ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY - 23RD OF 2024

 Morning lovely people tis Friday time for

We had a lovely trip out on Saturday, we went to Wentworth Castle, we only have access to the garden as the original house is still used as a college, but we did enjoy a walk around.  Included in the gardens is the now renovated conservatory

The birds of paradise plant was in all its fully glory

The Lime Tree walk looking particularly pretty

We grabbed a selfie on our meander

The original Stainborough Castle built as a play castle for the kids (I kid you not)

and eventually the blue skies arrived

Sunday and another fine day so we ventured to YSP we enjoyed breakfast and then had a good walk

We came home and as it is volunteers week this week I did some baking with hubby which were very well received, raspberry and white chocolate muffins, cinnamon cake and a lemon drizzle cake.

The working week tripped along at a merry pace, my hubby had a hospital appointment following his recent surgery.  The removed thyroid nodule and half thyroid were found to be just an overgrown nodule and nothing else, which was fantastic to hear.  They did find a micro cancer but apparently these are so tiny and don't do anything, so they are going to discuss it again at MTD, but provided they are happy they will just check his thyroid levels and then if all is good he will be discharged.

Wednesday was my sister's birthday so as a celebration for the good news at the hospital and for her birthday we took her out for a meal, it was a lovely evening which I really enjoyed.  

Lots of positives this week lovely people, I hope yours has been grand too. 

WENTWORTH CASTLE - CHRISTMAS FAYRE

Ah it is so sad as Wentworth Castle has now closed to the public, we had a fab time there on quite a few occasions including a Christmas Fayre where I took this shot of my clan. 

Hope you are having a great day! 

WEAR CRAFTS - 12 PLEDGES OPTIMISM

Good morning, so have you done it yet?  Ordered the May kit from Jen at Wear Crafts - if not why not - have you not seen how gorgeous these papers are.  Here is the link to the 12 Pledges page over on Wear Crafts, the initial kits are £5 and Jen always does some fabulous add on kits for those that need more.

Now I love chevrons but they aren't the easiest of things to create by hand.  Or so I thought until I saw a fab instruction on Pinterest recently where they took some squares of card cut diagonally and then offset them on a layout to create a chevron.  Yes you can see the join, but with the gorgeous rikrak ribbon included in the kit - the join was no more.

The layout shows our first visit to the newly opened Victorian conservatory at Wentworth Castle - utterly gorgeous!

Next up I used up lots of the little cards that form part of one of the sheets or the kit, mounting elements on little scraps of cardstock I had lying around, I used both the punched elements and the remaining elements from the punches.  I got the hearts to 'pop' by cutting two hearts, folding in half and then stick one half of the folded heart on the left and then with the other folded heart sticking down one half of that on the right.  I even used the little polaroid journal card as my journal block.  Add a bit of embossed white cardstock and some ink and it's a really simple and effective layout.

Another layout documenting our recent walk using the Five Weirs Walk.

Here is one of the hearts and that journal block up close.

Finally I thought I was done, what little I had left of the kit was on my desk and I really didn't think there was any more that I could create with it, I had some negative strips from punched hearts, and a couple of hearts left over, some organza ribbon and a couple of journal blocks.  Surely I couldn't create any more - wrong, here is the final layout using up the final elements of the layout.  So before you throw away those negatives next time - take an extra look and see what you can do with them!

Documenting the positivity of living in Yorkshire!

Don't forget to head over and see Jen if you want to get your hands on this kit, they really do fly off the shelves - so don't leave it too long!

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY

Morning all, tis Friday, let's see what's been Rocking My World this week

Oh aren't bank holiday weekends lovely, why aren't all weekends that long!  I was off last Thursday but with a work based appointment in the afternoon we ended up with a busy but relatively lazy day.  Hubby was off too so we had time with each other which was bliss.

Good Friday meant a trip out, not only enjoying the blue skies, but also celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary - how on earth did that happen!  I'm grateful for the blue skies, for an amazing family, for a husband who I adore more each and every day.

Me said 13 year old, my sister and my niece on the Easter Trail at Wentworth Castle!  It was a lovely day out which I'm really grateful for, even if we had one of the teenagers on our hands who was a little grumpy - strangely enough the grumpiness disappeared on completion of the Easter trail and a winning chocolate egg!

One of the 'eggs' that had to be found - some of these made me giggle and raised a smile - another grateful!

The view of the house on the day with a giant triple wig wam - there was apparently a wedding being held on the day - being able to visit such amazing places is always a positive

And me and hubby 16 year on - grateful for sister capturing this shot of us!

Saturday found is venturing to Temple Newsam - I'd never heard of it, but it's only half an hour up the motorway from where we are.

Panorama of the house, it's lovely inside with loads of items to look at and enjoy and currently has a Rembrandt exhibition, but we weren't allowed to take photos even without a flash which is a shame, it's a greater shame that we heeded the request whilst others continued to smile for the cameras they had with them!  So grateful for local historic houses!

Grateful for hubby capturing a photo of me and said 13 year old that I actually like - how tall is he getting!

Sunday we ventured a whole mile down the road to a Vintage Car rally - I really wish they'd open this house up more to the public!

And this is one of my favourite vehicles from the day! A chopped down mini - because what a mini needs to be obviously is smaller! 

Grateful for the fun said 13 year old had trying to locate chocolate eggs - however, you can tell it was mission accomplished.

Grateful for family catch ups, for lovely conversations, for chilling on the sofa, enjoying family films, for a long weekend, for the WW girls, for the Wear Crafts Design Team and in particular Jen and Lesley, for the team mates on UK Scrappers, for having time to craft.  For enjoying my new job, for a dry day on thursday to sort the washing for another long weekend in front of me.

Plenty of gratefuls there, I'll pop on a layout from another day out from last year that we did.

This one documents the day we had at Harewood when they held their 'Play' festival and hubby and said 13 year old learned how to sculpt sand!

Up close you can see it's a relatively simple layout, the photos made this layout if I'm honest!

There were loads of dolphins to look at on the site they were, great fun and fab photos!

Mr Linky 

WEAR CRAFTS 12 PLEDGES - MARCH KIT!

Morning all well it's a lovely Saturday morning here in Yorkshire and I'm here to share my first layout with the brand new 12 Pledges Kit for March 2014 from Wear Crafts - Jen has put together a fantastic kit using MME Dorothy papers with beautiful spring like colours.

You can currently find the main kit - here if you fancy getting your hands on one.  The normal monthly kit retails for £5 but the one I've linked to is the additional kit for £15, however, if you want to know more about the 12 pledges for 2014 then let Jen know over at Wear Crafts she's always happy to help!  

This photo was taken when we visited Wentworth Castle last year, the last remaining tower of Stainborough Castle has a spiral staircase which is adorned with this gorgeous dragon, starting from the top and running all the way down to the bottom.

If you want more DT inspiration then check out Lesley's blog!

Oh Jen's just updated her blog with all the necessary links March Kit Info

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY

Yes - stop groaning - I know it's Friday again, I blinked and a whole week has whizzed by at lightening speed, I really do wonder where life disappears to sometimes.  But when you are busy busy busy then the hours turn into minutes and a week turns into a day - but we're back again for Rocking Your World Friday

Oh let's see how many we can manage this week

1.  Douwe Egberts Caramel flavoured coffee, it's not cheap and comes in a tiny jar - but it's lovely and feels a bit naughty, hubby says it smells Christmassy, not sure I'm feeling that one but tasty it is, I may have to try the hazlenut one next.  
2. A bath last week, I know that sounds mad and yes I do shower regularly but I have such a 'dodgy' back that I honestly struggle to have a bath, there is nothing so nice as a relaxing bath, a cup of coffee and a magazine read whilst I'm in there and it warmed my bones - now that I can cope with!
3. Making a few bits for Christmas, nothing major but makes me feel productive and positive
4. Listening to hubby and said 12 year old playing on the play station 2 the other night, they'd got hold of a second hand game recently and were playing on that - howls of laughter coming from the TV room had me smiling from ear to ear.
5. Butternut squash soup made my hubby - he made this at the weekend, knowing I sometimes don't like 'orange' vegetables (I hate carrots with a passion - they have to be hidden in taste for me to cope with them) but the squash soup was delicious - so big thank you to hubby for that!  
6. Positive blog comments, it's always lovely to come along and find that people not only took the time to read your blog, but also took the time to comment - makes me very happy - so if you were one of those people and you know who you are a big thank you! 
7. Donna - for the first entry into my Desert Island Disk CJ - see it here she managed to link the story behind the song (the track was Santana's Smooth and it was the track hubby played over and over whilst I was pregnant, bump (who later became known as said 12 year old) used to enjoy partying inside me when he could hear the track - albeit muffled!
8. Lots of lovely blogs out there at the moment, including some lovely Christmassy ones!  In particular the fabulous items on the Shabby Art Boutique, from a Christmas planner to 'homemade' wrapping paper - check it out here
9. An Autumn walk - there is nothing so nice than a bright blue, crisp day, with Autumn colours, walking through crunchy leaves, it always reminds me of when I was young and used to walk through a graveyard with my Mum on the way to school, I used to love walking through the piles of autumn leaves that had fallen!

This is Wentworth Castle - and yes before you say I know it's not a Castle, it's actually a house which is now actually a college, but you can walk around the gardens which have been restored back to their original design over time

 Enjoying that winter sunshine

 The dragon at the top of the staircase in the tower

 Isn't he gorgeous!

 And his tail at the bottom of the staircase.

Now this is part of the castle within the grounds, (it's known as Stainborough Castle) was built by the original owners of the house as a miniature castle, it had a 'great' hall, with four towers, ramparts and towers running around the outside curtain wall

You can see said 12 year old running around the central piece - and why you may ask did the owner of the house build a scaled down version of a castle?  As a playground for his four children - must be nice mustn't it!

 Me and hubby

 Said 12 year old sneaking piccies we didn't even know about

 Including gorgeous close-ups of miniature cyclamen!

10.  Making good progress on Christmas shopping

11.  Identifying things to do through December to make my 'journal your Christmas' that bit more interesting! 

12.  Getting tickets for the theatre for this Friday.

13.  Crafting time! 

14.  A coffee with my sister on Thursday for a brief catch up which was nice. 

I think my lovely people that that will do nicely for this week, fancy joining in, have a think, do a blog post, head over here and link up so we can come and visit and enjoy your gratefuls as well.  If you don't have time to write a post or you don't have a blog, promise yourself that you'll look back over the last 7 days to spot the positives, it's a worthwhile thing to do and sets you up with a positive outlook ready for the weekend.

Before I go - I'll share a layout, this one documenting a rather dark piccie but a piccie nonetheless that I didn't think we'd got but discovered on hubbies phone!  Said 12 year old at primary school enjoying an archery lesson!