A Flock of Patchwork Doves for Christmas

Afternoon All,

And it's a pretty horrible afternoon here in Ayrshire too ... more gales and rainstorms, with yet more to come. Hope you are having better weather wherever you are.

Anyway, all that horribleness does make it a perfect day for staying in and crafting.

I only intended making the one card, for someone special, but after stamping the Patchwork Dove on several different sheets of patterned paper to cut up for paper-piecing I just had to use up all the leftover bits to make 6 cards in all. They are all similar but different.

Here's the card that started it all.

This super stamp was found online after winning a Woodware voucher way back in October from Crafty Cardmakers - my thanks go out to Dorothy at Woodware, Lin at Crafty Cardmakers and, in particular, Janice at Sir Stampalot for helping me with my order.

Materials used:

• white fancy edge card or plain square edge card bases
• Docrafts Papermania Festive Frolics paper pack - love the pretty pastel colours
• cardstock - for the stamping, smooth white Neenah Solar, and pink for matting from Papermill Direct
• stamps used - Woodware Patchwork Dove, not seen but inside a greeting from Lawn Fawn's Winter Fox, warm winter wishes 
• from the snippet box - a variety of ribbons 
• embellishments - gems are from Anita's, Crystal Stickles, used to edge two of the toppers

I've been absent for a time, with a sick note, but using all the snippets in these cards merits a trip to Pixie's Snippet Playground - Week 103. What with all the preparation for Christmas, I'm thinking it could be quiet around the duck pond about now.

And over at Hazel's this week the CHNC 155 challenge is for whatever is urgent - these cards definitely come under that category :)

I'm also offering them up for Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra where, as always, the remit is 'Anything goes'.

Right, I'm off to make some snowman's soup, print off a set of family photos for my aunt in Australia - too late for Christmas but in time for New Year - and a dozen other outstanding items on my to-do list, sigh! That list never seems to get any shorter somehow :(

Hope you all have a very good evening - it's Friday, reason to celebrate :)

Thanks for looking in and happy crafting, 

Friday Smile

Hi Everyone

Don't you just love Fridays, especially when you can share a smile through Annie's blog, A Stitch In Time :)

This week it's my great-grandchildren that have made me smile. It's that magical time of the year when little ones finally meet Father Christmas in the flesh. However, they don't all react the same way to the big man in the red suit ... just look at these two photos to see how different they can be.

Rhian clearly loved all the attention and was happy to have her photo taken with him - or maybe it was that big parcel that had her beaming :)

Brodie, on the other hand, didn't seem quite so sure. At only just a year old, this was the first time of meeting Santa, and he clearly wasn't very sure about sitting on Santa's knee :)

Hope you all have something equally good to smile about today.

Wishing you a fabulous Friday.

WOYWW 237

Morning Everyone ...

.... and Season's Greetings to you all ... only another 7 days to Christmas!

Oh dear, it's been too many days since my last post - twelve days in fact - and even longer since I was last able to join in the fun of WOYWW - four weeks to be precise - shocking! Too much has prevented me from blogging, what with unpacking and settling into our new home and then didn't I go and catch one of the nasty winter bugs - various aches and pains and a head full of cotton wool :( It fairly put me out of action for a week or so but, happily, I'm now feeling much more myself again and, as you can see from my desk, able to craft too ... yippee!

Photos were taken late Tuesday evening when the light was all electric - not that there's much difference with the quality of light during the day here in Scotland. Our winter days are short, dark and, certainly recently, very stormy. Anyway, enough of that, on to what's on the desk this morning - what you see, nothing has changed. I've been using a new Woodware stamp, Patchwork Dove, purchased with the prize voucher won at Crafty Cardmakers, Challenge #100, way back in October, and paper-piecing to make some last minute Christmas cards. As you can see, the necessities of everyday crafting, i.e. stamping blocks, adhesives, pen pot, kitchen paper roll, etc., are now back out on the desk where they belong. It's been too long.

This shot shows just one corner of my new craft room. The decor is still very pink! We've not redecorated yet ... planned is a much more soothing shade of green but, as is often the way, nothing has gone to plan and it will be now some time in the new year before that shiny, glittery and very girly paper is stripped from the walls and in the meantime everything has been unpacked and found a home. The computer and printer are neatly tucked in the corner. The shelf above provides storage for my collection of crafting CDs and DVDs, the radio and a pile of audio books borrowed from the library. Under that, and on top of the photo storage drawers, is the TV - essential for watching all the Christmas movies showing at the moment :)  On the wall above that is some dinky shelving containing ink pads and glitter glues - all the very talented EM's work!

Apologies, Julia,  for the length of this post, but I have a lot of catching up to do after all those weeks of not participating.

And talking of catching up, I've missed you so am planning to visit you all today ... well, as many of you as is humanly possible.

In the meantime, take care everyone and, if I don't speak to you before, have a wonderful time over this coming festive season. And, of course,I wish you a very happy WOYWW today.

Happy crafting,