Christmas Ideas

Here I am once again after realising that I need to use Mozilla to be able to bring my photos through to my blog.
Gosh its been a warm day today. First of all it was raining and then I heard it was 90' humidity.  I wondered why my feet were kind of sticking to the floor.

Here is a Christmas Cracker which I cased from Andrea Walford. This was also my Secret Santa gift when the Stamparoo's met for a Christmas gathering at San Churro's in Hillarys Boat Harbour.  I have used a toilet roll for the inside but if I were to put something in it I would have used a kitchen roll of some type. I have decided to use this one as one of the decorations on my tree so have left it empty.  You need some red tissue paper, some DSP and ribbon. I have looked online to see if the tutorial is still available but I cannot find it. To view it you will need to be a member of her Paper Crafters library. I cannot seem to find any tutorials anywhere for this cracker so I will give you a quick run through of how the tissue paper part is done.
For the ruffles on the end you will need to pull out one sheet of tissue paper. Fold it in half so that you can find the centre. Unfold it and then fold one side of the long side toward the middle to the midline. Do the same to the other side. Then fold in again to the midline on both sides. Do this one more time until your tissue paper is about 3" wide.  You will then need glue down one side to keep them together while cutting little strips about 2/3 way, careful not to cut to far. This forms the ruffle. You will need to do this twice as you will need one for each end. Its quite a tedious job but if you have one of those scissors with the three or four blades on it you will be finished in no time.

These cards were also cased from Sue Madex Creations.  The original  card featured the Snow Flurry on the front with the Silver Glimmer Paper. I decided that you could only get 9 flurries from 1 sheet so I used the Ornament Keepsake Dies instead.  I have Stamped the Snowflake Soiree (holiday catalogue) image onto the Whisper White and embossed with White Embossing Powder.  I then used the Emboss Resist technique and went over with a dauber with Bashful Blue, Marina Mist and Not Quite Navy ink.  The card is folded in half and then the front part is folded in half backwards toward the spine of the card. Be sure when writing your message it is not visible when the front of the card is closed.  The Whisper White card that you can see has been embossed with Northern Flurry Folder. The Ornament Keepsake baubles are one with Silver Embossing Powder and the other with White Embossing Powder. I decided I liked the White better. I have kept the card very simple with no sentiments as I feel it does not need anything else. Check out Sue Madex website to check out her lovely card. She also gives the dimensions for the Z Fold.

For Christmas I decided to make some biscuits to give to my fellow colleagues at work.  All in all I made around 130 biscuits. My daughter had found the recipe and I thought it was a great idea as they were Christmas Wreaths glazed with lemon icing and dotted with red and green decorations. I have since made another two batches with the last one being tonight. My mum found the cookie maker at a market and paid only $2.00 for it years ago. She has never used it but gave it to my daughter and I borrowed it for my biscuits.


 I first made one of these boxes at Pat Carr's Cancer Council fund raising day.  Pat had actually used Be Of Good Cheer DSP.  I have used Candlelight Christmas Specialty DSP. You will need to purchase a pack of Kraft Gift Boxes from the main Catalogue, only $4.95 for a pack of 4.  I have used Very Vanilla Cardstock to cover the sides and top and embossed them with Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder. I used Teeny Tiny Sentiments for the Merry Christmas and Itty Bitty Banner Die to cut them out. I could only fit 8 biscuits into the boxes but that was enough for a tasty little treat.

Well I am off to bed now as its been a long hot day for me.  I am worn out trying to catch up on my chores and errands.
Thanks for popping by :)

Happy Easter!

What? Easter already! But we just had Christmas. How scary is that? Time flies so quickly and it seems to go quicker each year. We are almost half way through the year. I have to admit I have not done much for Easter this year because as some of you know already we have been doing a few renovations at home. We have lifted all the carpet from the main areas, lifted the tiles and then our son has tiled throughout. It looks lovely now but you should have seen it while it was in progress. Should I say progress, well perhaps that is not the right word for it. There was dust at least 2mm thick through the house. I have never seen so much dust. Our son told us before he started that there would not be must dust. Well I wont be taking his word for it anymore. Even the cat noticed when she walked on our Jarrah benchtop how thick the dust was. Anyway it was all worth it as it looks great now. They are so lovely to walk on and the tiles are not even cold. I know! Its not winter yet but I thought with the cool nights we have been having that the tiles would be cold to walk on. I love them. I am so glad we have got rid of the carpet. See what you think. And now to some of the cards I have made recently. Of course I had to make some Easter Cards for the family. I found the idea of the little chicken from Laura Lipes website. Thanks Laura for the great idea. Laura had used the 2 step bird punch and cut the tail shorter. (although you cant see the tail on my chick as it is coming out of the shell. The wings were made using the Scallop Oval Punch. As you can see I have used the Top Note Die which makes a nice frame for the picture. I used the scallop circle punch to sponge the clouds. The grass is made with the Inspired By Nature stamp set and the sentiment was made using the Teeny Tiny Sentiments. This is a very easy card to make so give it a go. (if you have time!)

This card was made for a friends daughter who has had a little baby girl.
I have used:- Polka Dot embossing folder, Punch Bunch stamp set(retired), Congrats stamp set (retired), Whisper White & Pink Pirouette cardstock, Whisper White ribbon, SU Pearls and the Eyelet Border Punch. A very simple and sweet card.

This card was made for a wedding I was unable to attend. For this card I have used:- Basic Black, Whisper White & Sahara Sand Cardstock, Bliss stamp set (from retired Mini but who knows it could be in the next Idea Book & Catalogue), Always stamp set, Curly Cute stamp set, Tiny Tags stamp set, Jewellery Tag Medium Punch, Versamark, White & Silver Embossing Powder, Silver Brad. I quite like it. I hope you do too.