Saturday 18 January 2014

Well...The Pattern's Not Going to Plan Is It?!

=(

Please don't yell, I'm really sorry I haven't posted anything in quite a while! So much for blogging for a couple of weeks and then not blogging for a couple of weeks! I knew as soon as I said it it would all go to pot!

I'll just do a 'quick' catch up with some news and then hopefully everything will get back to normal!

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year? Ours was quite quiet and we all got some lovely things. I got home from Mum's a couple of days before I started work again and found three inches of sewer water in the basement!
Three weeks, three plumbers and some people from Yorkshire Water later, they finally managed to find what the problem was! The public sewer pipe in the ginnel ('alley' for those not from Yorkshire!) behind the house was blocked so it was coming straight back into our basement. They've now pumped the water out and hopefully, as it was the public pipe not any of ours, Yorkshire Water will be paying for the clean up and to re-do the eroded pointing in the basement so the landlord and lady won't have to pay for it!

Two of my house mates moved out at the end of last year, Tom went at the end of September because he's been saving for his own house and Issi left about a week after to move down to Bristol. Helen, a friend of Lee and Issi's moved into Tom's old room for a few months but she moved to Switzerland a few weeks ago.
Lee, Issi's boyfriend, is moving out in April to be with her and our other housemate Stefan will be moving out at around then as well so there'll just be myself rattling around the house for a while until the landlord and lady find new people!
Quite looking forward to being on my own for a little while, at least the house will be clean and tidy AND I get Lee and Issi's attic room when he moves out so I'll have soooo much space for crafting and I'll be able to start making quilts properly as I don't really have the room at the moment. I'll also have my own bathroom which I'm so happy about!

Right! On to something crafty!

Over at Lili of the Valley we had our first launch of the year last week which included the gorgeous Jack, Patch and Puss and the seriously cute James the Bear who's my favourite of all our characters!

This stamp is one of two favourites from the launch and he's called 'James - Peeping'

I've coloured him with Tim Holtz Distress Ink pads, Brushed Corduroy and Peeled Paint. I've never used Distress Inks before and this was only the third image I coloured and he's come out really well!
The paper is Echo Park 'A Walk in the Park' and I've used Spellbinders Standard Squares Large and Fleur De Lis Squares to cut out James, the apperture and the frame. The sentiment is from Lili of the Valley's 'Scroll Sentiments' set.

I'm entering him into this month's challenge at Without Words which is 'Spots and/or Stripes' as well as this week's Papertake Weekly Challenge which is 'New Year, New Stash' where you have to use something crafty that Santa brought you for Chrimble; unfortunately Santa didn't bring me anything crafty for Chrimble (except the extension table for my new sewing machine, hooray!) but the Distress Inks are new to me so that's what I've chosen.

Hope you like the card!

Erica

=)