Birds, Bees, Butterflies and trees ... all add up to nature

Happy New Year to everyone! Well, it's certainly been a while and I didn't realize just how long! Thanks for coming back. A lot has happened in the last few weeks. Obviously Christmas which was quiet in this house as I was suffering with a chest infection. It didn't ruin our Christmas, I did what I could in the cooking department and my gorgeous husband Daren enjoyed running around for me! It is much appreciated and although still not 100% better, I am up and about and doing stuff again now including some crafting! I managed to make around 90% of my Christmas cards, which I was really pleased with but some of them were posted in the very last post!!!! I am sure they got to their recipients in the end.

A really brilliant thing that happened to me over Christmas is I won a Cricut Expression from my favourite craft shop http://www.scrapbooksisters.co.uk/ in the raffle. When Daren and I went to pick it up, the lovely sisters, Karen and Julie treated me like a VIP and took some photos. It was so lovely, a huge huge thank you to them. It is brilliant to know it was all for charity too. I never usually win anything and was major chufties. I definitely had to have a tidy up and a move around in my craft room to house it! It is now in pride of place and I cannot wait to experiment and play.

The other thing that I was chuffed about was when I was watching the QVC craft day on 21st December, feeling ill, very low, coughing, weazing and enjoying the whole day of craft, they were demonstrating Sakura gel pens. All of a sudden, I saw my Christmas Card I had sent to Dawn Bibby and she was showing that I had used the pens on the card and how lovely they looked. She opened it and read my name out!!! I was shocked, never expected it, but all the same, flattered. It was one of the ones below with the snowy village. I later received a Christmas card from her.

By now, I have done a little bit of crafting and I thought I would share some piccies with you. This is my fourth tissue box and it is for a very special friend. I won't say too much as she may guess it's for her - she hasn't received it yet! It seemed to take me ages to do - I just kept looking at it, and looking at it, trying to gain inspiration. I got all my stamps out and decided on a 'nature' theme. I made some background paper using Distress Inks and gold Tattered Angels. I firstly cut out all the paper for the sides and top of the box and stamped the images in black Stazon. I inked the same distress inks and stamped some different images on 1-inch stampbord again in black Stazon. I used Walnut stain distress ink on the edges of the tissue box and then put all the paper/stampbord together onto the tissue box. I used some black stones for the owl's eyes. All I have to do now is get a new box of tissues to grace the box!