Welcome to the month of October...

...and a BIG welcome to the month of Halloween! *Ü* I LOVE Halloween and for those of you who are new to my blog, you will soon notice how evident that is. *Ü*

I try to give some tips and ideas for what has become a now popular holiday in the UK. The shops are finally stocking Halloween goodies and I enjoy gleaning ideas from different sources which I will share with you over the next month to help you have your best Halloween party - EVER! *Ü*

Last year I had the most wonderful Halloween party with 3 of my girlfriends and my sister which took 2 years in the organisational process. It was everything I had hoped it would be - and more. If you are interested to see what I mean, take a lookie here. *Ü*

This year will be even better - if that is possible! I shall be entertaining 14 of us as my 3 daughters, 3 son-in-laws and my 6 grandchildren will be coming for a BIG party....oh ... and my husband too! *Ü* Lots of preparations, organising and cooking in advance to cut the work nearer the day. It will be an early party -  during half term week while the children are off school. *Squeal*. I get soo excited about planning surprises etc.

I have to contact a lady who I met at a boot fair who has several snakes and tarantulas! Hopefully, she will let me 'borrow' a few for props and atmosFEARic purposes! *Ü*

Let's begin with the planning stage. Parties are all about the food. I do like to have something substantial and lots of nibbles too - usually homemade... AND something out of the ordinary - gross to speak! LOL.  So this is one website that gives lots of ideas for treats for your little ghouls... and this is another - page 2 - for some really gruesome grub! *Ü* I shall be making the worms for sure.

If you are a member of Pinterest, you may want to check out some Halloween ideas and pin them to your boards to keep for later reference. I do have an enormous amount of 'pins' on my pc which I have collected over the years, so I will share them with you during the month. In the meantime, enjoy the build up...I certainly will. Do let me know if there are any questions and I will do my best to answer. *Ü*

Toots for now peeps.

We're Having A Heatwave!

WOW! The weather has been glorious for the past few days here and is set to get even hotter for the weekend! *Ü* A record breaking 90c for Saturday. I am all for that. Wall to wall sunshine at the end of September! We have been to the beach and today there is a Food Festival in Broadstairs, so food and sunshine - a perfect combination. *Ü*

Enjoy the sunshine as it has been forecasted that we are due to have snow in October!!! LOL.

Tomorrow will be the start of Halloween for me, so do check by for some ideas and tips for a Happy Halloween celebration. I am sooo excited to be hosting a BIG family party and we 14 are all but one ready with our costumes. *Squeal*. Our party will be on Saturday 22nd October during the half term week as it means that all of my daughters and families will be able to attend. *Ü*

Toots for now peeps.

***HAPPY BIRTHDAY*** to me!

Another year has passed and I am another year older! How time flies! I have been having lovely surprises almost every day last week. A big box of Cadbury's goodies arrived first, then a card and goodies from my good friend Marsha in Michigan. The following day my Halloween goodies arrived as a gift from my youngest daughter, Friday a pressie was on my doormat when I arrived home from the hairdresser and yesterday....on the way back from church, my husband told me that we had to go collect something from my daughter's! To my surprise...it was a ploy to get me there for a birthday treat! LOL. I am usually quite observant and 'suspicious' of plots but I had no idea! *Ü*

On the front door was a banner 'SURPRISE' and afternoon tea was laid out on the table in the conservatory! Ooo... I LOVE afternoon tea. We had hot crusty bread and strawberry jam...a very favourite teatime treat when my girls were young and very memorable for them all.

Chocolate brownies, a favourite cake of mine - Struesel and a Lemon Drizzle cake that Michelle's elderly neighbour baked for me. Aww...such a lovely afternoon. Then I had pressies from 2 of my daughters. 2 Art Deco glasses for my mineral water that I drink all day, special cookies by Rick Stein from Cornwall from my eldest daughter Lisa's recent holiday and some money, that I will spend at Alexander Palace next Saturday. *Ü* I felt very spoiled indeed.

Today, I had to be ready by 9.30 as my husband took me out for some 'therapy'...I knew not where...and realised when I opened my card that it was for a fish spa treatment! *Ü*

We then had a Toby Carvery lunch. Mmm. My grandson Cameron will come over after school. So all in all, I am having a wonderful birthday so far.

Ohh....and this is one of my fave pressies that I got....a bag from my sister in Devon! Ooo....sooo me & well timed for Halloween! *Ü*

Thank you to those of you who have sent me birthday wishes, cards, pressies and emails. I so appreciate your friendship and love.

Gone fishing!

I'm back from my travels! *Ü* I have spent the past week with my sister who lives in Devon. She has been in hospital and had surgery for kidney stones, so I wanted to spend some precious time with her....AND she is going to be 60 on 17th September. So for 2 days, we are both going to be 60! I remember the big build up for my 60th last year. It was definately my best birthday - EVER! *Ü*

So, on to my trip. My sister's house is elevated on a slope with beautiful views of the bay and every day I was there, I awoke to a different sky. Such beautiful sunrises on most days but each one still very different with the sun peeking through the clouds or sending rays up into the blue sky.

As my sister wasn't feeling too good, we spent time on her sun deck. After a hospital visit to remove the stent she had in her...ugh...she was a different person and although she felt quite sick at first, she soon felt better in herself. We then made up for lost time and went to have some therapy - my birthday treat from her - in a fish tank! Little fishes nibbled the dead skin on our feet! We screamed with laughter as it was such a weird sensation at first. LOL. It seems to be a new thing in the country.

We also managed a visit to a boot fair and had a Devon cream tea! *Ü*

So, now my travels are over - until Alexander Palace on 24th September that is! *Ü* Until then, I shall get my head down and get on with playing catch up!

Have a good week yourselves and thank you for taking the time to visit my blog.

Girl About Town!

Gee whizz! August has flown by and just one day to go. What a busy month it has been. I am feeling rather dizzy!

My big sister and I went to see The Jersey Boys in Leicester Square, London last Tuesday - FAB music and interesting story line but I felt that there was soo much swearing (effing at least 2 dozen times) and it really spoiled it for me. I was rather surprised - not shocked but surprised that it was even allowed. We attended the matinee performance which would be more inclined to have children in the audience! How sad that I now question as to whether I would go see another musical - or live show for that matter, let alone take one of my grandchildren. Perhaps the shows need to be rated just as films are. If that is the case, The JB would definately be an 18 in my opinion!

I met up with my 3 girlfriends on Wednesday of last week. Joan and I have been friends for 52 years and I have known Rita - J's cousin almost as long. Pam is a friend of Joan from school days. We had a lovely day at Rita's...relaxing and chilling in the late August sunshine.  

The Bank Holiday weekend was spent with father in law. He has Alzheimers so a lot of what was said was repeated - either by us or him! We did take him out on 3 out of 4 days, so he did get to enjoy his surroundings.

So peeps...did you enjoy your Bank Holiday weekend? It's amost time for the children to go back to school, so for you mums, it's routine time again. Enjoy your last days of the holidays.
Toots for now.

It's A Family Affair! **DT**

My latest DT kit from Hobbysew is made up with My Mind's Eye - Lost and Found collection of papers and embellishments which had lots of sparkle and glitter on. *Ü* This first layout has photos that were taken of my family recently and I changed the colour to 'selenium' to better co-ordinate with the papers. I love to see my 6 grandchildren together. *Ü* They all get on so well and have fun together despite their age differences.

I used my Martha Stewart 'daisy fan' punch to cut the edge of the dark paper and I added red gems from my stash. The lace ribbon ( I think by Prima), was from my previous DT kit and matches well with the dark patterned paper. I cut the 'Happy' portion from one of the papers and used the alphas. As they were pink, I wrote over them with a glue pen and glittered them with red to match. Then I added one of the buttons in the kit to the Penny Farthing bicycle before writing the journalling strips with the red sparkly pen, also in my kit.

I love spots and striped papers and the following card was fun to make. I used a scalloped punch for the circles and here's the tricky bit - to get the greeting onto the circle! I used 2 fonts here. First I printed the 'happy birthday' circular greeting onto paper. Then I placed the circle over the greeting and attached it with sticky tape and re ran it through the printer. The next bit was tricky. I typed 'Happy Birthday' onto the same paper as previously done, then attached the same circle (with sticky tape) over the exact type and again, ran the paper through the printer. I cut a strip of paper and attached it across the card, placed the scalloped circles on pop dots, stitched on a button from the kit and made a bow from black netting.

Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving me lovely comments. I really appreciate it.

Toots for now,

Out of the loop!

Argh! Don't you just hate it when your internet dies on you?!  I do and I haven't been online for almost a week... and I have to admit to being thoroughly miserable! Now, that is not in my nature but when I don't have contact with my family and friends or am unable to get my regular exercise (surfing), it's just not worth speaking to me! We had a power cut last Saturday and it blew my router - AND microwave oven. I thought it may be the fuse in each plug but replacing fuses didn't work on either, so I had to order another router. I spoke with the lady about 6pm Tuesday and it arrived on Thursday morning - whilst I was out! It took almost 2 hours to get back on line though! *Sigh*.

So...I have not been idle I can tell you. August has been and will be the busiest month of the year so far and there's more to come. The first week in August, I had a clean up....it took the whole week just to clean the stairs of the result of my wire shelf unit which had collapsed and I had used the upper flight of stairs to store it all. I intended to organise my scrap room but it's going to be a very long job as life interupts my flow! I helped my husband out with work - 4 days this past week and inbetween we had a family BBQ at my niece's with all of my daughters, son-in-laws and 6 grandchildren! Ooo..it was such a lovely day and I am always so happy when we are altogether. There was much eating, laughing and chatting and the weather was very kind to us - an added bonus. *Ü* I made a Strawberry Pavlova and Tiramisu both favourite desserts of my sister in law and brother in law as a thank you for their generosity in paying for our stay in their apartment in Menorca in June.

They paid for our meals out in restaurants every day! I also painted a canvas last week for them. Karin had seen a canvas of a boat on the sea shore in a sunset and I tried to replicate it. It turned out pretty good in my opinion!

Last week saw one of my grandsons turn into a teenager! Eek! Cameron is now 13 - unbelievable. I remember cutting his cord when he was born! I took him for a ride on the High Speed train to London where we spent some time together.

He got to sit in the driver's seat which he enjoyed.

The rest of the month, I shall have a trip to see the Jersey Boys in London with my eldest sister, a meet up with my 3 girlfriends - always a fun day, a visit to father in law's and then a visit to my sister in Devon. I'm really looking forward to all of the events. Ohh...and I fitted in a visit to the boot fair this morning. Always a bargain to be had. I bought a brand new-still-in-the-box Gino D'Acampo pasta machine, a lovely lime green cardigan, a black wire basket and a real leather jewellery box. *Ü* There is always a bargain to be found. Last time, I bought a lovely wooden jewellery box with an orange velvet interior. Watch this space for a Halloween makeover nearer October. *Wink*.

Can you believe we are almost through August and it will soon be time to get out the Halloween decorations! LOL. I have been gathering yet more ideas as I am hosting a BIG Halloween party for all of my family. Ohh...I am really looking forward to THAT! *Ü*

So peeps, I must heed my own advice - Keep Calm and Keep Blogging! LOL.

Toots for now,