Crafting Christmas Quickie!

Hey! Just a quickie post today; have got a little snowed under doing some commissioned projects which accounts for my silence! This is a card using up lots of left overs; this was the negative part of a scalloped circle – too pretty to throw away! Apart from the card base- there’s nothing used that wasnt a left-over. Even the ‘string’ was a tiny cutoff piece of cardstock that has wonderfully bendy properties when cut exceptionally thin! It goes to show that you can really do simple and quick and get your cards done quickly ! Shame I’m nowhere near on that front !

This morning  I’ve been  doing lifts and entertaining with the kids being off because of the strikes! We’re sat in McDonalds for a treat for the 3 remaining kids. It was sad to see a little lad about year 7 or 8 sitting by himself in the restaurant ( can you really call the Golden Arches a restaurant ?!!). I know some working parents have had a small nightmare finding childcare but I guess not everyone found someone. I’m not making a commenton the strike- just the fallout . After I’ve finished using the wonder of technology to update my blog whilst eating lunch, I’ve got to go back and finish making some felt-ball earrings and a felted brooch courtesy of a fabulous red cashmere sweater from a charity shop . Even better that it was XL so more felt to use . All the fluff that came off in the tumble drying part, I gathered up and am now making felted beads with! I love recycling !!

For those of you that counted up all the hidden things – please email me with your totals – you have until next Friday!! ( 9th December )

See you when I’ve found a pair of cheapie expensive red heels to finish a wedding outfit off!! xxx

Christmas Crafting Day 11 & Cadbury’s World!

Today’s project is more of an idea rather than a finished piece. Tags on simple gifts (or even more extravagant ones!) are often very one dimensional. I had some chocolates hanging around that needed using up. I also had a collection of tags looking pretty forlorn. Just combine them with whatever little scraps you have lying around. The lace was too wide a piece to be very useful so I chopped it in half, stuck each half to a piece of cardstock (in order to hide the cut ends) and you’d never know they weren’t supposed to be like that (or am I kidding myself?!). I know its woefully simple but some of you are looking for ideas that you can use with what you have in the house, so I thought this would be a perfect starting point for you. There are mini snowmen, santas etc etc that would be cute on a tag for a kiddies gift. Please post a link or send me an email with what you’ve come up with- I’d love to see!

I’ve had some pretty early starts recently. Yesterday was earlier than most. The school as a result of studying the topic of Chocolate (yes, I know, whatever happened to Kings of England etc etc!!) were going on a trip to Cadbury World. To be fair, its a great topic, has really enthused the kids and this trip was the icing on the cake, or should I say, the ganache on the sponge!! The ‘kicker’ was that we had to get our offspring to school no later than 7:35. Various versions of the teachers warnings were Chinese-whispering their way around – but versions were ending up like- ‘if you turn up at 7:45 you’ll just see the back of the bus!’ and ‘we will not wait for you, you’ll just not be coming’. These statements (true or otherwise) had the desired effect of scaring the kids witless! I know that Jamie and several of his friends were up early both out of extreme excitement and abject fear that they’d be late and left behind! We got there in plenty of time- the buses did not. My nutty rushed morning was pretty uneccessary in the end but they all got off safely. The extra kicker was that I then had to hang around with no.3 child as school for her didnt start until 8:50 and then no.5′s nursery didn’t begin until 9:15!!

At 5pm, I was waiting for my son to come home. It was pitch black and even finding which one was my child was a challenge! I was expecting a boy coming home rammed full of chocolate -but he hadn’t touched a single piece. Wow, you’re thinking, her boy must have amazing self control?- nope. They didnt get one single piece of chocolate the entire way around Cadburys World. Go figure! The poor kids being subjected to chocolate at every angle yet unable to consume any. They’d been told they couldnt eat any on the buses (which is a thoroughly sensible rule given childrens propensity to the ‘food,buses and puking combination’). However, we couldnt ascertain where the free samples had got to. Having been round myself a few years ago, I know, people get free bars. I’m fairly certain that the staff didnt have them shoved up their coats- maybe the recession has hit Cadbury’s too?! So he just brought home what he’d bought from the shop (with money that we gave him).

He did buy us presents, bless him. I told him not to, as he didn’t have oodles of cash. He insisted that the small bar could be shared with his brother, but was less keen to hand out anything to his sisters! The little tiny (like with 6 chocs in)Roses boxes were one for Mum and one for Dad. This didn’t go down well with the female siblings and after some snorting and hurumphing from them, he reneged and said  they could share a box. Mum and Dad could share a box. That’s fine I thought. Their Great-Nan then came for tea, he decided he’d give her one of the boxes ‘I bought this for you’ he proudly announced as he presented it to her. Hmm.. not sure whether that was the family box or Mum and Dad’s box that we were now sharing! The remaining box has disappeared somewhere. I don’t mind; I’m not a real Roses lover anyway. I just watched in amusement as the gift became a little cyclic and the original recipients ended up with rather less than they’d imagined!

It all goes to show that

a) you can’t please everyone all of the time,

b) that older sisters are a force to be reckoned with, and

c) if you do perchance happen to visit Cadbury World in the near future, you might be best taking your own supplies in case you forget what chocolate actually tastes like

See you tomorrow (definitely!- I’m prob extending it a day or two due my slovenliness on posting due to unwanted cold germs!!) xx

 

Christmas Crafting Day 10 & Birthdays!

I know, I’m a day behind! Trust me, I’m a few days more than that generally. The stinking cold really put paid to several of my plans and mostly the fun ones!! I managed to get out to the Craft Event on Friday night but I was somewhat below par! Having said that, it was a fun night although ended a little scarily doing a kebab run for my hubby. I’ve realised I’m an utterscaredy-cat. I won’t be doing that inthedarkbymyself at10:30againthankyouverymuch! Back to the project- this is the jam I mentioned a few posts back. Full credit has to go to Apple And Spice for her Plum and Vanilla Jam Recipe. I did tweak it a little and add 1 tsp of cinnamon per recipe amount and I love the jam. Check her blog out- its a great foodie place! I had in mind how I wanted to decorate them. After all, if you give something good, often people want the recipe (yes, I havent forgotten the Tiffin thing!) so I thought I’d give the gift with the recipe added as the decoration. First I typed it out into long strips, cut it down and attached it onto my jam jar. You do need to think about how you’re putting it on, as I knew it would take two strips but was careful to ensure that the whole recipe was contained on the two strips. Then I wanted to create the little tag using a Tim Holtz fragment. The lazy lump that I am, couldn’t be bothered to go and find my acrylic block,and so opted for this solution instead ! Who knew?!!! The tag is simply made using a bit of the text recipe paper, some plain white paper and green striped. You add some Glossy Accents over the back of the tag, press it onto the paper where you want it and then cut around after its dried. I love the fragments because you can decorate front and back and it gives a lovely dimension to the look. I’ve got a whole load of these stashed away. They were too beautiful but they’ll now be on all my jams and chutneys. I think the chutney may need a slightly more masculine treatment! Here’s the top of the jar-

The stamp set is a PTI one, text style ‘Everyday Treats’ and I’ve used it loads, particularly taking round meals- so they’re labelled up well. The paper is slightly angled because I forgot to line up the orange seal properly so the paper had to go to the side of the rubber lip. Chump!

Onto the weekend- or rather, back to the weekend! It was Will’s 4th Birthday. He had a long and uncrowded day- which was the perfect thing for him. It meant he got lots of time to actually play with his presents! I did let him into the kitchen to decorate the cake with me… I show you these pics for two reasons;

1. To show I don’t take myself too seriously and so you laugh at my cake!

2. To show that this is what happens when you put a newly-4 year old in charge of sweets, icing and glitter. Here is Will’s cake!

There is a story to the cake; apparently Buzz Lightyear is imprisoned behind the sticks (aka Matchmakers). The snowballs are to stop him escaping and indeed, the only way he can be rescued is to eat the cake and set him free. Cunning plan. Great Story. I like the way he thinks! We did indeed set him free. William was pretty insistent that everyone knew that the figure was not for eating but derived immense pleasure from sucking his chocolate coated feet for a very long time!!! Birthdays huh! I like the simple ones the best. No Razamatazz. A meal that he chose eaten with his family (plus his uncle) and an uncluttered day where the timings were entirely his to choose.

Kinda wish I could have one of those days this week.

See you when I’ve been to my stamp club’s Christmas party tonight. The one and only party where I can just be. xx

Christmas Crafting Day 9 & Chutney Question!

A close-up to start! And the glitter shows up too! (yay!)Such  a cute little  pillow box to put something special inside. A short post today I’m afraid as I’m full of someone elses cold! So kind of them to share.. I have another conundrum to ask of you; chutney! Having made the pear chutney, it seems a tad vinegary. Should I decant, add more brown sugar and hope that maturing over the month will solve it? My friend thinks so. Is there another solution you can suggest? The jam was lovely- I guess some recipes are better than others! Here’s the whole pillow box-

Have to dash and magic up something for tea. I could do with some kid-help tonight, although possibly not Will’s, who announced on his way home from nursery that he’d made cakes today. ‘Fantastic’ I said, ‘what else did you do?’ ’Nothing’ he replied, ‘I just made cakes for 14 hours!. Bless, they obviously work’em hard at nursery! 

See you tomorrow- I will do a tutorial for rosettes (2 Ways) but can’t promise it’ll be tomorrow. I’ve finally finalised (can you say that!) what to make on Friday night so I may be a little busy both sniffing and prepping! See ya xx  

Christmas Crafting Day 8 & Cooking!

This is  my favourite project so far- one that I’d imagined and then created it. I’ll show you some step by step pics as we go. It’s a simple set of drawers that you could add sweets, jewellery or anything slim-ish. The drawers are simply rectangles, with an inch added all the way around, scored, folded up and then snipped so you can fold and glue to create an open box.

You then need to make a large deep box (think mini-type shoebox) that you can stack as many drawers as you think necessary.

In order to stack them and be able to open them, you need a little shelf in order to separate them. I turned each box upside down and then attached my u-shaped shelf. Then add the next upside down shelf and work upwards until you end up with this. You simply need to decorate each drawer and I added lots of die-cut letters. In order to make the ‘roof’ I needed to add a triangular support to rest the roof on.Here’s an idea of the shape. Just measure the width of the box at the top. Measure half way along, add a vertical line and then add intersecting lines so to create a triangle. Check the sizing against the box and then add an extra half inch around all the lines, score on the original lines and then stick the triangle onto the top of the box. Cut a rectangle that you score and fold in half and rest that on top of the triangle. With any luck, you’ll have something that looks like this.

Decorate up as you please! I added two different coloured papers for the shelves and then a brown roof and started to think about different ways of opening the drawers. Here’s a close-up so you can see

 The first drawer- I’ve wrapped a ribbon all the way around the drawer, tied in a bow and so you open it using the bow as the handle.

For the second, I’ve put two brads into a button and attached on the inside of the drawer. The other drawers were simply bradded up and add a swirl to the triangle and a couple of pearls.

Right now, I’m lost for an idea. It seems a little ironic that I’m stuck over preparing a craft item that’s Christmassy based. Its for an event on Friday and I have quite a few limitations such as time, finances, simplicity and originality as others are doing some defined projects that I have to be different from. Tough one really, need some inspiration but its not coming. Better hope something appears before Friday or I’ll be doing invisible crafting a la ‘the Kings New Clothes’.

Other than that. I’ve got a Birthday cake to make for Will’s Birthday on Saturday. He’s specified chocolate cake but he’s pretty happy to please. There’s another one to make for his nursery for Tuesday and the pears never got peeled the other day either, so I’m gonna be sharing a few hours with the kitchen. This poor kitchen sees a lot of action. This week so far has seen chicken lasagne, Mac’n'cheese, Suzie baking a quiche, Heather making a Suffragette cake (yup, you heard it right!), and there’ll be sweet and sour meatballs and spicey pear chutney by the end of today. When you think that I make an average of 50 plus main meal portions a week, you can see that my oven owes me nothing- its a workhorse and a half!!

Better crack on, see you after I’ve wrestled with a few dozen onions! xx

Christmas Crafting Day 7 & Feeling stodgy!

Hey there! Note to self; do not create large projects that cannot be easily photographed; this one was a pig and I just couldnt get a decent complete photo. This is the best I could do I’m afraid- but you get the idea. It was another upcycled project- the original was this;

Nice huh?! I’d have never looked at it twice if it wasn’t for the price tag- £3 down from £12.99. It’s a shame the photo isnt better, but even so, it was easy to dismantle and rearrange using the back part as the template. In a mistaken attempt to try and clean it up, I removed some of the glue previously put on with a glue gun. I realised quite quickly that this was an integral way of keeping the glass from collapsing back into the frame and despite a botch job with some mini-dots, its really not the same. Once its stationary on a wall, the gravity issue will have been solved.

The letters were some unused Anna Griffin letters that although not Christmassy per se, still could double for a seasonal project. It just shows that you can use any of your stash when creating Christmas gifts  etc.

Please forgive the lateness of posting- a few technical difficulties now resolved-although I can reveal there are definitely no hidden things today- so put your specs away!  I’m sitting groaning under the weight of some macaroni cheese. It was something that the little guy over for the playdate likes, so I was happy to make it-but now I remember why I don’t make it very often–you feel really stodgy afterwards!! What is the cure for stodgyness? Anyone know?

I’ve had a lovely day meeting up with different people and have been playing Christmas music- it makes me smile! The kids can’t believe that I want to listen to it, but its more fun driving to than kiddy music I can tell you. I am developing a new skill once at school whilst listening to said Christmas music; chopstick drumming !! Its strangely satisfying and you need very little skill. Good job really. You’re wondering why I have chopsticks in my car? Don’t you? Long story..I’ll save it for another time!!!

See you when my stomach has recovered (and its wasn’t from eating too much of it- I had a kid portion size!) xx

Christmas Crafting Day 6 & Kind People!

Phew- its Monday! Ever feel like you’re glad when Monday comes so you can have a rest?! Highlights of this weekend involved laboriously getting tangles out of no.3 childs hair and then cutting it to a decent length to avoid said tats. Hubby was ill so I looked after the kids pretty much singly. We had tears over homework, clothes shopping for teenagers (bleuch!),  playing music at church, people for lunch on Sunday and still playing tag-team drying on my radiators due to still no tumble-dryer. Add into the mix doing a crafting session for a church group on Friday night and then you can understand my elation that it’s Monday! Granted, most of these things were enjoyable but just a little too many activities in one weekend. I desperately wanted half an hour to myself- which I got on Sunday night thanks to a kind friend (ta Lydia!)who invited me round for a coffee!

Onto the tag- yet again another departure from usual me. Me and cute? Not normally…I have a little bitsy soft spot for this bear; he’s happy, which is a pretty good start. I just like him, so right now, I’m doing cute- but don’t bank on it lasting too long. Cute AND glitter? What is the world coming to?!!

An apology is in order to the group of people I’ve been causing general consternation for. I realise my ‘hidden objects’ are not very obvious, but that’s why they’re categorised as ‘hidden’. Plain ole patently obvious would be no fun, now would it?! You have to really scrutinise the pictures. It’s worth pointing out that these objects are slightly transparent and so far have been clocks and flowers. Maybe that’s the help you need. I apologise in advance for any headaches, changes of prescription needed in your specs or general frustration caused by the hunt for hidden things. I, of course am not liable for any of these things but it has made me smile at the thought of some you peering jolly hard at some of my pics!

This last week I’ve been warmed (emotionally speaking) by some random acts of kindness. To meet a complete stranger in a shop, smile at them and they then deciding to give my little boy a £1 just because, is really lovely. My other kids couldn’t understand why, but that quickly turned to ‘why was I not there?!!’. Also a family friend after hearing about some trouble that Jamie is having at school, bought him a pair of kids boxing gloves and offered to do a kid-friendly confidence boosting session in his gym. I’m so fortunate to know and ‘bump into’ such amazing people. It is in such contrast to thinking about the kids that all these shoeboxes (Operation Christmas-child) are going to. How can I ever complain about our material situation when in comparison I have such a ridiculous amount of stuff? I’ve sometimes enforced a ‘no-moan Saturday’ or similar in our house- I’m thinking of setting myself a no-moan November challenge ..who’s with me?

See you when I’ve peeled and chopped 28 pears! xx

Supplies-

Paper SU! and October Afternoon. Twine Girl & Sizzix embosslit ‘Buttons (SU!) Ranger Stickles

 

Christmas Crafting Day 5 & Sitting Still

Friday already! All ready to have a slight rest! I’d had these puddings (inside the box) in for a while and they happened to match rather well with some Christmas papers. I’ve extended a SU! Candy wrapper die by chopping the die in half, cutting out a section of acetate slightly larger than the middle part of the die and then attaching the parts together. It’s cute in its mini size but not as versatile. This way, you can increase it up- and if you search on YouTube, theres a nifty trick to extend it even further.

You can decorate the ends too- but the actual reason is that some of the cardstock slightly gave way after I’d twisted the shape – so there you have it; simply a coverup!!

The little rose is glazed-I wanted to do a little rosette- and this one was crazy fiddly! Probably better to do them in paper if you want to try it at this size. it’s simply a long concertina, glued together and secured onto a circle. Simple present- just need to make a few more.

Today I’ve tried sitting down. I’m really not very good at sitting still and doing nothing. I’m quite satisfied sitting if I’m doing something else. I struggled really,- but I know I’m not alone-is it simply a female condition? Maybe if I practiced a little more, I just might get it?!! I am a little tired of driving though- I am beginning to understand what others say about the taxi driver role. I think I may need to stash a blanket and pillow in the boot soon if I spend much more time in the cockpit of my car!

See you tomorrow.. those mince pies are calling! ..xx

Supplies; All Stampin’Up! Chocolate puddings from Tesco

Christmas Crafting Day 4 & Return to Aldi!

Still with me? Thanks for your sticking power. I know some of you want that chocolate Tiffin recipe; bear with me. I’m a little under the cosh time-wise and having extra ‘loose ends’ to tie that keep coming undone means even less time than normal.

This project is chameleon-like in its description. I guess its up to you lovely blog-readers to given me some inspiration as to their usage.

Here’s how they looked -a real bargain-50p each from a local cheap shop. Can’t see many people using them as they were- unless you’ve a shabby-chic style Scandinavian house. Like so much I see, I knew I could slightly improve them. The holes in the top kinda lend themselves to being hanging decorations. I could find a use for them like that. Part of me wants to add a concertina style hinge and make them into front and backs (or even two fronts with  cardstock backs) for a mini book. They’d be great for recording December events. The jury’s out- still can’t decide..any better ideas people?

 The lace is looped and moved down behind the sticker. Having an ultra-sticky back to the chipboard meant it was easy to stick the lace down. They were finished very quickly- the most hassley bit was tracing around the shape and sticking it down with wet glue (always best to use wet glue so you’ve got some ‘playing time’ if you don’t get it stuck down quite right!!)

The other is completely self-explanatory too- just a bit of layering and strips of paper. Finito!

I decided to do battle with Aldi again yesterday. You’d think I’d learn but there’s an extremely stubborn side of me that doesn’t like to give up too easily. After consulting with several Aldi-going friends they did agree that you did have to pack again on the ledge once you’d thrown (or had thrown) the food into the trolley. So we wandered around and I have to say this time, I was more positive about the bargains. I picked up 4 punnets of plums at 69p each (more on those on a later post) and some great crackers (just waiting to be ‘improved’) for £4.99. Will got very excited by a pack of mince pies and asked if he could have one for dinner (random- huh?!) The ‘wandering’ gear soon shifted as I approached the till.

I decided to go into ‘attack mode’. The focus on my face as I approached the lady on the till wouldn’t have been obvious to everyone else, but inside I was determined- I will not pack twice.

There, I said it. You got me. I have revealed my sinful inner workings. Not content to take the time and meekly stuff (carefully) my purchased produce into bags. I wanted to beat the system. Oh dear, I can picture you all shaking your heads thinking- silly girl, what did she want to court disaster for! Well….y’know I just very nearly cracked it. With speed that Usain Bolt might have been proud of, I packed my little socks off. The lady was very nice, got a little frustrated at a pricing problem but seemed entirely content. I got 4 bags pretty much full and lobbed the last few items on the top. Ta da! Happy bunny! I guess its the little things that make you happy!  

Don’t forget to keep counting the hidden images- there’s a prize up for grabs once the 12 Days are finished.

I’ll be finishing now..way too much cleaning to do for my liking. See you tomorrow x

 

Supplies; K & Co stickers. SEI papers, SU! papers. Button Embosslits. Twine from The Ribbon Reel.

 

Christmas Crafting Day 3

Morning! Hope you’re having a good Wednesday. I was up last night crafting with some buddies. I love getting inspired by others; thanks girlies!

Couldn’t really not include some cards; here’s a simple one with my colour scheme of choice. I love how you can use just the tiniest image to be a focal point. These stockings are really weeny but repeated, they make enough of a statement.

I just need a whole heap of these cards to be ready. Last year was pitiful; I did so much teaching to everyone else about how to be ready for Christmas, that I was not at all organised. This year is a little better and I’ve decided to look into as much prepare ahead food too. If any of you have any fabby freezable recipes- I’m all ears! I’m busy running the freezer down (it really needed it!) and started clearing out a cupboard or two. I’m so not one for making the house perfect- after all its only a day and it is so NOT about the trimmings (ironic huh, when all I’m talking about is the trimmings!!)- but it’s making me feel better to start to be a tad more efficient. Hope it lasts!!

It’s only a quick one today- more to tell you tomorrow x

 

Supplies; mostly from SU!- Stamps- Polar Party.  Ranger Stickles