Gas Street Basin. BCN

I  don't know how the Trust has the cheek to publish this poster.  Just remind me.  Who closed more canals than anyone else?  Who put concrete into locks?  Who sold off reservoirs?  Who tried their best to stop local associations from re-opening their canal?  Who let canals fall into decay and stagnation?  

Oh! Just call me a sad old git.

"To my beautiful wife on our 1st Christmas"  A lovely decoupaged card with lots of glitter.

 

And "To my wonderful husband on our 1st Christmas.  Decoupaged and lots of glitter.

Gas Street Basin, BCN

 I must walk over this bridge at least once a week and it wasn't until yesterday that I noticed the rope marks in the stone coping.  The bridge goes over the entrance to Regency Wharf.

Then, blow me, as I was walking by the Malt Shovel there were more.  This bridge is over the entrance to that tiny wharf with the little boat and reed bed.

And the moral - keep your eyes open!

 Fifty Christmas cards for Susan who runs a "spa" service.  I made 50 of a lady having a massage in the summer.

I cheated slightly by using the stamp digitally and colouring it on the computer to save time.

Every one is slightly different.





Here are some close-ups. 




This one has a glittery snowflake with two smaller paper ones.















A couple of die-cut holly branches.  The berries are made with glitter glue.










Notice some of the fairies have brown hair and others are blonde.


This card has holly leaves and gold berries (they were "retrieved" from crackers one Christmas).

I used holly leaves and glitter glue for this card too.

Gas Street Basin , BCN

 I have made an early New Year's Resolution.  I am going to blog at least once a week even though I don't have much to say boating wise.

I'll just have to fill in with stories and pictures I haven't already blogged about.

The view from the front of the boat.  Jurys Inn getting a facelift.

We got back from the Bonfire Meet without any alarms or excursions.  We went the long way around, down Spon Lane locks.  Never done them before.

Apart from that we have been moored up here in Gas Street except for pump outs at Sherborne Wharf.  John and Jenny Jackson came and delivered our coal for the winter and David has got several wooden pallets from the Hyatt for chopping up, so we should keep nice and warm.

I have branched out from cardmaking and made this lumiere.  I made a sort of box type card, cutting a hole in the front and backing it with some vellum.  

Two holes were punched at each spine and ribbon threaded through and tied in a knot.

Various silver, sparkly, peel-off were added along with some sparkly Christmas trees

A battery operated candle is placed in the centre of the vellum panel to shine through the window.









Then, of course, I had to make a box to put it in.

I used the same colour card that I made the lumiere from, cut a hole in the centre, added the silver peel-offs, and that was it.

Galton Pump House, BCN Old Line

 After a surprisingly quiet night we woke up to a dry morning, which was a relief after all the rain last night.

How I miss not being out in the country (?) all the time.  The trees are beautiful, there were birds tweeting in them and ducks in the water.  But on the other hand, I also love living in the centre of Birmingham and having everything close at hand.  And David likes being in Birmingham too - no need to get down the weed hatch!

I did my stint in the refreshments tent and managed to to gorge on the lovely cakes, but had to hang onto the tent during the gusts of wind.

I am publishing this before the bonfire starts, so I have something for tomorrow.  It is raining now.  So fingers crossed.

Another birthday card for a guy who works on our moorings.  It was for his sister.  I used a photograph taken on the Llangollen, which is a canal he know well.  I matted it using Nestabilities in yellow and pink (colours matching the boat).

I used another square card blank and matted a Cuttlebugged yellow panel over some pink card which I edged with a Martha Stewart punch and wrapped some pink ribbon around it before sticking it onto the left hand side of the card.

To finish off I added some green swirls and leaves and three pink blossoms and a pink bow.  The sentiment is a silver peel-off

Gaton Pump House, BCN Old Line

It was just a short run.  A trip to Galton Valley for the BCNS Bonfire Meet.  Just over an hour away and only 3 little locks.

Everything was fine till we got to the bottom lock.  David put the boat into reverse to stop it and got something around the prop.  We got the boat into the bottom lock and David went down the weed hatch.  Something nasty. 

We pulled the boat through the bottom lock and a hire boat (which had water in the bilges up to the engine - who had the worst problem?) came down the middle lock.  Mike Rolfe was following us, so he took the next lock and I helped him up to the top.  He then came down to help in the weed hatch.  To no avail. 

So, we hauled the boat up to the lock mooring at the top and called River Canal Rescue.  It took the guy 3 hours to reach us and had the offending wire out of the hatch within 15 minutes!!  You just need the right gear.

By this time all the bank side moorings had gone and I didn't fancy breaching up and having to negotiate wet cratches so we moored up on the visitor moorings by the pump house.


"It's my girlfriend's birthday on Wednesday, can you make her a card?  She loves cats and cute.  Oh! and she is busy on Wednesday, can I come and pick it up tomorrow morning?"

I printed off the cat three times, coloured it in with pencils and then decoupaged it.

A square white card blank was covered in pink floral paper, some pink ribbon tied around the bottom in a knot and a panel of green floral paper matted onto silver card was laid over the this.  The circle was die cut, as was the silver surround and the whole thing was stuck on with sticky fixers.  I added the sentiment and name which was matted onto the green paper and some white roses with die cut leaves and a swirl cut from the green floral paper.

Of course, the card would not not fit into the envelope, so I had to make a box. Time was getting short, so I just matted another piece of the pink floral paper onto silver card and stuck it to the top of the box and added a strip of silver peel-offs along the sides of the lid.

Gas Street, BCN

 Another lovely day and lots of people, but the awful singing finally got to us at 2pm and we set off for home.  There were out of tune singers, wailing singers, religious singers and nearly all were appalling.

We followed Tony on Trent down the locks and traveled back in glorious, warm sunshine.

 We have an ongoing problem with our bog.  It all started exactly a year ago, while we were at Tipton!  We had a new LeSan HeadMaster toilet fitted a few weeks ago, but it is absolutely useless.  It will flush away only intermittently and even then there is a back flush so it never goes away.  We dare not do anything serious and are  having to use the toilets in the Hyatt Hotel.  There is talk of a warrenty, but the firm don't seem to think it an emergency.  (Southampton Boat Show).  They are getting back to us.

This is the card that I made for Richard the first time we had the problem.

I dry embossed some brown paper with a bark folder and cut it into 4 panels, sticking three on the front to look like planks in the outside loo.  I made a mini toilet roll using a sheet of loo paper cut into strips and wrapping it around a small tube.  String was threaded through the tube and knotted then fixed to the front of the card with a brad.

The fourth panel I stuck inside the card adding a cream matted with gold sentiment.

I thought about making it a "smellie" card, but decided against it.

Tipton, Wolverhampton Level, BCN

 What is the world coming to?  We have just passed 8 fishermen and each one similed and spoke!!

Apart from trips to Sherborne Wharf for jobs and pumpouts we have not been anywhere on the boat, so i haven't had much to blog about. 

David let me buy a metal box from Steve to put all my card stuff in.  He was fed up of having the boat full of boxes and stuff. Steve makes the most wonderful boxes.  We have two now, and Pete and Peter have one each; so along with Steve's own box for Frederick there 5 on the moorings - each one made specifically for its owners.

We set off for Tipton at 0730 this morning, arriving 3 and bit hours later.  Wayne had left us a mooring on the towpath side so that I could sell cards and there were several other traders there, including the cheese boat which was doing a roaring trade.

As like last year the sun came out and it was warm and sunny.

I used 5 photos to make this card, cutting out and using the centres which got smaller and smaller.  I then used sticky fixers to constrsuct a 3D type picture which was matted onto gold card and then onto the white card blank.

I saved the frames a an did an inverted pyramid on another card.