Just had the most wonderful week with 4 of my grandchildren, they came last Friday night then on Saturday morning we sent their Dad home and the fun started, we have crafted, shopped till we dropped, ridden our bikes, visited the Iron Bridge Museum and visited another of their cousin, Ivy (13 months old) on Friday, they made masks which they decorated with foils, paint, feathers and glitter (Ruby put so much glitter on the mask that I had to pt a clear glaze on top to stop it going in her eyes!)  They have been using Julie- Ann Fleming's technique to make cards, this involves masking then shading a background with Distress inks, stamping a further texture background on top then trimming and putting on to a card, they adored that Julie - kept them quiet for hours x,  Also one of Eileen Godwin's techniques, stamping the inside of an embossing folder with distress inks, embossing then embellishing with treasure gold waxes, again, kept them entertained for ages x.  One of the down sides is that they are now old enough to use computers so I had my desktop, my notebook and my ipad all going at the same time, I only stood for a little of that then computers were banned for the last day!!
We were so lucky with the weather, Grandad raised all the saddles and handlebars on the bikes they have here (they have all grown so tall!!) so they could ride around, up and down the drive and round the house, they had a happy medium of fresh air and crafting on the days we were at home.

Sadly we drove them back to Clacton on Saturday, but at least I got to see my daughter :-), she did a BBQ on the Saturday afternoon, Michael's family all came as they live around London, it was pouring with rain but we had a really great time, next morning my son and his wife came over from Loughton to see us so I really couldn't have asked for more, having all my family around me!!

Then we came home, ate a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the way and when we got  home! (comfort eating!!)   It is so quiet here today, I have started tidying up and washing but there is no enthusiasm there!  so I made a couple of twinchies - Yayy!  Just about to upload them on to the website.  I used alcohol ink backgrounds as an experiment to see what it would look like but I can see a pink theme coming out here - hmmmm!  Well will now try to upload them - bye xx