Strawberry kisses over indulgence and kitten

I wasn't going to upload a blog today, but have been overwhelmed by the response to a card I made for a colleague at work.

The strawberry kisses stamps range from Crafter's Companion is absolutely beautiful! They are ideal for male or female cards, but I have made two rather girly cards with them. They stamp absolutely beautifully and are soo easy to colour. The first one is the kitten in the flower pot.

Apologies for the lighting on this one, It is a lot brighter and glistens more than the picture shows. I get a lot of questions about what colour to use for the kitten. Ivory promarkers are good to take the harshness away from the whiteness of the card. Blending pinks with the blender is a good way to give a girly effect to the card. I have distressed the edges of the beaded circle with Tim Holtz distress inks. The papers are from the Do crafts capsule range.  This card was made for a 91 year old lady. Not a card you would usually associate with someone of this age, but she is incredibly modern and loves animals.

This next one is the one that has got a lot of reviews. I have entered it into the May Crafter's companion challenge blog! I think anyway! I'm not good at this! lol. I uploaded to another site, and people are asking to buy it. After I have already sold it. But can make again very similar. It uses the dog with the strawberries and cream in a bowl. I call it overindulgence because he looks satisfied with his feast of strawberries.

I have coloured him in cinnamon and tan promarkers with a hint of pink again to blend with the card. The strawberries are coloured in using pale pink, pastel pink, and antique pink for the darker bits above the glass. With a hint of berry red just around the outline. I have used hunkydory card stock for the backing papers and then distressed and dry embossed a piece of white card to accent the again and add another dimension. The wording is from lili of the valley. Adding lettering with peel offs for the name. Using a spellbinders border and crafter's companion card stock I have die cut a border to edge the embossed card. Lace from pinflair, flowers  and paper doilies from create and craft, gems and pearls are used to embellish the card and give it a luxurious feel.

I am not frightened to say, I myself LOVE IT!!!

A day in the life of:-

Thank you for everyone who has stopped by to read my blog, it means a lot. I haven't done much in the way of crafting just lately but plan to take a break from orders and do a batch for sale. This will give everyone ideas of what they can order, and also give me time to experiment with new ideas. I am overwhelmed by the support I have received.

I'm going to write a blog, that is not asking for sympathy but for people to listen and if you feel I am just a whingebag you are probably right!!! haha. But many people would have been in a similar mindset as I was at some point in there lives and at more times than one.

So here goes:-

Have you ever been in a time of your life, where you feel bored of waking up every day doing the same thing day in day out and feeling like there is no way out? I'm sure many have! I was having these days too regularly! I was having days where my make up wasn't right, having FAT days and days where I was just in tears all the time. I was too scared to try new things but wanted something to look forward to.

So I started dieting. I've always been overweight and never happy in my own skin, but tried every diet under the sun and always ended up giving up. I have a boyfriend who loves me for me and wouldn't care if I was a size 10 or a size 30, he would always say I'm beautiful. This diet lasted longer than normal, but then I got bored again and gave up.  I would sit for hours in the bathroom, or looking in the mirror hoping to miraculously be thin! But of course this doesn't happen. The bathroom was the only place I had peace and time to myself away from the world. I didn't want to feel like this any more. I have now got out of this state of mind and think if I won't do anything about it  ( at least not now) stop moaning about it and be happy in my own skin.

Craft is a good way to forget about things; get lost in the moment, and make yourself feel better. I have always been shy and at one stage of my life people would have called me a recluse! But craft made me feel I was achieving something but even better, something I enjoyed doing. Not only that you meet people you would never think you would associate with, just because you have completely different backgrounds. But you come together, in the passion that you share (craft!) . I'm not entirely sure where I am going with this, I had it all planned out in my head but now it just sounds daft typing it out. The point is something as simple as crafting can change your life-even if it does burn a hole in your purse! lol. Completing orders makes other people happy too and that is an added bonus.

In some ways, it's meeting different people that has given me the encouragement to stop being a worry wart, stop moaning about being stuck in a rut and do something about it. Don't get me wrong I have always had my support from my friends and am lucky to have a good few close ones, to have a chat, drink or dance anything really, but they don't understand the passion for card making.

One of the things I have always wanted to do is drive, I was too frightened to pick up the phone and book lessons. Too frightened to get in a car and make mistakes. But yesterday I had my first driving lesson and I loved it. Finally, I have something else to aim for along with one day owning my own craft business full time. The point to the diet etc was that I may have gave up on this, but I am not giving up on learning to drive and I'm definitely not giving up my dream.

I'm sure the diet will follow but if it doesn't I'm not going to dwell on it, I am me! and I am proud to be me! Even If I have just bored you all to sleep. :) hehe