A Trip To Edinburgh

For my birthday last month James booked up for the two of us to go to Edinburgh for a couple of nights.  Neither of us had been before, so it was nice to explore, I always enjoy discovering new places.

There was so much to see and do, and I'm pretty sure there is plenty more to discover besides from what we did.  I had done a bit of research before we got there and decided on a few must do's for the trip so armed with this we set off on the first evening and headed for The Royal Mile.  The first stop was the Camera Obscura & World of Illusions museum.  The view from the top was pretty spectacular and it was great to look through the camera obscura too.  We had great fun checking out the rest of the museum and testing out the various different illusions, I felt like a kid again :) it was brilliant.

The following day we headed over to the castle and spent the morning wandering around the grounds. 

Afterwards we checked out some tartan weaving (one of my favourite parts of the trip)  it is amazing seeing how it is all put together, the machinery they use is incredible.

The afternoon was spent wandering around the Botanical gardens.  As I'm sure you are quite aware already, I love flowers and gardens so this was a great way to finish off the day for me.

We would have liked to have walked up to Arthur's Seat while we were there but we ran out of time.  Still it's an excuse to go back if ever we needed an excuse.  we have also said about visiting the Highlands so we could always incorporate the two in our next visit.

If you've not visited Edinburgh before I would highly recommend it.  There is a lot of walking and it is not the flattest place I have ever come across but there is some beautiful scenery to be seen and some great places to be discovered, I'm sure you wouldn't be disappointed.

~ Gem x    

Cancer Research's Race For Life

Yep I've done it, I've signed up to take part in this year's Race for Life in Chelmsford, only I thought I'd go for something a little different and a little fun so will be going prepared with fairy lights and glow sticks after signing up to the Twilight Race for Life, all in aid of raising as much money as I possibly can for the brilliant charity that is Cancer Research.

I have signed up as a group with my best friend Marie & my brother's girlfriend Rebecca, we have named ourselves the Crafty Cake Cadets.  We are all a little bit creative, a little mischievous at times, oh and the cake bit, well we love a bit lot of cake.

Anyone that knows me will know that I don't exercise, I may go for the odd walk across the fields every now and then but it is not very far and not very often, I just don't do exercise.  We have all promised ourselves we are running this course, all of it!

 

We are taking this seriously.  We have set up an Instagram account (you can follow us @craftycakecadets) to keep up with our progress, and updates will be coming through a lot more regularly now that the event is getting ever closer.  Myself and Marie have been out for a few runs already, each time increasing the distance that we are running.  OK, so we are not quite at the 3 miles yet (I don't even think we are at 1) but we are getting closer and come the 24th October (race night) we will be ready and we WILL run the whole course.

You can visit us at our Just Giving page here, take note we even set up a photo shoot to get the photos for our page, you see, taking this very seriously.  Any donations you can give, no matter how small, will be greatly appreciated.  It is going to a great cause and the more money we can raise the more worthwhile all this running will be.

Thanks for reading and for any support you can spare.

Love Gem x x x x

Getting My Craft On

My yarn bombing antics are not the only creative outbursts I have had recently.  I've been sewing, I've been stitching I've been painting and sticking.  There has been quite a bit of craftiness going on under my roof.

First up I finally made some bunting to go on the basket of my bike.  After making some for a friend back in January I eventually got round to making some for myself.  Now all I need to do is actually ride the thing.  It has sat in the garage for 2 years, note to self I must make more of an effort to use it.

I've also been crafting for our new home (not so new now after 6 months, where did that go?!)  After seeing some patterns that I liked in some of my Cross-Stitcher magazines I finally settled for one to be displayed in a gorgeous hoop I'd picked up from a local charity shop, to hang in our living room.

 

 

And the painting, well this bedside cabinet was bought from a furniture charity shop, it was a bit chipped and lacking something.  After a quick sand down, a lick of paint and a piece of wallpaper to brighten it up, I was really pleased with the finished piece, it makes such a difference to our guest bedroom and really finishes it off nicely.

There are a few other craft projects I'm working on at the moment but they will have to wait until after Christmas before being revealed as they gifts for friends and relatives.  I'm starting early this year in a bid to get tit all done in time. 

Love Gem x x x

Yarn bombing

I'm taking things back to the beginning of July, all in a bid to catch things up to the current day.  I did consider doing a general catch up post but the truth is I have so much that I want to share with you all it would mean either one very, very long post or it would mean cutting everything short so I figured I would stick with doing separate posts for everything. 

I've wanted to get involved with a yarn-bombing project for some time now and was almost there arranging one for the Voluntary Arts Week but it just never worked out.  James suggested I should contact the council and enquire about the Fling Festival which is an annual festival in our town (now a city I just can't get used to calling it that).  I'll be honest I thought I'd be wasting my time and contacted them just to humour James.  Well he got the final laugh because they agreed to have me there and so work began knitting up some bits ready for the event.  they wanted me to run a workshop so people would come and sit with me throughout the day, knitting things that we could bomb the park with.

All in all it wasn't as much of a success as I'd hoped.  It was overlooked by everyone who attended.  Our location wasn't amazing.  We were sharing a tent with performers and were either ignored by people watching or were assumed to be part of the act.  But you know what it was a learning curve, it didn't work out but that's OK.  Everything happens for a reason and we did manage to do some yarn-bombing while we were there.

Thankfully my Mum had been knitting loads in the run up to the event so it wasn't a completely wasted day.  I'm also not going to let this put me off.  This is just the beginning of my yarn bombing adventures.

~ Gem x