My 500th post .....

... and if you're interested you can read my first one here, I started blogging in December 2007 to share my Journal Your Christmas pages and I love having a record of my creative pursuits. Over the years sometimes I've blogged lots and sometimes not much - but I'm comfortable with that.

I've made some wonderful new friends through my blog and am looking forward to crafting with some of them later in the year.

I'm catching up with a few challenges before the month finishes, so firstly

Stuck? March 15th sketch and this week's UKS challenge, which was to scrap about yourself including journalling and numbers. I got my hands on some cheap Studio Calico kits that were being sold for National Scrapbooking Day in May - always nice to have new goodies to play with!

And last week's UKS challenge - to scrap something that make you happy, use 3 colours, fabric and a flower.

The pages look like they were made with the same supplies but this is from an old Quirky Kit and Elle's Studio cards!

Words to live by ...

... another weekly challenge over at UKS and a bit of a pick and mix:

A - Sport - Inspired by the Cheltenham Cup
B - Charity - Inspired by Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month
C - Lifestyle - Inspired by National Veggie Month (Vegetarian)

and to include the following on the LO:
1) Doodling
2) Ribbon, lace or washi tape
3) Brads, eyelets or buttons
4) Altered flowers - eg punched/cut from PP/inked/handmade/made into something else

I knew straight away that I wanted to document my new 'hobby' of running. In a bid to keep fit and get more exercise I encouraged lots of my colleagues at easyfundraising to sign up for X-Runner.co.uk extreme obstacle race last October.

As a complete novice I downloaded a Couch 2 10K app and in February I managed to run 5K non-stop which I was so pleased with.

Sadly though a couple of weeks ago I sprained my foot and with only 2 weeks to go to the race I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a speedy recovery.

I've combine this challenge with Stuck? Sketches (however I didn't manage the flower!) and the colour combo was inspired by Leo's page on Quirky Kits Blog

Not quite what I planned in my head ...

... I've been waiting for the March Scrap365 sketch challenge to go live since I saw it in the mag last month. It looked like just my sort of sketch.

But when I started to actually make a page it just didn't come together well. All sorts of paper combinations were discarded, and after pulling apart the page, I finally finished by sticking with papers from the same range (Crate Paper Flea Market, from Nov/Dec Quirky Kits). It ended up better than I thought it would at one point, interesting how the design process works sometimes!

I've shifted the sketch around a bit, but think you can still see the main elements of it.

Why does a tidy up ...

... invariably mean a new mess is going to be created?

My fabric stash has been creating a bit of a pile in the corner as the boxes they live in have fallen apart. So after a trip to Ikea I set about sorting the material all out into boxes. I now have a good box of scraps that the girls can help themselves too without asking! FQs, dress and furnishing fabrics all have a box each too.

With that sorted I decided I wanted to make a new work dress. I didn't have one particular pattern that I wanted to use, but was sure that I could mash one together from two patterns - and hence the new mess created with bits of tissue paper everywhere. As there's alterations involved I'm going to make up a muslin whilst looking for some fabric - no I don''t have anything 'perfect' in my stash!!

And another page to share - this was a colour challenge for the UKS Monthly challenge which I used a Stuck? sketch for. Made using the Quirky kit that arrived on Friday :)

Right better clear up my scrapping space now!

Three reasons to be cheerful ...

... apart from it being Friday. Three lots of happy post!

First, I've had a pretty 'blah' week, not feeling great, trying to do too much and generally getting cross with myself! So this postcard from a very lovely friend cheered me up no end.

Next, my new Quirky Kits arrived - so beautifully wrapped up, was a shame to open. Haven't used the last one yet, but got stuck straight into this one, will share that another day.

Finally, I subscribed to Birchbox last month and this is my second delivery. More pretty packaging which I just love.

Each month you get 5 beauty/lifestyle samples to try. I wouldn't say I'm hugely into beauty products but I do like to try new things and this looked like fun.

And such cute postcards included - good quotes.

And having made nothing since my last blog post, I scrapped! It was the therapy I needed this week.

It's for the weekly challenge on UKS, to use a sketch, a love theme picture/story and pinks/reds.

So I didn't manage at all well with Xmas crafty - oh well!