Day 7 February challenge

I have sent today's card to Shery who is the owner of Stamplorations.  I am a stamp club subscriber and receive a stamp set bi-monthly along with stencils and or die cuts.  The beauty with this club is that if you are not taken with that months stamp set you can swap it for any stamps, stencils or dies in the shop to the value of your stamp club payment.  You also get other bonuses throughout the course of your membership and discount on any additional stamps you purchase.  Shery is fabulous and incredibly generous and all of the products I have received have been first class.

Its been a very busy day and I have managed to get lots done including baking two lemon cakes.  One of them is for my work colleagues tomorrow to help soften the blow when I hand in my resignation.  

Day 6 February challenge

Day 6 is another card I can't show you until the recipient has received it but I can now show you Day 3 card.  This was a birthday card for my dear friend Karen of Diary of an Ordinary Girl.

 Karen and I got to know each other through a cross stitch magazine pen pal request many years ago met up..  After writing to each other for a while we met up and hit it off immediately and we have met up many times since.  I am sure we must be due to meet up soon as it has been a while since our last get together.  Its one of those wonderful friendships when it doesn't matter how much time goes by between meeting up or being in contact, we know that we are always there for each other when needed and we just carry on from our last get together as though it were just last week.

Just over a week ago I met up with my friend Sarah and had a wander round her local shops and came across a sweet little wool shop and unsurprisingly I came away with some new yarn.  I just loved the colours and with it came a free pattern.  I'm not sure I'm going to use the yarn for this particular pattern though - I  think I will have a look on Ravelry and see what other patterns I could use it for.

Day 5 February challenge

Today's card I am sending to a friend who is going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment.  I am hoping this will bring a little cheer to her life and know that people care.

Remember my Christmas cards which I posted about in January and my aim was to turn them into a junk journal?  Well here is where the junk journal is at the moment.  I have made and decorated the covers and I have stitched the pages in.  Next step is to make it into a Christmas planner for this and hopefully a few years to come.  When I've done this I will post some more photos. 

 The outside of the journal was decorated with a paper bag I received and was far too nice to just throw away.  The inside of the journal has been decorated with leftovers from the beginners card class I did before Christmas. 

Day 4 February challenge

Today's card has been sent to a crafting friend.

A simple card made with some Graphic 45 papers for the background and a die cut from my stash.

A wedding gift stitch update.  I think I've completed just over a quarter of this design it might have been more this evening if I hadn't had to frog some of it.  It's the first time in a week that I have picked up any stitching.  

This afternoon I worked on It's Only Forever, I will update this when I have managed to complete another page which hopefully won't be much longer.

Day 3 February challenge

Day 3 of the challenge and again its one of those I can't show immediately as its in the post and I will wait until I know it has been received.   I can now show you Day 1, a card I sent to Marlene of Poppy Patchwork. 

 I've been a follower of Marlenes blog for some time now and I enjoy seeing the bargains she keeps picking up,  getting ideas for future reads and seeing both her crafting projects and her grandson grow.

I finally have some photos of the layouts I did at last weekend's scrapbooking crop.  First up is a photo of Colette, Lincoln, Harlee-Jay and myself when we went to visit Father Christmas.   The children were keen and eager to get in but as soon as Santa spoke they went all shy, Lincoln almost burst into tears bless him.  It's a wonderful memory though seeing them wander round the grotto.

With this layout I finally got round to using the Anna Griffin dimensional embellishments I have had in my stash for years.  Now I've always liked Anna Griffin products but I always felt these were a bit 'dull' to go on a card but the soft muted colours actually went really well with the colours in the photo.  The papers are from a Kaisercraft range I picked up at Scrapbook Magic before Christmas. 

Next up is a layout of a coffee break Colette, Harlee-Jay, Sebastian and myself were taking after our last minute Christmas shopping expedition on the Friday before Christmas.   The selfie isn't the best quality but the food and coffee in Coffee#1 was delicious

Day 2 February challenge

I can post a picture of the card I sent today as the recipient is not a follower of my blog.  This is a card sent to Mike Deakin who I follow on You Tube - I enjoy watching his videos and seeing his projects develop.  I got his address from one of his old You Tube videos so this is a totally random card send but one I hope he will appreciate.

Harlee-Jay and I took Max for a lovely walk along the creek this morning.  We were wrapped up against the cold wind but at least it didn't rain while we were out.  As we were walking along Harlee-Jay was fascinated with the men doing some tree felling and wasn't scared of the loud saw and loved it when the tree came down.

After my childminding duties were over  with Harlee-Jay I called in to see our daughter, normally we'd go there on a Friday but poor Lincoln has tonsillitis and we didn't want to risk Harlee-Jay picking up any nasty bugs.  Sebastian is now six months old and it can be very tiring playing in a Jumparoo.

DAY 1 February Challenge

Today I sent out my first card for International Correspondence Writing Month (Incowrimo).  Now some of the cards I am sending out will be to people who read my blog, others will be to friends who don't read my blog and some will be addresses I have acquired through You Tube.  When I can I will post a photo of each card that has gone out but for my first one I don't want to spoil it for the recipient.

I can however share a photo of some kits I have recently received in the post.  I signed up last June to a Gecko Rouge Gold Membership.  Basically I pay a set amount each month and at the end of six months I get a voucher for the money I have paid in plus a bonus amount.  It also entitles me to a 25% discount on any kits I buy, which is how mum and dad were able to buy me Felicity and Fifi for my Christmas present. It was also how I purchased It's Only Forever.  Anyway my first voucher arrived at the beginning of January and here after many hours of deliberation is a picture of the kits I chose.

I opted for one by Anita Invarity called Down The Rabbit Hole one of several designs based on Alice In Wonderland - I'd love to get the whole series!  I really like her artwork, Fifi and Felicity were also from her artwork.  Next I chose the Mad Hatter by Omri Koresh, again another design from Alice in Wonderland - I'm kind of drawn to all things Alice at the moment.  But my final choice was something completely different called Passion by Fran Funcan.   Two of the designs are on 25 count and the other one is 18 count.  It will be some time before I can begin working on any of them but it's lovely having them in my stash to look at lol.