Lucky me look what I got in Big Blog Card Swap

I've never 'done' a swap before - bit scared of the unknown I guess, aren't we all sometimes? What if my swap item(s) are good enough? What if I packed too little or indeed too much into the parcel?  Will the other person like it?  And worst still what if they didn't and blogged about it - ARGH! My worst nightmare...okay, I reckon the last one may just be my imagination running away with me but if you're a 'swap virgin' I can assure you it can seem very real.  Sarah from Wrapped up with String and Naomi from Leaves in the spring held the swap and dutifully organised it all...BIG thank you to you both x

I was SO excited when I saw my envelope arrive and even MORE excited when I saw it was from Mary, who sells her cards under the name of Quite Contrary Crafts on Folksy.  What a brilliant name for her shop.  As you can see she makes the most beautiful cards, which she hand-cuts by herself with her craft knife.  A very talented lady I think you'd agree.

I love cake, who doesn't?! so I reckon it's the most perfect card in the whole world for me.  I just don't think I'll be able to part with it so would it be weird to 'send' it to myself lol ;0). Mary - Thank you very much for the yummy card - it's very much appreciated and will be forever admired x.   

And so on to the card I made for Jenny from New Zealand.  I received a comment on my blog from her today so I know it's safe to show it now.

I'm in love with these polka dot buttons at the moment, hmm - don't know why I said at the moment, more like obsessed ALL the time.  I really didn't know where to start when making it so I picked 3 buttons and took it from there.

I can safely say, now that my 'cherry' has been popped - so to speak - that I'm definitely up for doing more swaps. Do you hear that Sarah?! Naomi?! are you listening - I want another swap please cause this was SO much fun!.

Sunnyside up! No, not the eggs...

Okay so my title may seem a little confusing at the moment...  The kids have had a few days off school and returned today...which means I can grab a couple of peaceful hours to catch up with neglected 'to do' lists.

In between pancake day (hilariously disasterous - see mystery blob below), sleep-overs and generaly running riot - the kids that is, not me, I did manage to come up with some new ideas for my cards...in fact I went to sleep thinking about it and woke up saying 'yip I got it'.  Now this never usually happens to me, so I was very grateful that my brain seems to be in good working order, after all it is getting rather old (now all I'm waiting for is the 'wise' bit to kick in!).

I set to work, as soon as I could, translating my thoughts onto paper...and was rather pleased with my results.  It was after reading discussions on folksy about USP (thats unique selling point to you and me) that made me re-think what I was creating, hmm...I don't have a brand, a logo, something you could instantly recognise that was mine, so I'll be trying out different techniques over the next few weeks and finger crossed I'll come up with something that speaks, no, sings to me.

My frustration this week has been photographs, when there's no sun and the house lights are just too harsh I felt very let down that I couldn't do my new cards justice, and then I remembered I read a section on haptree's blog entitled photo tips.  It is full of tips about getting the best out of natural light as well as photo editing.   I had great fun playing around with the different techniques and certainly learnt a few things along the way, and just as I was about to begin editing again today - well I didn't have to, why you may ask? when I had such fun? well because the sun eventually came out - hence sunnyside up - hooray!