One thing I love about getting back into card making is following everyone's blogs. In fact, I probably spend more time blog reading than I do creating! Another new thing to me is blog candie. And if you pop over to the talented Bunny-Zoe's website you'll see that she is giving away some yummy candy to celebrate reaching 20,000 hits!
http://bunny-zoes.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-candy-20000-hits.html

The competition is open until Wednesday 17th Sept, so make sure you pay her blog a visit.

We've just come back from spending a rather lovely, and surprisingly sunny, day at Shuttleworth Old Warden Park where they were holding a steam rally. Mind you , the enjoyment was rather dampened by the fact that it cost £24 to get in which left us battling to find lunch for four people for £6! There were lots of glorious steam tractors, engines, vintage cars and motorbikes which kept the boys amused. There was also an old fashioned fair which would have been lovely if we had the money to enjoy it.

My second day of working in the corner shop starts in just under two hours and already I'm mourning the loss of creating time and also wondering how well my poor legs are going to cope with standing up for 6 hours! This going back to work has been a bit of a shock to the system!

Just a few more cards that I've been working on recently. The blue Sugar Nellie card is the first one that I made and although it's ok I think I may need to go back to it as it seems to be lacking any finishing touches. I'm really pleased with how the cupcake card turned out. I got the inspiration from a card that Sir Stampalot had displayed at the recent Stamperama show in Stevenage. The stamps are by Hero Art, the textured cardstock is from Love Elsie. I've raised the cupcakes so that they stand out a bit more and I've coloured them in with my prisma pencils.

The next new addiction!

Firstly a huge arrgghhh that it's September already! How did that happen? Where did summer go? Did it even start? On the plus side it does mean that Robert went back to school today and we'll hopefully get back into a routine. I may even sneak in a bit of me time in the morning whilst Finlay is asleep to spend some time with my new addiction. I've decided that I must have an addictive personality as soon as something grabs my attention, that's it, I must have it until the next addiction takes hold.



My current addiction is card making and stamping. I've never been one for artsy stamping - although I've admired it I don't think I have the patience or skill, but I love all the Magnolia and Funky Kits stamps - I just can't get enough of them. At the moment I'm colouring with Prisma pencils but I've just found a local stockist for artist pens (proplanners?) so I'm going to give them a whirl when I get a minute. Hopefully, they'll be easy to travel with.



Here is my first attempt at a card challenge. It's a http://fridaysketchersblog.blogspot.com/ challenge and I just love the ideas that they come up with. Here's my effort. The stamp is from Funky Kits.

Resolutions

I know it's a bit late to be making resolutions but I've decided to give them a shot this year, although calling them goals seems much less daunting! And to make sure that I do stick to them I'm going to dedicate a layout to them which will be my first layout in my 2008 album (one layout per month).

As one of my goals this year is to scrap more I'm going to try and set myself challenges every couple of weeks to spark off that creativity, so if you'd like to join me please do. I'd love to see what you come up with. My first challenge then (if you've not already done it) is to scrap a layout for your 2008 goals/resolutions. I'll hopefully be posting my completed layout at the end of next week.

In the meantime, here is a layout that I completed earlier this week that I'm really pleased with. I'm not so good at layering and tend to stick to the simple style so I was really pleased that I kept pushing this one and didn't think it was complete after just one night (another one of my goals is to try and stop procrastinating and actually complete my layouts in less time!).

The photo in the layout below was taken last year when we went up to Cumbria for my husband's Gran's funeral and decided to visit one of her favourite spots, Talkin Tarn. It's a beautiful place, so peaceful and a great place to sit back and just reflect and remember her.

My youngest has just had his second tooth come through now. He seems to be growing so fast. Already he's nine months and I've only managed to complete one layout for his album. I'm off to a crop on Sunday so along with my goals layout, I intend to make sure that I finish at least one page for his album. It's true when they say that you take loads of photos of your eldest and not so many of the following children. I still have lots of baby photos of Robert to scrap as well as the growing pile for Finlay! At this rate I'll still be scrapping Finlay's birth photos after he's turned one (which is fast approaching!).