I'm the Ogre !

Poor little Mia!  Last week I took her along to the vet's for her annual "flu" vaccine and when the vet gave her a health checkup she spotted some problems with her teeth - gingivitis and at least one tooth which needed to come out - even though Mia is so young, it's a problem that can afflict some cats (especially Siamese and orientals) due to an allergy to plaque.  Mia wasn't exhibiting any signs of pain or problems eating and there was nothing wrong at her last check up, so we had no idea.

So yesterday I had to take her along and leave her at the vets all day (she was whisked off to the other surgery in nearby Kirkham where they have all the latest surgical equipment).  Of course we were worried all day, having an anaesthetic and everything, and I couldn't collect her till 4.30 pm.  She was fine, she'd been very nervous of course, but had had to have 3 teeth removed at the back - the rest were fine with a scale and polish. 

Unfortunately I've now become the Big Bad Ogre ..... one look at me and Mia just fled the room and stayed out of my way.  I think she's just about beginning to forgive me a bit today.  Only problem is I have to take her back to the vet's on Friday for a check up so I'll definitely be back in her bad books ...... oops !

The start of a New Year

Well, I have to say that I wasn't too impressed to start the new year off with a raging toothache ..... a visit to the dentist on Tuesday resulted in a week's antibiotics to clear up an infection under the tooth (a wisdom tooth, which really is past its best I'm afraid) and if it flares up again (which it will eventually) it's bye bye, tooth!  Good job I don't have a phobia about the dentist as others I know have!  Tomorrow I'm off to see the consultant at Preston Royal for the latest check up on my dodgy hand, though I don't expect there to be any particular new solutions offered to the problem.  But that's enough about that.

We had a quiet but pleasant Christmas and New Year, hard to believe it's already time to take down all the decos tomorrow.  Mia has had a high old time climbing under and up into the Christmas tree, knocking baubles off and running of with tinsel bits.  She also decided to be my little helper on New Year's Day when I sat down to update my new diary and calendar for the year - as you can see ........

As I mentioned in my last post, this year I want to get back to being a bit more creative again and have decided to join in with the latest Art Journal 2012 project in Ali's Vintage ATCs UK Yahoo Group - each month there's to be a theme with a page relating to that theme to be created each week.  January's theme is "Life's A Beach" and the first page has to include these words and what they mean to me.  I tried to keep up with the prompts for the 2011 journal but didn't get too far I'm afraid so I'm going to see how I get on this year.  I managed to put aside a couple of hours yesterday afternoon to sit down and play/create and this is the page I came up with.  The book is a "Pink Pig" one, 8" x 8" with nice sturdy white pages, so provides a good base to work on.  It's a simple page - used TH distress inks for the sky, sea and sand, with white acrylic paint for the waves, a few stamped images and simple writing using Sharpies (thought I'd ease myself in gently)!

I'll try and post a picture of each page that I complete for this Journal - wish me luck that I stick at it!

Merry Christmas and a Happier New Year 2012

It's been a tough old year one way or another but now Christmas is almost upon us and we plan on making it a good one - it was dad's favourite time of the year so we should definitely be celebrating it, he wouldn't want us not to.

I received a beautiful Christmas gift recently from a good friend, Joanne - it's a lovely wall hanging consisting of three small frames decorated in some of my favourite colour combinations (and very wintry-looking).  I had thought of putting photos of Mia in it but then realised that the Crafty Individuals images (from their book series) would fit just right so I changed my mind and added three Christmas "angels" instead.  Here it is, now hanging on the living room wall alongside the fireplace, so I can view it every day.  Thanks, Joanne - I love it!

Last year Mia went completely silly when we tried to decorate the living room - she was quite happy for us to decorate the front room and hall with sparkly tinsel, Christmas tree, fairy lights and baubles, but when I tried to hang up tinsel in the living room she got very scared and refused to even come downstairs the next morning so it all had to be taken down.  Wondered how she'd react this year - well, she was again absolutely fine with the decos everywhere else, then we put up a very plain green garland (no sparkle at all) on the wall over the sofa, draped a couple more garlands around plus a wreath above the fireplace.  She gave it all the once over, went daft again about the garland over the sofa (which had to be removed), but decided that this year we could keep the rest of the garlands and the wreath up!  What a comic she is!

Looks like we won't be getting a white Christmas this year, in fact it's turned quite mild here this last day or two which doesn't seem quite right somehow, but at least it means we can get around quite easily without being snowed in!

I hope everyone has a happy and peaceful Christmas and here's hoping for good things to come in 2012.  For myself, I hope to get back into being more creative again as my artwork has rather been on the backburner for the past 12 months or so.

Mia and I wish Everyone a Very Merry Christmas

and Happy New Year 2012 !

R.I.P. Dad

Thomas Alexander (Alex) Mason

24/12/1922 - 11/11/2011

Dad died peacefully in his sleep on 11th November (Remembrance Day) - he would have been 89 years old on Christmas Eve.  His funeral was held today with a beautiful, moving service in a lovely church in the centre of the village where my parents lived for 25 years - we had a small gathering of close family and friends, but sadly our mum could not be there as she has dementia and has lived in a residential care home for the past few months.  At least my sister Lindsay and I can be comforted by the knowledge that she doesn't understand that dad has gone so has been spared that sadness - they had been married for 65 years, 

Together celebrating their 60th Wedding Anniversary

Goodbye, Dad ..... you are missed and will always be close in our hearts

Cat in a box !

We've been going through one of those spells I think everyone gets - when stuff breaks down and has to be replaced - has to come all at once, doesn't it, not in ones?  We had to replace the garage doors as they'd gone rotten and were too far gone (picture me, one wild and windy day, trying to hold the doors shut to stop them falling outwards onto the car and at the same time calling to Graham for help - who of course couldn't hear me, being round the corner and inside the house - enough was enough - so now we have a nice new up-and-over door that won't disintegrate in the wind and damage the car).  The toilet flush packed up and had to be replaced.  Graham's mobility scooter broke down, we thought initially it was the batteries, but turns out to be something else - to do with the computerised starting system or some such, don't ask me the technicalities - so that's had to go away to be repaired and won't be back until Monday.

Then the kettle began to leak so I checked out the Internet for a new one - we have a "whistling" kettle which we really liked so I needed to find the same one again .... the updated model turned out to be way cheaper on Amazon ..... so when it arrived, of course it was well packed inside another larger box padded with brown paper.  You've guessed it - naturally, Mia had to investigate, hop in, make herself at home and that was it - we are now currently living with a large cardboard box in our living room (along with an assortment of paper balls, feathers, wool, catnip mouse and tape measure - mine till Mia commandeered it - we find ourselves having to explain it all to any visitors)!

 Nothing "crafty" to show you today I'm afraid.  Haven't done more than a few ATCs recently and I can't show those yet as they're for a future swap I'm in.  Went to the Royal Preston Hospital last week for more tests on my arm (EMG) - this time both my arms and legs were checked out, with electrical currents, and I had eight needles also put into my dodgy arm, the unofficial result was that nerves/muscles were okay everywhere else and that my left arm/hand doesn't appear worse.  The consultant will get the full results in a few weeks.  In the meanwhile, I'm not so sure about this "not getting worse" bit as some days it feels as though it's deteriorated and right now it's not so good to the extent that I'm having to type using only one finger on my left hand or I'm making lots of typing errors due to the hand weakness.  Very frustrating and a complete mystery as to what's caused it !!!!  But enough's enough, best stop typing now before I completely wear my hand out!  Just didn't want you all to think I'd totally vanished into the "ether" ! 

Journal Tags

Just a quick line to say that all the lovely journal tags have now been swapped out and popped into the local postbox - they should be winging their way to all those who participated in the morning.  Thanks to all that joined in, I hope you like your tags but silly me forgot to take photos of them all before they were sealed up in their envelopes!  Memory like a sieve these days I'm afraid!

Steamin'

I'm typing this with rather inky fingers (despite giving them a good scrubbing) as I had a session this afternoon inking up, painting and stamping on a set of tags to create backgrounds, which will be swapped out with other artists to add photos of themselves and quotes - eventually we'll all end up with a tag book each, it's called "Sisters in Art" and being run by Ali (who always has brilliant imaginative ideas for swaps) on her Yahoo group, VintageATC UK.  Anyway, I rather enjoyed myself and have decided I'm a bit of a fan of "tags" at the moment ..... I've also finished my three tags (Autumn, Daydreamer and Vintage Birds) for my own tag swap running here on my blog this month (check out the details in the sidebar as there's still time to join in if you fancy having a go)!  Have received a couple of sets already and they're lovely so I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of you all come up with.

So ....... whilst I was playing with the tags this afternoon I remembered that I promised to put up pics of the "Steampunk" ATCs that I made a while back - so here they are, hope you like them, they're my first attempts at the steampunk style which is a style that I love and have seen some fabulous art created in it - just try googling to see what an enormous range of steampunk creations there are!

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Flying Machine

The Mad Scientist

The Time Machine

This Way Up

All the above ATCs are still in my possession for one-to-one swaps, but the three ATCs below are the ones I made for the Steampunk swap I was in so they've now gone to new homes.

Medicine Man

Time Traveller

Robot Punk

Thanks also for the lovely comments left about my Heaven and Hell pages, they're much appreciated.