Merry Christmas

We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas Day with all the family - 16 of us for Christmas Dinner this year!
I opened my last advent gift too:

As you can see it contained gorgeous alphas, veneer butterflies and lots of add ons from the Hello Again range. It is very generous Sandra and I love it - thank you very much.

On Christmas Eve...

My Santa gave to me...

Bazzill cardstock to match my Hello Again papers – perfect - thank you Santa.
I have absolutely loved my advent present and am thrilled with the gorgeous papers, card and embellishments Santa sent. I loved my extra bits too - my candles and chocolate. It has made December a much brighter month to have a lovely gift to open every day,
Tomorrow is the last day of course but just look how pretty my 25th present is:

I am being very good and hardly poking it or shaking it at all!
I don't think I will be able to update tomorrow as there are a lot of people relying on me for their turkey but I will take a photo and upload my last advent pressie very soon
Thank you again Sandra and Merry Christmas xx

On the 23rd Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Carta Bella Hello Again papers to complete my collection. I am really thrilled with these and can now plan a mini album or set of pages using our holiday photos from earlier this year. The colours are perfect for outdoor activity and beach photographs and I have a lot of them to scrap! Thank you Sandra xxx

On the 22nd Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Little crochet doilies by Kaisercraft in my favourite colours. 

Poor Sandra, I fear I am a bit of a nightmare to buy for: I like bright colours but not acidic-bright or primary-bright. I like classic but not grungey, vintage but not pastels and embellishments but nothing too lumpy! So in, other words, these are perfect!

Thank you Sandra xx

On the 21st Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Some gorgeous Hello Again papers. I hadn't seen the one with cute speech bubbles before - they are fantasic and great colours. Thank you Sandra xxx

On the 20th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

I love Yankee Candles and today's gift also really made me chuckle. There is an ongoing debate between Sandra and I: Ginger versus Caramel. Now it is obvious to most sane people that ginger flavoured and ginger scented things are superior in every way to their caramel counterparts but (out of pure stubboness I'm sure) Sandra just won't admit this. I have to say that the caramel candle is almost as gorgeous smelling as the ginger but this doesn't mean that I admit defeat :)

On the 19th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Some more of the gorgeous Hello Again collection by Carta Bella. I actually have some perfect photos for this paper already - DS learning archery and DD playing darts. Thank you Sandra xxx

On the 18th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Gorgeous blue glitter tape. This is so fun and festive - I love it.

Thank you Sandra xx

On the 17th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Hello Again papers by Carta Bella. Totally gorgeous patterns and green and blue combinations - thank you Sandra xx

On the 16th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Just the cutest ever Kaisercraft wooden embellishment. I love this - thank you Sandra xx

On the 15th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

 Twine. This is ideal for cardmaking as it doesn't fray, looks great on tags and is narrow enough to use on even quite small cards. Plus it is a lot less fiddly than ribbon when tying bows.Thank you Sandra xx

Phew - I am finally up to date on my advent again now. Having promised to blog every day, my ancient PC went into meltdown out of shock or protest! I have no idea what is wrong with it: lots of error messages, refusing to start up 2 times out of 3 and lots of heavy-duty fan noises. I am taking this to be a bad sign (who says I'm no techie!) and have backed it up but if I disappear, you'll know why

On the 14th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Cardstock to match the Simple Stories papers from yesterday which means I should really take them out of my "too gorgeous to use" pile and use them :)
Thank You Santa xx

On the 13th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Two sheets of Simple Stories paper. I love grey, I love botanical prints and I love wood grain papers so these are going into my "too gorgeous to ever cut up and use" pile.

On the 12th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

A 6x12 sheet of Close Knit journalling stickers by Crate Paper. Like alphabets, I only have a random selection of journalling tags left in my stash so these are just perfect. Not only are the colours completely gorgeous, but the words and designs are ones I can use for all types of family layouts.
Thank You Sandra xxx

On the 11th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Lots of gorgeous Bazzill to match the Close Knit papers by Crate Paper.
Please excuse the poor light in the photo today. The mornings are just so dark at the moment and I am far too impatient to wait until it is lighter and brighter to open my pressie.

On the 10th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Some journalling tags, frames and fantastic film-strip numbers that will be perfect for scrapping my November Retreat photos.

I am just loving all of my presents so far. Thank you Sandra xx

On the 9th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Gorgeous Close Knit papers by Crate Paper. I love blues and greens for scrapping and I love botantical / vintage themes so these are going to be used up very quickly!
Thank you Santa

On the 8th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Bazzill cardstock to match my Fancy Pants papers.
Thank you very much Santa - I use these colours of card all time and it will be lovely to have a ready-made kit to speed up my scrapping xx

On the 7th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

 Memories Captured papers matching yesterday's Tape Stickers. Just perfect - thank you

On the 6th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Tape Stickers from the "Memories Captured" collection by Fancy Pants. I just love this range. Chevrons and stars are everywhere at the moment and they are brilliant especially for boy scrapbook pages

Thank you Santa xx

On the 5th Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Twine! It is such good timing as I've run out and have been saving the twine off of each day's present to use on my Christmas crafts. Now I have no excuse not to crack on with my cards.

On the 4th Day of Christmas...

Santa sent a 12x2 package which can only mean one thing....

 

Paper! Aren't these just gorgeous? They are from the "What a Wonderful Day" range by Fancy Pants

Thank you Santa Sandra xx

On the 3rd Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

Chocolate. My absolute favourite in fact, ginger chocolate.

The close up photograph of a slightly rumpled packet is brilliantly disguising the fact that I have already opened it and eaten some.

Thank you Santa xx

On the 2nd Day of Christmas...

My Santa gave to me...

A gorgeous set of Cream Alphas by Fancy Pants.

These are just perfect. At the recent retreat I realised that I just don't have enough whole alphabet sets left for layouts (well not unless my friends and relatives agree to change their names to Zyppdb). Thank you Santa Sandra xx

On the First Day of Christmas....

...my Advent Santa (Sandra) gave to me.......

 Fancty Pants labels, Elle's Studio tags and 2 very cute little pin badges.

All of the parcels are so beautifully wrapped. I am going to keep the little mittens just in case I decide to start a Project Life next year (well you never know!)
Thank You Santa Sandra xx

Advent Swap

November is a short month and that suits me just fine because.... the advent swap comes around that much faster!
Each year my friend Sandra and I exchange Christmas gifts in time for December 1st. There are actually 25 gifts - one for each day right up to and including Christmas.

It is so lovely and so exciting to receive gorgeous little craft and chocolate gifts each day - that's mainly what we choose as that's mainly what we both love.
And the build to it is great fun too - stash shopping for advent gifts, making the number tags, wrapping each gift and finding or decorating a pretty tote bag to present them all in.

It is very tempting to poke and shake each present to try to guess what is in each. Sandra has anticipated this and made me a label but, as you can see, it mysteriously dropped off. What can I say?! I shall just have to try to remember be good instead.

It is so exciting to have a gorgeously wrapped present to look forward to every single day and it really brightens up the wintery month ahead. End of term chaos is soothed by something yummy to look forward to each day. Sandra has kindly thought of that as well, making me a wall plaque to bring tranquillity and reinforce calm at this busy time of year:

 It is a wise message and one I am sure I shall hold dear throughout the festive season...

Tinseltown!

Hollywood came to Eastbourne for this year's retreat. The theme naturally brought out the glamorous nature of us scrappers!

As usual of course there was shopping. There were challenges. There was a film quiz. There was a shocking lack of any film knowledge and there was fancy dress. We even managed to scrap a few layouts. My total this year is nine complete layouts although Sandra maintains one doesn’t count since it has been a work in progress through 2 Saturday crops and one whole retreat. I have taken the art of faffing to new and giddying heights!

So my first layout is the one which took the longest but is actually an almost direct scraplift of a gorgeous layout by Ali. Thank you Ali xx

Most of my other layout use page maps from magazines long ago torn up and filed in my inspiration folder. My challenge layout – one based on a story board:

A double layout from a single layout page map:

A Challenge layout based on the Breakfast At Tiffany’s movie poster:

A Special Day:                   

The "Speed Scrap" Challenge.
Think pass the parcel meets scrapbooking - 2 minutes to add an element and pass it on:

The resulting layouts were all gorgeous - just a photo and a title to add later.


And finally, the Mystery Kit Challenge:

The papers in this year's kit were from the Simple Stories "Say Cheese" range and worked very well with some colourful birthday photos.

Some Cards...

A couple of quick ink brayer and silhouette stamp cards:

A Christmas one.....

and a First Birthday card: