A Quick Update on Lizzie's World ...

Hello all Bloggy Friends! Sorry I haven't been around much. I am so busy just now (which is good news actually!).

Here's a quick catch-up on what's happening in my world just now:

- The 150th Post Giveaway is finished. The prizes were won by Stacey and Jacky.  They have both been in touch to tell me their choice of stamps, which I will be making very soon! 

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- We had a busy weekend.  D. has been away in Stockholm again, but was home for the weekend. It was Fathers' Day, so there were cards and presents for him. 

We went to a local Mongolian restaurant on Saturday evening, for dinner.  It's great there - they have all the ingredients for different meals, cut up and put in boxes in a chiller cabinet. You are given a bowl, into which you put your selected ingredients, then you go to the spices table and add your spices, oils, stock etc.  There are some helpful recipe cards on the walls, so you can make "authentic" recipes, such as Satay Chicken, Thai Curry, Sweet & Sour, Noodles, etc etc. 

You then take your bowl to the counter, which is a semi-circle round a huge, circular hotplate (with an extractor fan over the top like a chimney!).  The chefs are there waiting and they take your bowl, carefully put the contents on the hotplate - in its own nice, clean patch - then cook your meal in front of you. Once it's ready, they put it onto a nice, clean plate and give it back to you.  It's great fun and very tasty too. We had a lovely meal and really enjoyed our family outing. 

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- Monday was our Wedding Anniversary (as you'll have worked out if you saw my Post!).  I made D. a scrap page, rather than a card. He was really pleased with it and put it up in our bedroom, where he could see it. I also bought him a nice present and we took ourselves to the local garden centre, to buy a joint present to ourselves. 

Last year we bought ourselves a lovely garden bench.  This year we bought a big, green garden umbrella with a wooden frame.  It has a crank handle, which means I can put it up by myself and sit in the shade to eat my lunch in the garden. 

The previous umbrella was so heavy that I couldn't open it (or close it) by myself and could only use it when D. was home.  It was left up a couple of weeks ago, but the wind suddenly became very strong and blew it over (it was a big, heavy thing!). It was broken beyond repair, so we felt justified in replacing it. We'd considered it for some time, as the old one was bought the year we married and was beginning to look moth-eaten - well, mouse-eaten actually, as it was left in the shed all winter and they ate holes in the canvas!!    

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- I'm hard at work just now, making Wedding Guest books for two custom orders.  Both need to be finished and despatched PDQ, so I'm busy with them!

One is quite large, with heavy printmaking paper pages and covers of ivory linen and moss green silk, bound with natural-white linen.  I have the pages cut (well hand-torn actually) and the cover boards cut. All materials are ready, so I now have to make bookcloth from the linen and silk fabrics (this involves attaching a fine tissue-type paper as a support, to line the fabric, protect it from the boards showing through and stop it stretching all over the place when it's attached to the cover boards). Then I must cover the boards and stitch the binding.  Still a way to go, but I'm getting there. Should be done early next week!  

The other is smaller and just like this Ivory and Gold wedding guest book in my shop; the customer has asked for navy silk trim on the binding, instead of gold.  The pages are all cut for this book and I've been covering the boards with the ivory damask-style paper. Today I took a trip to a local patchwork and sewing/knitting shop, where I can buy great fabrics in Fat Quarters. I was so lucky, as they have had a new delivery and there was a piece of Tussore Silk in navy, just as I wanted! That has saved a 40-mile round trip to the shops at the next big town!  So I hope to get the silk bookcloth made tomorrow and everything ready to make the binding. I aim to finish this before the weekend.

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- I also have another custom order, which is still at the design and materials stage.  My friend came to lunch a couple of weeks ago. We were discussing my shop and I told her about some of the things I had made.  I mentioned the custom order last November, for a planner/diary/notebook, which I so enjoyed making.  She said "I wish you'd make me a diary too!" and from that sprang a Plan and an agreement that I would design her a special diary/planner of her own.  She'd like it to be black, with some bright fuchsia pink decoration inside.

I have some notes and sketches and am trying to locate a piece of black grosgrain silk fabric to make the covers. I've got some other materials for it now - papers, leather and silk in bright pinks, cotton thread, also some rather good black paper with an embossed design; but I mentioned my silk idea and she was charmed by it, so I'm trying to get the silk first. 

I still need to price it up for her, but she's patient, so I hope she will hang on a week or two longer.  Once the two Wedding books are done, I can start designing the layout of the diary (which is more complicated than you might imagine, as it must be bound in sections and all the pages have to be placed carefully so that, when each sheet of paper is folded, the correct diary pages face each other!).

Keep your fingers crossed that no disasters crop up, to stop me getting on with my work!

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- I spent yesterday afternoon in the garden, with my camera. I was taking photos for a Special Blog Post, which I hope to publish on Friday or Saturday.  So  keep an eye open for this!

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Meanwhile, I anticipate that life will continue to be busy, busy, busy... it always seems to get extra-busy in June and July, then I hope for a quiet few weeks in August, while we have our holiday. 

However, if past experience is anything to count on, September will be the usual chaos.  Note to Self: don't sign up for any scrapping or blogging courses this September!!  I did LSNED last year and had to drop out half way through, because my mum was ill in hospital and life was generally chaotic. No courses for me this year - I'm sure I'll have plenty of other stuff to keep me busy - whatever it turns out to be!

Looking forward to our holiday in August. We're off to the seaside... ahhhh...

Another busy day tomorrow.. I'm off to bed soon.  Apologies to all that I've been so bad at reading and commenting on blog posts recently. I have actually been reading quite a lot, but I haven't been able to comment on many. I promise to try harder - I really value all the comments people leave for me, so I'm sure you all feel much the same about your own posts.

Good night all Friends! Normal Service will be resumed asap.