Happy Digital New Year!

Hi everyone and welcome to 2011.

There has been a bit of a gap since my last post, Christmas has been and gone (I had a really lovely Christmas and New Year), the long break from work is over and it's back to the grindstone for us all!

I have spent the last 3 weeks re-organising my craft space and rooting through my stash to make good use of what I already have. My friends and family were very sweet and thoughtful at Christmas and I got lots of new craft goodies.

Just before Christmas I bought a new HP printer to replace the Kodak (I cannot write the words I want to about the Kodak, as they would be too rude! Let's just say after it spat COGS at me, its days were numbered!). The main reason I bought the new printer was because I started to find digital stamps and papers that I really wanted to use. The printer has lived up to my expectations and helped a great deal with the Thank You cards I wanted to make for Hubby and I to use to say thanks for our Christmas gifts - hence today's picture.

One of my best friends - Nkem, bought me a beautiful ReproDepot pattern book - it is absolutely stunning and perfect for me, as I love fabric and have often wondered how the beautiful fabrics I work with could be used as backing papers. Today's pic incorporates a digital stamp from Bugaboo and one of the papers from the ReproDepot book, I coloured the bird using Promarkers and Stickles. I think they are fab - so fab in fact I entered a competition! So fingers crossed.

I have been investigating digital papers and stamps and I have come across some fantastic things - FunkyHand is fantastic and I have bought a couple of things from their site, Bugaboo do some really beautiful stamps and I bought some lovely new baby digital stamps from Pink Petticoat. I have also been paying a bit more attention to magazines with free disks - I bought Complete Cardmaking issue 27 and that came with some lovely items that I have been using on all different things. I don't think I have fully investigated the disk, so I am sure there are still things to be discovered.

One of the things I have been doing is only printing A6 size papers - this way I get 4 different papers to a sheet of A4 and it means I can lots of things at once - without using lots of ink or wasting paper on a pattern I don't like!

As I decided before Christmas that I wasn't going to do any craft fairs until at least the Summer, I have been trying to decide what my outlet is going to be. I stumbled across this fantastic challenge blog - do you stack up? and it's so cool, I am going to enter the current challenge - Cute as a Button - you'll see my entry later in the week. It has been fun making a card for the challenge, as I have ventured into different territory using digital stamps, pens, glitter and peel offs.

I have been enjoying the no pressure crafting and have made lots of cards that use re-discovered items in my stash. Today's second pic shows the 1st birthday cards I have made (there were lots of new babies last year), these used papers and chipboards from the My Mind's Eye 'Bloom & Grow' collection - I had forgotten I had them, so I am pleased that I have finally gotten round to using them.

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