Happy Halloween

I love Halloween, I love reading Ghost Stories (love the Haunted Liverpool books) and have even been on a Ghost Hunt in St James Cemetery in Liverpool in the pitch black and freezing cold for a Christmas night out. I also love all the traditional Irish Tales of Banshees and remember with scary fondness "Bogeymen"

As you will get by now I love theming stuff and celebrating holidays so this weekend as been no exception....

1. Halloween Make up: These days fancy dress is the name of the game and if your going to dress up why not  look authentic? I had the pleasure of designing the make up for my sister Sue's Zombie Bride look this Saturday - luckily she was happy with the result and from the sounds of it had a great night

Belle of the Zombie Ball 

2. Duncan : I love getting Duncan bandannas (again themed for the time of year). A lady called Elaine makes most of his bandannas for him and so when I wanted a Halloween themed there was only one lady I would go to

Hey I kinda like this look! 

3.Pumpkins: Finally Halloween wouldn't be the same without a bit of Pumpkin Carving - I remember years ago we did'nt get pumpkins here and my Mum would use a turnip - it did the job but just did'nt have the effect of those pumpkins they used in America but now I am glad to say we get Pumpkins here. This year I carved a cat on a wall and Peter carved a spider 

Taken with Hipstomatic App for I Phone 

So after a very busy weekend and a nice day off it will be back to normality tomorrow

Hope you all have a happy halloween

Craft, cupcakes and a good cause

One of the things that I love about reading other peoples blogs and one of the positive things about social networking is being able to read and see other peoples hobbies. I like being able to see what other people have created. So the blogs this weekend will be to share what I have done the past week,

This week I decided to do put my creativity to good use and make some cup cakes in to sell in work to support "Wear it Pink Day" which is an annual occasion I support every year in aid of Breast Cancer awareness.

Being me I didn't want to just do "cupcakes" I wanted to theme them! I love theming stuff - others may think I am sad but life can be dreary and dull so I try to make the most of occasions! So I decided to make pink cupcakes and wanted to add the universal pink ribbon as a cup cake flag or using sprinkles. The UK is hard to track these things down. Ebay had an array of cup cake ribbon sprinkles but the postage was far to high and I doubted I would get them in time and so I made my own!!

1. I started off with printing off a load of pink ribbon logos on white paper

2. The next stage was to get my materials together to make the flags: Good old fashioned sellotape, Pritt Stick (pink as well!) and some cocktail sticks

3. The next stage was to start cutting out the ribbons

Duncan watches proceedings

4. The next stage was to stick some of the ribbons to card and leave some of the ribbons on their own as you can see in picture

5. I then added the cocktail stick on to one of the cardboard ribbons with some sellotape and them added another ribbon on top - so the ribbon was double sided 

 6. Eventually I had a whole set of Pink Ribbons to go in my cupcakes

7. The next stage was to make nice edible cupcakes - I won't go into detail on making cupcakes this evening as I don't want to send you asleep (if your not already) but I did a variety of pink buttercream topped cakes and some pink iced cakes with traditional hundreds and thousands on and some girly glitter and pink butterflies.

The picture below is my presentation in work on Friday for Wear it Pink Day -They went down a treat!!

In all we raised over 160.00 for a brilliant cause and I had loads of fun making them!!!

Runners with a Cause

Tomorrow Liverpool has it's own Marathon for the first time ever. I am sure everybody will have their own reason for running in this, some will be runners moving themselves up to the next phase of their running -   setting themselves a challenge:  others will be those that compete in marathons for sheer fun of it. Others have their stories to tell about why they are running in the Marathon in the first place... two people very close to me have these stories to tell. Both of them are people that I look up to
Ped's Story : This week it will be 10 years since I first met my husband Peter, or as everybody knows him Ped. In May this year he found out that his sister Jayne has Lymphoma which is a blood cancer.  We were all shocked and horrified when we heard this.  When I found out I went sick inside and went home and cried. Nobody would blame Ped for doing the same - However he decided to do something positive - to support not only Jayne but to put two fingers to to Maggie. Ped was  not a runner but for three months he has worked his behind off training to compete in this marathon and raise funds for Leukemia Care. Jayne is doing brilliant always, positive and has a smile on her face - knocking "Maggie" out as we call her and she is winning. Maggie is no match for Jayne!   Both of them are an inspiration.

Jayne and Ped in Benfica 

Paddy's Story : Paddy is my little brother - although you would think he was my older brother - he definately is much more sensible, clever and I look up to him like he is my big brother. He has always helped me out and supported me when times get tough. One of the toughest times we have both ever faced is loosing our mum. I can remember my mum telling me in April 1995 that she had Breast Cancer. I felt like I had been smacked across the face and knocked out. Breast Cancer to me is one of the worst Cancers you can get - It's nasty and cruel and it spreads.  My poor Mum got over it initially and was and still is my heroine - she did it with dignity and pride and I was amazed how well she coped and faced up to it. Unfortunately it can back four years later. Not just in the Breast but all over and when we were told she literally had two weeks left to live, we leant of each other to try and cope, to help our Dad and our little Sister as well. Paddy has also lost a very good friend Andy to Cancer in 2007, both my mum and Andy were in their 40's. Our Uncle Pat in Ireland has suffered with Blood Cancer the past couple of years and he like Jayne is doing so well. Paddy has been wanting to do a marathon for years and now its his chance to run in one. Not only with Ped, but Anna, my sister in law who has also lost her mum to this horrible disease. Anna is also running the marathon and is equally as brave - she has had a whole host of injuries in training but sheer determination as driven her on to take part tomorrow.
All three of them have raised in excess of 3k for Cancer Charities - they have turned the worst thing in the world into doing something positive, raising not only money to help find a cure but they are putting themselves through one of the toughest things they have ever been through Physically to do this

Me and Paddy at Wembley

Ped and Paddy are both my heroes for doing this. I can only stand by and watch them and cheer them on tomorrow and I will be doing so with admiration. We are all so proud of you both for putting yourselves through this but what a personal achievement it will be. We are all so very proud of you.

If you would like to donate to their fundraising their links are below

Ped Leukaemia Care  and Paddy Howlin Cancer Research
Also Anna Howlin Cancer Research

I have to dedicate this blog post to my Mum who will be cheering on I am sure from a cloud watching over us. She would be so very, very proud

Christine Howlin 1950-1999