Christmas Eve already - Merry Christmas to you all!

A little bit more organised than my previous blog post, though if you walked through the door you wouldn't think it! DH has decided in his wisdom Christmas Eve is the best day to buy my Christmas pressies, so I have sent him out with a little list - very non crafty as I don't really want him to find out how much this scrapbooking stuff really costs!

I am just going to clear the worktop in the kitchen and gather the girls around me ready for a little baking session (yep I know most people do this before Christmas eve!) Just a couple of chocolate cakes, mince pies and either bakewells or coconut tarts, depending on what I can find lurking on the baking shelf of the larder cupboard.

I will just leave you with a couple more Christmas projects created for the Design Collective weekly extra (so these are in addition to the three classes per week). The themes over the last two weeks was Christmas memories and table decorations.

I used my Craft Robo (sigh, yes, again! saves all that loathesome handcutting) for both projects.

For the bauble shaped journal I used a template kindly provided by Tammy Birkhead aka Scramper on UK Scrappers. I cut the pages as big as possible on my little Robo (so approximately 8" across) and decorated with K&Co Peppermint Twist papers and die cuts. The snowflakes are punched out of glitter card and the centres are Stickles in a beautiful aqua colour. I am full of good intentions of actually filling the pages of this book, but it is one of those jobs for the New Year.




For the place settings I have created simple bags, decorated with a dove and an initial. These each contain a napkin and a yummy chocolate (either a Thorntons champagne or amaretto egg for the adults and Santa lolly for the kids).

Thanks to Etui22 on UK Scrappers for the dove template (unfortunately I can’t remember where the bag template came from). The dove was cut on cream card and heat embossed using a Hero Arts swirl stamp and gold embossing powder. The patterned paper and shimmer alphabet sticker are both by Making Memories. The scallop circle is a punch and the eye and dotted highlights around the circle are both Stickles.



So I know I really should be cracking on. I just wanted to come on to wish all my fellow bloggers, scrappy friends and anyone else who stops here along the highway a very Merry Christmas, happiness and good health over the holiday season.

Eeek STILL not ready (no surprise there then!)

Nope, not at all. Still piles of pressies to wrap. That was meant to be my job tonight. But I am stuck making the tags. I need my snowflake punch (cos I want to punch through glitter card and I cannot anyhow make my Craft Robo cut through that!). And my snowflake is nowhere to be found. So I now have to start the mammoth task of tidying my craft room - which is what I should have done to start with rather than keep picking up piles of this and that to look underneath!

Anyhow, I have all the stuff that needed to be posted sent out and all the cards for handing out written out too. Apart from the Special Cards that I have still to make (parents, inlaws, DH and kids). Oh and just realised I need to wrap the teacher pressies yet (cheat, bought everything from Sainsbury's this year) so that has to be done tonight regardless.

Have done a final few Christmas projects. Pictures of a wall hanging and my Christmas cards are over on the Collectively Yours blog for this week (plus you have to see the gorgeousness created by some of the other girls). Have to give a massive thanks to Etui22 for the dove template which she kindly created and freely shared over on UK Scrappers.

And the layout below was my blog creation for last week (sorry about the flash and it is, I promise, all 100% straight in real life, my photography skills are pants!).

I used non Christmas products - Fancy Pants and Making Memories patterned papers, Creative Cafe tags, Prima flowers, Basic Grey and Creative Imaginations rub-ons, Making Memories printed tag and shimmer alphabet, Heidi Swapp heart, Brads and ribbonsE, poxy photo corners (??? very very very old stash!)

The rub on to the bottom right has the sentiment "for Christmas, give your heart" and the other rub on sentiment says "blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love".

More Christmas projects

These projects were done for the weekly extra for The Design Collective on our 12 week run up to Christmas. These were for last week's theme of tags, bags and wrap.

This first set of three is using some very old KI Memories Christmas papers, I loved that range, I think it is very funky. A small treasure chest painted and covered with paper, simply decorated with a sticker, flower and brad, a co-ordinating gift tag and a money wallet. The money wallet used a Craft Robo template kindly provided by Clare33 of UK Scrappers.

This clear can originally contained Prima flowers, simply covered with K&Co Peppermint Twist papers and die cuts, with a net bow tied to the handle and some Stickles dotted around the scalloped punchies to add a bit of bling.

This is the tray we are going to be leaving out for Santa at Christmas Eve (tray £1.49 on BOGOF from Morrisons!). Cellophane bags will contain carrots for the reindeer and a mince pie for Santa. And the obligatory sherry of course! More K&Co Peppermint Twist. The scalloped strips were again cut from the Craft Robo, this time a template from RachelB (Rachel Booth) on UK Scrappers.

Time to get that planner out and used!

Blimey! Isn't Christmas coming up fast? Lots of things to do still - I haven't even started on the cards yet! It's making the decision on what to do that takes the longest. Do I do cute and whimsical or traditional and elegant? Knowing me it will be a mish mash. I generally can't do more than six of any design before I get bored out of my mind anyway.

I actually made a little planner this year. I used some cheapo plastic cd wallets (from Tesco) and created a simple decorated chipboard cover and then inserted patterned paper into each of the wallets, stitching across the top to secure and added some stamped and be-ribboned Papermania tags for the dividers. The A-Z sections are for keeping shopping receipts in.

I have a similar thing that I use throughout the year for all my shopping receipts so that it is easy to find the one I want if something needs to be returned. One of the most useful things I have to be honest!

The tags were made by simply using a journaling stamp (7 gypsies I think) and cutting around and adding ribbon to the top. I just need to get filling the tags in now and crossing the tasks off!

And yes, it is yet more of the K&Co Peppermint Twist papers!