Manhatten Flower

Aren’t these cards gorgeous?  These have been made using the Stampin’ Up Big Shotz embossing folder Manhatten Flower embossed onto vellum, cut out around the top and overlaid onto DSP then on to the card base.

Not entirely my original idea, I cased the idea from Splitcoaststampers (what would we do without this wonderful source of inspiration).

   

Which colour scheme do you prefer?

Santa Bob – Xmas 2009

Hope you all had as wonderful a Xmas Day as I did.  We spent the day at my daughter’s with my other daughter and her family and my sister and brother-in-law. Nine adults (includes my husband’s intellectually disabled brother) and our four grandsons.

This is Tyler – our Santa for the day.  One of his nicknames is Bob (when he was little he was always pretending to be Bob the Builder – his other nickname is TJ – pronounced ‘Tij) – hence he was called Santa Bob.  He took the job very seriously!  He’s such a sweetie – insisted on handing out everyone else’s presents before opening any of his own.

After a lovely Christmas roast lunch/dinner, bubbly and crackers, we all relaxed and opened our presents.

   

    

As it was such a beautiful hot sunny day everyone headed for the swimming pool or deck as you will see from these photos.  Sorry to rub this in to those of you that were shivering in the cold and/or wet.

           

I’m sure you will all agree that it was the perfect Xmas day.  (And I got some real neat pressies too!!)  Christmas wishes to all.

Have yourself a very merry Christmas

This will probably be my last post before Christmas day so just wanted to thank everyone for checking out my blog and their encouraging comments.  I particularly want to pass on to each and every one of you my warmest wishes for a really wonderful Christmas day.

Just wanted to share with you some of the lovely handcrafted cards I have received.

 

 

From my very talented friend Karen. 

I think I have already had this up on my blog but as it is so gorgeous it deserves to be shown again.

 

This one came all the way from Scotland from Joan’s sister-in-law Carol.  Looks better in real life than my photo.  Hope to meet up with Carol again when she comes over in the New Year to visit with Joan and David.

 

Another lovely card that isn’t done justice in this photo.  This one is from my dear friend Joan and even though it doesn’t show in the photo believe me this Xmas tree is all a-glitter.  It really stands out.

 

 

 

A gorgeous card from a gorgeous lady – Pauline in Napier.  You can check out Pauline’s wonderful creations in Up2Scrap, a New Zealand magazine that have picked Pauline as one of their elite design team for 2010.  Congratulations Pauline – well deserved.

 

This lovely card is from Jacque whose cardmaking classes started me on this journey.  The background is actually Very Vanilla, not white, but for some reason I am having trouble with my camera picking out the difference.

 

I have received so many lovely cards and messages this year – take a look.

          

Thank you everyone.  I am so grateful for all the support I continue to receive and am glad that this Christmas I am feeling so much better and can enjoy myself with family and friends.

Take care, have fun and I’ll hopefully have some Xmas photos to share with you.

Crackers and more crackers

Have just finished making all the Christmas crackers to go on the dinner table Christmas day.  Here’s a few of them:

 

These should look colourful on the table.

Hope they like what’s inside!

Christmas Card Finale

Well I hope this is the final lot of Christmas cards so that I can now get on and make boxes, crackers, etc. and I guess I should add to the list of things to get done – the rest of my gift shopping and organise food for the ‘big’ day!

This one was made using the Stampin’ Up Soft Holly wheel on Very Vanilla cardstock and coloured in the berries with Bravo Burgundy marker.  I used my Cuttlebug to emboss a piece of Always Artichoke cardstock then used my SU Eyelet Border punch down one side.  I finished this off with 5/8” Bravo Burgundy ribbon and behind the sentiment stamped in Very Vanilla, I used the oval scallop punch on the Bravo Burgundy cardstock.  Quite easy and quick to make.

In this one I used the beautiful dove stamp from the Stampin’ Up “A Wish for Peace” set.  I was trying to utilise all the implements I have bought (trying to justify what I spend) so the white card has once again been embossed with the Cuttlebug and the scalloped square and leaves were cut out using my Slice machine.  I used a small leaf stamp to stamp over the leaves to make them look more authentic.  The dove has been glittered with Dazzling Diamonds.  Cardstock used is Bashful Blue and Whisper White.

I hardly ever use the examples in Stampin’ Up’s idea books and catalogues, but I should as there are some lovely cards and layouts in them.  I particularly liked this one so recreated it.  If you go on to Stampin’ Up’s website they give you a list of materials used in each project.  I didn’t have any Very Vanilla ribbon in the right width so improvised and cut a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock then glittered it with Dazzling Diamonds.  As you can see it was quite a nice effect.  I also didn’t have the Frames with a Flourish stamp set for the Not Quite Navy background piece, so just scored around the inside to give it a different effect.

    

Last, but not least, is this trio of cards all very similar and using the popular Stampin’ Up set “Season of Joy”.  I don’t own this set (yet!!) so had to borrow it but feel I should get it as it is so versatile.  The DSP used is from the Spring Mini – Ski Slope.

Well there you have it – my Christmas cards for 2009 are all complete.  Hope all your preparations for Christmas are going smoothly.