Happy Christmas Everyone!

Please...lovely snow, stop falling:)  It's not so nice anymore...

We've had quite enough snow now, these photos were taken on Tuesday after a bit of a thaw and we've now had so much more since then in our little village.   Flipping heck... Enough is enough I say!

Hamish has really enjoyed playing in it when it was this deep but since we've had even more, I think even he has had enough of it.

It's getting a bit deep for his little legs, and springing about in it for too long seems to be hard work for him now.

I was playing chase the snowballs with him, when we came in I realised he had brought some snowballs in with him, they had got so caught in his fur I couldn't remove them.  How did he pick that lot up?

I thought it was a matter of waiting for them to melt, but...

He decided to eat them off... what a mess!

I hope you have all managed to finish all your shopping, and are over the worst of the prep so you that can enjoy the next few days.  If you are travelling visiting family I hope you have a safe journey.

We finally managed to get our food shopping done yesterday, as it snowed heavily again on Tuesday night, I thought we may be eating whatever we could find in the freezer over Christmas, but by lunchtime the road was a little better after having the sun on it.  It was actually a lovely winter's day, but not nice to have to drive on the roads as they are. 

I did forget tin foil and icing sugar.  I'm sure we really can manage without both.  I picked up a tip about grinding caster or granulated sugar into a powder to make icing sugar so as the weather is horrid again today, I'm sure I'll still be able to make the brandy butter and dust the mince pies:)  There's probably a lot worse that I've forgotten.

Another top tip, don't live in a village that doesn't have a corner shop!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, thank you for all your great comments and support for our blog since I started it this year, it's become another wonderful hobby, and it has been lovely meeting and getting to know new people through it.

I also hope you will join us here for our blog hop and awards that starts on Sunday.  We will be starting at 11am, bring a mince pie and something warming to drink with you and join in for as long as you like. 

It will be lasting a week, there are 16 brilliant prizes to win too, so do pop in whenever you can, do the blog hop and also take part in the awards.  Don't be shy, it'll be great if you introduce yourself so we can get to know you too, especially with the awards!

Jill

PS:  I will be back later with a short post to announce the winner's of the blog candy giveaway no.3!

Christmas cards DONE!

Cards finished and posted on Thursday..... yeah!!!!!

I cut it fine again this year by only posting them on Thursday.  I did make more, I ended up making more poinsettia cards than I intended but I really enjoyed making them and using the Starburst Stain papers I had to hand.  As you can see there is quite a difference in the shades and styles.

We've received lovely cards so far this year, so thank you for all of those!

We received something new yesterday that we've been waiting for, magnetic sheets, I'll get them on the website asap!  There are two A4 sheets in a pack for £1.90!  I've a few projects on the go that I need to get on with over the Christmas holidays for telly shows in the new year but I hope to have a little play with these too, as I can see other things to use them for other than just Nestie storage! 

But, the first job will certainly be to store away my Nestabilities on them, I think my poinsettias will be glad to be stored away for a rest, but only for a little while!  I think they will be back out pretty soon though for more flowers, sunflowers are a definite flower I'll be making with them in the new year!  I'll have to search through all the Starburst Stain papers I have made with yellows and rich golds, yum!  Bet I'll go back to using the French Country set (again) for them!!

In the next few days I will be announcing something that is happening around here very soon.  I know everyone is busy at the moment, but do call back for news about it!

Well, we've the Strictly final tonight and a 2 part Cranford starting tomorrow, nice to have some good telly programmes to look forward to over the weekend.

We had about 4" to 5" of snow here on Thursday night and it looks like we've more to come today and tomorrow to add to it, so it's going to be quite a pile! I just hope we don't get the amount of snow they have forecast for the US.  That's serious snowfall!!

I hope you are all getting into Christmas zone, keeping warm and stress free with the prep! 

Jill

Christmas easel card, scrunchy leaves, dotty C'bugs, nesties and winners...

Sorry, back to poinsettia flowers again for today's card after yesterday's chocolate box:)

Edit:  Just realised I've already shown this card on a previous post, so here's another!

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Well, as you can imagine, there were 3 very excited ladies emailing yesterday to claim their prizes, I am really very happy for them all! 

Congratulations you 3!  Kym, Pauline and Ann.  I hope their luck continues into 2010 and that they will share some cards they make with the stamp sheets with us as it is always so nice to see what other crafters make with our range of Aspects of Design stamp sheets. 

Kym was the first to claim her prize and she was especially excited as she had already had a great day, her son had passed his driving test (first time).  I think she was a little shocked at having 2 good things happening in one day!  Kym said in her email that she makes cards for charity so your choice of the Funky Flourishes is going to prove so versatile for you Kym!

Pauline couldn't believe she was a winner and Ann, well, as you probably gathered from Ann's post yesterday, she got a shock this morning when she popped by our blog, she checked and doubled checked, YES Ann, it really was YOU!!! 

Three truly fab winners!! 

Don't forget to enter our Christmas Blog Candy No.3, 'What does Christmas mean to you?'

We'd love to hear your thoughts so do join in the next giveaway!

CHRISTMAS BLOG CANDY NO.1 - THE LUCKY WINNER'S ARE...

52 Pauline Charlesworth

30 Ann

21 Kyms Crafty Cards

Please can you email me at thestampman@btconnect.com to claim your prize before midnight tomorrow night (Wednesday).  I'll need to know which of the 3 sheets you would like and also your address.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to enter!

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Here's today's Christmas card...

 

If you saw the last TV show, you may recall I used the Moonshadow inks to start painting a wooden box, well I finished it on Sunday, I made it into a Christmas themed gift box, I'll hopefully show you that tomorrow, it'll be a break from the poinsettia easel cards for you if nothing else!

Hope you are keeping warm!

Jill

Another christmas card

I managed to get a few more cards finished yesterday, plus got our tree up!  The tree decorating started out to be a fun exercise as Hamish was leaping over everything.  He had to leave the room in the end otherwise it would never have got finished!  I'm hoping he behaves with it and doesn't think the ornaments are balls to play with!  He was very good last year and didn't touch it and he has been told to leave it, so far he has:) 

I don't think we'll risk putting any presents under until Christmas morning, just in case.  Our last dog must have got upset one day, I think someone must have come to the house and upset her as for some reason she attacked the presents, which she had never touched in previous years.  We came home to a living room covered completely in little bits of wrapping paper, Barbies with chewed legs etc.  Just picture the scene!  So not taking any chances with Hamish!!

Like most pet owners, Hamish will have his own presents but these will be smuggled in and put away to avoid temptation:)

I'm really starting to get in the Christmas mood now, especially after reading all your comments about what Christmas means to you in our blog candy giveaway no.3.  Thank you so much for adding your thoughts there, it has been lovely reading them all so far.  If you haven't entered yet, please see the sidebar---->

Anyway, today's card is another variation of my poinsettia/easel card theme this year.   Here's the card when it is closed.

I hope you are all getting on well with your Christmas preparations and not getting too stressed with it all.

Jill

First Christmas Card... Done!!

Good evening!

Here's my first christmas card finished!  It's a variation on the easel card I showed on Sunday.

Rather than using a square that is the same size as the card as I did on Sunday's card, I have used the largest label 5 Nestability for the gold mirri card mount, and the next smaller size for the next mount which was some Starburst Stained card with the cling film technique that has also been Cuttlebugged with the Swiss dots folder and then sanded to show the original white card I used for the stain background.

People often ask what I do with all the background papers I make when I'm demonstrating at shows.  As you can imagine I get quite a pile together after a day at a show, so I've put alot to good use this Christmas.  I used the Poinsettia Nestability to cut from a variety of background papers including the Scrunch, which has a brilliant texture for poinsettia leaves/petals and I was happy to discover cuts really well with the nesties.

Now then what would you call them... poinsettia leaves, or petals?  Do you think it is leaves or petals that make them flowers, are they flowers?  I guess it is the green leaves that are leaves and when they become red they are petals?   Anyway, I'll move on from that thought, I'm getting myself confused...

I've tried to vary the layers with some other techniques.  I made lots of these flowers on Sunday, in fact Ian came to see what I had been doing for 5 hours and I confessed I hadn't finished a single card but I had made a nice pile of poinsettia flowers!!  After 20 years of doing this sort of thing I don't get the 'look' anymore, he just accepts that that is the way things are, he doesn't even shake his head anymore. 

These were made from the French Country starburst stain set (hence that gorgeous burgundy) but I think the green came from the Holiday Wreath set which I have also used to make the flowers in more traditional colours of red and green.

I shaped the card pieces and used 3 yellow brads to hold them all together.

The wording is raised on pads to hold the easel in place.

I have started more of these, I get bored doing the same design so I'll show the other layouts/colourways when they are finished.

I have taken some photo's today of the cards Jo made for the TV show, will show them tomorrow when I've transfered them... so do call back.

Thanks for visiting, and again for leaving all your comments.

Jill