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-sister
We'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)
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.
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. 
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!!!)
Lillie and Hollie decorating their tags to hang on the christmas tree
with Father Christmas
and a quick photo by the sleigh!
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. 
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 punch
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 party
I 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!
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'm really pleased with it, guess what a lot of people will be getting on their cards next christmas!?!
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 exam
My 2nd card is for this weeks 
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 soup
the 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 balls
Matthew 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.
a close up of the logs. Real logs with tea-lights, decorative candles and christmassy bits
