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Saturday 27 December 2014

Update from Christmas To Do List

Hello crafty peeps - welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas so far. I have especially as it's Isobel's first Christmas (she slept through most of it!) I made her a mobile for above her cot using a design featured in "Simply Homemade" magazine which I foolishly forgot to take a photo of. It has a sun at the top then four clouds with raindrops suspended under it in rainbow colours and it's all made from felt. I am ridiculously proud of it because with the exception of a furry water bottle cover I made for my late Grandma decades ago, it's the first sewing project I've ever completed as an adult - to make things better it even looked pretty good even though I forgot to add rays to the sun and the sun and clouds all had embroidered faces on them, I've never done embroidery before! *proud face*

I thought I'd just give you an update to my to do list. The ironing didn't get done nor did much dusting (just a token swipe lol) and to be perfectly honest we didn't bother putting up a tree. It turned out the crackers were for Christmas Eve not Christmas Day so we did without them! The ham defrosted and was soaked overnight then boiled before we left on Christmas Day. I then roasted it with an orange marmalade and whole grain mustard glaze on Boxing Day morning and it was delicious! Not as good as my father-in-law's it's true but not a bad first attempt even if I do say so myself. I did remember to make a card for Gramps (Christmas morning) and had a clean egg free coat to wear on Christmas Day. We never got round to buying olives but in the end it made very little difference - there was still plenty of food on Boxing Day and I was the only one to miss them. This Christmas has made me realise a lot of things - it doesn't have to be perfect and anyway no matter how much money you have or how organised you are it's never going to be perfect so why stress about it? Instead Christmas should be about being with the people you love even it they are just in your thoughts and doing things you enjoy and this is a lesson I want to take with me in the new year.

I have some thank you cards to make which I hope to share with you in the next few days so until then, enjoy the rest of the Christmas and keep crafting!

Love and Christmas crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Wednesday 24 December 2014

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

Merry Christmas Eve crafty peeps (not too merry though - who wants to spend Christmas Day nursing a hangover??) - welcome to my crafty nook!

It's just turned 5 am as I'm writing this and I've already been up for 2 and a half hours after my passive aggressive cat Jinx yowled in my ear until I got up to feed him! I'm hoping this is not an indicator of the day to come lol. I'm sat here drinking my new favourite drink - Tesco Finest Chai Tea and it's like Christmas in a mug. The perfect thing to both wake me up and put me in a festive mood. I'll keep this entry brief (ish) as I've a to do list as long as my arm but I wanted to wish a wonderful Christmas/Festive Holiday to all my wonderful readers, old and new.

Sarah's To-Do List

Wash coat - I accidentally egged myself at Icelands (who puts a carton of broken eggs back on the top shelf in a shop anyway???)

Poke ham joint to see if it's defrosted yet.

Soak ham once it's defrosted.

Do all those niggling household tasks you've been putting off for the past three months (dusting, tidying, vacuuming, ironing etc, etc)

Cry when you realise it's not humanly possible to do three months worth of housework (and the ironing!!) in one day.

Start praying that you will metamorphoses into Domestic Goddess, Martha Stewart, an obsessive compulsive cleaner or similar.

Mutter resentfully when prayers are not answered even though it's totally one's own fault that you'd rather craft then clean (rather do anything than clean truth be told - ooh look some paint is drying!)*

Start tackling the housework in 20 minute segments (20 mins clean, 10 mins resting with cup of Chai and a book, repeat until completed)

Have nagging feeling you'e forgotten something - I know I'd like some olives for Boxing Day - send Chris to Tescos on the bus while I stay and clean, perhaps?

Is the card I still need to make Gramps?

CRACKERS!!! OMG I have 6 crackers to make for tomorrow and I don't have any jokes, snaps or hats to put inside.

Google cracker jokes.

Make crackers and take tissue paper, gluestick and scissors with you so people can make their own paper hats - it'll be "fun". Stamp out BANG on the outside of each cracker.

Go to In-laws for delicious Christmas ham late afternoon.

Wait for Santa to bring you lots of crafty goodies.

ENJOY!


Whatever Christmas brings you, I hope you enjoy yourself and have a wonderful time - until next time - happy crafting!

Love and crafty Christmas hugs,

Sarah xxx

* I hope no-one is offended by my jokey Christmas To-Do List. Neither praying or OCD are laughing matters but I hope people will read this with a light heart and with the same intention as it was written.





Sunday 21 December 2014

A few festive things to share

Hello crafty peeps - welcome to my crafty nook. I'm sorry it's been so long since my last blog post but life has a way of getting in the way of crafting and it certainly has this month! Are you all ready for Christmas? I'm not - eek! I've still got one Christmas card to make and about a third of the presents to wrap - AND I've still the tree to put up. Where has this month gone - it doesn't seem like five minutes ago since I was sorting my Christmas stash out. *Note to self - BE MORE ORGANISED NEXT YEAR!*  Anyway enough gripping - I sound like a grumpy old lady lol, here are a few Christmas cards that I'd like to share with you.

Art Deco Diamond Accordion Fold Christmas Card

Originally I was planning on making all my Christmas cards out of diamond accordion fold card blanks (I spent a few hours scoring and folding them a few weeks ago) but after receiving a gorgeous embossed card from Carolyn at the local craft shop I decide to scrap this idea as being too fussy and time consuming and instead made a load of white snowflake embossed cards with a silver greeting (very classy and extremely quick to make which was great as the last post date loomed!) However this left me with 20 pre-scored card blanks to decorate and I had no idea what design to go with. Vexingly I discovered that 8" x 8" papers were slightly too small to completely cover the centre panel (next time I shall trim a sliver of card off the longest side) and none of the A4 Christmas papers appealed to me so in the end I covered the side panels with Papermania Art Deco style foiled papers and used some "Great Gatsby" glitter card which I bought from Every Craft's A Pound ages ago. The black is especially sparkly and the above photo doesn't do it justice, the gold and silver aren't quite as twinkly but are very classy (warning the glitter isn't encapsulated so gets all over the place!). The Christmas Art Deco panel comes from the Debbie Moore Art Deco Christmas collection which was part of the magazine bumper pack last year. The images are visually stunning so I've kept the cards very simple and some of them don't even have sentiments.

Close up of Debbie Moore Art Deco Christmas Topper

The Silver Glitter Card lacks the "Wow" factor of the black so I've added embellishments
Close up of topper

The other cards I've made are of a similar theme so I thought I'd refrain from boring you by posting them all here lol.

I've still got lots of Christmas stuff to do which I hope to share before the big day but in case I get bogged down by Christmas crafting, cooking and cleaning - have a wonderful Christmas and I hope Santa brings you all that you could wish for. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and festive crafty hugs,

Sarah xxxx

Tuesday 2 December 2014

"Hark the Herald Angels Sing"...

Hello crafty peeps - welcome to my crafty nook and the second post today! Passion for ProMarkers has another challenge over on their blog and this time the theme is "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and I thought I'd enter again after last week's break.

"And Lo! An Angel came upon them..." Messy Rabbit Christmas Card

I rediscovered these Joanna Sheen "Messy Rabbit" stamps and background papers in the Christmas stash I sorted out earlier and thought that this combination would make a great Christmas card for my sister's children still living at home as I have many a fond memory of going to Charlie's Christmas plays - my sister moved away before I could go and see Jack's - I think I may have been to at least one of Liam's too! I thought it would be a fun extra if I added cord to the wings so that it looks like the Angel is floating in the air (a bit ambitious for a school Nativity - it would never get passed the Risk Assessment!) and I popped the Angel up on pop dots to give a bit of definition to the piece.

PRODUCTS USED

Messy Rabbit from Joanna Sheen ~ Rabbit Nativity MR169 + Messy Angel MR165
                                                      Christmas Backgrounds 4

Cream card stock
White card stock

Memento Tuxedo Black Ink

Pop Dots (Glue Dots)
Tattered Lace glue

Dovecraft Gold Glitter
Dovecraft clear Glitter

Brown Cord (The Works)

WRMK hole punch

PROMARKERS: Pastel Blue, Bluebell, Soft Peach, Ice Grey 1&2, Warm Grey 3, Cool Grey 1, Khaki, Umber, Sandstone, Caramel, Cinnamon and Gold

The images were stamped onto thin white card, coloured with the ProMarkers then fussy cut with a pair of scissors and a craft knife. I added a gold glitter halo to the rabbit, a little clear glitter to the side panels of his/her gown and stuck everything down once it was dry.

Close up of Messy Angel Image

Close up of Nativity Image

Another view of whole card
I really enjoyed this challenge and it was good to make a card that I have an intended use for. I just hope my niece and nephews like it too.

As always if you have any questions or comments about this card or anything crafty, please leave a comment below - I love to hear from fellow crafters or just interested people. Until next time - happy crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Christmas Cat in stash

Hello crafty peeps - welcome to my crafty nook! It's hard to believe it's the 2nd of December already - with that in mind I've been rummaging through my crafty stash to try and get some ideas for making Christmas cards. I've got a staggering 7 boxes of Christmas stuff ranging in size from two the size of a generously sized shoe box through to a 20 litre capacity - and until tonight they've been all higgledy-piggledy. I've decided that this is no way for an allegedly organised crafter to go about things so I've spent the last five hours sorting the boxes into different catagories. I now have a box filled with embellishments, one filled with punches, metal stencils and embossing boards and folders, one filled with card blanks and card kits, one filled with paper either 6" x 6" or A5, one filled with A4 paper and embellishment packs and two boxes of stamps! If I'm honest I probably need another box for everything that's left over such as 8" x 8" paper packs and things I'm unsure about. I've also sorted out a few crafting goodies for my hubby (even though he's sight impaired, he now makes me birthday and Christmas cards - bless him!) and some stickers etc for my youngest nieces.

One of the reason I wanted to blog about when all said and done quite a boring subject (hands up those who honestly enjoy organising and sorting craft stuff??) is this photo below.

Kitty muffin top!
I had just labelled one of the large shoe box sized boxes and put some paper pads in when Jinx decided to be 'helpful' and squash them down for me and while he was in there he "paw"sed to have a little snooze too!! I was torn between thinking how cute he looked and feeling rather annoyed because he was stopping me from putting papers away. I couldn't help laugh at his furry muffin top spilling out of the top of the box while his head was tightly tucked inside. I took a couple of photos then convinced him that the sofa would be far more comfy and my box is now full of paper packs.

Now that I've got my stash organised and cat free I should be able to start my Christmas cards (finally!) so hopefully I'll have another post to share with you in the next few days. Until then - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah and Jinx (honouree crafter)