Cat Rains

 This was the first of the free online classes recently, Catherine Rains has been doing collage work for years. 

Seems like I don’t have many dark papers!

I’m just going to apologise…

 I’m sorry to say that I have been absent, time has once more been slipping through my fingers in the most rapid fashion!

Not too much been going on in the craft world other than that I have been having a huge clear out, mostly of the clear stamps - there was a lot that I had never used but they were from a magazine subscription so I thought that maybe one day… yes, well, that one day is probably not going to happen so I have a box of them to donate!  

I have been doing the Full Deck challenge #4 but not on cards but rather in a small journal 

Napkin, book page, coral colour, zigzag, tree

Flowers, napkin, tab, metallic, purple 

Purple, spots, text, weaving, flowers, pink 

Pink, postage stamps, green, circles, words 

Red, coffee, hearts, B&W, 1 bright colour, stencil 

Text, yellow, buttons, 

Botanicals, fabric, label, black mark making 

And then I decided that I needed to do some birthday cards as quite a few people are hitting a big 0 this year so I have 50 for a friend who’s birthday is the day after mine, 60 for a girlfriend who we are going to Malta with, 70 for another friend and 80 for Bill’s ex wife- yes, we’re friends!

I have also been doing a “scrap a day “ of 1” squares or circles from random magazines and papers 

Otherwise I have been busy in the garden lifting plants that I want to keep before the professionals come in and remove 2 flowerbeds that are full of couch grass. Membrane is going down and some gravel ( known as chuckies locally!) I shall be putting some pots in there to make my life easier rather than spending all my time weeding. 

Life Documented 2026

 This is the only journaling group that I have been part of that still continues, sadly all the other groups have fallen by the wayside.

A slight change of pace this year as it’s a monthly prompt and you can do as many as you like.

In January we have Decorate the New Year as our theme and I managed to make 2 spreads, full of optimism for the year ahead which soon faded and has almost completely sunk into one of the many puddles that abound in the neighbourhood - yes, it’s been ridiculous here…. Snow every day for the first 9 days and then it’s been rain every day since. I don’t think I can remember such a dreadful start to the year ever.

February is all about LOVE and so far it’s only one spread as I have been doing 2 free online courses so you’ll have to wait for me to get round to posting those 

February

 Will google play nice today?

Let’s see is I can add some pictures to my words…. How wonderful! My new iPad is playing nice and I have pictures available….. happy dance time!

This year I decided that I would participate in the Full Deck Challenge 4, the items that were used for the last 3 years have been added together along with extras and you just select the ones that you want to use.

Week 1 green, numbers and butterfly 

Week 2 bird, fibers, gold, stencil, black splatter, orange.

Week 3 clock, flower, red, postage stamp 

Week 4 sequins, person, ribbon, light green 

Week 5 zigzag, orange, heart, happy scraps, lace,sentiment.

Week 6 sheet music, black mark making, flower, turquoise, light blue 

Here’s hoping the posting continues.

And it’s February

 A month later, Will I have any luck with adding photos I ask myself…  well the short answer is no because google is telling me that I need to sign into my account…. Well I am signed in and it just says not …. Getting very seriously annoyed with this situation!!!!!

Grrrrr!

 I have been trying to post pictures for over a week and Google is not letting me upload them, tells me to sign in which I have done, also set up other checks and all to no avail so I’m trying a post with no pictures and will hopefully break the curse!

The wheels fell off!

 Apologies for my lack of posts, I’m fine and the knee is coming along well. 

Here we are in a new year and I’m going to try to do better!

Sadly one of the groups that I have been with for 10 years is now defunct so here’s hoping I can find a new one. 

Here’s the last of the Colour Me Positive pages…

The other group continues and some of the CMP members have already joined me over at Life Documented 

Here are the last few of 2025… 

Mirror repeat 

Section of the mirror repeat used to create a pattern for textiles 

Design a wreath 

Baubles made from wrapping paper/stencilling

More wreaths for cards were made 

Well that wraps up last years creations scene and I will try to get back to blogging soon….. first I need to get the drive dug out so I can walk the dog!!!

Home is a wonderful place!

 I have had the pleasure of 2 nights in hospital and come home with a half knee replacement…

The food was pretty good too!

I now need to put in the effort for the physio side of things.

I’m managing to get some art done and also get some blog surfing done whilst I’m icing the knee!

October is almost over and I have gone off track- supposed to use gelli prints but I’m not quite ready for that yet so I convinced my assistant to let me stick paper scraps down then diecut some leaves, I used some punches on the leftovers 

#2 seasonal colours/neuropathic 

I used soft pastels set with a damp brush.

The last one is colour me positive again:

See you in blog land!

Summer is over

 Summer in France was lovely, we came home briefly and then we went to New England to visit the family. Thank goodness we were not relying on seeing Fall as the drought has had a big effect on the trees this year. Anyway, we are back and have been busy on all fronts catching up with paperwork etc - I also had to try to get some of my art journal pages done before I go into hospital for knee replacement surgery (tomorrow). So far I have only worked on the Colour Me Positive pages ….