Christmas 2012

Here’s a selection of our Christmas highlights this year!

Reindeer dog – look he’s smiling!

Mum came over Christmas Eve and we opened our presents.

Christmas morning.  We opened our presents at a very respectable time of 12pm, while the turkey was cooking.  The kids made us this little hamper which looked gorgeous – but the surprise was to come – tickets for the UK round of the Moto GP at Silverstone in September 2013!  Here’s Lucy trying on her new fur lined Vans shoes.

Maurice enjoying a glass of bubbly before lunch.

Mmmmm!  The turkey was a complete success, and tasted gorgeous (still got loads left and have just looked up some recipes for left over turkey!)

It’s been a lovely Christmas at our house – hope it’s been good with you! 

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Journal Your Christmas

I have participated in JYC for some years, over at www.shimelle.com, and also December daily over at www.aliedwards.com.  It’s really lovely to look back on them, and I put the finished mini books in a basket on my coffee table at this time of year.

This year I decide to try an art journal style JYC.  Here are some of my favourite pages so far:

I’ve used distress inks, twinkling H20 paints, mists, paint sprays, stamps and punches, gems and stickles, and had a ball!  I’ve prepared several backgrounds – enough up until Christmas day, and am intending on making up a little kit so that I can keep up once I tidy away and reclaim my dining room!

I used the same technique to make 2 special cards for both mothers:

After I created the background I heat embossed the trees, and stamped Father Christmas on his sleigh.  The churches are cut and layered using my Cricut machine and the Winter Wonderland cartridge.  Finally I added a peel off ‘Happy Christmas’ star and circles.  I am really pleased with the results!

10 on the 10th (1 day late!)

Here’s 10 photos I’ve already taken this Christmas:

Christmas preparation

1. cards all made and written, just waiting to be posted. 
2. Christmas shopping at Bolney vineyard!  (We bought bottles of English red wine for the parents of those babies who the quilts are for!  Of course, we had to taste it first!)
3. Christmas puddings (and cake) made and waiting in the pantry.

Evening out with the ‘lads’, a group of old motorcycling friends

And my ‘small one’ turned 21 last Saturday!!!  Here she is blowing out her candles on Friday, and at the restaurant with Mum and Maurice

All dressed up and ready to go to a posh dinner dance at the Amex Stadium in Brighton

And here I am at the party with my Friday morning coffee friends, Angela and Sarah:

Hope you enjoyed a little peek into my wonderful December – still more to come!! Bring it on!!

Baby Quilts

I’ve been frantically sewing to get these baby quilts in time for for Christmas!

One for a boy….

and one for a girl..

I bought the pattern from Etsy from sweetjane.  The first one is made from 2 Moda Bungle Jungle charm packs, and the second one is made from various 1930s style fabrics, so pretty!

 

Finally for today, I joined in a bunting swap on UKScrappers, and here’s the result.  (Mine is the ‘T’, I made 14 of them!)

 

Craft Cabin

Once a month on a Monday Tash and I meet Burn in her craft cabin in her back garden in Brighton.  As last night was the last meeting before Christmas, we had to do something Christmassy didn’t we?

So we exchanged presents, here’s what they gave me:

Aren’t they fab?  You’ll be seeing some crotchet snowflakes around here soon, and I’m sure that luscious purple cake stand will be centre stage in a few Christmassy photos!

This is what I made to give to them:

Thanks to Lucy at Attic24 for the inspiration (and a few patterns!) The flower patterns that didn’t come from Lucy came from this book:

And here’s what we attempted to make last night:

The trouble was that they turned out too small, and our paper strips wouldn’t stay glued in a loop!  We did have a good laugh though!  You can’t beat’em all can you?  And after all isn’t having a good laugh what it’s all about?