Friday Smiles

Afternoon Everyone,

I've been out Christmas shopping today - trying to beat the crowds! - so this is late and therefore has to be a very quick Friday Smile post. As usual, I've had plenty to smile about this week. First up is this super cute photo of my two youngest great-grandchildren, Callum and Lacie.

The family have been having a real giggle at the difference in size between them. Callum is just over 5 months old, Lacie is almost 7 weeks and, I'm told, doing her best to catch up with her big cousin.

Here she is being fascinated by the toys hanging from her play mat. She's just discovering that she can touch them with her hands.

Now for the funnies - this week they are all to do with the upcoming festivities:

I can think of quite a few folk that might share this dream!

I'd be very happy with a penguin :)

And finally,

Not sure my Celtic supporting grandson's would appreciate the colour!

Hope you've all had a wonderfully happy week and that you enjoy the coming weekend.

Happy Friday,

Leaves - UKPC November Swap

Hello Everyone

It's been another busy day at Casa Worthington. We've had builders here fixing the pointing on the gable end wall - a temporary fix until the better weather when the entire side and back walls will have to have a total repointing job done on them. Apparently the house has settled down, rather like we have done here too. I've also been sorting out the bookshelves in the spare room with the intention - by weeding stuff out, donating books and tossing magazines - of making it look less like the junk room and more like the guestroom it's supposed to be. Another long overdue job ticked off - it's only taken me two years!

And because of that flurry of activity no crafting got done so I'm sharing a card made recently for the UKPC November card swap - the theme for which was 'Leaves'.

How it was made:

• Mustard coloured American Crafts Smooth Cardstock was cut to create a 6" square card blank.
• A square dark brown cardstock, trimmed slightly smaller than the card front, and one of patterned paper, Falling Leaves from the Carta Bella A Perfect Autumn collection were layered together. At this stage I wrapped a length of some gorgeous shimmery red ribbon - been in my stash for eons - from top to bottom of the layers before adhering all to the card front.
• To make the topper I inked through a Clarity Stamp template, Leaves 3, on to a snippet of smooth white card. Distress inks used, Shabby Shutters, Crushed Olive, Scattered Straw, Dried Marigold, Brushed Corduroy and Fired Brick - in that order too. The intention was to create the gradual change of colour that we see in our autumn leaves, starting with the greens at the base, merging into yellows and golds in the centre and finishing with red around the edges. Once that was done, I stamped the ferns, from IndigoBlu's Nature II stamp set, on the leaf with Memento Rich Cocoa, then it was matted and layered on to a piece of the patterned paper and brown cardstock before gluing it, at a jaunty angle, on the card front.
• To make the foliage embellishment I raided the snippet box, picking out shades of brown, gold, silver and red card in a variety of textures, and cut out various shapes of leaves and ferns using dies from Tattered Lace Lavish Blooms Leaves set and the ivy spray from the Mini Dies set. Once I had a little pile of die-cuts, I fiddled and fussed until I was happy with how they looked then used a glue gel to adhere them in place. 
• The aurora borealis embellishment was a bit of an afterthought but it very nicely covers up the area where the leaves all meet in the centre. 
• Yet another afterthought, and one I really like, was the yellow Stickles used to edge the topper and highlight areas of the fern stamp. I think the extra bling from the glitter glue looks lovely. 
• The final touch was to add the ribbon bow top left.

I'm submitting this card to the following challenge:

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 205 - my second visit this week!

Looking at the card reminds me of how beautiful the trees were here in the west of Scotland this autumn. Such a shame that the series of storms we've had recently have left the trees bare and the leaves a squishy, squelchy mess ... no leaf crunching for us now. Still, there's always next autumn to look forward to.

Hope your day has been good and tomorrow will be wonderful.

What's On Your Workdesk - Week 339

Hello Everyone,

I'd like to say I was breezing in to join in with WOYWW this week, but it's more tottering than breezing! So much to do and so little time sums up my week so far, and no sign of it getting any better either. Hence the mess on my desk.

What you see is the detritus left over from a male themed birthday card made in haste. Card now winging it's way to the recipient and hopefully on time. The leftovers are still lying out so that I can make one similar for another December birthday. So many December birthdays to make for! Much of what can be seen at the back of the desk is just the usual tools of the trade but there is a box of metallic cord top left and a couple of rolls of labels - out for addressing envelopes - not usually out. Just in view on the right, that's a couple of Scottish calendars waiting to be put in envelopes and sent to Australia - must do today! And the contraption wrapped in cable is an external hard drive. It's there because the EM threatened to bin it. It's a leftover from my working days and contains lots of historical stuff that I no longer need to keep, e.g. my accounts. I've been retired more than 6 years so I think I can safely delete them now and I'm thinking it would be better used to store digital photographs. I just have to work out how to delete the contents ... could take me some time!

So that's how my desk looked earlier today. Somehow it doesn't look so bad in the pic as it does in reality. Oh, that's because I've just dumped more stuff on it!!!

Right, that's me done and now I'm off to check out a as many desks as I can before dinner. I hope you can find the time to pop over to The Stamping Ground and join in the WOYWW blog hop! And if you haven't already but would like to, do join in. It is easy and you'd be very welcome. Just follow Julia's how-to's at the top of her blog.

Have a great day,