IF YOU THINK IT'S TOO EARLYFOR CHRISTMAS LOOK AWAY NOW!

Hi All

I'm back. I've not drifted off into cyberspace or got fed up with my blog or anything - I love blogging - writing my own and reading everyone else's little slices of life. Rather, it's been challenging times. Some stuff quite frankly I could have done without (is it just me or are emotional crises more draining as you get older) and some stuff so exciting I've done well not to burst at times! Life as a rollercoaster in all its colours and hues. And I've been from inky black to zingy pink and back over the past few weeks.

But let's concentrate on the good. Smiley face. Big drum roll...... On September 1st I'm launching a little sideline company I've been working on in my spare time called "The Cat's Pajamas". I hasten to tell you that this is not a burlesque troop as I've been asked, but a very respectable (ha ha - as Janet would say) events company. Although my friends at Running with Scissors did volunteer to join if it was a burlesque troop and Tracey does have some tassels in stock I believe. Calendar girls eat your hearts out!!! I'm setting the thing up on a shoe string - or should I say a tassel! My daughter Alice has fashioned me a web site (thank you Alice!), I've got an email address and it's all coming together. So exciting. Hope you'll all keep your fingers and tassels xd that I get a couple of bookings! If you get a minute check out my site http://www.catspajamasonline.co.uk/

I've started making a few christmas cards. I saw Lorraine had posted her first one so I thought I'd share a couple of mine. I love The Night Before Christmas poem and have been hankering after the stamp (from Clarity Stamps) for a while. I've not done anything too fancy with the cards (mojo exhausted!) but I'm loving the little mouse asleep in the shoe. My other card uses an Inkadinkadoo stamp that mum bought me last year from Running With Scissors (thanks mum!) and I love it too. He's so easy to paint (always a bonus with Christmas cards!), I like choosing his hat and scarf colours and his twiggy arms are fab!

Back soon with more news and crafting!

FREEDOM

Dear Reader

This card is for The Sugar Bowl Challenge No 40 - Do It Yourself. The use of a Sugar Nellie stamp was needed but you could pick any of the previous sketches on the blog to use for the card. I chose no 33 (I think!) which was a fairly straightforward sketch that I'd missed. I like The Sugar Bowl Challenge as I love all the Sugar Nellie stamps and am always keeping my fingers xd that I win! I used up some papers I've had a while - MME, along with tonal bazzill and ribbon from RWS. I coloured the image which is Leanne Ellis's Annie with Tim Holtz distress inks and added a tiny tag on the birdcage. I used a couple of fabric butterflies as embellishments.

I loved the idea with this stamp of letting the bird go free. I think the stamp is called "Fly Away". Abroad last year in Croatia I was wandering through the back streets of Dubrovnik when I came across a host of birdcages, home to all manner of exotic coloured birds. They were beautiful but I always think there's something sad about caged animals and birds and I was itching to open their doors. For goodness sake birds were meant to fly! For some reason I took a picture of this orange bird, perhaps to take my mind off letting them all out and risking arrest lol - and the Dubrovnik birds came to mind again when I started making this card and I rooted around and found the picture. The irony is that as much as I dislike birds in cages I love bird cages themselves - I've got four in my house (ornate ones not blue plastic like the one in the photo in case you're wondering). None of them have birds in although one has one sitting on top of the cage! Makes no sense. Anyway, in my card the little bird is just plain brown and she's being set free. Perhaps I'm thinking that sometimes in life it's best not to be too showy!!

LORNA'S FIRST CARD

Dear Reader

Here's my friend Lorna. She's not keen on this picture but we were having fun last Christmas on a night out so it always makes me smile. (The guy is a very old friend John wearing a traffic cone hat. Don't ask).

Actually, I always thnk of Lorna as my jigsaw friend. I see her now and again through the summer and every week in the winter when I play for a ladies pool team but without fail we always get together over the Xmas holidays to do a jigsaw. We started when the kids were small doing a jigsaw on Christmas Eve in the vain hope that it would calm everyone down. Fat chance! But it became a tradition and even though all our kids are grown we still do the jigsaw, although now it's done after Christmas and in a slightly calmer environment, me with a bowl of pistachios and Lorna with a box of Celebrations. Oh yes, we know how to push the boat out lol

Anyway, last Christmas Lorna was looking at some of my craft projects and said could she have a try at making something. It's took us til last Saturday afternoon to get it together and make it happen. But happen it did. Lorna wanted to make a card but wasn't keen on painting an image so we dug around my stamps and she came up wth this fairly large 'Happy Birthday' stamp. She then looked through my papers and after a great deal of thought chose some from my old faithful K & Co pad. That pattern book is certainly a good workhorse - I've been chopping at it for about a year and it's still going strong! Anyway, Lorna took to crafting like a duck to water and I think the card she chose and made above is just fabulous. I think we may have a new craft addict, as she left (at 6 pm after four solid hours crafting saying "Wow that was fantastic" so if you see a lady looking like the picture above wandering into Running With Scissors, say 'Hello Lorna - how's the card making come along" !!!