From the chaos!

By the end of last night's creating, I had to work leaning on an ArtBin, on my lap. That was how bad my desk was! I only made two cards too, but struggled with them both so that's why I made such a mess!

These are both for Kristina Werner's photo inspiration challenge on the Simon Says Stamps blog. She has an adorable cat called Mannie who pops up occasionally in her videos. The photo she chose really showcased Mannie's eyes, the shape of which inspired this...

See how the leaves are kind of cat's eye shapes? I wasn't actually that pleased with this as I messed up the masking on the right hand side by throwing my usual background stamp technique out of the window and just stamping. Error! I also wasn't thrilled with the colours somehow. So... I made this:

That stapler is getting some love! Another reason I made another card was because the challenge suggested using Basic Grey things. Well, neither of my two BG things quite fit the colour brief, so I decided to stretch it a bit and think about my gorgeous cat who lives with my parents in Lancaster, UK. Gobo is 19 years old (human years!) and we didn't think he'd survive the flight over here. I miss him - a cat makes a house into a home in my opinion. Jacob asks me about twice a week for a cat too... but our lease doesn't permit pets as the previous tenant adopted loads of cats and let them loose in the HVAC system. It didn't end well. Anyway! Gobo is a white cat with splodges like Mannie, except that Gobo's patches are tabby. The brown bits of the tabby splodges are made up of individual furs which are stripy! So that was why I included the plaid part of the paper - the yellowy-gold part reminded me on Gobo's stripy fur. The green was Mannie's eyes, and the sunburst was an attempt to give the illusion of how the fur of a cat all seems to flow from the nose! There was a disaster with this card too, see if you can spot it.... This is BG Oxford by the way.

Feeling a lot better this week. Haven't made it to the gym but I have left the house etc. So there is progress! I also managed to make cookies today, and I got my hair cut. If you know me personally, you'll know I absolutely HATE going to the hairdresser so that was a major achievement!

I just booked Disney tickets for our Floridian odyssey! Yay! Apart from I think my bank card might have melted. They are seriously pricey!

Finally - and this is FANTASTIC news - I toughened up today and put Leo in his cot for nap AND at Jacob's bed time. Usually he locks me to the sofa by lying along side me and snuggling my leg, which is lovely, but a little frustrating and unproductive. So he cried it out at lunchtime and then this evening it only took two cycles of "popping in". Brill! I think having things a bit more routiney will help me get jobs done and make plans with people. Getting out of the house is key!