When Jesper's father was alive, he used to buy us the Georg Jensen Christmas decoration each year, and we still buy them now as it includes Ib in our Christmas. This is this year's decoration;
And this is my weakness!
And this is me, Jesper, Holly and my little Mum at Holly's awards evening - what a lovely evening that was!
Well I've been trying to catch up with missed photos from CJ's fantastic 12 days of Christmas course - I'm so glad I've taken part as it's really making me think about photos - otherwise I'd get stuck into creating the next issue of the magazine, and miss these lovely opportunities. So I managed to get my guys together for a photo - as you can see, Max wasn't keen!!! But I got some lovely shots of them - if you want to see them (Mum!!!) they're here!
And if you are wondering where my husband is;
It's a bit like a 'Where's Wally' photo (!!!!!!!!!!) but he's clutching a very large glass of beer!!!
I am taking part in CJ's 12 days of Christmas course, and our first assignment is a seasonal self portrait. Well, all our Christmas stuff is in the loft, but I think this pretty much sums up Christmas morning while I'm cooking the dinner!
It really makes my day when someone sends me a picture of something they have made from one of my projects - and so you can imagine my delight when I received this picture from Brenda Rae;
A whole colony of snowmen!!! Brenda has made these for her Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren! Thank you for making my day Brenda.
The template for this Rockin'Rollin' Snowman is in Issue 13 of the Time for Crafting E-Mag, available in the VIP Members area at www.timeforcrafting.co.uk
It's our lovely friend Zoe's 18th birthday!!
This is take from the 18 template on my site, but instead of having both numbers front and back I cut the 8 off so that the front is only the 1.
I found these pearls in the cake decorating section of Hobbycraft - you get a bunch of them for about £2.75. They make lovely card embellishments!
What a fantastic weekend!!! The fun started on Saturday when I picked up Jill and Elaine (Katya on the forum) from the ferry. (It wasn't fun before that as we were moving the contents of Max and Nicole's bedrooms from the landing where it had all been while their rooms were decorated!!!) It was a glorious sunny day, and they were easily convinced to join me at Gunwharf Quay for a cold beer by the water!! And a quick visit to the Paper Mill there! (I haven't been there for years, and was a bit shocked to see that the price hadn't gone up - but the box that you fill with card was less than half as deep!!!)
The next day we were up bright and early and set off to the Craft Barn - arriving nice and early and getting font row seats in front of Malcolm and Jean from Crafty Individuals demonstration. What a lovely start to the day! They are such nice people, and showed us some beautiful things! We met up with Yasmin and Marion from the forum - this was such a treat for me as I have never met them in real life before - and they are such lovely, lovely ladies! And then Pam (Nanna on the forum), Liz Gale, Rukhshana, Netti and Hilda were there, and it was all just one big lovely chatty, crafty, huggy mass!!!
We did a workshop together, and I apologise to the other three ladies doing the workshop too - they seemed a bit stunned!!! My camera skills failed at the first hurdle - note to self, when charging your camera battery remember to turn it on at the wall!!! So I've pinched Pam's photos to show you!
Left to right - Jill, Hilda, Yasmin, Elaine (Katya), me, Liz, Neti, Pam (Nanna) and Marion. The best, most fun group of ladies you will ever meet!
Here we have Jill, Elaine (Katya), Me, Pam (Nanna) and Yasmin.
Other highlights of the day were seeing the lovely Isa demonstrating - I am just off out to get a 'sample' tile from the tile shop! Check out her blog to see why!!! And also the lovely Leandra from Paper Artsy.
It was such a fun time, I am now counting the days until the next Craft Barn Extravaganza! This time we plan to stay over - why don't you come too??!!!
A huge thank you to all the lovely ladies who made that such a special day.
The magazine that is!!! What with the kids being home on school holidays, and going to Denmark, it was a tight squeeze on time! It's a funny thing - I always start an issue with projects in mind, and as the magazine progresses, it never ends up with the original projects - I always get sparks of ideas that take over!!
This issue was no exception - I was going to make a Home shaped card - and then I just got carried away, and it turned into a Home book, filled with nooks and crannies and secret messages!!
I hope you enjoy it. I have to say my favourite page is this one;
The opaque texture on it was such fun to do. I had seen it on the page of a circle journal a friend showed me. Unfortunately, there was no name on the page, and we had no way of finding out how to do the effect. I kept it in mind, and kept trying different things - and then one day I got it!!! The thicker the layer, the more cloudy it is, so you can get great effects with it. You'll have to read the mag to find out what it is!!!
And my favourite message is this one;
I have a lovely little row of slippers here no where I was testing out dffeent texures for the top!!
GCSE results day tomorrow!!! Holly is a good girl though, she worked hard and did her best, and that's all you can ask. Whatever the results are, I'm proud of her and know she couldn't have done more.
You can by special quilling mats which have different sized holes in for you to put your coil in before glueing - this makes sure that all your coiled circles are the same size. A cheaper alternative is this little plastic stencil that you will find in any stationery shop.
I squeezed these circles at one end to make a tear drop shape, and these made up the petals for this flower.
These techniques are the same used for the sheep too;
Just squeeze your circles into different shapes to make up any design you like!
What has happened to quilling?! It seems to have gone out of fashion!!! Why don't you join me in having a little play?
I just made this little quilled cupcake, and wanted to show you that you don't need any special tools to do quilling.
I took a cocktail stick and carefully cut a slit in one end.
I cut a half centimetre strip of paper, and pulled it between my thumb and a round handle to get it in the mood for coiling!
Then I stuck one end in the cocktails stick slit and coiled the paper round.
I slid the coiled paper off the stick, and placed it on my work surface, where it unravelled a bit.
I glued the end, and stuck it down.
Now I carefully squeezed on end of the circle.
The cherry was made in the same way, only moulding the spiral around my fingertip for the final shaping stage.
I'll be back soon with some more quilling tips!
Well, one Wedding and two Golden Weddings to be precise!! These were made from templates in the Time for Crafting E-Mag - ones which I use a lot at this time of year!!!
I just threw that picture in as I know some of you are expecting creative things from this blog!!! What I am itching to tell you about though is a super spooky experience we just had in Denmark.
In WW2 the Germans built The Atlantic Wall- a series of bunkers built along the coast stretching from Norway down through France, as a means of defense from an attack from the UK coastline. Our holiday home was on a beautiful white sand beach, on the West Coast of Denmark, which had these bunkers along the coast. Most were very well preserved, despite stories of Danish people forced to build these bunkers putting salt in with the building materials in the hope it would weaken them.
Most were small structures, but it was very exciting to come across this one, with a passageway clearly visible from the door to explore!!! The bunker had subsided into the sand, so once inside, the floor was a severe slope!!! And pitch black!! Yes, I was pooping myself!!! I sent the kids in first, of course!!
As you clambered into the shaft, you could see this 'window' - and realised there was another room inside! Now you have to remember, the flash of the camera makes this a bright light picture - but at the time it wasn't at all! We had a very weak torch, and were fumbling around in the dark - struggling to keep our footing on a steep slope covered in sand!
This is what we found at the end of the passageway - only we couldn't see it like that at the time, all we could see was black!! Some Danish people then joined us, and told us about a Danish Treasure Hunt - apparently there are hundreds of treasures hidden all over Denmark - and one is hidden here! All they knew was that it was on the North Wall of the bunker! Which meant we had to go into these rooms!! You would not believe how aware you are of the dark enveloping in behind you as you stumble into these rooms!!!
This is Holly taking a photo of herself!!! Any way, after a while, the Danish man got very excited - he had fund the treasure!!! It consists of a plastic box, that has a few bits and bobs in, and a small toy. The rule is, you have to bring a small toy with you to swap with the toy that is inside, then sign your name in the little book enclosed.
Now, we only had a crappy little torch, but the Danish man had none, so he was very grateful to us as he would never have found the treasure alone!! (actually, he had his 3 year old petrified daughter with him!!!)
Oh my goodness!!! I was completely spooked in there!! The steep slopey floor, musty smell and surrounding darkness - and thoughts of soldiers being there for real years ago! I was so relieved to get back to those steps getting us out of there!!!
And don't be fooled by that bright sunny picture at the front - the wind was vicious!! As we got to the top of the steps we had to cover our heads from the sand blowing layers of skin away!!!
What a fantastic experience!!! Wow!!!
