A sort of hibernation?

Hello all - I can't believe that it's been 3 weeks since my last blog post! I don't think I've ever 'disappeared' from Blogland for that long since I started my little blog nearly 4 (yes, 4!) years ago.  But it's been a busy old month.  I always feel January is a month to sort of snuggle down and hide away until Spring starts to appear. We've all got over the busy, bright Christmas and New Year bit, and then January all starts to feel a little bit grey and static, waiting for the spring to arrive. But I haven't had much chance to 'hibernate' this month!  Once we started back at school I was working extra hours for a few weeks to help out as a colleague started a phased return after illness.  And then I needed to really roll up my sleeves, and start crafting with a vengeance - as I needed to construct and complete my step-daughter Lucy's wedding invitations!  It was a rather unusual mission for me, as I never make 2 cards the same, but this time I had to make a whole batch of 25 invitations exactly the same! A bit of a challenge!  They involved stitching and embellishments, and as soon as I know that Lucy has posted them out I will share the design with you!

I also had a time target to get them completed as we've had a French student staying with us for a week - and so I had to get the invitations finished and my 'craft room' (i.e. the little bedroom!) tidied up.  I just managed it and we welcomed Manon, our lovely French girl, last weekend.  This is a school exchange and our son Jack will be heading off to Manon's home in Lyon in France in March for a week.  So we've had a busy week this week, and not helped by me starting with a stinky cold!  So I'm afraid that poor old 'Tilly's Crafts' has taken rather a back seat whilst I've been busy. But our student heads back to France tomorrow, and as the weather forecast is not looking too bright, I'm determined to have a very lazy, self-indulgent day tomorrow - and try and get rid of this blasted cold!

So apologies for the absence (and all the above waffle - please feel free to skim over all that!) - and I thought I'd share a little card made just before the invitations took over the craft time

I've used the oh-so-cute trio stamps of bears from LOTV.

The papers and sentiment stamp are also from LOTV, and I did a fairly simple layout with ribbon & pearl from stash.

I hope you like it! 

And I hope to get back to some card-making once I can move back into my 'craft room'!  I hope you enjoy your weekend - whatever you have planned.

Back soon (I hope!)

Kim x