Alicia's 40th

Its begun - the round of 40th birthday parties! Alicia isn't quite the first of my friends to hit the big 4-0 but she is the first to have a P-A-R-T-Y!!! Actually its kind of nice to have an excuse to go out with the girls for dinner minus husbands and all of our respective children. Around Christmas time I'm usually in Christmas card mode and got to the evening before the dinner and realised I still hadn't made a birthday card. I love the Cosmo Cricket Clementine collection so grabbed the 6x6 pad and was able to whip up this birthday card. I must say it was rather excellent to not have to send the card in the mail for once which meant I could add some Kaisercraft paper blooms without having to worry about them being crushed! While I don't really mind having to make cards that will survive in the post (which is a good thing as most of them do need to be sent via the mail) it does tend to limit the types of embellies that can be added. Thanks for dropping by. 

Christmas Ornaments

I bought some Kaisercraft wood flourish baubles a while back with the intension of decorating them as Christmas gifts for friends. In my usual way I have left it to the last minute but have managed to get half of them finished so I could start giving them to their new owners. I managed to take a quick pic of two of them before they were wrapped. I love the crackle paint finish and will have to experiment with it some more in the future. On items as small as these I have discovered that the second coat of paint needs to be applied on top of the crackle medium after only about an hour and not the three hours suggested on the instructions on the jar to get the large paint fractures I was after. I'm really pleased with how they have all turned out and I must admit I didn't really want to part with them. I'll have to make some more for me sometime in the future! The picture is a bit dark but these two are a really intense bright blue over pained with white, then either distress stickles rock candy or picket fence and decorated with flowers and butterflies in colours to match. Hope you like them too.

Errol & Zelie

I was recently given a felt gingerbread man ornament as a Christmas present from a colleague at work. In need of a few pressies myself that were suitable for children I decided to make some of my own using less traditional colours. I've named them after the two children they are gifts for. I'm very pleased at how well they have turned out and hope to make some more if I can find the time. Hope you like them too.

Xmas Gifts for Teachers

Come Christmas time its always a challenge to find the right gift for the kids teachers. Sure I could easily go out and just buy something but I feel that they should have something a little more special. So each year I try and find a craft project that is easy enough for the kids to do but still looks lovely. (The one thing I absolutely can't stand is parents making the project and claiming that their child did it.) So this year I bought some kaisercraft flourish baubles which both my 6 & 8 year old could confidently paint. I then sprayed each bauble with glimmer mist (only because I'm a control freak and didn't want to see any wasted otherwise the kids would have happily sprayed away). My 6 year old felt putting the rhinestones and pearls onto the baubles was a bit tricky so my 8 year old has done all of those. I got the rather mundane task of adding all the hanging ribbon. Each bauble will be teamed up with a bag of Haigh's chocolates (teachers need something yummy after all and you can't go past Haigh's) to make what we think is a rather lovely Christmas present. Hope you like them too!

Grandma

This is my entry into this months Show Us Your Stuff blog skectch challenge. All SUYS challenge entries must include at least one hand made item and as I'm having so much fun making my own flowers at the moment I made the three spotty net flowers. This month the optional additional criteria was to include blanket stitch somewhere on your layout. I have blanket stitched along both side edges of the pink pattern paper with avacodo jute string but then promptly covered one side with flowers lol. The cardstock base is one of the new coredinations embossed range  - Aunt Grace Bubs in vanilla - I've sanded to reveal the core colour but also added some distress ink over some of those areas too. The pattern papers are Basic Grey Hello Luscious range. The yummy pin comes from the Top 50 Scrapbooking forum market. Thanks for stopping by xx.

Pure Delight

So here is my first ever image on a blog (which still looks terrible sorry I will make it look better soon - when I work out how to...). It is based on a pagemaps sketch and is my first ever entry into Lime Tree Creations monthly competitions. I've used Echo Park Summer Days papers and alphas and have puched around the papers with a Martha Stewart punch. The fantastic crochet flower doilie clips are from Lime Tree who hand make amazing doilies for scrapbookers and paper crafters.

Under construction

It's taken me ages to think of a name. It's not very original but....
Hope to get some time to make this look ok in the future. Till then...