Fiddling with paper and ink is addictive

As a child, I was always up to something crafty. I must confess that I am a useless knitter, can't crochet to save my life and I am not a dab hand at sewing. But I was encouraged to draw, paint, make models and so on when I was growing up and it was a lovely way to justify making a mess. My first memories of fun as a child was using finger paints at school. The smell of the paint still takes me back to when I was 4 making pictures of butterflies and creating messy handprints everywhere.

Nowadays I spend most of my time behind a desk hacking away at a computer and speaking to people on the phone. I have to fight the creative creature inside me on a daily basis, to prevent it daubing paint everywhere or creating little paper birds to hang off everything. As I hit my 30's, I grew up and bought a wreck of a house, so all my time was spent knocking things down and rebuilding it. Four years later and it is nearly complete...well almost nearly, but shush we won't talk about that.

So suddenly I have a little bit more time on my hands and the urge to do something different. I found some old craft materials in a box in the attic and started to dabble with a few things. Next thing I know I have found a million and one wonderful websites, and have bought so much crafting stuff I don't know what to do. The guest room has now turned into my craft room and my boyfriend leaves me to to it if I suddenly disappear for a while.

When I last did paper craft, clear stamps did not exist (yep that long ago!), so I was in my element when I discovered www.papertreyink.com . I was a little disappointed when I found out they were based in America and didn't have suppliers in the UK. The lure of the stamps though overwhelmed me and I decided to take the plunge and buy some sets. When I say sets I mean quite a few. Well actually 12. My excuse is that I had a few years to catch up on. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it.

So what sets did I buy?

• Beyond Basic Borders
• Borders & Corners Monogram Edition
• Borders & Corners {circle}
• All About You
• All About You Additions
• 2008 Holiday Tag Collection
• Merry & Bright Additions
• Falling Leaves
• Honey Bees
• Honey bee sentiments
• Out on a Limb Revised
• Daily designs

I didn't quite anticipate that it would cost me an arm and a leg for the customs charges. However the stamps have made up for it and I am enjoying fiddling about stamping all sorts of things and learning new skills. My first creation was quite a simple design using the     all about you, all about you additions and honeybee sets. A friend of ours was expecting a baby so I thought I would create something to send her. Apologies for the quality of the photo, it was taken on my iphone and the light was pretty bad. 

After my first attempt I am addicted....oh dear this could be very expensive.

Until next time 

x