A glorious weekend ...

... wall to wall sunshine, brilliant blue skies, birds singing and quite warm too.  It seems that summer's going out with a bang!!  We had a great weekend visiting not one, but two Food & Drink Festivals - in Nantwich and Mold.  Both were very good and I now have lots of new chuntneys, jams and cheeses to try.  The stall holders were very generous, most of them had lots of little bowls with samples of what they were selling set out and Kathryn was very busy helping herself to most of them!  I tasted some very interesting cheeses - and some that weren't so great.  I tried a lovely pork pie, but didn't buy it immediately as we'd only just arrived.  Sadly when we got back to the lady's stall, she'd sold out.  Good for her, but not so good for me.  That'll teach me to buy when I see it. 

Jonathan and Kathryn found a stall selling chocolate.   They tried two flavours I would never have considered - Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt which Jonathan says tasted as it sounds, but really brought out the flavour of the chocolate - and White Chocolate with Lemon and Poppy Seeds which, according to my two tasters, was just lovely!!  And because I was being "good" - I missed them both.  But we did have some wondeful icecream cones - handmade icecream and sorbet.  We tried carmelised apple sorbet (wonderful), plum sorbet and banoffee sorbet (scrummy), along with vanilla and belgium chocolate icecream - both delicious.

With all the wonderful food and drink on display, and the lovely colours and smells of autumn about, it made me feel very thankful for all these gifts.  So I thought I'd try to make a card to reflect this time of plenty, and tie it in with the Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge for this week. 

Sketch blank



My interpretation of the sketch is shown below.  Autumnal colours are not my usual choice, but I'm really pleased with how this has turned out.

  

WMSC16

Waltzingmouse Stamps: Blessed by You; Faux Fun; Peace & Plenty; Very Vintage Labels No 10.

Inks: Tim Holtz Distress Inks: Antique Linen; Spiced Marmalade; Dusky Concord; Rusty Hinge; Shabby Shutters; Wild Honey

Spellbinders:  Nesties Labels 10

Pens: Promarkers

Jonathan was also busy getting ready for the first photograph competition of the year.  Earlier in the week he'd ordered some large prints - it's just great being able to select your images at home, email them to a printing specialist and then get them back, all in about 4 days.  Anyway, we got some large sheets of moutboard from Hobbycraft and I spent this afternoon cutting it to size and then mounting the photos.  I know I'm biased, but I think Jonathan takes really good pictures.  Anyway, he's taking them to the club tomorrow and we'll find out the result in two weeks.  If you want to see Jonathan's photos, check out his website.  

Tomorrow our Craft Club starts back after a break of two months.  I know that we are all looking forward to getting back to it, although we're likely to spend most of the first meeting just chatting.  

I've just done a bit of Stat checking and see that I've had visitors from Switzerland, Germany, Denmark and South Korea - welcome to you all - and thank you for dropping by. 

That's all for this evening, I managed to get back a bit earlier than I thought.  I trust you all had a great weekend.  Back again tomorrow.