It's Chrrrrriiissssstmaaaaasssss!

Now my fiance's birthday has come and gone, we can officially begin to get into the spirit of Christmas. As if to confirm this, at a music club's Christmas get together on Wednesday he performed an acoustic version of Slade's 'Merry Christmas Everybody', which went down a storm.

About a month ago, he told me a joke, as he does from time to time.

Q. What's the best thing about being an insomniac?
A. Only three sleeps till Christmas!

Back then, it was hilarious. Now I'm kind of wiping the smile from my face as I see Christmas looming and know that I am un(der)prepared. That's not to say I haven't been doing anything. Oh no. I've got a million photos as proof, mostly of the cards and tags I made for a Christmas fair stall I had on Wednesday (I kept that one quiet, didn't I?). Well, it might not have happened, so I didn't want to shout about it. Or, it might've been a flop, so I didn't want to shout about it. I spent some time (I'm not going to disclose how much time) rush-making things to sell, and in the end it turned out quite well, but I'm too exhausted to shout about it. I didn't even get a photo of me in market mode.

I made a whole bunch of small (4 x 4 in) cards using kraft paper. The first two I already posted about, I know. But I love it so much - I only want to make cards with kraft paper now. I can't believe it took me so long to find it. Resourceful as I am, I used the cutouts from these cards to make a topper in themselves. The padded gingham stars speak for themselves.

 

I got really stuck on stars. I cut quite a lot of them, and didn't vary too wildly from the layout above.
Some I stamped with snowflakes, inked the edges, and stuck on with foam pads. I made some into matching gift tags too.

Some I stamped with winter foliage:

That snowman paper from the Basic Grey 'Jovial' collection is so fun! I also made matching gift tags for these stars:

Then I went back to the shop and bought some more gingham stars. I used a little bit of border and a little bit of swiss dot paper to accent these cards.

I got off the star train for a bit to experiment with some stamping. I drew a little pencil circle on white card, and joined up a few wintry stamps in a few colours to make a wreath. I still don't consider myself a 'stamper' so I was quite please with how these came out.

 

I also made some cards I really did not want to part with. I love the cleanness of these ones - there are a few white snowflake stickers on the card which you probably can't see in these photos, but that is it. Nothing fancy. Just a nice cookie of a fallen branch and a little cutout.

 

 

The warmth of the wood against the white card really feels Christmassy. I am going to make some more of these for my own personal collection, because they sold out at the fair!

I had to go back to stars in the end. I went with some more gift tags. I really like that it looks like I've cut the star from patterned paper. In fact, I covered my acrylic block with stamps and made sure it was all too big for the star, and just stamped:

And here is my little basket of gift tags, which also sold out:

If you weren't before, you'll definitely have the Christmas spirit now you've read through this post. Happy penultimate shopping Sunday!