Bear Up!

For anyone who might need a little encouragement or support during testing times, I have come up with this little character:

Talking of encouragement, I have felt uplifted this week by my horoscope (I don't normally take any notice of them but this feels particularly significant):

"When something ends, it's a chance for something new to begin. That's the message your planets are sending: the future is where your focus should be. Creative projects in particular look promising. Precisely where you're going doesn't matter yet."

So, with this in mind, the only way is up! :)

Folksy Friday - Hedgehogs!

It's been a while since I've done a Folksy Friday but I decided to do a search for spiky woodland creatures and found many lovely items!

Kicking off with this felt hair clip from May Crimson:

This cute Valentine Hedgehog from Quernus Crafts:

These fabric buttons by Cwtch:

This appliqued bag by velvetpaws:

These egg cosies by So Choosy:

and these cute Hedgelogs by Trecelyn Crafts:

All very sweet, I'm sure you'll agree!

Sob! Sniffle! Waaaaahhhh! :(

Well, that's it folks, as of Saturday past, the little shop where I worked and spent three happy years has ceased to trade. Poop. We've spent the last couple of days clearing out the last of the fittings and fixtures and now it is little more than a shell. Sad, indeed. To commemerate the end of an era, we indulged in an enjoyable night out on Saturday with our friends from Cotton Traders, whose shop is directly opposite ours; it involved pizza, alcoholic beverages and much merriment. A fitting end to our time together. And I don't think I embarrassed myself (much).

So now it's back to the job search and some crafting. I've made tags to put in with customer orders:

And a new Little Horse card for the Folksy shop:

He's quite a cute fellow!

And to those of you who were concerned; I'm not really going to give Himself the reject Valentine's card with the gluey splodge on it! That wouldn't be very romantic now, would it??!

Stocking Up

With the demise of my workplace imminent, I have been buying up lots of stock to keep me going until I find an alternative supplier (and I've got someone in mind, so don't worry if you're reading this, Kim!).

So that means lots of envelopes to fill my shelf:

Lots of glues:

And of course lots and lots of paper and card:

That should keep me going for a while!

Cards I've made using my Valentines designs will be going into my Folksy shop tonight. Well, all except one that I managed to ruin by getting a sticky smudge of glueyness on the front - blah! I couldn't think of any way of disguising it, sadly.

I might just have to give Himself this one!

Fairground Rides Card

Crafty Mushroom likes custom orders!

I really enjoyed designing this card for my cousin, Niall, who is a big fan of amusement rides - it's bright and cheery and colourful and I think we all need a bit of that in our lives, as January is soooo dreary!

No news on the job front yet, but I'm "dabbling" in all sorts of possibilities with regards to my crafting; I really hope that something positive comes of it all! Fingers crossed!

Blog Candy!

Hi folks, just stopping in briefly to draw your attention to a great blog candy comp brought to us by Sharon over on her blog. There's some lovely stuff up for grabs and it closes on 6th Feb at 9 a.m so don't miss out! Plus, she makes some fab cards to ogle over! There's a pic and link on my sidebar.

I've not been up to much myself; had a few appointments to dash to yesterday in the name of crafting, and work today, which was manic (I've never seen soo many people in our shop - folk looove a bargain!). There's not much stock left now, in fact, the place is half-empty! Tonight I've just had some French Toast (slurpo!) and I'm going to make Valentine's cards. I'll be back with pics of those soon, I hope!

Byeee!

An Award

Ironically, despite the fact that I have been a very bad blogger lately, I have been given an award by the lovely Sharon , which cheered me up, because I've been having up and down days of late.

So, many thanks to Sharon (the rats are cute and your cards are fabby!) for that! I now have to say eight things about myself and pass the award onto four others. As one of the questions in a job interview today was "Tell me about yourself" and it completely flummoxed me, I might struggle with this too, but here goes:

1. When I was younger I used to be a majorette and did all the baton-twirling and got to wear cute little outfits with tassley bits on.

2. Despite the above suggestion of childhood girlyness, I was also a bit of a tomboy and used to dismember any dolls I was given (maybe this also means I'm a closet serial killer!).

3. When I left school I trained and worked as a veterinary nurse for many years but gave it up because dealing with ill animals day in, day out made me too sad to do my job properly.

4. I've got very small feet (size 3) but I never use this to my advantage and save money by buying kids' shoes.

5. The only time I've really been drunk was at my 30th birthday party and there are bits of the evening I just don't recall, worryingly.

6. At one point I planned to change my name to Briony.

7. I'd love to have worked in forensics as an alternative career because I find the subject fascinating (definately psychotic tendencies there!).

8. I'm a great believer in the philosophy of Zen. I only wish I could live my life accordingly!

And now for the four other blogs (in no particular order)

1. Toni

2. Sarpreet

3. Helen

4. Lesley

Well, I hope that meets the criteria! Other than that, life has been a blur of job-hunting and planning for the future. I've finally got my last two Valentine's designs ready for printing and making into cards - about time, too!

Birds seem to feature quite heavily in my work!

So do terrible puns!

Busy weekend coming up for me. Have a good one, everybody!

Frosty Frolickings

There's nothing like behaving like a big kid to take one's mind off one's worries, and yesterday I did just that! Rather than moaning about the recent reappearance of the snow, Himself and I decided to join a couple of friends and their daughter in a bout of sledging at the golf course. I usually avoid any activities that involve hurtling downhill at speed on bits of plastic, but this time I threw caution to the wind and let myself go.

It was a bit tiresome climbing back up the hill each time but the cold air and exertion certainly got the circulation going!

Himself speeds down the hill straight into the path of Man with Small Child.

Small Person sledging.

No one playing golf today then?

The best part of all - warming up in the clubhouse afterwards!

My body is feeling the after-effects of such exertion today, so perhaps people over the age of 35 should no longer participate in such childlike frivolities, but so what, we enjoyed ourselves! (And it's made me a bit fonder of snow so that's got to be a good thing!)

In the evening I cuddled up to my hot water bottle and made a set of lovey-dovey notecards. I used my dotty background stamp and cut some heart shapes out from it, and voila! These are for those of you that do romantic things like leaving little love-notes around the place for your partner to find (blegh!) Each to their own, I suppose!

Head in a Whirl

Phew, suddenly life is all go, a whirling tornado of happenings, and there is so much to think about, so many possibilities, I'm not sure my little brain can quite cope with it! Today I wasn't officially working but I hung around there anyway, in between a mad rush of handing-in CVs and filling out application forms and attending a job open-day. My life doesn't know quite which direction it's headed in, but I'm quite excited about the unknowness of it. It's better than being scared stiff anyway!

Craft-wise I've got a lot to think about too. I love designing my wee characters and using them on cards, etc, but I'd also like to decide on a way to make them accessible to other crafters. Another aspect of design that I enjoy is taking on specific commissions, such as this card made for Himself's sister to give to her iron-pumping boyfriend:

But what side of crafting should I focus on? My head might actually burst, there is so much going on in it!

Time to try and wind down for the night; work's going to be busy tomorrow as our customers storm in for bargains and strip the place bare of stock! Wish me luck!

End of an Era

Well, yesterday I received some unwelcome news; my colleagues and I were informed that, come the end of this month, we will no longer have jobs. We work for the Papermill Shop, which has decided to close all of it's remaining outlets, another victim of the current economic climate. Suffice to say, we are all gutted; being crafty types, we loved our jobs and made a good team. I will dearly miss working with those girls and hope I have made some friends for life there.

We all have varying ideas about what we would like to do now. My head is a bit of a strange place at the best of times and at the moment there is too much going on inside it to be able to make any proper decisions. I love the design aspect of crafting and I'm keen to develop a product range that could be used by crafters and non-crafters alike. I'm a great believer in things happening for a reason and if this is my big opportunity, then I definately don't want to let it pass by!

Sorry no pics today, have been a bit busy revitalising my CV tonight, but thanks for reading my waffle anyway! Bear with me, folks - new beginnings and new possibilities are afoot!!

Nostalgic Reminiscence

Happy New Year to all, hope it's a good one for you!

I had a very enjoyable Hogmanay, spending it with Himself and the Cat during the day and at night going to a wee party at H's friend's place, where I - shock horror - partook of some alcoholic refreshment and we played a fun board game called "Logo". The girls' team thrashed the boys' first time round but in the rematch they triumphed, grrr! We'll never hear the end of it now!

New Year's Day was very quietly and lazily spent, er, on the couch, and since then I have been back to work and not had a minute to craft, so there are no new pics to show.

At this time of year, however, I do like to take a trip down memory lane, and as I'm currently working on Vally Day material, I'd like to share a pic of the sort of things I was making in January 2008:

I made card toppers by the bucketload to sell in my EBay shop and I was very fond of my little bear character. I was obviously not adverse to using peel-offs either - shreik! It's funny how styles and tastes change.

But for 2011 it's out with the old and in with the new so I'll be back with some fresh Valentine's Day items soon! Yay!