Salvaged Dreams

Hey everyone, hope you are all keeping well? I have challenged myself to start actually using the stuff I buy pretty much as soon as I get it. What usually happens is I see a project on Pinterest or Facebook by someone using a stencil, stamp or die or medium or a combination of all of them.

I have ideas spark in my head, order the stuff to get going and then when it arrives, I've forgot what I wanted to make, or life gets in the way and what I've bought gets filed away from another day. Which often doesn't come!

I've lost count of the number of times this has happened, but have been reminded of it recently as I've been having a sort out and putting things to one side to give to my niece Zoe who I have successfully infected with the cardmakers bug lol! I'm sensing another no spend challenge coming on, but I've just agreed to join a 10 month 'Stamperettes' club run by a lovely lady that is my local Stampin Up supplier, I go to classes she runs monthly and have met some lovely crafting friends. So I will have to spend £15 a month plus the cost of the class. So maybe this time I will say have a couple of months where all I buy is the Stampin Up stuff? Whatever I do know that I need to reduce my spending again, I have got better, but I'm still finding that I'm spending more on craft supplies than I am actually using!

I sadly cannot resist a crafty bargain, the above is the recent stash I got from BeeBaab Crafting Supplies who I discovered towards the end of last year. I ordered these goodies from the same over Christmas and they arrived on Friday, given the pep talk I gave myself on saturday I had a play with the 'That Special Touch Mask - Wings & Words' stencil that I got and one of the stencil brushes. I broke out the Distress inks and stippled through the stencil with Crushed Olive, Peacock Feathers and Wild Honey inks and Black Soot of course for the words and body details on the butterfly and wasp.

Once I'd laid down the colour with the stencil, I removed it and used some Distress Markers in the colours mentioned above but scribbling on to my glass media mat and then picking up the ink with a water brush and 'colouring in' the white areas around the stencilled parts. Once the colouring was done I gave the butterfly and wasp a coat of shimmer pen to add some sparkle and set to work making the sentiment. In my head I was going to make a 'Butterfly Dreams' kind of card, but it turned into a butterfly nightmare, when I got to the sentiment and assemble stage!

I carefully die cut 7 white pieces using a Crafters Companion die from their new Enchanted Forest collection the die is from the 'fairy Wishes' set. After I'd cut them all out I glued them and stacked them together, all good so far! I let the stack dry and decided to colour it with a Peacock Feathers Distress Marker, it was a good idea, that went badly wrong lol! I must have had glue on my fingers which transferred to the top die cut, and that acted as a kind of resist and the die cut went all patchy. Si came in to see me and I did a dramatic "It's ruined now!" thing and chucked it in the bin and stomped off out of the room and went to play Skyrim lol!

An hour later an idea popped in to my head so I went back upstairs, pulled the piece out of the bin and covered it in embossing ink, sprinkled on some gold embossing powder and heat set it. A vast improvement but the colour didn't pop off the card, so I inked again and this time reached for black embossing powder, that was loads better, it popped but it didn't sparkle. So I took out some sparkly black embossing powder and inked, sprinkled and heated again and TADA, it worked! It didn't pop still as much as I wanted it to so I die cut a piece of gold vellum to add to the front and stuck the words on to that and then glued the vellum behind the words to attach to the card.

I started out with a white card blank but decided to colour it, this time I remembered to cover the back of the card with post it notes so they didn't end up covered in distress ink YAY! I used some Mowed Lawn Distress Ink around the edge and brought it in by about an inch, no point in covering the whole card as only the edge would be seen! The finally touch was to give the butterfly piece a gold mirror card fancy edge which I think set it off nicely and I stuck it all together and we're off with the first card of 2019, plus I used 1 couple of items from the new stash!

I tell myself that I really do need to stop buying more craft things, then Tim Holtz does a Facebook live showing new stuff from his new Sizzix range and I caved and bought 4 of the new die sets. He's still got to do the Stampers Anonymous and Ranger sneak peeks and there are going to be more Sizzix products launched at Creativation 2019 later this month! I am hoping for some new colours of Distress Inks or some Distress Oxide pens, I can hope lol! I really am beginning to believe that meme that's been circulating that says buying craft stuff and using craft stuff are two separate hobbies lol! I need to focus more on one than the other and my purse is crying, use the stash rather than spend the cash lol! On that note I'll go an make something to eat and then look at organising the cardstock by type and making space for the new stash. Have a fab week, stay safe and well and I'll chat to you soon!

Post Birthday Post

Last Monday was my birthday, and I had a fab few days celebrating it, on the Saturday before my actual birthday Simon took me to Coleman's Craft Warehouse. This has become something of a birthday tradition since I first discovered Coleman's back in 2016 and every year now I go along and find goodies to bring home and I end up with lots of bargains due to the fact that the Coleman's January sale always happens around my birthday.

During their sale they have yellow sticker items with reductions from 35% to 70% and their non-sale items or white sticker have 30% off for two days. They also have free cake and coffee, so you can shop, take a break and then shop some more! There are usually some demos occurring on the second floor as well from cardmaking to patchwork and stitching and a whole host of other things.

I skipped the demos this year, mainly due to the fact that there had been a bad accident on the M1 on the way to Coleman's which meant that we were delayed nearly 2 hours, so instead of getting there around 13:30 like we'd planned it was 15:30 when we arrived and they closed at 17:00 so there was only shopping time (although I did fit in a 5 minute coffee and cake break lol). I was thrilled this year to discover that Coleman's are now stocking Lavinia stamps, so I picked up a few of them with my birthday spends. They were white stickered so I got 30% off each of them :)

l came home with some fab bargains as you can see, I realised after taking this photo that I'd left some stuff I bought in a bag on the bed but hey ho, you get the gist lol! This year I've vowed that I will actually use what I buy, I bought goodies in 2016 and 2017 that are still in their packaging and never been used! The space to store craft stuff in my room is shrinking as I bring in more goodies, so I have to use what I buy, their isn't space to buy and not use!

On the Sunday before my birthday it was a stay home and chill day and I watched movies and did some gaming and had a relaxing day. The day of my actual birthday started when I awoke and Simon presented with a big bunch of flowers and a card, he doesn't normally do this so I was very touched. I got some amazing cards from friends and family including several from some of my amazingly talented card making buddies, their talent and creativity never ceases to amaze me, this year I also got my first ever Nanna card, and yes I cried happy tears haha! After opening all my cards and having had breakfast Si took me off in to town, where I got some new trainers, some clothes and some pretty magazine style storage boxes for the craft room - I use them to store A4 stamp sets and card stock. As a treat we went into Marks & Spencer's for afternoon tea which was lovely and helped refuel me for a spot more shopping.

The last shopping trip of the day was to my local Hobbycraft to spend the £5 birthday voucher they sent me for being a member of their craft club. I made a beeline for the sale aisle and was blown away to find a Tim Holtz Butterfly Duo Bigz die that had been on my wishlist for a while for just £5 in the sale, I was over the moon!

I also picked up some new B Plates from my little Hobbycraft die cutting machine and a dinosaur die and stamp set plus a cut and emboss folder. Finally we picked up some Thai food, I usually have an Indian meal or a Chinese but this year I wanted to try something different, so Thai it was, and very yummy it was too! This year I decided not to have a birthday cake, instead I bought a selection of fresh fruit and made a lovely fruit salad and we had that with some yogurt instead.

Having reached 55 years and deciding that the life long battle I've had with my weight (well since my teens) will end starting this year, my birthday kicked off a new chapter in my life, tackling the weight issues and moving more. The day after my birthday I went to the doctors to pick up my regular prescription and plucked up the courage to ask if the clinic ran any weight loss schemes. Turns out they didn't but they had contact details for Live Well Derby a free 12 month programme run by my local council, having decided on my birthday that this year I would get healthy and thinner I walked back from the doctors and filled in the online application form.

2 days later I received a phone-call to say that I'd been accepted on to the programme, it doesn't start until the 4th of Feb though so I have a few weeks to wait. To start there are 4 x weekly meetings to get you on track, at the first meeting they take your height, weight and measurements, and test your blood pressure and find out your general level of fitness, then from week 2 you are given more tools and chances to experience things to get you on the road to fitness. After the first 4 weeks and for the remainder of the programme you get regular support and encouragement to help you self monitor weight, eating and activity levels. There is also an 8-week weight management course to take part in and the team arrange from you to take part in a wide variety of exercise classes from Clubbercise (dancing to 90's club anthems), Spin Classes, Circuit Training and they even get you running and doing the Couch to 5K!

I am so thrilled to have been accepted and I really do believe that with the help of Live Well Derby I will be a totally different person by my birthday in 2020 and that this time I will succeed, instead of the too many to count times where I try, and at best lose a couple of stone have a small set back and pile it all back on and more besides. I also had a sobering moment over the new year, and I realised if I want to be at the wedding (assuming they get married) of my niece and nephews, and my Granddaughter. Then I have to take better care of myself, losing weight and ensuring that those weight related illnesses don't happen to me is a huge step in the direction of living to a ripe old age (I plan on 100 or more!) so its a no brainer really.

My health has really begun to suffer recently, some of the problems are down to the menopause, some of them are weight related, I'm having trouble bending over, get back pain and knee pain and things I won't mention publicly all of it has been having a knock on effect on my self esteem and my mental health. So I've started as I mean to go on and started walking again, I was doing 9,000+ steps a day 6 months ago, but it fell by the wayside and my health deteriorated, I get out of breath going upstairs for example. I started back at 5,000 steps and I plan on increasing by 500 each week until I'm at 10,000 steps a day, I've stripped back calories and I'm trying to make healthier choices less junk and more fruit and veg. So far its working and I have a long, long way to go but little and often will win this race this time. I'll do an occasional post as I progress, I've taken some before photos and when there is a difference to see I'll share them. What I do know is next year, the only thing that will be repeating around my birthday is the trip to Coleman's and not the annual I'm fat I need to be thinner 3 day diet! I CAN DO THIS!