Its a new day & a new blog: goodness time flies

Goodness can you believe we're in February already!! This is going to be another fast year I think!

It's been a sad few days watching the poor communities in northern NSW & QLD that are flooding - AGAIN - it's breaking my heart. I swear Mother Nature has lost her marbles... I have a few friends who live in and around these communities & I can only pray that they all stay safe & dry! Its just such a helpless situation - there is nothing that can be done to stop the rain falling, I just wish people would stop going into flood waters & taking the ''i'll be right'' attitude & putting other peoples lives at risk!... On a more positive note - the Charleville evacuation centre is allowing people to take their pets along too - yay!. Its about time these evac centres acknowledged that pets are family too... Alot of people simply wont leave their beloved animals behind & would rather stay in their homes & put themselves at risk rather than abandon their furry friends... at least now they might be more willing to seek shelter :)))

Moving on to another (cheerier) topic now... :)

I've spent the last few days trying to work out how to do ATC's... you see somehow I managed to get myself onto an ATC swap list - not even sure how that happened really? I joined a wonderful little facebook group for scrappers & made a comment on a post about ATC's saying that it sounded interesting, & before I knew it I was signed up & added to a swap list lol. But its good because I can be a bit of a procrastinator & if I don't get ''accidently'' entered into these things I would never get around to doing it myself... Its always one of those things 'i'm going to do'' - ''ONE DAY'!!

The main problem i'm having is that i'm not really sure what i'm doing? I've never made an ATC before nor have I ever been involved in swaps of any sort and i'm a bit nervous because, although I love craft, i've never taken any lessons, so my way of doing things is very different to others... & I think, compared to some of the others in the group, I may be a little under experienced (some of them have been doing these kind of swaps forever)... But look, its a challenge, & i'm always up for a challenge, & the internet has been a wealth of knowledge!

The next challenge is figuring out how to keep the cards quite flat - i'm used to making chunky little albums & boxes with lots of dimension & texture - keeping the embellishments flat so they fit into an ATC pocket is proving a little harder than I expected & fitting them onto such a tiny piece of card is doing my head in. THERE'S JUST NOT ENOUGH ROOM!!! I want to put more on to complete my story but I keep running out of space lol but i'll get there - & I have a whole month to do it! yay!

All in all I must say i'm a bit excited to be a part of this little swap. Its a great way to keep the brain active, it gives me something different to focus on & it's a great way to meet others & learn new things which is what life's all about isn't it! If its a success I may even find myself joining in on more.

I'm going to attempt a few sketch challenges too. I need to do more 12x12 layouts because its not something I do often & I've got godzillions of photos that need a home so it might just be the kick in the pants I need to get them done :)

I've decided that I have too many photos to upload all at once so i'm going to upload a few photos with each post until they're all up... that just means some of the photos may be from a while ago & some may be more recent. If nothing else it'll be a good way to see how much things have changed over the years lol.

Anyway I guess its time to go & get some housework done so I can get back into the scrap room & keep tackling these ATC's ;) Have a wonderful weekend everyone & keep smiling :)))

Some more cards i've made

I made this little album for a friend who was having her first baby :))

Front cover - My little clay doll that I made especially for this album :)

Some Layouts i've done over the years

I bought some flowersoft & needed to try it so I bought this page especially for that purpose... all the leaves are coated in green feathersoft to give it texture...