Card making heaven!
One of my hobbies is making things, anything really. From once in a lifetime things like making my own guitar through to simple things like making a friend a Birthday card.
Since we emigrated I feel that I have to put effort in not to let my friendships in the UK and Ireland fizzle out. It can be hard with the time difference to find a good time to pick up the phone where both people are awake and not rushing to do the school run or falling into bed at the end of a busy day. One of the things that helps is using birthdays as a chance to keep in touch. Thank God for Google calendar and it's "repeat annually" function that keeps my current calendar up to date!
A few years ago I started to make my own Birthday cards. I made a huge mess and took hours to produce a very average card but I had fun and persevered. When I found myself returning to work as a Nurse time became even more precious a commodity and I found that there were a lot of panic trips to the local shop to buy shop bought cards and get them in the post where they invariably arrived late.
Last year I took advantage of the January school holidays where I took annual leave to care for the kids at home. I decided that we would have a day of card making (whether they liked it or not!) I let them drift away from the table after a couple of creations and then made a hell of a mess for the rest of the day and blamed the kids when Byron walked in the door from work 8 hours later! It was great as a birthday approached to know that I had a card on standby but I underestimated the number I would need and ran out by June. Luckily the kids had another school holiday in July. Guess what activity I planned for them? Lucky kids!
This year I made a list. Don't you just love lists? They give me a smug sense of control as I write them and then I promptly lose them! This list had every birthday, anniversary, Fathers day and Mothers day on it. I counted and realised that I needed just over 100 cards. I had two choices. Tell my friends to stuff the friendship or neglect my kids and husband for a few days and lock myself in the spare room and have some fun covering the floor in gems, sticky tape and off-cuts of paper.
The kids survived. Byron did a marvellous job making meals out of tinned beans, cereal and chocolate biscuits! I have a trashed spare room but a carpet covered in cards of every shape and colour imaginable. Byron thinks I have saved him a small fortune compared to buying 100 shop bought cards. What he doesn't know is that I plan on spending a small fortune in the stationary supply shop "replenishing" my craft cupboard for next year!
Time out this week blissfully crafting and now a shopping spree on the agenda for next week.
Life is good!
Such a cool thing to do! I am so totally envious of your creativity!!
I think it is great that you have done this for all your friends and family .... so meaningful ♥
I'm impressed...really! That is quite good...and I love the little shoes on the visible card. They are so very cha-cha. :)
Thankyou from one of those people who has received one of those lovely cards. You really are a "superwoman!" Looking forward to catching up soon xxx