Hello Friends and Happy Tuesday!
Hope you are well and having a good start to the week. Our lovely Spring weather has turned to wet and windy April weather (March winds, April showers, bring forth May flowers) so no more gardening for the time being and whilst I was worried about my seedlings suffering frost damage last week from the -3C overnight temperatures, now all I have to worry about is them being battered by wind and rain! I am still working on the house and it is taking up so much of my time, I don’t seem to have the energy for anything else and I am forgetting things since my brain is just 100% focused on house stuff. Last week roofers were here sorting out the roof and that took up more of my time than I expected, and I really planned to clean and paint the front of the house before last Saturday, but that didn’t happen and now we have rain rain rain, so nothing is getting painted outside. Inside is a totally different matter though, I have almost finished painting a bedroom, and now I need to get back to painting all the paintwork, doors, skirting boards, stairs etc. I think I have been procrastinating on this job just a little bit but I can’t really put it off any longer. At least the bedroom is starting to look like a room again, and has less stuff in it – can’t say the same for the rest of the house though lol!
today’s art . . .
…is actually the piece I made for my Guest Designer spot over on Creative Artiste which I will show you here in case you missed last week’s post. Here is my post from last week explaining how it was made – you might notice the recycled Easter Brownie Bites packaging from a few Tea Days ago. When I made this page, I was thinking I could also link it up to Valerie’s Spring theme on AJJ since I created it on 24th March but then of course remembered that the page was for an April GD spot so it wouldn’t be live in March.
My second piece of art for this week, is my post from Second on the Second last week which I forgot to link up! I wrote the post, scheduled it, and then dates and times and anything involving the internet went straight out of my head until this morning! Anyway, it’s a cute pop up cat card so I thought you might enjoy it.
decluttering. . .
…and another car load of stuff went to the tip yesterday. This time it was random stuff from the garden, some old wood, cardboard, and a bunch of broken things I have been holding on to thinking they might be useful one day and a lot of old wallpaper that I’d removed from the bedroom and replaced with new. Of course, all of this work and decluttering does have a purpose, not only do I want to get rid of the clutter but I am also feeling the urge to move somewhere else so the house needs to be spruced up for that to happen. At the beginning of the year, I was just thinking, let’s do up the house, fix the things that annoy me, and make it better but since starting that process, I now feel like I want to move elsewhere. It is making me feel a little despondent though, everything is taking so long, everything I look at to buy is either out of my price range or gets snapped up in a few days, or is selling for a lot more than the valuation, and it feels just a little bit overwhelming. I have lived in this house for longer than I planned and it was never my intention to be here more than a few years. There were also family reasons for moving here – it was halfway between my sister and my mum and now she’s gone, it is halfway between my sister and nothing, so I don’t see much point in staying here. Finding something else might not be so easy though, but I keep slogging away at all the stuff and try not to feel too down about it all, and hoping that something will turn up. 🙁
kitties. . .
While going through some old photos looking for something else I found these cuties… baby Lily at 7 weeks old.
And that time when they were auditioning to be bookends!
t stands for . . .
I came across this photo from a few years ago, when I was cleaning out my tea cupboard and thought I would do some tea tasting to decide which ones I liked and wanted to keep or not.
Happy T Day! As always, thanks for reading, and have a great week!
Ingredients
all the stuff in my house!
Challenges
Altered Book Lover – T Stands for –
You might also like these posts . . .
Love the first journal page. Just fun! I can’t believe you tasted all those teas at the same time! LOL Happy belated t day.
The cat pop up card is gorgeous! I love it!!!
Sometimes all the decluttering and working on the house can be a bit overwhelming and when you think you don’t see the end of it downright frustrating. I hope you can see more light very soon. Maybe it is a good idea to look for a new home, but also very stressful. This is probably not a spur of the moment decision. House hunting is exhausting – I hope I never have to do it again.
Love the Spring AJ layout and the colorful cat popup card, Elle. Both are full of your signature happy and arty kitty fun.
I understand your emotions on moving. We want to move but are paralized by the craziness in the market, the higher prices, the desire to stay near family, and need to spruce up. Our plan is to reassess in 2 years and just do some sprucing up in the meantime. One of my daughters has her lot purchased but the cost of building materials is delaying her build and now rates are increasing….at least she has her location and the knowledge that things will get better eventually or at least settle into some type of stable state/norm.
Your kitties are sooo cute!
Congrats on more decluttering – I am cheering you on all the way from Alabama.
What a fun tea experiment and picture – TFS.
Happy T-day! Hugz
Your tea tasting session looks like the perfect excuse to drink tea while cleaning!
Sounds like you have gotten rid of a lot more stuff. Great progress when you can start to see the room again.
Loving your art today, especially that piece for the guest designer. Beautiful!
Happy Tea Day,
Kate
What a fabulous post and many congratulations on both of your Guest Designer spots! Your makes are gorgeous with those bright colours and kitty cats ?. Loved seeing your old photos too, your cats look so adorable and I bet the tea tasting was fun! Happy T Day! Hugs Jo x
Your art for Creative Artiste is beautiful. I like the idea of recycling the substrate, too. Sorry about the Second on the 2nd, Since I don’t pay for Mr. Linky, I can only have one link at at time, thus the short time allowed for a second look. Your card reminds me of Laurel Burch cats. I have some of her fabric. I just checked out your second look and now I KNOW they are by Burch.
Nice to read the decluttering is coming along. I would hate to move, so I don’t envy you. In fact, I don’t think I could afford to move right now, with house prices so sky high where I live.
Loved the photos of the kitties when they were young. They DID make good looking bookends.
What an imaginative way to test tea. I have done that with tea, only I drink one cup a day, rather than drinking them all at once. Thanks for sharing your art, your adorable kitties, and your tea with us for T this Tuesday, Elle.
While it may seem overwhelming at times you sure sound like you’re making lots of headway- it will happen, one step at a time. Cute kitty inspired art- so colorful and cheerful, and I can tell how you love your kitties. What a darling pic of baby Lily.
And oh what a fun thing to do- a tea tasting party- love it! have a good week, and happy T day!
Love your art and ohhhh, baby pics, so sweet!
Decluttering sure is some job. – to it!
Happy T-Day xx
You must feel such a sense of accomplishment. I love all the kitty art and seeing the tiny kitties. So adorable. Happy T Day
Here I sit procrastinating the floor clean-up I promised myself to do today. So I feel sorry for you with so many more and bigger projects to procrastinate! My husband got into cleanout mode a couple of weeks ago, and took everything out of a packed closet, intending to put my stuff back, but I rose to the challenge and around 90% of it went to the thrift shop run by the Salvation Army. Unlike the thrift shops run by volunteer housewives, the SA collectors never look askance at your donations, they just say thanks (or don’t say anything).
best… mae at maefood.blogspot.com