Scrapping away still

I'm not going to talk about the fact that it's already well into March. Much better to talk about fabric and projects and everything else except how fast time flies. That's what you get when you look in the mirror I told  myself.  Just don't look and you wont have to think about it.  LOL.
In my attempt to reduce my stash,  I may have been a little successful since I spoke with you last, because at least I haven't bought any new fabric!!  Progress has been made on a number of projects, and I even dug out some (very) old UFO's and did a little on them.  I had to pinch myself a little at this point.  Hahaha.

The photo to the right shows that I have now laid out the fourth section of Danielle's quilt ready to be sewn up.
Section three has two blocks up on the design wall and the other two have be stitch into rows and just need making into the 2 remaining blocks.
That will just leave the fifth and final section to be done.  Woohoo as they say, sounds like it's almost getting there.  Must not speak too soon just in case.  LOL.















I'm trying to do some each day, but it can be a bit of a struggle some days.  All in good time.  The next three photos are of some eye candy from the Tuesday Girls who have been very busy of late.

This is Lorrie's lovely Christmas Redwork wall hanging.  It is really pretty.

Lorraine is doing a Boston Commons using hexagons.  These are quite large hexagons for Lorraine.  Often she is working with little tiny things that can barely be held in one's hand.  Mad, I think, LOL.  It's certainly going to be a beautiful quilt.  The fabrics are all French General scraps that Lorraine was gifted.

Not sure if I have already mentioned this quilt before but this is Lynn's Pies and Tarts quilt that looks fabulous.  It was interesting choosing the correct binding colour and I found a delicious rusty red in my stash that was perfect.

I have gifted my pile of completed pies and tarts and the cut out pieces and fabric etc to a quilter who needed it a lot more than I did.  I had to take a look at how important this quilt was to me in relation to my health issues and decided I did not want to continue with it.  Feeling really happy with that decision, and it has allowed me to continue on with other projects that need to be finished.

This is the first two blocks in the mystery quilt I am doing with Quilters Lane in Masterton.  I chose the Dear Stella colour way as a change for me and just love it so far.  The bestest thing though is it comes already cut.  I just have to sit and stitch it up together.  But guess what... I still only just got them done before the next blocks arrived. What.... that's just sad,  hahaha. Mind you, I had to pull out a few rusty old drawers in the filing cabinet of my brain to remember how to get these stitched up properly.  (whispering - I had to unpick a LOT...lol)  To change the subject....

This little quilt appeared in post here a while back and a couple of friends had suggested I make it bigger.  I'm never too sure what to do with little quilts, and the fabrics were not suitable to donate it as a baby quilt.  So I have added on a small frame and another floral border so far.  Have another floral border but with different flowers cut from the same striped fabric so will put in another lighter frame and put that one on too I think.  Then I will have to decide what to do with it from there as it will probably end up neither one thing or the other.  Might have to ask if anyone would like it and send it off somewhere to live happily ever after!!









So that's about it here for now,  thanks a heap for popping in and reading about my crazy life.  My health has been great the past two to three weeks and New Zealand has been sitting under this ginormous high and the air pressure has been so good for me. Now it's back to reality as this dratted little low came by and moved it out the road.  Okay, I know we all needed the rain, but gosh it was fun while it lasted.  Ignoring the fact that winter is definitely coming with the cooler autumn nights and mornings we are now having and realising the other side of the world is very happy about that.  Oh well.  See you again soon.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

I have linked to Confessions of a Scrap Quilter here enjoy your visit.
Also linked to Oh! Scrap here for even more scrappy goodness.

Progress for 6and6in2018 and all that...

has happened in the last six weeks has halted some progress, but I'm quite pleased at what I did manage to achieve.  After the medical hassles mentioned last I managed to get a bladder infection and then react afterwards to the antibiotics.  Ho hum, it goes like that sometimes.  Now it's onward and upwards I reckon.

So I have managed to make some progress on Danielle's quilt which only needs the 5.5 inch and 3.5 inch HST's made.  Unfortunately, because I have changed the initial direction for the fabrics in this quilt I felt there was not enough variety to cut the last of these out.  It meant a trip to the LQS (sad), but it also meant I needed to go to the furthermost away one to get a good selection of batiks.  Oh well, my sister was here to stay for the week, so we had a wonderful day out.

There are lots of photos in this post to make up for lost time.  I hope you enjoy them.

 It hasn't grown much, but I did put the pale blue border on, and now have some idea of what I am going to do next in regards to colour.

This one is not long back from my friend Lorraine who is learning to do custom quilting, and doing a fabulous job.  I shall show you a better photo once it is all bound.  Very happy with how this quilt has come out and it all started with some tiny ends from some WOF's left over from my shop.  LOL.

A sneak peek also at the mystery quilt I did through My Carolina Home's quilt along and it was called Square Dance.  I will have two finished quilts to show you in the next blog.  Wow.

Aren't they beautiful. it was so hard to choose.  Hopefully I will get back to cutting these out next week.

This is the reason I haven't finished my HST's.  Been working on these three little quilts for a few weeks now.  A friend of my DIL gave us a lovely electric lazy boy chair that was almost new.  As she was expecting twin boys, I decided to make baby quilts plus one for the older sibling Noah who is 3 years old.
This one is all finished.

 This one has the binding sewn down on the front and tomorrow I will get it stitched down to the back.  I got these two quilts out of a 5 inch wide roll up plus some extras from stash.  Managed to make two different looking quilts even though the style and colours are very much the same.

This is Noah's one and it is slightly bigger, as it should be for the twins big brother.  This was a little collection that I had in my stash for some time and I added a few strips from another roll up.  Had to do some interesting piecing to get enough picture blocks...lol.

And to finish off these are the beautiful flowers my daughter and her family in Perth, Australia sent me for my birthday last week.  They have lasted extremely well and were certainly very beautiful.





As per usual, I shall try not to be so long in coming back, but for a few weeks there, I had nothing to report to you.

I hope your weather is good wherever you are.  We have had heaps of rain these past few days, which is most unusual for us and quite welcome really.  It will give our farmers a good start to spring and summer.
The garden is just starting to burst into life with my beautiful deep yellow freesias almost outdoing themselves in the gloomy weather.  I shall have some pictures for the next post.  Take care of yourselves and have a fabulous day.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

p.s.  I'm linking to Oh Scrap here  and 18 in 2018 at What A Hoot here You will enjoy a visit to both these blogs,

Decision making

The layout has finally been sorted for my Applique Affair quilt.  Once I have them all sewn together I will take it to a couple of LQS's in search of a suitable frame and border fabric.  Needs to be quiet and yet enhance my blocks.  So glad to have got this far with it.  I wrote that about two weeks ago... the only progress has been the blocks are now in rows. 

Then I took Angie's (of quiltingreadersgarden.blogspot.com) advice, and will turn this spare block into the beginnings of a small medallion quilt.  I'm quite excited to get started on it, and hopefully it will  not become another WIP.  Angie's advice also included the wise words of just spending 15 mins a day on it and it will soon be finished.  I'm going to try that!

Apart from that I have spent a lot of time recovering from getting extremely tired after events happening for three weeks in a row.  It's been a learning curve for me about how my tiredness can build up on itself it I don't allow enough recovery time.  I also allowed myself to get very dehydrated which is also a bit of a no-no for me.  Oh well, we learn from our mistakes - all is good and Clare is much wiser - lol.

To finish off here's our daft cat Travis trying to fit into Kerry's slipper.   LOL.

Hopefully back sooner than last time.  Thanks for dropping in and take care.

Hugs and blessings,
Clare

Report for 6 and 6 in 2018 and 18 in 2018

So how has your month been?  I'm reasonable pleased with mine as I did achieve a few things.  We're also allowed to not perform quite as well in February because it's a bit sneaky in only having 28 days.  THREE whole days of stitching lost. Hmmm...
So here we go:

Happy, happy.  I have finished the second to last applique block of my quilt.  Already started on the LAST block.  Happy, happy, can you tell?

 The pies and tarts have doubled themselves, which is not great progress, but I have been concentrating on the applique.  This one is definitely going to be a slow project as it's very hard on my hands.  Still love it though, so although I had decided to abandon it, the girls have encouraged me to keep on going.  Glad they did.

The pile of nine patches has grown for my Mystery Quilt.  Such happy blocks to make and not too much brain work involved.  It's quite incredible that a simple bunch of squares like this can make so many wonderful patterns.

 I have finally made a block for Danielle's quilt.  Got a bit fed up with all the cutting and sorting, so decided to make a block.  I am pleased with how it looks, but it is a tricky wee block to make with all those triangles.  So important to get the size right too, so wondering whether to abandon the pattern and make something else up with the units I have. More pondering and  maybe I'll make a couple more blocks before I decide.

 My sister came up for the weekend and we had an awesome time stitching.  We have become very close since I got sick, and I love our time together.  We went out for coffee before Joy headed home.  The other good looking bloke is my dearly beloved Kerry.  Definitely a keeper as he has trained up quite well and looks after me extremely well in my illness.  I praise God daily for him.

All the kidlets and their tribes are doing well.  This year we have two grandies achieving their 5 years old milestones and will be gorgeous little school kids.


In between all this I managed to sew a swimming and book bag for my great granddaughter Tiana in Perth, Australia.  I did make it much harder than it should have been and you would laugh at the stupid things I did.  Was going to be simple - yeah right!



And to finished on a smiley note - don't you just love the way sunflowers make you smile.  These are growing out the back of our home and way above the fence (1.2 m) and much taller than yours truly with the camera.




I hope you have enjoyed my wee summary of February and hope yours has been good too.  Let's hope we get lots more sewn in March cause we have three more days in it, and Easter means no work and we get a very laid back start to April!  Oh dear it's going fast again isn't it.

I'm going to link to - Oh Scrap and this will take you there - here
To Pomegranate and Chintz'   6in2018-february
and Lynette at What a Hoot for 18 in 2018 here

Hugs and blessings and thank you so much for popping in.

Clare

6 old and 6 new in 2018 -Making progress in record heat!

Oh boy, our air conditioner has been working overtime in the last few days, and there appears to be no let up for the next week.  A few days ago it was is around 42C,  (107F I believe), and that is just too hot for comfort.

Here is my report for the 6 old dand 6 new in 2018, plus I have joined the 18 in 2018 too!!  Just keeps me honest or mad or something!  I did at least make a little progress.

My goodness, it takes some time to get your head back into th right space with a quilt that was barely started in 2008.  All the counting has been done so I know what I still have to cut, and the next job is to finish off all the trimming of these HST's.  I think I might be a little short of fabric in the right colours, so, (every so sadly) I think I may have to go to a quilt shop. Hehehe.

Managed to finish the little tart as well as a pie this month, and have cut out and prepared quite a few more.  This project will definitely be long term as it is quite hard on my hands.  Another way to use up quite a good lot of fabric.

The second to last applique block for a quilt that has been in the making for quite some time.  I seem to have made a mistake in the drawing out of the pattern and had sewn on about five pieces and wasn't happy.  I decided to unpick, clean off my markings and start again.  Very happy I decided to do that.  The is so close to being finished I need to make a concerted effort to finish it.

I have decided that I am going to join in with Carole and My Carolina Home blog and do her Mystery Quilt and you can click on the link to see for yourself.  I usually don't get organised in time but this time I am determined to make it and of course we are given a month for each clue to be finished.  I felt it would be a great way to use up some more of that stash I am a little tired of.

Here is the River quilt all put together.  It's not a very big quilt, but will make a nice lap quilt or even a wall hanging.  I was so pleased the way the border fabric worked out so well, as it's always a bit of a problem after you have left it about 10 years to finish!!  Oops.  Never mind, it still counts as an almost finish for my 18 in 2018 list.















Most of my other projects have not been touched, but I did spend quite a bit of time resorting my fabrics and scraps.  Over the last couple of years as we finished this house, things got moved around quite a bit.  I have now managed to start getting everything back in the right places and can find things when I want them!  Well, that's what I'm pretending, LOL.  Actually, it has spurred me on to get moving on using some of these fabrics up, because although I still like them, I'm a bit fed up with looking at the same old stuff!  Keen to buy lots of new stuff in these lovely fresh modern colours!  Haha, that's famous last words.

I think that's all for now.  Happy stitching.
I'm linking up with Lynette of What A Hoot Quilts here
and Pomegranite and Chintz of 6 and 6 in 2018 here

Hugs and blessings,

Clare

A Lovely Rain and other oddities...

We have been blessed to have had three good doses of rain this month, which is quite unusual for Hawkes Bay.  We spend most of our spring/summer/autumn praying for rain, as we are traditionally a very dry area with hot summers - well, our definition of hot anyway!  At the moment our lawns are green and still need mowing, much to DH's disgust.  However, the garden does look so fresh after good rains, and we don' t have to stand out there and water.

This day lily is so gorgeous.  It is actually a more rusty red than this shows, and has given us a magnificent display for many days now.  The one my friend gave me flowered for the first time this year and I forgot to take a photo.  It is a lovely clear orange.

This lovely little chocolate coloured Cosmos is making a lovely wee splash of colour in amongst lots of purples and pinks.  Have had to do lots of deadheading this week to encourage more flowers,

 Our snapdragons were all from very small self seeded plants from DH's sister,  They have done very well, much to our surprise.  This one is a new seedling from ours and the originals all flowered again in their second year and have now been discarded.  I love the way they are biannual, so you get great value from them.

Our Swan plants have self seeded everywhere, so this year we have an excellent supply for the Monarch butterflies.  At the moment we are trying to fight off the wasps that eat the eggs and small caterpillars.  It's quite a war to keep the beautiful creatures at viable numbers.  Next thing we will be desperate for food.!

At the end of last year our Tuesday Chat girls decided we would make Pies and Tarts something we could all join in and do.  This is the beginning of my efforts - half a pie is stitched together, one tart is ready for stitching.  This will be a bit of a long term project I feel already, but it is nice to have one or two hand work things on hand to do.  It's supposed to help use up some of my scraps, but I only totally used up one small piece of fabric when I cut some more on Thursday!!  Drats

My good friend Lorraine has taken the plunge and bought herself an Innova long arm machine.  Lucky girl.  I have been to have a play and it's beautiful.  As she is in dire need of some practice pieces, I am making the most of this opportunity to move out some of those tops on my " Waiting for Quilting"  list I made two years ago and has been reduced by very few. This top goes back to early shop days.  Naturally, no fabric was kept for the border.  I was able to find this rather nice tile fabric that has all the colours in it at the LQS, and a small piece of dark teal that I will use as a frame in my stash.  Awesome, 5 tops will get finished.  Can you see me doing my happy dance?












So there you have it.  Some progress is being made - I think!! Talk to you again soon, and thanks for dropping in for a visit.  How is your quilting going?

Forgot to sign off - goodness me and say that I'm linking up with Cynthia  of Oh Scrap , her link is also on my side bar. Also with Lynette at  Confessions of a Fabric Addict .  Do go visit them, you will enjoy it. 
Bye for now,
Hugs and blessings
Clare

Stitching on...

in this very hot weather.  We had 35 C yesterday and I'm afraid we just huddled inside with the air conditioning on.  It has never been my thing - hot sunny days at the beach.  I'm an autumn, spring sort of girl and don't even mind winter that much.  Mind you, compared to some places our winters are very mild.

I have managed to do a little stitching though, and have all the blocks made on the Craftsy BOM 2013.  Now just to figure out how to put it together and what colour joining strips I'm going to use.  The HST border does nothing for me, so I'm planning on a small frame then outer border.

I'm really happy with the colours in this quilt.  They are mostly hand dyed fabrics from a class we held at our shop quite a number of years ago.  I had been looking for a project for ages and the 2011 Shop Hop fabric my pal Barbara in Kansas sent me was perfect.  Mind you, lots left over yet and keep thinking a 9 patch would be lovely too.
Then about 10 days ago I fluffed around with these 4 patches in a vain attempt to join in with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for January. The colour was purples, so I  took all of my purple scrap 2" squares that were already cut, and stitched the whole lot up into these patches...now what!   LOL.

It was such fun, but I must not let them become another UFO!!

At Tuesday Chat today, Lynn brought along her gorgeous Hexagon quilt that she has finished.  Lynn did this as a BOM for the papers, but chose all the fabrics herself.  It is truly wonderful.

That's it for today.  The Tyson cat managed to get out of his collar overnight and now we are of 2 minds what to do with him.  His stitches had ripped open which is why he had the collar on after they were restitched.  Hoping it will heal this time without problems.  The shoulder is such a bad place for a cat.

Talk to you later.  Happy stitching.

Hugs and blessings
Clare
and I'm linking to Cynthia's here at Oh Scrap

Almost there...

I have been making a huge effort to get all the blocks finished with Bradley's string quilt...there are only 4 more to go. Just as well as my bin is getting very empty, especially with the longer strips for the middle.
It is just too hot to be outside at the moment, so apart from watering (every 2nd day, hand held hose only) I stay inside.  Means I can stitch for more hours than usual. Tomorrow I have to quilt a small top for my friend, so wont get them finished until Thursday.

Tyson was checking things out though.  You can see how dry our grass is.  No need to mow, except for the edges of the garden where we water.
The snapdragons (antirrhinums ) have really come on and are flowering beautifully.  They were tiny little self-seeded plants from my sister in laws.  All different colours too.






Thanks for popping in again.  See you again soon.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

Linking to Cynthia Brunz @  Oh Scrap   Take a look, you will love her quilts.

Happy New Year, may the scraps be with you!

Oh my gosh, it has been so long since I posted you probably have all given up on me.  My computer doesn't work very well these days and I need to figure out how to post on my phone.
The year finished with a wee flurry and I managed to get three Christmas ufos finished up.  Am so pleased with that.  My Christmas bunting never got finished in time however, so that is now my first finished ufo for 2017.  LOL.
Have joined in with #17ufosin2017 and I've made a list of those 17 projects I want to either finish or make good progress on.  Already started on grandson's quilt with another 8  blocks finished and dragged out my Agapanthus wall hanging which is supposed to be January's project. (no. 3 on the list was drawn out).

Here's a couple of photos.  The first is a 3 zipped pocket bag I made my sister for her birthday.  Used a combination of stash and bought specially fabric.  Joyce loves cats so couldn't resist the gorgeous purple cat fabric.

This Christmas wall hanging is one of the ufos I managed to finish.  Am so pleased with how it has come out I don't want to take it down...hehehe.

So there we go.  Small catch up and will try and stick to small posts in future.  Thanks for coming back.

Hugs and blessings to you all
Clare
Linking to Cynthia Brunz @  Oh Scrap   Take a look, you will love her quilts.

Almost a finished quilt...

I have finally been able to finish the quilting on Rebecca's quilt and I am so pleased with it.  It has taken me ages as I have found it quite hard to quilt for long periods of time now.  Love the modern look of the lines and the way it lets the fabrics speak.  The binding is all made and ready to go on as soon as I can get hubby to move my sewing table close to the big tables to take the weight for me.
He is so busy right now getting the wet floor sorted in our bathroom.  Very  messy and noisy and extremely hard work for him, so don't want to both him too much.

Travis is checking it out for softness and how well it works for sleeping on, or under if you prefer.  It think it gets the mark of approval as he doesn't want to move off it.

I used a lovely soft silver grey Magnifico thread from Superior Threads and it looked great over all the colours.  Had no problem with it either - I always use a size 18 needle in my longarm and have no hassles.

 My sister came to stay for this week and we have been stitching up a storm.  Well Joy has.  I've been struggling a little this week, but have still managed to achieve a couple of things.

This is the gorgeous table runner Joy is making.  Because she has a small table, there has been enough in the kit to make two out of it.  Lovely batik colours and a quick and easy pattern.
















Lastly but not least, it wouldn't be right without a pic of the boys.  This one is Tyson trying to see if he does a better job of hiding that his brother Travis did.  What do you think?  lol

Well that's my lot for now.  Thanks for stopping by and will catch up with you soon.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

A little progress, sneaky fabric, butterflies and babies...

Decided today was the day to put hands to keyboard and do my blog.  I have been so slack lately with my blog but it is a bit of a tiredness thing, as I seem to slow down so fast these days.  However, I have made some big decisions in my patchwork life!!!

I have put aside the 365 Challenge for now.  It was becoming a total obsession and nothing else was getting done.  That was not what I had planned on.  The plan was to get some UFO's finished, not start something else that took me totally away from that goal.  So there you have it...I am back on track and really pleased that progress is now being made... here is the quilt I am finishing for a granddaughter.  My friend Lynn has done a lot of the stitchery for me as she loves doing them and has no daughters or granddaughters to do girly things for.  It made a big difference to my being able to see the end of this quilt that began um ? .....years ago!!

These are the blocks  that go between the stitchery.  I have 24 to make, actually only 22 left now.  I am doing these very slowly and carefully, as they are done the old fashioned way of cutting the triangles for the flying geese unit!!  Long time since I have done that, and I need these to be nice and accurate.

I have to say, one of the good things about having starting two mad projects that have small blocks - Farmers Wife and 365 Challenge - is that I have become a much more accurate patchworker.  It has also made me slow down and make my blocks and units much more slowly, and even this small thing will increase accuracy I have found. It did used to irk me when blocks would not come out right, and I think I have finally learnt some of the answers. Fast is not always first class sewing.

The other thing I did which I believe was extremely clever and funny, was at our Wine Country Quilts exhibition last month when I helped to man the Janome stand, there was an Elna Press on display.  So Clare took here 24 fat eighths that had been carefully folded up for 8 years and pressed them on it!  Wow, it was magnificent!  If I get rich anytime soon, I'm gonna buy one for patchwork!! LOL Actually, I have to confess...I only pressed about 8 of them...my friend Catherine did the others.  Mind you, it might have been the only ironing she had done during the week...just like me!  (I'm gonna run now before Catherine reads this)  LOL.

Here is my 365 Challenge stuff all neatly put into a satchel and into the cupboard.  My friend Eve showed me this neat pattern that uses 3 inch 9 patches and I have already worked out that I could use the blocks I have made and make some 9 patches to add to them and "wallah" I have a quilt done.  Hmmm, go to sleep brain.

I like these satchels.  They are transparent so you know what is in them and they stack quite nicely.  Come in lots of different sizes too.


Then, you'll never guess what happened!!!  Some blooming fabric plonked itself right into my stash!!   For goodness sake, as soon as you turn your back, you never know what might turn up!!!  Okay, I'll rephrase that for you.  I couldn't resist the pack at the Fat Quarter Shop of the Star Wars fabric...my lovely DIL is mad about all things Star Wars, and as it is her birthday next month, what better than to buy Kea some fabric and make a quilt for Christmas with it. I let Kea have a look case a quilt was not what she wanted, but it is now in my cupboard in the queue.

So, to keep this fabric company on its way to New Zealand, I felt compelled to buy this gorgeous, scrumptious, delicious collection of low volume fabrics.  I mean....who could resist?

This all means, of course, that I am now all fired up to get some more stuff finished, as I'm not allowed to start anything new without getting two things finished!!  Who made that silly rule I wonder?

I have also decided that I will only quilt my existing customer/friends quilts on my long arm, and will no longer look for new business.  It tires me out too much now, and if I get a cold like I have done in March and April, I am out for about 3 weeks while I recover.  Decision made, and now I'm happy with it.  Besides that, I will now manage to get my own quilts quilted!

In the middle of all this we have been watching our chrysalis and are so thrilled to have seen about 18 beautiful Monarch butterflies come out of their chrysalis'. this little video is of one sitting in the warmth of our autumn sunshine drying her wings before she flies away for the winter.  We were like little children, and on Thursday when about seven of them hatched, we wasted an inordinate amount of time watching them.  Mind you, sometimes you have to stop and marvel at these things.  There is no way I could believe that this incredibly complex sequence of a caterpillar totally changing its DNA to become the most beautiful of butterflies - could have been the result of haphazard evolution.

I hope the video works - as I not much good at editing these things it might be a bit long.  I hope you enjoy it though.





At the weekend, we had Richard, Kea and wee Marcy come to stay.  Richard was back to give his Dad another hand in finishing our house off.  It was so awesome that he was able to do this. Kea, Marcy and I headed off to Napier for the day.  We picked up Kea's lovely parents and headed off to the National Aquarium.  Not sure if we were impressed but it was interesting.  The weather was stunning, so that was a plus.  Here is Marcy have morning time in the "big bed" with Nana and Granddad.  She is wondering if that Granddad fellow is friendly or not...lol.

I didn't take a lot of photos as my phone was not charging properly.  Kea has lots and will send me some.  These weekends are so precious, and you realise that this time will never come again.  The little ones grow up so fast.








So there you have it - the update in the realm of the Moore's of Waipukurau.  I hope you have enjoyed reading all this most interesting stuff that makes up our lives.

What has been happening in your life?  Lots of huggy moments I hope.  Things like watching butterflies, and little girls learning to twirl, see a beautiful sunset and a chat with those who you love having in your life.  Smiling at those who need a smile and seeing it making a difference to that person. Life is a gift and we should remember to treat it as a precious thing.

Phew, well that was a right bit of the old philosophy  he he.   I think I'll go hug the cat...oops I mean my husband and see what difference it makes in his life!!

Blessings to you all
Clare
here is the link to Cythia Brunz  Oh Scrap.  Make sure you take a look, it's great eye candy.