It's Official: Spring has arrived.....

....and hibernation is over! Yes, once again the gloom and depression have lifted and depite the icy wind straight from the Arctic there is sunshine and patches of blue sky; the snowdrops which were very late to flower are putting on a lovely show and mixing it with early crocuses and miniature daffodils, and the weeds are flourishing like.....weeds!

I haven't been idle on the craft front although there's not a lot to show for my endeavours. Having received my new die cutting machine at Christmas I soon discovered it wasn't quite as easy to use as I had assumed and there was a time of tears and tantrums before I admitted that what my husband was saying was right and I was doing it wrong! I still use my dear little green bug when I can but am much more confident with the X-Cut Xpress now. I had plenty of practice throughout January having decided that I needed a catalogue of all my dies, so I was kept busy cutting samples and sticking them onto big sheets of coloured paper(so I could quickly see what I had, section by section) and filing them in a shiny new binder with a neat printed label on the spine. This then led to more sub-divisions within the die storage box, and more magnetic sheets, and labels, and bags.....and I was a happy little bunny, remembering my days as a library junior filing catalogue cards over 50 years ago!

In the midst of it all I actually made a couple of cards. The first is just a variation on a much used theme - origami inkwell with a stamped script background and quill pen courtesy of a pigeon. This was for a WI competition "How creative can you be with feathers?" which caused a lot of amusement and my response was "Not very". The second was much more important being a Diamond Wedding anniversary for two very dear friends. Colour scheme was bright white and silver: as usual the matte silver card hasn't scanned well, nor have the clear diamond-like gems, and the bright white looks distinctly grey, but you can get the general idea. Dies by Spellbinder, numbers from a Cuttlebug alphabet set.

I went to a big craft show last weekend and came home with a bag full of new dies - why do I find them so irresistible? I'm always certain that these are the ones which will get me back into the full swing of producing cards for every possible occasion, with perfect designs.....but don't hold your breath while waiting for the great reveal.

I'll try to post again before everyone dies of boredom, but I'm away next week so it may be a little while.