The cat that got the cream

Although I have about a million things I should be doing at the moment, such as finishing my teaching models for my art journaling course at Artison on Friday, I spent last Saturday afternoon at the Great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza in Harrogate, so that means new rubber! Purely in the interest of research, I have obviously had to have a bit of a play! This is one of three stamps I bought at Art from the Heart from Octopode. After some really tricky times last year, this year is definitely going our way, and I do feel like a really rather naughty cat with a really large pot of cream, especially since so many people around the world are having such a horrible time at the moment. A member of our family lives in Lyttleton NZ, and has all shades of carnage surrounding her, and a really good friend of mine in Japan has survived an earthquake and a tsunami, but now faces radiation from the Fukushima leak. It's hard not to feel a bit guilty, but equally, I think some of the events recently just reinforce that you have to live life to the full and seize the moment. And, on a lighter note, who could be downhearted in this beautiful weather!

Catching up at last..

Phew! I am, at last starting to catch up with things. Had an enjoyable couple of hours putting this together yesterday, in between doing the Brownie run and cooking and washing - does the pile ever go away? The stamps are from Claudine Hellmuth, and although I have had them for a couple of months, this is the first time they have been out of the packet. I decided to go with fresh, springlike colours, as the weather here has been be-au-ti-ful, until yesterday, when the fog descended and since then we haven't seen the sky, just grey, grey, grey. I figure if this weather continues, at least looking at this page everyday will cheer me up!
I'm always intrigued with some of the things that people blog, especially the what's on your workspace type thing, as I am always pretty ashamed with the state of my desk when I am in the groove, and certainly wouldn't willingly share unless I had had a bit of a tidy up first! However, yesterday our cat decided that my painting water was more appealing than his bowl of water (probably full of brick dust and cement, like everything else in this house at the moment!), and I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Long time no hear!

I know I said that I might be offline for a bit, but I hadn't anticipated it being quite so long! Lady Mary has settled in well, but in a busy life, a new demand on my time takes a little adjustment. Anyway, I now have her settled in at home and we have been having a fantastic time enjoying the spring sunshine and watching the little lambs over the hedges.
Mr H and I have also been skiing (our annual week of married time, no kids!)where we had a great time, did LOTS of skiing and even got a suntan. In the meantime, the building work at home continues apace, which is exciting, but not always in the right way...This week we have had high winds and driving rain at times, which compared to things happening elsewhere in the world, isn't worth mentioning, but at the moment we have no roof on half of the house, which makes for refreshing temperatures, intermittent electrical supplies and some interesting night time noises! It will all be worth it in the end, but the inside if the house is in turmoil to say the least. Each time I try to create anything, I have to search through boxes of stuff in at least three rooms to find what I am looking for.
As I was so behind with the 365 challenge, I decided to have a make a kind of summary page of February. it's not exactly true to the spirit of the challenge, but I hope that the other participants won't mind.. March is in progress, and I am keeping a note of the events of each day ready to put into my squares once the page is finished. To those regular visitors who have been asking when I was going to start posting again, thanks for waiting!