I’ve really struggled to write this post.

Partly because I didn’t just want to write about what I’ve been doing for the last few weeks and partly because I’ve not had a great time over this last week.

My emotions have been messed up, my anxiety and depression has been playing up and pain has been coming out to play a lot as well.

I think I’ve not wanted to write things down because part of me is thinking that writing it all down makes it real. Making it real means that I have to face and deal with it and part of me just doesn’t want to do that and wants it to just go away.

I think I’m going to have to get into the habit of starting to write my updates on a specific day and keep repeating that so it then becomes a habit.

The major thing I should mention is that I’ve renewed the hosting part of my website so that means it gonna be here for the next couple of years at least. So woo hoo 🥳🎉🎉🍾🥂🎉🎉🥳 for that.

Messed up emotions. Over the past few weeks my emotions haven’t been working quite the way they should. If I’ve been watching a film or listening to a song and something sad happens I’ve started to tear up. If something amazing happens in the film again I’ve started to tear up but with happiness this time. If something scary starts happening I end up looking for something else to watch and if it’s something psychological it gets in my head and then that start to affect the anxiety.

So I have to be careful what films or tv programs I watch and for some of them I have to be in a certain mood. So I normally the TV is on just for background noise while I’m concentrating on something else mainly crafty things.

In the last week or two I’ve mainly been listening to audio books and some podcast. The podcasts have been drama/story based. One of the podcast I’ve been listening to is called Camlann, basically it’s Arthurian legends set in a post apocalyptic world. I think it’s great and enjoy it.

Book wise well audiobooks I’ve been listening to a couple of different book. I can’t cope flicking around listening to different stories at the same time. I’d end up getting confused things would get mixed up in my head and I’d have characters swapping books and going back. The wrong adventures and everything. I’m sure you know that it doesn’t take much to confuse me.

So I’ve gone through a couple of books over that few weeks. 2 by TJ Klune. The Lightning Struck Heart and Destiny Of Dragons. They are Fantasy books with LGBTQIA+ characters. One of the characters in the book is a gay hornless unicorn called Gary. The books are funny and if you’re looking for books with LGBTQIA+ representation they’re worth a read (or listen) they aren’t right for kids though.

I’ve been listening to another book series too. The series is all lots of books in one. I’m listening to the Complete Oz Collection. it’s all of the Oz books by L Frank Baum. It isn’t just the story that you probably know about that the famous film from the 1930s is based on. And like always there are some differences between the book and the film. The colour of the slippers is one difference, ruby in the film and silver in the book. On the journey to the Emerald City there are a few other things that happen that aren’t in the film, a feast at Boc’s in munchkin land and some other monsters in the forest. Another difference is after the wizard goes off in the balloon Dorothy has to go on another journey/adventure, this time to find Glinda in the south of the country. There are other differences too. That’s about it for books.

Depression and anxiety have been about. The depression is just those nasty dark thoughts I get about myself. I think I’m a burden on other people, that people don’t like me, that the craft stuff I do isn’t any good and some other dark not nice things. Last time I talked about a process of looking at the evidence and facts for and against thoughts like that. It’s something we’ve been going through as part of the talking therapies. Part of the cognitive restructuring process. It’s about weighing things up and looking at them in a different way and changing it to a more balanced thought rather than something negative.

So going though the balancing exercise for them has really helped me weigh things up and change the way I think about different situations. There are still situations that bring the not nice thoughts back. Like if I send a message to a friend and I don’t get a reply for a while. I know this is mainly down to the fact that they are busy but that pain in the arse voice is screaming “they haven’t replied because they hate you”. It’s shutting up that voice in the moment that’s the difficult part.

You might have also noticed that I’ve added a new page to the website too. It’s a page where there are pictures of the cards I’ve made. funnily enough it’s called pictures of the cards I’ve made. Here’s a link if you want to have a look:

Pictures Of Cards I’ve Made

It starts with the first cards I made and goes all the way up to now. I think I might have a look at changing them round to show the newer cards first though. I’m not sure, I’ll probably have to figure out a way to do that though.

So as you’d expect there has been some crafting and tangling.

Here are the cards:

On to tangling and tiles:

I’ve also been working on some other tangly bits too. This is a piece from a live masterclass that Sandra did using one of the fairy sets and one of the frames. During the session Sandra used the Oval frame and because I’m awkward I decided to use a different one.

Over the past couple of weeks I worked on another piece that I’ve sent on to Sandra to use if she needs it for anything. It’s a piece from the Halloween Hollow stencil set.

The strange thing for me was actually following the instructions. You might have guessed I don’t normally do that, but this time I did and I think it looks great.

I’ve done a crystal art Maleficent that’s sitting in my shelf with Ursula and as sparkly gnome

I got Ursula and Maleficent a couple of months ago and I’ve had the gnome for a couple of years now. They’re just sat on a shelf keeping an eye on all the crafting and the craft room.

I’ve done something else over the past couple of weeks too. I’ve made a wire sign to go up in church to try and make the place more welcoming. this picture is sort of a rough draft while figuring things out. It just say welcome.

After that I changed it round and found. Don’t that worked that I could use to make templates.

Here is a picture of the finished sign:

The sign hasn’t gone up yet but I’ve done my bit and made it. The rest is up to someone who can climb a ladder and that’s not me,

I’ve literally just put this bit of vinyl on a little book I made for mum a while ago that she uses to make notes in for as the little note says:

Something else happened in the last couple of weeks too. Because Lucy is here a couple of days a week now, every so often (when someone leaves the gate open), she comes to visit me in my craft room. I have some of my stamps stored in bags/pouches. On one of Lucy’s visits she picked one of the pouch/bags (more dragged really. It was a bit to heavy for her) up and took it for a walk into the other room:

Some one said that she must want to start crafting. I can’t say I’m a fan of that idea because that would mean I’d probably have to start sharing things and channeling my inner child “I don’t want to share. The craft stuff is mine”.

On that note I think I’ll leave it there.

Big love to everyone

Love and Light.