Felicia's Blog - Page 13 of 39

In Felicia the Artist

My new paper love…..

I don’t say this often, but I think this is my favourite paper line ever!
I am very fussy about which new paper lines I actually like, I don’t like them too twee, I don’t like them too pastel or too bold, usually I prefer to buy individual 12×12’s because I only like half the designs in a stack (told you i’m fussy!)

But I love, love, love every paper in this, and i’m about to ring the shop to save me another pack because I think I need a “spare”!
This photo isn’t great, its a bit dark but look it up – its fab, fabby, fab!

I used it to make an altered diary, my aim this year is to be more organised so a pretty diary will help (I hope!) Here is a sneek peak…..

You are only getting a sneek peak because this is my project for next months Scrap ‘n’ Yap. I was delighted to be asked to teach it, it is on Sunday February 3rd at the Cork International Hotel (I think thats what its called, its the big one at the airport) I will put up more details when i’m sure of the time etc.

The day before Scrap ‘n’ yap, I will be in Dungarvan co. Waterford with the lovely ladies over there for the first Scrapzville craft class of the year.
There will be a couple of mini layouts, I’m liking these recently, quick and easy but all together they look great, and a couple (or three or four) cards. Lots of paper, embellishments and pretty bits.
If you’re anywhere near there and would like to go, let me know, its from 10-4 and the kit costs €32.

Again, not a great photo, but these papers we will be using for the class.

16/01/2013 By felicia

In Felicia the Artist

update.

Ha! The computer whizz has worked out how to add photos….. just in case you are as computer challenged as myself and blogger won’t let you add photos anymore, this is how you do it…..

Click HTML not Compose, add photos then click back to compose and voila!

So, this is the old fridge, it will be sadly missed…. (if you wonder why i’m showing you pictures of fridges read the previous post.)

This is the new fridge – its really tall, so tall that Ebony can’t see whats on the top shelf (she’s the shortest one of the family!) I don’t know if I love it yet, but i’m very glad its here!

13/01/2013 By felicia

In Felicia the Artist

The Saga of the Fridge…… its long and boring!

First of all blogger is not letting me upload photos…. Why I wonder? and so this is going to be not as pretty as I hoped (but it would only think it pretty if you enjoy pictures of fridges….)

So, the story so far is this:

On December 26th my lovley big side by side, pewter coloured fridge /freezer died a death.
I opened the freezer and everything was defrosted and the temperature gauge on the front told us that it had given up being a refridgerating device in favour of a rather warm storage cupboard.

Sadly just about everything had to go, think of all those lovely Christmas left overs….. but it could have been worse, it could have happened on Christmas Eve before we had eaten any of it!

In my experience, if something big and expensive is going to break it happens leading up to a weekend or bank holiday when there is no chance of getting it fixed quickly. So calls were made first thing on the 27th to the Samsung “helpline” I finally got to speak to a nice lady who told me she would send a repair man.

On the 31st (we are now 6 days into no fridge, fortunately the weather is cold and the shed is serving fairly well) the repair man came and in less then 3 minutes decided it was beyond help and he would send a report to Samsung. However since it was New Years Eve nothing would be done until January 2nd.

All this time i’m thinking to myself, its only 4 years old, I took out a warranty but was does it cover?

(Am I boring you? i’m sorry but the fridge has been the all consuming conversation since Christmas!)

Then from January 3rd untill 8th I rang Samsung 4 times a day on the “helpline” the first line of the message says “we aim to answer your call within 30 seconds” over the 5 days I was on hold for a total of 3 hours and 17 minutes! Cross is it??!! This was followed by me sending a very stroppy email to them.

Eventually (yesterday)I rang the company that came to fix it and they told me to go back to where I bought it (Samsung had told me they dealt directly with all problems so not to go back to the shop) I rang Harvey Norman, they looked up there records told me my extended warranty was with them not Samsung, got me to send the engineers report and today they rang to say I can go and pick out a new fridge to the value of the old one.

The moral of the story is this…… If I was more organised and knew where the receipt for the fridge was (do you know where your 2008 receipts are?) all of this was written on the back, I would’ve known to go straight back to the shop and we wouldn’t be still fridgeless people after two weeks!

By the way, at 8.45 last night a very timid little girl rang from Samsung, (she obviously got the short straw when it came to ringing the cross women in Kerry!) to apologise and assure me they would be on top of it straight away. I think she was quite glad to know it was being sorted and she was off the hook!

I will post a picture of the new shiny fridge if I can work out whats up with blogger. Appreciate your fridge freezers people, life is hard without them!

I am now going to organise all the “important” bits of paper in the house so this doesn’t happen again!

10/01/2013 By felicia

In Felicia the Artist

New Year, New Dreams.

Well, the dictionary/thesaurus had to come out to find THE word for 2013, and I have yet to find one that means everything I want it to…….. maybe I need to simplify things and stop trying to add so many traits to myself!

So, I finally decided on LEARN – plain and simple, learn to do new things, learn more about the things I already know.

We are having a spell of mild weather which means lots of walks, these pictures were taken at Muckross & Dinis in Killarney. Its a 10km round circuit and when we saw these floods we started to wonder if we’d get round….

Isn’t it pretty though? thats the only good thing about all the rain we get!

So, 8km into the circuit we came across this flood and our choices were turn back or wade through… I cannot tell how cold the water was, my feet went blue!!

I have lots of plans and goals for this year, one of which is to be as organised as possible. If i’m stressing about something I wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, so hopefully being more organised (like having a month of class plans done) will help.
I have a huge list of “in my wildest dreams” wishes, like going to America this year to do art classes with 2 of my favourite artists (one of them doesn’t give classes, thats how random this list is!) but my absolute top wish is this……
FOR EVERY ONE OF MY FAMILY TO HAVE A HEALTHY AND HAPPY YEAR;
Thats it, plain and simple, To be healthy in every way and be happy with our lives.

I wish that for anyone reading this too!!

03/01/2013 By felicia

In Felicia the Artist

Merry Christmas!

Well, i’m sure everyone has been busy leading up to yesterday…. and now its all over! We had a lovely day, quiet, delicious food, very relaxing.

I love this week between Christmas and New Year – its kind of a limbo where I get all the days confused. This year though i’m teaching a class tomorrow afternoon and then a camp for the next two days. Thats probably a good thing, it means i’ll have to get dressed and venture out instead of being a total hermit! ( I LOVE staying at home)

Its also about now I get all inthused to start online classes and new habits. I don’t like new years eve at all, for some reason I find it a sad occasion (which is very odd considering i’m a glass half full kinda person) but the new year is a new start, a clean slate, and each year i’m getting a bit better at making goals and actually (nearly!) achieving them.

Today i’m going to start my list of things I’d like to achieve in 2013 and then choose my “Word”. If you could achieve anything in the coming year (like anything in your wildest dreams) what would it be? i’ll have a think about it and then show you my list, learning to speak French is on it every year….. but i’m getting better at it.
I think for my new list i’ll need a new journal so i’m going to make something to write it all in, ooh, a project! just what I need today!

26/12/2012 By felicia

In Felicia the Artist

What a weekend!

This weekend was mad, Friday was Zac’s 16th birthday, Saturday was the annual Art&Wine night, Sunday was the Malton Craft fair……. and today is Monday and I haven’t done a whole lot!

So, Zac had school and went to the cinema on Friday evening. On Saturday mornings he has a tennis lesson, this is what Ebony made him for a birthday treat, after two hours of running around the court he was ready for it…. (I should tell you that he didn’t eat it all, Ebony ate some. It was French toast, bacon and maple syrup)

The rest of the day was spent getting ready for the art show. The pictures have to be hung in the afternoon, every artist gets one of these grids, so I took eight of my Dads paintings and two new ones of my own. They were mostly sea and landscapes with one acrylic nude that he painted in a fit of doing something different!

I was searching for a nice photo of him and my Aunt Kate (Dads sister) had taken this photo of him and kindly sent it to me at the last minute. This is the small frame you can see in the centre.

This art & wine night is a huge social affair, the whole town goes and you meet people you haven’t seen since the last show, so its a chance to get glammed up. Since my hair hadn’t been cut for a full year I decided it was time….. I should have known better! the cut is lovely but the hairdresser (Marion, who is lovely but doesn’t understand how I can live with out a hairdryer) went all out with the styling process….

As you can see!

And as you can see in this photo its gone from curly to straight- ish. It was a bit dramatic for my liking so I went home and redid it. (don’t tell Marion!)
Here I am with my Mum, I was so glad she went, she seemed to really enjoy it and met lots of people she knew. See that seascape to my right? well we don’t have it anymore because it sold!!!

The following day was the craft fair, so I was back in the same hotel at 10 am setting up. My brother had made me this beautiful little dresser and this was its first show day. It did really well! its light so I can carry it myself but sturdy so its safe. It was much admired and everything fitted on it perfectly.

The notebooks and diaries are always the best sellers, but this time I had more cushions, little sewing jars and hand knitted rabbits amongst other things.

It was hugely busy, I think they had about 95 stalls of crafts and artisan foods. The lady behind me had delicious cupcakes so I didn’t go hungry!

So that was the weekend. Today I finally put all the crafting stuff away, you can see the top of the kitchen table and the top of my desk again! but since there is another fair in two weeks time it won’t be tidy for long!

26/11/2012 By felicia

In Felicia the Artist

Christmas class…

Yes, I said it, and its only Rememberence Day! todays class had a Christmas theme, I wasn’t sure if we would fit another one in before the end of December so it had to be done. Plus, when I was looking for papers for this kit I found Kaiser Crafts Twig and Berry collection and went a bit nuts over it!
Those of you who know me know that i’m not huge on Christmas papers, but these aren’t red and green and covered with Santas, they are Autumnal colours with subtle festiveness.

I can’t believe that I forgot to take photos of the class!
We were in “Just Desserts” in Killarney, so the coffee break was delicious!!! Jacinta, Ann, Valerie, Robin, Kathrine, Noreen and Claire all helped make the class great fun, I hope they were pleased with the albums they made.

This was it, in the kit above you can just about see a bronze, antique looking heart, I hadn’t attached mine when I took the photo – but I will because some ladies in the class did and it looked fabulous!

Here are some inside views so that you can see the papers.

I want wallpaper or fabric like that !!

So, thats it – a big, huge thank you to all the ladies who came today and especially to Jessica and Mike in Just Desserts, they will be hoovering glitter off the stair carpet for a while!!

I hope all you ladies in Dungarvan like the album because this is what we’re making on December 1st!! I will make it an event on Facebook but you can message me if you’re interested.

Now, i’m going to unpack the car and relax!

11/11/2012 By felicia

In Felicia the Artist

Tuesday.

Good morning,

Last night I went to the Rural Business 2012 prize giving, there were 4 prizes for the South Kerry group and 24 shortlisted, there had been 89 entries so I suppose to be one of the shortlisted was quite good. I had no illusions that I might win with my quilt idea (which was entered for me by the way!) but when they were opening the envelope it was more tense then the XFactor final I can tell you!! Everyone was secretly practising their acceptance speeches……

When I heard that last years winner invented a contraption to put on the back of young horses when training them so that the rider wouldnt be thrown off and maybe paralysed, I realised the gig was up!! Sweet as my quilt is its not a life saving device.

But, the speakers were really interesting and it was nice to meet people and everyone had dressed up so it was very glam!

This morning i’m off to Kenmare to see if I can find a room for kids craft classes and then its back to the grindstone getting the kits ready for Sunday ( I know, its a hard life isn’t it?!) So far i’ve made two different designs and I can’t decide which one to go with….. but fear not, there will be a plan and it’ll be pretty!

The Knit n Stitch show was great this year, Kate and Mike from Create with Kate are lovely and there were lots of people I knew wandering round. There was fabric, fabric, more fabric, ribbon, buttons, paper, beads….. so much temptation!!

here is a little snippet of the papers for Sunday…. A bit Christmasy, but not really, I love them!!

06/11/2012 By felicia

In Felicia the Artist

Its Friday again already??

Hello,
Where did the week go? Its been really busy round here, which is a good thing, it would be worse if I had nothing to do!
The tiny extension for my craft room has begun…. the cement base has been laid and the paths around it reconstructed, there is a huge pile of materials ready to start building tomorrow, I can’t wait for it to be done but i’m not looking forward to the dust when the wall is taken down!

Next Friday November 2nd (November?!) I will be at the RDS in Dublin where Kate from Create with Kate has a stand, I will be doing a demo of a mini book using some of her beautiful papers, rumour has it she will have not one, not two, but 45 new paper lines at the show!!!!!! oh dear, and I was doing so well with my paper addiction….

What else? well, there are two more classes planned one in Killarney on Sunday 11th November and one in Dungarvan on December 1st. All the details are on the Facebook page so you can check it there or send me a message if you’re interested. If you’re in Kerry the Killarney class is being held in “Just Desserts” in Market lane, they have the most delicious cakes and lots are gluten free, there will be more then one coffee break that day!

And then, we have the annual Killarney Art & Wine night, its usually on a Thursday but this year its Saturday 24th November, this is a great night, its €20 for a ticket and there are dozens of artists displaying work. Each year four local charities are chosen and 30% of any art sold on the night is donated to them…….. its hugely successful, which might be because there are about a dozen wine shops that give out free (yes, free) wine all night!
Anyhoo, i’m painting away for that and here is the first of a new series i’m doing~

There are also two Christmas fairs coming up, one is the day after the Art & Wine night so i’d better have some restraint at the wine counter! and the other is in December, so there is lots to be made for those and don’t forget the next issue of Crafting Ireland is out on November 12th, thats Christmas themed too.

But for now its Friday evening, dinner is cooking and we can all relax. Next week is half term so everyone is very pleased about that.
Have a lovely weekend and half term,
F xx
p.s. I forget to get the Halloween decorations out of the attic, so i’ll relax after that!

26/10/2012 By felicia

In Felicia the Artist

Today I went to ….

Hello,
I had met Midi at the Finnabair class in Cork and she had invited me over to Dungarvan to teach a mini book class .After much organising and changing of dates I finally got there.
We met in Whitechurch National School which is a great venue, really bright and airy and once everyone had settled in we made this:

We used Prima En Francais papers and the album has 4 envelope style pages inside that hold tags.
The little fabric flower was hand made which took some people out of their comfort zone, everyone was delighted with the outcome though, some looked like daisies and some like carnations but they were all beautiful!

Look how much space we had – lots of room to spread out!

This is Michelle…. for the last 3 or 4 years we’ve been speaking to each other on the phone, i’ve met her Mum lots of times but yesterday was the first time we met in person……. and she is just as nice as I expected!!

I’m not sure if these smiles are because they are delighted with what they made or because they didn’t have to thread any more needles and seed beads!!!!
Thank you Ladies for making me welcome I hope you enjoyed the day as much as I did (who couldn’t enjoy a class with that much cake?!)
I promised Lynn and Patricia that I would put up a tutorial for the roses – which I will later in the week, and i’ll come up with something creative for the next class!!

21/10/2012 By felicia

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