Oh dear where has the year gone!?!

Well it's nearly the end of August already (where has the year gone?) and what have I achieved since my last post? Well, I moved house at the beginning of July and that kept me busy (I never knew I had so much stuff!) and rather stressed for a while (thanks to a certain phone company!). But once I'd unpacked my books and craft things into my little craft room/library/dining room, I began to feel a bit more at home. The only thing that was missing was internet access and we finally managed to sort that out on Saturday! Yay!!!

Anyway my boyfriend and I had a little trip to Paris at the end of July in celebration of his 30th birthday and I had my first journey on the Eurostar, which I rather enjoyed!

Neither of us had been to France's captial before so we did all the main touristy things and had a really great (but tiring) time. Mostly I was pleased to find out, as we only see each other once a week that we can spend 5 days together in an another country and not want to kill each other! Also we were lucky with the weather as it was mostly dry and into the high 20's - typically I managed to get quite sunburned even thought I was wearing factor 30!! If it had been raining that would have resulted in a rather cold, wet and tired Denise which would have made me an absolute nightmare to be on holiday with!

I was really surprised how much I liked Paris as I've heard lots of mixed reviews from other people who have been there - things like the people are rude, it's really dirty etc - but I didn't experience any of those things! Everyone we met were very polite and helpful and I thought it was no dirtier than any other city I've been to! I'd really like to go back one day as there were so many things I didn't get get round to doing.

And has Cloudberryskies done anything crafty, I hear you ask? The answer to that is... NO. But I have read 57 books so far this year, does count for anything!?! Oh dear, I am such a lazy crafter!!

Doesn't Time Fly When You're Trying To Find Somewhere Else To Live...

I can't believe I haven't posted anything on here in about 6 months! How shameful! I guess I really do live up to my 'lazy crafter' name. I have no real excuse as to why I've not been on here! I suppose I haven't really made anything blogworthy and when I really think about it apart from a few custom orders and a couple of presents for friends, I haven't really made much at all this year!! I'm going to blame my craft apathy on a couple of things that happened back at the beginning of year. I told my self that 2010 was going to be a year of change and it was, but just not in the way I had planned!! In summary, I managed to get my full time hours back at work (good) but unfortunately in the same month my landlord told me (completely out of the blue) that he needed me to move out of my lovely (and very inexpensive) flat after nearly 5 years (v. bad).

I think it was the combination of these two events that threw my me into my craftless slump, essentially I have been going to work during the day and house hunting in my evenings and on my days off. I decided a couple of months back to close my Etsy and Folksy shops and pack up my craft things so I could focus my mind on house hunting so rather that spending my free hours on Etsy, blogging, tweeting etc, I was trawling the properties on Rightmove, silently praying that I could find somewhere nice that wasn't asking for too much rent!

Finally after months of searching (and viewing some absolutely hideous places) I have found somewhere and it is lovely! Slightly more expensive than I had hoped but as I say it is rather lovely so I'm sure it will be worth it. It is a fully furnished 2 bed terraced house (I currently live in 2 bed flat) and I knew it was the one for me as soon as I walked through the door! People look at me strangely when I say that, "I'll know it when I see it" but I've always felt like that when looking for somewhere new to live, I get a feeling for somewhere as soon as I set foot in it and I just know if I would like to live there or not!

Now that I've found somewhere new and lovely to live, I'm hoping to turn things around! I move in at the beginning of July so it's not long now until I get back to crafting and get hopefully get Cloudberryskies back up and running again. I know I'm always saying this but I am definitely going to have to take this craft business more seriously, so in the mean time while my shop is closed I've got a lot of thinking to do. The first thing I need to do is to re-evaluate the kind of things I make, so rather than making whatever I feel like and listing it, maybe I should think about what Cloudberryskies is all about (does that sound quite as lame as I think it does?). The main thing I need is a stronger identity and I'm thinking starting with a new banner and avatar and then going from there. I have another Etsy shop called BizarreDodo which I started ages ago but never got round to listing anything on it so I have been toying with the idea of linking the two shops with the themes of darkness and light - with Cloudberryskies selling the lighter, cutesy stuff and BizarreDodo selling the darker, skully side of my craft personality. What do you guys think? Sound weird?

I think that's enough for now, I'll try not to leave it so long next time.