Two CKCB Lo's

Good morning, good morning, good morning.. (she says springing in to the room like Tigger) (!) Lol
Why am I bouncing around like Tigger? Well.. I have to say A HUGE thank you (CKCB organisers) for choosing me as one of the top five designers for last months kit... it has given me a real boost to be called 'Absolutely Fabulous' darling! Ha ha ha

Moving on... here we are on another glorious morning (I'm joking of course, it's wet and raining AGAIN!) but fortunately for me, I am playing along on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog this month and I have something to while away the damp and dismal days... in fact their kit this month is so lovely, I just jumped right in and made up my kit on day one! Not only did I make the kit on day one, but I used it straight away and made two LO's immediately! A great way to use up your stash.. why not pop on over and take a peek how you can join in?

Anyways... the first of my two LO's feature on the basis of my 'Hearts and Flowers' Kit - a Websters Pages sheet from their 'All About Me' range of very pretty paper - this one is called 'This is Me' and I have made it all about my Uncle Maurice (Mo). He is a larger thanlife character and has always had a big place in my heart. He will be 80 later this year, and, unbeknown to him, I am making him an album for his big day. 

So here it is- I used very little embellishment as the paper said all it needs to in this case.. well I think so anyway- what do you think? The reason I used clocks for this photo is because it reminded me of Big Ben.. and as Maurice has the nickname of Big Mo it seemed appropriate really. I have yet to circle the date of his birthday..but other than that I am finished. 

Secondly I made another LO for my 'own' wedding album for my sons wedding last year. This one is made up of the Theresa Collins Memorabilia range of papers. I used a few other scraps from my kit too and added the chicken wire die cut. I finished with the ready made bird tag. It is carrying wedding rings and as my youngest son was the best man that seemed perfect for the page. 

I made these pages at a local crop I attend on the first Saturday in the month.. and this month a couple of the ladies had bought baskets of surplus goodies to sell on. The tiny hearts were in one of these baskets and so I nabbed a bargain! Very pleased with myself. The journalling says 

'These moments are so special with my 'boys'. I live for these times. No matter how old they are they will always be my 'boys' ' 

How very true that is! As this page will go in my own wedding album of the day I am not needing to journal the actual event, but sometimes I just want to record how special days like this are to me. Family is the greatest gift! 

Thanks for looking at my pages... there are plenty more to come with this gorgeous kit inspired by the CKCB. 

February Hearts and Flowers kit

Well it's that time of the month again! I can't believe we're already of a 12th of the way through the year already!!! Don't blink or it'll be Christmas all over again!

That said, the good thing about the way the year is running away with us is that it means there has been another 'reveal' over on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog  and this month they've hit the nail on the head with a great Counterfeit Kit .. here  

As it's February they have gone down the 'Romance' theme with plenty of black and red with hearts... and although I am OK with using lots of those elements, I wanted my kit to focus a little less on the romance and a little more on the pale blue and blacks with a little red thrown in.

However, when I set about sorting my stash, I discovered I had a lot more heart elements that I expected.. probably because I have a lot of left over heart 'stuff'  from my sons wedding album last year... and, co-incidentally, left over from last months kit. 

First I set about finding the patterned papers. I discovered I had some very old Websters Pages paper that I had been wanting to use for some time.. as it had all the right colours on, I started with that and took it from there. I found some red and black heart paper, some red and white chevron paper and a few Theresa Collins Memorabilia range of papers. 

I then sorted out some pale blue, airforce blue, beige craft card and some dark grey card and I was there. I added a few left over scraps of the Websters Pages papers, one with pop out black frames and added a sheet of MME Lost and Found stickers and a few 6 x 6  papers (not sure of the brand).  Then I added some die cut chicken wire, clouds and hearts. 

For the embellishments I added some MME Lost and Found brads and enamel dots together with some red and black bling and stars and some Theresa Collins red patterned brads. I then added some tiny red ribbon roses, some small paper roses, red and black buttons and some black feather stickers. 

Finally I added a cadiz shell heart, some Prima pearl, gem and lace border trims, a metal frame, some heart charms, lacy flowers, adhesive pearls and two heart shaped doilies with  some red and white paper sparkly flowers. I finished it all off with two sets of Thickers.. one white foam and one grey and white set so I can alter them with the pen.

As it ended up as a romantic themed kit I decided to call it 'Hearts and Flowers'. Here is a close up of the embellishments too.  

Thanks for looking! 

200 Glass jars LO for the CKCB Hop

Hi all

Welcome to the CKCB Blog hop- With luck you should have found me from Crafty Chrissy here .   

For this challenge, we were tasked to create a LO using one of the CKCB blog challenges posted this month....now... me, being me, I have already had a go at some of the other challenges and posted them previously...however, when I saw the challenge asking us to use 'containers' within our LO, I simply KNEW which photos I would use as I've been looking for an excuse to use them!

Last year, as you may already know as I had blogged about it before,  I held a pre-wedding garden party for my son who subsequently got married last June. I had a great time making decorations for the party, pom-poms, bunting, banners, paper chains and the like.. but most importantly, I knew the party would go on into the evening, so I had to think of a way to light the garden too. 

With a lot of help from my friends, who graciously helped me collect them, I 're-purposed' 200 glass jars... jam jars, pickle jars, sea food jars..you name it.. if it fitted a candle I took it! Gratefully!

I then decorated each one with lace, washi tape, netting, ribbons, tulle etc and placed a candle in each to lead the way up the garden. It looked so pretty during the day and evening... I'm just glad the English weather was kind to us.

Anyway.. that's the story behind the photos.. so now on to the LO.. which is, I'm sure, the main reason you are popping by!  Here it is! (sorry the photo is a bit wonky!)

First I chose the background from my January Counterfeit Kit.. I chose the pale mottled aqua sheet that I still had complete in one piece. Then I took the piece of red and pink striped Christmas paper from the kit and matted my photos on to this. It is a bit Christmassey really, but I hid it with the photos that I had left a white border on. I then took a piece of patterned paper with small triangles on it, and cut it into a wide banner to go across the photo mat, two thirds of the way down.  I then layered a doily on to that, cut two red labels out of some scrap and set it all in place.

And then.... I went off piste..... Well you have to sometimes don't you??.. you just know you have the perfect piece of paper to go with your LO, that you didn't think to include in your kit in the first instance. So I dug out a piece of American Crafts Dear Lizzy paper and cut two mason jars from it, adhered it to the banner with a label and added some Cosmo Cricket stickers from my stash and a couple of fabric covered wooden butterflies.

To make the title I added white foam letters, but it didn't stand out enough, so first I dabbed an ink pad on them, but that colour wasn't dense enough so I used Pro-Markers to colour the letters instead, used some ribbon from my stash for the tags and added my journaling block, some bling and a couple of pins and I was done.

Here are some more close ups of the jars and my journaling and a photo of the garden 'all dressed up' too.

BTW if you are wondering where I got the idea for the LO, I used a sketch from the 'Stuck?!' blogspot.. do remember to have a look at their blog next time you too are 'Stuck?!

Have a good day everyone and do leave me some comments.. it'll make my day! Thanks for looking...now please hop on over to Dawns BlogSpot for some more major kit smashing!

1975 Layout for Creative Scrappers Challenge

Happy Monday everyone! How's your day so far?

Mine has been quite eventful so far! As some of my regular visitors will know, I recently re-organised my entire craft room and blogged about it here back in December. However, having decided to market our home, I thought I needed to show the room as a bedroom, rather than a craft room.. so a mammoth re-organisation occurred ... again! 

Suffice to say, I have now moved the entire contents of my ex-craft room to my new space (a mezzanine above my bedroom) and today I spent almost the entire day sorting it all out..! Needless to say the urge to 'create' struck me when I was coming across all my lovely goodies.. so here is my take on the Creative Scrappers Sketch Challenge

Now... I love a good sketch and of course, I love UK Scrappers.. so when Maggie set a challenge over on UKS that had to include triangles.. well it just made my day as it fitted this challenge so perfectly. Thanks Maggie! 

Anyway... here is my layout...I have to say that the journalling irks me somewhat, so that will be typed and re-done at some point, but for now I'm OK with it as it is, until my new printer is set up and I can do it the way I want it. I used a random sheet of paper for the background and some scraps of Carta Bella papers together with some embossed red card stock and some brown too. I finished it off with some strips of gems, wooden arrows and some co-ordinanting flowers and it's good to go! 

Photos of the new craft space will appear in the fullness of time, but it's not quite ready for 'showing off' yet (wonder if it's 'cos I stopped sorting and stated scrapping instead!) ha ha ha... thanks for stopping by!

Another LO

Here is another LO using my kit.. I added a sheet of plum cardstock and some embellishments but other than that I used the turquoise PP as a mat for the large photo and some more for the two layered mat for the journalling block on the bottom right. I used some scrap blue and red CS from the kit for the small banner and cut the hearts from a piece of scrap left from the paper that I added for my last LO.  The turquoise PP actually has holly leaves on it and come from a Christmas kit but you can't see that by using it as a mat. 

I used Cosmo Cricket small words for the journalling and I dyed two white paper roses to add along with the turquoise flower which I centred with a Candi Dot.

For ages I have had some Papermania grey letters with pale blue dots on it which didn't really work with this LO, so I inked them with a Dew Drop inkpad and then used embossing powder on them to alter the colour to dark aqua. 

This fits with a challenge over on UKS that provided a sketch too. Thanks for looking. 

Two new Lo's with my Counterfeit Kit

Evening all...

Last night I spent a happy couple of hours whiling away the evening in front of the TV while hubby was at work again. 

Firstly I thought I'd do the weekly challenge over on UKS which entailed using a sketch and ensuring there was plenty of journaling. For this challenge I decided to use another of the wedding photo's from my sons wedding last year. This picture is of my Uncle and Aunt... he will be 80 this year and I am thinking of doing an album for him for later in the year.. so this is the first. As I said I used my Counterfeit Kit from their blog here. I used some of my Favourite Things kit that I blogged earlier in the month. Here it is .. I used some crown charms from the wedding table favours that I made with DIL before the wedding. Here is the link to my earlier blog about those. You can see the crowns and the journalling here. 

Secondly, I made a LO for the January Sketch Challenge over on Sue's Me and Mine Blog. It is a great site, why not pop on over and take a peek, she's always looking for more entries to her challenges. I made my centre piece larger than the example on her blog, but I got a bit carried away. I again used my Favourite Things Kit and chose to use the pink papers from the kit... for a change! I so often grab aqua, teal etc (especially all the wedding LO's that have been done in those colours) so it makes a nice change to scrap in a different colour. I confess I did use two extra sheets of PP to pad out the pink as I didn't have much in my kit. This picture is of my husband and I about 33 years ago shortly after we got married... I love his long hair in this.. although the detail s a bit fizzy now. I chose to curl up the tags along the top of the centre piece so I hope you can see that from the second photo.

Well that's about it for tonight.. if I get a chance to do some more LO's, I'll be back.. as Arnie says. 

Have a good weekend everyone. 

RYW Friday

Hello there... over on Virginias Blog, she encourages you to look back over the week to look at the positive side of life.

This week has been a good week on the whole, starting with Saturday when I was invited to a friends to craft with her. I made two LO's.. which I blogged earlier in the week. See below. I'm grateful for the invite and that the roads were clear enough of water for me to get through after all the flooding we've had.

Sunday was a nice day and we had my eldest son and his wife over for Sunday lunch.. a roast rib of beef.. which was delicious.. which is more than I can say for the turkey I cooked for Christmas.. so I was grateful for that! Here's my family before they had actually tasted the said Turkey! 

Monday was a day for chores...but it passed quickly so that's a bonus!

Tuesday saw my youngest son visit me from London.. so I'm really grateful for that.. although both he and my husband had their fire stations closed this week by the meglomaniac Boris Johnson! (I hate that man!) so they were both quite down. They have both kept their jobs though so that REALLY is something to be grateful for! 






Wednesday and Thursday passed in a whirl of work.. and today was another day of chores and getting my house ready to put on the market as we are downsizing soon.. hopefully! Now all I have to do is sell it... and then I will be really grateful... anyone want to buy a house?...... 

WOYWW

Wow! Not sure where the time has flown by to.. but its been a few months since my last post for Whats on your Workdesk Wednesday?

Today I was working but I was able to get this photograph of the current LO I am working on which is for the CKCB challenge here which entails some 'subway art'... which isn't Graffiti type lettering as you may expect but as it shows here on my LO.. with directional lettering, both vertical and horizontal. 

I am still to put the finishing touches to the LO, but it is halfway finished. I will post the finished LO for you to see tomorrow when I have finalised it. 

The sketch is from the Artful Challenge blog  for their January challenge. 

Be back tomorrow! 

Thursday!

Here I am again! I promised I'd be back with my completed layout.. and here it is... 

When I was little, aged 5, I was at a flower show with my Mum and there was a local newspaper journalist there. He did no more than ask me to sit beside the prize-winning Dahlia to have my photo taken. As you can see it was a very large dahlia! I think you can tell from my face that I was a little startled..but it was in the paper the following week and  my Mum still has the clipping somewhere. I managed to get a decent photograph of the original photo so I was able to scrap it without damaging the original. I have put some hidden journalling on a tag and I will slip it behind the picture to tell the story.

I hope you like! 

Happy New Year LO

A very happy Monday to you all on this very wet and windy day (again!) 

This weekend I had the good fortune to be able to craft with a friend at her apartment in Maidstone, Kent. Normally on the first Saturday in the month we both go to the same crop, but this month it was cancelled so I was very lucky to be invited to craft with her. She (Jo) put some finishing touches to a LO she was creating and has also resolved to finish off some of her unfinished LO's from 2013.

As for me, well I decided to have a go at the Scrapology January Challenge which challenged me to use a sketch they had provided and to use some buttons/ badges.

I loved the sketch and wanted to use some photos I had taken with my iPad (off the TV) of the fireworks in London on New Years eve. I think they came out rather well cosidering. The journalling says 'Welcoming in the New Year by the fireside' as I was safely ensconced in front of my woodburning stove, not standing freezing in London in the wind and rain. Lol

Anyway, as it happened I chose to only use on Flair badge.. which was daft as I am sure I could have found room for more. I was using my Counterfiet Kit for January from the CKCB too, so fortunately this has badges in it too. 

The papers are a randomly selected arrangement of PPs and the CS is more deep aqua than the blue/green that it looks like here..but here goes anyway.

Thanks for looking.

RYW Friday

Well!  Over on Virginias blog, Rock Your World Friday.. she gives thanks for all manner of things, ignoring the tumultuous weather that seems to have been 'rocking' most of our worlds over this festive season. Well done Virginia for being so positive.  One big thing I am grateful for is electricity! Having had a 36 hour power cut for all of Christmas Even and half of Christmas Day it makes you realise how much our lives rely on electricity. No internet, in my case no mobile phone because I need an electric booster to get a signal where I live, no TV, no cooker etc... not too bad during the day because I can craft in the daylight with no power... but by the evening it is not so much fun. We had a quick change of plan and had a last minute change of venue to my sons... so I'm grateful for that too.
New Year was uneventful for me because hubby was working but we did get out to see out friends on the 30th and we had a fun evening, so for that I'm grateful.
Unfortunately I have got an eye infection so I'm not too upbeat, but I am grateful for the doctor who gave me antibiotics anyway!
I'm also very grateful for some 'me' time on NYE and NYD when I was able to finalise my re-organisation of my craft space and create a kit for the Counterfeit Kit January Challenge and the first LO I have done with the kit I made up.. see my earlier blogs.
All in all a pleasant week (and a bit) so for that I am grateful. Thank you Virginia for making me look back over my week and making me pick out the positives... it is all too easy to dwell on the negatives in life... right.. now I'm off to take down my decorations. See you next week.

Ist LO using my Favourite Things Kit.

Well, it's blowing a hoolie out there, wind and lashing rain and the best place for me is tucked up in the warm in my craft room... so that's exactly what I've been doing. 


My dear husband is working so it's just me and the dogs so they can't complain so today is all about me. 

I have therefore just finished my first LO using my Counterfeit Kit, called My Favourite Things. 

Here it is.. co-incidentally I have used a photograph of my one of my favourite things too... the angel from the top of my Christmas tree. 

The journalling on the LO says 'She has graced the top of my Christmas tree for over 20 years. It wouldn't be the same without her. 

Here it is..

Thanks for looking

January Counterfeit Kit

After my last mammoth blog on my re-organised craft room, this blog is going to be very brief... but firstly I want to wish every one of you a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
As part of my New Year Resolutions, I have resolved to be more creative, try new things, and don't get stuck in a rut... be a more regular blogger and enjoy my 'me' time.
To that end I intend to join in a few more challenges and I start with my old favourite The Counterfeit Kit challenge. This month they are counterfeiting Hip 2 be Square's December kit.
Here

......and here is my take on it which I am calling Favourite Things.. on the basis that I chose a lot of teal/turquoise which features heavily in a lot of my LO's.  Of course, I added pinks, reds and Kraft colours too.. and even some vellum, which I am hopeless with so it'll be interesting to see how that turns out. At least its a resolution to tackle.. how will I use the vellum?? I may have a snoop round You Tube to get some ideas. 


Unfortunately it is horrible weather today so the colour is rubbish, but given the conditions, I can live with it. The colours are much closer to the original in real life.

Here is another picture of the close ups of the embellishments I have chosen to go with the kit too. 

Now I'm off to load it on their blog and start using the kit... laters...

Thanks for looking!

Re-organised craft 'room'

Well, here goes... I promised you a sneak peek of my newly organised craft room.. and here it is! BUT be warned.. it's long post!

It all started because I was fed up with having my punches all thrown in to a large tupperware container  under my desk.. which weighed a tonne and I'm sure didn't help my bad back! So I turned to Pinterest!!! Well, 6 months later (literally) .. I'd paused (not finished you notice!) browsing the wonder that is Pinterest and had decided that the best method to store all my punches would be to invest in some nice shiny drawers from Ikea... a bargain at only £25... but then I decided I needed two! So a quick grovel to hubby to ask for an early Christmas gift, and the decision was made. I left home at 6.15 one dark Saturday evening and made the 40 mile round trip to the nearest Ikea... getting home at around 9.30..not bad I thought considering I'd been stuck in a traffic jam through the Dartford tunnel for almost  an hour! Only problem was, despite Ikea saying they were in stock, they weren't! So I ordered them to be delivered a few days later... which they duly did... BUT in flat pack form.. anyone who knows me knows that I don't DO flat pack so I had to wait a whole two days for hubby to be able to do them for me.. but they were worth the wait! My punches fill one unit completely and I can now find exactly what I need when I need it. Here is the inside of one of the six drawers..only problem is if I buy any more punches they won't fit! But I guess 6 drawers of punches might be enough! lol

The second filing cabinet houses buttons ( a whole drawers of them! In 'business card' boxes and colour co-ordinated, inks, adhesives (two drawers) wooden stamps etc. The other small white plastic cabinet holds all my clear stamps and some tools, glue guns, staplers etc.  I have managed to label all of the drawers but my Dymo labeller cartridge has run out so I've resorted to a good old fashioned pen for most things until my new cartridge arrives. 

This, of course, meant a complete re-organisation of my space.. I can't really call it a 'room' as it is such an awkward little place with steps up a small ladder and a squeeze between two beams to get into it! See the picture to the right

But once I'm in there I have good, if somewhat awkward space to work in with a large desk right under the window which gives me good light to work in. 

Above the desk I have a small shelf that I have managed to fit a lot of storage boxes on and this makes it really handy when I 'must' have something specific for my LO's. 

Added to which to my right I have these multi-coloured storage boxes with small embellishments in, brads, bows, charms etc, and I have two hanging pocket organisers where I stuff all manner of other packets of embellishments, flowers, ribbon etc. 

You can also see here the new carousel desk organiser that my DS2 bought me for Christmas..bless him.. the boy did good! I haven't got around to filling it all up yet..but I'm sure I will! 

The small cupboard (beneath the light) is an added bonus, because although I have to get down on my hands and knees to get in there, it is a great place to store my rolling totes and bags. To the right and left of the bags etc I have all my papers stored in 'bins' that I found at Staples that take 12" papers perfectly.. like the ones below on the bottom right hand side. 

They don't sell them anymore, but I bought about eight and they store my kit collections in their plastic bags perfectly. To the left hand side of these two 'bins' (that I keep accessible for ones I'm currently using), is a small rattan drawer unit that I keep a lot of 8" papers in with their offcuts. I keep my Big Shot in the black plastic crate on top of that with my long plates and dies. I got it from the greengrocer and it fits perfectly so I can take it off there and use on my desk or downstairs if the mood takes me.  All the shelves behind are for stuff I don't use too much because it is difficult to access as there is a large beam in there, which is perfect to smack your head on! In the boxes on the shelves are mainly blank card packs, toppers, pens, photos etc. I don't do a lot of card making, mainly scrapping, so I keep that stuff back there.  

THE OFFENDING BEAM!

THE PLASTIC 'BINS' WITH MY CURRENT KITS IN ON THE FLOOR

On my Expedit bookcase behind my desk, I also store two small totes, one I sit on a lazy susan and one that is a carousel that I keep a lot of regularly used pens, tools, pearl pens etc in. Because I have a swivel chair, I can just turn and the top of the bookcase is like an extension to my desk and I can grab things from there as I need them. There is also a filing rack on the top and I keep current issues of magazines and larger offcuts of scrap paper, A4 paper etc. I am quite ruthless at using (or losing) offcuts, so I don't have a huge mountain of it anywhere like some people I've seen on other blogs! (I'm glad to say)

In the bookcase itself is card stock, ribbons, tools, more card making stuff (the stuff I use more regularly) and an assortment of other 'must keep' items (!) The unit used to be an eight cube Expedit, but that wouldn't fit into my space so dearest hubby cut it down to make it a 6 cube one and I am using the off cut of the discarded 2 cube frame as a shelf to store the rattan drawers etc. Beneath the shelf is tissue paper, my Making Memories Slice, laminator and pouches etc. and my embossing folder file.

To the right of my paper storage 'bins' is an old CD rack that DH made years ago and since we no longer need to keep CD's (they're all on iPlayers now) I nabbed the CD rack to go in there. I then discovered that that Bold washing liquitab boxes fit perfectly on the shelves and so I have filled many of them up with hand made flowers, journalling pads, tags etc and above that I have used those cheap 'chinese take-away' type storage boxes for small offcuts of coloured card.. I bought them from the pound shop where you can get 8 for a pound!  I do love a bargain! They easily take lots of little pieces of card that is organised by colour so I can just grab a box when I need a heart or star (or similar) punched to match a LO perfectly. Beside it I have a small tote that I use when I go to a fortnightly two hour crafting session I attend. It is just the right size! It is a narrow space, as you can hopefully work out here, but it works-  after a fashion! 

Also in various nooks and crannies I have things tucked away in small spaces, like all my embossing stuff, and of course my dies, which I keep on magnetic strips above the door into the cupboard that I keep my rolling totes in. I have two strips at present, I bought the magnetic strips on a roll that is adhesive on one side, so I stuck it to the wall and stuck the metal dies to the magnets, keeping them all easy to see at a glance. I don't do a lot of die cutting, but I'm just getting into it a bit more, so I can't see this system lasting too long as I don't have any more spare wall space to put more. I already have an overflow but I appreciate that my collection is TINY compared to most... but my passion is paper and embellishments not really dies. So I'll address that one when the need arises.. probably next week the way the sales are beckoning me at the moment! He he he. 

I've just popped on to UKS and I have been reading a thread there started by Sue (aka Mini owner).. where she admitted she has 96 rolls of washi tape! Someone else owns 830 pens (!) and many of us have owned up to being craft stash hoarders! With all that in mind I think my collection is very restrained but as I have so little room for much else I don't think I'll get too carried away. 

Finally all that is left to say is HAPPY NEW YEAR.. may 2014 bring you all that you are wishing for. 

Phew.. that's it! Hope you haven't fallen asleep yet! 

A quick LO for Sues Sketch Challenge

Here is a LO I did earlier in the month for Sue (Mini Owners) Sketch Challenge for December.

I used the sketch as instructed and then as she had entered the sketch as a challenge on UKS too, she asked that we include numbers in the title... which I have also done.

I made this Lo to go into my Mums scrapbook album that I gave her for Christmas.. well what else do you give an 82 year old for Christmas when she says she has everything she needs?

This blog is part of my seven week catch up and I hope that I will be a more regular blogger during 2014... part of my New Years resolution! What's yours? I can't wait to hear!

Where did seven weeks go?

I'm totally stunned that it has been seven weeks since my last blog! Where, oh where did those seven weeks go?
I guess the run up to Christmas took its toll and the days flew by.. I was totally engrossed in my craft room re-organisation during November so that was several weeks gone and then Christmas.. which bought its own challenges.. we had terrible flooding, no power for 36 hours on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and no access to several routes to get away from the flooding due to roads being cut off... luckily there was one way in and out, so we could have had it worse! Fortunately our own house is on the top of a hill so no chance of us being flooded but our low lying neighbours were not so fortunate and suffered a lot of damage. I count my blessings for living on a hill!

Here is a picture of the flooding which shows the bridge that I normally pass over each day to get anywhere.. it was totally un-passable!


Below are a few shots of my Christmas decorations, a lot of which were hand made this year. I decided to go with a Nordic theme in red and white so I die cut lots of hearts and hand decorated them with Nordic style 'drawing' and writing.


I then  die cut lots of red and white poinsettias and added them amongst some greenery on my table and side board. I also made gift tags in the same theme and added them to the place settings. I had quite a bit of fun updating my decorations this year.
Here is the sideboard with all the fresh greenery and here is the table and place setting too.

Well what else have I been up to in seven weeks... well I set a challenge on UKS... use a sketch and create a LO with trees. I did this one about a snowy walk a couple of years back 

and I also did this one which was a double page 8 x 8 Lo about winter. I love the snow but I do hate the rain and mud that goes usually follows it!

Oh and I made a wreath.... I think I'd better save my new craft room for another blog.. I expect you've nodded off to sleep my now!

Take care all.