Christmas in July & Bracing Myself

Happy Christmas!!…yes, really!

This will be a long post, or should I say long..er post. Lots of piccies to give you a festive flavour. This project was one of the first that we did, whilst everyone was fresh and alert. I couldn’t possibly put myself into that category as I’d waited over 1.5 hours for the building to open and I was a tad frazzled at that point. As I joked with the girls, it’s really like the real Christmas- stressful !!

This cup (with the squished handle!) was created using the pillow box die and lots of other bits like our large cello bags, Four Frames and Contempo Christmas stamp sets. Add a bit of holly ‘flicked’ in the ink pad to give it depth and topped with a bow ‘tied’ with a rhinestone brad.

When we’d finally got into the building, my lovely hubby lent us this superb coffee machine and having proper foamed milk and decent coffee helped offset the fact that these girls had had a bit of a wait before the event could begin! They all had a goody bag with some designer papers, chipboard, ribbon, some stickers from the simply scrappin’ kits and a top note diecut and cello bag, oh, and not forgetting a Dasher stamp.

Because of our late entry into the place, there wasn’t any time to ‘jolly’ up the room. I opted for the minimalist look of a Christmas tree, berries and lights. The atmosphere however was gorgeous, mostly due to the fantastic music selection provided by Jo and Claire. I don’t really like ‘starters’ or ‘icebreakers’ but I had something festive in mind…’ dress up the Gingerbread person!’ Using some extremely overcooked (intentionally so) ginger people, they had a selection of papers, card and glue and I promised a prize for the winning table. Five minutes later, this is what they came up with… which one would you have chosen?

 

In the end, the champagne toting gingerwoman won. Purely for comedic value!!

We cracked on with a variety of projects- here’s another one;

Inside the ‘tote’ were 3 tiny mini-Christmas cards. I’d managed to source some teeny envelopes that fitted perfectly. The rhinestone brad is blue only because I’d used up all the matching ones in the kits for the event! Our bags on the day had a black middle and looked really striking. After a demonstration from me we then had some more coffee and something to eat!

Couldn’t resist making everything sparkly or decorated with Christmas snowflakes. Even the gingerbread was in Christmas shapes. I made quite a lot of gingerbread and no-one commented on the Christmas trees in church on Sunday!!

On with the crafting. The girlies all were happy for me to take their photo’s. I was asked to perform certain photoshop actions on them- but I did explain that my photoshop skills are basic!!

This first pic is of Claire, Jo, Sian & Jeanne. They were the ‘speedy table’. They nearly got the award for event rebels but there was some lovely creative extras from there. They all put their own unique spin on what I’d demonstrated. I love that!  Jo was determined to use up all the waste and made some gorgeous poinsettias from the cut off parts of the pillow-boxes.

Liz, Karen, Denise and Barbara made up the precise and studious table! There was plenty of chat and laughter and their projects were all beautiful and ‘just so’. If there is anything about stamping that some of the girls on this table don’t know about, its simply not worth knowing!!!

The final table kept themselves entertained!- Sharon looks like she’s separate from the rest, but it was just the way the table was- we said it was because she was special!! Zoe, Cath, Sue and Hilary were great fun too and made some beautiful versions of my projects. I have to say that it was such a fun morning. It’s times like this that make me reflect on being a demonstrator. I’m so priveleged to know these girls, they’re such a great bunch and I’d never have met most of them without becoming a Stampin’Up! demo.

 This project is a little bag of tags. We used the owl punch to make the reindeers head by chopping the feet off the owls body. His antlers were made out the Sizzlits scribbles die and the tags were stamped using the Gifted stamp set which is wonderful for tags. I wasnt being very artistic when it came to his eyes and chickened out by using rhinestones. Some of the girls did some fab cartoony eyes.

The last project, we never managed due to lack of time. I’ll post that another time.

Here’s a shot of some of my ‘organising’. We had prizes, a quiz and generally lots of laughter!

I was going to write about why I’m bracing myself, but I think you’ve probably had a long enough post. Hope it gave you enough of a glimpse into our crafty Christmas event and hope to see you next July!

I’ve a secret hostess event on this Friday at 8pm  at my home, for any who want to come. It’s a freebie evening with a make and take and any orders on the night, or during this week will get entered  into a draw for being the hostess and earning an exclusive hostess stamp set and free goodies from the catalogue. E-mail me with your order before Friday, or let me know if you fancy coming!

See you sooner than my last post- it’s all been way too busy here recently!!

xx

Bunting Card & Boo to Marks & Spencer

 

 Bunting is one of my favourite things. It reminds me of being a kid, of celebrations and of patriotism. Here’s the quickest little (and it is really teeny) card morsel and its just stripes using offcuts of card and little triangles fashioned out of some more left over pieces. I actually put the stripes on first and then punched the shape out of it- leaving me a striped punched piece that I’ve used as the basis for another card. Add a few dots using a white gel pen and that’s a wrap.

Speaking of wraps- I tried to wrap Steve’s Birthday presents up this week in some really rather gorgeous sparkly yet matt wrapping paper. But the thing was that I couldn’t get anything to stick it down. Please Mr Bolland ( chief exec of M & S) can you not produce things not fit for purpose- whoever has heard of wrapping stuff that can’t be stuck down using Sellotape?! Stampin’Up’s super strong Sticky strip (try saying that in a hurry) just about coped, but even that was struggling a little.

I’ve been a bit unimpressed with M & S for another reason. I bought some jeans in their sale online (I go through the knees on jeans like you wouldnt believe) and when they came I happened to check the label and they were in fact full price. I had saved nothing! They did this to me back in December but with Christmas and everything I never bothered t take it up with them. How can items be in the sale yet you are unknowingly paying full price for them- I call that a con or some regularly incompetent programmers. well, I thought I’d ask customer services about it. The conversation went something like this;

Me; Can I explain why I’m ringing- (then a potted version of what I’ve just explained to you)

M&S Man; Well I’m sorry about that. Are you sure it was in the sale?

Me; Your link took me there and I clicked on Sale items

M&S Man; well was it in red? We only put sale priced items in red.

Me; Ermm.. where does it say on the website that you need to check that the sale prices are in red?

M&S Man- it doesnt. I’m just saying that next time there is a sale, if you check that the price is red before you buy it. If it isn’t can you please ring us and we’ll verify it is a sale item.

Me; (a little surprised)- so you want me to double check each item that I’m looking at and tell you if you’ve got it wrong.

M&S Man; ermm.. no , but you need to check they are actually sale items

Me; shouldn’t a customer be able to safely assume if they’re in the sale section of your website then in fact the items are on sale?

M&S Man..well we make mistakes.

Me; Yep, you do, to me, twice. And with several items back in December.

M&S Man, well I’ll pass on your concerns to management

Me; Will you really, or is this just a way to get me off the phone?

M&S Man ……………

At this point, I gave up and said something about writing into Head Office.

 Dear Marks and Spencer, I fear you are going down the pan. What happened to your wonderful customer service?….

You can see, I have a really stimulating lifestyle and I’m not going to win any awards for consumer champion either. Would it have helped if I had shouted, do you think? I don’t want to lose my temper over a pair of jeans that were decidedly average in their quality and fit! Oh well, I think I’d better stick to what I know and not do shopping online.  Except I have done a decent amount of shopping in the sales and nearly sorted out Christmas (apart from the men, that is). Fortunately Cath Kidston’s customer service is excellent and I remain a happy customer of hers! Before I go- here’s a sneak peek of one of the projects we’re doing next Saturday at my Christmas in July event!

Better go- I have Christmas gift wrapping to do (wink!!)

 

Card recipe: Cardstock- whisper white, Crumb Cake, Tempting Turquoise, Wild Wasabi, Daffodile Delight, Pumpkin Pie and Real Red.  Certainly Celery ribbon. White embossing powder and Congratulations sentiment from Bundle of Love set.

Congrats & Breathing Deeply!

 This is a clean and simple one. I suppose it’s more completely me. I have entered it into a competition- but I won’t tell you which one so you can’t ask me and I have to mutter about not getting anywhere in it!

Making this congrats card was a good diversionary activity this week..I’ve needed a few. Other activities this week have included reading (alright, reading 4 pages) of a current novel, building a lego dinosaur complete with moving jaws, making Cake pops (double yum), watching a Beatrix Potter ballet and making 6 cards in one night (quite a feat for slow ole me!). You can gather that I needed distracting.. well I did in bucket loads.

My Dad had some sort of major heart episode that ended up with him in ITU and the medics telling us the prognosis was ‘bleak’. Amazingly, within a couple of days (and after 100′s of prayers from all over this country and others in the world too), my lovely Dad is making astonishing progress. From not recognising his family at all, he’s now smiling, laughing (quite a bit at himself due to some delayed confusion), walking and more or less back to normal.

Not a prognosis we were expecting, but one we’re very thankful to be witnessing… its been a rollercoaster week and at the end, we’ve another member of the family pretty ill now too. Now you understand the title..breathing deeply. It has amazed me, the intricacy of our body- how they’re so finely tuned and how they can go wrong fairly spectacularly.  You can cut some of the tension in our house with a knife as a result. The kids have been upset and now are really relieved but it does take its toll. I’ve found a healthier alternative to stress-eating chocolate and now am quite partial to B&J’s frozen yoghurts. I honestly can’t tell the difference between that and icecream.

Have to go- have lots to tell you- but not time to do it! I’m still receiving bookings for the Christmas in July event in Liverpool city centre 23rd July (Sat) 9:30am-1:30 . £25. Dasher stamp and goody bag included and loads of fun projects. Last booking and paying date by 12th July please! It’s going to be fab!!!

See you when I can tear myself away from the frozen yoghurt!!

xx

Card recipe; all supplies Stampin’Up! except for the Doodlebug rub-ons. Don’t you love that Daffodil Delight satin ribbon!!