Baby shower day

Well the morning has arrived of the baby shower, lots to do this morning getting the hall decorated with the banners and balloons and other decorations we’ve got. For the past few weeks I’ve been working on the cards that will be given to the guests as a thank you for coming and making the day special. I finally got the last one finished around 4.30pm yesterday. It was then the task of Demi (Mum to be) to write a message in each of the 20 cards, bless her she got cramp in her wrists a few times, but I’m so happy she thrilled with the cards I’ve made. Lots of photos will be getting taken at the shower this afternoon, so I will be posting them once I get home. Here are the cards finished.   The products used were the Love from Lizi sugar and spice mini card kit, Heffy Doodle Elephant of surprise stamps and dies, and Tim Holtz Distress oxide in Candied Apple.

Baby shower thank you card

Not posted in a while as I haven’t been well enough to make any cards. I’m still not feeling 100%, it’s been one of those few weeks where everything has been thrown at me. It started off with me not being observant, I’d gone in the freezer one night to get something out for my son’s tea. The following day I went to get milk out of the fridge and noticed the freezer door slightly open, the inside was all iced up, so there began the task of chipping it all off, fortunately all the food inside the drawers was still frozen solid. After about half an hour I’d got it all back to normal, so there began the task of putting everything back. All done the last item back in, time to close the bottom drawer, that’s when it all went wrong. My finger was in the way, the pain wasn’t pleasant, nor was the sight of all the blood. I won’t make you feel unwell with the details but a week of stitches in my finger put a halt on card making. Whilst my finger was out of action my best friend came to see me, she very kindly shared her bout of flu. ( thanks Lisa). Then the final straw was to make me feel better my youngest bought me a takeaway, and I also got some banana fritters. I’m not supposed to eat bananas as I have kidney problems, but I love bananas and I haven’t had one for nearly 2 years. I have severe pains in my kidneys for the last 4 days, totally my own fault but oh how wonderful they tasted. So that’s what’s been happening the last few weeks in the world of Claire. So today even though I’m still not back to full strength I thought I’d better get myself into gear as on the 1st of October we are holding a baby shower for my daughter whose 30 weeks pregnant, I thought it would be a lovely gesture to give every guest a little present and a card to say thank you for coming and bringing gifts, so I needed to get on with making the cards, I only managed to get one done today but I did get most of the prep work for the rest of the cards done. So here’s the first of twenty cards done. I used the sugar and spice card kit from Love from Lizi, and the new elephant stamps and dies from Heffy Doodle Stamps. I just love how this card turned out and I’m so excited to get the other done starting in the morning. Sorry yet again my post is more like an essay and if you’re still reading this thank you very much you deserve a medal but I really do appreciate you taking the time to read this. Much love and happy crafting xxx

Love from Lizi August Kit Unboxing

5 A4 Sheets of coloured card stock – Black, Cream, Red, White & Mint.

12 Sheets of 6×6 paper

4 Sheets of specialty paper

2 Sheets of Velom containing 12 topper type sentiments & kitchen items.

Sticker Sheet with around 40 stickers, cooking and kitchen related.

Alphabet Sticker sheet.

6 Gold heart stickers.

Magnetic square measuring around 2.5 inch x 2.5 inch.

Sheet of gold gems in 3 sizes.

Trial size bag of sequins.

Black gift tag with a gold bow & for you stamped on it.

3 Wooden Shapes, 2 houses and a bird house.

Chameleon Pen – Grass Green.

Nuvo crystal drops – Autumn Red.

2 Chipboard disks.

Metal name tag.

Die – Made with Love.

1 metre long Burlap ribbon

1 metre long 1 cm wide caramel coloured velvet style ribbon.

Chocolate brown peel off – Exclusive Love from Lizi.

Stamp Set – exclusive Love from Lizi, includes 4 different corners, a bunch of cherries, knife fork & spoon, 2 sizes of hearts, leaf, lips, repeating stamp looks like a string of pearls, Kiss the cook sentiment, made with love sentiment.

August card kit from Love from Lizi 

I just love this kit, I have so many ideas of cards to make, I managed to get these two done yesterday before I needed to take a break. To make these cards I used the card stock, stamps, peel off strips and the chameleon pen in sky blue from Lovefromlizi.com the ink I used to stamp with were the distress oxides by Tim Holtz in the shades candied apple and salty ocean.

Finally getting back into it

So after the week from hell my son Callum is finally on the mend, it’s taken its toll on my health as stress is a massive contributing factor in pain levels, and believe me mine are through the roof at the moment, but now my boy is getting better it’s a small price to pay. So today is one of my closest friends birthday and even though I have a stash of cards already made, none of them are masculine, and even with a little bit of tweaking none of them could’ve been changed enough to give to a man. He’s a high fan of motorbikes and is in the process of rebuilding one, I had a decoupage of a couple of motorbikes in my stash so it was perfect for making a card personal for him. Well due to Callum being so sick I’ve haven’t had time during the week to make a card as all my time has been devoted to getting his health back on track. So when everyone went to bed last night I set about making my friends birthday card. I managed to get half of it done, but I was so exhausted I started to feel nauseous and was burning up. So I left a note for my husband to let him know that I hadn’t left the living room looking like a paper craft explosion for him to tidy before he set off for work. The note read Don’t panic, I haven’t left everything for you, the card isn’t finished yet. I then finished the card when I woke up, around 3 hours after I went to bed thanks to my adorable Belgian Shepherd. It’s a old job I love him. Anyway enough of my babbling on. Have a great day everyone and happy crafting 💚

My very poorly boy

The last few days have been, well I’d class them as every parents worst nightmare. My 18 year old son has viral meningitis. It started on Friday. 

Friday morning he got up for work bright as a button, he even went in early to use the gym before he started, as was going well until around 10am when he started to feel sick, then the headache started. His line managers were great and kept telling him to go home, but because he only started the job 2 weeks ago he really didn’t want to be going home sick so early into his new employment. By 4pm the headache had got so bad his eyes were starting to become sensitive to the light, his head felt so heavy it was weighing down on his neck causing it to stiffen up. By this point he was in tears and told his line manager that he would go home. Whilst he was on the bus he rang home to tell us he’d left work early due to not feeling very well, as soon as he told his dad he could hardly open his eyes because the brightness was hurting so much and making his headache worse, we got straight on the phone to our Doctors surgery. The receptionist told us to get him there before 5pm, so my husband set off in the car to intercept the bus. The minute they walked through the doors at the doctors, the receptionist shouted room 4, the doctor was waiting for Callum, took his temperature which was 42.1c. He said he was going to ring an ambulance but at teatime on a Friday it would be quicker for us to take him by car, so that’s what we did. The doctor wrote a letter for us to give to the staff in A&E telling them he suspected bacterial meningitis. Now I’ve worked as a nurse in the A&E (Emergency department) and when one of us have gone in the past it’s felt at times like the staff are just plodding along until their shift finishes.  Not this time, you could feel the adrenaline in the air as they were working as if my son was dying, it wasn’t until later I realised they actually were fighting to save his life. They were taking bloods, getting lines put into him and flushing strong doses of antibiotics into his drip the were pushing fluids into him and pain killers. We were told he would be taken to the Acute Assessment Unit where he would have a lumbar puncture and a CT Scan. At around 11pm ish he was taken to AAU, he had a lumbar puncture around 3am and lots more blood tests. The lumbar puncture came back negative, so fantastic news no bacterial meningitis and such a relief, his white blood cell count came back at 28 (it’s supposed to be between 4 and 6) so that showed his body was fighting a serious infection. At around 2pm on Saturday he was transferred to ward 1 and he felt a little better, the headache has calmed and his eyes could cope with the brightness, so he told the staff he wanted to go home. (My son is on the first spectrum of autism and likes his routine). The consultant told him he’d like to keep him for at least another 24 hours, that really didn’t go down well with Callum and I just knew what was coming next, and I was right, the next thing he’s telling the consultant that if he doesn’t let him go home then he will discharge himself, so a compromise was reached. Callum would stay until 8pm and if his temperature stayed the same then he could go home. So at 8 o’clock we brought him home, I wasn’t impressed with him but he’s an adult now and I can’t make him stay, however I did tell him that he was either going straight to bed or he had he duvet on sofa, I think he could tell by my face that mum was being serious, he went straight to bed and stayed there until morning. Sunday daytime he managed his Lunch and spent the day laid on the sofa napping throughout the day, his girlfriend had spent the day with us so when it came to her being taken home Callum asked his dad if he could go with him, reluctantly he said it was ok as the car was pulled up to the front door and would be the same on the return so in theory Callum would only be walking about 8 steps. By the time they got back Callum was regretting going, he went straight up to bed when he got back, within 15 minutes he was screaming in pain from the site his lumbar puncture had been done, all across the bottom of his back and his hip. I’ve never seen him in that much pain in all his 18 years, I ended up giving him 2.5ml of my very strong liquid pain killer and that seemed to settle him and he slept for the rest of the night. Now because he only started his new job 2 weeks ago he was terrified he would lose his job if he was off sick this early into his employment, so Monday morning he gets up and gets ready for work, halfway into the journey he rang to say his head felt like it was going to explode, so his dad set off in the car once more to intercept the bus and bring him home, whilst they were on the way back I brought his duvet downstairs. Later in the morning our GP who had sent Callum into hospital rang to see how he was doing, I explained that Callum was home from hospital and we spoke about the tests done and results, he explained to me that the staff indeed were working as if he was dying as speed was needed in case it had been bacterial meningococcal. But that had been ruled out, the GP confirmed that Callum did have viral meningitis but unfortunately you can’t treat a virus, all he can do is take pain killers and rest. Callum has his ups and down moments and he’s realising he can’t do too much, you can actually see when he’s done too much, you can see the energy drain from his face. But now he starts the road to recovery, yes he may be fir for work in about a week or two, but I know it’s going to take about 6 months to get him fully fit. But the main thing to come out of this. My son, the teenager finally admitted that he shouldn’t have come home from hospital too soon. A teenager admitting they were wrong, now that’s not something you hear every day.

So that’s why they has been no crafting done in the last few days, but hopefully that should change in the next few days as my son gets stronger.

A bit about me and some more cards I’ve made.

Hi guys, I’m new to all this blog thingy-me-jig and I am such a technophobe at the best of times, so I thought I’d share with you most of the cards I’ve made in this post and also tell you all a little bit about my self. Right here goes. Obviously as it says in the blog name my name is Claire, I’m a wife, Mum and Grandma, I have a brood of biological and non biological kids, but if you know me you know biology means nothing and I love and worship all my kids exactly the same and I have the most gorgeous adorable grandson who just melts my heart, and there are more babies arriving very soon. I have a rare condition called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome to which there is no cure, it causes me to be in immense pain 24 hours a day, even the strongest pain medication doesn’t take the pain away, however the condition causes me to do amazing party tricks that make people cringe. My joints dislocate quite a lot throughout the day, yes it hurts but this has been happening for most of my life so now I don’t scream in pain when it happens, I just put the said joint back into place and carry on. But. I refuse to let it beat me, most of the time you will always see a big smile on my face and mischief in my eyes, I mean come on, who wants to be around a miserable person, plus I can’t be fixed so why let it ruin my life (plus I hate to let people see how much pain I’m in,) my husband is an absolute star, he does everything for me, even after a 10 hour shift at work and he never complains. He researches everything about my condition so that he can understand it and asks a million and one questions at hospital appointments, I think he’s amazing anyway but it’s so heartwarming to hear medical professionals from nurses to surgeons telling me what a supportive husband he is and how lucky I am to have someone like him. It means everything to me that he gets the recognition he deserves for all he does. (He’d go mad if he could see this, he would be the first to tell you it’s his job to look after his family). Even though he can’t see this. I will still say You really are one in a million Chris and I love you and appreciate everything you do for me.  Anyway enough of the boring morbid and soppy stuff. I love anything crafty, as a kid I was always in the art block at school, (usually doing detention) but seriously I love creating things whether it be cards, cross-stitching, knitting, drawing, rug making, decoupatch, soft toys. I also love cooking and I’m hooked on the masterchef programs, especially the Australian one, and I also love playing with makeup creating different looks. I just love starting out with nothing and achieving something that will make some smile. I’m not the greatest card making but I try and as my grandmother always said, “you can’t be knocked for trying” I think the other was “God loves a trier” I never knew if the latter was sarcasm from her though. I think that’s all I can think of. Oh and I’m a huge animal lover and fur mum to my 2 dogs, so I’m sure somewhere along the way there will be photos of my boys popping up from time to time. If you’re still reading by this point you deserve a medal, but I will thank you for taking the time to get to know a little about me. So here are the cards ranging from Christmas cards, to cards for any occasion.