 
Isn't that amazing? I was seriously speechless, she is such a nice person.

I am now very happy, that I already made this card for her upcoming Birthday. Now I need to find a special gift to go with it. And I think I'll bake a cake as well.

Since she has such a big garden and is constantly working in it, I immediately thought of a garden themed card for her. Those planters seemed perfect so I arranged a few of them on watercolour card and coloured them with my ZIGs. As usual, I was very unhappy how it looked during the process, but now I am content with the finished card. 

Initially I meant to use blue to frame the images, but then I thought they would look like they are floating. So I went for green instead, like they are standing on grass .

I added two thin strips of patterned paper with an ombre effect on the card base and adhered the panel on top with foam tape. 




Wishing you a happy day
Ela




Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday 


  

Mermaid Shaker card

Hello Crafters, 

today's card, is none of mine. My daughter was inspired by summer and created this lovely mermaid card, using alcohol markers. 

She also created a shaker element with lots of blue and green sequins in different sizes for the water.

To keep the card open or all occasions, she skipped adding a sentiment.

I love how cute it turned out, whichever of her friends will be the lucky recipient will surely by delighted.


Lots of Love
Ela


Challenges:
TCP Tuesday: #360 CAS
Addicted to stamps and more: #355 - Photo
Simon says: clean and simple
 

Update and a Birthday card

Hello Crafters, 

how are you all doing?  Again it's been a really long time since you heard from me. 
Life has been busy, throwing things at me, good and bad. 

Just a very quick life update, from where I left off:
My sick cat passed just before Christmas 2017, which was really hard for us. We still miss her a lot, though we adopted two young cats rather quickly, to keep our little devil Nala company.

Meet Benny (red) and Cleo (mostly white) in their typical pose. The adorable couple were about 6 months old when they moved in in winter 2018. They aren't siblings but grew up at the same shelter, and they are simply inseparable. They conquered us humans in a heartbeat and though Nala often pretends to dislike them, she has been caught letting herself be groomed by Benny and letting Cleo sink her paws into Nala's fur.

Here are all three of them together, in a rare moment of unity:

At first I had an allergic reaction to Benny and feared I would have to return them, but luckily the girls and I decided to keep him out of my bedroom (that proved entirely impossible),  to vacuum clean a lot and have the girls brush him often  and see if any of that helps. We also went ahead and had him neutered a bit quicker than planned.
And I actually have grown accustomed to his fur and have no reaction at all anymore. Lucky me, having to return them would have been a tragedy, even after only an hour. I could write about my cats forever and post a million videos, but unfortunately I have more news to tell you, and rather sad ones.

I have repeatedly written about health issues in the family in the past, both our Grannies weren't well. Sadly my mother-in-law passed late last year, which hit the whole family hard, as you can imagine. 
I 'll not write more on this topic, since I don't think the rest of my family would appreciate that, but I felt I did at least have to mention it. 

It happened just after I had found a new place to live for the girls and me. We had been looking for years without success, but after taking more options (aka a new area) into account, we finally found the perfect flat. It's large, 4 bedrooms, so finally my girls have separate rooms and we have a craft space/office on top. It is about 40 minutes from our old place, so the decision wasn't popular with the family and the girls had to change school. However, they were with me in that decision and we are very happy here now. It's a more rural place, with a huge garden, which luckily I don't have to tend to, since it belongs to my landlady who lives on the ground floor. Our balcony suits me much more, no snails and slugs... But we do love to look out on the wonderful garden and hills. This is a shot in early spring from my bedroom window. Isn't it lovely? And that's not even when the garden is at it's best. Now that it's summer I can barely see the hills in the back, for all the trees.

Our new landlady is a lovely, caring person, we have already become good friends. I am so happy to have found our new home. And I am sure to get rid of the last 3 boxes from the move at some point. In a month maybe. Or a year. Or...

Enough with the updates. Though I didn't manage to tend to my blog despite the fact that I even had several blogposts prepared, I did make a few cards in the last year or so. Since I already wrote so much in this post, I'll just show a very quick card, done with an embossing folder, some Washi tape and a die cut and embossed sentiment combo. Isn't the flamingo adorable? I wish it was clearer on the photo, but think you can see it well enough on the second image.

I hope you have a good start into the next week. 

Hugs
Ela



Challenges:
Creative Friday: #237 We want to see an animal
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday 
The Paper Players: #455 Any cards for Kids (the card is for one of my girls friends)
Addicted to stamps and more: #354 CAS