This weeks EART Team Blog ring's question is: "How do you manage to find time to create & be on an active Street Team & have a life offline? Share your tips!"

This is a difficult question. I try to stick to a timetable of checking emails, forums and blogs. And try to get to my desk to create for a few hours at a time. I hate when I oversleep (like today) because I feel like I have missed out on creating time.

On gym days I force myself to go to my desk by 10am to get a couple hours of work done. After lunch, I go to the grocery store and by the time I get back I only have an hour which I use for resting before heading out to the gym.

The one tip I would give is to leave your coffee/tea/water at your desk. If you need a caffeine hit - you have to go there for it!

Continue the blog ring at Hairbows Wonderworld

GIVEAWAY TIME

I can't remember when I had my last giveaway so here is one.

A set of 4 Handmade Christmas Gift Tags.
3.5" Circle tags with ribbon pretending to be trees, with even a ribbon hang tag.

THE RULES:
Anyone can enter from anywhere in the world.
Please make sure that you leave your email address or it is in your profile.

The question to enter this giveaway is:
What is your favorite item in my shop ?

For one entry: comment to this post
For a second entry: blog/tweet about this giveaway (comment with link)
For a third entry: purchase anything from pnkgeeni (one extra entry for each item purchased)

The giveaway ends on 10th November.

an interruption

Okay, so I haven't taken any photographs lately that I could put here.

Yesterday I had my very last portion of gluten in a soy latte from Starbucks. (The Starbucks over here use VitaSoy High Fibre which contains barley which is a form of gluten). That is it. No more gluten!

Ever!

I am finally fed up with all the aches and pains. A cookie isn't worth it. And if I can enjoy life more just by not eating a certain food group then great.

It's simple really. I was trying to hope that I could force my body to accept a small amount of gluten, but that is not working. My drink will now be a Long Black (black coffee) and it has less calories than a latte!!!

The world travellers are on their way back to Wellington right now, and will arrive by the OverLander tonight. I need to finish the last pieces of some presents and get them all hidden.

Going to have a little rest and then maybe some scrapbooking.

This weeks EART Blog Ring is about the favorite item in your shop.

Currently my favorites are these flower tags. The papers are just gorgeous and I can imagine how pretty they will look on a scrapbook page. I will be making more of these, hopefully soon.

Head on over to AWEshop to see the rest.

Christmas Presents

What can you do with a ticket shaped wood album, a couple binder rings, 3 sheets of cardstock and three sheets of double sided patterned paper?


My bro and his GF have spent the last 3 months traveling around Asia and Oz. They have been posting photographs on their blog, which I 'stole' to make this for them.

I chose to use this paper for the front page. Making sure that I didn't cut off New Zealand. I traced around the wood shape and cut it out. Then used double sided tape to stick it to the wood page and a piece of sanding paper to soften the edges.

The photographs are 3x2" (four on one sheet of 6x4 photo paper). Since they are from a blog, and not very large (size wise) And this way I could get a lot of photographs in the album without it taking all that long.

I love how the photographs from previous pages can still be seen. That is my bro in Asia. Tramping in one place, then on the beach in the next place.


On the (in above pic) blue piece of card on the right side. I covered with a 3x0.5" strip of patterned paper on both sides before using the Crop-o-dile to make the holes. This is to add some strength to the cardstock.


And this is it about 85% finished. All I had left over was some small pieces of cardstock and some patterned paper.

I have added some embellishments to this, from the freebies in the back of the KaiserCraft Q2 Magazine. And covered some blank spaces with the patterned paper. The cardstock will be used for the title. I'm thinking "Around the world Part One".

I'm not sure what else this album needs?
Doodling around the edges in black and white pen?

Any ideas or suggestions?

Ingredients:
KaiserCraft Long Ticket Album
KaiserCraft Pack Your Bags Patterned Paper
KaiserCraft Freebies from Q2 Magazine
KaiserCraft Ring Binders
Bazzill Basics Cardstock
Spellbinders Circle Die Cutter
Stamp and Ink (on back page)

Next Big Thing

I haven't had a giveaway for a long time, so thinking of having one soon. But what should the prize be??

Mini cards and envelopes...
Christmas Cards....
Scrap Paper.....
Only one dentist visit left! And these handmade Christmas presents I'm working on, are coming along great. I wish I could make more.....

Just a few little snapshots of new and old cards. I haven't made much lately as I've been trying to decide on what Christmas presents to make.
And I've been having dentist visits this month, which will completely end soon. But my teeth/gums are hurting slightly and still a little numb.

My lightbox has arrived so I will play with it tomorrow and get some more cards and tags listed.

For My Shop

What is the NEXT item you will be purchasing for your business?

A collapsible light box so I can take better photographs of my cards. And this may be a reality soon since I have had two sales this month already.

This is weird, for me to be so responsible and to choose something useful. Wanna see what the other EART members have picked? Start with Indigo Orchid Designs, and go round the rings of blog.

On Saturday, we went to a craft fair at Porirua and got a chance to make these elements. The one on the left was made by my Mom, and the other two are mine. I love when they are next to each other and you can see the differences. Mom's are all neat and tidy, while mine are a little messy.
We used chipboard pieces in three different ways on these. The blue heart is just covered in paper, with sanded edges. The pink heart 'frame' is inked, sprayed with (I think) Tattered Angels glimmer mist, then put through a Cuttlebug Embossing folder. The last piece, the pointy bit was covered in embossing powder, and heat embossed.

My Mom sewed this flower. I have seen a tutorial on how to do this, so I will try to find it and link to it. If you do a running stitch one side of a piece of ribbon, then pull it together to make a flower. A circle punched piece of paper finishes the flower.
And this is mine. Two bits of lace which act as a crown. The paper is from an old book. It was a copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel.



This was the second one I made. The heart didn't look right with the first thing I made, so I decided to make another with this heart.
I tried to age this scrapbook element. The edges have been inked, as have the ribbon/canvas fabric. I ripped the back paper and scrunched it up and swiped it with ink.
This one, I have already used on a layout. I will take a photograph of it later and hopefully I'll remember to post it.

Every day, on my to do list is 'blog post'. Yet, I rarely get one done.
Below are just a selection of cards....

A lovely close up of an origami card I specifically made for an consignment in America. There is a total of 12 cards on their way to the gallery.
Set of Christmas Cards that I made about a month ago.
Brand new! Created today are these Christmas custom tags!
These are new too, and I just love this photograph. Ten Christmas gift tags with hand stamped and colored trees.

Hopefully my next post will be sooner than next week.