Creativity

I have a desire at the moment to make stuff. There is even a small desire to draw, which I haven't had in ages!

However, the current thing taking my fancy is jewellery. In fact, i've fancied jewellery making since I started peering at the beads in the craft shop. I've bought a couple of books, but they are aimed more at metalwork, which would be great to do but seems to involve massive amounts of tools! I bought a couple of bead work magazines which the projects involve little more than a couple of pairs of pliers and some wire cutters so I think I can stretch to that. They also have space at the craft shop on a jewellery making class. It's on Thursdays so I have to decide whether to do card-making and jewellery making, or just the jewellery making. Think I will do both for a while.

I also really want to be card making and scrap booking, so when the in-laws go home I'm planning on spending some of my free time, at least once a week, on making cards and having a play at the scrap booking. I think I may try and sell a couple of cards on ebay and see how that goes.

It's quite strange, it's like there is a goal - I feel as if i'm looking forward to something but i'm not sure what - like something's about to happen. I can see time in my days to be making cards and jewellery and I can see designs, especially for the cards, forming in my head all the time! It's great and of course I will show anything i['m up to on here.

Happy New Year!

Ok, I know it's a bit early, but who cares! I've been fairly busy of late hence why I haven't been updating this regularly but now my life is my own again I can start 2008 the way I mean to go on!

I could write a list of resolutions as long as my arm (involving doing more housework and boring rubbish like that!) but I know I won't keep them so I'm going to stick to a few that are either

1. really important, or
2. things I want to do

So... in the really important category we have:

Sort out my Finances (*shudder*). I am fairly bad at managing my money and have managed to have a rather large overdraft and a largeish credit card bill. None of it's really horrendous compared to the debts you hear about on the telly, but it's a lot when you work part time for not much more than the minimum wage!!

So, to overcome this I have made a budget. Every 4 weeks when I get paid I'm going to take out my money for the month in cash so I can see the actual money going down and how much i'm spending, rather than randomly using my debit card for everything. I am going to stop ordering books I don't need from the book club and Amazon (*sob*) and make lunch rather than buy it on the days I work all day. I have also applied for a new Credit Card with 6 months 0% interest on balance transfers so I won't have to pay interest for a while on the the credit card balance.

The Big Plan is, if I can pay all my outgoings out of my wages (which I should be able to) any extra I get from the pet portraits can go in the Savings account, which is looking Very Sad at the moment. Wish me luck!!

And now on to the fun ones:

Learn to knit. I have been wanting to do this for several months now but haven't had the time. I have been inspired by several blogs and websites and have decided I would love to be able to knit some things for myself and other people. As of yet, there is no definite plan on how i'm giong to do this but it is likely going to be self taught from books. (I love books.)

Make more cards. I'm not really sure if this counts as a resolution but I'll add it anyway. I've really been enjoying the card making and am planning on making all my cards from now on. I am also planning on making some for sale using my own dog drawings. I need to get some more money coming in from the drawing front and this seems like a good way to do it - handmade cards, but totally original as they'll have my own artwork. And i've seen some great paper with doggy paw prints down the craft shop!

Do more crafty stuff. How marvelously vague that is! I spend a lot of time wasting time on the internet. This year I'm going to put my time to good use and make some stuff. When my card making course has finished, I'm planning on doing something else - either scrap-booking or jewellery making probably. By next Christmas I want to be able to make all of my Christmas presents!

So, there you have it - my plans for next year. I also have a training course for work to do and would love to find the finances to do an Open University course, but that's definitely only a maybe - depending on time and money. Hope you all have a fantastic start to 2008 and long may it continue!

Card making

I chose a rather stupid time of year to start a blog - I have so much going on I don't have a lot of time to update it!

However, on Tuesday, i'm going to a card making class. I've been thinking about doing card making for a while - i've got a few ideas on incorporating my pet pics into handmade cards but I have to admit feeling a little bit lost when it comes to the huge array of paper and stencils and embossing tools that are available. It was on a whim that I went into the new craft shop in town last Thursday and got offered a cup of tea, so sat down with the cuppa and looked through some cross stitch catalogues and got chatting to the shop owner. She mentioned they were doing classes so I put down my name for a beginners card making one.

I'm really looking forward to it, not just for the card making but also the social side of things, other than work and our friends round the corner I don't really know many people so it will be great to meet some people who are in to crafty things like me. I will let you know how I get on!