Happy Wrapping Happening

We're busy busy bees in this household. For the first year I have managed to find the time to locate, buy and put together the gift wrapping that I've envisioned in my head.

But it takes a long time to wrap! My husband is a champion wrapper - all for straight seams and hidden seams and neatness - and we make a pretty good team.

Look! They're so pretty! I don't want anyone to open them!

I punched the tags from Lily Bee's Handmade collection

My Very Own Peg Wreath

Yup. I copied Hambly - and just in time for Christmas, too.

Surprisingly quickly, you can apply washi tape to pegs, apply pegs to a cardboard donut, and apply a cardboard donut to your front door.

just in time for Christmas

I went a little further and used some of the fake snow I had left over from last year's Christmas Crafts classes:

the only snow we'll be seeing this Christmas

We had a lovely evening yesterday hosting mulled wine and nibbles with friends who are still in town. The house still smells of mulled wine, which is not a bad thing. Now it's time to hole up with the husband - wrapping presents (well, embellishing them with home-made bows and labels), watching Home Alone (we've gone right through the Christmas film library this year, starting with A Nightmare Before Christmas, and ending with Die Hard 2), cooking and eating a lovely three-course meal (got to get our eating stamina up for tomorrow), and pretending all our tiny candles are in fact one large warm cosy fire. A twinkling tree, a nightcap, and to bed to wake up on Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Ps. I forgot I issued a teaser here about another wreath I made. It's a bit late for a tutorial, since it's an advent wreath, so maybe we'll revisit that next year. But here's a photo of what it looked like at the start of December anyway:

pretty, no?

Smart Words

A few people out there in the cloud are talking about the new answer to Wordle (Sian, your finger is on the pulse as ever!) - and so I will too.

Tagxedo is a cute, easy-to-use little app that makes pretty things happen to words. You have to play around with different colour/layout/orientation combos, and different amounts of words and which font(s) you choose, to get a shape that you're happy with, but in the end, you end up with word (sm)art like this:
 

It's pretty. But I looked at it aftwerwards and wanted to bling it up a bit. This is when things get dangerous - I'm liable to ruin something in search of a (possibly unreachable) goal. So I "reined" it in a bit. I kept bling to a minimum and it gave it just the right amount of Christmas sparkle, don't you think?

a sparkly eye for christmas time

You can even create your own colour theme (if you don't know all the HTML colour codes by heart (!) then go here for some simple assistance). 

I have made a couple more but since they are Christmas presents I'm bound to secrecy until after the 25th. Go check out Tagxedo and link back here - I want to see what you create!

Our Own Little Christmas

Although Christmas is supposed to be a family time - and I'm not complaining about that - we've had scant opportunity to explore other options over the years. As we've both lived away from home since we were 18, each Christmas was taken up with visiting sets of parents - separately, at first, and then together (meaning we have to operate on an every-other-year basis).

In 2009, when we moved to Brussels, it was the Belgian parents' turn to have us. But because of one thing and another, in particular horrible snowstorms, we ended up waking up in our own house on Christmas Day. It was perfect - we had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, a glass of Bucks Fizz, and a few presents in our dressing gowns before having to pack up into the car and trek down the empty highway to the family dinner. But we didn't have any real decorations - we'd just moved in in October - save the home-made wooden heart garland that my parents had lovingly put together.

toadstools can be christmassy too!

Last year being the English parents' turn, we didn't bother with decorations at all. But this year, we are here, newly married, at home, much more settled - and we have just put up our tree. It's there in the corner, twinkling and smelling all christmassy, and it embodies a lot about our own little Christmas - we've made the place all festive, we are now husband and wife, we will work all the way up until the 23rd and then have a cosy Christmas Eve, and wake up on Christmas Day in our own place, with our own tree, and we will be here to enjoy its beauty.

So, you wanna see it?

{heart cushion from Ikea}

Punky Scraps only have one challenge this month, because they know how busy we are all going to be with the last-minute shopping. It's a sketch - an incredible sketch:

# 36 from Nat. WOW!

I felt very christmassy when I was thinking about what to do with this sketch. And so, my first Christmas layout (yep - ever!):

I have s.e.i. and their Winter Song patterned paper to thank here

I used mostly ancient stuff - bling, alphas, epoxy stickers, sequin shapes felt flowers - but also some Emma's Shoppe accents and a lot of stamping and painting and misting.

sideways close-up

Here's to the next few weeks and a happy, exciting build-up to Christmas 2011 - our first as a married couple.

Why not play along? It's a beauty of a sketch. Head over to Punky Scraps for some more inspiration from the DT - it's not all christmassy, if that's not your thing!

Christmas - a Preview

Not much time to stop in today as I'm preparing for an interview, but I just wanted to show you a sneak peek of something I've been working on. It's not available to the recipient until the First of December... any ideas?

Both Gauche Alchemy and I will be publishing a tutorial on how to make this, so keep an eye out. But what is it, exactly? I'll give you another clue: it's shaped like a donut.

In the meantime, Punky Scraps challenges for November are still open (I'll be featured there tomorrow so please swing by and leave me some love), and True XOXO Girls scraplifting opportunities continue until the end of the month.

Last but not least, Scrapbook Challenges is moving! Make sure you follow them to their new home. The Challenger newsletter is also being relaunched with moi as Editor - sign up here before 25th November (that's tomorrow!) to be in with a chance to win some Echo Park Christmas paper:

Christmas Already?

Time sure flies.

The flurry of post-wedding sorting, tidying, organising and documenting has only just started to calm down, and I find myself half-buried under an avalanche of card-making materials.

But it's the life I signed up for, I guess! Actually, this year, without a wedding looming in the near distance I feel very relaxed about Christmas preparations. Good thing, too, since I have nearly 100 cards to make for customers! The first batch has already gone, and I'm working on the second next week.

rolled paper scraps make a great Christmas tree

and give such interesting dimension to a card

the brief was traditional, but I like to add my own twist

again, great dimension from these baubles

and reusing last year's gift tags? genius!

 How about you? Have you started with Christmas yet? 

It's All About Cards

As those two ladies of Good Mail Day write, there's nothing quite like receiving something personalised and made and sent just for you in the post; emails and e-cards just don't cut it. They talk about the rules of mail art sending - that you should honour everything you receive with a reply - and then reiterate this in a softer way - that if you want to receive something, all you have to do is send something and wait for the response. I'm happy to say it's working: my Postcard-a-Week postcards have resulted in this, which came through my letterbox yesterday:

 

Which spurred me to on make a reply, even though I didn't have an awful lot to say. Last week was very full of work and not much play. The weekend, however, was full of relaxing, wood walking and going to the market on Sunday to buy yummy artisanal food for lunch (and dinner, it turned out. Never shop for food when you're hungry!). So that's what informed the reply I sent:

 

The little play I did get to have last week was very time-pressured and resulted in a handful of little-effort cards that I'm not thrilled with. But freelancers must not say no to work. I did make it a bit difficult for myself, but at least I didn't fall to pieces.

I used my Letterpress for the sentiment on this card - I'm waiting for the opportunity to use it more!

 

 

 

And finally... Tuesday was the 25th. That means, according to my resolution, and like Sandra and my mum and probably many others, Christmas creation day. I stuck with a theme and got some cards under my belt (11 to be exact. It would've been 12, but I stamped the inside of one of them upside down):

And with that I think I'll have a little break from card-making. Got to save my efforts for wedding invitations (coming very soon!).

Some Kind of Big Shot

Not usually one to gloat, I have to share the news that I got a Big Shot for Christmas! I hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas.

About the Big Shot: the first thing my mum said when I opened it was 'I wanted to keep it and give you my Cuttlebug instead' - and having used it quite a bit already, I have to say it seems stronger, is a little bigger, and... I like it. A lot.

A whole new aspect of the craft world has opened up. Here's to 2011!

Christmas Came and Went

I trust everyone had a very merry Christmas! The biggest surprise here was that my brother gave some brilliantly creative, skilfully put together handmade gifts that really blew me away: he made me a bag, and my fiance some bowls from old vinyl records.

It's a little bit late to share the last batch of Christmas cards; however, there's an early card-related resolution I'd like to make, and it seems like the right time to say it.

I've used a lot of new paper this year making my Christmas cards. Even paper that isn't strictly Christmassy. Like this Sassafras Lass paper:

I even resorted to stealing and using an image off the web in place of the Bombshell stamps I don't have yet:

And I loved my Basic Grey Jovial 6x6 pad, and am thrilled that I still have some paper left from it for next year.

 

 

However, I've realised I have a lot of paper that I don't really like. There are, of course, a lot of cards to make. So... my early resolution is to only make cards from the paper I don't like. I'll post more about this in the new year. Happy Boxing Day everyone!

Last Minute Shopping

It's almost Christmas Eve, which for some might mean a last chance to buy that missing present, for others might be THE day to buy presents, and for the rest might just mean relaxing at home with family and maybe wrapping some presents.

Just in time for this last-minute shopping trip, I've put together a little book to file all the fun, interesting, different shops I come across in Brussels. I've discovered the kinds of shops I like can be sorted into 5 categories: thrift, wear, craft, eat and nest.

 

 

 

 

 

I can't wait to fill it with more new discoveries, but right now it's really time to think about last-minute necessities for Christmas. So, I'll keep it short and sweet. Happy Christmas everyone!

Birthdays at Christmas

We all know someone or some people whose birthdays fall in or around the Christmas period. Some of them hate it; some of them have embraced it. However they feel, I think it's imperative to keep the birthday part and the Christmas part separate - even if they ask for a big, expensive present which can straddle the two occasions.

I now have 5 family members with birthdays falling between 5 December and 5 January. That's not to mention the number of friends too! It means a lot of extra thinking - and not just for present-buying - at this busy time of year. Planning ahead is essential, but also fun.

So far I've made some cards, and a gift box, in which a friend can store small craft supplies.

Here's the gift box. I also made the pins and the buttons inside:

 

 

And here are the cards. They're all for the same person, but as the skull ones were specially requested I had to make this many:

 

 

 

The biggest challenge of all is when the person whose birthday it is hates having their birthday at this time of year. How do you make it extra special?