Happy New Year

Hello everyone,

Happy New Year to you and I hope the year brings you everything you could wish for, including good health, the comfort of family and friends, and enough money for all your needs and some of your wants.
Its hard to believe that the Christmas season has finished again for another year, but it has been good to spend time with my family and friends.

Over the last few days I have been thinking about making resolutions for the new year and have decided that I must have a big decluttering session. I always feel good when I have sorted through all our stuff and got rid of the things we no longer love or use. I feel lighter, somehow, when there is more space around me and the urge for a good purge is upon me!

I am also planning a new colour for my craft space. My youngest son dropped a glass of red wine in my craft room a few weeks ago, and although we managed to get the stain out of the carpet, the walls were beyond rescue and it looked like someone had been murdered in there. Its amazing how far one glass of wine can spread! Anyway, I now have an excuse to repaint the room and give it a bit of a facelift, and I have begun my decluttering in there so I can get at the walls to paint them. I feel a bit overwhelmed at the task and somewhat shocked by the amount of craft stuff I have accumulated. What a dilemma. I want space but I want all my lovely craft stuff too. I don't think I will ever need to buy another piece of patterned paper in my lifetime, and I'm sure I don't need so many rubber stamps. I spent a day taking the wooden blocks off my old stamps and putting them in cd cases, which has given me some space, but I wish someone would tell Papertrey Ink and Waltzing Mouse Stamps to cease new releases for a year so I won't be tempted to buy more. Well I have decided that if I want to keep the stuff, I must use it, so I am challenging myself to incorporate more of my old stuff when making cards and other creations. I am tempted to promise to post a card every week made from old materials but I will be more likely to stick with it if I resolve to do one a month. So watch this space and if you care to make the same resolution, perhaps we can visit each other to give encouragement.

My eldest son has a birthday just after Christmas, and I made this card from some new PTI  goodies that arrived just in time for Christmas:-

I used SU Mellow Moss and cream cardstock. I cut the stars out with PTI star dies and stamped a Waltzing Mouse Off Beat Background stamp on the cream ones. I made a star panel using all the PTI Star Prints stamps and used sentiments from that set and Signature Greetings. I used my new PTI Victorian Lace Border Die to create a border in both cardstocks and popped the cream inserts in the holes. I find it really hard to make masculine cards, but I think this one turned out ok.

I think that is more than enough for now, so thank you so much for visiting my blog and for all the encouraging comments you leave - I really do appreciate reading them.

Hugs
Carol