having a mandi moment

Our American Friends

Well, here we are again. This coming Saturday marks the middle of 2008...and we are all still wondering where 2007 went!!

I am always thankful for the invention of the World Wide Web and in particular, email. I have met some amazing people via the internet on craft forums.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to meet Jaime and Ted Echt, and early last year I met Cristin.  In February 207 Jamie and Ted came to stay with us with their children, Ben and Rachel......and a couple of weeks ago Cristin made the journey over the pond to come visit.

We have a mutual love of rabbits and of Cricut machines!!  We certainly managed to cram a lot into the few days that we had.

I picked Cristin up from Bristol Airport on Monday morning and we came back to my home for a cup of tea and to see the rabbits.  Then it was off to the store for the afternoon.  Tuesday we went to Bristol Zoo, Bristol Cathedral and Bath (I must be the only person in the South West who DOESN'T know where the World Famous Roman Baths are!!).  Wednesday it was time for us to go to Cheddar and the wonderful Wishing Well Tea Rooms.........and WOW!!!  those people certainly know how to make a cream tea.  Wednesday evening we drove to London.  Our hotel was right next to Wembley Stadium and our rooms had a great view of the stadium.

We got into the city around 10am on Thursday and the first thing we saw was the marching band making their way up to Buckingham Palace....a few minutes later another marching band arrived at the Palace.  I am sure it was the Ghurkas coming to celebrate the Queen's Official birthday.

Then it was off to the Houses of Parliament and 'Big Ben'...which of course is actually the bell inside the clock tower.  We were able to go up to the gallery in the House of Commons.

Then it was off to Westminster Bridge to view the London Eye and have our picture taken

The Tower of London and Tower Brdge were next and then....lunch!!

Friday Mike took us to Wells Cathedral and the Bishop's Palace (where they were playing croquet on the lawn!!).

Saturday and Sunday we had classes at the store......and then around came Monday again.

It's now less than 4 months until I go back across the pond and see all of my American friends...and I can't wait!!

Hello Again!!

At last !!  after months of waiting I have finally had my first Carpel Tunnel release surgery on my hands.  With a bit of luck I will be able to get the full use and feeling back in my left hand within the next couple of weeks before I go to hospital to have surgery on my right hand.

Things are still busy, busy around here.  Catherine is about to take her Year 9 SAT's, Andrew is getting excited about his first trip away from home with the scouts in June and Mike has new toys.....an iphone and a new car.

My baby bunnies are now 10 months old and bigger than their parents.  My broodiness for baby rabbits is being fed by my dear friend Cristin who breeds rabbits in New Jersey, USA.  Every time she sends me pictures I resist the temptation to breed mine or run down to the pet store and buy more, as I can get my fix from seeing her adorable brood.

Having my hand bandaged up certainly hasn't deterred me from crafting {as if !!}  With loads of new things for the Cricut coming out I HAD to make sure I could craft one-handed.

There are the new Winnie the Pooh cartridges, solutions cartridges for wedding, soccer, camping, baseball, home accents and indie art and new embossing plates for the Cuttlebug (they will also work on the Big Shot and Big Kick).

This is just a quick hello and update from me.....bye for now xxxx

Cricut shared files problems

Although my shared cut files are attached in a previous post....I have discovered that there are a few problems with "dates" when trying to download and open them.  I will be trying hard to sort this out this week......but please be patient (I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to computers!!)

Happy times....and a Happy New Year !!

Happy New Year!!.....a little late I know.  Every year I make New Year's resolutions and every year they have fallen by the wayside before January is even out.  This year is no exception.

My first resolution this year was wrecked by the second!!  My first was to update my blog on a regular basis (the second was to get to grips wth my new Cricut software) which would have been fine if I hadn't had the new Cricut Design Studio software put onto my laptop. 

OH MY GOODNESS !!!!  what a wonderful piece of software this is.  Sure it's causing sleep deprivation whilst I think of new things to do with it, but wow!!

Here are a few of the things I have made with mine in the two weeks I have had it.  With a bit of luck and a fair wind I should also be able to upload the cut.files for some of these.....if not you can always email me and I will send them to you direct.

Download catherine_card.cut   

Download happy_easter_with_bunny.cut

Download hi_there_card.cut

Download lorna_new_card.cut 

Download many_thanks_card.cut

Download howdy.cut

Download i_love_you_base.cut

Download flower_topped_card.cut

Download love_you_card.cut

Download love_you_simple.cut

Bind it All...Now in stock

We now have the fabulous Bind-it-All machines in stock!!  This great little machine binds books, calendars and much more.

Look how diddy it is !!  and it only weighs 3lbs

I am already having fun with mine

Check out www.binditall.com for ideas for using this gadget.

Design Team Challenge - Christmas Cheer

This month I challenged the girls on the design team to use the Cricut, Christmas Cheer cartridge and the Die Cuts With a View Glitter stack pad.  I really don't know how they do it, but the cards these girls come up with are amazing.

Just look what Carol made....great job as always Carol !!

We have a new member of the design team (Karen Brown) and her work will be showcased here later in the week.

Here are Karen's cards.... (well done Karen!!)

                                                   

And now for Pat's!!  (sorry they've taken me so long to upload Pat!!

We swarmed !!

Anyone who knows me knows that I am ADDICTED to my Cricut machines (Jimini and Buggles) and that I am always eager to create more addicts.

Today I think I accomplished this.  Today, we had a "Swarm", the official name for a gathering of Cricut owners.

We had to have two rooms open for all these lovely ladies (and gent) and their machines.  With eight people in the main classroom playing with the original bug and four in the back classroom playing with the new Cricut Expressions machines.......I was in Cricut heaven.

There was a great flurry of activity in both rooms as everyone got creative.  Although I didn't make a single thing today....I had a blast!!

Thanks everyone for making my day and look forward to seeing you all on 28th October.  Fancy joining in the fun next month?  Call me on 01934 418005 or email me at crosspatchcrafts@aol.com to book your place.

The Emerald Isle

Ireland certainly lives up to it's nick name.  It is so green and beautiful.  Mike and I were fortunate enough to go to Ireland last month for a week....and boy what a week.

We flew from Bristol to Shannon on the Friday evening and visited the "Ring of Kerry" on Saturday

The views are magnificent. 

They say that the Lakes of Killarney are fair....and they aren't kidding.  This is Ladies View.

are you counting how few houses there are !!!!???

Mike was 50 whilst we were away (on the Sunday), and he wanted to go on a trip down memory lane.  So off we went to find the house he lived in as a small boy.  As we got close to where he thought it was we found a farm that Mike thought he recognised.  Outside was a farmer who we thought might be able to point us in the right direction.....he did more than that !!!  The farmer was John Kerwick......who went to school with Mike and remembered him and his family....after 45 years.  The look on Mike's face was magical as John recalled details about Mike's past that even he didn't know.  John and his wife Maura (who made a fabulous chocolate, strawberry and cream cake) made us so welcome. We did find the house Mike lived in but it is now just derelict.

Sunday evening we were off to Roscommon to see Mike's step Mum and her family.  We went out for a lovely meal with Auntie Monica and Uncle Pete (more adorable Irish people) and Mike had his first birthday cake in 40 years....thanks Mum !!!

When we got home from the meal (about 11pm) it was off to step-cousin Raymond's house to play Poker.  We finally left about 1am...so much fun.

Monday we went across country towards Dublin.  On route Mike said he would like to find his real Mum's sister...Auntie Lizzie.  He knew which village she lived in but couldn't remember which one of the houses she lived in.  He asked at the local post office and they were able to tell him which house was hers, but also that his Auntie had sadly died a few years earlier.  However, her son, Thomas, now owned the house.  So off we went to meet cousin Thomas.  Mike hadn't seen Thomas or his sister Mary-Ellen for about 10 years since his Mum's funeral, and the man that opened the door to him certainly didn't look like Thomas.  That was because it was another cousin,Thomas' brother Mick. (Mike didn't even know he had a cousin called Mick).  Also in the house was another brother that Mike didn't know about, John.  They were both thrilled to meet Mike and off we went then to Mary-Ellen's.  It was there that we found out that there were also two more sisters!!  Catherine and Elizabeth.  We arranged to go back the next day and meet everyone.

Unfortunately Elizabeth had to work, but Cathy was able to come over and meet Mike.  We went to the local graveyard and Mike learned more about his Mum's family.  He found his grandparent's grave and found out about his Mum's brother's and sisters.

The Irish people really are the friendliest I have ever met and I cant wait until we go back in November.

Magical, magical times that I will cherish forever.

Got bunnies?

we do !!  Four days before I headed off on my annual vacation, one of my bunnies, Rusty, jumped from his hay box and broke his leg requiring emrgency surgery to amputate it.  Thankfully he came through just fine and we were able to bring him home two days later.

When we got home, however, we found that one of our females, Thumper, had had babies !!  I couldn't believe it.  So we now had a poorly bunny and three new babies for my stepdaughter to look after whilst we were away. 

So...here's a little peak at my new arrivals.  When we left they looked like little 2" sausages.  Now they are about 6" long and beautiful.

How cute are these !!!  Let me introduce Sooty, Sweep and Sue.

Sooty (the dark one) is definately the boss and is the bravest of them all.

Now that I have 10 bunnies I will have my work cut out when it comes to cleaning duties.

Design team challenges

This month I challenged the girls to use the new double sided papers from EK Success.

Carol used the pale pink reverse of one of the papers as her background and added accents to the page using the other papers and her Cricut machine.

For this one carol used the green paper with the stitched pattern on it. Her accents were all cut on her new Cricut machine (I told you that thing was addictive!!)  She also cut one of the fabric labels in half before placing it on the page

Pat has also turned one of her papers over and used smaller pieces of the other papers.  The addition of white rub-ons and a fabric tg add to this classy page.

The way Pat has place these papers draws your eye to the centre of the page allowing the photograph to be the focal point.

Aonther pretty one from Pat.  Plain papers with the patterned paper as accents.

Claire has used the striped paper to divide her page into 4.  She has also used individual words from the paper as accents.

and finally....mine!!  The girls were nagging at me to also make a page for the design team challenge.  The dark green strip you can see is a 9mm strip of vellum that I embossed in my Dymo machine with "Catherine Ann".  I followed Carol's lead and cut one of the labels in half.  I also used some of the papers as ribbon strips behind the photograph