Hand Crafted Memories

Hooray, I made the top three over on Winter Wonderland with last weeks entry. That's three times now, I'm on a roll, so I'd better keep going while the mojo is still around. This weeks challenge is Food Glorious Food. Well that seems to be the theme in my house this week with me icing my Christmas cake and getting the ingredients together to make my mince ready for mince pies.  I've also carried on with my sugarpaste class, learning how to make flowers from sugarpaste, obviously with Christmas coming up I wanted to make an OTT arrangement for my cake, the poinsettia and ivy are finished, now its just the Christmas roses.  To continue with the trend of food and to enter the challenge I've used on of my favourite Molly Bloom stamps to create this card and I've gone away from traditional Christmas colours.

Since I've found the Less is More blog I thought I'd like to have a go at the challenge. This week the challenge is to include some hardware on the card. I added this snowflake, I couldn't possibly guess how long it is since I bought these. It felt good to finally use one, I may be breaking my habit of hoarding stuff. I looked around my craft room today and think it needs a coat of paint, but the thought has passed. I think it would take me too long to empty it!

Last night I was planning a bath and an early night, then my best friend phoned to ask me for a link to the Lili of the Valley website. Before I knew where I was I'd started crafting and still hadn't had a bath or early night. This weeks challenge on Winter Wonderland's blog is Oh Baubles, a Christmas card or project featuring baubles. I have recently sorted out a huge pile of rubber stamps to put on eBay. I have way too many and they are just not getting used. So I am having a good sort out and getting rid of a lot of them. This stamp was on the 'to go' pile, so i found it out and made this card. I am now in a dilemma do I keep it or just let it go?

I remember so well as a youngster trying make up for the first time and accessorising to the hilt, my Mum used to say to me Less is More. This also happens to be the name of a challenge blog I recently discovered here .  I also noticed on the Lili of the Valley blog that one card from the guest designer jumped out at me here . So I had to copy it, and I love how they turned out. Very quick and great for those last minute cards.   Thank you Chrissie for the inspiration.

I have had a couple of days away from the office working in Salisbury, and the weather has been beautiful. I have so many crafting ideas buzzing around in my head I was dying to get home and make some, but I can't. My boiler has packed in and a radiator in my spare bedroom also sprang a leak. So while the plumbers are fitting replacements, everything has been piled up on my craft room counter. Hopefully the job will be completed tomorrow and everything can go back in its place. In the mean time the challenge from Winter Wonderland t his week is 'one for the boys'. A card or project that features a boy, this is my entry. I like making this style of card, it has featured quite heavily in my box of Christmas cards this year.

I missed Septembers class for the year long challenges hosted by Shimelle Laine over on UKS , I still have everything ready but haven't managed to get it together. I loved the one posted for October, this was a class with a difference, a list of instructions but no picture to follow. I thought it was a fabulous way of encouraging us to not create an exact copy of the original page. We all had to hold the page and post it on 31st October, I forgot about posting mine until today but finally its here.

I've no idea why I haven't posted for the last 10 days, I think I just forgot. I had a day off work on Wednesday to spend crafting with my lovely crafting buddies Caroline and Lesley and of course my best friend Theresa came along for the company and cake. Theresa is just starting to get her momentum with crafting, it is lovely to see the pure joy when she makes something with us. I'm not sure who enjoys it more us watching her or her making something lovely. It was a great day of catching up on all things Scrapstars , Stampin Up and general crafting news. We usually take it in turns to show and tell things that we have made since our last catch up and then usually we have seen something that one of us has made and we show the others how to make it. A bit of a mini retreat. Caroline and Lesley are Stampin Up demonstrators and Caroline has been wanting to make the ornament on the front of the catalogue, so this is what we started with, and here's mine   I love h