Back down to earth

So where did Christmas go? I am reliably informed that there is snow forecast in the next couple of days - why couldn't it have been on Christmas day!Anyway,back down to earth a bit more now.It has been lovely to have the family all together again.Two of the men in the family have gone off to Spurs (hope they win), one is here still eating and I am now going to go and get myself ready as the two of us have been invited for fish pie round at a friends after the men get back from footie.Hopefully I will have some scrapping time in the next couple of days to catch up.Oh,the cake was yum by the way!Here's a couple of pics including a very rare one of the boys and one girlfriend,normally one hides and won't let me take photos and one will not smile so it's rare indeed to get one of them all together and smiling !

Merry Christmas !

Okay, so the man in the cake shop helped a little bit ! Have a great day all xx

Silly photo time -Happy Christmas! ..

Yahoo- have just finished work until the new year,this will be the first time since the boys were little that I have had time off in between so I am really looking forward to a long(ish) break.In amongst all the chaos and the cooking -just going off to make some mince pies for tomorrow in a mo,I would like to wish all my lovely blogging friends a very Happy Christmas and prosperous 2010.I have found lots of lovely people through blogging and scrapbooking and shall continue to 'hop' around in the future.I shall raise a glass to you all later not forgetting those no longer here (miss you Mum) who stay very much alive in our hearts...Still got pressies to wrap and a few odds and ends to catch up on and cakes to finish,so for now I'll leave you with a silly photo of me ...I will no doubt be back later with some more ..

Let it snow,let it snow, let it snow

Of all the evenings to go Christmas shopping, last night was not such a good one !After going straight from work rushing to get there before they closed we managed to get loads done then decided to have something to eat. We eventually got back to the car park at 9 ish and realised it had been snowing a blizzard! We drove home and at first it was all Christmassy and fun especially as Cliff was on the radio singing 'Mistletoe and Wine', then as we got nearer to home it got really horrible,you couldn't see very far in front of you and couldn't make out where the road ended and where the middle was! Anyway, all was well and we made it home.It has melted a tiny bit during the day but more is forecast this evening,so we wait - maybe we weill have a white Christmas...here's a few pics snowy us...

Christmsas Crop

Yesterday was spent at the Craftystash Christmas crop. We had lots of lovely festive food and two great layouts to complete both designed by Stephanie Garbett - lovely pages. I only managed to finish one but it gave me an opportunity to scrap a photo I had taken the night before on a night out with my cousin and his wife.Made a nice change to get away and scrap as I have been really busy of late and haven't done much scrapping.

Not much crafting going on

So who brought Christmas forward ? I was going to do so much yesterday evening, get my JYC pages up to date,write the cards,make some goodies to take to a crop tomorrow and I ended up ferrying himself over to town to have his 'boys five a side' night out. By the time I'd got back, fed and walked the dog, after watching Strictly and cleared up it was nearly 9.15. Still I have managed to get a deadline job finished in the last two evenings so that's good. Anyway, I haven't done any crafting for a couple of evenings but we have put the tree and deccies up so it's feeling Chritmassy now-and the boys will be home from Uni midweek - yay!

Just a card

Tonight I have been catching up on my JYC class,at the end of the evening I thought I'd use a few of the scraps and make a card. I really love this Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses range, It's got some really lovely designs in it. I especially like the 'housey ' paper. Trouble is, I don't want to cut it up.I'm behind as usual with the old Christmas cards and ought to get my act into gear pretty soon.Am I the only person in the world who has only bought one present so far? Everyone I know and friends at work have nearly all finished their Christmas shopping!..

All crafted out !

Okay so I am a tad behind with JYC and haven't done anymore of Tim's tags but I have had a great weekend of crafting. Saturday was spent in the company of friends and Mr Rusty Pickle Lance Anderson. We did a lovely Christmas album which had a pop up snowman and Christmas tree in the pages. The pop ups were a bit of a fiddle to say the least and took a while to get them to stand up at the right angle without looking drunk but we got there in the end.

Then today was spent at the Craftystash Christmas workshop with the lovely Tracie Hudson. The classes were awesome. We made an altered mirror using metal sheets and did lots of scratching and embossing and cutting. We then made a gorgeous altered book (photo of cover here) more to follow when I've finished. We then started on a wall hanging but time beat us so that will need to be finished at home too. All in all I've had a fab weekend doing some different things that really made a change. What a bad weekend for my youngest son to come home from Uni for a couple of days. Still, he did spend the day travelling to Everton today for the footie match against Spurs so I didn't miss too much of him.

Teddy card

I've had a break from Christmas tags and cards tonight and got one of my fave stamps out to make a birthday card for a friend.I used distress inks to colour the background,stamped teddy with distress inks too .I then watercoloured his bow round his neck with fired brick and stamped a flourish round the edges.I used a Hero Arts tree to go round the edges of the main card and went over a few of the outlines with a glittery glaze pen. This is based on a design that we did at Leonie and Carley's workshop which had the tree in the middle - but I think Teddy looks ok too !

12 Tags of Christmas

As is tradition, Tim Holtz is doing his '12 tags of Christmsas ' again this year. I don't know how he keeps coming up with all these wonderful creations. I have never tried to do one and this year I thought I'd have a go.So this evening I've been playing with inks and stickles and embossing powder. Now, my effort is not anywhere near sir Tim's- I haven't got the snowman stamp and I haven't got the crackle paint that he used so had to improvise with both the stamp ( which I don't think works so well, but it was the only snowman stamp I had), I also don't own one of those Dymo machines but hey ho- I had fun !This was the one he did yesterday as the first one and you can find them here. He's on tag two already so I shall have a go at that one tomorrow.

Where did the year go ?

Blimey ,can you believe we are in December? Nothing very exciting craftwise to post today but I have made a start on my Journal Your Christmas class - which is over on my other blog,link at the top right hand side. Am up really late tonight as I've been catching up so really must get some sleep in a mo. When I left work tonight the high street was looking quite festive as they have been out putting the Xmas lights up, a sure sign Christmas is well on the way. I've been playing at some art journalling that we did with Jane Dean at the retreat recently,so will post some pics when they are dry.Here s my header page for Shimelle's JYC class.

A countdown and an award

Firstly let me say thank you to Deb for an award.

It's always a thrill to know that people are reading your blog and also that they like what I have to say and they like to visit.

So the 5 random things about me are...

I hate hate hate spiders

I was once featured on Magpie chidren's tv (you'd have to be as old as me to know this program!)with a fossil that I found on holiday when I was about 8.

If I'm indoors in the evening and it's dark outside I can't bear the curtains open, I have to close them.

I was put off of ever going to Venice by a film that scared me big time called Don't Look Now - there was a scary lady in a red cloak in it and it frightened the life out of me!

My favourite dinner is probably Coquilles St Jacques (scallops in cheese sauce ) served in the shell with breadcrumbs..followed by fillet steak chips and caulifower cheese...followed by Creme Brulee...yum.

And finally, here is a pic of a Calendar I've made for my shelf in front of my desk to countown the days to Christmas using the gorgeous Graphic 45 papers - love them.