Christmas Day - WOYWW 551

Merry Christmas

&

Season's Greetings 

I'm not showing my desk today - for sure, you really don't want to see the mess and there's nothing craft related to show anyway.  The fact is, I'm scheduling this post, so here's a shot of our tree, looking festive with the lights on. Because I couldn't let this very special Wednesday go by without wishing you all a wonderful day. We will be spending the day with family but whatever you are doing, and however you are spending today, I hope it's a good one. Now, it's Christmas Eve so I'm off to put my feet up and relax - Happy Christmas Everyone. 

Christmas Eve Snippet Card

Hello and Happy Christmas Eve Everyone,

I hope you've finished with all the festive preparations and ready to have a fabulous Christmas Eve, stress-free if possible, and a wonderful day tomorrow. I've only just found a few minutes to take the weight of my feet after prepping the Brussels sprouts - one of my most unfavourite vegetables - and share this card with you and Di over at Pixie's Snippet Playground.

I dipped into my boxes of bits and bobs to make this card. The base was made from a scrap of smooth white card left over from layering photos for a scrapbook page. Many months ago, could even be more than a year, I had an embossing session using all the scraps of card I had accumulated - created quite a stack in fact - and that's where I found this gold topper. The folder is from the Winter Botanicals set by Sizzix. The black matting layer was from packaging and the patterned background is one of the many prints I've made when experimenting with my Gelli Plate. I don't remember what went into creating the colour of the paint - most probably various shades of brown/orange inks mixed into white acrylic paint - but I can tell you the stencil was 'Fretwork' from That Special Touch.

I am now feeling quite virtuous from having used up so many scraps and snippets. Hopefully, Father Christmas will think I've been good, 'for goodness sake'.

I'm also submitting this card to Hazel's CHNC Challenge #469.

That's me for this evening. Have a wonderful Christmas everyone.

Saturday Catch-Up - the one instead of the missed WOYYW & Friday Smile posts

Hello Everyone,

And a happy Saturday to you all too. So far, this week has gone by in a blur with so much stuff going on - none of it craft related - that there's been no chance of blogging, or scrapping even. Regretfully, despite my best intentions, I had to miss the last WOYWW and Friday Smile posts before Christmas. I suspect it's been the same for many of you.

I did, however, manage an hour or so in the craft room late yesterday afternoon to make these cards using the 'one-sheet wonder' technique which I shared in this post here.

Not that I needed any more cards for this Christmas. The last post has gone and the address book has been put away for now. I don't think I've missed anyone but if I have, I can only apologise. No, what I really wanted was to create a new Christmas header for this blog and it seemed a good idea at the time to combine it with cardmaking. So - like I needed to challenge myself more at this time - it had to be a 'one-sheet wonder' - of course!

To begin, because I intended creating a street scene, I drew a line across the middle of an A4 sheet of smooth white card to show what direction I should be placing the house and tree stamps. I could have made it easier for myself in so many ways but where's the fun in that!  The masks were made from large post-its. The houses, from Pinkfresh Studio's 'Christmas Florals', were stamped with Jet Black Archival Ink and the pine trees, from Cardmaking & Papercraft's  'Have a Holly Jolly Christmas' stamp set, with Letterpress green ink pad.

The next bit, filling in the winter sky, was so much easier to do. Using a selection of snowflake filler stamps - from the 'Forest Magic' and 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' stamp sets and two Distress Oxide ink pads, Evergreen Bough and Tumbled Glass, and Adirondack Stonewashed dye pad.

Bearing in mind I was creating a Christmas blog header, Father Christmas had to feature. The image, stamped in black, of Santa on his sleigh with the reindeer is again from the 'Forest Magic' stamp set.

I remembered, just in time, to take a shot of the page before adding the fourth repeat of the sleigh so that it could be cropped down to size for the header.

Once that was all done, the sheet was cut into four to create the card toppers. I then embossed some Stamp-n-Stuff Crystal powder on the rooftops and round the base of the trees using a VersaMarker pen. The sparkle is subtle and doesn't show up well in the photo but recipients will be able to appreciate it. The greeting, another stamp from the 'Christmas Florals' set, was stamped on each topper using Versafine in Crimson Red. The final touch was a dot of Xmas Red' Stickles on the wreaths on the doors of the houses.

And finally, an oops! moment.

This was the first topper that I tried to finish off with the sparkly embossing powder. Unfortunately, I opted to use a new American Craft's embossing pen. Unlike my old, and trusty, VersaMarker pen, the AC pen is not clear - it's pink and the colour doesn't disappear on heating! Pink roof tiles! Disaster!!! To rescue it, I embossed over the pink with Papermania 'Seafoam White' embossing powder and used puffy stuff to create snow around the base of the trees.

Blunder. What blunder? Lesson learned.

If you've read all the way down to here, you have real staying power so thank you, it's appreciated.

That's me done for now. Hopefully, I'll post again before the Big Day, but if I don't make it, I wish you a very happy Christmas - may your day be wonderful and as perfect as you want it to be.

In A Vase On Monday

Afternoon Everyone,

It's been quite a while since my last In A Vase On Monday post. Mainly because it's been too cold, too windy, too wet, too stormy and just too awful to go looking in my garden for suitable material. In fact, I've been making do with potted plants, including a rather lovely poinsettia, for indoor colour over the last few weeks.  Today, however, I ventured out to pick fresh herbs - rosemary, savory and bay leaves - to add to a pot of soup I was making,  and that's when I spotted the winter jasmine just coming into bloom. 

And had I not been lured down the garden to pick the jasmine, I wouldn't have seen the hellebore flowers too.

They look so cheerful when just about everything else in the garden is either dead or dormant. I've added a few sprigs of myrtle to fill out the arrangement. 

For more seasonal and beautiful arrangements follow this link to Cathy's blog, Rambling In The Garden. You will find it well worth looking. 

Take care and have a lovely week. 

Sunday Snippets - Oh Christmas Tree

Afternoon Everyone,

I hope you are all having a good day today. It's not been bad here - cold but bright - for a change. I have been busy making this scrapbook page showing our Christmas tree in all it's glory.

It's an artificial tree that comes out year after year to deck the living-room.  I've finally been able to use the huge die-cut tree from Pretty My Page - I only bought it last year so not bad going for me. Some of the embellishments are very much older, e.g. I've had the tree trim along the bottom edge for more than 20 years! Ditto the peppermint candy circles.

We have another, much smaller, tree in the hall, It's also artificial and even older than the one in pictured. There's also a couple of live trees in the garden. One is pot-grown and spends most of the year tucked away out of sight in the back garden but, at this time of the year, gets all decked up and takes pride of place by the front doorstep.

Last Christmas it did start life here at Casa Worthington covered with a generous dusting of fake snow. Now, one year later, our Scottish weather and a year's growth, there's no trace of the snow so we've decked it out with red baubles.

Now that the need for Christmas cards has eased, I've been finding more time to make scrapbook pages, like the one above, for my Christmas album. This is good - it's enjoyable, stress-busting and the memories are being preserved for years to come - what's not to like? Well, it's this. All this scrapping is creating ... scraps! Lots of them. I'm looking at the growing pile as I type. So, I've used up some in this tag.

I know it's only one little tag, but every little bit helps. A blue label from my local stationery shop, scraps of paper (Simple Stories 'Winter Wonderland' collection), a die-cut greeting (Tonic) and holly leaves (Tattered Lace), some ribbon, twine and red dew drops and I have a pretty label to put on a package.

I'm submitting the tag to Pixie's Snippets Playground Challenge #367

And that's me done for today. Though, I may just spend a little time to make another tag or two to use up a few more of those pesky snippets.

Take care and have a very good evening.

Friday Smiles

Hello Everyone,

I think we must all be well into the busiest time of the year. All that busyness doesn't leave a lot of time to look back on the week's smiley moments but, like Annie at A Stitch In Time, I'm taking a few minutes to share mine here.

First up is this old photo, posted this week FaceBook by someone in the family, of my granddaughter, Jennifer, with me when she was just a tot. Hard to believe it was her 27th birthday on the 5th. Hard to believe my hair was that colour once too!!!

There's nothing quite like a festive mince pie. Especially if, with the latte, is a free enticement to vistit the local garden centre.

The experience was made all the more fun by this happy band of musicians regaling us with Christmas songs. They had no problem smiling for me when I took this shot. Lovely people.

Our little Nativity Angel. This is 5-year-old Caoimhe, pronounced QUEE-vah, one of my many little cousinlets, looking just a bit nervous before her first Nativity. She's beautiful and this photo of her is guaranteed to make me smile.

Finally, yesterday's election can hardly be ignored.

Here's the EM looking suitably serious - voting is a serious business. That's an SNP party representative waiting to greet us voters - well, I thought he was there to greet us but he didn't say a word as we walked into the Polling station. Maybe the cold had got to him.

So that's it. Another week gone, only just over a week to go before the big day and still a lot to do but, despite that, I hope you will find a lot to make you smile during the week to come.

Have a great weekend.

WOYWW - Week 549

Hello Everyone,

Wednesday, Whizzday, has a way of sneaking up on me ... I need more hours in the day and more days in the week. Especially at this time of the year! Anyway, it's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday time and here's a shot of mine this morning.

I'm working in a guddle again. There's papers, stamp sets, embossing folders, photos and even, right at the back, a circle die set. Out of shot is my wee Sapphire die-cutting machine. Altogether too much stuff but I'm at the stage of 'who cares' ... the cards are written and posted off, the presents bought and wrapped, ready to be delivered and all is more or less under control.

I do have to confess to being just a bit behind with the '12 Days of Christmas Scraplifts' challenge. It's now the 11th and this is my Day 4 page, completed yesterday. The photos are of us both, from last year, and this year's new tree decorations - a deer for each of us.

This is Day 3's page. The winter wonderland in the photograph is the Camellia House in the grounds of Culzean Country Park. The photo was taken a few years ago. We rarely get snow here on the west coast of Scotland, and when we do it doesn't lie long, so a photo like this is a rarity and all the more beautiful for that.

And now for the book bit.

I'm on to my seasonal reading now and I started with, 'The Gift' by Cecelia Ahern. It's a magical, fable-like, tale - and it's a twist on guardian angel stories that was, for me, very reminiscent of Dicken's 'A Christmas Carol' and the film 'It's A Wonderful Life'. There was the feeling that the protagonist, Lou Suffern, was being taught a lesson about the most precious gift of all, especially at Christmas ... that is the gift of time. “Time cant be given. But it can be shared.” This wouldn't be my usual choice of reading but it drew me in and had me absorbed from beginning to end. 

Right, that's it from me for now - I'm off to have a spot of lunch and then I'll be back to check out what's on your desks today.

Take care, keep warm, and stay calm ... it's only Christmas!!!

Christmas Card Club - Card 25/2019 - Humour

Hello,

Happy Sunday to you all. We have a gale blowing a hoolie outside - and it's all down to Storm Atiyah. Happily, I don't have to go out. In fact, I plan to potter away in my craftroom until it all blows over. However, today is a bit special. It's the last Sunday of the year for the Christmas Card Club. The theme for today, chosen by Rachel, is 'humour'.

I hope this card fits the theme, though it's not so much humorous as cute, I made it for my wee great-granddaughter who is also cute. Ask her what her favourite colour is and she will always answer pink! So pink it is - with a lot of green thrown in for contrast. The papers and images are from a very old Docrafts paper pack and I've now used up every last bit of it. I've just added pink and white cardstock and pink and green dew drops. The embossing folder is very old too - I think it came with a magazine freebie.

So that's it for another year. Hubby and I sat all Friday afternoon writing out our cards and they are ready for the trip to the Post Office tomorrow - weather permitting, of course. And, I have to say we had enough cards - all thanks this year to the Christmas Card Club challenges! So, if you fancy keeping up with your Christmas card needs throughout the year, do think about joining us - we're a friendly bunch - please feel free to get in touch with any of the members - you'll find the names and links on the sidebar to the right.

Take care and stay safe too.

WOYWW Week 548

Hello Everyone,

Well, here we are at the beginning of December and it's raining! We've had sub-zero temperatures and crisp frosty mornings for the last week or so and today it's raining - yuk! Not a day to go out unless it's absolutely necessary, and for me it's not. But it does make it the perfect day for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday over at Julia's Stamping Ground.

My desk it is looking very festive today. The postie brought me the cards that can be seen at the back - two birthday cards and the first Christmas card of the year ... thank yous go to Cindy, Maggie and Margaret. They are much appreciated and should cheer me on while I get on with wrapping presents and writing Christmas cards - that pile is just the tip of this particular iceberg!

When I'm not working on the above, and when I need a break, I'm participating in the Scrap Squad's '12 Days of Scraplifts' challenge. Whilst I like the idea of creating a December Daily or Journal Your Christmas album, I know myself - I won't keep it up. I've tried before and failed - miserably. But creating just 12 pages to record this wonderful time of the year seems much more do-able. Here's the first two.

Day 1 scraplift: This is the front/title page of my December album for this year. All the papers and stickers are from Simple Stories 'Winter Wonderland' collection from 2016. The puffy stickers are from Crate Paper 'Snowflake' collection. I found the calendar photo online.

Day 2 scraplift. My birthday, 29th November, signals the start of the festive season for me. The background paper is from an incredibly old Echo Park collection, 'Reflections Christmas' from 2013. The ephemera is from a more recent Heidi Swapp collection. I got my trusty sewing machine out to stitch the circle. 

I'll be tackling the scraplift for Day 3 later today ... I'm not too bothered about actually keeping up, keeping going will do. 

And now, the book bit. 

As you might know already, I do like a good psychological thriller and Val McDermid is one of my favourite authors of the genre. 'Beneath the Bleeding' is another good book in the Dr Tony Hill and DCI  Carol Jordan - 'Wire in the Blood' - series. Tony's leg is injured and he's in the hospital for most of this book. That doesn’t stop him, though. As he says, his head still works. Carol and her team are investigating a poisoning, then another. And interestingly, for the gardeners among us, the source of the poisons can all be grown in our gardens. Very intriguing. You can tell I enjoyed this book a lot.

Because it's the festive season, I've got a few seasonal books to listen to over the next few weeks. Here are few I have lined up.

I'm expecting these to be light reading but fun and just right for getting me in the Christmas spirit. 

Right, that's it from me for now - I'm off to have a spot of lunch and then I'll be back to check out what's on your desks today.

Take care, keep warm, and have a great week ahead. 

Friday Smiles

Hello Everyone,

I hope you've all been having a good day. As some of you will know, it's my birthday today. I'm now 72 - an age that in earlier years I never envisaged reaching! But here I am and none the worse for it ... definitely something to smile about.

Here's more:

That's sunshine streaming through our bedroom window! It was -2 degrees this morning but it warmed up as the day progressed, +4 degrees, the sun came out and the sky was the bluest of blues. Now we have a red sky as the sunsets - absolutely perfect!

This is the most recent block made at the quilting class yesterday. The design is callled 'Monkey Wrench'!

Grandson, Callum, has been out and about enjoying early Christmas events. Here he is with Santa on his cheek.

And here he is again, with his lovely mum, Heather. They were in the shopping centre at East Kilbride where they went to see 'Frozen 2'.

And this made me laugh! My cousin, Jeff, was over at the Christmas Market in Bremen, Germany, this week when he discovered this 'interesting and different' entrance to a nightclub. Of course, he just had to get his girlfriend to take this photo!

Finally, here's a couple of yarn bombed Christmas trees.

I don't know where the first one was, but the second one was in Italy.

And how about this for a shopping trolley -

I so admire the dedication it must have taken to crochet all those squares.

That's my smiles for this week. I'm off now to link up with Annie, A Stitch In Time, and see what has had her smiling this week.

Take care, everyone, and have a wonderful weekend.

WOYWW - Week 547

Hi Everyone,

I'm late. I couldn't be later. To blame - it's the EM doing his Christmas shopping ... again! Why it has to be done on the same day as What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday is a mystery, but it does so here, at last, is what's on my desk.

There's a lot going on.

I have a new Mind The Scrap kit to play with and it strikes me that that 'Road Trip' paper is ideal to use with the photos of our first trip round the Highlands of Scotland. That was way back in 1995 - a lifetime ago.

I'm also debating with myself on whether to keep a record of Christmas in the small album I found in my stash. It's the ideal size. I've tried 12x12" Project Life style in previous years and always stalled but I did rather better in 2015 with the smaller size. It's full and almost finished!

And that's the reason for the two stamp sets that are out. They are new, of course. The Heidi Swapp alphabet, it came with the MTS kit, has both large and small letters - very useful. The Elle's Studio set - found at Hey Little Magpie - contains lots of Christmas related words, phrases and icons that are just right for using in the album. Especially, as I do not intend buying a Christmas collection this year but will use up what I have in my stash already. I suspect I have enough tucked away to last more than a few Christmases too.

And for the record, here's the layout that can be seen in it's part done state on last week's desk.

It wasn't until I came to file this page away yesterday that I discovered I'd already scrapped the photo - i.e. a blown up version - of Tuppence before. Forgetful or what!?!? The decorative trims top and bottom came from a page kit bought in America in 1996 - 23 years ago! They still looked as good as new too.

And now the book bit. This week it's 'The Break' by Marian Keyes.

There's not a lot I can say about this apart from it was disappointing. I downloaded the audio-book after seeing the author discussing her writing on The Big Scottish Book Club on BBC Scotland. She was entertaining but the book was rather less so.  It's the story of a relationship that was thought to be forever but hits trouble as the couple become middle-age, and one, the husband, decides to take a break and go backpacking around the world for six months leaving his wife to care for their blended, teenage, family. Sadly, I found the characters very difficult to like. It's also a very long read.

Okay, that's it from me this week. I'm off now to see what Julia and our fellow deskers have been showing us today.

Take care everyone and have a great week ahead.