Creative Blog Hop

TCBH started when some clever blogger suggested a game of blog tag, where each person posts once on a Monday, then nominates 3 other crafters to take part. Sadly the name of the person who started this idea has been lost, but there are a lot of crafters involved, from all different areas of the crafty world. Artists, spinners, stitchers, knitters and paper crafters like me!

Debs, over at Debs Designs, asked me if I'd agree to be one of her nominees, and I must admit that I wasn't sure about agreeing to this at first, mainly due to all thats going on in my life at the moment. I do love sharing what I do though, so said yes.
 So, a little bit about me:
 I share my life with my Beloved Hubby, Doug, who is the centre of my world.Can't possibly describe how much he means to me.This is us on our Wedding Day, which will be 5 years ago this year, although we've been together since 1993!
We share our home with a tankful of tropical fish, and a black cat called Ambrose.I've done various crafts at different times- cross stitch, glass painting, jewellery making, candle making. I like embroidery, I know how to knit but don't enjoy it. A bit of a Goth (who me?), and a massive Heavy Metal fan.Love reading, have ever since I was a child, and still have an enormous collection of books, although I do use my tablet for reading mostly these days, I still love to hold a real book in my hands and turn real pages! I'm not a TV watcher, in fact other than watching films,and the odd TV series (True Blood/ Falling Skies/Under the Dome for example) our TV rarely gets turned on. Favourite Authors: David Gemmell, Anne Rice,Frank Herbert,Terry Pratchett & Robert Ludlum amongst others.For a day job, although I use that term loosely, as we actually work permanent night shifts, lol, we make bolts for aircraft/satellites/helicopters.Yes, we do work together too. As well as sharing a birthday- both of us born on August 14th, just a few years apart. My blog came about due to Beloved Hubby, who kept telling me I should do one- eventually I did as I was told, and found a whole new world of friends, mainly thanks to Julia & the Stamping Grounds WOYWW.

 Where I do what I do:
View of my room, which I took over when my Youngest Son left home- now he can't possibly decide to move back, lol.Beloved Hubby decorated it for me then built all the IKEA units- if you want to see the story, its all on one of the pages in the tabs at the top.







So, the questions I am supposed to answer then.

1. What am I working on now?

 To be brutally honest with you, absolutely nothing. My head has not been in any place to do any crafting lately. If you are a new visitor to me, my Rectal Cancer page will bring you up to speed.
 What I do have is a lot of stuff I will be doing over the next few weeks of recuperation.

 My UFO box, and two very nice books bought for my Birthday by Beloved Hubby.






 I reckon I can get most of my UFO's used up in the next few weeks- they're mainly stamped images that need turning into cards, or backgrounds awaiting being stamped on.

 
 

Half finished stuff that I just didn't know how to finish at the time.

I also have a 12x12 Really Useful box full of small tubs of semi-precious gemstone beads &chips, all the findings etc, that needs a sort out, so I will probably be sat doing that for the first week or so.


And I treated myself to a set of Brusho paints, I want to try creating backgrounds with them,then I was seriously Enabled on a visit to Sam at Hettiecraft recently.She had some stamps to fit  a set of Nestie Christmas ornaments, the round ones. I have a set of the 2013 Heirloom ornaments, and like a fool I had to go see if they did stamps to fit them. Of course they do! So there is a vague possibility some of the c-word cards might- I did only say might- get started over the next few weeks.

2.How does my work differ to others in my genre?

 Really don't know how to answer this one- I'm not even sure if it is very different. I don't really enjoy colouring, not having much confidence in my colouring ability, so I tend to create coloured backgrounds that I can stamp onto, rather than images that need to have elements coloured in. Far from finding colouring relaxing, I find it stressful, usually because I can't recreate what I can see in my head.
 I love the Stampscapes line of stamps, and was fortunate to be one of the first Design Team on Craft A Scene, a challenge blog for scenic stamping. Thats something else I have to do, a whole list of Kevin Nakagawa's Stampscapes tutorials on You Tube to watch!

3. Why do I create what I do?

These are not easy questions, when you actually start thinking about the answers!
 Occasionally it will be because someone has commissioned a card from me, I do get a number of requests from work colleagues. Often I will want to use a certain stamp, (you would not believe how many I have that have never seen ink), sometimes to try out a technique or CASE something I've seen on Pinterest, When I do CASE, I try to re-create a design, but by using stamps I have that will work, rather than the ones in the inspiration piece. I create because its usually relaxing, and for the sheer enjoyment of it. If I'm not enjoying it, I put it aside. I've made so many great friends through this hobby, that alone would be good enough reason to keep doing it.

4.How does my creative process work?

Darned if I know, lol. Seriously,it might be the stamp that provides the inspiration, it may be something I've seen on Pinterest thats given me an idea.I have so many things pinned on Pinterest,it'd take me half a dozen lifetimes to get through them all.It may be a technique I've seen on someones blog that gets my interest. Sometimes its the  'I wonder what would happen if?' train of thought that will start me off.It may be a card thats been requested- in which case I try to have a pretty clear image of the end product in my head before I start.
 It all comes back to the enjoyment-if its not fun/interesting I put it away.

 Well, thats me, in a nutshell. I will apologise here and now to anyone who visits, that I won't be able to visit back, until at least the weekend.  Tuesday I am being admitted for my first round of surgery on Wednesday morning, and all being well I will be home on Saturday. Whether I will be up to sitting at my PC and blogging is another matter. It may well be next week, so thank you in advance to everyone who does visit and leave me comments, I really appreciate it.
So now to introduce you to my nominees. I apologise for only having two, as my third could not do it, and I felt it was a little late by then to spring it on someone else.
 My first nominee is Maggie, Silvercrafter. , although I know her as Marg. Those of you who know us through WOYWW will know that Marg and I are co- Mothers in Law, Margs daughter being married to my eldest son. I suppose it is unusual for in laws, we are very, very good friends and have known each other for more than 20 years. My Beloved Hubby does all her IT too,lol. Here is Margs bio:

Hello to all of you.  My name is Margaret, but in my crafty life I am more often known as Maggie (Silvercrafter).  I have lived most of my life in Redditch in Worcestershire, just south of Birmingham.

I have always done some form of crafting, starting with embroidery in junior school, knitting, crochet and dressmaking.  As a child I loved drawing and colouring, but I was put off that in high school, where I had to paint thick poster paint all over my little intricate pencil drawings and basically told I was rubbish at art.

My next craft was cross stitch, taken up because it allowed me to do something whilst having to keep my head still during a severe attack of vertigo.  That was the start of my first real SABLE - Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy.  Going round the craft shows at the NEC, I said “I will never get involved in stamping, what is the point of that?”

Paper crafting came around when our son asked me to do his wedding stationary in 2006.  I had been doing some digital card making when I could not find the cards I needed, so it was off to buy loads of cream cards and envelopes and masses of peel offs, which was what they wanted.  In my enthusiasm, I forgot that you do not need one invitation per person, but for each couple or family.  I was left with a huge box of cream cards and gold peel offs.  I had enough Thank You’s to stock the NEC, so had to do something to use them up, which meant buying some new stuff to go with them.  You know exactly what happened after that!  Oh yes, I now have a huge stash, or should I say a SABLE?

I did a lot of decoupage, creating some of them myself from photos.  I started watching the craft on a Tuesday afternoon on QVC, then found Create and Craft.  I soon learned that the wonderful kits usually left me with a load of stuff I would never use.  Then, it happened!!  I first saw a very clever lady who could create fantastic designs and scenes with a couple of see through stamps and pieces of torn paper.  Forget this business of never doing stamping!  Barbara had me totally hooked.  Even my husband, who was very artistic too, would sit down and watch her programmes and he always tried to work out who had done which sample before we were told.  He encouraged me (not that I needed much encouragement) to follow Barbara and buy some of her stamps . He probably never really knew just how many I acquired.

I still use my computer to supply images I have no stamp for, either drawing and printing images myself to then add the Clarity stamps to, or using ready made digi stamps.  Over the last couple of years I have gone back to drawing.  These days, I scan my drawings and print them out to colour in. That way, I protect my originals and I don’t worry about losing them or messing them up.

 

My second nominee is another WOYWWer- Chris, AKA Bishopsmate, with her blog Cardius Bloggus.  The first time I spoke to Chris, I asked her if she was a fellow Monty Python fan- she asked why I thought that, and I replied her blog title made me think of Biggus Dickus (Life of Brian), and I'm rolling about laughing at that again right now!

Hello there! My Blog – Cardius Bloggus – started as a secondary Blog to record my card making exploits and only card making. I don’t think I detracted from that, well ... not much anyway! The name was invented by my DH, Peter, I pick his brain sometimes cos he always thinks outside the box.
I have a very busy lifestyle as I am first a gardener and then a crafter. I have spent most of my life being both but I could not tell you which I prefer.
My cardmaking days began when I called myself a cross stitcher as that was my main hobby, ending up stitching squares for the Yahoo Group Quilts for Breast Cancer. Then I made a couple of cards using cross stitch kits, a few recycled items and then ... started the fatal thing of buying!!!
I have recently been introduced to ATCs and ... they are sooo addictive ...I love creating them and trying out so many different techniques small size so I needed a third Blog – ATC Wannabee. Now my retirement from paid employment is very busy and it seems that I am always trying to catch up
somewhere!!
Thank you Shaz for inviting me to join in this Blog Hop, I loved watching you create at the last WOYWW crop and I am fascinated by your work. I am looking forward to meeting up again next year, if not before!!

Please go visit these very creative ladies when they do their posts next Monday(15th).