Monday 29 December 2008

A great christmas and some exciting news!!

I hope everyone had a fabulous christmas with lots of lovely pressies and happy fun times. Our was pretty good, the girls had 'load's of lovely things and had a great time opening them as you can see here lunch went well, Matthew's dad even wanted to book in there and then for next year (we'll see!) he especially liked my homemade bannoffee pie which I had been itching to make since seeing it in the Tesco magazine, so easy and very yummy!!!
and here Lillie and Hollie are posing by the tree in their new dress up out-fits with their step-sisterWe've done a lot of sale shopping and have already crossed several birthdays and christmas pressies off of next years list!! We had a mad time in Woolworths, our closest one closed down on Saturday so when we went in they were giving out baskets to fill as full as you could for £10 we got a lot of school uniform items, including shoes, sandles, crocs, and yes I know I make them, but 77 various greetings cards matched with envelopes and 15 still to match up!! Over £150 worth of things for £10 bargain! and today I went to another branch who are closing down tomorrow and got £150 worth of clothes and cd's for £47! But I do feel sorry for those workers who now have the task of finding new jobs. All spent out now (unless I see another good bargain that is!!)

MY EXCITING NEWS is that I have been lucky enough to make it onto another Design Team woo..hoo.. I love that people think my cards are good enough to want me on their team, it's a great feeling, Thank you Carly for asking me. Carly is starting up a new challenge blog called Charisma Cardz which will have a weekly challenge every Thursday set by each of the design team on a rota basis, must get my thinking cap on!! Originally going live at the end of January but Carly has emailed today and I think we are on for an earlier start, will let you know when. Would love to see you all there for challenge no.1 which I know is a nice simple one to start with ;0)

Wednesday 24 December 2008

Merry Christmas one and all!

Here is a picture of the bag-a-lope that I made for my mums necklace to go in. I was going to put the guardian angel charm inside but forgot and glad that I did now as I think it looks really pretty hanging from the ribbon.
Here is the birthday card that I made for my uncle, he owns a business in town, so thought the image of the town clock would be a) different and b) something a bit special. It doesn't show in the picture but it is glittered with, clear, grey and black sparkles. And I would like to finish this post by wishing all of my blogging friends a wonderful christmas, hope it is a truly enjoyable one


Tuesday 23 December 2008

Happy birthday baby girl (and some earrings)

It's Hollie's 4th birthday today, wow how time flies! Doesn't seem like 4 years ago that I started having contractions (only had 1 with Lillie before I had to have a c-section) I started having contraction on the Wednesday after tea, then they died off and started again about 2.30am so after ringing mum and dad to come and be with Lillie we set off for the hospital. I had to be hooked up to a monitor all of the time because of the previous c-section. I had everything there was going Lol!! Would you believe the little sod didn't make it into the world until the Friday tea time??? Here she is on christmas day 2004 2 days old and now!! Bless her she's such a little love, so caring and thoughtful, but then can be a little horror ( a bit jekyl and hyde!) Happy birthday sweetheart.

On Sunday I made a couple of pairs of earrings for my sister, she had asked if I had finished her present as she would like some earrings, so these are what I made her,
these are to go with a necklace that I had already bought, I actually really liked these when I had made them and was tempted to keep them myself!!and these black ones, the bead is nice and chunky, and as you can see it's transparant which looks nice in real life! The brown guardian angel is going in with my sisters earrings and this green one is going with a gift for my mum.

Monday 22 December 2008

Reindeer droppings and lots more!

Last year after christmas Matthew got several boxes of fill your own crackers dirt cheap from the supermarket, so not wanted to hunt around for pressies to fit inside or spend loads of money, I thought it would be fun to make little packs of reindeer droppings!! (chocolate nuts and raisins for those who are worried Lol!!)I've shortened the poem, which reads : While santa leaves gifts, tied with ribbons and bows. The reindeer leave these droppings, in neat little rows!! (Freshly collected!!!)

Here are the crackers filled with droppings, hat and joke, back in the box, ready for christmas day.Yesterday my mum took the girls to see the panto at Hunstanton, it was a free trip for m&s workers and their children/grandchildren. I made these little snack packs for them to eat whilst they were there! There was one eachs for the girls, my nephews which were full of chewy gums and refreshers and the long packs were for my mum and sister which contained a selection of roses and celebrations.



They had a really good time, and are still talking about it today!

My sister came over today to take the boys to the farm to see Father Christmas, so we met them, here are a few piccies

I took this one before they left, sis had gone to meet mum at the supermarket, so it was a surprise when I gave them both a copy of this, they thought it was fabulous!!Lillie and Hollie decorating their tags to hang on the christmas treewith Father Christmasand a quick photo by the sleigh!
and finally I have been very lucky to receive this glamorous award from the super talented Sally-Ann (Love to Doodle) Thank you Sally-Ann I am honoured.
The rules are to give it to five others, who shall give it to five others. You shall link the one you got it from, and also the ones you give it to and let them know.You also have to write down five things you are addicted to.
My addictions : 1) making cards 2) buying crafty stash 3) blogging and blog surfing 4) buying clothes 5) my hubby and girls
I so wish I had the time to check around the blogs to see who hasn't yet received this award, but I am pretty busy the next few days with birthdays, baking and entertaining, so if you haven't yet received this award please take it as a special gift from me :0)
Back with a couple more makes tomorrow!

Saturday 20 December 2008

With love

I am still making christmas cards! I don't need to as I have enough, all written (this morning!) and waiting to be delivered. But I have lots of images stamped and ones I have been lucky enough to have been sent and so don't want them to be left in a box until next year, but I don't think I'll be making any more this year, boohoo......
I was so so lucky to be a winner of day no.2 on Katharina's advent calendar and up until yesterday hadn't used my wonderful stamp. I thought it was the perfect image for a card for my hubby (although we do buy cards, as we like wording in cards and big ones!) but I still wanted to make him one, as he puts up with me making them every day!! I've painted it with my pearl water colours so it sparkles really nicely. Then this morning I made the following card for our friends, Kay is my best customer card wise and wanted to make them a special one. This is my snowman that I have used on so many of my black and white cards this christmas but thought I would try adding a bit of colour to him, which I have done with my sparkles (like stickles). This matched my blue holographic card perfectly. I added a tree charm and a button which I added a snowflake rub on to.

Thursday 18 December 2008

2 challenges in 1 and more pics!

Not really finding the time to craft at the mo. but I did get my new Sugar Nellie 'hug a mug' image coloured a few days ago and it has been sitting on my desk crying out to be made into a card. This morning I quickly made the card below using the current sketch (just!) from Friday Sketchers and am also entering it for Cute Card Thursdays who have and 'open theme' this week! She is painted with pearl watercolours so her clothes, earmuffs, gloves and scarf really sparkle, she really is a pretty little thing.Here are the snowman soups that I made for the teachers, as I didn't have any The Snowman stickers left, I found a clipart image and cut it out with my circle punchand her is the back, it saved the girls writing all of the labels and I thought the pictures were a nice touch! I have been thanked by most of them in person and they loved them, and are going to use the idea themselves!! Hollie had her nursery christmas party today, we all contributed to the food, of course I made cakes!! But no ordinary cakes! I had seen a bun christmas tree in the Somerfield magazine and thought what an effective and easy idea, the ones in the shop are really quite small and cost £4 mine are proper sized buns and cost next to nothing. I made a chocolate bun tree and a plain one, what do you think?and finally a couple of pictures of Hollie, her hair is really straight so we decided to have a go at curling it, last night after her bath I tied her hair in rags, I remember having this done by my auntie years and years ago when I was a bridesmaid!and here she is just before going to the partyI took the rags out before we took Lillie to school and several curls had dropped out by the time we got home, so I put half of the rags back in until it was party time, but by the time we got to Nannie and Grandads after school you wouldn't have known we had done it! Ah well it looked pretty for a little while!

BLOG CANDY ALERT
Linda is celebrating nearly reaching 10,000 hits to her blog, and will be picking a winner of her wonderful, omg there is so much, delicious candy when the counter hits 10,000 which won't be too long!! You can see it for yourself here

Dawny is celebrating her half century birthday with a yummy candy giveaway, you can find details here




Wednesday 17 December 2008

LOTV new year card

Here is my card for the Lili of the Valley challenge which is to make a new year card. So out came my magnolia couple again! I am also entering this card into a competition where you make a card using/showing your new years resolution, mine is to use up old stash before buying more! Haha.... we all know how hard that is,I have a file brimming with scraps of patterned papers and it's starting to push other things off the shelf! The paper used on this card is from that file! I've also decorated the inside and back of the card with scraps of paper from the same file, but I didn't take pictures of that.My girls went to a Christingle service with their classes yesterday morning, the church is just accross the road from the school, which is nice as they get to go at certain times of the year. Here is Hollie with her Christingle orange, Lillie came out with a bare orange, they had let them eat the sweets in class, so no picture of hers!I had a call from the opticians letting me know my funky new glasses were in, so Hollie and I went into town after she finished nursery to pick them up, and I ended up buying her a skirt and shoes, and shoes for Lillie, another present for hubby, oh and a dress ring for myself, perhaps I should've stayed at home Lol.!

My friend Becky is starting up a new challenge blog in the new year called Sketch and Stash challenge blog, this is what she writes
New Challenge Starts Monday 5th January 2009!
A new Challenge will start here on Monday 5th January 2009!
I hope you'll all come and join in the fun!!
As you can see from the title, this is a Sketch challenge blog but with a little twist...
...which is ... you must use one item on your entry which is your latest purchase!!
How many times have I heard...
"My parcel is sat there untouched" or..
"My stamps have never been inked" or...
"I forgot I even had that!"
And with Christmas around the corner, what better way to show and tell what Santa bought you!!
So join us here in a few weeks when the fun starts!!

There is a fabulous Whiff of Joy up for grabs just for helping spread the word of the new blog, so go take a look here
I would like to wish Becky all the luck in the world, I know I'll be joining in that's for sure!

Monday 15 December 2008

Carol singing, ballet, nativity and a card!

Wow it's been all go the past few days, I had to take my eldest for her ballet rehearsal on Saturday morning, before picking up step-daughter and then going shopping to finish off christmas pressies! I did pop into Specsavers and chose myself a funky pair of glasses, ooo... I can't wait to pick them up, I've not liked the ones I wear now, haven't done since I got them really, serves me right for penny pinching!!
I also happened to mention to my hubby that when I was in the craft shop in town, looking for buttons, that they had a rubber stamp of our town clock (landmark I think!) with various greetings, only £6.50. He said he couldn't believe that I didn't get it, so off we went, then I had to make a super quick card as I thought it would be perfect to send to his Aunt and Uncle. What do you think?I'm really pleased with it, guess what a lot of people will be getting on their cards next christmas!?!
The day before, being Friday, we had Lillie's christmas carol thing at school, what a waste of time it was taking the camera and video, you couldn't see her row of children! How disappointing, but then I said to hubby, she was Mary last year so she was the star then!! Here is probably the best picture I got of her (right in the middle with the cheesy smile and purple hat and scarf!) this is only because I asked her to stand up!
Yesterday was spent wrapping christmas presents, we still haven't finished uugghhh....!!
Today we had Hollie's christmas nativity, she was Mary bless her, they did very well considering they are only 3 and 4. Here she is with Joseph and the donkey!we had a photo opportunity at the end, they had a yellow mat for them to stand on and pose one at a time as they came off the stage which I thought was a good idea. Bless her she was very good, she opened out one blanket and placed it over the donkeys legs and then unfeld her blanket and put it on her knee, then she kept getting annoyed with the shepherds and kings because they were interferring with baby Jesus, she kept telling them quietly to "leave him alone" with a fierce look on her face, in between yawning!!! Here she is on the posing spot! She has another performance on Wednesday.and then after Hollie's nativity I had to pick Lillie up and whisk her off for her 2nd ballet exam. All of the children and her teachers did a twirl and wished her luck as she left! Her ballet teacher had put some of the class in for the exam a term and a half early because she said they had learnt the steps/positions so quickly. We won't find out how they got on until the results are released, as they went in on their own for the first time. Their first exam their teacher was in the hall with them, but that was it, so even she doesn't know how it went. Here Lillie is posing before the examI managed to make a couple of quick cards tonight but may get around to showing those tomorrow. I have lots of snowman soup to make for the teachers as I sold the ones I had already made! No rest for the wicked!!!

Thursday 11 December 2008

Nice postie and an award!

I had to go to the dentist this morning, just a check up, all was ok and my next appointment is not until September can you believe that!?! Anyhow the postie had been whilst I was out and this is one of the items that I received
This is my 'thank-you' for being part of the Readers Feature in the current issue of Quick Cards Made Easy, remember me and the girls being on the front cover!?! I was very impressed, woo..hoo... more stamps and a paper pad my favourite items (along with flowers!).

I have been given the following award from Marie from The Greeting Farm, thank you so much for thinking of me! This was the first time I visited Marie's blog and omg the work from the Pink Poisin design team are amazing and there is also a shop with wonderful stamps etc and an even bigger OMG the new Anya designs are fabulous, not for release until February and a very big want from me!!!

The rules are : 1) Display the award on your site. 2) Put a link to the person who sent you the award 3) Give the award to 8 more people. 4) Notify them of receiving the award. 5) Advise them to pick it up at your site.

I am sorry that I don't have time to pick and link 8 people to receive this award from myself although I would love to, I just have lots to do!! So if you have not already received this and would like to add it to your blog consider yourself awarded, with very best and festive wishes!

Wednesday 10 December 2008

Ballet christmas and a WOJ

This card is for Lillie's ballet teacher, the image is from Love to Doodle, I try to do a ballet themed card each time I make one for her! Last night we could stay and watch the lesson, the children were allowed to wear fancy dress, Lillie chose to wear her santa dress but I didn't take any pictures. She has her 2nd ballet exam on Monday afternoon and a rehearsal this Saturday morning, so lots of running about to do! Hollie will be starting ballet when lessons start up in the new year, she can't wait but it means more money as if paying for 1 is bad enough!My 2nd card is for this weeks Whiff of Joy challenge which is to make a christmas card but not using red and green. So I went for blue and pink! I am going to send this to America for my cousins little girl, I've made a 1st christmas one for her baby sister so didn't want her to feel left out. I've used 3d glittered snow-writer for her muff and fur on her hat which looks quite effective.Yesterday I had a little production line going, making 'Snowman soup' and 'reindeer food'! I wasn't going to give presents to the teachers this year just save presents for the end of the school year, but desperately wanted an excuse to make the 'snowman soups' Lol!! The snowman stickers that I have used were a freebie from my magazine and just perfect. Then hubby decided that they were quite good and would take them to a christmas fair he was doing at a garden centre last night! Yes he left it until the last minute to say! So I made this basket of the soupthe poem is in quite small text on the packets so I printed the poem larger and put it on the front of a card for people to read easier!here is the basket of reindeer food, I found the perfect little image on clipart! The mix is porridge oats, glitter and edible silver ballsMatthew went to the fair alone as I had to take Lillie to her ballet and tap lesson and my parents we busy. We did go afterwards to have a look round and offer him support, but it was a bit of a poor turn out. My baskets especially the soup were looking a little bare! One lady had 5 soups and 2 food right at the start, bonus!! I made 10 soups and came home with 2 so have several more to make up now for the teachers! I have a few reindeer food left so will give them to Lillie to give to some of her friends if she wants to.
Although I didn't take my camera with me I did take a few pictures of Matthew's set up when he had a run through, and made the waterproof top at the weekend. a close up of the logs. Real logs with tea-lights, decorative candles and christmassy bits