Hull

I have moved North, all 240 miles North which is why it is having a capital letter and started a new job today with a community respiratory team.  Respiratory physiotherapy is definitely my preferred speciality and it's an amazing opportunity, if a *teensy* bit daunting.  In one day alone I have learnt more than I think I ever knew about inhalers and have sooooo much more depth and experience to gain!
As you might imagine crafting has taken a bit of a back seat to the rest of life but I did pack a much fuller box of supplies to bring with me this time and have bought a little pack of postcard size butterfly printed papers; very vintage (?for wallpapers).  The duck did not get knitted together, nor the cross-stitch mounted.  Mum has found another of my old cross-stitches, Tigger this time, and I bought a nice wooden frame for it but didn't quite get as far as mounting it... perhaps it will be finished as a surprise for me in a few months when I'm back down at my parents....
Ooh, I did also start doing a scrapbook page for Christmas 2011 and have got some stuff pre-prepared ready for experiences to happen and be documented this year; how organised is that?!?
Sorry for the lack of anything particularly interesting to talk about....although I have just remembered the miniature wooden toy train I started making, inspired by a tutorial in an old issue of 'Artisans in Miniature' magazine.  I can't remember which issue but you can find them all, here:  http://www.artisansinminiature.com/photo_2.html

Mine has progressed slightly since this photo was taken but that's all you're getting for now... And next time I will have the coin the other way up so you can tell it is a penny!!

January

I'm planning to make a scrap book this year of all the 'firsts' I do and experiences I have.  So far there are a few things on my list for 2012 e.g. olympics, diamond jubilee, learn to crochet and I have a couple of things from yesterday as well

- first time I drove my boyfriend to catch the train to go to the airport to fly out to Germany for work (felt very 'wifey' and probably counts as a 'life tick')
- first time I have driven the M25
When the scrapbook pages have been made I'll post them up here.

I've also made a couple of miniature books but they are packed away in one of my boxes somewhere and still need to be glued together as well so you can't see them quite yet

I've been shopping in 'The Works' today with my christmas giftcard and found some really great books and can't wait to try all the different things out.  I've seen the 'one brush' flower painting before and this book has amazing instructions and I've also picked one up called 'New Ideas in Ribboncraft' by Susan Janes

Happy New Year

Having bought my boyfriend a cocktail kit for Christmas we decided to have an evening making cocktails to bring in the new year.  We spent a fair amount of the nectar points that we've collected over the year on the alcohol that was listed in the 'basic bar' - brandy, whiskey, rum and some really yummy blackberry and elderflower liqueurs.  You do need an awful lot of the 'extras' though - fruit juices, aromatic beers, dashes of this or that flavouring so we were very grateful to find a website that you could enter all your ingredients and it would suggest cocktails you could make!!  Wishing everyone a happy new year and more success in your endeavours than we had last night with our cocktails - we'll try again another time!