Hand Crafted Memories

Last weekend I spent 3 days with my friends Caroline and Lesley. We had a great time just crafting and chatting and swapping ideas. There are never enough weekends spent doing this but I know we will do it again. I am in full on Christmas gifts and cards mode, last weekend we all decided to make a project and share with the others how to make it. I'll share more of that later,  but when I got home I was so inspired I just wanted to carry on. I recently got my pre order of goodies from the new Stampin Up Christmas catalogue and there is a great stamp set that I've used loads already. I decided to use them to make some decoration tags for giving wine as a present.   I love how they turned out. I'm adding these to the Winter Wonderland Challenge. This month its anything goes.

Today has been a very lazy day for me, I haven't even got dressed. Instead I've abandoned everything to bring to life an idea that has been kicking round in my head. I really love the Lili of the Valley nativity scene stamps, they are so very cute. I wanted to create a nativity scene using the stamps, as all of them have a sheet for a background I decided to make them their own 'theatre'. It has taken me all day to make it and light it up but thank goodness it worked out just fine. You know what its like when you start something you've imagined and then it just doesn't work. I'm entering thins into this months LOTV Challenge which is to create anything but a card.

I hope everybody is spending their Christmas just as they want to. I am full of Christmas dinner and desserts so now need to nap before Downton Abbey comes on TV. Before I do I wanted to show you the little configuration house I made last week. I was invited to my friend Carolines along with 4 other crafty ladies. Up until then I hadn't felt very Christmassy, yes I'd done the decorations and sent the cards out but it still didn't feel like it. Until our crafty day. Caroline gave each of us a house box that had been left over from a previous Scrapstars retreat, we were then left to our own devices to do what we wanted. For a couple of weeks we had all been raiding our Christmas ornaments and the local pound shops and on the day we had a mountain of goodies on the table. We also all took food along for our lunch. It was one of the most relaxing and nicest days that completely turned Christmas around for me. Here was my house The box had to be painted first, I was a bit ad...

UKScrappers are hosting a project a day for Christmas.  Rememeber you have to do the following to be in with a chance of winning a prize: Visit the UKS Home Page every morning to see that days project click the link to get the tutorial. Comment on each of the blogs ). Remember to leave your UKS username. If the project is not on a blog you are allowed a free pass on that one. Then comment on the UKS thread after the 23rd of December. We will compare the commenters in the UKS thread to the blog comments after the 25th and the prize winner will be announced on New Year's Eve. Today is my turn and I have a Christmas ornament for you to make. I was inspired by a project I found on Pinterest a lady called Brenda has loads of ideas of how to make projects out of Hershey's kisses . I am not claiming this as my own idea but I took her tutorial to make a star and turned it into a tree ornament. Go check out her blog for other great ideas using Hersheys kisses. For the...

UKScrappers are hosting a project a day for Christmas. I'm sure you will agree there have been some fabulous ideas so far.  Remember you have to do the following to be in with a chance of winning a prize: Visit the UKS Home Page every morning to see that days project click the link to get the tutorial. Comment on each of the blogs ). Remember to leave your UKS username. If the project is not on a blog you are allowed a free pass on that one. Then comment on the UKS thread after the 23rd of December. We will compare the commenters in the UKS thread to the blog comments after the 25th and the prize winner will be announced on New Year's Eve. Today is my turn and I have a Christmas ornament for you to make.This one is great for the kids to make and can also be used as a present tag, just write your greeting on the back with a Sharpie. You will need: air dry clay  stamp of your choice shaped cookie cutter rolling pin  fine sand paper acrylic paint ribbo...

This has been a fabulous week for me, I only worked three days. I like the idea of three day working weeks and 4 day weekends. Unfortunately I have a very heavy crafting habit that does not allow me to work part time.  I had great news on Thursday, a while ago I entered a facebook competition with this card , and I was so surprised that it won! Wowweee, I have £150 worth of Molly Bloom stamps coming my way. I can't tell you how thrilled I am, I already have quite a large collection but I'm sure I can make room for more. On Friday my friend and I went to the cake International show at the NEC , OMG some of those cakes were just incredible, absolute engineering masterpieces. I learnt loads watching some of the fantastic demonstrations. Today I was at The Craft Box and we made this lovely gift ensemble, Christmas is an expensive time of year for everybody so we made this lovely set that anybody would be happy to receive. The highlight of the day was everybody realising how eas...

I've had a couple of days doing more project type work, something a bit different form my cards and scrapbook pages. My new inspiration go to is Pinterest and while roaming through all the ideas I came upon a page of s weet sledges . I thought what a great idea and they would be nicer as gifts than selection boxes. So I had a go and this is my take on them.  I am really pleased and with all the treat size candy around at the moment they worked out really cost effective, so much cheaper than any selection box. I have wrapped them in cellophane then added a couple of bells. The other thing I've done is decorate a candle for Lynn to display in the Craft Box. We are decorating a candle in a couple of weeks so she ordered some and they were a little small when they arrived. Never to fail I have decorated one so that it shows another style. I stamped and coloured all the holy leaves then blinged it all up with some glittery branches, a heart pin and a luxurious satin bow.

Last week I had a little trip to the Lili of the Valley shop, it is so full of fabulous inspiration you can't fail to get enthusiastic about getting crafty. On the counter was a beautiful wedding candle, stamped with one of their lovely images and decorated so delicately. For a week I have been thinking of this candle and wanting to make one myself.  While I was there I treated myself to three of the newly launched stamps, believe me it was very difficult sticking to only three. I'm sure more will end up at my house soon though.  As I went back to work this week I have not had much time for crafting but I managed to gather all the supplies I needed for a candle and today I finally got the chance to have a go. I love it and it was much easier than I thought it was going to be. The hardest part was colouring on tissue paper, but only because you don't have to put much ink on. I can imagine making many more of these for Christmas presents. If you fancy having a go 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...