Goodbye February

If you asked me, I would tell you that February was a really hard month. That it was grey and blah and I was glad to see the back of it.

But if I really think, February wasn't all bad. It's a month of birthdays - three special girls means several parties. And parties are always good.

And despite feeling as though I have had no time at all to be creative, the pictures I have taken of my scrapbook pages tell a different story. Apparently I did make stuff.

And actually, despite the grey and blah that definitely floated around, there was a lot of sunshine too. (I told you these yellow roses would pop up again).

So maybe February wasn't so bad after all. I am still, however, very glad to welcome March. Hello Spring!

Yellow roses

You'd think this an everlasting bunch of yellow roses...but no, this and the page from my last post were taken on the same day, that's all. You'll get confused if I use another photo from the same set in December, I tell you.

I feel sort of guilty that I don't blog more often, because I made the commitment to come back and I like that this is a diary of my crafty life. But I feel guilty every time I pick up a piece of paper at the moment, because I know there are other, more important things that I should be doing. And studying is only one of those things.

Whenever I write a blog post I look back at my old posts to make sure I'm not repeating myself. There are definitely some common themes, and finding the balance in my life is one of them. Even before I was ill I struggled to balance duty with pleasure, and fun with responsibility. These days I have to factor in health, and energy, and a lot more emotion than I ever had to juggle before. I thought that when I returned to work last year I had cracked the whole 'life after cancer' thing. Now I think that the universe was probably having a good laugh at me then. There is definitely no easy solution, just a lot of hard work.

But life isn't all bad; I bought some new roses today. And despite feeling guilty, I am still picking up the paper and creating pages that make me smile.

Working it out

Sometimes it's hard to fit everything in.

In the second month of 2012, I am very aware of my super-long list of goals for the year, and how much I have to do to achieve them. I was doing really well and feeling really motivated, and then I went back to work full-time.

Obviously I am pleased to be healthy enough to be back at work, blah blah, but really - it gets in the way of everything else I want to do.

Like scrapbooking. And studying. And occasionally combining the two as you can see in the page above. I realised that something which is supposed to take 20 hours of my week (in reality, of course it doesn't) should probably feature in my albums occasionally. For example - remind me again why I am doing this?! I think I will be re-reading this page a lot in the weeks to come. (And yes, it's Shakespeare, so you have to allow me this title just once, ok?)

I am still working out the patterns in my life that will give me the time to do all I want to in a week without feeling exhausted by Wednesday afternoon. Bear with me :)

Procrastinating

I put a lot of things off.

Right now, it is that I should be opening the books to start my course. Instead, I have managed to do all kinds of things that really didn't need doing right now, but were preferable to thinking about Shakespeare. Including my financial paperwork. It must be bad.

This layout took me a week. I am not kidding. I started with three different backgrounds, and even got as far as sticking the photos down. Then I decided I didn't like it and I tore it apart, and I never do that.  I always try and make it work but it really wasn't happening. Then I saw this starting point from Shimelle, and suddenly it all came together. In my quest to use more 'stuff' on my pages, I have used no less than five layers and a whole load of embellishments (stickers! foam pads! paint spatters!) I think the plain background keeps it together, though. And for all that this page took me forever - I really, really love it.

Busy busy busy

I'm making the most of these last few days I return to work. There's so much that I want to do, and it's only now that I have any kind of enthusiasm to do it. Once I go back to the office, I think my biggest worry will be: how on earth am I going to do it all?

Seven years of scrapbooking

I don't know the exact date, but I do know that I have a file of photos on my computer which are images of most of my scrapbook pages. And 2012 is my seventh file. 

I had a clear out yesterday and threw out some half-used sheets of stickers that I'm pretty sure were among the first things I bought. In the spirit of my last post, I should probably work on using some of that stuff, right?

Get it done

I sometimes wonder if other people see me how I see myself. I like to think I come across as super-confident but in reality I doubt myself and everything I do all.the.time. I like to think I hide it, but you can probably tell. One thing I know for sure is that I am rubbish at hiding things.

This year I will stop worrying, stop over-thinking, stop comparing and just DO IT. This mostly applies to creative projects but should really cover everything in my life.

2012 is the year of getting it done.

(This scrapbook page makes sense if you knew how many times I had rearranged the papers and moved the embellishments around. Enough!)