THE 'I CAN'T THINK OF A TITLE' POST

Hello everyone

What a gorgeous day and as it is so sunny and spring-like it should be easy to think of a Blog post title - but it hasn't been.  Never mind, I still (as always) have plenty to say so will stick with the 'working title'.

Firstly, a quick update on my New Year's Resolutions: trying very hard to lose weight (had a few hiccups when a chocolate biscuit just wouldn't leave me alone - so persistent), still working regularly on my website, not yet joined a gym (painful arm preventing that for the time being) and have spent time today commenting on over half of my Blog follower's blogs.  Not all of my followers seem to have blogs, but if you do now have a blog and we haven't 'met' for a while, please do let me have the link to your blog as I would love to drop in for a visit.  On the whole I feel I have made a reasonable start to the New Year.

I have spent a lot of my time this week working on my new products, some of which have involved paper flowers, the small bunches you can buy from craft shops.  I have also spent a lot of time battling with Daisy who thinks they are really toys for her to capture/throw around and chase.  Daisy was a mum when she was less than 1 year old and clearly missed out on all the young kitten games that normally take place at that age - it's great to see her making up for lost time, but I do wish it was without my flowers!

The February issue of the magazine Popular Crafts came out on Friday and if you have had a chance to buy it/read it, I hope you enjoyed my review of the Derwent Card Kit.  They also have a butterfly one in the range and I am going to buy that - butterflies seem to feature in just about every type of craft at the moment.  

As it is the Chinese Year of the Dragon, my make for Handmade Monday is a decoupage dragon mounted on sparkling black glitter card.  The dragon is the mightiest of the Chinese Zodiac signs and symbolises such character traits as dominance and ambition.  They live by their own rules and if left to get on with things in their own way, are usually very successful.  They are driven, unafraid of challenges and willing to take risks.  They are passionate in all they do and do things in a grand fashion.  This description rather reminded me of the occupants of a certain den we are all familiar with.

My dragon will not be placed in a den, but fixed to the front of a greetings card.  I recently found a new range of lovely decoupage made by Moonlight Bay which includes my gorgeous dragon.  They also have a lovely owl decoupage and several other really good prints.

Apart from new ranges, I am also going to begin a new blog posting on Fridays from February.  A slight difference in that I will not have much to say (yes, I know, that is a rare and wonderful thing often not heard or read about) as my Friday blog post will be for a guest blogger.  We all spend a lot of time reading other bloggers' posts, compiling our own, working on our business and trying to find new ways, or reviewing tried and tested ways, of getting ourselves and our business known.  I feel that opening up my blog to other bloggers is a two-way bit of publishing - we should both benefit from the experience.  Slightly different to the usual guest blogger post, mine will be on a different topic each week - all related to handmade.  My first Friday blog will be on 3 February; in my next two posts (Wednesday, 25 and Sunday, 29 January) I will give list of topics.  I won't at this stage allocate them to specific dates, coz if you are anything like me you will pick the latest date - that way I could end up with some pretty empty Friday posts.  I do hope you will join me in this venture - it will be great fun I am sure - if you have a topic you would like to write about without waiting for my list, please do get in touch.

I am off now to battle with Daisy and retrieve my flowers - that is of course if they are worth retrieving and not in a million pieces of paper all over the floor.  Have a great week, I will be back on Wednesday and don't forget to call into the other Handmade Monday blogs - really enjoyable posts and great makes to see too.

Jill