MAKING, BLOGGING, BUYING AND READING - NOT ALL AT THE SAME TIME

Hi everyone

I managed to let Valentine's Day pass me by on the card-making front - a very bad admission for a card-maker, but I am determined to ensure I have plenty of Mother's Day cards to display on my wall at Bourne Mill and also at my first event of this year (details on the right hand side of my blog).  Here is a pic of one I am currently working on - not necessarily to everyone's taste, but I do like unusual cards.  This one is made almost completely of bronze mirror card: I punched large flower shapes, folded the petals, stuck them to another sheet of mirror card and then using glue, added lines to the centre of each petal to join in the middle and sprinkled black glitter over them.  Where it was needed, I added green stalks to the flowers and also added a gorgeous orange/brown vase to hold the flowers.  I like it because even though it is nearly all one colour, the different shapes make the flowers stand out.  The photograph isn't great - still getting to grips with the light tent, but I hope you like the card.

I bought a glass shelving unit on Ebay over the weekend - this is to compliment other glass units (desk, table, shelves, etc) we have in our study/workroom.  When arranging the collect this unit, the lady I bought it from mentioned that she couldn't do a particular time/date because of her spinning class.  I thought, excellent, a fellow crafter - I didn't realise classes were held locally for this particular art.  Er, clearly I am spending too long amidst craft stuff, because when we met she put me right about it being an exercise activity not a crafting activity.

I love reading, I just cannot go anywhere or be anywhere without a book to read.  I have piles of books I am reading my way through that friends and neighbours have passed on to me, plus I have a Kindle (so brilliant and so tempting to keep downloading books).  However, I tend not to buy lots of craft books, as I feel the Internet can provide me with such a lot of good information, advice, etc plus I am running out of space for books.  Last week I received a belated (but very welcome) birthday pressie from a friend: Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts.  What a fabulous book - so many beautiful and different things to make - I already have post-it notes on lots of pages.  Watch this space, as some of the makes are bound to find their way into my blog (as well as my soon to be published website).

I have a great guest blogger on Friday, fingers crossed a fellow Handmade Monday crafter who is - as we speak - penning next week's topic, a couple more people who have said 'I could write about.....' - so I am going to encourage them to do just that.  If you have a craft-related topic you are happy to write about and share with others, please do get on touch.  This is a great opportunity to gain extra visitors to both your blog and your website.

Enjoy the rest of the week everyone - don't forget to check out the guest blog post on Friday.

Jill