Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

Sorry for the delay - the Internet has been a bit flaky every time I tried to upload any photographs.
Entertainment on the towpath - Though I managed to miss all the performances!


Some pics of Istanbul. The Blue Mosque, which was fascinating. We managed to get in 10 minutes before it opened, so almost hand to all to ourselves. Istanbul is celebrating the City of Culture this year, and they were also holding a tulip festival. There were flowers everywhere.

Pashminas stacked up in the Grand Bazaar. 66 covered streets full of goodies. What's not to love?

And another stall, this one of glass lamp shades. Luckily the ceiling on the boat is too low for hanging lamps.

Our journey back consisted of a 21 hour train ride on the Bosporus Express (average express speed of 25mph and stopping at every station) from Istanbul to Bucharest. Then 6 in a couchette to Budapest overnight. After a few hours in Budapest we took another overnight train to Munich. After booking tickets to Paris we had a tour of Munich and a schnitzel before leaving Munich for Stuttgart, changing trains there we got into Paris at 11pm. We spent the night in a hotel near the station and at 5am we were waiting for the first train to Calais.

And finally, after 6 trains and about 50 hours of travelling over 4 days, one of the best sights in the world. The white cliffs of Dover (and we still had 2 more trains to go).

I was asked to make an "In Memorandum" card last weekend. It is not something I have come across before, so I was a bit stumped.

The brief was for lilies and a photograph which was coming later.

So I started with a square easel card using half the front of a square card as the mountain fold. I Cuttlebugged a smaller square of yellow card and scalloped the edges with fancy scissors.

Using circle and scalloped Nestabilities I made a white frame and a yellow frame, fixing the smaller, yellow one on top of the white one making a frame for the photograph.

Consequently, the photograph did not arrive, so I used the white centre from the frame and Cuttlebugged it and used it as the backing of the frame. (The edge was hidden by the smaller, yellow frame.)

I wrapped some white organza ribbon around the yellow panel and then fixed it to the front flap of the card. Then I tied another piece of ribbon around the bunch of Arum lilies and stuck it over the frame. (I was going to put them on the edge of the frame if I had had the photograph).

To finish off I printed out "Kirsty "and cut it out with a mat using Nestabilities and stuck it to the top right hand corner with sticky fixers. The"In Memorandum" and the date was also printed out and matted with yellow card, scalloped the edges with scissors and fixed it to the front half of the base of the card with sticky fixers.