End of the year and the last birthday

Every New Years Eve is a reflection of the year that has gone before and in this house its also a celebration, the second of the month and I am not including Christmas, following the 18th birthday of my daughter on December 22nd today is the birthday of my son Ben, and today he is 20!  Born in Margate hospital - Kent - on Friday 31st December 1993 at 11.01am weighing just 6lb 13oz its hard to believe he is the strapping 6ft plus man he has become.

From stabilizers to kayaks....

 

 

Always did like to be on the move my son!

 

 

Look at the white blonde hair!   

...and he has always been a messy eater, even now you know where he has sat at the table as the debris of split gravy, milk, crumbs...tea....will just seem to follow him and I am not including the empty biscuit packets, crisp packets, coke bottles, tea cups and everything else that he leaves next to the settee on the rare occasion he sits long enough to watch a programme, usually Duck Dynasty!

 

Me and my boys, poor Ricky he did put up with a lot and was the most wonderful play mate for Ben, Ricky taught Ben to wee up that weeping willow you can see in the picture on the left, one of my funniest memories is seeing Ricky on one side and Ben on the other both 'marking' the tree. 

 

20 yrs have passed in the blink of an eye. 

 

Happy birthday Ben.

 

 

 



18 years gone in a flash!

 

This is my daughter, Charley-Jennifer and tomorrow 22nd December she will be 18, I can't believe that time has gone so quick!

 

I have been looking back at some photos from long ago and found these ones...

 

 

 

This one was taken when Charley was 2 days old, she is being cuddled by her big brother, the same big brother that will be 20 on 31st December..yes my birthday is March!

 

Charley was a big baby all 8lb 13oz with a mass of jet black hair.

 

That same jet black hair was white blonde 18 months later.  Ben, the big brother, is seen here on his John Deere tractor with the hay bales in the field behind the house we were living in in Burley Gate Hereford, the first house we lived in when we moved up from Kent where both the children were born, who knew that 20 years later that same little boy would be driving the enormous John Deere tractors and baling the hay, only his tractor today is red and considerably more dirty!

 

Happy birthday to my youngest baby for tomorrow, its nice to go down memory lane sometimes even if you come across one of yourself looking fat!

Keyrings and prints

 Now available in keyrings too.

 

Get yours at Canine Cavern ..... I am really excited about this new venture and returning to my artist roots and my pencils.  Next year I will be adding many more to the collection and thanks to Carolyn at Canine Cavern I now have an outlet for my work.

 

You can also visit my Izzybeads Facebook page for more information and pictures. 

In the bin

Cockerel

Bottoms up

Please don't disturb

Winter blues, squelching mud and dumplings.

I don't mind Winter, as long as I am indoors!  My daughters birthday is the 22nd Dec the shortest day of the year (could be the 21st but I use her birthday) and after that its longer days, I really look forward to that the promise of sunshine and long days in the garden.

I like driving in snow as long as no one else is on the road and I love deliberately skidding in the car down our icy lanes, I love the feel of the slide, only if no one else is around though and the only thing I can hit is the hedge!  I would really like to have a go on a professional skid pan and I am determined one day to do doughnuts complete with smoke and squealing tyres.

I love coal fires and drawing the blinds when it gets dark so its all snug and cosy, long hot soaks in the bubbly bath with a good book, thick stews with dumplings and thick baggy jumpers that hide the rolls consistent with eating too many dumplings!  I am not so keen on wet stinky dogs after a trudge through sludgy fields, even though I quite like the sound of the squelch when the wellie boots sink in the sludgy mud.  I hate cold feet, but love a tingly cold nose feeling and I hate the fact that my clothes are dried in the tumble dryer and not on the line.

Today though the sun is shinning and the little robins are perched up on the leafless trees and singing loudly, I had a nice walk down by the river with patches of frost on the less exposed areas of grass, Defi rolled in the muddy puddles and chased the birds across the empty field, the only noise heard was that of the robin and the squelching of the mud.

Prints of 'Please don't disturb me' are now available to buy at Canine Cavern all designed and drawn by me.

 

Lots of colour

'Colourful CPteam' by nemeton

The brightest and cheeriest from the Craft Pimp Forum Team. Search for our 'cpteam' tag to find more to brighten your day! You're welcome to add your own colourful item to our daily Facebook sharing thread: www.facebook.com/CraftPimpForum

Lampwork glass Ice Cream Sun... IzzyBeads $6.5	Handmade Rainbow Fairy Card ... inkydoodlecraf... $4.49	Rainbow star shaped Fairy Do... WINIBI $15
Beady Wow customisable frame... pennydogillust... $46	Chrissie Crab lampwork bead ... KitzbitzArtBea... $29	Purple Daze Bronze Bracelet DysfunctionDes... $12
Cornish Pixie Elf Meadow CornishDragon $8	Fused dichroic glass pendant... KilnFiredArt $20	Ring of Fire - Copper and R... abyjem $9
Springdoodle Greeting Card -... Pandanimal $4.5	Peacock v2 - teal turquoise ... HeatherKellyGl... $30	Pretty and Bold Bracelet in ... CyndraArts $24.99
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5g Murrini Allsorts V CoE 10... FritNChips $5

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Saturday at the Old Museum in Beacon.

I do a one day fair and then feel like I have been run over by a train the next day, this isn't the first time either...anyhow...

Yesterday I was in Brecon, on my own, so I got up at 6am and left the house for 6.45am - I had to get diesel and you do get some funny looks at petrol stations at that time in the morning! Brecon is about 45 mins from me so by the time I got my diesel and poottled over there it was almost 8am and the sun was coming up.  The Old Museum is on the outskirts of Brecon and hasn't been used in years and years and is undergoing some refurbishments, its down a one way street, a busy one way street, on double yellow lines.  So I had to dash in, unload and dash back to the car park, which was lovely to find that in Brecon they don't charge in the car parks between 7th and 24th December...its free...well after 10am...the traffic warden did come and tell everyone to put 50p in the meter so he didn't have to give them a ticket, which was jolly nice of him, nice smiley traffic warden too, only get those in Wales!

The Old Museum was half finished in its refurbishment so lots of paint pots and half painted walls....still I unpacked and set up.  It was a busy day, lots of people through the door and although I did well and had a lovely day others didn't do so good, so I was lucky as lots of people didn't mean lots of spending which is the way at the moment I think anyway.  Still, I had a nice day.  It was in conjunction with Marie Curie so there was mince pies and nice mulled wine, which at 1pm and bluddy freezing...no heating and lots of 'holes' in the walls still!...I did have a nice little nip to keep out the cold...would have been rude not too    The weirdest part of the day was feeling like a foreigner. I love Wales and I love the lyrical way of speech, I spent a couple of my teenage years in S. Wales and do speak the odd word (and Welsh St David's day song about the four princes  ) but not enough to converse, but everyone in Wales (more or less) speaks English and although I could talk to everyone the strong accents made my little English one sound very strange 

I have started to do a few local fairs on my own, hubby setting up his business and still working at the other one and as I am a bi-polar sufferer with years of depression problems which have left me with a big problem of being able to cope on my own without a nervous breakdown,  I am finally.. I think and hope.. coming to the end of 30 yrs of being 'ill', a real achievement for me, still, its a hard slog getting up at daft oclock, driving (I max it to 1-1.5 hours from home that's enough for me on my own and the day too) unloading, setting up, packing up, reloading and driving home, glass is a heavy medium!  The rain came down in the afternoon which did really signal the end of the day, but that was around 3.30pm and the hardened Welsh were still coming in...dripping...and spending a few pounds and supporting the local community which was a real treat as you don't get that everywhere.  The fair was due to finish around 5pm but at 4 ish everyone was packing away and I did manage to get away for just after 5pm and home for just after 6pm, which was a bit hairy driving in flash flooding - something else Wales gets more than its fair share of! - down the dark and windy A438 with strong winds and driving rain, still it was a lovely day and I met some truly lovely people and have been given the opportunity to become part of more wonderful fairs next year in my local (Wales!) area which is great as I am cutting down the bead fairs which are just too far away, these fairs I can do on my own and finish a product which is something I would like to do, not so much of the jewellery even though I found I am not the only one that likes fried eggs in me ears 

Today I am not doing much!  I will be tidying up and vegging and collecting girlie from work and veggin' some more.

These lovely Christmas beads are still available in my Etsy shop free delivery using the code Chrismas2013.

 

Laney x

Fused glass Puddle bowl

Have you ever jumped in puddles just because you can?

 

 

This is my puddle bowl, inspired by welly boots, puddles and jumping just because I can!

 

 

Puddle Bowl on Etsy

 

Laney x