Quick Christmas Cards

How are we all doing with the festive preparations. Personally I have not stopped for seems like weeks, and am definatly flagging now. Just the wasjing, ironing and cleaning to do - HOORAY (not my most favourote jobs).

Like, I bet you all needed just a few extra christmas cards too, and these are what I rustled up. My craftroom now is in complete dis-array and I have amazed myself at how messy I can be. I should really take note when I am constantly telling the boys to their rooms !!

Some Christmas Cards & Tags

As usual I am behind in the making of my christmas cards this year, making my customary slow start. For some reason I have a complete mental block when it comes to festive makings. I have 2 boys that talk endlessly about christmas, I have the tree and decorations up, and even (dare I say it) presents all bought and wrapped. But i still need to hit on those one or two christmas designs that will get me going.

I did however make these. The first 4 panel decoration started out as a card but, I liked it so much that it landed on my mantelpiece, and there it is staying. It did inspire however the scaled down version, and I was also particularly pleased with the gift tags too - made with Tim Holtz distress stains and inks and my favourite christmas stamps.

Right, I feel better now having updated you all. Now its time to rustle up a dinner from the last of the freezer food (waiting to restock next week for christmas), the bath and bed for the boys and hopefully another round of christmas cards for me. I am on a roll today and feeling quite chuffed with myself, having wrapped presents this morning and even managed to book myself that long awaited hair appointment next week. This year it is all about planning as Anthony works away now for 2 weeks at a time, and now not due back until the 22nd - and its up to me to get all the preparations sorted. The deadline for me is also the 22nd/23rd (apart from the last bits of cleaning), then we are all officially on holiday!

Merry Christmas to you all if I don't make it back before then and many good wishes for the New Year. xxx

I have entered the gift tags into this weeks challenges on the Sugar Creek Hollow blog. A lovely blog that is concerned only with all things vintage in crafting, and a site that I will continue to visit many more times.

The start of Christmas

Although it has been a while since I posted last, I have still been creating. As well as the items I am sharing with you now, I have busy sewing and making curtains and blinds for the last remaining windows downstairs that were not dressed. As my eldest son put it 'we are now boarded in'! and it is lovely and cosy now to be able to shut and draw the curtains and blinds against these cold dark wintery evenings. As I chat with you now, the hail is coming down again for the umpteenth time today!

I wanted to start the countdown to Christmas with some special advent calenders, as gifts for my Niece Elena and the children of a friend.
I bought the advent calender kits from Kaisercraft, and decorated them with Basic Grey Nordic Holiday paper, Kaisercrafts Silly Season paper and My Mind Eye traditional christmas paper.
Each kit started out flat packed like this,

Using the Basic grey paper I created this fresh looking calender for Elena,

For my friends children I created a vintage looking calender with the MME paper, and then with the Kaisercraft paper proper traditional colours. I left them to choose who wanted which as they were both suitable for a boy and a girl.

I tried to make the central collage as dimensional as possible, and for the MME and Kaisercraft calenders I used the cricut Imagine to cut out the elements.

As a finishing touch before sending them on their way, I added a little festive chocolate to each of the drawers as a small treat and aide the passing of the days towards christmas.

I think they were all well received as a welcome surprise in the post. Next year I will make 2 more for my own boys, who this year were treated to Lego Star Wars calenders each (now I have even more Lego laying around on the floor and being sucked up in the hoover!)



 Thank you for taking the time to look.