Changes to Better Scrapbooking Ltd

This is my first post for 2016 so Happy New Year everyone.  Some of you may think I fell from the planet, no I am still here.  There have been lots of changes here and now is the time to reveal my plan for 2016.

As many of you are aware from some of my Facebook posts I have moved my workshop from our home garage to the lovely little room behind the garage.  This was a much bigger task than I thought at the start.  But finally I am at a place where I have a nice place to create and craft.  The only down side is it is to small to display shop stuff or have classes and workshops.

The cluttered workshop stage - eek, I was trapped

Looking from the door of the craft studio

Showing my scrapbooking table

This meant some changes to the way I run Better Scrapbooking Ltd.  Please don't get me wrong, I love scrapbooking and card making.  I love being able to help you with ideas and new products so that won't change.  The online shop and my online presence will continue and aim even higher with more videos and ideas for everyone.  I love workshops so these will continue, just at a local hall (the Oratia Settler's Hall) just round the corner from me.

The ScrapPack Club closed as of the end of last year and the Spectrum Noir Monthly kit will finish when those that are receiving it at the moment finish getting all their Spectrum Noir colour pen sets.  I will continue to bring you new products and ideas which will be available from our online shop.

I am looking forward to having more time to create with new products and to share fun tips, techniques and ideas with you all.  I was lucky enough over the summer break to up-grade my camera which now enables me to create videos.  I am aiming to create my first video shortly (probably once school starts back and a new routine is in place)

I have also started a new little part-time job as a personal carer assistant and have really been enjoying that lately.  I have been amazed that even with my little job I still have time to create and craft, maybe even more time as I reschedule things.  I have been continuing to work on my daughter's school ball album from last year and have almost finished it.

So as you can see there have been some changes but we will be continuing and we plan to bring you some amazing projects and ideas throughout the year.  So please continue to support me, I thank you for all that you have supported me with so far.

My new obsession - Glass Etching

Oh who would have thought ....

As many of you know I love my Silhouette Cameo, but now I love it even more as I can now use it to cut designs that I can now etch onto glass.  For some reason when I thought of glass etching I thought there was a machine you popped your glassware into and it 'tattooed' the design onto the glass - OK you can stop laughing at me now.  Well, I saw recently that you could get a glass etching kit for the Silhouette machines and I just had to look into it a bit further.  After watching the video on You Tube and saw how easy it was (click here for video), and that you needed no extra tools and just had to order the kit.

So my kit arrived, I opened it, watched the video then left it for about a week and a half before actually giving it a go.  I did not want to mess it up.  Well over the weekend I did another project with the glass etching and now I am wondering round the house and off to the Warehouse looking at glassware that I can etch.  It did expect the etching to be a bit whiter, but I still love the end results.

So here is what I did.

After cutting my design on the vinyl, I used the tranfer paper to add the design to my glass jar.  I taped of the top and bottom edges using some washi tape then added a nice thick layer of the glass etching cream. (be sure to wear rubber gloves for this).  I left this lot of cream on for about 15 minutes.

After about 15 minutes I scrapped up the excess glass etching cream and put it back in the bottle so it can be used again on my next project.  Then I gave the jar a bit of a rinse, to rinse off the last remaining bits of the etching cream.  Then removed the vinyl stencil.

Here is the finished result. I am happy with this, now what to put in the jar ... and now ... another piece of glassware hunt.

This Glass Etching Kit for the Silhouette is available to order from my online shop - click here

Poor Peanut

I feel like I have had a bit of an emotional 24 hrs.  My cat (OK technically it he is my daughter's cat) has lost weight dramatically since about New Years.  So I have been giving him extra meals to try and get his weight back up.  I de-fleaed him and wormed him as well - that was a mission and ended up at the vet to get him to do it.  Peanut was like a naughty child and clamped him mouth shut)
Anyway, over the last couple of days his breathing started to be effected and looked rather laboured.  I could not take it any more so booked him in at the vet yesterday.  Now I know when you go to the vet you don't get much change out of couple of hundred dollars when you have a very sick animal.  So that was stressing me out to start, but I was terrified that the vet would take one look at Peanut and say he would need to be put to sleep like with Calem a number of years ago.

Anyway the vet was wonderful.  She looked at Peanut and said there could be a couple of things that it could be, but to do an xray to check if there was fluid round the lungs.  She did and there was.  She said she could use a needle and drain the fluid (she was thinking it would be pus).  So we left Peanut with her for a couple of hours and she was able to remove some fluid and sure enough it was pus, but it was very liquid, not like the pus I would have thought - you know thick and icky.  She also gave him some long acting antibiotics so I don't have to try to give him pills (phew!).  He was breathing a little better but he had been shaved on both sides of his chest - poor boy.  Now we need to go back daily for some drainage of this fluid.

Shaved patch on one side, the other side is shaved too.

Peanut having breakfast this morning

I worried all night over Peanut and Kitty has been at his side a lot.  While Peanut was at the vet yesterday Kitty wondered round looking for him.  It is nice to see she does care as most of the time she ignores him LOL!  This morning Peanut ate all his breakfast and even had some milk - yipee!  He also looks like his breathing is a bit better today.  So we will see how we get on this afternoon.  Hopefully he will be on the mend ready for his birthday in a couple of weeks