Friendly Snowman

Just a quick post for any of my fellow Papertrey Ink maniacs out there that have the Friendship Jar Holiday Fillers stampset. I may be stating the obvious here, but has anyone else noticed the small snowman stamp is the same size/shape as the large snowman wearing the top hat? I was able to create two different snowmen by masking the large one and stamping the small one on top. Here are the two versions for comparison. I made up my two jars and added them to some pre-printed card bases I bought last year at a craft event. They'd make a nice set of, say, 6 cards all made up a bit differently for variety.

Two Soups! (of the Snowman variety)

Did you ever see that cringe-making sketch from the Victoria Wood show where Julie Walters appears as a rather ancient waitress? Its one of my favourites and of course you can see it on Youtube (there's a link on the picture here).

I've made my two Snowman Soups for the up-coming late night Christmas shopping evening at the charity shop using some "ingredients" from a local supermarket (instant hot chocolate sachet, mini marshmallows and peppermint candy cane), the Papertrey Favor It Box 2 die and some digital stamps from Whimsie Doodles. I'll be interested to see if they sell as Snowman Soup is still not a well-known idea here in the UK. However I think they make a nice little treat for co-workers, teachers or a child (or adult) whose been very well behaved!

Some time to myself today

I've been a bad blogger over the past couple of weeks but I have been keeping my hands busy with lots of Christmas projects. There will be stuff to see soon for those who are interested, including my second idea for those little Christmas cottages (see below). But to prove I have created something recently, I'm showing off a couple of projects here.

I finished this Cedar Leaf Shawlette for my sister's birthday at the end of October. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and will be making one for myself after Christmas. Its a gorgeous pattern I purchased and downloaded from Alana at Never Not Knitting. I love the way she presents her pattern PDFs - they are a pleasure to knit from. I've plans to knit her Shawl Collared Cowl for my nieces for Christmas.

And for any other knitters out there, I'm sharing this sweet image I used for the card at the top of this post. I made it for the birthday of one of the girls in our Knit & Natter group last week. Its another copyright-free image from one of my Dover books. Very suitable for any knitter you might need a card for. I've also used that lovely Hero Arts wreath stamp that everyone seems to have in their stash at the moment, and the knitted stitch background stamp from Claire's (Waltzingmouse Stamps) Faux Fun set - perfect for presenting all my knitting and crochet projects!
Had a few hours to myself this afternoon, so I demanded the car from my son and nipped down the valley to our local seaside town for a couple of things I can't purchase here. Its been a lovely bright day and the high wind we've had over the past few days has disappeared, so I decided to walk on the beach and watch the sunset. I love the beach like this, empty of all but a few dog walkers and the sea birds searching for their suppers.
I'd have stayed longer but it was almost dark and getting cold. I think there will be a frost tonight.

Christmas Tag House

My new Papertrey stamps have arrived from my good blogfriend Yuki in Hawaii - yippee! The first thing I've made is this set of gift tags with the 2010 Holiday Tags set. I love making tags like these and have the two previous Papertrey Christmas tag sets too - you will see some of them in the photograph.

Now, I'm writing this post as I'm a bit undecided on a current project. I've made the tags as a possible filler for these little perspex houses I bought recently on ebay from this great seller. They are really nice quality and were a real bargain at 24 for £4.99 (plus £5.99 p+p). But I am having a bit of trouble deciding what to put in them - they were advertised as containers for potpourri. When I put my tags in the house they just arrange themselves into a pile and don't look very attractive, so another idea is to add in a little hanging tree decoration - this rose-scented house sachet (adapted from here) is my first experiment. But I'm not entirely happy with this either.

My aim is to have the houses finished to sell in my charity shop when we have our local late night Christmas shopping evenings at the beginning of December. Sooooooooo, what I'm really hoping for is some reaction from my faithful blog readers. I know its a bit of a cheek on my part as I've been really lax in commenting myself lately. My only excuse is a new job which is really exhausting me at the moment - I keep falling asleep in the chair in the evenings. What a waste of crafting and blogging time! So please do accept my most sincere apologies if I haven't visited you to comment recently - you can rest assured I've been feeling really bad about it and hope I can buck myself up soon :o(