Sometimes you just have to make your own rainbows!

This week I managed a weeny bit of op shopping in amongst the craziness and you will NEVER guess what I found. Anodised cups.  My very own set of four for $12.  These cups are part of my childhood memories. When I was a kid I was lucky enough to be one of 15 cousins aged between about 5 and 14.  We were often all together at my Nanny's and she would pack us off into the bush (they lived on a farm) with a jaffle iron, the makings of spaghetti and cheese jaffles, and a bottle of sarsparilla cordial, and the anodised cups.  We would come back when it got dark, or the food ran out, or someone got bitten too badly by green ants, or we got scared by old Jock the buck goat.  Owning my own anodised cups has been on my bucket list.  I know that is silly, but these cups have made me ridiculously happy this week!

Today was Hills Spinners and Weavers Open Day and so there were some more happy purchases.  2 braids of gorgeous optim in my favourite colourway, Stained Glass, from kathysfibres.com and this lovely art batt (also shot through with rainbow colours) and a giant crochet hook that I plan to use to make crocheted rag rug bath mats.

I had lots of my little hats and some skeins that weren't my colours and a few other bits and pieces on the Guild table so hopefully I sold a few and that will fund my recent purchases!

Still no news on what will become of Creative Memories Australasia.

Have a good week!
Nell

And just like that...

I was in Spotlight enjoying a bit of child free retail therapy before my quilting group when I got a text on my phone: "check the cmc site" and I did, and just like that, my life changed.
Creative Memories is an American company.  Creative Memories Australia has its own corporate staff and headquarters, and lots of consultants like me that LOVE album-making and believe in the value of our products and what we do.

Recently, Creative Memories U.S. filed for Chapter 11 and part of their new "streamlined"/downsizing has meant not shipping stock to Australia so that Saturday, in Spotlight, I learned that the company I have been a part of for 10 amazing years has gone into "voluntary administration" because of a stock issue.  Life has been a bit surreal ever since - lots of calls and emails from distressed and distraught customers, consultants and friends.  I did not realise what a huge part of my life my Creative Memories business has been.

Thankfully, my wonderful customers and team have been soooo supportive and encouraging and I am so pleased to say that I have not had one single negative word.

So now we just wait.  There is a small chance, very small, that we will emerge from this stronger, and smaller, and probably a little wiser.

I have not felt like scrapping since I heard the news.  My heart goes out to the team at home office (who have always been a part of our CM "family") and who have had their livelihoods plucked away from them suddenly.  I also lament for the lovely CM friends I have all over Australia and New Zealand, girls who have built their businesses one party, one consultant, at a time.  Girls who have used their businesses to buy footy boots for their son, put their kids through private schools, pay for family holidays and help out with their mortgage.  My Creative Memories has always been my "craft budget" - my little splurges on book depository and in quilting shops.  It has also given me a couple of child-free weekends away a year.  Above everything else it has given me so many wonderful friends from all walks of life.

So now you see why this blog has been so quiet.  I know I will get my scrapping mojo back sometime soon, and I have been busy crafting (and I even have photos and stories to share from the lovely woolley fibre retreat I went on before it all happened).  I will try to get back into blogging but right now I just need to be able to be quiet and patient and wait and see.