Bear Bottomed tights.....

My great-niece, Megan, came to Christmas lunch and had the most amazing "bear" bottomed tights on, just had to share this photo - they really made us laugh...


It's Dad's birthday on Christmas Day and I got him some balloons to celebrate. Megan loved the one below which is quite fantastic !
An expensive choice from Clintons, it's huge with fish inside a a bowl.

And Jess didn't want to be left out - he wanted to wish everyone a Happy Christmas...

Christmas Tree is done!

I posted recently about a beautifully designed tree we found in the Christmas store at Bluewater. We bought quite a few of the decorations and last night put our 2009 tree together as below. I really loved the colours together, purple with lime green is not something you would think works.....but it does.

This close-up shows the lovely white glittery spikey things, with the beautiful rose garland.

Topped with a new Angel to complete the look.

I'm really please with the result, totally different from any tree I've decorated before.

Girls day out

Had a fabulous day today. Alan kindly drove Lynn and I to meet Sue & Anita at the Glitterpot.
After great fun browsing (& buying) crafting goodies, we went to a pub for lunch.
It's always lovely to see friends.

Here come the Girls.....

Last night, Lynn, Denise & I went to Clarin's Happy Hour at Bluewater.
For a deposit of £15 pp we had pink champagne, chocolates, a hand massage, skin care and make-up. The deposit was redeemable against products too.

These are the girls being pampered.



And these are the results......

Afterwards we had our photo taken walking through the mall.

Bright and Cheery

A colleague at my new job asked me to make some cards for her.
The first one is for her daughter who loves In the Night Garden. I used an image from the internet and 3d'd the page. I then cut a larger Upsy Daisy and Iggle Piggle and put those over the top. She wanted a photograph of her daughter so I cut a circle and scallop and added in the top corner. My favourite 8x8 was the base for this one.


The second was for her mother's 60th Birthday and she wanted to use an image of her daughter and niece. Her Mum's favourite colour is yellow so I used that as a base card and accented with tropical coloured flowers, some jewells and buttons.

This one is A4 size.

Terrie's 50th

Had a lovely day at Jill's (Cardinal Colours) today and managed to make some pages for Terrie's 50th Birthday book. Would like to say Thanks for the lovely cards and pressies too!


Based on some pages from Scrapbook Trends and using BG papers, accessorised with Bazzill and flowers from Jill's shop.

These are papers from the Eva collection, I love the tones in these and they match the colouring of the hall where the party was held.

Radley

A couple of years back, Robert bought me a Radley bag as a Christmas present. I really loved it and used it a lot.

It was a square bag with a border around the edge which looked like a frame. Unfortunately one of the straps split and needed repair. I contacted customer services to ask for advice and they said to send it in, so I did beginning of August.

Weeks went by and I heard nothing, so I e-mailed again - no reply. I called and was told it was being dealt with - nothing appeared. I called again at the end of September and was told "Oh, Yes, it will be with you next friday". Friday came and went and another and another.... I called again last week and was told they had no record of my details?????

Panic started to set in, so off the guy went to check again.

Hours later, I called back...."Ahhh" he said "does 45 St Michaels.... mean anything to you?" No...."does the name..... mean anything to you?" No.... "Ah, well thats where your bag was sent and signed for" Mmmmmmmm, you can imagine how I felt at this point?

Anyhow, after a lot of "tooing and froing" they said I could choose another from the website.

The result is above (with a new purse for my inconvenience) and whilst I'm delighted with my new bag I can't help but feel very let down and disappointed with the loss of my original bag - it was, after all, a present from my husband.

Sweet Treats

These are the finished gift bags I made recently.
I added some Hotel Chocolat sweets wrapped in cellophane, tied with gold or silver ribbon.
Cut from Basic Grey Mistletoe and Pear papers.

An extra piece of ribbon and discs made with SU punches finished with some metalic reindeers from my stash completed the look.

Silhouette to the rescue.

I had an idea to make some Christmas gift bags and remembered that I'd seen some on the Cricut cartridges. Unfortunately, when I looked at those I have, they were not the ones.
I decided to look at the Silhouette images instead. OMG!!! Since they have split from QK they have multiplied their images tenfold. There are some fantastic designs availalable now for only 99c a time. The bag below is one of those which I purchased tonight cut in BG paper Mistletoe and Pear from last year. I inked the edges and cant wait to add the little treats and embelishments to complete it.

New Microwave

Things seem to be blowing up in our house recently, you may recall the fridge/freezer packing up in June on the hottest day of the year so far? Recently the kettle sprung a leak and left puddles all over the work surface - new kettle! Friday the microwave went bang and produced a cloud of smoke, so, today we spent the day looking for and buying a new one. I think I'm quite good with technology but it baffles me why the control panels are more like flying the shuttle!

The only buttons you need are full power, warm, defrost and how long - so why, I ask myself, are there buttons for Curry, Pasta, Chinese, Jacket Potato etc etc etc..... what a waste of time.

Anyhow, have a new Panasonic one and will get my shuttle pilots license in due course :)

Cool Cats

Had to share these photo's!
Its 3D night on channel 4 and we got given glasses in Sainsburys.
Lianne decided they would look cool on Jess - and they do :)
Think he quite liked them as he wore them for quite a while.




Definitely a page in these methinks.

From Boy to Man - Scrapaholix November kit - Improved photo now :)

Due to starting the new temp job and being unwell, I am really late with my class page this month. I had an idea of using some of the photos Dad gave me recently of him as a boy then growing up. The technique/material this month was cork so I used it to define the first and last pictures in the series. The papers are from My Minds Eye Ooh La La collection and I liked the contrast between the colours and the black and white photographs.

I embellished the flourishes with some jewells from Jill's (Cardinal Colours) and some stickles glitter glue in Cinnamon and Gold.

Another Drama

Have been in bed the past few days with this cold/cough/flu thing. Lianne said she was feeling unwell too so I thought I'd passed it on. Thursday, however, I found out that she'd had another piercing in her ear - she knows I don't like it so kept it quiet. It had become infected and was causing pain, headaches and nausea. She had gone to a walk in clinic near Liverpool St Station and they had given her antibiotics, frightening the living daylights out of her in the process saying that cartilage infections are the worst and that she may lose her ear!!!
Friday she stayed at home and was very sick so we made an appointment at our Doctors who referred her to the hospital. Hours later......they gave her an anti-sickness pill and sent her home.
Hopefully it will get better on its own now with the AB's etc. I just don't understand why people want to have all these piercings???? I have two holes in each ear and feel this is more than sufficient - is it just my age? :)

Got a Cold!

Four days back commuting to London and I get a cold - I knew it would happen!
Wouldn't be so bad if a cough didn't come too, have had to stay at home yesterday and today as its made me sick :(

Thought I'd share a couple more of the cards I made on Saturday at Jill's (Cardinal Colours) and two more of the Kanban kit cards.

Hope you are all feeling well...........

Birthday week

Have had a very busy week as I started a new temp job on Tuesday and have worked very long hours. No time for any crafting as have just been too tired!

Thursday was my birthday and after working 8-6, went to my favourite local italian for dinner. Fabulous meal and glass of Bubbly went down well.

Saturday had a fabulous day at Jill's (Cardinal Colours) for our monthly crop where I was spoiled by my good friends - thanks to you all, I had a lovely day. Below are some photos of the beautiful cards I received.

Last night had a lovely meal with Lynn and Alan at our local Indian restaurant with some champagne to wash it down.

Below are a couple of the cards I made at the crop on Saturday the first using my new Copic Markers and Liz's stamps (thanks Liz)

Last day of freedom

Today was my last day of freedom for a while as I have a temp job starting tomorrow.
I amused myself by sorting out a few bits and pieces then made these cards using the Kanban Patchwork Pals kit.
The characters are really cute and I think quite pretty.

Also, learned today that I have been accepted to start a new job but not til January 5th, so have to bide my time temping until then.

Francoise Read Angels Stamp Set

A big Thanks to Lynn for coming round this afternoon.
We had a stamping session using the new stamps we bought yesterday.
Lynn played with the Christmas Elf set and I used her Nativity and Angel sets.

The following were made using the angels, the dresses cut from the background paper and images coloured with the new copic markers.

They are really adorable and I have quite a few stamped and ready to complete, so Thanks again to Lynn for sharing...

Christmas Decorations

The past few years I've found it hard to get excited about Christmas and decorating the tree etc, however, this afternoon we went to Bluewater and had a look in the seasonal shop.

This was one of the sample trees in store and I've fallen in love with it - so much so that we bought the garlands, spiky white things, lime green and purple sparkly feathery birds and other adornments!



Am even considering putting the tree up on Monday (my last day of freedom before rejoining the rat-race)



Again the photos don't to the colours justice as it was so awesome. Will post my effort once done.

Crafts-u-Love class with Francoise Read

This morning Lynn and I met Jill (Cardinal Colours) at Crafts-u-Love for a class with Francoise Read. We had a really good time and made the following card using Francoise's new Christmas stamps as below.

This is my effort.

I really loved the Copic Markers so treated myself to an early birthday present (bad girl!!!)

My sat nav could not pick up a signal on leaving so we tried to wing it and ended up getting lost which wasn't such a bad thing as the scenery was beautiful. We stopped on a deserted stretch of road and took this pictures quickly from the car.
They dont really do justice to the fantastic autumnal colours which were much more vibrant.