Its the most busiest time of the year....

Yup, people think Ministers have a lot on at Christmas time but it is nothing to Lent, Holy Week and Easter. The latter is more straightforward in that there is more work but less having to run around and get presents and food etc at the same time. I even made sure all the churches had enough palm crosses this year (that's a first for a while without having to have last minute deliveries!)

Its all good - but doesn't leave a lot of crafting time
I have finished another crochet project which I will carefully photograph so you can't see the mistakes in it. If I ever make another bag I know what to do now - but couldn't bring myself to take it right back again, again. Most of my crochet projects have to be rewound at least once. But they always end up better and stronger for doing so. (And I will always look at my bag and wish I had gone back and started again). There is something profound and theological in the need to go back and start afresh and how that is the best thing. I'll ahve to work on my theological reflections on crochet a bit more. Feel free to ask about the theology of dieting, I can rant about articulate my beliefs on that score more easily!

I have had some time to craft today - I made myself take a real day off, even though it means working like a mad thing the rest of the week. Because that rest is needed to get me through. And it has given me a chance to photograph things I finished in an actual spare moment over the last few weeks.
Two weeks ago the Daring challenge was Speedy

...and of all the die cuts in all the world, Nat and I chose the same one. What are the chances? Pop over to the Daring blog to see how different our cards look. I used papers from the same collection (I am) to create a kind of scene for the bike to rest on. Not my best effort but I tried...

This week I was very late to the party with this card. We were challenged to use Kraft on our cards. I decided to use it to colour on and this was the result

I stamped the Winnie and Walter Addie's garden flowers with white ink and then coloured them in using Prismacolour pencils. I did try to watercolour first - can you spot the poorly leaf? The pencils were awesome though. After colouring them I added Wink of Stella glitter pen and then went back round the images with a white gel pen. The Paper Smooches stamp was embossed onto thick vellum and I die cut the matching word three times - the top layer is glittery - to give it dimension. I added the Prima sparkles because I couldn't get the vellum to lay down flat!

I've also been making layouts for Quirky Kits recently - here are the latest two

 using the same set of papers and embellishments! It shows just how clever and creative these kits are