Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

We're still here. David went to the Dentist to discover they'd made the wrong dentures so we have to wait another 2 weeks while they make the new ones. It didn't help that it was such a lovely day on Thursday when we should have been off.

The "Book Barge" is in town, along with the Jewellery Boat.

We have just watched the Baggies beat Arsenal for the cup. Couldn't have gone to a better team. What with England beating Franch at the Rugby and drawing at Cricket today - exciting times!!!


I have got two Mother's Day Cards. Is it Mothers' or Mother's? I thought the former as there is more than one mother, but all the magazines seem to use the latter. Anyway. Both are for sale if you're interested.

The first one is a white C6 card (6x4"). The colour s are white and pink with a white and pink flower and green foliage. The sentiment says "Happy Mother's Day" and there are three white pearls decorate the top.












The second card is a pink, circular scalloped card. I wrapped some pink organdie ribbon around the spine and tied a large bow. The sentiment says "Happy Mothers' Day) and is decorated with blue roses and a silver butterfly.








I made a box for this card and used some pink tissue paper to make it fit snugly.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

More signs of spring in the flower boxes by the lock.


Our plans for a quick getaway next week have been foiled. When David went to the dentist yesterday he was told that the new dental plate had been made to the wrong order - so we will have to wait until 9th March before we can go. So, now, we are thinking, maybe a short trip around Birmingham for a few days - if the weather holds up that is.

Last night BBC Dave (as opposed to Spanish Dave and Mr David) came and helped me set up a Paypal button on this blog. I should now be able to advertise and sell cards from here there Paypal. Now all I have to do is make some new cards!

It was David's (Mr David) birthday last week. His latest squeeze is Lorraine Pascale (she has a cookery programme on the BBC). Here is what I came up with:



The front page. I matted the photograph onto silver, yellow, black and orange card. To fit in the three flaps into the spine of the white card blank I had to make a second fold line so the front side was shorter than the back. I got around this by adding a piece of orange card to the shorter flap of the card. I decorated the edge with a Martha Stewart edge punch and covered the join with a black peel-off strip. The picture was stuck down in the middle, a peel-off "Happy" and three black dots were added to the top and a "Birthday" and three more dots were added to the bottom.







For the inside I used another white card blank and embossed several lines making three mountain and 5 valley folds. I cut off some of the extra card and then stuck the whole thing into the main card blank (having made the extra fold to make room). Then I added the three matted photos onto the flaps in a sort of waterfall design. (Lorraine had been a model in a previous life - so the photos are of her in (or out of) her swimwear). I added more black peel-off strips to cover any joins and that was it.

Hope the instructions make sense, but I sort of made it up as I went along which is why the photo on the front is slightly too large - oops!

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

And another sign of Spring.

Today was Bruno (our French moorer's) last day on the moorings. He is off to Perth, Australia, for a couple of years teaching at the University there. We had farewell drinks on the boat Calstock that he has been living on while he was here.








Here is the card that I made for him. I began by gluing several card blanks together to make a concertina booklet.

Then I cut out lots of Nestability labels in blue and red and embossed them with the Cuttlebug before cutting some up. The labels were then added to the pages in random configurations.

I wrapped some blue ribbon around and stuck it down to the front of the card before adding the watercoloured image which had been matted onto gold and blue card.

The first two pages show pictures of boats from the basin.

I thought bows would be a bit frilly for this card so I added red and blue buttons as extra decoration to some of the pages.









Pages 3 and 4 show Hannah (Cubie), Pete and
Callum plus more pictures of boats.








Pages 5 and 6 show Mike with Pete in the background, Woodie the now deceased duck and Hugh.







Then there is Chas and friends (who repainted Calstock a couple of years ago, Kathy and Tony.









Now we have Pete, Peter (with Vic in the background) and Bruno on the front of Calstock)







This page shows Sima and Yours Truly











And the last two pages show Mr David resting after descending the Caen Flight and Calstock.








For the back page David Photoshopped a photo of one of the roses panels from the side of Calstock which Chas had painted. I matted this onto gold card and then printed out the Bon Voyage in a font that shows a reflection in water. This I matted onto gold and blue card.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

Today is the first day of not going swimming at the Hyatt, so I took a long walk up to the Soho Loop to check out for signs of spring.

The wind was gusting nicely and there were waves breaking onto the Sealife Centre mooring.

There was the odd boat out, speeding along with the wind behind them and the trip boats seemed to be doing a brisk trade, but, unfortunately, no signs of spring until I got back to Gas Street and checked out the boxes.


I found some yellow and purple crocuses. Aaah!

Yesterday we had Rolo for the day again, our third time and she managed not to leave any messages this time. She is growing up really fast, but can still get out of her harness if she does not want to go where you want her to. This time she raced back to the boat and jumped into the front deck.









A Valentine card to get you into the mood.
This one made from a Forever Friends decoupage kit. I covered the bottom half of a white card blank with pink paper and stuck a pink and white polka dot ribbon along the join. The bear was stuck on top of the ribbon and six glass hearts were fixed to top right and bottom left and corners. The sentiment I did on the computer onto white card.