Gas Street, Birmingham

One of a series of photos entitled "Sod the Boaters!" - or - "BW don't give a damn (in my words s***)!" - or - "What health and safety?"

One of the locks in Blackburn where you have to climb over (or under if you are little and fat) the whatsit to get to the paddle gear. Not easy either way. The white handle is for opening the gate - also not easy. This time I had help from a very, very helpful BW Temporary Summer Lock keeper. Very helpful, as I said, but didn't have a clue. It was his first day!!

The moorers had a barbecue last night. Lots of guests, food and drink but it was sooo cold!

A gentleman who had said something wrong to his lady asked me to make him a card to say sorry. Hope this helped.

I covered the left hand half of the card blank with some lilac paper, cutting the right hand edge with a Martha Stewart punch. Then I added some floral lilac paper on top, also edging the right hand side with the same punch. I stuck two silver photo corner peel-offs on to the two left hand corners.

Then I added two prima flowers with floral brads for centres and some diecut leaves to go behind them onto the right hand side of the card. I added a dot of glitter glue to the centres of the two brads.

Finally, I typed up the sentiment and the lady's name on the computer and printed it out before matting it onto silver, lilac and more silver miri card.

Gas Street, Birmingham

Autumn has begun.

Well, the axe fell yesterday evening with an email. Even though we have been on our mooring for five years now we are going to have to move so that the other commercial company can take it over.

They took out a planning application on our mooring after we moved on to it for a live/work mooring, which was granted. And although we comply with that and the Planning Office says it does not give them any right to the mooring, BW seem to think that it does.

We have no idea where we are going to yet as the basin is full to bursting, and we are still going to fight as long as possible with an official complaint already lodged with BW.


I have joined the gym at the Hyatt Hotel and have been swimming every day. Eva, the Polish receptionist left the other day to pursue her dream of becoming a personal trainer and work on the ocean liners.

This is the "good luck" card I gave her. I found the picture on the Internet and mounted it up onto pearlescent white card and pink card, colouring the edge with silver ink.

The panel behind was cut from a cake box and I stuck it down the left hand side of a white card blank with the picture in the middle. I then fixed two flowers with pink gem centres on the top left hand corner of the picture and three pink pearls on the bottom right hand corner.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

Most weekends we get a visit from a premiership football team who stay in the Hyatt Hotel and take a stroll along the Worcester Bar before going off to play against Aston Villa, Birmingham City, West Bromwich Albion or even Wolverhampton Wanderers. Last Saturday it was the turn of Liverpool

David rushed out to get some autographs for a nephew's daughter and Bruno took some photos with his telephone. No idea who this player is is though.

This weekend, because we had family visiting from Bolton, the Bolton Wanderers team didn't stay in the Hyatt so we didn't see them!

The teams all look so comical, they are all in some form of uniform and walk in a crocodile, 2 x 2 with their manager, minders and trainers etc - just like a school outing.



The previous week it was the turn of Everton and David was tasked with getting their manager, David Moyes' autograph for a niece.

I made the autograph up into a card and this is it.

I decoupaged the badge three times and matted it onto yellow and holographic card.

I also made the backing paper on the computer and stuck it to the bottom half of a white card base, adding a silver strip of peel-off along the join.














On the inside I decoupaged a photograph of David Moyes and matted that in the same way as the front, also sticking the backing paper along the bottom of the card.










Finally I cut out a frame in blue card using my Black Cat Cougar (fabulous machine, must really get down and use it much more). I Cuttlebugged the cardboard to give it a bit more strength and stuck some acetate behind it, adding the autograph behind the acetate before sticking it to the card.

To finish off I cut out a smaller badge to stick at the top of the frame and a street sign for the bottom. All the images I got from the Everton web site.

Needless to say, Rachael was wrapped, and I was pretty pleased with myself too.

Gas Street Moorings, Worcester and Birmingham Canal

Sorry for going quiet for so long. When we got back to our moorings in Birmingham we had some disturbing news that another company wants our mooring for themselves so we were pretty much on a downer.

But things seem to be looking up now so I will fill in some of the gaps since last posting.





Hatton Flight was fairly smooth, we did not meet a boat coming down until the 5th lock from the top, and then there was a boat in each lock coming down. We spent the night at the visitor moorings at Weston Hall. Couldn't get the boat parallel to the mooring as the water was so low.












Then it was on the the Stratford Canal, a pumpout at the junction and then up the Lapworth Flight. I know I keep going on about it, but the owners of this ex-lock cottage really do not want you to use their side of the canal do they.

Just around the corner we passed Granny Buttons, so I knocked on the door to say hello.

We spent the night just past Hockley Heath when Graham went past with two boat loads of Girl Guides. He managed to hit us again!



On the last day we stopped at Lyons Boatyard for diesel and I also bought some new mooring ropes, nice silky black ones to replace the hard blue ones we are using now.

Sarah was back at work and bought another batch of canal cards from me.

And then it was up to Kings Norton Junction. The damage to the bridge shows how difficult this turn seems to be.



At Selley Oak we had to wait while the man working the lift bridge went to the toilet.

And so we we back on our mooring by mid-day and the big adventure for 2010 was over.








Since we have been back I have joined the gym in the Hyatt Hotel and been swimming every day. Started a diet (and kept to it for 4 weeks so far!) and been on a Crafting Retreat to learn how to use by Black Cat Cougar Cutter.

We have had lots of traumas and setbacks. David's expensive Stressless chair broke again and we had to buy a new one (not a Stressless this time). The condenser in the washing machine/drier packed up and we are waiting for that to be fixed. The rug we took to the cleaners is suddenly not coloursafe and may run and the chimney has started leaking. Still, the boat is gradually getting put right.




Three cards to show you today.

This one is a bear topper which was free with a magazine. I stuck it onto a piece of card with sticky fixers and matted it onto white card which had been cut with deckle edged scisssors.

A green velvet ribbon was tied around the bottom of the yellow card blank to finish it off.
















On this one I used some clipart which I mated onto white, light blue and black card. I printed out the sentiment on the computer and matted that in the same way as the picture.












And finally, a Haloween Card (well it's not thar far off). A black base card with a strip of orange deckle edged card across the bottom half of the card and a very narrow strip of orange card along the bottom.

A yellow wooden star is stuck to the top right hand corner and a decopaged pumpkin is stuck to the bottom of the card between the orange strips.