LIFE IS IS HARD - IF YOU ARE A CAT

Hello everyone

What a gorgeous day - chilly, but I just love the sunshine and can't wait for long spring and summer days.  How lovely it is to see the day light after 5.00 pm.  Lots of snowdrops, crocus and fat daffodil buds are in the garden.

The title of my post today reflects the following picture of Jazz:

Having been up since before the birds decided it was breakfast, Jazz spent his morning going in and out of the kitchen door into the garden.  We don't have a cat flap, and as it was just a bit too nippy to have the door open, we were both on 'open the door please' duty.  Jazz loves warmth and the sun - gets really ratty when it is cold and rainy (don't we all).  He has two favourite spots in the garden that get the sun for most of the day, and if he is not off hunting that's where he will be.  However, after a few hours of to'ing and fro'ing, he tired himself out and and took a short cat-nap.  It didn't last long though.

Daisy prefers to wait for the temperature to be in the high double figures before she spends a lot of time outside.  She doesn't like to get her paws cold and very sensibly stays inside in the warm - preferably draped along a window sill with the radiator sending up lots of lovely warmth for her.

Back to my week.  First of all a big thank you to Caroline Nash for her guest blog post on motivation - I hope every had the chance to read it and if you have any feedback about the post, please do let me know.  Secondly, another thank you to my new Twitter and Blog followers - I love your company and I am looking forward to sharing Tweets and Blog Posts with you.

It's nearly 6 months since I gave up my 'day job' and I just love what I am able to do now.  Yes, I miss pay-day (who doesn't) but the stress and heavy work load are things I don't miss.  I work long hours on my business, but it is all for me, not for anyone else to take the credit for what I am doing or producing.  Another thing about being my own boss is that I can have a social life in the week - something that didn't exist during term time as evenings were spent either teaching or marking the day's work or writing material for the next day's lessons.

Last week was busy and seems to have disappeared just a bit too quick - card-making, website 'doing' and everything else, as well as continuing with the massive de-clutter we are attempting.  I say attempting, because we don't seem to be moving very fast.  Oh well, it's been great fun looking at things and saying 'did we really like that enough to buy it?' and realising how much tastes change over the years.

Guess what?  Yes, it's Handmade Monday (HM) again - where do the days go?  My make is another one of the love decoupage items from Moonlight Bay.  Sue has added some to be downloaded so no waiting for the postman.  this one is called Deco Lady and I think will make a lovely topper for a Mother's Day card.  I added some glitter to the headband, shoe and hem of the dress to make it sparkle.  Don't forget to check in with the other HM bloggers - every week brings some beautiful work and good posts - some sad and some funny, but all very readable.

A request now for some guest bloggers please.  When I first mentioned I was going to have a Friday guest blog spot a few lovely fellow bloggers said I would like to write about....................., but sadly I haven't heard anything more.  Come on HM people, blog followers and Tweeters, the crafting community needs your words of wisdom.  It's a good opportunity to get more followers and I am sure more business.

Have fun everyone - 'see' you on Wednesday

Jill

THE CARDS ARE ON THE TABLE

Hello everyone

Well, not on the table rather they are in a magazine, but 'the cards are in the magazine' didn't have the same ring to it as my chosen post title and there is a reason for the title.  In October 2011 the Popular Crafts magazine featured my Blog in one of the regular blog reviews.  As I am sure you read in the post when I mentioned this, I was very pleased and excited to see my Blog 'in print'.  Shortly after the magazine was published, Katherine Jewitt (the Editor) contacted me to ask if I would be interested in reviewing a card-making kit.  Even better was that the version recommended for me to 'test drive' was about cats!  A double whammy and as you can imagine I said yes very quickly.

The pack arrived not long before we were due to go on holiday in November and I knew that I would have problems completing it before then, so I took it with me.  Along with holiday gear went laptop, camera, cables, paper, crafting kit and the kitchen sink.  Once or twice while Richard was out climbing the million and one steps in and around Valletta, I was back at the apartment drawing and colouring while sitting on the balcony sipping something nice and fizzy.  Who had the better deal?  Me - those steps were many and steep.

Despite creating greetings cards, I haven't actually drawn anything for many, many years and this review required me to do that.  Initially I had some pretty strange shapes to the cats I drew and did think I would have been better taking photographs of Jazz and Daisy that I could have drawn from.  After some trial runs, I managed to get two cat-shape outlines onto card and off I went with the fun bit of drawing the patterns in and colouring - oh boy colouring-in is such fun and made me feel about 5 again.  OK, I know that is a looong time ago, but I can just about remember it and know it was great fun.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and was very, very pleased when I had completed the project - particularly as we had a few hiccups with the Wifi in the apartment and I had visions of whizzing around Malta try to find an Internet cafe from which to send my final pictures.  The magazine is due out at the end of this week and apart from my review it is packed with lots of other great projects and articles, and I am really honoured to be in such great crafting company.  I really recommend you buy a copy of the magazine and once it has been published, I will put a couple of pics in my next blog - have you ever seen red, orange, green, yellow and blue cats?  Well, you are in for a treat.

I have been working on my new ranges this week, as well as building my website - takes a long while as have to photograph everything I make, change the size, make other alternations and ensure it looks good on the site, add information, and also think about the various pages that require setting up.  The hardest part so far has been the About Me page - I am sure this is the same for all website designers.  Too much detail about the things I do might not be interesting, but then again too little may make the site uninteresting.  Progress is slow but sure - although it has taken me absolute ages to get to this stage, I am still working slowly as I want to ensure the website is good when it first goes live.  No 'going live' date decided up on yet.

One of the areas I want to move into are card-making workshops and I prepared some handouts which I distributed at events prior to Christmas.  I have two people who want to sign up but really will need more to make it worth while and enjoyable for everyone involved.  If you know of anyone who wants to spend a fun couple of hours creating cards in or around the Guildford area, please ask them to get in touch with me.  With Valentine's Day and Mother's Day fast approaching, now is a good time to start making cards. I hope to have a Stampin Up demonstrator taking part as well.

It's Handmade Monday and for the second week running I don't have anything to actually 'show' as my makes this week have been for my website, and not yet ready for posting on my Blog.  Plus, having had a painful left arm for a couple of weeks, I went to the doc's and discovered it was the return of the tennis elbow that I had suffered from not so long ago!  It hadn't occurred to me that it had come back again, but it's very painful and the only consolation is that it is in my left arm and I am right-handed.  Rest, medication and some pain-relieving gel prescribed - the first one is very hard to manage though.  However, I am taking part in Handmade Monday this week as it is a great way to find out what other crafters are doing, so why not join me in checking out the other contributors' blogs and read what they have been up to during last week.  Believe me, you will see some pretty amazing work and read some great posts.

Have a great week - I will be back on Wednesday.

Jill

MONDAY'S MINI MUSINGS - PART 4

Hi everyone

Well I made it!  Seriously thought I was going to have to miss out on this week's Handmade Monday, but decided too good to miss.  I am going to be a bit cheeky and post the card I put on my World Card-Making post this evening - why?  Because I rather like it - something smart about black cards and they don't all have to be associated with sorrow do they?

The size is folded A4 and the first layer is from scrap book card stock, it is black with white flowers and sparkles on some of the petals.  I added some jewels to some of the flower centres to sparkle-it-up a bit more.  I then added some shiny purple butterflies (used Martha Stewart all over punch for these).  Then I added a greeting - I should have added one more topping, it was going to be a cat, but didn't quite make it on to the card.  Still, I hope you like it

Don't forget to check out the other contributors to this week's Blog Hop and it would be lovely if you left a comment for me - I love the to read them almost as much as I love to read everyone elses blog-hop posts.

Have a good week - I will be back on Wednesday with my usual post of the what, where and how of Christmas Pie Crafts.

Jill

IT'S WORLD CARD MAKING DAY TODAY - UPDATE

Hi everyone

Sadly, despite frequently postings on Twitter and Facebook, World Card-Making Day doesn't seem to have made a big impact on the UK craft world.  Perhaps the notification of my mini competition was a bit to near the time for fellow crafters to make a card?  However, my thanks to the two people who commented on my post of yesteryear, but a BIG thanks to those who entered a card.

First to be displayed is one from Caroline (www.caroleecrafts.com).  Caroline has called this a vintage bookmark card and decorated in flowers, butterfly, ribbon and gorgeous pink - this is to fit in the with current Wear it Pink charity event that Caroline is hosting on her website.

Next is from Carol (http://yellowroserhymes.blogspot.com/) and is a lovely birthday card decorated in pink with a cat and butterflies.  I have a sneaky feeling this card is going to be sold on behalf of the Wear it Pink event.

The final card is from me.  Also a birthday card, the main back ground is black with flowers that have some glitter on them.  I have added shiny butterflies (I love butterflies in card-making) and was going to add a cat, but he hid!  Just can't get them to settle down when you want them to.

I hope you like them - I think we are all really pleased with our makes and plan on ensuring World Card-Making Day is trumpeted earlier next year.

Don't forget to check back in the week for my posts.  I may not make this week's Monday's Handmade Blog-Hop, but will try very hard to do so.  If not, I will be back with a post on Wednesday.

Have a good weekend

Jill