Last minute panic

Its the time of year when I always ask myself why on earth I don't just buy all my presents and cards like everyone else instead of putting myself through the last minute panic of getting everything finished before the 25th. Of course I would much rather make a gift for someone than rush around the shops grabbing things that "will do" for family and friends. But it is hard when handmade is not appreciated by everyone and something I've spent time and thought on is tossed aside with hardly a glance. However when someone really is pleased with their gift it makes all the indifference of others fade away. I'm sure all you other crafters out there feel the same so rant over! And it is partly my own fault for not being organised enough and leaving everything to the last minute every year instead of taking my own advice and starting in September - like I always mean to!
I've managed to finish and post my cards this weekend at least - and I made some items for my charity shop last week too. I really enjoyed making these Christmassy bookmarks and packaging them up attractively is almost my favourite part of the creative process now that I've collected together all this lovely stash with the help of my lovely proxy Papertrey shopper in Hawaii. All the stamps I've used on these projects are from Papertrey or Waltzingmouse Stamps. Now back to my knitting needles!

A 1950s Christmas

As I what I've been up to recently is mostly Christmas 'top secret' stuff and can't be shown here, I thought I would do a scrapbook page to at least have something new for you to see. This time of year always makes me think of the past and the happy times we had as children. Here we are circa 1956 posing for our Dad with some of our new toys - Dad made the school desk for us and we played with it for years after. I just love these doodled Christmas lights from Jenni Dipzinski at 2Peas in a Bucket. They remind me so much of the lights we had on our Christmas tree at that time and are perfect for this page. Do you remember how exciting it was when the tree arrived and at last Christmas really was nearly here? Of course in those days we didn't start Christmas in September as it seems we do now, and the tree and decorations didn't go up until a couple of days before Christmas Day. Here we are again a year later with our tree and me in the nurse uniform Father Christmas kindly brought me!

Wrap up Warm!

Here's another birthday card I made last week for one of our knitting group. Very apt for the weather we are enduring at the moment. This image (from a copyright-free book I have) would also make a sweet Christmas card I think - especially if it is accompanying a handknitted gift. You can copy the image at the bottom of this post.
We've been suffering below zero temperatures for over a week now and there is no end in sight according to the weather report I've just heard on the radio. Although the snow is beautiful when the sun shines we are now all rather fed up with trying to get about and keep warm. Sitting still crafting is very uncomfortable unless I wear about 5 layers and wrap a blanket round my legs. But this is nothing compared to the suffering of my garden birds. I'm feeding them every day of course but imagining how they manage to survive the long night - if they do - is not something I like thinking about. I was rather pleased to find our local pet shop had sold out of bird seed and peanuts last weekend - its nice to think so many people still want to help our birds in these difficult economic times. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this Collared Dove's partner hasn't succumbed to the cold as I didn't see it in the garden today!
Here's the image I used on my card - click on it then right click to save to your computer.

Edit: Just thought you might like to know the Collared Dove's mate is safe and sound and has been visiting over the past few days - which have been much less cold thank goodness!

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(