Chutney Labels and a Great Meal Out

Today our friend took us out to lunch at the Cott Inn, Dartington. This is an old-fashioned Devon pub in a beautiful country setting, which offers first-class chef cooked meals. We were not disappointed!

Today was the day I was working towards, to complete the boxes for the Floral Mini-Albums I made earlier this year. Our friend’s copy of the album has now left its biscuit box home forever and is now proudly ensconced in its new box! She is delighted with it and I am so happy with her response.

I decided to give her another little gift – a pot of my home-made apple chutney from the Bramleys off our tree in the garden. It’s the first time I’ve made apple chutney and now it’s had time to mature, it’s turned out superb, though I say so myself!

Rather than just giving her a plain jar, I decided to make some labels for it and pretty it up a bit, going for a rustic look.

I used dies from two different sets to cut the two labels.

The larger tie-on label was cut from recycled book packaging from Amazon, and the smaller stick-on one was cut from 100 gsm copy paper. Both were distressed with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I drew a little apple on each label and coloured it with coloured pencils. I cut two circles of cream polycotton fabric from my stash for the lid, and tied on the larger label with jute string.

The outside of the lovely pub where we met for lunch.

Inside:

The food was quite delicious and beautifully served. My dish was described thus: “Free range Devon chicken breast, goats’ cheese, spinach and watercress mousse, prosciutto, crushed potato, spinach, red onion marmalade, bruised baby gem, chorizo cream sauce.” Wow!

This is my hubby’s beef and stilton pie. I love the way the mashed potato is served!

Our friend chose a fish dish.

I love the way the chef has chosen different plates to suit the varied dishes, and in particular I like the way the lines cut in the crispy fish skin are echoed by the lines on the rim of the dish, the metallic glaze of the dish also reflecting the silvery effect of the fish skin. Very artistic!

Our desserts.

The others had a scoop each of locally-made ice cream and I chose the lemon tarte which was accompanied by lemon sorbet in the shape of a lemon! Again, the perfect dish to set off this dessert.

I should have photographed my spiced carrot and sweet potato soup, too. The two pieces of ciabatta were cut diagonally and set on their ends in the most attractive way.

All very creative and extremely chefy! We will definitely be returning here.

It was raining when we arrived, but as we left, the sun was shining. What a lovely day we had.

Floral Mini-Album Pt 17 Tags and Tabs for Pages 5 and 6

Recently I made a new mini-album, about my mum who died in December. I was unable to publish anything about this until now because it is a present for her best friend, who sometimes visits my blog, and I wanted it to be a surprise for her. I wrote a series of blog posts as I did each stage of the project, so I didn’t forget what I did, and they will be published in sequence now the project is finished and has been given to our friend.

If you want to see the finished project, please click here.

I forgot to photograph the original papers for the tags for page 5, or to include the Infusions in this photo, but to begin with, I applied Violet Storms and Violetta infusions to the paper from the paper stack, and then added  Hickory Smoke Distress Ink all over, using a blending tool, to smooth out the texture a bit, and to darken it.

I distressed the edges with Black Soot Distress Ink (again, no photo, I’m afraid).

Moving on to the tag for page 6 (the reverse of the tag for page 5), this was another one which didn’t require much treatment because the original paper from the paper stack wasn’t too bad. I merely double-distressed the edges, using Peacock Feathers and Black Soot Distress Inks.

Here are the pieces, matted onto black cardstock.

I cut and inked the tabs for these tags as before. I cut them from a scrap from one of my Tim Holtz paper stacks (can’t remember which one, I’m afraid, as the papers have got muddled up). For the side showing on page 5, I used Dusty Concord and Vintage Photo Distress Inks, and for the side showing on page 6, Peacock Feathers Distress Ink, and I distressed all the edges with Black Soot Distress Ink.

I then proceeded to stick the tabs onto the tags, without thinking what I was doing, and twice I stuck them in the wrong place! I was able to remove them by softening the glue on the double-sided tape with my heat gun, but when I attached them wrongly the second time, I added a bit of Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive to restore the stickiness somewhat, and this did NOT want to soften with the heat gun, and when I pulled them off, they also lifted some of the colour from the printed paper. Grrrr. What a mess! I tried to cover the exposed white card with Peacock Feathers Distress Ink but you can see in the next photo that it still shows like crazy… I was so cross with myself for being so stupid, and all I can do is to try and add some judiciously placed embellishments when the time comes, to cover up this boo-boo!!

Here at last are the two tags with their tabs in the correct place – one showing the side for page 5, and the other for page 6.

This photo shows the tags in place, the first showing page 5, and the second turned over to show page 6.

Here are the pages again, this time with the tags pulled out, to show how they co-ordinate with their respective pages.

Pages 4 and 5 aligned, to show the double-page spread, complete with tags.

Here are all the pages, from 1-6, stacked up, showing how the tabs line up on the page edges. Not only do they enable the tags to be pulled out, but they also help turn the pages, as well as adding a decorative element.

Floral Mini-Album Pt 16 Tags and Tabs for Pages 1-4

Recently I made a new mini-album, about my mum who died in December. I was unable to publish anything about this until now because it is a present for her best friend, who sometimes visits my blog, and I wanted it to be a surprise for her. I wrote a series of blog posts as I did each stage of the project, so I didn’t forget what I did, and they will be published in sequence now the project is finished and has been given to our friend.

If you want to see the finished project, please click here.

I have discovered a very useful tutorial on Youtube for using your envelope punch board to make tabs. I decided to make tabs for the page tags, to make it easier to pull them out, and also to indicate that there is actually a tag inside the page to be pulled out! The tabs also add a decorative element.

I cut the tabs for the page 1 and 2 tag rom the red paper from the paper stack, and punched them with the envelope punch board, and rounded the bottom corners with my corner rounder punch. I inked half of each tab piece with Dusty Concord Distress Ink, using an ink blender, and then distressed the very edges all round with Black Soot Distress Ink.

I put 1” wide double sided tape on each side of the tab, and trimmed the excess with a small pair of curved scissors.

The tabs folded over and stuck down onto the top edges of the two tags, with the inked side on the page 1 side of the tag, and the plain one on the page 2 side, to match that paper.

Here are the two pages (one for each album) with the tags inserted, showing the tabs at the top.

This is what the tags look like when they are pulled out.

I didn’t do a lot to the paper I chose for the tag for page 3; just some double distressing, first with Hickory Smoke, and then with Black Soot Distress Inks.

Page 4 needed a bit more work. At this stage I forgot to photograph the paper as it was, but you can see it in the photo that follows. I also forgot to photograph the process for altering this paper, but I smooshed it with Pumice Stone Distress Ink first of all. This is a very subtle colour and is useful just for dulling down rather bright colours. My ink pad needs re-inking so I had to repeat the process, and afterwards, because it still didn’t show up very much, I applied ink onto the paper with an ink blender, and spritzed it with water, and dried it with my heat gun. I am quite pleased with the result.

This photo shows the double distressing I did on these tags, first with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink, which is a very similar colour to Pumice Stone, only slightly darker – nice and subtle – and finished with Black Soot.

This photo shows the tag matted and layered on black cardstock, and lying on top of the original, unaltered paper from the paper stack. Unfortunately I had problems with this photo too – not sure what was going on with the camera – the light was most peculiar and the colours were not right, and after manipulating it in my photo editor, the original paper is almost right (a bit darker in reality) but the tag has come out too brown!

Moving on to making the tabs for these tags, I cut them from the drab grey-ish paper from the paper stack (small sample in the centre of the picture) and punched them with the envelope punch board as before, and inked them as follows: for page 3, I used Peacock Feathers Distress Ink, and for page 4, Dusty Concord, and distressed the very edges of both tabs with Black Soot Distress Ink.

Here they are, in situ on the two tags – the left one shows the side for page 3, and the right one, for page 4.

You will see that in this case, I have glued the tabs onto the centre of the tags. Here are pages 3 and 4 with their tags in place.

This is how they appear with the tags pulled out.

Finally, laying them under pages 1 and 2, you can see how the tabs line up. On the left you can see page 1 on top, and on the right, page 4 is on top (for the 2 albums).

There won’t be a tab on the tag for the final page, because it has a flap that can be used to pull it out from the page.

Floral Mini-Album Pt 15 Page Tags for Pages 1 and 2

Recently I made a new mini-album, about my mum who died in December. I was unable to publish anything about this until now because it is a present for her best friend, who sometimes visits my blog, and I wanted it to be a surprise for her. I wrote a series of blog posts as I did each stage of the project, so I didn’t forget what I did, and they will be published in sequence now the project is finished and has been given to our friend.

If you want to see the finished project, please click here.

In this session I started work on the large tags to go inside each of the pages, which were constructed hollow for this purpose, and also to conceal the hidden hinge binding system.

Just a reminder of how the pages are constructed:

I began by cutting six pieces of black cardstock for the tags to go inside three of the four pages, and a larger piece for the final page – this was scored so that the shorter side would fold over as a flap.

I then decided which papers to use for each side of these tags, to co-ordinate with the pages as the tags were pulled out. I stuck them inside each hollow page so that I wouldn’t get confused as to which belonged to which page. On the left you can see pages 1 and 2 for both albums (page 2 is on the reverse of page 1), and pages 3 and 4, all with their tag pieces slipped inside.

In this photo you can see the same arrangement for pages 5 and 6, 7 and 8.

Beginning to work on the tag for page 1. At the back is the original paper, and at the front, the two tags, altered with the Infusions and Distress Oxides shown on the left – Violet Storms and Violetta Infusions, followed by smooshing with Wilted Violet and Candied Apple Distress Oxides (the latter is one of the new ones I got at the craft show). Once this was dry and the pieces were ironed to get rid of the wrinkles, I double-distressed the edges with the Distress Inks on the right – Dusty Concord followed by Black Soot.

The reverse of this tag, which will be visible when pulled out from page 2, was created with unaltered red card from the paper stack, simply distressed just at the edge with Black Soot Distress Ink. I don’t know what happened to the camera when I took this photo and the next one – the light was very peculiar and the colours weren’t right – I did my best with my photo editor but they still aren’t quite right, and they are also a bit out of focus.

Here are the two tags – on the left, showing the side for page 1, and on the right, the side for page 2. Again, trouble with the camera.

WOYWW 460 Interlude

I am writing this on Tuesday evening, because I am due to go into hospital tomorrow morning early (really early – 7.30 a.m. yikes!) and won’t be able to post it then. Zsuzsa has kindly agreed to sign me up for WOYWW.

Not much on my desk. Originally I thought all I’d have would be an empty desk, but yesterday evening I made a tag with my name on it, to tie to my wheelchair so that it ends up in the right place after my operation. I’ve done a blog post about it here. On the desk, from left to right: my box of ink blending pads, on top of which is my notebook with Cuttlebug sandwich recipes and other notes in it. Stacked up plastic bowls with flowers left over from the Floral Album (mystery project). In front of this, a strip of scrap card with some inking experiments on it and a trial run eyelet. Some kitchen roll used for mopping up inks from the tag(see below). Distress Re-Inker and Stickles – both empty bottles given a new lease of life with the addition of some water. Bits and pieces from Dad’s workshop, left out when I was looking for something else. Instruction leaflet for Crop-a-Dile Big Bite.

Here is the finished tag before I wrote my name on it.

I used some of the flowers left over from my mystery project. For those of you who didn’t manage to see the big reveal, please go here to see photos and a video. Here’s the front cover, for starters.

We went out for lunch with our friend on Thursday (postponed from Monday because of the snow) and I gave her the album then. Before we set off, I wrapped it for her. I didn’t have enough tissue paper in a single colour, so I did a bit of eccentric parcel wrapping, using several colours and holding it all together with hot glue. I embellished the parcel with a length of yellow ribbon and some of the flowers left over from the project. I do like to be as creative as possible with my recycling!

I am pleased to say that she loves it. I finished it on Sunday night with several hours to spare before our planned lunch on Monday – why was I worrying haha! Plenty of time…

We went to a fabulous place recommended by our friend, an old water mill, and the food was quite excellent. There were all sorts of extra little touches that showed that they had really thought about what their customers would enjoy, for instance, just inside the main entrance was a bowl marked “Doggie Treats.” My hubby, who has been told not to eat sugar if he’s to avoid diabetes, always has a cheese board instead of dessert, and for the first time ever, he was allowed to choose which cheeses he had. Here is his board – actually a piece of slate.

For my dessert, I couldn’t resist a popcorn and caramel pannacotta! It was scrumptious.

All this was a special treat because of going into hospital to have my parastomal hernia repaired, and I won’t be able to eat normally again for about six weeks. I am hoping against hope that the NHS won’t postpone the operation. Given their past track record and reports I keep hearing from other people, it seems to be almost inevitable to get postponed. I am trying not to get upset about it and get in a state if they do postpone it, but I confess to being quite anxious about it – we psych ourselves up for surgery which is a big thing to face, however often we may have undergone it in the past, and the powers that be seem to have no concept of what we go through. For those in work it’s even worse, because they have to arrange cover etc. and it really puts a lot of people out if the NHS messes them around at the last moment. The hospital staff at the sharp end – my lovely surgeon, and all the nursing staff and other health professionals, are not in control of this situation and it must be extremely hard for them, trying to provide a first-class service. Torbay Hospital is a wonderful hospital and the staff are second to none – never have I experienced such care and compassion, friendliness and cheerfulness, and being treated as a real human being who matters – and not just for myself either; we experienced exactly the same level of excellence over the care of my elderly parents at the end of their lives, and my hubby recently had the best of care and attention over his broken leg. It grieves me that these superb professionals are undermined because of government policy and financial cut-backs. The recent bad weather hasn’t helped the already over-stretched system either, so I think I’ve got to be prepared for the worst.

Well, maybe I won’t get postponed… My hubby said to me the other night, “I don’t think you will be. I feel it in my bones.” I said, “Oh, really? And just how reliable are your bones?” He replied that they were thoroughly to be relied upon. Again I said, “Oh really? As I recall, one of them broke not so long ago! Very reliable!!” Haha!

If things do go ahead as planned, I shall have my iPad with me in hospital, and as soon as I feel up to it, I shall be online, and hope to be in contact with everyone, and will let you know how I am getting on.

The standard letter for this type of surgery says I shall be in for four nights. However, they judge each person according to their individual needs and how well they do post-operatively, and because of my ME, starting with a lower baseline, I tend to take longer to bounce back than normal, which means I’m usually in for longer till they are happy I’m well enough to go home. In addition, four nights would mean I’d be discharged on Easter Sunday which certainly wouldn’t happen – there’s a skeleton staff at the weekend anyway, and also we’ve got the 2 bank holidays (Good Friday and Easter Monday) so the earliest I could anticipate being discharged would be the Tuesday, six days after admission.

In January when I last saw my surgeon, he told me that after the operation, I should expect quite a bit of discomfort. He will be inserting quite a large piece of biological mesh to reinforce the area and hopefully prevent future herniation. It has to be larger than usual because my muscles are weak due to my ME. The hole in the mesh for the stoma will be the size they anticipate the stoma will eventually be after the swelling has gone down, but while everything is healing, things are going to be quite tight and I could experience quite a bit of pain. No doubt they will be prepared for this – their previous record on post-operative pain management has been excellent, so I’m not too worried. In any case I’ll get through it, and the long-term benefits will far outweigh any initial discomfort. He has to make incisions either side of the stoma in order to get the mesh in, which may cause me some problems with the adhesion of the bag initially, but the stoma nurses will be on hand to help with everything. Also, because access will be through the hole in my abdominal wall that was made to form the stoma, he is having to remake the stoma, so it will be the equivalent of starting again from scratch with a new stoma, and I have no idea what size or shape it will be, and whether my existing bags will still work for me. At least this time around, I have three years’ experience under my belt (literally!) and I am approaching this knowing how to manage most problems, and I won’t be freaking out about the whole thing in the same way that I was at the start. The stoma nurses will be available during my hospital stay and afterwards and they will know what equipment will suit me best.

The great advantage of this approach is that I will not be undergoing such major open surgery as previously. Each time they open you up, your body responds by creating adhesions – fibrous bands of tissue between the internal organs, preventing them from sliding freely over one another, and potentially causing major problems. If these immobilise the loops of small intestine they can cause an obstruction. A large proportion of the time taken during my emergency surgery last year was spent in separating adhesions, but this very interference can cause more to form. I am glad I am not being opened up right down my abdomen again because my stomach is already an awful mess, having been opened up twice! My hubby says it is my badge of victory and I shouldn’t be ashamed of it – I went through a lot to get it!

I hope the kittens won’t forget me while I am away! On Saturday they were 10 months old. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone. They are now so big but still babies – they regularly suckle together on the little fluffy black toy. This past week, Ruby has become slightly less teenagery and has allowed me to cuddle her and has purred, so I think things are looking up! Typical adolescents – babies one minute and pseudo-adults the next…

A strange thing – exactly 3 years ago I was also in hospital over Easter, having my first operation to remove my cancerous colon, and Kermit, my ileostomy, was born. His birthday is on 27th March, and Kermit Mark II is being created on 28th! (I wonder if I will recognise him…) I can’t believe I have had him for 3 years. Where does the time go?

When I developed my hernia in the autumn of 2016, I had to give it a name, and what else but Miss Piggy? Kermit hates this monstrous interloper and regularly retreats from her – retracting till he’s level with the surface and causing me no end of problems with leaks etc. It’s poetic justice that the dreaded Miss Piggy is going to be finally defeated by the insertion of a mesh derived from pig skin!!! I’ve had enough of all this constant fighting over who’s to have supremacy over my belly, so I’ll be very glad to have her retreat back to where she belongs, allowing Kermit and me to resume our hitherto peaceful and happy relationship.

These few days between finishing the mystery project and going into hospital have been by way of an interlude, and much of the time has been spent organising things on the home front in readiness for being away, and for my return when I will initially need a lot of help from my hubby. I have organised the freezer so it’s easy for him to find things, and written out instructions on how to use our rather complicated combination microwave, got plenty of food in, got the laundry out of the way in good time, and packed the stuff I am going to need. It’s a rather strange limbo period, made all the worse by the uncertainty as to whether anything is actually going to happen tomorrow at all!

Regarding the mystery project, I have now started uploading the daily blog posts I wrote and saved on my hard drive in anticipation of the time when I could reveal all after our friend had received her gift. They are appearing in order below. So far I’ve only done the first four, and the rest will have to wait till I’m home from hospital. They detail, step by step, the whole process of creating the album from beginning to end.

Floral Tag

Today I made a tag. I have been told by the hospital to put a label on my wheelchair with my name on it, so that it will go up to the ward with the rest of my belongings after my operation on Wednesday. Originally I was just going to use a luggage label but then couldn’t remember if I had any left or where they were, so I decided to make a pretty tag with my name on it, and afterwards I could put something else over my name.

Some time ago I bought a set of Sizzix tag dies and used the largest of the set to cut the tag, from a scrap of fairly thick slightly shiny card that came with a parcel in the post the other day. I lined up the die as accurately as possible in the centre of the piece so that I could use the piece as a card mat later.

For the waste piece, without removing the die from the card, I put it back through the Cuttlebug with my No More Shims embossing mat to get a nice embossed edge to the frame. As for the tag, I selected the die of next size down, lined it up carefully on the tag with the cutting side to the back of the tag, and again with the No More Shims embossing mat, put the whole thing through the Cuttlebug again. I was very pleased with the great embossed edge I achieved.

Last week I had to re-ink my Spun Sugar Distress Ink pad and finished the re-inker. There was still a tiny bit left in the bottle so I added a small amount of water and thought I could probably use this. The same applied to my Fruit Punch Stickles – I’m not surprised I’d finished this bottle because this colour is my go-to Stickles colour! On a scrap of white cardstock I did a bit of experimenting – dropping a few splodges of the diluted re-inker with the dropper in the bottle, and then squirting two or three blobs of the diluted Stickles onto the craft sheet, spritzing with water and smooshing the piece through it. I dried the whole thing with the heat gun.

This shows that you can still squeeze a bit more life out of products when the bottle is empty! Always worth trying, anyway. At the top of the above photo, you can see the kitchen paper I used for mopping up – already maturing into a really useable piece for other projects!

I decided that it might be a bit risky to do a lot of wet smooshing with the tag, because I didn’t want to lose the embossing on the edge, so I abandoned the re-inker idea, and applied Spun Sugar Distress Ink all over the tag with an ink blender. This began to pick out the raised embossed edge very well. I spattered the surface with my finger dipped in water, left it a few seconds and then blotted it off.

I repeated the process with Worn Lipstick Distress Ink.

I distressed the edge with three colours of Distress Ink: first, Aged Mahogany.

I forgot to photograph the second colour, which was Vintage Photo. I finished off with Black Soot, just doing the very edge by swiping downwards with a blending tool.

I dropped a little of the diluted Fruit Punch Stickles onto the craft sheet, spritzed it with water and gently smooshed the tag through it. I achieved the lightest of glitter finish to the surface of the tag. I propped it up to photograph it and I hope you can see at least a little of the shimmer.

I added Spun Sugar Distress Ink all over the reverse of the tag, and distressed the edges lightly as for the front.

Now for some fun with my new Crop-a-dile. This was the first time I’d used it, and I managed to place a very nice bronze eyelet on the top of the tag.

I coloured a length of twine with Aged Mahogany Distress stain but it came out too dark, so I rinsed it quickly under the tap and squeezed it out in kitchen paper before drying it with my heat gun, to get the colour I wanted.

I selected several flowers from my recent Floral Mini-Album project and hot glued them to the tag.

I added my name with a sanguine archival pen.

After the tag has been used to identify my wheelchair, I intend cutting one of the labels from the tag die set and adding some different text to the tag, and possibly some more decorative yarn to the top. I made sure the flowers were well attached right to the edges with the hot glue, to prevent them catching and the petals becoming damaged.

I hope the nurses will get a bit of joy from seeing that I’ve taken a bit of trouble to identify my wheelchair, to co-ordinate with the floral decorations already on it.