Busy, busy, relaaaaaaax

It's been a busy couple of weeks for me, but now I have quite a relaxing week to start my samples for my next demo :-)

Over Easter we did a big Geocaching challenge - 100 caches and 22 miles of walking in a single day. We were surprised that we made it to 19 miles before our feet were *really* painful, and even more surprised that we had mostly recovered the next day. We did have a good lie in though!

We're volunteers at the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden, and the week after Easter is their pilot training week, where the pilots renew their display licenses on the various vintage planes that the Collection uses for the air display season. Most of them are fast jet or airline pilots, so don't spend much of their time flying pre-1940s planes! Our job in training week is to push the planes around, catch the really old ones that don't have much in the way of brakes, and to hold limbo poles and let go of balloons for the barnstorming practice. It's essentially crewing for 4 airshows in a row, so pretty tiring, especially as I'm not used to getting up early!

Last week I had lots of final prep to do for my demo for Grafton Projects in Huntingdon on Saturday. I was one of five demonstrators on the day, and I was showing mainly Woodware products (stamps, punches, chippies albums and the multi-trimmer). It was a great day - busy all day, and lovely to see what the other designers had made. And of course I found a few things I absolutely *had* to buy :-)

I'll load some pics of the album I made later, but here are a couple of the cards:





On Sunday I had a family birthday, and I totally changed my plans for what to make after shopping at the demo. I made my card at my parents' house, while helping Mum make her first card. I normally craft alone when not at demos, so it was a nice treat to be able to make it a social activity. Here's what I came up with - not a great photo unfortunately, as I forgot to do it during daylight:

Mmmmmm paper

One thing I'm not short of is paper. I had promised myself that I wouldn't buy any more for a while, but then those naughty people at Do Crafts added lots of extra Basic Grey papers to their sale. And of course I have to have two bits of each - one for using, one for hoarding :-)

On the other hand, I did use a small square of paper from the mountain today, and a stamp that I bought ages ago, for an unplanned Easter card. So I'm a good girl really.

Retrospective

I've had lurgy this week, and it's hard to make pretty things when your head hurts and you have to blow your nose every couple of minutes, so I have nothing new to show. Instead, I thought I'd share some of the first cards I made, when I made my first few crafty purchases from eBay and Lakeland in 2005. I started making my own cards partly because I didn't like many of the ones in the shops, but mainly because I really don't like the sickly verses in the bought ones. These three are from March to June that year. At that time I hadn't been in a craft shop or looked at a craft mag, and I didn't own any rubber stamps. My house seemed bigger in those days ;-)

Coming soon to a scrapbook near me

A mothers day trip to visit Adam's mum in Surrey provided a perfect excuse to have a long weekend to fit in some geocaching south of London, and a visit to my friend and fellow paper-stroker, Miranda. The weather was fab, and the pile of photos to scrap has got a bit bigger. These are near the top of the list though.

Designer Doughnut Filling



Poseurs


It's Banania! Hmm, maybe you had to be there...

One for Mum

Uh-oh, one week in, and playing catch-up already. That's long weekends away for you!

As usual, I waited until the last minute to commit to designs for my mothers' day cards. In the end I decided to use it as an excuse to make a swing card, and to use a very lovely tulip sticker I've been hoarding for a while. Hope you like the result.

Cardmaking Beginners - Challenge #1

I recently managed to cajole my Mum & Dad into having a go at card making, but they are a little overwhelmed by all the possibilities. To help to get them started, I'll be setting them challenges that focus on individual techniques. I'll set these challenges on here too, and would love people to join in. It's just for fun, so there won't be judging or prizes or anything, but if you're a beginner, hopefully it will help you too.

The first one is nice and simple - to make a card conforming to the layout in this basic template, and with a stamped image as the focal point. You don't have to use straight lines or rectangles and you don't have to have a greeting if you don't want to, just make something with the basic elements in the template. Also, because it's the first challenge for brand new crafters, only basic techniques please - this is a confidence builder!

Deadline: 23rd March

I want a pretty blog too

Welcome to my new blog! My old blog was a bit dull, it covered everything, I shared it with Adam, and was exceedingly lazy about updating it. Recently I've been getting craft blog envy looking at friends' blogs, so I thought it was time to be a proper blogger, and have a pretty blog of my own, dedicated to papercrafting.

So, here it is. Nothing bespoke yet, but my first challenge is to make updating my blog regularly a habit. Wish me luck!