News & Updates from The Paper Princess

Well! What a start to the week weve had! Derek, our new Cricut Air 2 machine arrived in our office. We unboxed him and found that he was wearing a peppermint suit and has a very shiny nob that I can twiddle with.

Nic raised his eyebrows a bit at this but I twisted and turned it to each setting. Cardstock, paper, vinyl etc. Across the room, Doris, my Canon printer sprang into life eagerly and Derek immediately opened up his front compartment to show off his sparkling interior.

Doris couldnt contain herself and she was just itching to print something out for him.

I advised Doris that she really should try and play a bit harder to get... but she was having none of it.

Okay Doris, Ill let you print out this wedding card. She got to work, eagerly.I uploaded the image to the Cricut Design space whilst Doris was doing her thing. Its very easy to use. I simply uploaded the png file and clicked the Make button.

Doris had provided a wonderful set of images for Derek to cut out. I stuck the card onto the sticky mat and fed it into Dereks front opening. I pressed the start button and Derek sprang into action with his tool. Doris was ecstatic and gazed across the room at him in blissful silence. Then I noticed a flaw in our plans.

Derek wasnt cutting the image out in the right place!!! Doris was fuming because she had provided him with a perfect image. I was fuming because I was convinced that I had aligned the image correctly on my sticky mat. The husband was still fuming from me twiddling suggestively with Dereks nob.

The whole office was in meltdown and it was ALL DEREKS FAULT!!!I think it will take me a little while to get used to the software for this thing so Im now running off to find a Youtube video to teach me what to do.Have a great week everyone!

So. Its Friday night and the Grandchildren arrive after a four hour journey from the Midlands to West Wales. Morgan, the eldest is full of stories of boys and friends from school. Maria, the middle one tells me all about her dreams of unicorns and cupcakes.

Then we have little Leo, the youngest who walks in, takes his coat off and sits down holding a large, tupperware container.

I eye the container with great suspicion because Ive encountered situations like this before.

Leo, in his short five years of life has so far tried to build a worm farm under his bed, put the schools terrapins in the upstairs sink and swapped his bright red fire engine for his friends, brothers snake that he brought home in his ruck-sack and my daughter had to call the RSPCA out to catch the damned thing.So, you can imagine that I was a little disturbed by the tupperware container her was clutching.Whats in the box, Leo?

I asked (Praying it wasnt another snake)Terry He replied. I glanced questionly as my long suffering daughter. She simply closed her eyes and gave a little shake of her head before revealing that it was a frog that he had rescued from off the pavement before they left home.

He had refused to get into the car without it because he wanted to take it an put it in a pond somewhere.

So she had put a little bit of water and weeds into the box and the frog appeared to have happily travelled across Offers Dyke into Wales.I peered at Terry through the air holes and he appeared to be quite happy.Can we take him to the nature reserve tomorrow? asked Leo with his bright blue, innocent little eyes that melted my heart.Of course we can I agreed.

I was rather concerned that the little frog hadnt got much space in the tupperware box so we changed him over to a large dumper bin with a lid on it.

We all had supper and eventually, it was time for us to go to bed.

My hubby, Nicholas Leslie, wasnt back because he had been out photographing the Cardigan Lantern Parade. We had all been asleep for about an hour when I heard loud shrieks, thuds and clattering coming from the kitchen.

It was the voice of aforementioned husband that echoes through the house.He had arrived home, seen the dumper bin but could understand what the thudding sound was that was coming from it.

The frog had obviously woken up and was now leaping about inside and the thudding sound was his little head hitting the lid of the dumper bin.

Nic, took the lid off to investigate and Terry had made a quick bid for freedom.

Out of the kitchen he hopped and into the dining room, chased by Hubby. Terry wasnt intending being caught again so he quickly made a move for the lounge just as we came down the stairs.

Daughter threw a cushion at it but missed and this action appeared to spook Terry into making off into the conservatory.

Both grand daughters jumped onto the sofa, screaming loudly, Nicholas is shouting Hes over there! Leo is shouting Thats my frog, whilst crying loudly and Charlotte, my daughter is complaining that she broke a nail whilst throwing the cushion.

Hearing the pandamonium, my friend and neighbour had rushed round to our house, thinking there was a fire and entered the house through the unlocked conservatory door.Yep!

You guessed it. Terry took off into the night like a bat out of hell. We spent almost an hour outside with torches shouting for Terry but alas, there was no sign of him.

The following day, Leo was still unconsolable so I took him to the pet shop and we returned home with a Gerbil called Eric....my daughter fainted x

When two designers meet, fall in love and marry, you just know that they are going to live in a house full of creative energies and thats exactly what we do!

We live in a beautiful spot by the sea in Wales, which inspires our creativeness.

Both of us had previously lived lives of anguish, hurt, loss and stress. Unknown to each other at the time, we decided that life is too short to spend it doing things that you dont want to do.I saw one of his artwork designs and bought it.

He saw one of my cards and liked it.

He messaged me and I messaged him back. We were amazed to find that we only lived six miles apart. Last year, on a cold February night, we met for a drink and we didnt stop talking about new ideas for living a creative life and making beautiful designs.

He was also a poet and he read me a poem in the moonlight outside the pub and I just knew that I wanted to see him again.The following day, he gave me a call and asked me if I would like to go to see a live band.

The band was great but we spent the evening exchanging ideas about art and poetry, story lines and designs for cards.

Time passed by and we saw one another regularly until one warm summer night last June, we walked along the beach and he finally kissed me.

He read me poetry as the warm summer evening breeze teased at our hair. We began our romance. Weekends would find us both out with our camera taking pictures of the local area. Nicholas Leslies work is inspired by nature. He photographs flowers and trees and turns them into artwork to be used by designers like me.

My work is inspired by people and relationships and Oh Boy! was this a great relationship.He taught me all about online design programmes and I taught him about unicorns and soft fluffy kittens.

We had become inseparable. So, we got married. . . . and guess what we did on our honeymoon? We opened an account with Craftsuprint! Perfect!