I've been a bad, bad blogger....

...*hangs head in shame* - I know, I have neglected my poor old blog. It's a cliche, but time flies, and the past month has fairly whizzed by. A few things have happened though...

The Norty Crew meet in Blackpool was one of the best weekends I have ever had in my life!! The girls were all lovely, and a complete scream. We got a full days crop in a conference room in the Hilton (where we were staying), the food was amazing and the company just couldn't be beat! I have not eaten, laughed or stayed up late as much as we did in a LONG time, it took me a week to recover !!

I managed to do a board book and a LO during the crop.

The board book is a Maya Road - I cut the spine as I knew it would end up fat LOL, so used my BIA to bind it at the end. Its all done with a BG Archaic 6x6 paper pad. The poem is "Now we are six" by A.A Milne. I was inspired to do this after seeing a book using this poem on the homepage of UKScrappers in August.

This LO uses all BG Archaic range - I bought one of the purple pizza boxes from my LSS, a DO craft promotional thing, with a selection of papers, a box of buttons, brads and chipboard accents :) The title is Sizzlit Chunky font cut out in funky foam - I made my own thickers LOL.

Since then I have been in a creative downer - completely devoid from creativeness, not able to find motivation at all. Due to a few reasons I think -

• Mark left 10 days ago for 6 weeks in the sand


• I have been suffering with an unshakable cold (which spookily started as Mark departed)


• the kids are on a 2 week half term, and I am just worn out


• just looking in my cubbie made me groan, as it was a pigsty and I couldn't get in it, and I couldn't be bothered to tidy it

The lack of creativity makes me feel bleurgh which in turn makes me feel even less creative - a vicious circle I just have to bite the bullet to break.

I finally broke it this weekend. Tom has a party to go to, so I had a card to make, so I had to tidy up the cubbie. So I tidied, then I crafted - and did the card, and felt sooooo much better. I got the creative juices flowing again and it felt good.

I then decorated some candles with Christmas clip art images from PCcrafter.com.

I then got working on another board book. I had originally begun this a couple of weeks back, but nothing more had been done since. It is a book about memories from my childhood. As I sat there working, my mind began to wander and lots of suff came into my head - about things I had in my home as a child, about the sweets I loved, about things we did. I got a notebook out and started making lists, and then something I wrote made me think of Papa - my maternal grandfather. I sat and wrote 2 pages of journalling about him and I just know that its a LO I need to do asap.

For now the flood gates seem to be open, and I hope I can get back to doing pages again quickly - I haven't scrapped a proper page yet this month.

I managed to finish off my Shimelle album (a 4x4 so not "proper" pages iykwim !) and I was so glad I perservered with it, and its a smashing little book, even if I say so myself LOL.

I really enjoyed having a sketh to follow each day. I think I may use the sketches again for my Christmas journal, if Shimelle doesn't do sketches for it this year. Sometimes I find it hard enough to follow the prompt, without having to think about the page design too... I am already thinking of papers for this though - may get a co ordinated paper pack and some stickers... more stash spending... I was doing well with that until today, when I bought 4 stamps (2 journalling, 2 definition) from one site, 2 American Crafts 12x12 D ring albums and a US scrapbook magazine from another, and then Monica left a link on our team thread to a bargain on QVC which I then bought.. LOL. But in my defence, the stamps were to replace some that had been damaged in my cubbie, the albums I have been after for a while (so I can set up my Library of Memories) and the magazine is one I haven't had before. The QVC stuff was a real bargain, and if its not to my taste it'll become part of my Mum's Christmas present....

If you got this far, then congratulations!!! I know I am not the best updater in the world, but when I do update, boy do you know about it tee hee hee...

ttfn
xxxx