As always...no rest for the wicked (Witch) ,lol....and give for a good cause

Hi all,
keeping busy as always! Not only are we short on staff at work , so there is a lot of overtime, but I have tons to do here at home as well.
Yup, been back in UK for two weeks now ...not that I want to be, but I have to earn more money, pay the bills and save for my next trip. Which will be December, so it's not too far away.
Missing waking up next to Reggie, being able to do things together in person and the generally great way we get on and live together.
Partner in crime and mischief, best friend, partner, lover and Master.... vacation over and back to normal for some months, and nightly Skype calls.
This is us at cinema, popcorn in hand,lol

When I saw in the news that Boston area was hit by a tornado I had to think of Edna, Was she ok? I quickly hopped over to her blog to check. Thankfully her area was not hit hard. But that brings me to one reason for this post.
A lot of tornado victims have lost everything and need to start completely new. I don't know about you, but I don't trust many charities. A lot of the donations get used for other things and only a small percentage of money actually goes to the victims.
But there is one I trust unconditionally, and that is my friends True's and Cyber's BIKERS UNITED DISASTER RELIEF TEAMS.
They keep nothing for themselves, have teams who drive out to victims personally to deliver goods etc , and have teams in a lot of States. Currently they are also collecting "Back to School" things for the children of needy families.
If you want to do a good deed, donate or buy one of their patches https://sites.google.com/site/bikersunitedfortornadorelief/multi-state-relief-patches
I will proudly wear my North Carolina patch on my jeans Jacket.
There is also the Facebook page, which contains a lot of pictures and videos of the good deeds they have been doing. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1434411083477893/
They need furniture, clothing , every day living items to help those families who lost everything. If you have anything to give away check out the FB page, they can put you in contact with the Team leader who is possibly in your State and arrangements can be made for donations of items.

There ya go... my good deed of the day,lol. Hold on, just grabbing a glass of sweet iced tea and I post a couple of pics of what I've been up to.
....yup, I seem to take on some southern habits ... I love sweet tea ! Oh yes, and fried chicken. Preferably Poppeys. Bojangles is damn good as well. Anything Creole /Cajun really. Before long they probably succeed to teach me proper Redneck , but I don't think I will ever be one of those southern Ladies.I swear too much to go through as any Lady,lol.Besides....naughty and mischief is more fun !

It's decorating time! It's been 6 years since I did my hallway.(damn, where has the time gone?) And I got sick of the dark colors, the white of the door frames and stairs had turned yellow... it was time for a make-over !
It's a three story stairwell , so far I have done downstairs and the first set of set up to the first landing. I chose a very light antique white with a hint of a grey tone in it.

Pictures and wall decals with quotes make a statement.

Next job will to strip that dark wallpaper in the background there. Slowly working my way up. It's slow progress because I worked overtime as well.
 So for now it's back to paint and wallpaper stripping , and I'll be back hopefully with some scrap goodies soon.
Hugs Snowy

Getting back into design

Good morning
I'm slowly finding my way in the new programs again and have been designing a few parchment backgrounds and a couple of simple layouts.

Otherwise life here is peaceful. Reggie is working overtime which leaves me with a lot of time to myself to do what I like.
I've been cooking and baking , trying out my new appliances. We have mostly all new things in the kitchen now. A brand new set of pots and pans, cutlery, dishes, I got a new mixer and 5 piece baking set , a new Iron...and and and....

Craft supplies are slowly getting stocked and I already made some yummy smelling candles

I also finished hand sewing the kitchen window curtain, matching the back door curtain I showed in my last post.

I can't wait to get my hands on roller,paintbrush and paints and start to give this house a make-over. But not yet... but that doesn't stop me from planning and doing a virtual make-over on the computer. I want to make this place brighter and more cheerful.Something like this...

But enough of that now,lol.
Yesterday I started cooking and ...oh damn... noticed that we were out of Cajun Spice mix ! What to do? Well, I looked up several recipes on the net which varied with the ingredients. In the end I made my own version of what I thought would be right and go well. BINGO !
Reggie's comment last night "You've outdone yourself with this, It's perfect" Now who doesn't like to get a compliment like this? So I decided to share my Cajun Spice mix recipe. I will share the recipe for Cajun Chicken Pasta, in which I use this Spice mix, in the next post.
Here it is... you will have plenty left over with this amount, or just make a jar full straight away, Unlike the Store bought mixes there are no additives or artificial colors or flavors in this.

This is one of the backgrounds I made , and in this layout I used another one

You will get all these things I make for scrapping eventually,lol.... I'm working on a kit with a Woodland theme.
For now I say "until next post " though....Snowy has some housework to do , and after that I will see what the weather is like. We have showers fore-casted , but if the weather stays nice I will probably sit on the deck for a while and work on a cross stitch table cloth, and later on design a bit more.
Hugs Snowy :)

Good morning from beautiful North Carolina

Hi all,
I've been here a little over a week now and finally taking the time to blog again.
The last week I have been really busy here with settling in, doing some late Spring cleaning and sewing.
I'm busy leaving my mark in this house and my project last week was to hand sew a new curtain for the back door, which leads out onto the deck from the kitchen. Currently I am working on a matching curtain for the kitchen window.

This is one I made for the wall in the Dining room.The heart with string was bought in a cheap shop in England and I just made it a little prettier with bow, piece of ribbon,heart and butterfly embellishments.

I'm slowly getting used to the new programs and have been experimenting a little. Although I don't think I will ever get back to only digi-scrapping/designing anymore. There are just too many other things in my life which I enjoy doing as well. So I have decided this blog will really also be a mixture of all kinds of things I do.... depending where the mood takes me it might be design, recipes, various art and craft things, pagan related stuff or simply a subject I find worth blogging about.

Currently my other half Reggie is at work. Yes, that's right.... he has no vacation while I am here this time.So it's more like "real life" and I enjoy taking care of the house while he's at work and having dinner ready when he comes home.I just like spoiling this man.
And as Reggie says " moving in a little bit more each time" ...as you can see, I have taken over the second bathroom,lol

We are slowly replacing old appliances and other kitchen items.I bought an electric kettle, iron, Belgian waffle maker and when I arrived here I was surprised to see we had a new pot and pan set, new cutlery and dining set.
Eventually we will start to decorate this place, Walls and ceiling need a new touch of paint, same as the doors and skirting boards. New PVC in the kitchen and a new carpet in the bedrooms.
Yes, this is home ! Even though I don't live here 24/7 yet. I was greeted with "Welcome back home, baby" when I arrived , and it really feels like it.
I love this area , North Carolina is beautiful and I so enjoy our walks by the River Eno.

I'm slightly soaked there after Reggie splashed me with water, but I gave as good as I got :)

Anyway, I have 2 little freebies today. One is a leave overlay in gray scale
http://www.mediafire.com/view/b570biaobvbdcmn/sr_leave_overlay.png

and the matching seamless texture
http://www.mediafire.com/view/hq7msffnq335021/sr_leave_seamless_texture.jpg

Excuse the plain look, I don't have my external drive with logos and labels here in NC.

Here is a layout I made with both. First I used the overlay on a green background , adjusted opacity until I was happy, and then I applied the texture to the background.

Have fun playing with it  :)
And I will start my work in here now and then chill outside on the deck later with my sewing.
Hugs Snowy

Logging in again :)

Been a while since I have been on here last time. A few new things and life in general has kept me busy.
Yes, I'm still with Reggie and will flying across again in 2 weeks time
And I have a new laptop .... but no design programs on there yet. In fact, I'm still thinking about having Windows 8 wiped off it and going back to Windows 7. My Poser program will not work with Windows 8 and I am not impressed with it at all. It really was made more for touch-screens.

My possessions are about half of what they used to be. I was able to get rid of one tall shelf which used to be full of books as well. Now I get all my books on Kindle ...no dust catchers, less clutter , more space and they are cheaper to buy.

I still do various art and craft projects. I have been recycling or re purposing old jeans.

A laptop bag

Kindle cover with front pocket for my phone

2 little crochet baskets for the bathroom
And I made a new skirt by cutting the top of from an old dress and using a pair of jeans for the top of the skirt.

I'm hoping to have the at least PSP and PS installed on my laptop before I leave for NC....and who knows.... once I can start playing again my inspiration will hopefully come back as well.
Till then , hugs
Snowy

Still alive,lol....

I know I have not been on here a while...and Kyra will tell me off again,I think.
Hi all,
I've  been  so busy with other things that I didn't find time to design much or write on my blog.

A few days after I came back from Reggie it was back to work , and you know what it's like with "a son home alone". I had to catch up with some cleaning and other housework.

For Christmas I got a Kindle  Paper-white  , so I can have all my books on that little device now to read. And for my Birthday it was a new 2 TB external drive. So I stated to  transfer  a lot of files to that drive from discs I burned in the past because my old 320 gig drive was full. A time consuming job, but I will get there.

Plus I started another x-stitch project.This will take me forever , but so worth it in the end .I will show some pics of the work of art later on when I made some more progress.
I also made my own Body Butter. I am sick of the preservatives and artificial stuff in cosmetics. It doesn't need much and is quick to make, Coconut Oil, Shea Butter, Sweet Almond oil and your  favorite essential oil. Melt ,mix, whip and ready :)

Then I have a little Scapbook project going as well.This is the front page.

I'm doing some exercises every day to boost my fitness and lose some weight...and ...and ..and ...you see how it is.There are not enough hours in the day for me besides all this and work. And of cause spending time with Reggie online. He and Shaun come first.
I am planning my next trip for across in June.  Reggie  will be working, but we have time after work, the weekends and holiday when he's off. I will take care of the house and garden while he is away.

But  let  me tell you about my blunder. You can see I am clearly not used to  living in a house in the sticks.
Here at home I put the bag with garbage in  front of the door until I have time to bring it to the bins. I learned my lesson when I did the same at Reggie's place,lol.
Some little critter thought there was something nice in this bag , and when I looked the contents of the bag where littered across the porch. Most likely a  raccoon or something like that that. Lesson learned ,I won't do that again,lol.

But I have a little something ready for you.
A Valentine qp from the kit I am working on.

Download https://www.mediafire.com/?j47s55jd57odmbj
Enjoy , and I'll be back with more soon
Hugs Snowy