I love my craft group :-)

For the last year I've been regularly going to a mums craft group which is organised and heavily subsidised by a local charity. This is the one time in the week where I get to leave Sam with a creche while I go off to chat and craft with a group of other mums. It has taken about 6 months for Sam to become comfortable with me leaving him as he is so used to my always being near him, but now he is very happy for me to go out of sight while he plays with all his favourite toys.

So now I get the full two hours to sit and join in whatever craft project the group is doing that week - bliss! For the last 4 weeks we've been making paper mache money box mushrooms and I've found that gluing lots of newspaper to rolls of cardboard and plastic plates has been very relaxing especially as I also get a cup of tea while I'm there.

As I had finished up my mushroom today I got the chance to try my hand at paper pricking - which is a craft I hadn't even heard of before. You place the piece of card that you want to embellish on top of a block of foam, and after gently taping a metal punched template over it you are ready to use a little pricking tool to prick through the template onto your card. The repetitive pricking can be quite addictive and this is another great craft to do while having a chat as you don't really need to think too much when you get going.

I love the finished effect that paper pricking gives - so simple and detailed at the same time (to see the detail more clearly click on the image to enlarge it).