The Post of Cute Critters!

The girls were out and about yesterday... the big chickens enjoyed a good gallop around in the chilly sunshine including mugging me for corn from their treat pot and clambering on various bits of garden furniture! The Pekins are still a bit little to come out... (I'm a bit scared they'll hide in a bush!) i think i may need to fashion some sort of larger run to get them (and me) used to it!

This picture is so so typical of the antics they get up to! Ruby muscling in for treats and camera time!

Martha prefers fun of a wetter variety...

And to round things off some GORGEOUS piglets out in the Forest.

These pictures make me happy....

By day or night Newfies love to be out and about exploring - here's Martha in her ususal pose, loving these frame filling shots though!

Including her in total bliss with her eyes shut!

And Lola out for a night time jaunt round the block at about 10.30pm last night!

Stamp Excess

Due to overenthusiastic shopping at 5am I've managed to end up with two of this stamp set from Studio Calico - If you'd like to re-home it, i'm after £4 inc p&p.... email me if you are interested!

Beary Hungry

I'm just hoping my girls don't ge an ideas....

Not Mine...

Before I go on... I hasten to mention this is NOT my camera and lens!! But I can still imagine the pain of the poor photographer who tripped and fell on his.... Ouch!

Fine Dining...

I broke out the Rosa Moka again at the crop - it's one of those ranges that everyone oohs and aahs over! Once I wrestled it back form the girls, I knocked this one up.... it features Martha complete with bib enjoying a pub lunch just after my Birthday last month. I've added some Thickers and some Doodlebug Jewels and Velvet Brads.

I'm always meaning to 'pimp' her bib...maybe some nice fabric flowers and stitching? Any ideas?

Genius...

It's been one of those days where this would have been very welcome... just one of those weary days...

And wouldn't the world be a nicer place if everyone had one of these.... oh how I miss consideration...

True Friend

The new challenge for A True Friend is all about health. My girls adore visiting the vets so i'd love to do a page about that, however I think I might bet a few funny looks if I started taking pics of the staff there! So instead I've done a page about Lola's 'metalwork' that she now has - it's not a terribly happy thing to remember so i've focused on her being out about about having fun after all the hassle!

The page features some of the October Studio Calico kit along with a gorgeous Hambley tree. (continuign my tree phase!)

Pwetty bear!

Just a pretty picture of a little brown bear.... ok.... maybe not so little!

Scrap Schemes Debut...

There's a new challenge over at Scrap Schemes and it's my first as a DT member! We had to be inspired by this lovely leafy image - and you can find my page below.

I adored the strong monochromatic lines of the leaves on this scheme, and the shapes and form really spoke to me. I've echoed the design with my ribbon and cardstock leaf design on my page, but I've also 'grunged it up' with some vintage style newsprint patterned paper inspired by the black and white of the plates. I've added a touch of chocolate brown flocking in a random manner to tie everything together.

The flocking was adhered to the page using a glue stick - just dab it on (I put some on the bottom left corner of my pic and also all around the perimeter of the page) and then chuck the flockign on top. The trick is to press the flocking into place rather than rubbing - which would smear it all over the place!!

Woodland = Goodland

I seem to be having a 'Tree' phase at the moment! This times it's the GORGEOUS Sassafras Woodland Whimsy range  - and who, quite frankly, could resist it!

My picture features Martha mid paddle, usually her whole head gets dunked in the water so she always ends up with a soggy and wrinkly muzzle! The poor girl gets called wrinkly nose until it dries.

Now that's what I call Christmas! Pt 2

I was totally sold on the New Sassafras from the sneak, but with the full line now being viewable I NEED it NOW!

How adorable are those stamps!!?

Autumn is well and truly here...

Autumn to me is bittersweet. I find the nights drawing in rather depressing and when the clocks change is even worse, however all of that is somewhat forgotton with the gorgeous autumnal colours of the forest. These leaves were floating in the shallows of the river where Martha had her evening paddle.

And here's the girl herself! I usually shoot near water with my second body (a 400D which has a long strap so it can be safely slung around my body - much safer bending over to get sticks etc) with my 'walkabout zoom' a Tamron 28-75mm f2.8. it's a great all purpose lens but on this occasion I wanted to be able to fill the frame with Martha further out in the water, so I bravely stuck on my posh Canon 70-200mm (it's the f4 not the f2.8... my credit card couldn't take the strain of that!!) and it worked a treat!

I totally love that lens, the colours are richer, it focuses fast, it's built like a brick and it's super sharp! What more could you want??

You really know you've been rescued when....

I think many of us are often guilty of going stright for the brand new stash, leaving some really gorgeous ranges gathering dust after the first flush of excitement. Even though I have some scrummy new BasicGrey to play with, I chose the Recess range for this page - it's got so many elements that are 'now'... Stationary inspired elements and fruit being just two that have turned up again and again since! I've combined it with a lovely Maya Road tree (again covered in Recess) and some other scrummy bits and pieces.

The picture on this one features Martha, whom after rescuing sticks in distress, insists on carting them off into the forest so she can be sure they are nice and safe... or maybe just for the comedy value of watching me tramp through the bracken and heather to find them so we can start the game all over again! And by the way... doesn't she look smart in her Baywatch Babe - Red Harness!

*whispers* Don't all cheer at once!

I'm most distressed to be losing my voice! (although I'm thinking my colleagues might be rather secretly pleased!) So to cheer myself up I popped over to Savage Chickens this morning.

I'm not a clown fan so i'm on board with this one!

Anyone for truffles?

Just to prove the pigs in the Forest are on proper roads and not safely behind fences, here's one I spotted yesterday, heading towards the road! I was a little closer to this one, as she didn't have any piglets!

And talking of piglets, here's a shot of my little snorer extrordinaire taking a dip yesterday! I'm wondering about training for the Newfoundland Club tests - she's such a water baby and adores retreiving from water so i'm sure she'd cruise it! All I need now is some volunteers to be rescued in chilly autumn waters! Any offers?

I'm not a Keane fan....

But this is simply classic! Heard on Radio1 last week and it's well worth a listen, even if you, like me, don't really like Keane!

Now that's what I call Christmas!

As I may have mentioned I'm quite the fan of Sassafras.. so when this appeared on their blog a day or so ago I was quite excited! Even from this one teeny sneak i'm totally looking forward to it!

Go green! (and cheap!)

Those who 'know' me in real life will confirm I love my little car. I have a little Citroen C1 (mines the 1.4HDI) and as well as fitting the cliche of small on the outside big (ish) on the inside (does that make it a Tardis??) it's cute to boot! Like everyone at the moment i'm keen on saving a few pennies so did a wee test to see just how economical it was!

Even with extortionate fuel costs at the moment (i filled up at £1.27 for a litre of diesel) to 'fill 'er up' cost £43. It's still a fair wodge to plonk down, but it's gotta be done and a lot less than most cars! So after noting mileage before and after I did a grand total of 453 miles on a tank (I reckon it wasn't quite empty so could probably add a couple or ten of miles on top of that!). That all means (using a bit of canny calculation) that I got 63mpg out of her!

(disclaimer - I REALLY don't do a LOT of miles so i reckon if you do more regular driving then you'll get even more to the gallon out of this baby, i do lots of 'village to village' stop/start so if you can cruise it'll easily be nearer the 70mpg that Citroen boast!)

Add to all that, because it's in the lowest CO2 bracket my road-tax is a measly £35!! So all of this means that my little baby is pretty eco-friendly!

Feeling Blue....

But at least this makes me happy...

Found it here, which is simply a lovely blog to look at.

How I love thee Sassafras... aka the post of many brackets!

Sassafras Lass (or do we drop the Lass nowadays? - I always liked old skool so i'm keeping it!) seem to dare to tread where the rest of us can only dream... after the owl trend hit a couple of years ago (i *think* we have to credit Hambly with that one) we all joked how snails, hedgehogs, toadstools or lobsters would be the next big thing... well rather than just joke about it, Sassafras (damn... I caved.. it was quicker to type!) make it so... (in a Jean luc Picard kinda way - or am i showing too much geek with this one?). The new ranges include all of the above (except the lobsters) and somehow it's always cool and not at all twee or cutesy. I bow to thee all conquering Sassafras Lass!

btw.... my page uses some yummy SFL (hurrah for acronyms!) along with a light sprinkling of October Afternoon and... yes, you guessed it... Woodgrain Dymo!

*Insert Punchline Here*

Well I could resist him no more! I ripped him out of his packaging and bunged him on the first available layout! This large cockerel *cue juvenile sniggering* stamp is in the 'Different Strokes' stamp set from the BasicGrey Offbeat range. I've stamped him on turquoise Core'dinations and I love him already!

Cliche' = Good

More Studio Calico loveliness to share today. How GORGEOUS is this orange paper!!?

My page features a picture of Lola meeting one of the Forest Donkeys - and yes, Lola is nearly as big as Donkey! The title is one of those classic lines that over the years, i've got used to hearing from passing people. Along with ' Does HE eat a lot?', 'what a lovely Pyrenean/Saint Bernard', and 'Does she like water?', the saddle question is pretty popular!

I'm loving the whole fruit vibe - October Afternoon, KI Memories and of course BasicGrey are all 'fruiting it up' at the moment and I love the freshness and natural vibe it evokes. BasicGrey have taken it a step further though and you can even enjoy radishes and peas! Very 'River Cottage!'

The pigs are back in town...

A true sign of autumn for me is the return of the pigs to the New Forest. They are let out onto the forest by those with grazing rights partly for the purpose of munching the glut of acorns that are around at the moment - they are toxic to the ponies so the pigs are a wonderful natural way to sort out a potentially lethal problem!

I must stress that the dogs were safely tucked away in the car while I took these pics - it's not a good idea for anyone let alone dogs to net too near to pigs (or the cows for that matter!) while they have babies - they can apparantly react quickly and violently if they feel threatened. I was more than happy to stay out of reach using my shiny 70-200mm lens!

There's nothing friendlier....

I can't stop using BasicGrey Offbeat! It's definately my favourite new range! It's so very versatile and seems to work with everything! This title is a familiar and totally true saying, Martha likes nothing beter than coming for a big hug after the perfect muddy swim!

Addicted...

I'm loving the September Studio Calico kit, just my type of colours and styles - and it's so easy to chuck together! This was a page I did at my local crop yesterday. I love this stripy October Afternoon paper - in fact most of this page is the same brand. The page is all about Martha's love of the TV - after a hard day bouncing around, barking, swimming and general merriment she likes to settle down for a bit of entertainment! Her tasted aren't terribly refined, her rograms of choice are ideally animal related, but she's game to watch anything on the offchance that a creature might appear!

What a Character...

The new Challenge over at A True Friend is all about character... does your pet remind you of a famous film or tv character? Perhaps unsurprisingly I've likened Martha to a Baywatch Babe! Pop over to the link on the right to enjoy the pages from the rest of the girls!

There's nothing Machiavellian about these schemes...

I'm very excited to have been welcomed onto the design team of a great inspiration and challenge blog  - Scrap Schemes - it's all about being inspired by the world around us, home-decor, advertising, a colour scheme and i'm really looking forward to getting stuck into the challenges! The next challenge goes live in a fortnight and it's a fab one!

I'm joining along with a great team of girls... keep checking back there over the next few days to find out all about them!