Father Christmas

Thought I would share a couple of my cards that have pictures of Father Christmas on them.  You can see I got carried away with doing lots of them in a similar vein:

Just a bit of ribbon, and Spellbinders of course

Same stamp, same ribbon and some doily

(thanks to Shoshi)

Different Santa, different ribbon but more doily

Now you are all probably all going to think I am crackers but the other day I picked my soap box up to wash it and I thought the bits left in the bottom looked like someone.  What do you think?

Didn't know whether to leave this on or not as the photo doesn't show it up quite the same, think the flash has caught it too much, but it did look like Father Christmas - honestly.  If you stare intently can you see him?

Changing Times and Making New Friends

I felt rather sad the other week when a letter popped through my door to tell me that my Personal Banking Manager was taking early retirement.  Linda has always been really easy to talk to and we have chatted about my crafting on more than one occasion - the last being only a few weeks ago in a review when she said what a pity it was she did not live closer to enable her to attend Victoria Stampers.

Well, it hit me like a ton of bricks how much I am going to miss her, isn't it funny how we make friends with people we never meet and have the feeling that we are close.  It happens here in Blogland, you come across someone, leave a message, they leave one back, you leave another and so it goes on.  So many friendships are forged this way and some actually become reality with people meeting up with one another.

Anyway, I digress.  Because we have chatted about crafting and because I felt Linda's retirement needed something, like a card from me, I set to and this is the card I sent to her

Again I used that beautiful face although I don't think I have quite caught it here in this photo - she looks a bit spooky with empty eyes.  Well, I was pleased with the card and hope Linda was too.  Happy retirement Linda and I hope you get chance to do lots of crafting and other things for many many years to come.

ps Had to delay posting this because of my "Shape" cards for JFF - you can see it was made around the same time.

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Favourite Shape - No Contest

Thank you for all the lovely entries we have had on JFF for my themes.  The last one, Techniques, was a bit lower on numbers but we had some super work.  Well, this week is my last one with the theme of "Favourites" (and I think I hear you all cheering) and it is "Shape".  Not much of a problem here if I think about my favourite Nestability Shape from Spellbinders.  I just "love" Labels Four.  If you check back in my blog you will see it is used so many times and if you come to see me doing a demo for Oyster Stamps you will see I use the Grand Nestabilities Four quite a lot for big cards too.  Makes a fabulous shape for a book as well.

I saw a Christmas Card somewhere that I really loved and quite by chance Jayne gave me this Santa stamp when I was at her house the other week.  "Perfick!"  as David Jason (aka Pop Larkin) would say in "Darling Buds of May" for this card.  Could not resist making this card which I had, just sketched out, in my Christmas box.  Bonus is I think my dil will like it too - they are such a 'picky' pair when it comes to handmade cards, much preferring commercial ones (yes, I know, I didn't "brung him up" proper) but if Sam likes it then he will too.

Both these cards are similar - think I will send them the A5 one:

Mmmm.... might have to put something in the top corner. What do you think?

ps have you checked the candy I have linked to on the right hand side - Craft Barn has the most phenomenal candy on offer - quick before you miss out.

WOYWW 129, a 10 minute card and 10 cards in an hour

First of all let me say to all you WOYWW'ers out there - thanks for having a go at guessing the number of butterflies Victoria Stampers had made.  How I wish we had reached the dizzy heights some of you predicted but the number was actually 335 and Elizabeth was only one number out so if she contacts me via my email button on the right I will get a little something off to her in the post before it gets too frantic with the Christmas mail.

Don't know about you but I have had it with making "C" cards.  I am suffering terribly with back ache so think I might be calling it a day for the time being.  I am longing to do some altering of things that are, and have been for ages, sitting in my craft room and I long, oh how I long, to get my polymer clay out and make something.

This is my desk in its Christmas splendour

My paper cutter and the images I began colouring whilst holidaying in Cyprus - do you remember?  Some Christmas brads and some small images at the back and just peeking on the right are the Spellbinders Poinsettias.  Love that die.

Shoshi, see, I have my doilies out ready.  Just a box with my Christmas papers in which is going to be depleted as I am giving some of them out.

My "dumping bag" - I have been dumping loads of stuff in here - think it is a "will look at it later" bag.

Another box, this has the more three dimensional stuff in that I might use in my cards - and knowing me - might not!

In about ten days we will be having our "C" party at Vicky Stampers and I am going to show them how to make ten cards in an hour.  That is without embellishing which can or cannot be done later.  This was a class I did with my lovely friend Mary G ("Hi Mary") when in America at one time.  I wrote and asked her if she minded my showing the girls and she said "no, it was fine".  Am not saying what else I have up my sleeve but I hope they all think the day has been "fun" when they finally have to go home.

Nothing else to tell you or show you except a couple of "C" cards I have made - now comes the bit I don't like - getting the envelopes out and writing them.  Perhaps I will wait until I have visited the desks of a few WOYWW'ers so it is off to Julia's now to see who has been hanging out with The Elves.  Wonder what Julia has been up to herself?

This is my 10 minute card done for a challenge on Katy's Corner

... and I bet this one took me 10 minutes to thread the darned ribbon through so definitely not an entry.

What a Week!

The shower in our en suite had given up and gone to shower heaven - think someone (not me) had broken something on it.  As I am a bath person it did not bother me too much and we do have a shower by the guest bedroom so Chas tended to use that when we didn't have anyone staying.

Anyway, last September we decided to have it repaired by installing a new fitting.  Easy Peasy?  NO!  Fittings have changed - not the same sizes, tiles have changed - not the same sizes.  Well, we have waited since then for the plumber to arrive to do the work.  Finally heard he was coming on Monday.

Monday morning up at 6.30 (tradesmen have a habit of being with you for 8 am don't they?), bathe, move the remaining bits from the bathroom, sit and wait.  At somewhere turned 10 (I had given up by then) he arrived and informed us he had "only come to look at the job".  I was not best pleased!  He couldn't come the following day so I explained we were out Wednesday and would not be in until 10 am Thursday.  "I'll come Wednesday".  "Excuse me - what part of 'we are not in Wednesday' did you not understand?"   Finally it was fixed for 10 am Thursday.

Thursday we were at the appointment in Bolton for 8.30 (having once again emptied the bathroom etc) and we dashed back, how I would have loved to shop a while, to be home in time - actually home for 9.45 am.  Ten o'clock, no plumber, noon - still no plumber.  By this time I was feeling a tad irate and rang the contractor who had employed this plumber (we'd been having other work done in September) who came up imediately from his other job only to tell us he had rung and rung the plumber but got no reply - he wasn't picking up.

To cut a long story short we got a message, or rather Chas did, on his mobile, from the plumber to say he had been called out to an emergency that morning and could not get a signal to let us know. Err ... could you not have rung as you left home?  I took over the phone and eventually he sent the reply that he would be with us the next day in the morning.  I then asked "whose morning, yours or mine" and he said between 9.30 and 12.  Obviously he was as sick of me as I was of him.  At least that meant it was not a 6.30 am get up for us.

Just after 10 a young guy came (where was the original plumber?) and took the old shower off, informed me he would have to knock the tile out (this was not his fault at all) we would have to get a tiler and he, the plumber, would then come back to fit the shower - so I gave him the go ahead, what else could I do.  Too late to send the shower back - we'd gone well over the 45 day returns policy  Visions of travelling all over town to find something to fit the gap where the tile had been - remember they no longer make this size.  Doesn't end there!  A short while afterwards he came in - oh, he had had to turn the water off outside the property at the Water Boards stop tap - with a little thing in his hand - the stop tap (WB's) had sheared off.  We would have to inform the Water Board, they'd "just come and put another on - no charge".

Chas rang them - 6 hours they said - we had to go for some tiles!  Might as well go now we thought.  Got to the shop and realised how impossible a task we had.  I said to plumb (excuse the pun) for a mosaic one.  £89 later we came out with eight tiles, adhesive and grout.  Then the Water Board rang - or rather an Inspector did.  Not a happy one either.  We dashed home and he was sat in his van by the side of the property - I tried to appeal to his good nature (think I cracked a bit of his veneer, but only a bit) and he said the work would be done, they should charge, but he had no idea when they could do it.

So waterless we carried on but luckily our good neighbours gave us a key to their garage where they had a tap so several trips with pans and buckets we managed into the early evening.  I had really given up when through the darkness I saw a yellow vest walking up the drive - yes, at gone 8 pm someone had come to save the day.  We now have water, a great big hole outside the property waiting to be filled in by another crew and  must wait to see if we are being charged and if so how much.  Still no shower, £89 out of the account that we hadn't budgeted for and another bill for the tiler.  Anyone want to come over for a shower in the future?

(Oh, and the contractors little pup piddled on my shoe and it has left a stain - let it all come)

So I forgot, in all the excitement, to upload a card I had made for Lorraine (Happy Birthday Thursday love) which was different for me - a bit of Parchment Craft and (shudder, shock horror) a Peel off.

Lots of "ball tooling", some pearl colours and a lot of pricking and cutting for the border.  Should imagine it was not at all what she was expecting from me.

ps the person who came closest with the number of butterflies was ...


Elizabeth (or was it her lovely cat Bleubeard) with the guess of 336 which was just one over the actual number of 335.  How I wish we had been able to send as many as some of you estimated.  Think it would have taken a long long time for us to get over a thousand.
Thanks for taking part - and hope some of you send a butterfly off.

Favourite Technique

Oh heck - so many things I like and one or two are favourites for different reasons.  I love the grid technique or retiform as it is sometimes known but it takes so long to do properly and I love the look of Caught in Crystal but wasn't in the mood for that, besides which I am going easy on my Johnsons Klear as I don't have that much left now and it is no longer available.

Thought about using the embossing paste like Lorraine showed us at a recent Victoria Stampers - oh heck - Zoe beat me to it.  Use my Distress Inks more than anything else I own but Von had already used them as her favourite and even though I was referring to them with a different technique to that of Von I decided that JFF needed something totally different for this week.

So what did I settle for - Serendipity.  (Check Von's tutorial on this) One of my favourite Christmas Cards of all time was one sent to me by Debbie Shelton (I know of at least one person who might read this who will remember it too) where she used Serendipity to make some tags.  I have made this card over and over but never have managed to get mine to look quite as good as Debbies.  She is the Queen of Serendipity.

Anyway, enough chatter and about time I showed you the card.  As I said the tags are Serendiptity, the rest is just gold stamping and that is about it - I must get on - I want to make some more and once again strive to make mine as nice as the one I have saved that Debbie sent to me.

I am so looking forward to the different techniques that you will all use and show us on Just for Fun, well, at least I hope you do show us lots.  Also hope you are ahead of me in the making of the "C" cards!