I was reading this thread through again and notice that it was less than a year ago that I started it - what a lot of water has passed under the bridge in that short time. What a lot of money I have spent!

Iris folding still remains a favourite, I still love the oriental themes but I also have my new passion, the parchment work. When I look at examples posted on the other site I visit then mine are mostly amateur, but as they say, practice, practice, practice.

I notice that I mentioned entering the monthly Challenges they have on that site, and of course now I have won two prizes, not for skill, just for entering. It is literally the luck of the draw and you need to be in it to win it as both Mada and I have discovered to our advantage.

Last week I was asked by a friend to make her a special card for the Dedication Service of a set of twins, it is a little like a baptism but in the Baptist Church. It was quite thrilling to be asked to make the card, especially after such a relatively short time making them.

So ladies, your tips and encouragement have given me a whole new hobby and a slimmer bank account. The floor is still heaped with craft supplies so I guess I ought to try to have another clearing session.

I suppose I ought to make a start on my Christmas cards soon especially if some of them are to be parchment as those can take hours if not days to make.

In the Gallery thread Ren asked me to explain about parchment craft which is how I made the mask.

Years ago they did use real parchment but these days it is a special translucent paper which is used. One takes a piece of this plain paper then by using special tools you can whiten the paper by stroking it and putting a little pressure. Also you can 'prick' the paper, again with special tools then cut out areas which creates a form of paper lace which can be seen in some of the pieces I have posted in the gallery.

The cutting is done with special little scissors which have curved blades and are held in a strange manner, in your first and middle fingers with the point facing down. The points of the scissors are inserted into two holes and you snip whilst flicking your fingers to the left thus forming a tiny point and eventually a picot edge. On the mask the size of hole was 9 to 1 cm, 22 to 1 inch.

The above is all known as 'whitework' but it is possible to colour the parchment, to draw on it and either paint it or use colour pencils or other mediums. This shows a combination of using coloured pencils together with whitework.

Amazing! Thankyou ,dear.

Long time no post in here!

I have to confess that the pink pop-up card is the only thing that I ever made with the CraftRobo, it sits ingnored on my shelf.

Could you try and sell it on ebay, Sue?
Seems to be a lot of things us crafters buy that end up being underused. I shudder to think of how much money I've let gather dust.

Resale of craft stuff works really well!!! I have sold on loads of stash no longer corresponds to the way I scrap, that I simply don't like anymore, or that I merely had too much of: paper, rubber stamps and other impulse buys, even dies that I don't use enough to keep. Recently I sold off lots of paper bundles (don't worry, I still have heaps) ... and made over 100 €. This is selling the stuff at rock-bottom prices, but at least it goes off my shelves, and I get some cash to buy goodies which suit me better now.

I don't even have ebay charges to contend with as there are three free-ad sites in France for resale of used items: Le bon coin, L'occaz du Loisir Creative and Scrap Occaz.

Selling an item like that on ebay is a problem as the purchaser would have to pay taxes and customes clearance on it so that would make it unattractive.

Not in Australia although it is up for discussion that a tax called Gst similar to vat be applied to online purchases.

Well that is just pressure from the big retailers and even though they may have a point it's just not feasible to bring it in on smaller overseas purchases.

I live on a small island, not in the UK, and a purchaser would be in the UK so the item would need to be an import, it isn't within one country. Private individuals selling to each other in the UK wouldn't pay tax.