Tuesday, July 31, 2007

We are 14 today

Today is our wedding anniversary and we've been married for 14 years.
Where do the years go? There have been some very sad times, and many very happy times but not for one minute have I regretted saying "yes"(well, eventually!). When you find your soulmate you have to hold on tight.
It's a lovely day, Hubby's got the day off, and his cold is almost better, so we're going to make the most of the sunny weather and head off somewhere for a picnic.

Just wanted to pop in here for a minute to say what a lovely day I had yesterday with crafty friends Lythan, Sue and Anita - it's been ages since I saw any of them and I really enjoyed our get together.

I've got some card hotos to put on here but they can wait till tomorrow, I think!

Friday, July 27, 2007

Checking In

I've been a bad blogger this week. We've had visitors staying, so a bit of housework was called for in preparation, you know how it is... and then, well it's a bit rude to disappear off to the craft room or spend too long on the pc. It's lovley to have them staying though, and a good excuse to do a bit of "proper" cooking too instead of just making the usual sort of midweek meals.
I tried out a new pork recipe from an old Good Food magazine, it was OK but I probably won't bother with that one again. Yesterday I made Nigella Lawson's Italian meatballs with tomato sauce - always goes down well, and makes enough meatballs to put a boxful in the freezer for another day (or two!). I also made a chocolate bread and butter pudding - very very naughty, but very very nice.
My rellies are packing the car up ready to head off to Rye for a wedding, then a week on the south coast, so I'm snatching a few minutes to write this.

Friday is of course DCM day, and its Jane's to dare this week:
Okay -are you ready ? For my dare you can choose any theme for the card BUT it must incorporate 'Checks', whether it be gingham paper or ribbon or squares, any thing really as long as it incorporates some kind of shape with 4 equal sides....... so go on- I dare you to think outside the square/step out of the box ..............easy as, eh ?!!

I managed to get organised at the weekend and make a couple of cards for this one. It was my BILs birthday during the week so the first one was made for him. The idea came from Rosie's card for the haberdashery dare - although she used fabric from some old pyjamas and I've just used paper

Paper is Making Memories - from the San collection, I think
Monogram is Cosmo Cricket (yes, real, not cereal packet, for once!)
Gingham ribbon and brads from my stash
The blue card is pearlised, though it doesn't show up in the photo
Other letters are cut with the Robo
I bought this gorgeous bright and happy paper from Scrapshed (a new favourite shop of mine....don't look if you're on a stash-diet) a week or two ago, it's by Paper Heart Studios and I love the colours. I used a wavy check paper for the background and a small squares design for the flower and border.
The flower is made with 6 heart shapes cut with the Robo.
All the ribbon from Ribbon Oasis

I would like to add a greeting to this one, but I can't figure out where to stick it - so to speak, so it'll stay unfinished until I decide what to do, I suppose!

There are lots of gorgeous Checked Out cards on the DCM blog this week, so please pop along and see them all, there's more info on our personal blogs so don't forget to check all of those out too!

Well, I've just waved my rellies off - they are braving the M25 this morning and not looking forward to it, they are quite nervous about it actually, so please keep your fingers crossed that they don't encounter any problems - it can be such a nightmare of a road.

I completely missed seeing the visitor total for my blog pass the 20,000 mark - I'd noticed it was on it's way and then just completely forgot to keep checking! I was going to do some blog candy too.........Ah well, I'll have to be more organised for the 25,000 one, eh? Hopefully, it'll get there! Anyway, I just want to say a big Thank You to everyone who visits - when I started writing the blog I really just thought it would be a bit of a diary that only a few friends bothered with, so having so many people drop by is just amazing. I love to see where everyone comes from and reading the comments that are left is always such a thrill, so if you do read this, please don't leave without saying "hello" - I really really do love to hear from you.

I'm going to do me some crafting now, the box of cards that hubby keeps on his desk at work is at here at the moment so I can update the contents a bit. So I may even have new stuff to show on here if I get on with it, too.

Thanks for looking

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Paperbag part 2....and a card

Thank you for all the lovely comments about the paperbag book I made for Sharon, this is the second (and final!) batch of pics from it. I really enjoyed making this book, and was pleased (and relieved) that the regular paper bags I used worked fine. The ones with gussets give you an extra hidden flap to play with, so I might look out for some of those for next time.






I went back to those delish We are Memory Keepers Vintage Brass papers for the card I made to go with the book - the pack of papers are currently on sale in the Self Addressed scraps and bits shop for only $14 - an absolute bargain - especially if you already get their monthly kits and have the papers shipped with your next kit.....

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Paperbag Book Novice

I wanted to make something for Sharon's birthday. She's such a lovely, kind-hearted person and she's been a good friend to me over the last few years - even though I've actually only met her once - isn't the on-line crafting community wonderful?
Anyway, I wanted to say "Happy Birthday" and also "Thank You" to her for always being just an email away - I'm very thankful that I have a friend as trustworthy and reliable as Sharon, and I hope she knows it!


So what could I make for her?
I'd got the Bubbly Funk June Kit for making a clever "Travel Keepsakes" Album and as I alsobought the Add-On Extra bit I had enough paperbags to make the album (well, I might get round to it one day, you know....) and still have some spares, so I decided to have a bash at my first paperbag type book.
Actually these bags aren't the gusseted sort they seem to use for paperbag books, they're just regular ordinary ones so this is a "KathysWaffle" version of a paperbag book!
I just folded the bags in half and aranged them like they tell you to do, but there aren't the "hidden" flaps that you get with bags with gussets.

I used Basic Grey "Blush", "Pheobe" and "Perhaps" papers throughout, plus various colours of Bazzill card. As well as the big pockets made by the bag openings I added a few tag pockets too






I'm going to show the photos in two lots as even with just 3 bags you get 12 pages, so it would be a long post - I've used the small size setting for the photos so you can click for a bigger version if you want to.

So if you want to catch up on the rest of the book, tune in tomorrow for the second installment!

Friday, July 20, 2007

Pocket Full of Posies!

What a miserable, dismal morning we have here. It's raining (again) and so dark I've got the lights on - ridiculous in July, I can't believe how bad this summer has been. If you look back to the April posts you'll read how wonderful the weather was - looks like we had our summer back then....
Ah well, at least we can brighten up the day with a nice, fun new challenge from The Daring Cardmakers!
It's the wonderful Lynne's very first dare for the DCM and she says:

"OoooOOoooOOooooOOOoo!!!!!!!!
My first Dare. I’m so nervous, I can’t believe that it’s my turn already.
I’ve gone for something nice and easy - had to break myself in gently.
POCKETS
I’d like to see lots and lots of pockets. Pockets full of posies, Brass in Pocket (love the Pretenders).Pockets on clothes, Pockets from clothes, Library Pocket, Pockets of this and Pockets of that.
Get the idea?
Pockets and Pockets of Pockets."

Lovely, Lovely, Lovely!
Tags and Pockets to put them in are one of my favourite cardmaking techniques and I've not done one in a while - so how come this one didn't get finished till yesterday?
I've used loads of stuff from Bubbly Funk kits on this card. I've been lucky enough to get my mitts on each of the kits so far and although Di designs the most gorgeous projects to make with them, all I manage to do is hoard them away and use little bits from them for other projects!
Anyway, for my card this week I couldn't resist using the May kit (I think) as it was perfect for this "Pocket Full of Posies" card.
All the paper is 3 Bugs in a Rug "Tickled Pink" I cut border designs and flowers from several different sheets to use on the tag - which is folded to leave lots of room for a hidden message inside.

The pocket is made from 2 colours of the velvet paper from the kit and the flower from some of the felt flowers in there, with a bit of inking, and a button and ribbon from my stash

The card looked a bit "undressed" when the tag was removed from the pocket so I decided to add a few more cut out flowers to jolly it up a bit.

Hope you like it.
There are lots of fabbilicious pocket cards on the blog this week, so please pop along and see them all, there's more info on our personal blogs so don't forget to check all of those out for more info and all the whys and wherefores too!

The DCM blog sailed past the 50,000 visitors mark this week - we were so excited that we were all keeping a very close watch on the counter. How proud I am to be part of this amazing team, and how wonderful that so many people enjoy the dares we set each week. It's been an amazing experience; we've met some fantastic new friends and learned such a lot - I'm sure we'd all agree our own crafting has developed in leaps and bounds!
From Jane's tiny germ of an idea "I've been thinking, do you think it would be a good idea to have a little challenge blog like the scrapbookers have....." and the resounding "YES!", the launch of the blog last October and now here we are on 50.000 visitors already! I wonder how many we'll have had by our "birthday"?

I've now heard that the present I showed a sneak peek of earlier in the week has safely reached it's new home, so I'll load some pics on here over the weekend.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Fee Fi Fo Fum

The Daring Cardmakers' Little Extra fthis week had us playing "Let's Pretend" with faux ribbon, brads, stitching etc. I didn't go too mad with the make-believe as I wanted these cards to fill an order so, reined in a bit with the faux stuff!

Paper from the BG Pheobe pad
fake chipboard plaque (made with card from an old cereal box)
faux ribbon, stitching and Liquid Pearls masquerading as brads.
Flower is REAL felt, and the gingham ribbon is real too!
BG Scarlet's Letter papare pad
double depth paper scraps to make the ribbon.
Circles and wording cut with the Craft Robo
Silk and Prima flowers, real brads and real check ribbon just in case you didn't already guess...:-)
No Faux here, but thought I'd add it anyway.
Really simple card using papers from the DCWV Far East pad.
Cuttlebug Birthday embossing folder
Flowers. Prima Essentials (Lucid)
Flower centre is Glossy Accents with lots of tiny beads added

I've another one but I can't show that yet.

Monday, July 16, 2007

All Change

We're having a bit of a change around in our study, reorganising the computers, getting a new desk just for my craft stuf and making my old desk just for my pc, robo and the old pc which is going to be used for storage etc. It was total chaos in here most of yesterday, and now it's just a mess!

I don't really want to put my craft stash all back in it's old hidey-holes under my desk only to have to move it all again when the new one arrives, so most of the boxes are just atcked against the wall. I'll probably just have sorted myself out so that the bits I use most are at hand when it'll be all-change again!

I thought I'd just add a glimpse of something I've been making. It's for a birthday present and it's going to be late, but I hope my friend will like it and forgive the fact that it didn't get there on time.



And this is a sneak peek of the card to go
with it


I might see if I can get some "poor craft zone" photos on here later - that's if I can figure out which pc I can load them onto, because not everything is set up on mine yet, and some of my stuff is no longer on this one.
Why are computers so complicated?

Friday, July 13, 2007

Haberdashery Dashery Dash

It's Daring Cardmakers New Dare Day again. This week it's over to Gillian in Australia for our challenge and if you ever follow Gill's blog you'll know that she loves to delve into her sewing box for inspiration. Lots of people have felt the need to acquire a sewing machine thanks to Gillian's fantastic and inspiring work, so it was no great surprise when she set this one:

G'day all, Gillian here, and it's my turn to dare you all this week
Your card can be any theme you like, just as long as it's got something you'd find in a Haberdashery Department on it
Alright then, grab that old sewing basket of yours or raid your sewing machine drawer, have a look at what creative bits are hidding away there....maybe it's buttons, a zip, hook & eye's, ribbons, braids, Dressmaking patterns, tape measures,Pins & Needles, lace, safety pins or embroidery thread....
so many wonderful little treasures just waiting to be added to your next card
I'm going to add one more rule....
Yes you may stitch on your card, but that can't be your only haberdashery item....

From the start I wanted to use a motif from a piece of fabric that I've been hoarding and using just tiny scraps of on special projects. It originally came in a fabric swap with the Swiss Miss herself, Nicki (Zug Stitcher) who does the most fantastic sewing projects but doesn't have a blog (note to self, find Nicki's website address to add here.....) It's funny how a card evolves, some happen really easily and others really don't. This one was in the latter catergory. For a start I couldn't decide whether to use burgundy or blue - both looked good with the cream. I played safe as you can see with a classic combo of burgundy, cream and gold. I went through the drawers in my sewing cabinet, and my sewing box to see what goodies I could find that might work on a card and came back with safety pins, curtain rings and some hooks & eyes. Obviously the buttons, threads and ribbons had already found their way out of the sewing stash and into the cardmaking stash! Some mad idea made me get the alcohol inks out and have a go at inking up the various metal bits. I've only got one set of inks but managed to mix a close enough colour to go with the card. The hooks were fixed to the card with tiny gold brads and I went with the bead string idea rather than my original ribbon idea. I'm not sure it all shows up clearly in the picture. I used the alcohol inks on the chipboard fluted square too, plus a few squiggles of gold Krylon pen., punched holes in the corners to add a gold thread trim, mounted it oream card and then added the cut out motif on top. It's such a lovely piece of fabric, lots of fine gold embroidery and masses of tiny beads. The curtain ring was fixed under the corner of the square and tied with narrow organza ribbon. Luckily I found a Happy Birthday message ready printed ( the printer isn't connected to the new pc yet), not exactly what I wanted, but it'll have to do. The inked safety pin was fixed through the message card and I added some glue to the closure as I'd hate anyone to hurt themselves if it came undone! Short pieces of gold, cream and burgundy ribbon were tied to the pin. At the other side is a button decorated with a sheen of gold Liquid Pearls and gold Stickles glitter glue. I still felt the balance wasn't quite right, so I added the small ribbon tab to the right hand of the chipboard square, funny how something as small as that makes a big difference to the final result. There are some fab cards on the DCM blog this week, so please check them out - and we all try to tell you a bit more about how they were made on our personal blogs. We were so lucky to have the wonderful Manicstamper Sheila, with us as our Guest Designer for the last couple of weeks, but it's time to say "bye bye Sheila" and "hello Donna" - another Kiwi who is going to be sharing her work with us for the next couple of weeks

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Where's the week gone?

I've not blogged all week!

I've been pretty busy though, working on something which I was hoping to show today. However, we're in the middle of one of those computer change-arounds and it's all gone to pot!
I'm going to be having Hubby's pc, mine is going to be a dedicated server-wotsit and Hubby has bought a new(ish) one from someone at work. Lots of new computer bits arrived yesterday so The Big Move Around started last night. The upshot is that the new one isn't working (why is it never a case of plug it in and off you go....well, not in this house anyway) and although my (new) one is working and internet ready, the printer, the robo and the camera uploader or downloader wotsit are not working. Obviously I've wanted, nay NEEDED to use all three today.

So although I have new photos I can't show them, and even though I've made my card for tomorrow's new DCM launch whether I'll get it on the blog is another thing entirely.

Apart from all that, I've not been feeling great today. I've not been sleeping great, so I'm tired and my energy levels are really low. Poor Me.....

And the study floor is covered with boxes and bits of computer and wire and more computer bits, it's like an obstacle course in here. Usually the only mess in here is mine! aaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhhhh

Something I forgot to mention on here (how could I possibly have done that?) is that I'm now going to be a regular Design Team member for Ribbon Oasis - I'm really excited as Bea's ribbons are just gorgeous. For the summer, instead of the usual monthly kits there are some fabby ribbon mini mixes available to play with and I have two of them right here on my desk - are you jealous yet? They are just lovely and such good value too - especially as they are on special offer atm.....
Check all the delicious ribbony goodies out here

So, I've had a look through the old photos and found something I hadn't put on here yet; it's a notebook decorated for the Black and White themed swap on Bubbly Funk. We had a summer themed swap a few weeks ago - they were big A5 sized books, so this time we've been making smaller handbag sized ones - so if you ever see anyone jotting down noted is a seriously stylish Black and White notebook well, it may well be a BF B&W Notebook Swapper!

I can't remember where I got these gorgeous Imaginisce papers from and I really should try to find out because I think I need some more, they are lovely and thick, double sided and there were quite a few different designs too.
The chipboard flower is covered with one of those DCWV glittery papers, sanded and then edged with some silver Stickles. The black button has more of the glittery stuff on it.

Lots of ribbons of course, ooooh there are just sooooo many yummy B&W ribbons to be bought.
I wonder if I'll ever get tired of B&W - ooooh perish the thought!

Good news:
Hubby has sorted the wire for downloading photos, so I can now sort the new photos out. No printer or robo yet though...

Sunday, July 08, 2007

7 Random Things Tag (Again)

Patsy and Jackie have both tagged me with this one. Paula tagged me a few weeks ago with it, but hey, I'll see if I can come up with another 7 equally dull random facts about myself :-)

1. Like Patsy, I'm from the North East, I was born at the seaside and the older I get the more I miss being by the sea
2. I'm stupidly scared of snowy/frosty/icy roads and won't drive on them - I also hate those I love to be out in their cars in that sort of weather, and panic till I know they are all safe in their homes.
3. I adore Greece, whenver I go, as soon as I step of the plane it just feels like I'm home. I start getting withdrawal symptoms if I don't have regular trips over there!
4. Probably my fave comfort foods would be either a nice hot chilli, or a really good slab of lasagne
5. In our horrible manky, (hopefully) soon to be renovated bathroom there are 2 sinks - in one of them the cold tap doesn't work, in the other the hot tap doesn't work...great, eh?
6. I don't like currants, raisins, sultanas or any of those yucky squelchy things
7. Two things I really really enjoyed doing, even though I very nearly bottled out of were going up in a glider (absolutely fantastic) and going round Silverstone GP Circuit with a pro race driver - terrifying, but sooooo exhillerating! It's extra special when you conquer your nerves and fears to do something like that and find it was fun after all.

There you go then. Now, I've had a look around the blogs and loads of people have already done this tag, so I'm just going to say that if you haven't already done it, then why not have a go - it's not so hard once you get started!

Friday, July 06, 2007

Text Messaging

Another Friday rushes in - actually I should say it was blown in as it's just so windy around here. It woke me up in the night with all it's racket too, I'm sick of this horrible weather, can we PLEASE have some of the nicer sort now?
I guess we won't be seeing many hosepipe bans this year, eh?
It's New Dare from the DCM day, but before I get to that, I've just realised it's ages since I did an ordinary sort of diary update so here we go.

House-wise we're still waiting for planning permission to come through so we can move the windows etc. We've spent loads of our weekends traipsing around bathroom places and tile places and hubby is doing the sums and beginning to panic. Builder has us pencilled in for August so keep your fingers crossed the permits come through will you please?
The door for the new en suite shower room will be where our wardrobe is atm - which means we need new wardrobes too.
Moving the current bedroom door down the passageway a metre or two means we'll probably need new carpet too - it's mad how one job just leads to another and another...

Hubby went to Brands Hatch last Sunday with my bro and our nephews, he was supposed to be going to an archery comp but sitting in a grandstand watching fast cars go round the track was more appealing than standing out in a muddy field in the rain. I stayed home and dry and got on with my CJ - the black and white one in yesterday's message. I needed it done by Monday so it was all a bit of last minute again - which is why I'm not happy with my own page - it was rushed, and it looks it. So I'm not sharing!

I was so pleased last week when I heard the news that an old forum friend of mine had given birth to a beautiful baby boy - I'm absolutely delighted for Lu, as I know this is something they've been wanting for so long and it's wonderful to know that after all the hassles they've gone through, little Luca is safe in their arms. I've seen the photos and the three of them look radiant.

Oh and the other good thing that happened was a delivery of a batch of cuttlebug embossing folders and a die from the US. They came from Scrapbooking made Simple - I've bought loads of dies from here before, they are fab and Stacey is always so helpful. Apart form that the post has been soooooo dull this week - I think I need to rectify that by ordering more stash.....but what do I need? Answers on a postcard, please!

Right, back to the new dare:
This week the Design Team have come up with this idea for you to play with, we hope you'll enjoy it.
TEXT...
definition... the main body of matter in a book or manuscript. the actual wording of anything written or printed, short passage of scripture, etc

We'd like you to somehow incorporate text into your cards this week - not just one word.. but a portion of TEXT... like a poem, or newspaper print, Caligraphy, Even rip up an old text book and use some of the paper from it, there are masses of possibilities here, so let your imaginations run riot and let us see you texting to your heart's content!


I managed a couple of cards though I'm not totally conviced about either of them - but isn't that always the way?
First up is a card using an embossing folder for the first time - the baby one, just in case you didn't realise :-) Decided I had to tweak it a bit so used my robo to cut a perfectly sized circle (if nothing else Mr Robo is worth having just for the ease of cutting circles!), then having embossed it I still couldn't just leave it be so attacked it with a bit of smudged around glitter glue - that's the bit I'm not convinced about). I cut the "baby" word and mat with the robo and raided my crafty stash for the ribbon, lace and cute little charm. I wish I could remember where this particular charm came from as it's much nicer and chunkier than the other baby feet charms in the box.


The next one is a bit different I think. I'm never really sure about using text papers - I always worry about what they actually say - maybe it's something quite rude, or totally inappropriate to the occasion - I mentioned this to other DCM girls and heard some really funny stories which proved to me that text papers should be handled with lots of care!
Anyway, I decided that using one this way would be fairly safe as most of the wording is actually covered up with other stuff.



The B&W text paper, and also the mottled silvery-grey one are from pda.
Photo is by Hubby - check out the Damselfish photos link in the side bar for more of his gorgeous photos (thought I'd give him a free plug there)
LOOK! - I used rub-ons again! I saw these distressed photo edge ones from Imaginisce and thought they were lovely - they've been lying around for a few weeks since I bought them, but they worked really well here I think. Just so's you know - they are SUPPOSED to have bits missing and look "tatty", it's not just bad workmanship, OK?!
The ribbon was going to have a bead on it but I couldn't persuade it to go through the hole, so I knotted it instead. That'll teach it.

Please please, check out the fabby cards on the DCM blog this week - so many gorgeous cards to look at, and a little "teaser" for you about some great news we've had this week. Some of you might even find out ahead of Tuesday what we're on about, I wonder who'll be first to figure it out........

Thursday, July 05, 2007

The Comfort Zone

I chose this as the title for my new CJ which has just gone off to Ireland for it's first port of call.
Obviously, keeping in with the theme, the natural choice for decorating the cover had to be my comforting Black and White. I decided against adding a splash of colour to the covers and went instead for a bit of sparkly silver.
The fabbylicious ribbon is all from Ribbon Oasis; in fact the wide, sparkly, spotty stuff was my starting point for the rest of it. I made the flower decoration from a couple of different sizes and shapes of chipboard, coloured, covered and sanded and generally tarted up!
The button was a plain white one decorated with some black tulip paint.
I had a total failure with the first title I made so after leaving the whole thing lying around in disgust for a few weeks, I eventually went for a simple, computer generated one - and actually I like the simplicity of it - there's enough faff and fuss with athe ribbon and flower jobbie so it doesn't need any more. Well that's my excuse anyway!

These are the sign in pages at the back. There are 10 people in this circle so I've gone for little folders tied with lots more ribbon this time. I keep counting to make sure I've got enough for everyone. I never trust my aritmetic abilities! Quite chuffed with the picture actually because these are two seperate photos which I've merged together - cor! what a techie I'm becoming - hahaha - not a chance!

It was Em's birthday at the weekend.
Poor love has been working so hard lately for her NVQ, she's had no time to play with paper and ribbons at all - but she's nearly there and I bet she can't wait to come out and play again!
I'd already decided to give her the little maze book I made for the Ribbon Oasis Design Team - it was the coffee and cream one.

This is the card I made for her:
I used those gorgeous We Are Memory Keepers papers again - such wonderful colours, I love those dusty rusty pink shades and the fact that they are all double-sided so you get perfectly matched plains to go with every colour in the patterns.

Still loving doing mosaics too - brilliant for using all those little scraps you can't bear to throw away!
More chipboard here - the flower is covered with paper, triple embossed and an extra layer of kaleidoscope powder in there for a bit of sparkle, the monogram is from the Bubbly Funk shop (get your chipboard there folks, Caroline is specialising in the wonderful stuff, and some of it is BF exclusive too!) - I just covered this with paper and sanded the edges, no embossing or whathaveyou!
Oh I invested in a new set of tools the other week, it's a set of files from Basic Grey (I think), so now I can get into all those tiny corners that used to be really hard to make tidy, definitely worth having if you're rubbish at cutting out like me!
Flowers are Prima Essentials, rest of the bits are from my stash.

Hope you liked the card, Em and that you had a fantstic birthday.
Keep working hard, the finishing post is in sight now!

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Full Circle

Phew!
Circle Journals are fun to be part of, but at times it's all a bit hectic. Over the last few days, one circle has been completed and another just begun. I did the last pages for a Bubbly Funk circle and sent the book off to it's originator - and of course my own book has now returned home, so I've just done some photos of the wonderful pages Chris, Caroline, Di and Karen have made for it. Then over on Bumbleberries a HUGE new circle has just begun. There are 10 of us in this circle and the books will be winging their way between England, Scotland and Ireland right through till December. The time schedule is a bit tighter for this one so I'm going to have to be more organised and not leave my pages till the last minute.
Hah! fat chance. I'll let you know how I get on.....
First though, I forgot to put a full pic of Lythan's birthday card on here., so here it is:
I was quite pleased at how the flower turned out.

Papers are Twirl from Crate Papers, I'm thinking I might need to invest in another pack of these, I love them so much.
I cut Lythan's name with the Craft Robo - remind me not to use this font in such a small size again, will you! Boy was it fiddly to stick.
I've got a sneak peek of another card to show you but I might save that for tomorrow.

Back to the Circle Journal then.
For my book I took the subject "Sew Crafty" and asked the paarticipants to tell me about their favourite crafting styles and techniques. As I can't remember a time when I couldn't sew, for a bit of a twist I asked them all to use some sort of "real" sewing on their pages. They really came up trumps and I'm so happy with the results, it's a gorgeous little book, and one day I might even get round to doing the extra pages I left for myself to fill in!


The cover and my first page












Chris's Pages













Caroline's pages:












Di W's pages:













Karen's pages:












The sign in page


I'm feeling really lucky to have been part of this circle journal and want to say a big Thank You to these fabby talented people for making my book such a special thing to treasure. Tomorrow I'll show the pictures of the new CJ that's just gone off on it's long, long journey!