Successful shopping

Well I braved Westfield today and managed to get the paper cutter I wanted.  I also got gold and silver inked pens to use in the scrapbook - it has black pages so they should contrast nicely on those.  I've become quite a savvy shopper since we've come down to one income.  I noticed a coupon in our Saturday paper for £5 off if you spent £12 in W H Smiths so guess where I got the paper cutter from?

I expected the shopping centre to be more manic than it was as it's school holidays and I didn't get there very early.  Rain was forecast for this afternoon so I wanted to get the washing done before I set off which meant it was almost lunchtime when I got to the shops.  It wasn't actually that bad and it helped that I knew exactly what I wanted and where to get it.

Paper cutter and pens - tick

Birthday present for D-I-L - tick

Watering can  - tick

Milk, onions and marmalade - tick

I had tick symbols next to those when I typed this in word but they didn't translate when I posted here. :(

I took the bus there and back as parking is quite expensive so I did what felt like quite a bit of walking, especially as the watering can had to be bought from a shop in the old Stratford shopping centre.  I was pleased to see quite a lot of people there though as, when Westfield was built just across the way, I did worry that the old centre would decline.  But they are two quite different shopping centres and both seem to be thriving.  I was disappointed to find though, that despite trekking there and back by bus and walking between the centres I only managed to clock up about 2 miles of walking.  But that’s 2 more than I would have done had I stayed home.

I have been quite lazy this afternoon though, just getting the washing dry and looking at properties online.  My daughter is flat hunting at the moment and she sent me details of a flat she was going to view.  Well that flat led to another …..and another…..it’s scary how easy it is to fritter away time looking at things on the internet.  But being lazy means I don’t get so hungry which is good when you’re trying to diet.  I lost 3 pounds last week so that’s a good incentive to keep trying to be good!

WIPs 9/8/15

Two works in progress here.  The first one is the start of a scrap book project.  The envelopes all contain a memory that were done for my husband's 60th birthday last April.  Friends and family were asked to provide memories of Nick.  My daughter then collated them into 60 envelopes that were presented to Nick at his party.

I've decided to put them all into a scrap book so that it's easier to see them and a nice memento to keep.  I want to have it finished by the end of next week so that I can take it to our family gathering.

Many of them were handwritten so I just need to display them but some were on two sides so I've had to scan them to be able to display the whole thing on one side.  Many were sent by e-mail so I need to re-format them and make them look pretty.

My daughter also married up photos with some of them and I might try and find more photos where appropriate.

I've done the scanning.  Now I need to reformat the typed text before starting on putting the scrapbook together.  I have already got the book and photo corners but will need some glue and I've also decided to get a paper cutter so guess who's going shopping tomorrow?

 

This is my other work in progress.  Yesterday I managed to visit some blogs on the A-Z Road Trip and one person that I visited commented back saying she would like to see the blanket I'm trying to make.

I thought it would be good to photograph it and it has actually done me a big favour as now I've worked out how many squares I still need to make and in which colours etc. So a big thank you to Cait at Click's Clan for pushing me to do this.  It's going to take a serious amount of blocking to get the squares matching up but one day it will be finished.  I have a lot of other things I'd like to be making and I'd also like to be doing some crochet but I'm terrible at starting things and not finishing them so I've set myself the target of finishing this before I start on something new.  I don't mind if I have say a knit, a crochet and maybe even a cross stitch on the go but I have in the past had more than one of each started and then they never get finished.

This is only going to get one more row which would be five squares but because of the colour distribution and patterns needed I worked out I need 7 squares plus the one in progress finished.

Watch this space for updates!