A different sort of day

Thank you to everyone who sent me emails, texts, cards and comments for my birthday today. It was a day of mixed emotions as this was my first one not spent with David since I was just eighteen years old. We always used to play Mario Lanza's music on our birthday mornings and David would serenade me whilst giving me a big hug...he had a really wonderful tenor voice.
Of course, I had to play Mario Lanza this morning which brought back so many memories and I did shed some tears. However, Heather arrived soon after, so I "pulled myself together" and we set out to have a good day.
After visiting our mum, we went on to Freeport which is an outlet centre where we did the round of all the shops and had a fish n chips lunch. We'd thought of going to the zoo but the weather's been so unpredictable that we decided to go shopping instead! We'll save the zoo for another day.
So, it turned out to be a fun day thanks to my lovely sister.
I've spent the evening trying to catch up with everyone by phone or email and am gradually getting there - if I still haven't got back to anyone, please be sure I haven't forgotten you!
Here's a piccie of some of the cards I was sent including one from Gez that made me smile...if you open the picture in a new window, you'll see Gez's card featuring a cycling frog! Brilliant! On Tuesday, Joanne and her lovely husband "T" came to visit and brought me these lovely home grown flowers.... .....a beautifully coloured card, bookmark (which I just happened to be wanting!) and this great birdtable - wow! It's going to look brilliant in the garden and I'm going to put it where I'll be able to watch the birds from the conservatory. No excuses now - I'll have to get that weeding finished!
Heather gave me some lovely gifts including two charms for my bracelet which I tried to photograph but didn't manage - one is a silver owl and the other is a most beautiful Murano glass bead in aqua tones with delicate white flowers beneath the surface.
So, I had a rollercoaster of a day really.
I did promise to share some photos of a few things I've made this week for my day at Card-Io on Saturday. I have just a couple to share for now starting with this little collection.... .....the card features my "Inertia Starter" robot stamp set. I used stencils from Crafters Workshop and Dylusions to create the backgrounds on the robot panel and base card. The tags are made using stamps from my Off the Wall collection. I've used Dylusions ink sprays to colour the ribbons.
Below are a couple of tags, the one on the left features "Emily" who I stamped, coloured and coated with Glue n Seal (gloss version) before spritzing the tag with Dylusions ink sprays. I spritzed water through a stencil to give the bleached out dots effect and the edging is another stencil with Chipped Sapphire Distress ink blended over and then highlighted with a white pen. I wrote the words using black and white pens.
The right hand tag was made using some of the card that I prepped a few days ago and the rosette style flower is made from the paper towel that I used to roll across the wet inked surface. The bird images are from my "Arabella" stamp set and the quote from my "Creative Thoughts" set. I really like the bright shades of the Dylusions inks and found them very uplifting. Talking of bright colours, one shop we called into today was the Pavers outlet and Heather talked me into getting these lovely shoes..... ....not that I took much convincing, and the clincher was when I turned them over and we saw the soles, complete with steampunk detailing! Heather suggested that I ink them up and literally "stamp" onto card with them!
Well, it's a bit of a mish mashed, mixed up sort of post tonight, but it's getting late and it's been a long day. Thank you again for the thoughtfulness that's been shown to me and I hope to see some of you on Saturday. I'll post more pictures after the weekend and let you know how things go in Wigan.
I know it's only Thursday, but have a great weekend everyone.