Christmas at our house

Just as I was settling in to write lots about this past week, last night ,we got some unexpected visitors so you were saved from a long, maybe boring to some, post. Well here it is.

On christmas morning we had a nice relaxed time with the kids and our pets. We opened our stockings and presents and then had breakfast together, which Critishia kindly cooked for everyone. After that I spent the morning setting up a really great Christmas table. I had fun making it look as nice as I could with what I had. I made the place mats the night before and stamped over 2000 berries on the holly that I rolled on each side. I also had made over 30 of the little pudding boxes as we had 13 for lunch and then 21 for boxing day tea. I found my Christmas ribbon box and tied bows and attached them to each chair. I new all that ribbon would come in handy sometime.

My guests arrived at 1pm. My family for Christmas day. Mum and dad and my dad's cousins Margaret and Maurice, who are out from England, my sister Marion, Melanie and Amy and her boyfriend Matt.

All in all it was a lovely day. Big Thanks to my sister Marion and niece Amy who helped with the cooking. It was a scrumptious roast meal with plum pudding and custard and also Pavlova and fruit salad for desert.

The pudding box.

Emily, Critishia and I.

Table set for 13

The table setting with homemade place mats.
Everyone enjoying their meal.

I also managed to bath Skye and blow dry her before I started on the table setting. Skye getting a blow dry after her bath

Skye with her christmas stocking

Meeka with her stocking. She looks real interested, doesn't she?

My mum and dad. First Christmas with them for a long time. I loved having them here.

On Boxing day we had Grahams family for a BBQ in the evening and it was a great party with 21 people. It was a fun night and that was it, Christmas was all over for another year.

I hope Christmas was a safe and happy one for you as well. Now I am having a BIG rest for a few days before getting ready to start another year.

Carols in the Valley

Hi everyone,
I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas. I thought I would show you what I have been up to this past week. On Sunday evening we went to carols in the Valley at Sandalford winery. It was really good. I bought myself a new camera for Christmas and have been having fun taking lots of pictures. The first photo is of the stage from where we were sitting and then one taken with the zoom of the tree on the stage. I was quite impressed by the zoom on the camera. The third picture is of Debra Burn who was the special guest at the carols. Then after it finished they had fireworks so I took some photos using the fireworks setting on the camera. On the way home I went past some houses with lots of Christmas lights and took some photos of them as well.

Our Christmas Tree

We have always had a small half tree at our place as there has never been room for a bigger one. This year I have a lovely big tree although I still only got to put half of it up as there still isnt quite enough room. Here is a picture of Skye sitting under the tree. She has been reasonably good about the decorations but has chewed 4 of them up over the past week or so. she seems to only attack the star shaped ones. She also only gets them when she is not supervised enough or bored. Oh well she is only a puppy.

I hope you all have a lovely tree to fill your homes with the feeling of Christmas. I love all the decorations. over the years I have always made some decorations and below are some of the folk art ones I painted years ago but can now have out as the tree is big enough for them. I hope you are enjoying this time coming up to Christmas and that you have a lovely time with family and friends.

Altered Pop Top Cans

Last week at Stamp Club I taught the girls to make these altered pop top cans. I have been saving my pineapple tins for quite awhile so I would have enough for everyone to make one.
we used the designer paper holiday harmony to cover them and this one is decorated using the retired wheel gifts galore. I used my new stamp set Tag Time for the tag.

Make it Monday Chocolate Box

I managed to try out the Make it Monday that Makeesha has each week. It is a really easy box to make and looks great filled with Christmas chocolates. The little scalloped piece on the top just evolved as I was punching and folding the scalloped circle. I folded each piece in a tea bag fold and then just stuck them together until it looked ok.
You can find the MIM here

Carousel Notes

For the past week I have been busy playing with all the new stamp sets from the Summer mini. I had a launch last night and had a great night. I thought it was about time I showed you some of the cards and this box that I have made. I saw this idea on SCS and after trying to figure out what I wanted to do with these carousel notes I thought this was a good idea. It took a bit of figuring out what size to make the box and where to score for the lid but this is what it turned out like. I have used the new Afternoon tea papers to make a dahlia fold for the top and some of my new silver Hodgepodge as well. I also used the Crop-a-dile to faux emboss the scalloped edge.

Then I decided to add a card to the back of this one and cased the design on the front from SCS.

It seems like I only get the chance to post about once a week so dont hold your breath waiting for me will you. Maybe I will get more time after Christmas. I will post a few of my other cards later in the week.

Skye

It has been some time since I have shown you any pictures of Skye so here she is. She is now 6 months old and has grown into a lovely little puppy. She had her first clip about a month agao and we were told that she isnt a maltese Shih Tzu cross. She is actually a Chinese Crested powder puff cross with Maltese. She has spots all over her skin and after her clip she no longer has the black patch on her body. For now she still has black on her ears and a little in her tail as I havent had that trimmed at all. Im not sure if she will end up all white with a little champagne colour in her or maybe keep the black on her ears. Anyway I gave her a bath today and she is all clean and fluffy here. As you can see she still loves her toys.

Stamping Camp

It has been some time since I have had a chance to post on my blog. I have had problems with my back and also busy with organising our stamping camp. It was a wonderful weekend away with 12 of us for the weekend and my good friend came for the day on Sunday. The venue was great and the food yummy and we just stamped to our hearts content.

Im really looking forward to going again early next year.

Remember the cool Christmas card that I made and posted not long ago. Well I still had a couple of kits for it and I needed to make some cards for my mum while on camp, so just added the Oh so Lovley flower and this is what it looks like. I was very happy with the result.

At last stamp club I was telling the girls that I was disappointed that my puppy was no longer Black and white since she was clipped so 2 of my lovely ladies, Dale and Nic bought me this black and white dog that will never change. His name is Finley and he kept me company all weekend and even went off to bed with me each night. This isnt the most flattering picture of him but he was sitting on my shoulder when Amy took this photo.

here is a pic of everyone busy making all the swaps that we had organised. We enjoyed making all of the cards. Thank you to everyone for making the camp such a fun one.

Artfully Asian

This lovely card is one that we did on WCMD. I cased this card from Averil who had it as a swap at Regionals. I changed a couple of tiny things but loved it as it was really. I love the soft sky and the designer paper is Spring Silhouettes.

A Weekend Away in Manjimup

I have just had a 3 day weekend with my friends at my family farm in Manjimup. We were looked after so wonderfully by my mum while we had a card making weekend. We also had a tour of the avocado farm and the forest behind the farm. It was a great weekend. I have a few photos to show you that I took. I apologize for not posting for a couple of weeks. I had a cortisone injection into my elbow last week (tennis elbow) so wasnt able to use my arm for a couple of days but now it feels great so I can get back into things.

View over the Dam

the avocado's are ready to be picked. The trees have hundreds of avocados on them.

The irises in the garden and magnificant.

Two trees were hit by lightening last week. This is one.

A line of trees along the track.

In the Spotlight Christmas Card

Hi everyone, I am very slow at getting some more of WCMD cards up here. Anyway this is a card that I made using the layout of a card that was swapped at Regionals. I changed it into a slider card as I wanted to try that technique. I have used the hostess set, In the Spotlight, which goes with the 5 petal punch. Even though I love this card I dont think I would do it as a multiple card again as there are so many layers to cut out especially with 2 more layers for the insert. The colours I have used are Purely Pomegranite, Wild Wasabi and Ballet blue with Whisper White.

Cool Christmas Case

I saw a lovely set of cards in this months Cardmaking Stamping and Papercraft magazine using the stamp set Crazy for Christmas. I loved the square card but wanted to make an A5 card so this is my version of the same card. The original card was designed by Suzanne Kohler.

World Card Making Day Projects

My World Card Making day went really well yesterday. Thank you to all that came along and helped make the day a fun one. I thought I would show you a couple of the cards we made. I tried to make a selection of different category cards and here is the Male one and the Baby one.
I used the set Bareback for the first one, kindly loaned to me, by my good friend Sandra. I have always liked the brayered sky look so did that technique here.


For the baby card I used the set Nursery Necessities. As we made 2 of every card I also had the option of making it into a birthday card as well.

I hope your day was a good one if you joined in, or ran an event.

Fun with Oval Punches

Here is another punched card, this time using the small and large oval punches to make a flower. I got this idea from SCS again and changed some things. I hope you enjoy this card.
I have been busy preparing for World Card Making Day so havent got to blogging for another week. Once this weekend is over I will have some more cards to show you. I have been having fun making up cards and now am busy cutting the kits.

Punched Doggie

I know it has been a long time since I have posted anything, due to me having a fall and then not being too well for a week. Time sure gets away from you and the weeks go by. Anyway I am back on track now and wanted to show you another of the punched cards. This little doggie is so cute. I found the idea on SCS and changed a couple of things and here he is. I have used the small and large oval punches and also 1/2" circle for nose and paws and the 1/8" circle for the eyes and tongue. I just drew the bone and cut it out. The striped paper is from the retired recollections paper

World Card Making Day

World Card Making Day is the first Saturday in October each year. Last year we had a lovely day making cards. This year I have decided to hold a special day on October 4th at the Lesmurdie Baptist Church at 9.30am. It will be a full day including lunch, morning and afternoon tea. It will be a Stampin' Up! function and we will make 6 different cards and 2 of each of them so a total of 12 cards. I know that people like to keep one card for themselves and give one away. The cost will be $50. If you would like to come please email me for further details.

Another Punch Card

This was the favourite card on Saturday. The idea of the owl I found on the net but I designed the layout of the card. He's a pretty cute fellow isn't he.
I made 10 of these for swaps for our regional meeting next week.

Punch Class Lots of Fun

I found this wonderful card on Connie Babberts blog. I have always wanted to make it and then I decided to do a punch class so this is one that we did. It is such a lovely card. Thanks to Bonnie for the great idea. We did 6 projects altogether but I wont show you them all at once. Keep checking back for more posts during the week.
Hope your weekend was a good one and that the week ahead is too.

Skye and her Teddy

I took Skye to visit with friends and when she got tired she went off to sleep on her teddy. Isnt she so cute....
She is also now getting very naughty. She has chewed a few of my things up and finds all sorts of things in the yard and brings them to her bed to chew. Today while I was out, she was outside and got into something smelly so I had to bath her tonight. I was warned that puppies were alot of work. She is going to obedience training every Sunday at 8.30 in the morning so I am hoping she will at least start to do as she is asked. With some help from Lyn and her cheese from lunch we taught her to drop on Tuesday.

Starting on Christmas Cards

I have begun teaching some Christmas cards in the past few weeks. The 2 below are an embroidered Christmas tree and a fancy folding bauble. Sorry I havent posted in a while but Graham has been off work for 5 weeks now with a bad back and now is unwell with Asthma.
I will try and post more often.

Scratch and Sniff

For stamp club this month I taught the Scratch and Sniff technique. We had fun making this lime card. I used a card I found on SCS for the idea of this card. It was nice to use Bold brights for a change as I dont use them all that often. Here I used Yoyo Yellow and Gable Green. I used the Tart and Tangy set from the mini catalogue and Its all Good.

Brayered Sky

A month or so ago I finally tried the brayered sky technique that was shown on SCS. I havent shown you the results, so thought I would show you my cards today. A stamper named Michelle Zindorf does lots of brayered cards and I have been looking at her cards for so long and would love to create beautiful work like her. Anyway here are my cards using the set Lovely as a Tree

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