Cards to send today

Thanks, everyone, who's visited and left encouraging comments.

I've been back to the GP about the osteoporosis and am waiting now for a date for a bone density scan to see how bad things are. I've agreed to try the weekly tablet instead of daily (GP thinks the effects on digestion will be no worse). And the GP has given me stronger pain relief (reluctantly I've agreed - was already on fairly strong ones).

Anyway, enough of me! I've managed over the last few days to finish off my ATCs for the swap on CBC, with the theme of 'gentle giant'. I can't show them here because I forgot to scan them and anyway, we usually wait for them to be revealed after Wendy's got them all in and ready to send out.

Over at Tanda Stamps forum there has been an April ATC paisley swap. I hadn't signed up because at the moment it's hard to know whether I'd be able to meet deadlines, but I've been playing around with various paisley patterns and finished off two ATCs this morning and have got them in the post. I think I can show these here because I know that someone else on Tanda has put hers on her blog.

The scans don't look as good as irl, but I'm quite pleased with them. I used a mixture of alcohol inks: butterscotch, stream and wild plum, with just a hint of pearl dabbed on afterwards. I then ran the card through the big shot, using the paisley embossing plate and then swiped Stazon black over so it picked up on the raised embossed surface. Then I just added the organza ribbon, label and brads.

Sadly today I needed to send two sympathy cards, so these are two very simple ones:

I just used some papermania embossed stickers - it looks as if they're mounted on black, but it's in fact a matt silver with a bit of a sheen.

On a happier note, we heard yesterday of the birth of a baby boy, so I sent this card today (it was already made, so no big effort):



I also sent a silver wedding anniversary card (already made):




The tag background is actually silver, not blue as it looks on the scan.

And finally, I sent one of my square shirt cards for a friend's birthday tomorrow.

Today has been a really new experience for me. Because of my back trouble I haven't been able to give the kitchen and bathroom a really good clean, so we had two lovely ladies in today to do everything, including cleaning two ovens! I've been increasingly finding housework very difficult, so it looks as if we might have some cleaning done on a regular basis.

It seems that I need to get adjusted to a bit of a new phase of life.

By the way, I've been asked about my picture in Hello magazine - when I've got the time and energy (and John's help with boxes) I'll dig out pictures and scan. John and I were in most of the national dailies, the Sunday papers, Hello, OK, Country Life and a few other publications - and we were on TV at the time. That's got you guessing!