online...offline

It seems I may have forgotten how to blog.

I've been away from Blogger for only five weeks...but even after that amount of time, I am struggling to find my way back in.

What do you blog about after such a break?

Family? Craft? Work? Right now I really can't decide, but it's time that I wrote something, just to get the ball rolling again.

And I don't want to use the "I've been too busy to blog" excuse, because we're all busy folk these days right?

So instead I am going to blame my recent absence from Blogger, on Facebook. I am not one of those people who can be EVERYWHERE online at once...Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Blogger...and the list goes on. For me that is incredibly exhausting. So when I began spending more time here...and here...something had to give, and unfortunately that something was blogging.

Until now I had never been a fan of Facebook, and I'm still not entirely convinced it's all positive, but it is proving to be a nice little networking tool for my online shops. Over the past few weeks, through Facebook Pages, I have met some extremely talented crafters, discovered wonderful businesses, chatted with some of my customers, and learnt new networking skills.

But am I going to be able to keep up with it all? The most important thing is that I have enough quality time for the real hands-on crafting...the sewing, the crochet and the paper-craft...it doesn't sit right with me when the amount of time I spend online outweighs the amount of time I spend actually crafting.

And it's school holidays right now, another good reason to keep it simple, not take on too much, and instead enjoy lazy days at home with the kids...

So now I'm back, I've written a post, and I hope to be here posting more regularly again xx

Crafty Kids

There is never a shortage of kids craft in our household. We have numerous boxes, tubs and drawers (far too many in fact) dedicated to kids craft. And not just the craft supplies (the paper, glue, scissors, wiggly eyes, textas, crayons, card, glitter, felt etc) but also the completed (or in-progress) craft projects. And of course we never manage to sort any of it and reduce the amount we have, because my children want to keep every little cut-out, scribbled on paper or glued together 'thing'. Do your children do this too? Do you have any solutions for keeping kids craft organised?

I'm also a pretty good hoarder of all things crafty...pretty fabrics, card in colours that have inspired me on a particular craft shop visit, pieces of felt, jars full of buttons, thread in every possible colour...not to mention the many half finished projects tucked away in drawers, or on my desk, eagerly awaiting my return!

It was my stash of craft that I turned to for help one day during the recent school holidays. The boredom was setting in, the bickering was beginning, and I needed a quick distraction before it escalated. After a quick rummage through my craft supplies I managed to fill a couple of cellophane bags with a selection of paper and card offcuts, stickers, ribbons, cards and envelopes. As quickly as I had filled the bags, the kids had scattered the contents of theirs across the dining table. The textas, glue and scissors were next, and their projects were underway.

It did lead to quite a bit of mess, as kids craft always does, but at least I got to listen to their happy banter rather than the bickering...always worth the mess, isn't it?