Friday 31 December 2010

Do you believe in Magic?

I've just been "surfing" and found this most beautiful post. I really wish I could write just like this!

Enjoy!!!

Remember though, that we can have the magic of FREE stamps with Sale-A-Bration, call or email me with your order!

Wishing you all a very happy and magical New Year.

Carole
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Thursday 30 December 2010

Snow chuffed & Sale-a-Bration

I hope you have all enjoyed the sort of Christmas that you wanted.  With all of the snow here our plans had to change but we still had a nice, peaceful time.  I very much missed people I couldn't be with, as I always do, but relaxed knowing there was nothing I could do about it!

I have been very busy card making, with so many friends and relatives with birthdays from now until the middle of Feb that I thought I'd better get on making their cards, otherwise life will get busy again and they will be made in a rush!  I have really enjoyed designing and making them.  I've used stamps from Stampin' Up's Sale-a-Bration sets  - take a look, the sets are great this year:

Click here for all the details

These are some of the samples that I've managed to make, wow look how many!



I have been a little crafty, making two of some, one to give away and one to keep!

Back to my title "snow chuffed", the reason for this is that I have my first blog award!  My lovely friend and Stampin' sister Keren has awarded me this lovely award, her blog is amazing she tells you the most interesting stories of her family life, together with showing lovely Stampin' Up projects, check out her blog here.

Wishing you all a very happy 2011.

Carole
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All supplies are Stampin' Up; Stamp Sets: Bliss, Punch Bunch, So Happy for You, & Sweet Summer.  Cardstock & Ink: Bashful Blue, Rose Red, Pretty in Pink, Basic Gray, Real Red, Certainly Celery, Marina Mist, Chocolate Chip, & Naturals Ivory.
Punches: Two-Step Bird punch, Curly Label punch, Scallop Circle punch, Extra Large Circle 1 3/4" punch & Scallop Trim Border punch.

Thursday 9 December 2010

I must be Crackers!

Its already the 9th day of Christmas and I'm not getting on with it basically!  The trouble is, I have so many plans and so little time!

I did though help the ladies of Harwell W.I. get on with their Christmas preparations by showing them last night how to make a re-usable Christmas Cracker.  I have been making these crackers now for a few years and although I vow every year that I won't teach them again someone talks me into it!




These crackers are not too difficult to make but trying to get 30 W.I. ladies making them at the same time can be quite a laugh!  They are made on rolling pins and ladies are asked to bring along their own - well you probably can imagine how many different types and sizes of rolling pins turn up and thats when the class turns into fits of giggles!  I tell them I am talking about rolling pins, but somehow they have other things on their minds when I mention "Oh that's a big one - where on earth did you get that one"!  Well as the making of them goes on, the inuendoes continue and making them seems to be so difficult!

There was a lovely lady there last night, she was having a little bit of difficulty half way through and when I went to investigate I saw that hers was an extremely short one - I told the rest of the class that this poor lady only had a little one and it wasn't working at all well, when she replied "Oh this isn't a rolling pin, my husband told me that I didn't need my rolling pin and his tube of mastic stuff would be fine"!  I asked her to pass a message back to her husband that went something like "please tell your husband that if the instructions request a rolling pin then a tube of mastic stuff won't work! Or words to the same effect!

By the end of the evening, there were many lovely crackers to be seen and a few ladies told me that they had enjoyed the laugh - thank goodness, I came home exhausted and needed a little something to help me calm down after the event.

Hope your Christmas preparations are going better than mine.......happy crafting.

Carole
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Sunday 5 December 2010

Your smile.........

.......it lights up my life!  I saw that on a scrapbook page today and am blogging it, hoping that will remind me later, to make a page with that title myself.

I know it's already the fifth day of Christmas, I am thinking about Christmas, honestly, I am every day - I promise!  I've just got other things to do first!  My MIL is coming on Tuesday and I've two classes tomorrow - a girl needs to clean - sometimes!  (David calls it my time of the month - if only he helped, I wouldn't be so bad tempered about it!)

Here is a card we made in class a month or two ago............I know you are only looking for a card, I'm not silly, sorry if you made this in one of my classes!


I've used the Stampin Up stamp sets called Contempo Chritsmas and Delightful Decorations along with Cherry Cobbler Card Stock and Jolly Holiday papers.

Enjoy and happy crafting......

Carole
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Thursday 2 December 2010

Day two of Christmas

I turned on the t.v. this morning only to see for the second day in a row the terrible disruptions being caused by our early snow fall.  It looks just like Christmas and the general feeling of good will and community spirits are making it feel like Christmas too.  I saw on the news, a farmer taking midwives into work on his tractor and people all gathering around sharing infomation on train times etc.  I love all this community spirit, it seems a shame it takes a huge blanket of snow to bring the best out, in us all.

I called my friends this morning who live in South Yorkshire, their village is just next to the one where there are 200 lorries stranded.  He told me that his neighbours were being great, he called one last night to ask if he could borrow an onion to cook with, its funny he said, he had grown lots this year and they were all in his greenhouse drying out, just a shame he couldn't open his back door, let alone get to his greenhouse.  Now things must be bad if you can't get to your onions!

I've decided to work from home again today, funny that - we hardly have any snow, we are so very lucky, but at least I do have the best job in the world and I can stay in and craft and still call it work!

Here is a piccy of me taken this morning after bringing in our bins:


You see hardly any snow and still not cold enough to wear jeans, although I did pop on a jumper!

Back to what am I doing about Christmas today though.........well nothing actually.  It's my brother-in-laws birthday next week and I felt the need to make a little card for him instead.  Here it is, I hope you like it:




On my crafting table at them moment I only have my Stampin' Up In Colours out.  I really love them, I have a class on Friday evening and thought I'd use nothing but In Colours for this class, so this card had to be an In Colour.  I used Concord Crush, which is a really deep purple and two Stampin' Up Stamp sets; Afterthoughts (level one hostess set) and Party This Way, which we were given at Convention and I thought then that it was a great Stampin' set for male cards.

As it is my Day Two of Christmas, I did pop a little reindeer into the piccy........I just had to really!

Happy crafting, see you tomorrow.

Carole
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Wednesday 1 December 2010

First day of Christmas

Well it really is the first day of Christmas and I am determined to be happy about it.  I signed up for an on-line class today that is going to support me through this busy and what I normally normally find a stressful time!

The class is all about the 37 days of Christmas and I am going to make time each day to 'enjoy' these special days we have.  I am supposed to blog, scrapbook, take a piccy or journal my way through the next 37 days.  I am hoping to put time aside each day to do something that might just end up as a nice paper-crafting project.

Lets just see how far I get................I hope to share all my progress with you!

So we are now on DAY ONE......

Today I joined the class and thought that that was enough for the day, but now it's around 7.30 p.m. and I can share with you more of my JOY today.  Firstly, I know it's boring but I did get my ironing done!  Then my lovely downline, Rose, came for lunch and she sat and made her ATC swaps (for a group she attends each month).  She was using some lovely Stampin' Up products and her ATC was really Christmassy and lovely.  Then I had my hair cut - I meant to ask DH to take a piccy of me getting my hair done, but I forgot so I did get one of him having his cut (it wasn't good!) and one of our lovely hairdresser, Michelle.



Thinking that was all the excitement round here for today and pondering my next move.... was I going to do a blog post?....... make a scrappin' page?........ or write note in my diary to remind me to write something later?.........then the door bell rings and it's a very nice man collecting money for the local Lions club.  Father Christmas travels around here every year collecting money for the charity.  I emptied all the coins from my purse in the excitement and rushed back to get my camera, only to witness the actual "Father Christmas" leaving my neighbours house!  Well I called him, "Father Christmas!" I shouted, but he didn't hear me and was off towards another house and it was too cold to wait, so I took a photo of his road sleigh and ran indoors.  I called my neighbour and asked how she had managed to have him call at her house.  Obviously, I said, "He's called at yours because you have a BMW on the drive and your house looks posher than mine."  "Oh no," she replied, "I stood in my porch with my jumper pulled right up and he came right over and said that I was a good girl!"

The conversation went on........but I couldn't possibly share the rest, my neighbours are very respectable, they go to church and everything........ just thinking, perhaps the Lord really thought I needed a good laugh today and he gave one to me.....thank you Lord!





So this is the photo of Santa's sleigh (trailer!).

Hope to be back tomorrow.

Happy Stampin' and crafting for now.

Carole
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