Highs & Lows of Life!

Yesterday afternoon I was on such a high as I found out that I had passed the interview and got my promotion!!! The others that had been interviewed kept coming to ask me if I had got an email which was really starting to make me worry. Turns out the failure emails went out first and the passes went out a few minutes later. They were the longest few minutes of my life!!! I'm really happy as my good friend, Estelle, also got through.

Unfortunately Jon's team, Chelsea, lost in the Champions League final after a dramatic penalty shoot-out which put a dampener on the rest of the evening. Although Reading are my team, I do have a strong liking for Chelsea because of Jon so felt the defeat just as hard. I so wanted them to win it for Frank Lampard who so recently lost his mum. Seeing the big man, JT (John Terry) in tears last night was enough to start me off. I really hope they can pick themselves up from this and rebuild for next year. I also hope the likes of Frank and Drogba stick around too as the Premier League will be a sad place without them.

Craft Fair Cards - Part 2

Okay, here's second set of cards that I have made today. I've really enjoyed myself, it's helped me take my mind off the results of the interview and the stress of my mum. I've got a few bits of decoupage completed so hopefully I should be able to make a few more quick cards tomorrow.

I hope you like them!

xx :0)

Craft Fair Cards - Part 1

Well, I've certainly been busy today, I've made 7 cards in preparation for the craft fair on Saturday. I can't believe how quickly it's come round, so I'm going to have work really hard this week to increase my stock.

Anyway, here are some of the cards that I have made today. Please excuse me if I don't give details on what I've done or used. If anybody has any queries, please just let me know and I'll happily let you know.

And they're off!!

Thank you for all the good luck messages for my interview yesterday. I was more nervous waiting for that than I was on my wedding day!

I think it went okay. My mind went blank for the first question and I really don't know if what I said bared any relevance to the question!! It appears that my mate after me also suffered the same fate!! After that I think it picked up okay, but you can never tell for sure with these things. They hope to made their decision by the end of next week.

I had a great afternoon at the races after that, culminating in winning £50 on the final horse for a little £2.50 each way bet!! Between Jon and I we had 6 winners out of 7 races, both picking 3 a piece. Jon was so sweet, he gave me £100 at the start to bet with and I came out with £110 so I ended £10 up on the day, thanks to the final horse!

I was hoping to get back to some card making today, but we've been invited to some friends for a BBQ. I just hope it brightens up a bit more!

Fingers crossed I will be back with more tomorrow!

xx :0)

Down, but not forgotten!

Yep, come 4:45pm last Sunday my worst fears were confirmed; Reading FC were relegated from the Premiership after a 2 year stay. I'm not ashamed to admit that tears were shed at the final whistle! I'm still a bit down about it all now, but I'm still proud of my boys and what they achieved for a small club. Unfortunately there were just not good enough this season and paid the ultimate price.

I will be back there next season to try and lift them to try again. Hopefully Stevie Coppell will be too!!

I've not got any new cards to show just yet. I've been busy preparing for an interview I have on Friday. I'm going for promotion and it's my first interview in 11 years!! It's all changed since I first got the job. It's all competence based now and you have to show how, in your work, you've meet the competencies required!! It really is a case of selling yourself too as you're advised to always say "I", never "We" and you have to answer the questions in a STAR format:

Situation/Task
Action
Result

I've been trying to revise/remember what I put on my application form for each competency. We've been told the the 4 that we will be questioned on.

As my interview is fairly early on (11am), I am taking the rest of the day off and Jon is taking me to the races at Newbury Racecourse as I've never been before!!

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

xx :0)

Men, Men, Men!!!

I won't say that I'm moaning about Men in general, just about making cards for them!!

I thought I'd better make a few more men's cards for the fair, but really didn't know where to start so I paid Michelle's gallery a visit as I always find that inspirational.

The two I've made are fairly simple. I've made duplicates of birthday and Father's Day and then realised that I didn't have any FD messages so a trip to the shops will be in order!

I have the bowls stamp as my dad is an avid bowler and I used this for a card a couple of years ago and haven't used it since. I also love the PB stamp I used. The sentiments are Hero Arts.

I'm now off to listen to the Reading FC match and see if we can hopefully avoid relegation from the Premiership! I'm not too confident as it's out of our hands. Whilst I'm doing that, Jon will be watching the Chelsea match and hoping that they win and that Wigan can stop Man Utd from winning so they can clinch the Premiership title!! Talk about nerves today!!

xx :0)

Stamp Something #1 - Firsts

A new challenge blog has just launched called Stamp Something. They will set a new challenge every Friday morning. Being their 1st challenge, the theme is "Firsts". It can be a first for you i.e. using a new colour combo or design or it can be a first as in a first birthday/baby etc.

I've chosen to make my first twins card!! It was also the first time I had used this new Sugar Nellie stamp, so I'm sure that counts too!

I embossed some white startburst card with the fabulous Swiss Dots embossing folder, added the new baby girl ribbon from Making Memories and mounted this onto pink cs. The imgae has been cut and mounted using my square nestabilites. I used Sizzix's Girls Are Weird alphabet to cut the word "Twins!"

xx :0)