You have to stay at the table until you've finished them all.

Been a busy week this week, with the new job starting properly. I actually managed to get some crafting done, to my surprise. Not as much as I wanted, but enough for a good post. Here are this weeks makes.

I love this stamp set. I started off by inking the tag with a couple of new inks (peacock feathers and I can't remember the other one) and dripped some water on before leaving it to dry. I then stamped the clock with silver embossing powder. I used black embossing powders for the other pieces, some on plain paper (I sprayed the signs) and some on wooden style paper (the door obviously.) For some reason the woman didn't emboss correctly so I distress inked her dress. Finally, after positioning everything, I added a sentiment.

Four more months for the calendar tags. As you can see I used a variety of sprays and distress crayons to colour the flowers, as well as using some different colours for the leaves this time. I also made a little fly for one of the months, from a Prima set I had. I've got five more months to go now.

I decided to make a pair of earrings on the fly today. These were really simple to make; just some bird beads alternating with white beads on a few head pins.

Here is the latest progress on my new stitch. You can kind of figure out what part of it is now, but that might be because I already know what it is. To you lot, it may still look like nothing at all.

the bane of childhood
held hostage at the table
forced to eat your greens

I've never been good with trying new things. While not as picky as my mother was as a child (she even got taken to the doctors because of it) I like the comfort of the known, be it places, experiences, or even food. So it was a silly little thing I embarked upon this week; trying a new vegetable.

My mum delights in telling a story of me as a child. We were at my grandparents. Now, my grandparents went religiously to car boot sales every week. They even called it their church. So we accompanied them. The car boot sales are huge where they used to live. Not those ones where there are a handful of cars with their wares in front of them on sad little blankets. No, these were the ones where men competed for your attention, selling their latest must-have items with all the flair of an early century travelling medicine man.

The point is, one of these men was selling vegetable peelers, and was demonstrating just how amazing they were by peeling all these different vegetables. One of those vegetables was a carrot. Now, I was a bit of a strange child, and had a certain fondness for carrots. I was only two at the time, and I was watching the man peel the carrot so avidly, that when he threw it in the sack after he had finished demonstrating, I burst into floods of tears, leaving my granddad completely bewildered. After my mum explained why I was upset, he went back to the man and asked for the carrot, even offering to pay for it. The man refused to take any money, and handed the carrot over to my granddad, who brought it back for me. It's a simple story, but it reminds me of the person my granddad was.

This week I tried aubergines. I have had them in meals before, but every single time I picked them out, leaving them on the side of the plate. This time I didn't give myself a chance. I was going to stuff them to disguise the taste, but instead I simply cut it in half, scoring the inside and adding a little salt, before roasting them. All in all they weren't bad; reminded me of mushrooms, both in texture and taste.

Ems