Polly's First St Patrick's Day Blog Hop With A Mouse That Waltzes...

Just in case you're wondering about the title, tomorrow is St Patrick's Day! Yippee, it's a national holiday here in the Emerald Isle - the children have the day off school and we celebrate by turning out for parades all over the country. Tullamore is celebrating in a very special way this year, with the Tullamore & Ballykillmurray Scout Troops joining forces to march in the parade...

Hopefully we should have a good turn out for tomorrow, I just hope & pray that the weather holds out and blesses us with a little more sunshine and a lot less wind than we had today. Boy, it's been cold here which has come as a little bit of a surprise after the temperate Spring weather of the past few days...

This year the town is filled with Scouting memorabilia, with exhibitions in the Bridge Centre and shop fronts all over the town. It promises to be quite spectacular, combined with the huge effort going into the parade. Teams of scouts have been beavering away (excuse the pun!) for months preparing for this week and so far it's looking pretty good. I can't wait to see the end result tomorrow - must remember to bring my camera.

So what's the big deal and why are we pushing the boat out? Well, this weekend Tullamore will be descended upon by delegates from all over Ireland attending Scouting Ireland's National Council which opens on Saturday. A second parade comprised of Scouts from all over the Slieve Bloom Scout County and the South Eastern Province will welcome our Chief Scout Michael John Shinnick following his arrival on a narrow boat at the Tullamore Heritage Centre on Friday evening. For us scouters this is the big parade, with St Patrick's Day conveniently offering us the chance to practice our marching skills - shhh, don't tell anyone!

For those of you who are not in the know, the Slieve Bloom Scout County comprises counties Offaly, parts of Laois and North Tipperary. It is so called because the geographical area covered by these Scout troops is dominated by the Slieve Bloom Mountains...

Regarding the rest of the title, tomorrow is also a big day in the card maker's world, especially those who have fallen prey to the extraordinary talents of one Ms Claire Brennan, who just happens to reside on these Emerald shores in the county of Antrim. Being that Claire is both patriotic and creative she decided that tomorrow would be the perfect excuse to bring crafty folk from all over the world together and celebrate together.

Why not drop in again tomorrow and find out what this is all about. If you're lucky I might even have some photo's of the parade for you and of course a nice St Patrick's Day card for you too...

Have a good evening, Slán!

Polly Pierce

Hand Made Greeting Cards & Wedding Stationery From County Offaly

Polly Wishes You A Happy St Patrick's Day!

In case you didn't see yesterday's post I'm participating in Claire's blog-hop over at WaltzingMouse Makes...

So what exactly is a blog-hop then? On this occasion it's where a bunch of folk who just happen to love Claire's range of photopolymer stamp designs come together and celebrate our national holiday, aka St Patrick's Day.

apologies for the washed out background I was trying to show off the script on the ribbon!(see below)...

Aside from the fact that we will be showcasing our own fabulous talents in relation to card making and scrapbooking we will also be showing off our fave designer's abundance of creativity.

I first met Claire a couple of years ago on another favourite stamp designer's forum and we've been friendly ever since. After all, it's something of a treat to meet like minded folk who love to craft and make cards, especially when they're on the same turf - so to speak!

Unfortunately, I have a tendency to make up lovely cards, be very creative in the process and then conveniently forget all about photographing or scanning them! Usually I remember during the small wee hours of the morning, by which time it's too late to do anything about it.

The original incarnation of this card was very similar, however the ribbon at the bottom was a little thinner, a little brighter and it was stamped all over with the words St Patrick's Day rather than just in the middle.

The ribbon I chosen for the second card is PTI Rich Avacado saddle stitched twill ribbon which I just love. I think it fits in quite nicely with shading of the shamrock (watercolour pencils) and the slightly larger celtic script. I was unable to use this larger more decorative script with the thinner ribbon, but it was tied with a pretty bow...

Have you noticed how I've incorporated the colours of the Irish national flag...

I hope you've enjoyed my take on St Patrick's Day which was created using Claire's free digi-stamp created for today, this is just one example of how talented our Claire is, for more examples of her lovely stamps check out here store here.

When you've finished exploring Claire's lovely creations why not hop on over and visit with more of her dedicated followers and see what they've been up in celebration of their two favourite Irish people?