~ Tim's Christmas Journal ~

Some of you may remember that on Christmas Day I posted about the Tim Holtz kit I had managed to buy from his Etsy shop for my mum for Christmas. It would only be right for me to have bought myself one as well.

Well here it is fully completed, well I still need to add photos and some journalling but the book is completed as per the kit instructions.

I'm so pleased with how the book has turned out. It is quite small but is going to be a lovely addition to my Christmas decore.

I was very excited to use my new Distress stains that I got for Christmas from my Mum and Dad. I absolutely love the effect they give the kraft resist paper. Not sure if we have the kraft resist paper in the UK but I absolutely love its effect. By adding tissue tape to the top and bottom of a folded piece of paper it created a pocket for adding mementos, recipes, photos etc...

There were also a number of coredination kraft core embossed pages which I simply distressed to add abit of texture. I'm really pleased with the way it has turned out.

Happy Crafting!

~ Festive gift boxes ~

Here are 3 gift boxes which I decorated at a class at our Local Craft Shop - Craft Box @ Elsecar Heritage centre, Barnsley. I didn't quite get them finished on the day and it has taken a bit of time for me to get them done and photographed.

The papers are all from the MME Lost and found II collection. Even though they are not specifically Christmas papers they lend themselves very nicely to this project.

All the stamps are Molly Blooms stamps from both the Winter 2010 and 2011 collections. All stamped in brown memento ink and coloured with promarkers. I absolutely love the little gingerbread garland which you can see on the largest of the boxes.

I was amazed at how easy it was to create the bow on the top. It is just made from strips of paper glued together. I'll try to do a tutorial in the New Year.

Happy Crafting!



~ Christmas Cake ~

It finally got finished in time for Christmas!

I was so pleased with the finished cake. To say I had never put marzipan on or iced a cake like this before I was absolutely over the moon with the results.

I wanted to use a holly leaf cutter to create a wreath on the cake but couldn't find one anywhere. I'm pleased with the way the stars look.

We cut in to the cake on Boxing Day when we had family round. They were very impressed with it and even my other half who doesn't usually like Christmas cake that much.

Happy Crafting!

~ WOYWW - Christmas ~

Well as you can see my desk this week is abit of a mess. I;m trying to catch up on my 'journal your Christmas' album. But festivities seemed to take over rather alot recently.

I've got 2 free days coming up so hopefully I can get motivated enough to get up to date. I'll post some pages over the next week or so to let you in on my Christmas.

I hope Santa was kind to you! All I can say is that I must have been a good girl this year as I was a little spoilt. I got a kindle, a Sony hi-fi with ipod dock and a whole host of crafting goodies including some Tim Holtz Distress Stains which I have already had a play with. I got very messy!

Happy Crafting!

~ Candy Cane Vodka ~

I got the idea for this gift from one of the threads over on UKScrappers. I couldn't believe how simple it was!

I got a 70cl bottle of vodka and added 12 peppermint candy canes broken up. Red and white are best to use but I could only find red, white and green ones. Shake the bottle then leave in a cupboard for a few days, shaking every day until the candy canes have dissolved. Then I decantered the vodka in to smaller sterilised bottles which I bought from Lakeland.

'Happy' Crafting

~ Mum's FABULOUS Distress Christmas Present ~

MERRY CHRISTMAS

to all my readers!

This is the amazing present I managed to get my mum for Christmas, I'm sure she is going to love it!

Tim Holtz put 95 of these kits on his etsy store along with some other embellishment packs. They were all sold out within ten minutes. I was fortunate enough to purchase two kits - one for me and one for mum.

Happy Crafting!

~ From our house to yours ... ~

This is my other half's favourite card this year, so we sent it to our close friends who have just bought their first house. He really seems to like the twisted easel cards at the moment.

The stamp is another from Little Claire and was coloured using promarkers. I must stress that a letraset ultra fine nib is required to colour the intricate detail of this stamp. The papers are from Blonde Moments many years ago!

I must admit that this year I haven't bought much in the way of Christmas stash as I have been trying to use up the mountain I have already. So far so good! Apart from the papers for the advent calendar and a couple of stamps all other items have been from my exisiting stash!

Whispers ...Which means next year I'll NEED to buy some new stash!

Happy Crafting!

~ It was on a starry night ... ~

I absolutely love this card and it is one of my dad's favourites too! It is so simple and yet so effective. The background was created using a technique I remembered from an earlier edition of Craft Stamper.

1. You make a stencil of the area you want to ink, so in this case I simply got a piece of card the same size as the card and cut out a rectangle in the centre using a craft knife.

2. Adhere the stencil to your card with either repositionable tape or use paper clips.

3. Using Distress inks and a blending tool apply ink to the inside of the stencil being careful around the edges. I used stormy sky, broken china and chipped sapphire to create the above colour.

4. Once the background is dry, stamp your image using black ink and add stickles if desired.

A simple but effective card which would be great if you have a lot of cards to post as it is a flat card with no embellishments that are likely to fall off. These would also be an easy card to reproduce if you had many to create.

Happy Crafting!

~ Passing on my creativity... well trying! ~

The Rangers are more like big brownies and especially at Christmas time. So the decided they wanted to do a craft. I chose to show them how to make holly leaves from just 2 circle punches. A technique which I think has recently been in the craft stamper magazine.

I was amazed at the creativity of some of the girls. Even those who struggled gave it a real go. I think its great how even though they had the same materials to choose from the cards all look so unique.

The girls and leaders enjoyed a Christmas outing to Nandos which we all seemed to enjoy! I'm looking forward to seeing what challenges the face me in the next year!

Happy Crafting!

~ Let it Snow! ~

These cards were made using the technique I told you about here. I love the effect it creates on the simple card above. I think it looks quite elegant and classy.

On the other side you can simply use it as a background for one of your cute Christmas stamps. Here I have used a stamp from Little Claire and coloured it with promarkers adding a little stickles to make the snow shine.

Happy Crafting!

~ Christmas cake update! ~

Again, not crafting but something very Christmassy! I have been feeding my Christmas cake for the last month or so (with lovely sherry!).

I have found the ideal way to ensure adequate distribution is using a needle and syringe.

The cake is now covered in marzipan ready to be iced! I'm very excited and also rather apprehensive about this but am hoping not to make a mess of it!

Happy Crafting!

~ A purrfect Christmas ~

This is a card that I made from the 'Holiday Card Bootcamp' I did online.

Here in Britain we never seem to send photo cards whereas in the USA it seems to be a very regular occurance. I expect this is because often family is so far away and only visited on very special occasions.

So I decided rather than photos of me and the other half maybe a photo of our two six month old kittens under the tree would be more appealing. They seemed to be as I made 4 different ones and 3 of them sold at the Grand concert stall I did.

Again another very simple card.

Happy Crafting!

~ Escafeld Brass Band's Grand Concert ~

For the last few weeks I've been hidden away in my craft room creating numerous cards and goodies ready for Christmas. I have mentioned before that my other half is in a Brass Band and they were holding a concert in aid of our local Hospice in Sheffield. So I agreed at late notice to have a craft stall and help put together the raffle hamper (as seen above!)

I was really worried that I either would sell nothing or wouldn't have enough stuff! But as the photo above shows my table was over flowing with cards and goodie bags of sweets.

The Elizabeth Shaw gift bags and chocolate gift bags went down a storm. I actually sold out of the Elizabeth Shaw gift bags. To be honest I was extremely grateful that I didn't sell too many cards because I hadn't many made for myself. I was really pleased to take £30 on the night, £10 of which goes to charity.

Happy Crafting!

~ A festive trip ~

Well I'm not quite sure what happened to the begining of December ... one minute it was the end of November and now I seem to have hit the middle of December with little stopping!

The other half and I did head off for a 2 day Christmas shopping trip to York. When we arrived it was a glorious winter's day. Sunny but crisp.

We wandered round the shops and Christmas market before stopping in the marque pub for a glass of mulled wine to take the chill off! We then had a lovely meal at 'The Old Siam' Thai restaurant on Micklegate.

On the Wednesday morning we got up to an exceedingly cold, wet and blustery day. After sitting in Starbucks for an hour contemplating our plan of attack for the day we decided upon visiting the York Brewery.

Note to self: No matter how many different one's I try I just don't like real ales.

Sadly this was 2 whole days where little crafting was done, but for the 2 weeks prior my craft room has been a hive of activity.

Happy Crafting!

~ It's finally finished ... ~

... and just in the nick of time! Just long enough to fill the boxes ready for the first of December!

This embellishment was actually destined for our garland but I decided it would be perfect for my advent calendar and would actually tie it in to our Christmas decore very well. It was a piece I bought from Hobbycraft to add to our Marks and Spencer Garland. I think it was only 99p ... a bargain! I simply trimmed the wire stalk with my clippers and stuck it in place with some silicone glue.

This week has been so hectic! I had 2 lunch dates, a coffee morning, a day of shopping and my first Christmas meal of the season. I doubt next week will be any better as I need to get my homemade xmas pressies made and decorated.

Happy Crafting!

~ Journal your Christmas - prep ~

Well I'm going to admit that this is a bit of a remake as I never really got round to doing my 2009 album, so I decided to simply change it for my 2011 album.

I have used an American crafts D-ring album and added distress ink round the edges. The papers are from one of Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas (JYC) kits from a few years ago. To add the '2011' date I stamped with Peeled paint distress ink on patterned paper and then inked the edges. I'm really hoping that this year I manage to do a page a day or at least manage to get it finished.

In the hope of being extra organised I have also stamped all my dates on to patterned paper to match the date on the front cover. I really can't wait for Christmas, it's my favourite time of the year and this year will be extra special because it's the first year we will be in our own house but I'll be off work for the whole time as I'll still be off sick following my operation.

Happy Crafting!