Inside was a vintage style membership card and a badge to show the world that I’m not entirely consumed by email. I also got full access to the LWA members area, where there’s loads of great vintage letter writing stuff to download, and many things I would love to be able to afford right now! Totally inspiring.

So, inspired by new friend Saylor Made, here’s a quick ABC about me…

Age: 27 (almost 28!)
Bed Size: Double
Chore you hate: Hoovering the stairs
Dogs: Not any more! One cat though.
Essential start of your day: A big cup of tea
Favourite Colour: Orange, Blue and Red
Gold or silver: Silver
Height: 5 feet exactly. I’m good at hiding.
Instruments I play or have played: I played the recorder and acoustic guitar in school, but I’d probably be rubbish now
Job Title: Creative Director
Kids: Not yet
Live: Pontypridd, South Wales
Mum’s Name: Joan
Nickname: Most names related to being short!
Overnight hospital stays: Too many to count! Mostly Athsma related – one stint in ICU as a kid.
Pet Peeve: Noisy eaters makes me feel a little bit sick.
Quote from a movie: “Get away from her, you BITCH!”
Right or left handed: Right
Siblings: Nope
Time you wake up: The alarm goes off at 7:30. When I wake up is anyone’s guess.
Underwear: Yes, thanks.
Vegetables you dislike: Cauliflower makes me ill.
What makes you run late: My husband. Always.
X-rays you’ve had done: My hand and my skull (numerous times – I am prone to head injuries, and am exceptionally clumsy)
Yummy food you make: Pasta and curry dishes mostly. I use the ‘make-it-up-as-you-go-along cooking style, which usually works, but means I can never recreate a dish exactly.
Zoo animal: Poison dart frogs. It’s like they’ve been printed.

So there we go, that should give you some idea of what I’m like. There are a few other things that I love that weren’t covered in the ABC, though, so I may as well share them with you now, as you’ve been so good and read this far!

My favourite things include…
Lego, Wonder Woman, rodents (rats, mice, voles… I think they’re all adorable), whiskey, red wine, real ales, Chinese/Thai/Italian food, sushi, horror movies, sweet chilli sauce, movie themed phonecards, rubber stamps, 80s cartoons, rock & metal music, impractical shoes and chocolate biscuits. Oh, and ninjas, although there’s never one around when you need one!

Show up with two or more of these items and you’re guaranteed to have a friend for life

Of course, it had to feature Lego. I used old Lego packaging (that I’d set aside for this very purpose) for the cover, and some note cards that have been in my drawer for literally 10 years as pages. Some bright red thread to contrast the blue background and pick out the details in the logo and crowbar, some handmade rubber stamping on the pages, and voila.

[Sorry for the rather yellow second photo - dodgy lighting and a dependence on an iPhone for blogging!]

I’m going to use my new book to keep track of the addresses of my growing network of Mail Art friends.

If you’d like to have a go at making one yourself, there are loads of tutorials on YouTube to help – I found this one pretty useful.

Once we got the hang of the chisels we were away, and the sanding was pretty therapeutic, if deadly to my nails!

I’ve always had a soft spot for Love Spoons, and jumped at the chance to have a go at making one. It’s the only reason I was there! Here’s where my efforts took me this evening. Not the most intricate of designs, but it’s a good start. and it still has a long way to go.

We’re keen to carry on with our little project, and the people at the club were so helpful and encouraging. The problem is it’s 25 miles away, and starts at 7pm, which means we have to rush home from work and back out without any dinner, getting back home at 9:30 ready to drop. All a bit stressful for a Monday evening, all things considered. We’ll have to put some thought into our next move. Maybe there’s a club or class more locally? I’ll get a-researching. As soon as I’ve found the hand cream.

Last Thursday I discovered that I was the lucky winner of Shipshape Studio’s first celebratory giveaway, celebrating the launch of their new shop. The prize that would soon be on its way to me was a copy of Pip Lincolne’s  Make Hey! While the Sun Shines. I didn’t know much about the book, other than it’s packed full of crafty inspiration and projects, but as it’s worth £17.99, and the competition was open worldwide, I never expected I’d actually win, especially as the little rafflecopter widget tells me there were 99 entries. So when I received the email on Thursday, while in the pub relaxing after Gwynfa Camera Club, I swiftly replied with the address for the pidgeon to bring it to me. Of course I managed to give the wrong address, but a couple of emails later the lovely Emily had the right address, and I sat back and awaited the wonders that were on their way.

On Saturday @ShipshapeStudio tweeted a teasing little picture of them wrapping the book up ready for postage, and my excitement peaked. Monday passed, then Tuesday… by Thursday I was starting to get worried that it had gotten lost in the post, or that crafty little pixies had stolen it so that they could make finger puppet friends. It is my understanding the pixies do such things. No?

But fear not, as today I opened the post room door at the studio to find a nice big package waiting for me! I did a little mini run back to my desk and carefully unwrapped it. Inside, together with a lovely little note from Emily & Adam, was one of the nicest, well presented and inspiring craft packed books I’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have any preconceived ideas about it, but I honestly am blown away by the sheer amount of ideas packed into its 150 pages, as well as the breadth of subjects and mediums covered.

The projects range from making your own decorative tape, gift bags and woolly finger puppets, to creating your own Cheery Chessboard and bottle totes. There’s instructions on how to knit, crochet and create different stitches, step by step instructions (and patterns!) to create a Piggy-Back Pocket Monkey or a pretty bike seat cover. All beautifully photographed, with a few recipe cards thrown in for good measure, this book shows you how to live craft, with suggestions on what music to listen to and what TV shows to watch while you do it.

I can’t thank Shipshape Studio enough for this fantastic prize (which is also available in their shop, by the way!)

I definitely feel a mess making, crafty weekend coming on.

I’d been trying to get my hands on some good old fashioned brown luggage tags for a while, so when my Dad presented me with a packet full of the wondrous little blank canvases, I already had a few ideas in mind for them.

As with most of my projects, they all changed direction during the process of actually making them, but I’m still pretty pleased with how they’ve turned out. So far there are three very different tags on my workstation…

The first is pretty grungy, really, which is a style I keep reverting back to every now and again, in between my usual graphical style of bold colours and shapes. I’ve always been a bit of a Pop Art baby, but my dark side shows through occasionally!

And then there’s these two, which are more my usual thing (whether I like it or not!) I dragged out my trusty old Moo Minicards, of which I seem to have a never ending supply these days, and used them to give another dimension to the tags.

I have plenty more tags to keep me amused, which is good because I already have some Mail Art friends in mind for these!

It was far too dangerous to attempt getting the car down the hill this morning, so we made The disappointing decision to stay in.

So, to make the best of the time now on my hands, I turned to Plan B: entertaining myself by decorating some pegs with Washi Tape.

Very simple, but I’m really pleased with them, and I think I’ll be making some more to use in the studio. Time to expand my Washi Tape collection, methinks!

In my PRD I wrote about the projects I worked on, the artists I studied and the places I visited, with a few sketches thrown in along the way.

This afternoon I found my PRD inside a long forgotten, buried box in my mum’s back room. Having spent the rest of the afternoon reading through it and marvelling at the effort I clearly put into the thing, I had to give it a little breath of life on my blog, so here are a few of the spreads…

And some specific projects:
Here we had to paint what we saw when we put packaging behind patterned glass (I think they’re still doing this exercise there!)

And here we had to ‘draw music’, before transferring the image to photographic paper by touch printing.

Ah, the good old days!

It’s clear to me now why I’m unable to go on holiday anywhere without keeping a visual diary. I’m the only person I know who takes prit-stick, scissors, tape and colouring pencils in their case! (The diary and pens go with me onto the plane, obviously, so that I can keep entertained. Some of the other items don’t exactly make it through security!)