I used to be creative. At school I was good at art and remember having a stern argument with the Headmaster when I told him that I wanted to drop the subject at 14. We battled for quite a while in his study whilst going through my end-of-term report but he finally gave in realising that I was determined not to have to wear those silly blue and white checked aprons any more. I have to admit that he got his own back when devising a punishment for one of my (many) misdemeanours. (I was horrible at 14). He made me paint a picture depicting my offence which I can assure you was non too easy as I was caught swinging from a chandelier in the main hallway overlooking his study brandishing my hockey stick. I didn’t realise that he was in-situ as unlike the Queen, there was no standard raised to indicate his presence. He kept the painting, presumably an hilarious reminder of what rebellious 14-year-old schoolgirls get up to when bored.

Anyway, I’m sure that this incident left me with a subconscious determination not to be creative and together with other reasons, creativity went to the bottom of the pile.

I had spells where I would go to dress-making classes, make patchwork quilts and knit “Mrs Weesley” jumpers for nieces and nephews but nothing lasted long. But now I have scrapbooking and other forms of papercraft to occupy me and I seem to have found my niche.

 My latest wheeze is making mini-albums with folded pages which make hidden pockets. The albums can be decorated and embellished as much or as little as you like, and can be used for a multitude of purposes. Recipes, seed packets, photos, memorabilia, birthdays and special occasions, all can be stored in these albums. I am getting quite a collection simply because I enjoy making them. Lovely papers, buttons, lace and flowers. Tags and stamps, ribbons and brads all go together to create an album or notebook. I’m lucky that I have a binding machine which finishes the books off nicely but binding rings can be used instead.

I haven’t done any “crafting” this week as I have been on Jury Service. It was very disturbing and unsettling at times so that relaxing was difficult. I couldn’t sit down and absorb myself in a project and so it has been an unusually barren week for makes but in good old-fashioned Blue Peter tradition, here’s one I made earlier. It’s a 12 pocket album made of envelopes which I am going to use as a birthday/special occasion journal.