Christmas gifts and New year wishes

Hia all, I thought I would share with you some of the lovely gifts I have received from Internet friends for Christmas. The first is from Jan and she got me a great gift of a postcard hanger. Now with the amount of postcards i now have in my collection this is a great idea. Here is is in my hall way with some of my favourite cards. The top two are Jan's , the next one Hannah's, the next two Lynda's and the final one is one I was bought from Fibre art for a cause last year by an artist called Sharon Neuer. The second card was a recent gift from Hannah in Australia. i had sent her something, to be honest i forget now what it was and she sent me this and a pack of lovely threads and embellisments. How come other people's "bits" are always more interesting than your own! I love this card, it has embossed velvet, a print on tracing paper, wool felt and fme and computerised embroidery. I love it, thank you Hannah.
Now on to my new year resolutions. I am not going to make many as this time of year I am always over enthusiastic and then can't stick to them, so this is the 2 things most important to me apart from being a good Mum to Ellie may!
1. Loose some weight - Now this has been my resolution since I was about 18, but I lost 3 stone to have Ellie and I want to be a size 16. I am not too over ambitious, I am not going to say a size 12 and be totally over the top. So buying clothes from regular shops is my only plan. I am going to use my exercise bike (only used it twice since I bought it in the sales last year!)

2. The second thing is more simple.I want to keep a visual diary because I can't see being able to go on to part 2 C+G next year. I have been going to college for 3 years now and frankly I am tired. Part 2 is much more demanding and unless Enid is seriously convincing I can't see me having the energy. SO with that looming, I have started to get the "fear"! What will I do when i don't have that to focus on, how will my anxiety deal with it! So I have decided to keep a visual diary, record the things i do for trades and challenges, so I can hopefully find my style. I am often so worried that i am only any good at working with someone else's technique, someone else's original starting point. Here is the book I have chosen.
It is 5x12 inches and had hard grey covers, so I decided to stick some of my favourite bits of paper on the covers. Textured wallpaper painted with metallics, I think the blue and silver is a wallpaper by Julien Macdonald and the other piece is a piece of paper I printed using the TRaci B paper towel method.
So start as you mean to go on. I am in the process of finishing a page for Kim on African masks. I did some line drawings in pen on the back of an envelope so i decided to stick it down!

Next I have been working on my first trade postcard for Carol M in the Calendar girls group. The first picture we are working from is of sunflowers and so I started sketching the bits that interested me and working on compositions for my card. there will be more to follow on this on the calendar girls blog, as I have put together 5 cards so far just for the first trade! I am going to get a jump on February too while I am off, that way I may stay ahead!

Don't forget about my last post about the arch page swap on Textiles challenges. To add to this January's challenge is following Quilting arts true colours paper quilt challenge. Hope some of you might come along and join us.

Finally can I wish you all a Happy New Year and I hope it brings you all the happiness you deserve. Last year felt long and arduous to me, and I know to some of you. Let's hope 2008 is kind to us all. Love Carol T