Xmas Round Up & a Thank You Card

Hello Lovelies

Well, that's it, Christmas done and dusted for another year. We've had our tree and decorations up for a week so today, they have been packed back into their boxes, ready to sit in the attic until December rolls around again.

A week is our limit. It's nice to sit back and have our home back to normal. We can simply enjoy having time off to relax for another few days. Before I say goodbye to the festive season altogether though, I'll share a few snapshots.

Our upside down tree made it's appearance once more.

And he did it again. Nick hung Mozart chocolates on the tree and it took me three days before I realised. He does it every year, and every year I forget to look. I only noticed this time around because I was taking photographs of the tree and saw them dangling there. Needless to say, they started falling off at a rapid rate soon after hehe.

These lights made an appearence after I found them in a long lost box of decorations in the attic. I'm a sucker for fluffy balls.

Okay it's not the tidiest origami you've ever seen. It's the napkins on the Christmas table, folded into Xmas trees. Trouble is, I nearly forgot and hurriedly did them as the doorbell rang and guests arrived.

My mocktail this year was a lavender drink. I sugared the rim of a glass, then mixed coconut water, lavender syrup, violet food colouring and ice together. Herbal heaven! Don't worry, everyone else was well served with alcoholic fizz. This was my treat alone.

Oh the trouble I went to for this shot. We put a false pudding on the table so that I could position a camera on a tripod and focus in and set up the shot. Then Nick carried in the real one, spooned booze all over it and set it alight.

And that was Christmas! Today, it all came down and then I locked myself away in my craft room to make and write out a Thank You card to my M-I-L.

New year is just around the corner, only a few days to scoff all the chocolate and treats before January rears its head and ahem, diets, begin.

Hope you all have had fun with your own celebrations :)

Play Date & Neon Colour

Hi lovelies

I said I was only making one Xmas card this year. I was wrong.

I was over at a friend's house on a craft date, primarily to encourage the making of Xmas cards. I had not intended to make anything festive myself. I thought I'd just make some general cards but I had this moustache stamp and well it looked like a tree. One thing lead to another and you can see what happened.

I'm not the most prolific crafter in the world. The card above was only the second one I produced in the whole day. The colours I used can be explained by the fact that I'd already dug out some card colours to match Hero Arts Neon Inks used in this...

I wanted to stamp the bike in these vivid colours, so I had out on the table the bright blue, green and red to match. There was plenty of scraps left over, which were used in the Xmas Tree card later.

In this dark, gloomy weather, I love seeing and playing with these bright, funky colours.

The One & Only

Hello Lovelies

I have my one and only handmade Christmas card to share today. I've already produced my usual, printed card design for everyone and I'll share that nearer to the festive day itself.

However, this weekend, I went along to the local Craft group's Christmas do and the deal is we take one handcrafted card, which is distributed in a Secret Santa format. Seems only fair that if I'm to receive a handcrafted card that whoever ends up with mine doesn't find a shop bought one inside when they rip open the envelope.

And here it is...

I die cut a triangle, covered the edges with wash tape and stamped a circular patterned image in green. I die cut a smaller triangle from the same nested set out of red card and cut off a point to create the pot. The sentiment is from Woodware stamps & stamped onto Kraft card with black Archival ink.

And that's it as far as card making goes for Christmas. I shall resume making thank you cards.