so much for my hopes that my niece and I would be building a business empire!!! It looks as if she will be emigrating to Canada. So, I am gonna do this thing on my own.  Take the bull by the horns and get crafting. I now intend to post weekly
LOOK OUT WORLD  HERE I COME

New Year New Venture

I am going into business!!!

My niece and I are going to sell my handmade cards

this one I made several years ago to order

a bit wonky, but you get the ghist

still cannot get my photos the right way round!

However I have decided to go public with a very different style, well at least to start with.  I will try to appeal to the mass market and begin with Forever friends, Tatty Teddy and other familiar characters.  I missed the Christmas market with my Snowman cards

how uselasss am I???

I sometimes wonder , and then I loose the thread of my thoughts.
I have spent all of Easter Sunday cleaning my little house, when what I really wanted to do was CRAFT. My husband and son sat and relaxed. I got up before 6am with a vague idea that I ought to go to church this morning and that I ought to see my mother at some time soon. I emptied all of the kitchen cupboards and washed them out, i washed the ealls around the cupboards. I washed the contents of all the cupboards and discovered that I have pyrex bowls, the evidence that I had had any was the three remaining lids. Ihave bought dozens over the years, was given several as wedding presents and hubby bought a set of 60 before we got married - where are they now? WAs I wrong never to complain when a glass, cup or plate got smashed accidentally? All I asked was that it got swept up tidily, now I do not get even that courtesy, my son just leaves messes for me to find and clean up.
I do not do cleaning up after 16 year olds and he just does not get it.
I poached a salmon for hubby and myself, and roasted a small beef joint for the 16 year old. In the holiday spirit the salmon was poached in white wine and the beef gravy was made with an expensive red wine (the end of the bottle). -Neither appreciated the effort and left the plates in the kitchen (unrinsed) - I bit my tongue, the dishwsher was already on with stuff from the cupboards that I was refreshing. I washed up everything except the salmon leftovers, they were put in the grill to cool before being put in the oven.
I spent an hour cleaning the floor of the downsatirs shower room, those posh tiles cost me £300+ nearly 6 years ago and I have had to whiten the grout twice already. the tiles are tiny irregular blue mosaics and I love them. I scrubbed and scrubbed away to get the grouting as white as possible. I stopped using the bathroom some months ago when I realised that I was the only person who ever washed any part of it. I am obessive about tile grouting, and cannot bear to see any discolouration at all. We have the bathroom upstairs tiled from floor to ceiling and downstairs, the kitchen is tiled and then the shower room is tiled from floor to chest height with the shower stall fully tiled -so I have lotof tiles to maintain. Any way, the bathroomm was getting me down. Everybody showered in the bathroom, but only I ever washed the bath. I LOVE TO BATHE. I can spend hours in the bath, but got really fed up when it occured to me that every time I wanted to bathe I had to do a full clean. I was never able to simply rinse and then get in. It was always scrubbing someone else's detritus before puttin the taps on. I tired to ignore it several times, but it was hard to ignore the grime when it was at eye level. i know that the tiles were my obsession but the sides of the bath were grimy, the sink and taps were grim. I had to cleam the upstairs toilet daily, it is at the top of the stairs and so the aroma of it would greet me as I walked upstairs, nobody else could smell it. So, I decided to give up the pleasure of bathing. I now use the shower room downstairs and avoid the bathroom. Nobody else used the shoower room, and nobody cleans the bathroom.
As I washed the shower room floor, I reflected on the state of the bathroom and wnet up to look at it. The grouting around the bath was discoloured and the seals around the bath and sink were grey with mould. I bleached the seals and scrubbed the grouting. the metal shower hose has limescale and scum on it, I made an attempt to wash it off, but it needs deep cleaning so I abandoned the attempt. The brass fittings are badly tarnished, but nobody notices, there is red shower gel on the floor unnoticed by anybody but me. I chiose not to notice it either. I put toilet cleaner down the toilet and then tried to clean the grouting around the toilet - not easy. downstairs the toilet seat comes off very easily and so it gets washed in the shower stall weekly. the bathroom toilet seat is screwed on and so cannot be removed. I did not clean it.
while I was toiling the 16 year old was at this computer. He does not have the courtesy to ask before using it and as usual tossed my 'work in progress' to one side spilling card and papers on the floor. His monitor does not work- this is the third monitor he has somehow broken this year. My lovely 19 inch monitor bought in August had to be replaced and then he got it when the old computer died. I bought my new computer this spring and of course it came with a monitor (smaller). He appreciates nothing.
I fell asleep sometime after 7pm and woke up around 2am again he was on my computer with an open 2litre bottle of water next to the keyboard eating a bowl of cereal, there was milk spilled on the laminate flooring
I know from experience that he will 'forget' to mop up the water if he accidentsally spills it onto the floor. I know from previous experience that he will not pick up my work to protect it from any spills, I know from previous experience that he will not wash or rinse out his cerel bowl. However nothing ventured, nothing gained. I watched him rinse the tray in cold water and the put it with the clean dishes I has washed that afternoon. I watched him rinse the bowl in cold water and leave it above the dishwasher. He could not put it in the dishwasher because it needed to be emptied. In his opinion I was being unreasonable. so I smashed the bowl on the floor and he stormed off, refusing to clean up the milk on the laminate floor. I went to the sink, the tray still had milk on it. I washed it with sopa and hot water and swept up the pieces of the bowl. He is now upstairs playing his music loudly.