Easy on the Easel Cards

For my third catch-up post, I thought I would own up to a couple of new addictions. The first one is easel cards. They're so simple, and look so cool, I have to restrain myself from turning every card I make into an easel card! Here are a couple of my favourites, both made for friends' children. John likes trains and flowers, Meagan celebrated her birthday with a teddy bears' picnic.

The second addiction is beads, and the Stitches show at the NEC gave the perfect opportunity to indulge myself, as you can see from the picture! I went to the show with a non-crafting friend who was so impressed with all the displays that she came home with loads of shopping to take up cardmaking herself. Great news for me, as she lives only 10 minutes away - it'll be lovely having someone nearby to craft with!

March was also quite an exciting month, as Do Crafts invited me to take a screen test to be a guest on the Create & Craft shopping channel. Here's the card I made - ooh look, it's an easel card! :-) More on telly demos in my next post!

Pooches, pyrography and pizza

For part 2 of my catch-up, I thought I'd tackle January and February. I had no demos in these two months, which was probably just as well, as the time was dominated by snow and Molly, as we finally settled into a routine of walks and training with our new family member.







I did manage a bit of crafting, as several family members and friends had birthdays, and another friend asked for something combining Paris and ballooning for her sister's 21st birthday. At the start of February, I had lots of fun making a card like a pizza in a box for a friend addicted to round cheesy food. For the cheese and tomato, I mixed 3D gloss with acrylic paint for a glossy dimensional finish. The tub of sauce and the potato wedges are made from Fimo clay. I'd love to know what you think!

Also in February, my longest-standing friend Wendy came to visit for a couple of days of crafting, and I she introduced me to pyrography. It's lots of fun, and strangely addictive. It is a bit smelly for indoors in the winter though! I've used some alphabet and Basic Grey stamps on these plant labels to give me a design to burn in.

Well...

Well indeed. I started out putting off this update because I was so miserable, then it was because I was so bad at organising my time, and then it was because I've got out the habit. As there are so many new leaves in the garden, I thought it really is time to turn one over, so here's the first of a few catch-up posts. This one takes us to the end of 2009...

First the miserable bit... Within hours of my previous post, we started to have problems with Dobby biting us, and the problem quickly escalated. To cut a long story short, Blue Cross insisted that we took him back to be rehabilitated. Happily, we've since heard that he had a few weeks of one-to-one work, the biting has been fixed, and he now has a new home.

After sulking for a while we contacted the very excellent Heathlands Animal Shelter. They don't have kennels, but place the dogs in foster homes instead. After our experience with Dobby, it made us a lot more confident, as we could see dogs in a normal home environment. We quickly found the most lovely little doggy, Molly. The rescue think she's a border collie-sheltie cross and is just perfect :-) She loves to play and never seems to get tired, getting us up from our desks and into the countryside twice a day, which hopefully goes some way to explain my poor time management!


In between all the walks I did somehow manage to get all my Christmas cards made though. I made it a little harder for myself by deciding to use up all the half made elements and saved paper offcuts. It felt great to use up things I've been saving for so long, but it's scary to realise that I still have enough to do next year's cards! This one features an image I stamped for my first crafting Christmas!






The only time I broke this rule was for my Mum and Dad's card - I had my first go at silk painting at the NEC craft show in November and became well and truly hooked! I had to have another go when I got home, and here's the result:






Well, that brings us to the end of 2009. More catching up soon, err, hopefully!