Deck the Halls......

I have a stall in the craft fair being held at our local village hall this year, so I have been having fun making ornaments. These first ones were made with half of one of those clear plastic baubles you can buy, I built up a little scene using Memory Box dies, and added some fake snow and glitter....

Then some of my favourite paper pinecone ornaments, I haven't made any of these for years, I forgot how much I love them!

I also made these fabric quilted ornaments, Definitely to be given away to the family rather than the craft stall - if I worked out the cost and time, people would need to take out a second mortgage to buy one 😂

But I enjoyed making these gift tags. a bit of texture paste, some funky handcut trees.....

 So many absorbing ideas for Christmas makes....I enjoy making this type of stuff more than cards at this time of year. But I am a grasshopper and leap from project to project! 

Carol gave me a gentle nudge that the photos on my sidebar are a little outdated....I had an email from my daughter in law the same day with these new photos of Kiki and Monty. 

Right, back to the hohoho craft cavern......

Back in a colouring mood....

After months of hardly doing any colouring at all, I have been getting back in the swing - I forgot how relaxing it can be. This first card used the Splashing Puddles die by MFT and the sweet little girl from Rain or Shine stamp set. I have a thing about kids in shiny raincoats and little wellies, and I am on the hunt for some for Molly, so the boots and coat were given a coat of glossy accents

I'm really digging out my old stamps with this one, a Penny Black stamp, and a bit of paper piecing, I've always found it a useful stamp for a guy card

 I went with three friends to see A Star is Born. One of my friends had been and booked our seats for the 7.45 showing, we had been out for dinner, so were about five minutes late, but quite relaxed as those ads and trailers go on for ages before the film starts. But we walked in to a hushed cinema and the film had clearly started (big clue was Lady Gaga up there on the screen). The four of us slunk into our seats, and sat there for a couple of minutes before a penny dropped and we started whispering to each other 'this isn't the start of the film I don't think' ......so one of us went off to investigate, she was gone ages, by which time the remaining three had sat through the saddest part of the film, without having a clue what was going on (we knew it was sad because lots of people were crying). In tiptoed our investigator, it turned out that despite asking for the 7.45 tickets when she booked, they had given her tickets for the 5.15 show, which we turned up for right at the end. So (probably to the intense annoyance of everyone else in the place) we shuffled out, went and had a coffee and returned for the start of the next show.
The downside of this was that after we had seen the film from the start, when it got to the really sad bit that we had seen before, we were consumed with hysteria at the ridiculousness of the whole evening, so when the rest of the theatre were sobbing and dabbing their eyes, we were sitting there with shoulders shaking with mirth.
The film was very good by the way. Look out for a really sad bit towards the end

So many Candles............

I have quite a few close friends who are hitting milestone birthdays in the next few months, so I decided to build up a little stock of cards, and pulled out some of my Art Impressions stamps and settled down to a bit of colouring.

They are quite hard to find here in the UK, but I found a good selection HERE on Amazon

Since I am a bit of a 'matchy matchy' dresser, and feel a bit uncomfortable wearing colours that don't 'go', I unleash my inner rebel with these stamps, and really enjoy giving the ladies wild coloured clothes and hair - all the cards have a liberal dose of sparkle on the clothes as well (Wink of Stella pen), and if I knew how to draw leopard skin patterns, these ladies would definitely be up for that! How about you? Do you match, or don't you care as long as you feel good?