Cathy's Crafting

Back at work today and back to normality, despite lots of snow still hanging around. Hopefully it'll be gone by the end of the week as I've had enough now and am ready for spring to start!

Spent my lunch hour going through my (probably far too long) list of blogs I have on my favourites list and having a bit of a cull - tried to keep those which are relatively up to date and mainly about craft/scrapping, rather than visits to the vet, people's holidays and other non crafty stuff. Still have far too many to keep up to date with but I do like looking at them for inspiration and ideas. Thought it might be fun to post one of these per day so here is today's.

After spending some time last night stroking some paper and not really doing anything I thought it would be useful to get together a list of aims for this year - not sure what I'll get done but it might help me get more focussed.

- Start Shimelle's Blogging for Scrapbookers class - this just didn't happen last year as I was too busy moving house
- Finish Everyone Has A Story - another Shimelle class, I started this one in Gosport in November 2008 and did lots of LOs for it last year, I then got a bit behind and the class format changed so I need to print off the new PDFs shimelle has emailed and get on with this again
- Do some Christmas LOs - JYC got dropped in a mad December, but we did take some nice photos and I did have a nice album made so this is probably my top priority to do, so I can put the Christmas stash box away for another 9 months.
- Am liking the look of Documented:2010 here - have my envelope already.
- Birthday LOs - I started in a minor way folders to keep LOs in for the boys birthdays - I have 4 to do for Charlie and 2 to do for Owen and a 5th birthday fast approaching in April so it would be good to do these by then.
- Other crafty stuff - have ordered some knitting/crochet your own scarf kits which are the start of my effort to give people home made stuff for Christmas next year.

Forgot to add my mum's been getting creative and has made this in her garden in Reading:


How fab is he!!

Lots of creativity going on here this weekend, mainly to keep the boys amused as they have realised that snow is rather wet and extremely cold...

- Making gift tags Each year after Christmas we choose some of our cards to recycle into gift tags. The bast cards have one image on the front of the card (eg a robin or santa) with nothing on the back of it. I cut out the image in a circle/oval using pinking shears and then use them as gift tags next year. This year I have also stamped an image on to the plain background which I will write over when I write the gift tag. I used a stamp of a snowman juggling snowballs with gold ink, but a tree or bauble stamp would work just as well.

- Thank you cards I try to do something different for the boys thank you cards each year. This year the boys did potato prints of stars, moons and rockets on to some blank cards I had in my stash. I have then written the thank you notes in side them and they are in the process of signing them, 2-3 at a time. Hopefully we'll get them all done by the end of the day for posting tomorrow.

- Baking So far today we have made butternut squash soup, a stew (still going in the slow cooker), and flapjacks, and we're also planning to make some banana muffins from Nigella Lawson's Domestic Goddess recipe book - just need to get some honey from our local store. Our pantry is starting to look a bit bare but the snow's looking like it miht start to disappear in the next few days and Jon will be able to stock up.

Woo-hoo, have actually done some creative stuff today! Have done a CJ entry on 'Just One Wish' using the December Scrapagogo kit. I've been participating in a CJ on the scrapagogo clubhouse and this was my second to last entry. I'll be getting my CJ back soon on 'Words that inspire me' and am really looking forwards to seeing it. Was hoping to take a photo of my craft room actually being used to upload here but camera's defunct again - am thinking it may be time to buy a new one..

Some BIG snow here today, unfortunately as I have a laptop with remote access I still had to work all day but love these creations:

My friend Carrie saw this in Camberley.


My friend Iain made this snow head - isn't it fab?

Am spending tonight watching Harry Potter and creating some new hems on a few pairs of trousers and a dress that need them - at least it involves a needle and thread!

Getting inspired today by this and this fab website and wondering if I could make a heap of handmade gifts for next Chistmas. I got this fab book for Christmas and already have this and this. Am off to look at the list of people I give gifts to and to work out who would like what - probably seems completely over organised but I think it will take me a year to make them all!

Creativity today:

- sorting out lots of photos to use in creative projects

Not much but have been busy sorting through a playroom and now have 5 BOXES of toys to sell or donate, it's something I've been meaning to do for ages and the boys are much happier now they can see all their games and lovely new toys...