I haven’t been able to cross stitch as much as usual this year, but amazingly I did manage to get a few birthday cards out. My friend’s daughter who turned two in April had to make do with a card from Moonpig but I have managed to stitch and send out a total of 6 cards so far this year! This post will feature three of them for birthdays up to July – there should have been a fourth but I apparently didn’t take a photo of it (and now I’m questioning whether I actually stitched it at all. I’m sure I sent one to my friend’s son but I have absolutely no memory of what I actually stitched…).
Card number one was for my grandma. Her birthday is in January but the image I chose feels very autumny. I just thought it was cute, okay?
Next is a friend’s daughter, who turned 2 in June. I chose a cat for her. It’s quite pink!
Finally, another friend’s son turned 1 on 1st July. I love this panda bearing a gift! I’ve previously stitched another panda from the same set – that one was holding a cake.
I have just posted my brother’s card for his 16th birthday on 1st September and am working on the next birthday card. After that it will be time to start turning my attention to Christmas. This year is going way too fast!
Hello friends! Kristen isn’t hosting her link up this month because she has too much going on, but I wanted to write a recap anyway because I like having them to look back on.
So, October…
Switzerland decided to allow large events with up to 1000 people – including allowing crowds at football matches – from 1st October even though coronavirus cases had been steadily creeping up throughout September. So we started October with an average of around 300 new cases per day and ended it with around 7000 cases per day… a fact which surprised absolutely nobody except, apparently, the Swiss Government. It took until 28th October for them to finally hold a press conference and introduce stricter measures (although individual cantons had introduced their own stricter measures before that). Those “stricter measures” ended up being masks to be worn in all public buildings (shops, museums, etc.), night clubs to close, bars and restaurants only allowed 4 people per table and have to close at 11 p.m., a maximum of 10 people allowed to get together, events back down to a maximum of 50 people, stricter rules for contact sport and choirs, and universities had to switch to virtual classes. That’s it. While the rest of Europe went into some kind of lockdown or “lockdown light”, Switzerland’s shops remain open, many employers still insist on everyone coming into the office (even if they could theoretically work from home) and plenty of people are continuing to go to bars and restaurants as normal. Yay Switzerland!
Four days before the new measures were announced, one of Jan’s choirs had a concert. In the days leading up to it a few cantons introduced measures banning choirs from singing, but Basel wasn’t one of them. So the concert went ahead – with a live stream as an option for those who didn’t want to risk actually going to the event. Obviously I had to physically be there and show my support though. I had a ticket for row 9, which was the first row – all the seats from rows 1-8 had been removed, so there was a huge distance between the audience and the choir. Before entering the building everyone was asked to keep their distance from other people and wear a mask, and the entire audience had to wear masks throughout the performance as well – although I was disappointed that they hadn’t separated the seats so different groups were still sitting right next to each other. Luckily there was an empty seat on one side of me, so I made sure to face in that direction throughout the entire concert (I faced the front/towards the choir, of course, but at the same time looked towards my right if you get what I mean?). A friend of ours had a ticket but chose to stay home and watch the live stream.
Apart from the supermarket, the fertility clinic and my weekly walks, the day of the concert was the only time I properly left the house and went among people in October. Knowing the new measures were coming in 4 days, I went into town on the day of the concert to try and pick up a few Christmas presents while it was still possible. I also stocked up on craft supplies for all the Christmas cards I have to make.
Speaking of crafting, I finished making all my Halloween cards to send to post Pals families and got them posted out, then I started on Christmas crafts. Post Pals is having an auction soon to raise money so I made some things for that (cards and felt Christmas tree ornaments), made a start on my own Christmas cards and also stitched a birthday card for my little cousin in New Zealand.
A friend of Jan’s who he knows from choirs has been staying with her boyfriend throughout the pandemic and she was struggling because she couldn’t concentrate on her studies. He lives in a shared flat and someone was always around making noise, etc., so Jan offered for her to come to our place to work (don’t worry – he did ask me first whether it would be okay!). Since we moved our dining table into the spare room back in March to make an office for Jan, we had to fetch the other table in from the balcony – it’s technically also a dining table, but since we don’t have balcony furniture it usually lives out there. It looks exactly the way you would expect from something that’s been out in the weather, so I decided to buy a tablecloth for it. When I asked Jan what he thought his response was “It’s a tablecloth” but whatever, I like it! (And it was reduced to about a third of the usual price, so bonus.) It’s kind of big but I’m hoping to one day get a nicer and possibly slightly larger table that it will fit better.
So now that table/room is in use a few days a week. It’s all very coronavirus restriction-compliant – she has a mask on when she comes in and we stand apart from each other (no hugging!), she gets the dining room area all to herself (Jan and I each have separate “offices” to work in), she brings her own water bottle and if she has a cup of tea or coffee she places the cup in the dishwasher herself. And of course we have plenty of soap and disinfectant for hand cleaning. It’s probably safer than some actual workplaces!
At the end of the month I went on my usual autumn walk along a nearby stream, as I have every year since we moved here. Despite the lovely sunshine I saw precisely one person, sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette. The photos for that will be up soon once I get around to sorting and resizing them.
Apart from that I read – although not as much as usual – and we watched Richard Osman’s House of Games regularly. I also persuaded Jan to watch Heathers with me on Halloween. He didn’t seem impressed, but oh well. I still like it. It’s better than some of the crap he’s made me watch (*cough* Indiana Jones *cough*).
And that’s all I want to tell you today. The days are getting shorter and shorter and cases of coronavirus are higher than ever (over 10,000 on two days last week!) so I will most likely be leaving the house even less in November, but we’ll see what I manage to report next month. Until then stay safe and keep smiling!
And just like that September is over! I feel like it’s flown by, even though I didn’t actually do anything. Seriously, I have no idea what I’m even going to write in this post! Obviously I did not manage to find the time or energy to blog… sorry about that. I didn’t mean to promise holiday photos and then disappear for a month. I will try to get something up soon. But today it’s the first Thursday of the month so I’m going to give you a recap, even though the What’s New With You link up doesn’t seem to be up yet. I hope everything is okay with Kristen!
So what is new with me? Honestly, nothing much. In September I read a lot – a total of 18 books, or I read 17 and listened to 1 if you want to be precise. I cross stitched a lot. My godson turned 8, which is scary. Surely he’s still a toddler? I made Halloween cards to send to Post Pals children (I still have another 10 left to do!).
I watched Richard Osman’s House of Games almost every week night – except when they moved it because of stupid athletics. On Tuesday I went to the office in Germany for the first time since March because a colleague was leaving and I wanted to see her one more time and say goodbye. It was fine. The trains weren’t too full – the one on the way back was more full than on the way there, but not to the extent of people standing in the corridors, crammed in like sardines (I specifically took an earlier train home because my usual train one is of the sardine variety).
I had to have more blood tests to rule out certain things after every attempt at IVF so far has either failed entirely or ended in miscarriage. When I first had it done back in July one value came back high so the tests had to be repeated. This time all was normal though, which means I don’t have to inject myself with blood thinners every day if I ever do get pregnant again (yay!) but also means we’re back to having no real explanation for why things aren’t working (boo!). I guess most people would give up at this point and say the universe doesn’t want them to be a mother, but we have two embryos left and I have every intention of using them!
I am continuing to going for walks once a week, even if it’s raining. Most of September’s weren’t too exciting though – I just went into town and stopped by the free public bookcase to drop off some books. One Sunday Jan came with me and we went for a walk in the woods, stopping to say hi to the horses.
Switzerland added the UK to its quarantine list, but it doesn’t matter because Switzerland was already on the UK’s quarantine list so I couldn’t have gone there anyway. It’s lucky we spent last Christmas in England since who knows when I will be able to see my family again? Germany added some parts of Switzerland to its list of risk countries, but Basel is currently okay. Cantons Geneva, Vaud and Fribourg are currently on the list.
And on a non-September related note, my brother turns 30 tomorrow (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!), which makes me feel ancient! So annoying that stupid covid means I don’t get to celebrate with him.
Hello friends! It’s time for my monthly recap. I’m linking up with Kristen for “What’s new with you?” – although I expect my answer is the same as most of yours, namely some form of lockdown. Nonetheless let me start at the beginning of the month, when life was still relatively normal.
1st March was Jan’s 40th birthday. He’s didn’t want a proper celebration but there were gifts and I made malted chocolate cake. We walked into town and had a coffee then in the evening we ate at one of the few restaurants in Basel that’s actually open on a Sunday. At that point Basel carnival, which was to have started at 4 am the next morning had been cancelled a few days earlier (along with other events with over 1,000 participants) but there was no indication yet of how much worse things were going to get. We briefly spoke to the staff about the situation and they were mainly worried about what they were going to do with the extra food and beer they had bought.
The Friday after that I went into the office in Germany, then on Wednesday 11th June we were supposed to take a night train to Vienna and then continue on to Poland. After having mild cold symptoms starting on the Monday I woke up that day feeling much worse and called in sick to work. That day Poland also announced the closure of all museums, galleries, libraries, etc. Right up until I was supposed to leave for Zurich I was debating whether to risk travelling, but when I read that Poland were conducting health checks at the borders I decided not to – also because I really didn’t feel up to spending 10 hours on a night train just to have to turn back. My temperature was higher than normal (when you’re infertile you get to know your normal temperature very well!) but never higher than 37.3ºC (a fever would be 38ºC). The next day I read that the Czech Republic – which our train would have passed through – had closed its borders for non-Czechs. Jan cancelled his holiday and worked from home on the Thursday then went into the office on Friday while I went to the doctors on the Thursday (who agreed I had nothing more than a cold) and got a doctor’s note for two days, which meant I got those 2 days of holiday back. I kept my holiday for the following week though since part of it was days I needed to use by the end of March anyway.
My family decided to still fly to Poland on the Friday since their flight wasn’t cancelled. An hour after they arrived the Polish government announced that bars and restaurants would close and there were also plans to close tge borders. Any foreigners still in the country at midnight on Sunday would have to go into quarantine. So on the Saturday MY family headed to the airport and were initially put on standby for the lsst flight out that day. Ryanair then announced two rescue flights so they were taken off the standby list to be placed on a rescue flight only for the employee to realise the flight was already full and put them on standby again. For a rescue flight where anyone who had managed to get a place was in the actual airport. So how exactly could there be standby places? Anyway, they also booked a place on a bus to Berlin for the next morning only Flixbus to also cancel all bus services to and from Poland. After hanging out at the airport all day they were finally told all flights had gonr and they should leave the airport. Luckily they were able to go back to the apartment they had booked! They had also managed to find a taxi driver who was willing to take them to Berlin and booked new flights from there. The next day there was briefly talk of them being dropped at the border between Poland and Frankfurt an der Oder then walking into Germany and taking a train to Berlin but the taxi driver then decided he would drive them all the way (good people are out there! I hope he’s got back into Poland without issues!). After a night in a hotel in Berlin, my family caught their flight to Düsseldorf and transfer to Newcastle without issues. In the meantime Germany had closed its borders with Austria and Switzerland but flights to the UK were unaffected at that stage.
Meanwhile, here in Switzerland, my canton (Basel-Landschaft) became the first to announce that all bars and restaurants and all shops except pharmacies and supermarkets had to close. The national government then announced on the Monday that the rest of Switzerland had follow suit. I was supposed to have a dentist’s appointment in March but it was postponed until May! Emergency treatment only (no pain = no emergency) and that dentist isn’t actually able to open at all – only designated emergency dentists can see patients for urgent cases.
I spent my week off work mainly making Easter cards for PostPals – with no idea how long the postal service would continue functioning or what delays there may end up being I wanted them all out as soon as possible. I also managed a bit of reading (but less than I would have liked). And I copied all the necessary documents and sent off the form to renew my residence permit. Who knows when it will actually be processed now though! Jan’s work announced that anyone who could work from home should, so on the Monday he got a car and went to Zurich to fetch all the equipment he would need and then set up the spare room and has been working from there ever since. For most of that week the furthest I went was the post box (probably 3 minutes away) and a single trip to the supermarket (approx. 5-7 minutes walk), but on I think the Wednesday I had to take a tram to near the train station to pick up a prescription – I have a repeat prescription at the chemist next to my doctor’s surgery (the ones for IVF stuff are near the fertility clinic but I obviously won’t be needing any of that for a while!). The tram was basically empty but there were about 10 people at the pharmacy (queuing out the door since they had to keep their distance and there was a system in one place where you entered through one door and left through the other).
Weirdly, during that week it was the one year anniversary of my due date. So if things hadn’t gone wrong I would have had two 1-year-olds now and been returning from maternity leave in the middle of this pandemic. Not sure how I feel about that. It’s weird. However, I will say that I am sick of people either making “hilarious” jokes about a baby boom in nine months or complaining about being at home with their children – and I get that it’s hard being stuck inside and struggling to entertain them while the whole world seems to be collapsing, but those aren’t the complaints I mean. If you’ve seen them you’ll know.
Anyway… I went back to work on the 23rd and discovered that by then all my colleagues were working from home. Luckily that’s always an option so everyone already had everything set up. I also found out the company would be applying for “short term working” at some point and on the Friday my boss spoke to everyone via a Skype call and explained that they would be applying from 1st April and exactly how it would work, although I later learned they can’t apply for me. Luckily I’ve had plenty of work so far – currently I have enough to last until the end of Monday and I also have 24 hours of overtime I can use. That week (which was last week) I went out twice – to the supermarket on Thursday where I bought enough for a week and Jan and I went for a walk on the Saturday. As soon as we reached the field we wanted to walk around I felt guilty for adding to the masses – I’ve never seen so many people there!
And that pretty much brings us to the end of March. The one other thing I have to mention is that I called the fertility clinic on Friday only to be met with an answering machine message stating they are closed and all current and future treatment is cancelled until further notice. I was expecting it but it’s still a bit of a blow. Who knows when we will be able to try another transfer now? I don’t expect it to happen before the summer anyway.
Let’s end this with something good… on the last day of the month I received mail that I didn’t remember ordering. It turned out to be a colouring book from my good friend Naomi with the message to make it pretty while stuck indoors. I know her in real life (from school!) but she has a blog, which you can read here.
And so endeth the first of my lockdown diaries.
How have you been keeping yourself occupied at home? Or are you one of those that still has to go out for work? (In which case THANK YOU for ensuring that society keeps running, and if you work in care of the health service for looking after those in need. I for one appreciate your efforts).
One more thing – don’t forget check out the link up!
It seems like an odd time to be writing a “normal” post, but on the other hand I feel like a bit of normalcy and lightheartedness is something we all need right now. And with everyone stuck in doors it seems like the perfect time for a post about crafts. No need to leave the house to make cards!
When Jan’s choir has concerts, he often brings home advertising postcards that he’s supposed to leave in various places. Last year, after the concert, he had a big stack that he planned to throw away. I noticed that the image was an indistinguishable pink circle, so I asked if I could have them for crafting rather than wasting so much paper. Later in the year, he had another concert and I claimed the leftover postcards from that as well.
Here are the adverts in question (I removed the names of the choirs because some privacy has to be allowed!):
And some of the cards I made from them:
Of course, not everyone has a regular supply of advertising material with pretty backgrounds coming in, but there are plenty of other things you can recycle for cards. Take a look at these two Easter cards:
The blue egg with the flowers was made using the backing cardboard from a packet of stickers and the pretty patterned orange one is from a teabag box. (Random aside: Pukka teas have the prettiest boxes!).
So while we’re all stuck indoors, go forth, see what pretty packaging you can find in your house and make some cards! You can even post them if you’re out anyway, fetching groceries or medicine – I’m sure your family and friends will be very glad to receive some happy mail while we all try to stay safe, at home, away from our loved ones.
On Saturday I took part in another photo an hour, hosted by Louisa and Jane. I live posted my photos to Twitter on the day, so some of you may have seen them, but I like to do a write up on my blog as well because it’s fun to look back on how I spent a random day in the past.
9:30 a.m. Yes, this is earlier than I’m normally up on a Saturday! Thought I’d better at least have breakfast with Jan since he had choir practice for almost the entire weekend.
10:30 a.m. Time for a shower.
11:30 a.m. Cross stitching… or backstitching really at this point. You may think it’s too early for Christmas but this is the only way I can possibly get everything done.
12:30 p.m. As Jan was leaving he informed me that we were out of dishwasher tabs so I headed out to buy some plus food for my lunch.
1:30 p.m. Making a start on Halloween cards… I have about 40 to make for Post Pals!
2:30 p.m. With quiet time over I did a bit of hoovering to clean up some washing powder I had spilled.
3:30 p.m. Back to Halloween cards.
4:30 p.m. Snack time! Apple, feta cheese and pecan nuts. (This is a perfectly normal, tasty combination… not a pregnancy craving!).
5:30 p.m. Cutting more shapes for card-making… Halloween and other.
6:30 p.m. I made a birthday card! Still deciding whether to add anything else.
7:30 p.m. With tea (baked potatoes) in the oven I settled down to write a letter.
8:30 p.m. Food demolished, deciding which letter to reply to next. Sadly the pile still hasn’t reduced by much.
9:30 p.m. Choosing a book to read in bed. This is just part of my to-read shelves!
10:30 p.m. Final photo of the day… Eeyore says goodnight.
How was your Saturday? Did you get up to much?
And on an entirely unrelated note I final joined Instagram just before starting this post. I have no idea what I’m doing but feel free to add me… user name confuzzledom.
Hello friends! I am writing this introduction before work (I did the rest of the post yesterday so it was almost ready to go). In a few minutes, the washing machine will be finished and I can go and get my clothes… I finally managed to do laundry after getting up extra early yesterday only to find the machine in use. I have no idea which neighbour had stolen it since clearly my name was on the sign-up sheet. (Well, technically Jan’s but same thing). Roll on the day that I have my own washing machine! So now I’ve been up extra early two days in a row, and tomorrow I have to be up even earlier since it’s my Friday to be in the office. Whinge, whine, complain, etc. Anyway, it’s the first Thursday of another month and that means it’s time to link up with Kristen and Gretch for What’s New With You? Here’s what I got up to in March.
Eating. All the bad things. Honestly, you don’t even want to know how much sugar I consumed! Other than that, I was trying to eat fish twice a week in March but I only actually succeeded on two weeks of the month.
Drinking. Way too much (normal, i.e. black) tea. I really need to cut down on my caffeine consumption!
Reading. I will tell you all the books I read next week, but I feel like I can’t mention often enough that I actually finished Anna Karenina!
Watching. We actually watched a lot in March… way more than usual. Jan kept wanting to watch films, so we ended up watching A League of Their Own (one of my favourites but he had never seen it!), In Bruges, The Imitation Game… I feel like we watched another film but I don’t remember what it was. We’ve also been watching Young Sheldon. We still have last week’s to watch though, since Jan was away. Hopefully it recorded… I forgot to check.
Celebrating. Jan’s birthday. Well, he never wants to celebrate properly but I have him gifts and bought a little cake for us to eat after dinner.
Making. Birthday cards for Post Pals children, as always. Side note: the balloon dies I used for the card below may just turn out to be my best purchase of the year. So useful!
Cross stitching. A card for a Post Pals child.
Buying. What did I buy, apart from books, which is too obvious to mention? Stickers. Washi tape. Oh, I bought a yoga mat. Not that I plan to take up yoga, but Jillian Michaels’ DVD has parts where you have to lie on the floor and I’m hoping the mat will be more comfortable than our living room rug. I’ve had the thing for 2 weeks and haven’t actually tried it out yet.
Booking. My first ever Airbnb. I mean, I’ve stayed in Airbnbs before, but it was never me organising them. This one is for us to stay in when we go to my cousin’s confirmation near Munich in May.
Burning. A candle called Rainy Day Reads. The scent is supposed to be Fresh rain, ginger, lavender. I have no idea what fresh rain is supposed to smell like. I mean, it’s basically water so doesn’t it depend on where it falls/what’s in the air at the time? (The candle smells good though.)
Seeing/hearing. Jan perform with one of his choirs… the same one he is currently on a trip with. It was an interesting program and they performed one of the songs I like best. Plus I got to go for pizza with them all afterwards, so that was cool.
That’s it. If I did anything else this month I don’t remember it. And the part of Easter weekend that was in March I pretty much spent spring cleaning my flat. So… what did you get up to in March? I hope you had a good one. Go check out the link up to see what everyone else got up to in March (and add your link, if you feel that way inclined).
Hello my lovelies! Well, here we are… the first month of 2018 done. January was a relatively quiet one for me, but that was what I wanted after being so busy in December. Today is the first Thursday of the new month, so of course I am linking up with Kristen and Gretch for What’s New With You? (Although the answer to that is nothing, really). Here’s what I got up to in January:
Reading. First, I completed Erin’s book challenge. I then read a few other books and, thanks to being in the office yesterday (=looong train ride), I actually finished On The Road. Yay me! I will tell you about my reading in detail on Show Us Your Books day.
Watching. Jan got The Big Bang Theory season 10 and Arrival DVDs for Christmas from my family so we watched them. Also, a Facebook contact from high school reminded me of the existence of Pushing Daisies… my dad showed me the first episode years ago and I always meant to watch it. So I asked Jan whether he would watch it with me and he agreed. We watched our way through all of Season 1 within a week, so now I need Season 2!
Eating. The month started off as a continuation of December… well, I had to finish the Christmas chocolate, right? But after the first week I was back at work so I decided it was time to try to be healthy again. There was a lot of soup/broth. But then we were trying to use up some vouchers from a booklet we had (it expired yesterday) so we ate out way too often and on two of those occasions I had dessert. So yeah.. not a good eating month.
Drinking. Tea. Probably too much if I’m honest. I need to cut down on my caffeine again!
Celebrating. A Basel friend’s birthday. We went for dinner at a Turkish restaurant then to some bars.
Making. Birthday cards for Post Pals children and also one for my grandma. And I’ve just realised I forgot to take a photo of the one I made for my grandma…
Cross stitching. Cards for Post Pals children – now that Christmas is over I’ve returned to my mission of a cross-stitched card for every child. I managed to get two out in January.
Playing. Jan’s colleague invited us over one Saturday to play and escape game that he got for Christmas. Like an escape room, but in table-top form. It was cool, but relatively easy. And I still want to do a real escape room even though I expect to suck at it.
Burning. Yeah, weird category. I found candles that were Swizzles sweet (candy) themed online and could not resist ordering them! The scents are supposed to be Lovehearts, Refreshers, Drumstick Lollies. The Lovehearts ones are rose scented, which is not what a Loveheart smells like! Refreshers smells kind of lemon sherbet-ish, which kind of works. As for the Drumstick Lolly one… the actual wax just is Drumstick Lolly. When burning it mostly just smells like any other red fruit scented candle – sort of sweet and not really like anything – but occasionally I will get a waft that smells exactly like Drumstick Lollies.
Buying. Apart from too many books? I bought a fox necklace from Etsy and I looove it. It came from this shop, if you’re interested. I’m sure bought other stuff as well, but I can’t remember it. Huh.
I’m linking up with Kristen and Gretch, of course.
Happy February everyone! What’s new with you?
I recently received more cutting dies that I had ordered and, still being excited by a new hobby, I decided I wanted to test some of them out. That led to a bit of a card-making session, some of which have already been sent off as birthday cards for Post Pals children. Others haven’t found a use yet. Here they are:
The princess castle isn’t stuck on straight. Grr! Unfortunately the glue had set before I realised. Also, I coloured in the flags but I’m not sure whether it would have been better to just leave them as they were. Oh well. That one has already gone off to a girl who, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, is turning 7.
I absolutely love the balloon jar and am already imagining other things I could put inside a jar. I’m not sure about the positioning of the writing though. I still have that card currently, but I’m sure I’ll find a use for it soon.
You might recognise the Happy Birthday shape and the felt butterflies from this card. The frame die cut is new. I quite like how this turned out. It’s simple, but I think it’s pretty. I still have that one at present but I think I know who’s going to get it.
Finally, for the football card, I die cut the shape twice, once in white and once in black, then used the black “negative” pieces to fill in the white outline, resulting in an inverted football. I’m not sure why I did it that way round first? I still have the black outline and white pieces so I can make a normal football. A lot of the Post Pals boys like football so I have a feeling this die will be getting quite a bit of use! The little footballs are stickers and the sentiment came free with a magazine. That card is already on its way to a Post Pal’s sibling.
I cut out a few other shapes, including a giraffe and some unicorns, but I haven’t done anything with them yet. Perhaps you’ll see them on a future card.
I think I’m going to need some more practice before I learn the most effective way to use die cuts on my cards! Not that these ones are bad necessarily, but I feel like I could make much better use of the shapes. Any die-cutting experts want to weight in with advice? I’m all ears (well, eyes… you know what I mean).
What do you think of these cards? Not bad for a die-cutting beginner, right?
This probably won’t be exciting to anyone but me, but I shall tell you about it anyway.
I got a die cutter for Christmas – specifically the Big Shot foldaway – and after having a bit of a play with the shapes that came with it, I have been very much looking forward to making some actual cards with it. My opportunity came this week. I am determined to keep being involved with Post Pals* this year, and one girl who likes butterflies has a birthday coming up.
I cut out the red butterflies using a die that a penpal sent me. The yellow butterflies are felt ones I bought ages ago, the flowers are stickers, and the “Happy Birthday” was cut using a die I purchased.
I can’t wait until I’ve built up my die collection some more and can (hopefully) make better, more complicated cards.
* In case you’ve missed all my previous references to it, here is my explanation of what Post Pals is all about and here is a link to their website where you can read all about them in their own words and maybe even pick a pal to write to. Apparently January and February are the slowest months for mail, so if you do want to brighten a sick child’s day now would be the perfect time!
Confuzzledom 