So Much To Do, So Little Time

Sorry it's been a while since my last post, I've never been so busy. It's all about prioritizing, isn't it? The fact is I love to ride, so by the time I've mucked out, taking Barnaby out somewhere is my first priority, which can also be quite tiring, as you can imagine. So the way I spend the rest of my time is very important to me. I've realised how important card making has become to me, I absolutely love it. I do love blogging too, but I've realised I'm spending far too much time on facebook again. I do love Farmville (do you play it?) but it's so slow, especially if you play in the evenings, which makes it very time consuming. I've decided to put that on the back burner for a while. It takes over your life if you're not careful, doesn't it? We did a fantastic fourteen mile pleasure ride round Rother Valley Country Park last Saturday. It was absolutely superb. We did a ten mile circuit and arrived back at the lorry park so the horses thought we'd finished. I nearly called it a day there, but I'm so glad I carried on as it was nearly all galloping after that. I thought Barnaby might be tired but he easily kept up with Zak. It was a fabulous place, the sun was shining and both horses were in a very good mood. It was my birthday on Monday (14th) so we went to my favourite craft shop, Dolly Cottage Crafts (what a sweet name!) and bought the item I've been waiting and waiting for - a heat embossing gun. I've been playing with it ever since. I also got some flock and some adhesive paper. Let me show you what I've been doing:

I've made several cards for Mother's Day which I've taken to the shop, and this is one of them. The thing is, the scalloped pink border is made using flock, so it's got that lovely soft texture. I stamped the image of the little girl and coloured it as usual, and then stamped it again on adhesive paper. I cut out the section that is her pink top and stuck it down on the stamped image. It's double sided sticky paper, so I peeled the top off and rubbed in the flock. I am very pleased with it. I'd like a pale brown flock, then I could use it on some bears, which would look really cute I think.

What else? Oh yes, this one:

This is another stamp from Little Claire's Designs. I think they're all so sweet. These and Lili of the Valley are my favourites. This card was actually quite hard to make and should have had an acetate window but I couldn't get the ink to show up on it at all which is a bit frustrating. I'm pleased with the end result though.

So all is well here, but one of the other reasons I haven't been blogging is that I'm so deeply in shock over the events taking place in Japan. I'm sure we're all watching developments unfolding on our television screens in horror. I think it's hard to grasp the scale of the disaster. Some of the images of the tsunami make it look like a bit of treacle spreading out, it's so hard to believe the wave was over 20 feet high and moving at a rate of 10m per second. You just can't fathom it, can you? So my thoughts and prayers are for all those involved, and I'm sure yours are too.

Hope you're all having a great weekend.

Mrs O.