Deck the Halls.......

Mike was given a gift, and told to open it because something needed to go in the fridge - it was a bottle of port and a Stilton cheese. I was delighted - I hate port and never eat Stilton, so why the happy smile? Just look at the box it came in, a wooden crate that is just crying out to be altered.......

The tree is decorated.........

and it's always lovely to see old favourites come out of the box of decorations. These little ceramic climbing angels were bought in Budapest, Hungary...............

and these little angels came from a Christmas market in Prague.......

 these silver bells were on my parents Christmas tree when I was a child.....

and this little chap came from Stuttgart, Germany - you put a scented cone inside and light it, he looks as if he is smoking a pipe!

A couple of last minute Christmas cards. This one used a clear stamp by Papermania UK

and this one is Luka by LaLaLand stamps

Things I love about Christmas:
Family
Friends
Christmas carols
Turkey sandwiches
Seeing the house all dressed up
A pile of presents under the tree
The happy look on someones face when they open their present from you and you know that you got it exactly right
Mince pies
Knowing that you have enough food in the house to feed an army, and won't have to cook for at least a week
That warm cinnamon/spicy/fir tree smell


Things I hate about Christmas:
Getting last minute Christmas cards from people you had forgotten
Getting last minute Christmas presents from people you had forgotten
Crowded shops
Crowded car parks
The unhappy look on someones face when they open their present from you and you know that you got it really wrong
Realising late on Christmas Eve that you have forgotten some vital ingredient for next day's feast (happens every year)
Those news letters that some people put in with their cards. Don't bad things ever happen to these people? They are always full of promotions, brilliant children and world cruises (sorry, don't mean to offend anyone, but I would love to have one saying something like 'Aunt Bessie passed away in March, but it didn't bother us, we never liked her')


 Oh no, I can feel a touch of Scrooge bubbling up, I'll stop there.......Note that my likes outnumber the dislikes :)

Resist Embossing Butterflies

I used a set of acrylic stamps by Kanban for this one. I heat embossed the script/butterfly background in white, onto a white background. Then I swiped the whole thing with distress inks, graduating a bit from blue to green. The whole panel was wiped with a baby wipe, hey presto, the white embossing really stands out.

The border punches are by Martha Stewart, and I used a little bowdabara to make the bow. The sentiment (don't know what the little white marks are, they are on the photo, not the card), is Studio G from the dollar bin

The Santa run is done. Monty was wide eyed, and very quiet as we piled the presents under the tree. Apparently, as soon as we left, when his mummy was waving us off, he dived into the pile, and was found busy opening all his Daddy's gifts. Oooops. I suppose when you are two, the concept of Christmas day is a bit vague, and hey, if there are presents sitting around, what's a chap to do? The gifts are now relocated to the top of the wardrobe :)

More tuff boys

Here's a couple more cards made with the new Tuff CD from Polkadoodles, I love this one, it's such a great CD for boy/men cards. The images were coloured with Promarkers, and all the papers are printed from the same CD

I have just finished a marathon wrapping session, without running out of paper/tape/tags, that must be a first. We are doing the Santa run today to deliver presents in London. Monty is beside himself we hear, so he will go into overload when he sees the pile of pressies going under the tree.....
It's a flying visit, so will be back tomorrow, see you then 

Shabby Vintage - With love on your Birthday

This gorgeous pack by Craftwork Cards arrived just as I arrived home from the US, and this is the first chance I have had to play with it. The colours are lovely, soft and elegant, and I love the letter stickers -  so much that I made them the focal point of this card. 

I have had a Cricut cake in an online shopping basket (cricutmachine.com) for about two weeks now, the only reason being that it was at such a knockdown price it seemed too good to miss ($49.99). I overlooked the fact that I haven't actually baked a cake for about five years, a bargain is a bargain. Then, like a lightning flash, I remembered that my daughter in law Annabel makes loads of cakes and decorates them beautifully. So although I had bought all her Christmas presents, she has an extra gift in a rather large box winging it's way across the Atlantic. Even with international mail costs, I only paid about £80 for it, which includes three cake cartridges, which considering Create and Craft have just the machine for £400, must be a steal. If she doesn't like it, I will reclaim it and use it as a back up,  to cut paper. So anyone hankering after a Cricut expression, go over there and grab yourself a deal, they may have some left.......

 I have a curtain that needs to be altered - very expensive fabric so I need to be careful. The plan is that it will undergo a metamorphosis and turn into a blind.  I got as far as taking it down, and it has been folded on a chair for about two months now. I have just moved the chair to make room for the Christmas tree and the blind has been moved to my New Year Resolutions list! Having it neatly placed on this list makes it all seem so logical, and less urgent somehow. Now I will only have pangs of guilt when I go to my list to add something else that I don't feel like doing.....master of prevarication, that's me.

Away in a manger

This has to be one of my favourite Christmas stamps, it is back in the USA, but I am pretty sure it is by Inky Antics, coloured with Promarkers. The starry background paper, which has lovely glitter dots, is by Papermania

Our postman hasn't been near us for about four days now. They did this last week as well, then an avalanche of mail landed on the floor. Is this a not very subtle way of dealing with the Christmas mail - ignore it for a few days, it may go away. Is there one poor postman trudging around trying to deliver to the whole town? Answers on a postcard please - but don't expect it to be delivered before February


No time to burble on today, I am busy packing up parcels and really must tidy up my crafty space, you have never seen such a mess. 

Mermaid

This lovely little mermaid image is by La La Land stamps, available from Scrappy-go-Lucky. I embossed the card front with the spots and dots folder (available in the UK, not sure about the USA), then added some Fiskars sheer blue raindrops to that. The sentiment is from Craftwork Cards

I did a step by step photo shoot of colouring her hair with Promarkers. I started with rich cocoa in the darkest areas....... 

blended that in with cinnamon, going over the area coloured with the rich cocoa, and extending the colour out a little.......

I moved on to Caramel, again going over the previously coloured parts, and extending it out a little more. I left some patches where I thought the light would be catching the hair.....

I went over the whole lot with Ivory, which added some light highlights...

I started the skin, by going around the darkest areas with soft peach, under the hairline, on the cheeks, you can see that I made a mistake and coloured in her bolero top, it made no difference to the end result. I then went over the whole of the skin area again with a Blush marker.....

and here she is finished. I used ice grey 1 & 2, duck egg, cool aqua, grey green, tea green, and cyan for the clothes and tail, and added a tiny bit of a turquoise Spica pen to add a bit of sparkle.....

The label shape was made by scribbling glossy paper with promarkers, and flicking with blender solution - the ink dissolved, and it looks just like bubbles in water (this was the technique I wanted to video until I lost my tripod!)

So there we are, I hope this has been useful

I had a phone call from two very excited little boys (Max and Milo) who had just helped Daddy decorate the Christmas tree. Apparently Max is opening his advent box in a very orderly way, counting the days and carefully removing the contents. Milo has developed a rather unusual method - he opens ALL the boxes every day, has a good look inside each one, then chooses which one he fancies. As my son said, this means that by Christmas week, he will be left with a load of rubbish that he didn't really fancy in the first place!! 

Quick Christmas Cards

The challenge on Polkadoodles this week, is quick, last minute Christmas cards. Well, you can't get easier than this - I printed out the night sky element from the Magical Winter CD already coloured, printed out some houses, cut them out and popped them on with foam pads. A Craftwork Cards sentiment and hey presto, the card took me about ten minutes to make. Do go over to the challenge blog and join in, I would love to see you over there



Today is our daughter Alex's birthday. Have a great day, and happy birthday sweetheart

Outraged comments about the smoking santa I mentioned yesterday. What I forgot to mention was that he was standing at the back of a pub! Obviously a man of many vices.......

I got all set up to do a video yesterday, had a bit of a tidy up, got all the stuff ready, found the Flip camera, ooops,the tripod is back in the USA. So short of strapping the thing to my head while I work, you will have to wait until I can buy another one, by which time my desk wll be all messy again - sigh  

Make a wish......

Here are a couple of cards I made for this month's Papercraft Inspirations magazine, on sale now in the UK, next month in the USA. The theme was birthday/make a wish, so I had to come up with four different cards on the theme. For the first one, I used a real candle................

and this next one had rolled up rectangles of paper with cotton 'wicks' to look like candles.......

Things on my to-do list yesterday fourteen, things crossed off my to-do list yesterday one. The Christmas cards have started rolling in, and so far all of them are from people I had totally forgotten about. Oh dear. So my one productive act was mass producing a few cards
. 
Out and about, I saw a Santa in a rather grubby looking Santa suit, sneaking a crafty cigarette behind a wall. 'Ho ho ho' I said cheerily as I passed, 'I hate bloody Christmas' he replied grumpily. Right, a bit of a problem on the job satisfaction front there then
.
See you tomorrow

Pretty Tuff

Look what came in the post, the super new CD from Polkadoodles, a collection of the most adorable tough boys, this CD is a must for making those boy birthday cards, cards for men of any age actually, as well as doting grandmas!

Available now from the Polkadoodles online shop, they mail free to anywhere in the world. Have a look at the online gallery there for inspiration.

Here are the first two cards I made as samples for Nikky, both coloured with Promarkers, and using papers from the CD

If anyone has children/grandchildren getting excited about Christmas,  go HERE to Santa's Portable North Pole to make a personal video message to send them. I found this site last year, and it is just so neat - Santa looks like the real thing, you can upload photos of the child and give details, so that it really looks like a personal message - and it's free. I made one for Kiki and Max and had great fun doing it. You can send them to adults too, I haven't tried that, bet there's a lot of talk about being naughty............ 

More Christmas cards........

I am finally getting to grips with the Christmas cards - these all use exactly the same design, well, it was working for me, so why not. The die cut oval is by Nellie Snellen, all the stamps are by Lili of the Valley, papers and sentiments by Craftwork Cards

I coloured them very lightly

I changed the colours to pink on this one......

and this one hardly needed any colouring at all, I just coloured the shadows with ice grey 1

The annual hysteria is mounting - the papers and magazines are all full of advice on how to cook the perfect turkey. I don't understand this - it's only like a chicken but bigger, chuck it in the oven and cook it for a bit longer, works for me every time. Then there are the articles on how to dress the perfect house......these articles are illustrated with happy people in red sweaters, sitting around a roaring log fire, surrounded by priceless antiques, with a perfect tree in the corner, hung with baubles that have been chosen to perfectly match the colour of the curtains....... I won't even start on the articles about wrapping the perfect gift, lovingly tied with huge bows and handmade tags.

 My reality is that one day this week, we will climb up to the attic to unearth the Christmas tree, which was shoved rather haphazardly into it's box last January, when I was sick of the sight of the thing. (I gave up having a real tree when I found I was vacuuming pine needles from the carpet in July). Then we will have the annual trauma of untangling the fairy lights, which were treated with the same contempt as the tree back in January - an action I will bitterly regret when I have spent three fruitless hours trying to make them work. Wrapping the presents is a marathon, and usually ends with the last few being wrapped in some leftover birthday wrap, and hoping nobody notices.....then I will be ready to put on my red sweater and smile prettily for the camera

Something Hidden for Polkadoodles

 It is my turn to set the challenge on Polkadoodles this week, and I chose

A card or project for a child with a hidden or secret element

Why?

I have no idea, it seemed like a good idea at the time, until I started to think about it and realised that I didn't have the faintest idea what I was going to do

 Inspiration came when I started to make the Kaisercraft advent box for Max. Lots of hidden stuff here, right? I used the same basic design as the one I made for Kiki, but this time I used the little boys from the Magical Winter CD from Polkadoodles, printed, coloured with Promarkers and cut out, then mounted to the scene with springs or foam pads. The trees were cut from the Jolly Holidays cartridge with my Cricut expression, as was the sentiment. The advent boxes are available from Sir Stampalot in the UK, and Ritz camera in the USA

Little white pompoms made cute little snowballs........

and I added a lot of glitter all over........

This little chap building a snowman was just perfect for the scene.....

as was this little guy with the giant candy cane.......

and finally a real little guy with the finished product. ('hurry up Ma, this is really heavy') Conversation between my son and Max yesterday

Max: "do you and mummy get a Christmas present?"

Ed: "yes, possibly. What do you think mummy wants?"

Max: "a necklace and bracelet…..... and a ring"

Ed: "that sounds expensive. What about something cheaper?"

Max: "um. ur. how about some shampoo?"

Sounds a plan Max, that should do it....

Do go over to the challenge blog to see what the wonderful design team made of my challenge - lots of inspiring stuff on there, and of course, we would love it if you joined in


Random musing for today - do teenage girls have a special built-in thermal gene that allows them to wander about in sub-zero temperatures wearing only skimpy tops and micro mini skirts with bare legs? When does this gene mutate into one where you are only warm with about ten layers and boots?


Second random musing, following on from the first.....how come someone who was brought up in a cold and draughty manse perched on the side of a Welsh mountain, with ice on the inside of the windows in the winter, now needs central heating turned up to tropical levels to be happy - you'd think I would have become acclimatized  in childhood wouldn't you?


Third random musing following on from the second....... in no particular order, my list of favourite things in the world must include cashmere, thermal anythings, ugg boots for warmth not appearance, hot water bottles and hot baths


Just off to get another sweater (did you guess that it is quite cold here today!)  

And the winners are........

 Hi everyone, first of all, I had loads of enquiries about the embossing folders used in yesterdays post. I got them at a craft fair, so didn't have a supplier, but some super sleuths tracked them down. Apparently the Craft Barn has them in the UK, (thanks Vickie) and Marlene wrote to say


I found and ordered the two folders displayed on your site. I got them from: Scrap'NStamp. Price $6.95 each. One is called: Crafts Too Embossing Folder-Sleigh, one is called: Crafts Too Embossing Folder-Snowflake Banner. Hope this helps just in case someone else asks you about them. Marlene

Thanks Marlene. On to the winners, I used a random number generator, but it was too much of a faff to take photos of all the screenshots, so I am just listing the winners here, 


The Polkadoodles Boutique Magazine - Erin Glee


Cricut Cartridge - Loz


Metallic Markers (thanks Letraset!) - Freetime Gone and Sandra (Misty)


Craftwork Cards bundle - Rae Ann


Polkadoodles Sprinkle of Kraft CD - (thanks Nikky Hall of Polkadoodles!) Paul (Crafty Blogocks blog)


Martha Stewart goodies - Krafty Karen


Huge congrats to you all. Can you please email me with your addresses, and in the case of the Letraset winners, also include your telephone number - the prizes are sent out by Letraset and the courier needs this information


Thanks to all of you for taking part, I just wish I could send something to everyone, but there will be more fun stuff up for grabs very soon




So on to today's project. My daughter Alex has a flatmate called Sophie, who has just become an aunt for the first time. She is so excited, and so much in love with her little niece, I offered to make her an explosion box to give her brother and his wife at Christmas. Here it is Sophie...........

I used New Arrival cricut cartridge for the little feet and the dress

I found these little dolls ages ago in Poundland - they are perfect for little girl boxes......

and of course I decorated all the pages with teensy brads, buttons and ribbons.....I hope she loves it

Christmas cards - oh my! I really should be writing them and addressing the envelopes, but half of them are not even made yet. I may have to resort to buying a box or two. 

Embossed Christmas and Babychino......

A couple of cuttlebugged card for you today - I find that the beauty of these very quick-to-make cards is that people think they are wonderful - always a bonus - and yet you can roll them out quickly - another bonus at this time of year. Both the embossing folders are from the UK, I don't know if they are available elsewhere. For this first one, I swiped all over the embossing with an ice blue chalk ink pad to accentuate the  raised detail, added a few gems and one of the lovely new foiled sentiment bands from Craftwork Cards, and I was done. Sorry about the shadow on the photo - the time available to take a photo in good light seems to be getting shorter each day

 and this second one didn't take a lot of skill did it? A lovely folder, a pretty shaped card from Craftwork Cards, one classy looking card.........

Talking of classy cards, I just wanted you to see two cards that were sent for my birthday all the way from the USA. The first one is from Bev who is one of my Thursday crafty mates when I am over there, thank you so much Bev xxx

This next one is from an online friend who is a regular and encouraging visitor to my blog, Colleen. Your card is gorgeous Colleen, thank you so much and I so appreciate you sending it over

We had a lovely weekend looking after the boys. I couldn't resist showing you this photo of a solemn little Milo - he is so like his daddy at that age, it melts my heart.......

 "They are only allowed to watch TV for an hour after tea Mum" instructed my son. Yeah right................... 

 Well what else keeps two little dynamos quiet so that exhausted grandparents can have a break!


The mention of babychinos seemed to intrigue a lot of you. Here's what it looks like, very sophisticated, in teensy little cups, and looking just like a cappuchino. All it is, is frothy milk with a sprinkling of chocolate on top.......

but it's really yummy  spooning all that froth up, and it makes a chap feel so grown up

I'll be back tomorrow with the winners of last week's givaways. See you then