Stamping Ground

Ooh look..shrink plastic, The Clangers and Bagpuss - phone charms! How great are they? From a kit by the Crafthouse Press. More to show. Better photos too.

I set myself small and very achievable goals most days so that I can look myself in the the eye in the mirror of course, whilst I'm brushing my teeth before bed and kid myself that the tiny jobs I've finished are a huge contribution to the running of our household and I am indeed, a domestic goddess. In amongst all this of course, I really want to be at my work desk, 'creating' every minute. I spend a lot more time doing exactly that than a lot of my crafting friends and colleagues - I know I'm lucky, in fact could go so far as spoiled, but don't tell Mr Dunnit! Now the thing is, not many of the hours I spend at my work desk are actually as creative or indeed productive as I'd like them to be. Anne, over at her now published blog (how great an achievement is that - and she's the genius behind the WOYWW button) is very nearly fed up with herself for spending about 6 hours, certainly one whole crop doing a double page layout. When you see the layout, you like me will I'm sure think it time well spent and not even consider the time it took. I once went to a crop with a friend who spent 4 hours moving a sticker around a single page layout trying to decide where it would look best. I understand that for a working gal, the idea of spending all day on one page may seem way too unproductive when you've had to squeeze the time from a lie in, lazy coffee with your lover, shopping for Manolos or worse, a real life of laundry and Saturday supermarkets. But be reminded - this is your hobby and the rate at which you achieve doesn't matter. I slow down enormously when I'm unsure about what I'm really doing, or using a colour or product that I'm not convinced is right. In these moments, I can spend hours doing the simplest tasks. For this Thursday's workshop for example, the fourth card I want the gals to make simply will not come out of my head and work on the table. I think the trouble is the colour of the flocked paper (it's black and white, but the white is a bit 'off' and so I can't make it work). I spent two days of available time trying to get this idea to work, and countless shades of all sorts of card are in my scrap box as a result. I haven't re-visited the problem for three reasons: I don't know what else to do, and I simply can't spend any more time on it - there has to be a limit to time spent on this sort of preparation - it's unpaid and counter-productive, and mostly because the girls will laugh at me and come up with something stunning without my help anyway. But also, and this is the biggie for me; I know when to cave in at last. And usually two days of fruitless attempts at one silly card is enough! Knowing isn't a skill because really it's quitting. But working on a project in your leisure time that you're enjoying and that is working for you - well that's different and it doesn't really matter how long it takes, huh? I recognise the frustration of not being able to turn out a whole bunch of scrapbook pages in a single day, but I have for the most part, got over it. One of my biggest problems is knowing that some particular project or other may take a while, I put off starting it! Weird, huh. So I'm thinking it's time to revel in the doing and not necessarily the finishing. Remember the hobby part of your scrap booking obsession! And of course, make a LO about how long the other one took if it's very unusual. And of the Manolo Blahniks too, please!

The card is for Miss Dunnit's sweet friend and one of the Prom beauties you've previously seen on my blog. We've copied all the photos to each other - 6 teenagers, 12 parents, 8 cameras - you wouldn't believe how many photos that yields. I could scrap nothing but 6 kids at a Prom for the next year and not use them all!