The Parakeets Are Coming

The Green Ring-Necked Parakeets have been resident in Surrey for some years but this is the first time I have seen them in our neck of the woods in NE Surrey.

I first spotted them on a next door-but-one neighbour's tree on Armistice Day
(Wednesday 11-11-15)
How does the song go?
Ten Green Parrots Sitting in a Tree!


More recently in the next door neighbour's tree eating the fruit there.




But today they ventured into our garden.

Not sure if I am pleased or not.

They do look exotic but I hope they don't discourage our abundance of native species.

Season of Mists...

... and Mellow Fruitfulness - To Autumn - John Keats

The SWAP theme for this month was leaves and would you know good old Tim Holtz decided I'd need a tutorial for some Distressed Leaves, wasn't I the lucky one?

First I swiped lots of autumnal coloured Distress Ink Pads on my craft sheet sprayed with some water and then dabbed the two halves of a piece of A4 white card in the mixture.




I splattered with some gold paint using an old toothbrush.

Then diecut a load of leaves using the various dies I have.

I decided to make a tag which I embossed with a woodgrain folder.

I added a little hedgehog mooching around in the leaves as they do.

Hessian braid and raffia added to the Autumnal feel.

Poppies and Doves

I had some duplicate photos included in my last order from Photobox. First time this has happened, a slight overrun I assume, but quite welcome.

I had a spare poppy photo, so I put that in my little CD flower album along with a garden photo which hadn't made the cut for the main Garden Reclamation 12x12 page. I used my new poppy die to embellish the page.

Spurred on by the poppy die I eventually finished my page on Morden Hall Park which had been sitting unstuck on my craft table for a few days. We'd visited the park to get some photos of the iron bridge for my Summer Scavenger Photo Hunt.


I found a new craft magazine jumped into my shopping basket the other day as it had a lovely dove die as the freebie, despite me already having 2 other dove dies!!

Well this in turn inspired me to my next page which was of a bit of geocaching we did back in the summer which took us to West Horsley so I could suss out where my new harp group was located.

I used some hexagons I had cut out when I got the set ages ago. Also the frame was sitting in my purple folder awaiting a time such as this too. All because my husband had a purple t-shirt on.

Sixteen

My son gave me a remit for a card for his friend's birthday.

A big number sixteen in red with a white background.








I offered adding some gears, which was taken well, so I got to work.


Amazing what you can do with ink and stamps to some patterned paper.


All the pieces ready for sticking.






All done.

Up to Birthday Shoot!

Here's my latest scrapbook pages from the Summer just gone.

A synopsis of one garden border reclaimed from the weeds!

Is that a harp I see in the distance?







A knitted mermaid and Remembering Dad.

The bees in the garden were very busy.






Enlightened French Doors (or are the windows??)

My son couldn't resist going through the hole left from the panel before the glass was put in.

He'd never be able to do that again was his reasoning!

My son through 5 years of secondary school, phew glad that is over!

He got 10 great GCSEs and long hair.

He is now on to pastures new - horrah!

My husband's birthday photo shoot.

He's the only one with a Summer birthday so we could get out in the garden for some family photos.