Mini Me

How cute is this? If I do say so myself of course!
One of my UK Crafts Forum buddies came across this website which allows you to make little "Mini Meez" of yourself and what fun we've had with them!
Not only can you select your own build, facial features, hairstyles, accessories, clothes, shoes etc but you can also choose different "attitudes" which is a lot of fun!
Our most ardent Craft Forum mini meez fan has even made some famous Mini Meez and we're playing guess the famous person...do we have too much time on our hands I hear you ask?!...not a bit! We just ignore the cleaning, ironing, washing up and all the other boring jobs...

So say hello to Mini Shaz and, if you've met me in person or seen my photo on here, let me know how she compares? Aside from not being able to choose a 4' 11" titchy mode, I think she's pretty spot on!



If you'd like to play along and make your very own Mini You, just visit www.meez.com

...until next time, when we may have a Mini Community!

It's weekend

And what a lovely weekend it is so far, I hear the weather forecasts are good, I hope that stays true for you wherever you are


D'ya know I was at home on Wednesday and completely forgot to say Happy St George's Day! So although I know this is late, I just wanted to share with you the wonderful celebrations that were held in Morley, West Yorkshire http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7351194.stm

I had every intention of making some St George's Day greetings cards to try and start up a trend for them and never got around to it this year - maybe next year, especially if we could drum up some local interest in marking the day somehow - keep you posted!

And just in case its raining in your heart, take some tips from my friend and colleague Paula from The Life Coaching Practice and read her second article about Stress here http://www.aboutmyarea.co.uk/Lancashire/Bury/BL0/Health-and-Fitness/Health-Awareness/91901-Cures-for-Stress

...until next time, remember you can make your own fair weather every day, take care

Stress

Oh yes, we cant deny it, the S word hits most of us at some time or another doesnt it?

So I wanted to share with you the next instalment in our AboutMyArea articles written by my good friend Paula and published by our good friend Christine http://www.aboutmyarea.co.uk/Lancashire/Rossendale/BB4/Health-and-Fitness/Health-Awareness/90947-What-is-Stress

...until next time, "you gotta have friends"

Mental & Retail Therapy

Is that another week and weekend almost passed by again? I'm sure my internal clock is running fast lately, I feel like I'm in a Stephen King tale called "The Langoliers" where I'm standing still and everything and everybody around me is moving really, really quickly because I'm in a different timespace than everyone else!


...OK so thats really just an overly-dramatic way of saying I've been a bit busy LOL


Regular readers will know I'm also a qualified Neuro Linguistic Programming Practitioner and it seems to be about time I re-jigged my Beloved Blog a little to give some more space to my "Paul McKenna" skills alongside my Keepsake Kollection pieces...I was thinking of something like...

"Where else can you get mental and retail therapy?!"

My latest collaboration is something I've touched on in a previous post, namely writing some regular NLP related articles for our local AboutMyArea website. I'm very pleased to say that my first feature on "insomnia" has been featured here http://www.aboutmyarea.co.uk/Lancashire/Rossendale/BB4/Health-and-Fitness/Health-Awareness/90050-Insomnia and I'd like to say a big thank you to Christine for inviting me to participate and I'm really looking forward to working with both Christine and Paula from The Life Coaching Practice whose article on "stress" I'll share with you next time


...until then, for mental and retail therapy, who you gonna call?...Focus on Life!

My crafting helper

So it was great to participate in another Fair on Saturday...

...and the good news is I've booked a Rochdale Craft Fair in May now too...

...but the bad news is (there has to be some or it feels left out) I just havent been able to steal any time of late to make something new! Ggggrrrrr

So until I get back with the programme again, I just thought I'd share my little crafting helper with you

Yeah you're right, he doesnt look like he's helping much does he? Hmmmm

...until next time, I promise faithfully with hand on heart that there will be not a trace of ginger and white hair in the card I make for you!

Heywood visitors!

Craft Fair photos, originally uploaded by Susan Margaret.

Hey this is me and my lovely Craft Forum friend SusieQ who came with her hubby Bob to visit me at the Heywood Craft Fair yesterday!

I was doubly-blessed by visitors yesterday as another Forum buddy Goldy also came to see me, how lucky was I?!

I've posted this link before but here is where we all hang on a regular (very regular!) basis if you fancy joining us - you'll be made very welcome http://www.craftsforum.co.uk/index.php?referrerid=9261

The fair itself was pretty quiet sadly but we did have rain, rain, rain all day - until it was time to pack up ironically - ggggrrrrrrr

But I do wanna thank my stall neighbours Lorna & Karen for their great company and lovely comments on my work and great tips about upcoming events and all sorts of things. Thats the lovely thing about participating in Fairs. No matter how many or how few potential customers visit on the day, you can always rely on meeting some wonderful crafty like-minded folk and the ideas and information that are exchanged on the day are worth their weight in gold

If you're a new visitor to my Blog and especially if we met at Heywood, a big HELLO and WELCOME and THANK YOU for dropping by and I hope you find something here to inspire or entertain you

...until next time, enjoy the rest of your weekend

Heywood Craft Fair this Saturday

Ooh things are still a bit barmy about these parts - I had a great meeting on Monday evening which will result in Focus on Life (AKA me!) writing regular NLP related articles to appear on a local community website soon - watch this space for more news!

But until then, I did just want to remind you that I'll be at the Craft Fair at Heywood Civic Centre this Saturday so here's a bit more info about the venue including the postcode if you need it, it'd be lovely to see you http://www.venues.org.uk/profile_page.asp?VenueID=1810


When you come and say hi, if you shout "Shaz I've seen your Blog" at the top of your voice, I'll even give you a discount on your first order just because you've given me and my neighbour stallholders such a laugh!


...until next time, keep those Keepsakes handy, you never know when you might want me to make them even more special than they already are

Bye for now Casey

Before I tell you who Casey is, I just thought I'd do a "catch up" of what I was up to last week and why I was AWOL from my beloved Blog more often than usual for me!

Monday was my first day at my new job and I've had a thoroughly enjoyable first week. Not only are all the people really warm and helpful but the whole environment is very rewarding. My department are speech therapists so they help those with communication challenges and we also have Service Users helping out in the office 3 days of the week and its so lovely to see them enjoying carrying out whatever tasks they can in the office and getting such fulfillment from it - well done and thank you Oliver, Suzanne and Johnny!

Tuesday evening saw a great turnout for our Valley at Work special event with our guest speaker (see my Enterprise Island post)

Wednesday I dived into helping out with the phones at work. One of our girls was away ill and it was the busiest phone day and actually quite fun for me just learning who on earth everyone was. That might make me sound like a bit of a saddo but, for someone who'd been at her old day job for 17 years and knew the world and his wife, it was quite refreshing to be the new girl learning everything from scratch! If the chance arises to learn something new, try to take it...

Thursday evening was absolutely brilliant! I was chuffed to be invited by http://www.startup-lancashire.com/index.html to a Kickstart Your Marketing seminar from http://www.mercurymarketing.co.uk/ and I cant praise it enough. Geoff is a wonderful public speaker bringing a wealth of marketing experience and tips in a fun and informative way. I even chatted with Geoff about my business and Blog during the interval and that speaks volumes for how approachable he is, I very rarely do that with public speakers! I hope you'll visit his site and try to catch him if he's ever in your area, I can highly recommend his events

and Friday evening I went to a great 2nd Birthday gathering for our local online community forum http://www.rossendaleonline.co.uk/index.php Lee organised a brilliant night in Rawtenstall with food laid on for us and we got the unique chance to put faces to forum names. We ate chilli and garlic bread together and some of us even exchanged tattoo viewings!

Sadly yesterday I heard that my brother and sister in law had said goodbye to their beloved dog Casey who passed away on Friday after going downhill for some time (but well enough for the vets to allow her to stay with them during her final weeks). So bye bye for now Casey and everyone will take care of your daughter Maddy until you run with her again in Doggy Heaven. This is for you sweetie...

...until next time, take time to say "I love you" to those you love, human or animal

Enterprise Island

Where have I been? Off on a little entrepreneurial (is there such a word?) holiday to Enterprise Island!


We had our first special Valley at Work event last night, something a bit different to our regular monthly meetings. We were enlightened and entertained by Iain Scott, the man behind Enterprise Island.


Iain's most definitely a man worth listening to - and meeting - in the flesh. Being a "corporate escapee" myself I could not fail to be instantly enamoured with a man sporting a kilt and the most unique non-corporate hairdo I've seen in, well, ever!


And anyone who dispels the myth that entrepreneurs must be "born" goes on the good guy list in my book


As regular readers will know, I've been a member of the Valley at Work business group since its inception in September 2007 and we're going from strength to strength in Rossendale with members now totalling the 100 mark and aims to double in size.


You can visit the Valley at Work site here http://valleyatwork.co.uk/default.aspx

And I can highly recommend you visit Iain here http://www.enterpriseisland.com/


...until next time, you may well be an entrepreneur too and just not know it yet!