Traditional and Modern.

I've made two cards this evening... although the traditional one - the Christmas tree, took all afternoon colouring everything! I stamped it with Walnut Distress ink, and then watercoloured, glittered, glitter penned, and glazed various parts. I glazed the pressies, the picture frames, the stockings and holly on the wall. You may be able to see this on the photo, but it does look better, glossy, in real life.
I do love this stamp, but it is difficult to get right... The whole thing is the stamp - the tree etc and the frame it's in. I bought it last year I think, on Ebay.

The other card is more modern. I don't normally make pinky/purply Christmas cards but decided to use the Cricut to cut out some baubles. The mats on this card are silver mirror card but it's not showing up on the photo.

New Cricut Blog.

For those of you that have a Cricut machine, or who are interested in buying one, please take a look at this fantastic new blog! CHRISTMAS WITH THE CRICUT. It has video demonstrations so you can see exactly how to make things... many things can be adapted so it's not Christmas, but you'll see how the cartridges work etc. Not only that, if you become a follower of the blog and leave a comment, you're in for a chance to win a cartridge!! How fab is that?!

The blog is also listed on my blog list at the side.

Santa and Sleigh.

I've been inspired today by QVC having a CHRISTMAS CRAFT DAY! I was so excited!! I decided to use my fab papers that I bought from Craft Creations and used the Joys to the Season Cricut cartridge. It took me about 2 hours to create this card!! Cutting the parts to the Santa, and trying to work out what bit went where. I still have some bits left over, but I can't work out where they go, lol. I love how the card turned out.

Click on the above picture, it looks so much better!!

My dad is holidaying in Austria at the moment. I'm jealous! He had a cruise on a lake yesterday along Zell Am See, and today he had a train ride along the picturesque mountains and has also gone up a mountain by cable car... lovely... I want to go!

2nd card today! Stamptacular challenge card.

The challenge over at Stamptacular is to create a 3-D card. I have 3-D'd (??) the ovals and the reindeer, and layered up the snowflakes.
I used the Cuttlebug embossing dots folder and used Sprinkles Star Dust glitter on some of them too. The reindeer is from the Joy to the Season's Cricut cartridge, as were the snowflakes, the ovals were using the Plantin Schoolbook Cricut cartridge. The sentiment is from the papers that came with the Daisy stamp paper set from the earlier post today.



I'm such an idiot... the clue is in the blog title!!! I haven't used a stamped image!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Daisy pops in again.

I really love this little Daisy Christmas stamp. I got her from the Creativity magazine, but I'm sure you must be able to buy her from a Do Crafts shop as well.
I decided to sit up in my craft room today to make a card. My lovely Justin had bought me an RF modulator... ok, why did I need one? Well I'd got an old perfectly working order colour telly in there, but it didn't have a scart socket. I also had a Freeview box that wasn't being used but you need a scart socket for Freeview to work. I came home from work on Saturday and Justin had got it up and running for me... awww, he's such a darling! So I thought I'd sit in my little room and make a Christmas card whilst watching Create and Craft.

I used the Daisy paper pad and also I created the dotty embossing with an embossing folder in my Sizzix.

Christmas sampler update and veggies.

Here's my update for my sampler this week. I've stitched the alphabet and border, and started on the kitten patchwork on the left. I stitched a lot of this at dads this week.



Below are some photos of how the tomatoes have grown and the runner beans. The tomatoe have already been chopped back once, and they've taken over the bench again. I have lots more tomatoes growing alongside the fence. They are the most gorgeous tasting tomatoes and I have had and are due to have, so many! I seem to be picking around 8 a day. The runner beans are lovely providing I cut them when the beans inside are tiny and the runner is around 4 inches, otherwise they're really tough and horrible. I have no idea why that is... do you? Most people can let theirs grow really long and they're lovely... not mine... sniff.

Christmas sampler update.

I have been stitching for so many hours this week and have made quite a bit of progress as you can see on my lovely sampler. Well considering I only started it last Saturday night I've made amazing progress, lol.
I had a disaster at work with touching my eye and then transferring black eyeliner onto the aida!! I tried various substances to remove this at home, but what you can see at the top of the picture is a wet patch where I've cleaned it. I think I've got it all off. I shall remember in the future not to touch my eyes and then the aida, lol.

Darryl is at a movie convention again this weekend in London with his friend Tom. He went last year and I wrote about it on this blog. He loves going to them and comes back loaded with free gifts.
I shall get back to work on this sampler after it's dry but I also need to make an anniversary card for Cheryl this week, she's been married for 29 years next weekend.

Humphrey update and a visitor.

Here's an update of Humphrey. I stitched this weekend during my breaks at work and this is how far along he is!! I've been stitching my Christmas sampler yesterday and today, it's really coming along!! I'm not going to update that one though until I upload onto the Stitch A Long blog on the right. I'm really enjoying the Christmas one. I think I'll stitch Humphrey again this weekend at work.





We had a visitor on a dying sunflower today. I've searched the spider up on the net and I think it's a crab spider... feel free to correct me though in the comments if I'm wrong.

Christmas Sampler by Donna Kooler.

As well as the gorgeous Humphrey, I've also started the Christmas Sampler by Donna Kooler. This can be found in her book 555 Christmas Cross-Stitch Designs. I have loved this picture for so long!! So I've now sewn the aida to the new lap frame and sorted out the threads - I'm missing three so need to get them on Monday, one just had to be the Christmas red shade, lol, typical!
I also worked some more on Humprey, so he's coming along nicely too.
Just a word about lap frames, SO much better than floor stands! Wish I'd bought one ages ago.



This is how far I've got... just a tiny bit so far tonight. I can't see me getting bored with it because it has so many different little designs. Hopefully I'll get back onto the stitch a long blog.

Humphrey's Corner - In Dad's Shoes.

Now that I've finished all the Wedding Anniversary pictures/card I had to do, I'm free to get on with my little ellie. I actually started it on Wednesday at dad's, but of course still had to finish the Silver Wedding picture so didn't get very far.
Ok, so this is the kit I'm now stitching.



This is how far I've got. I'm enjoying this kit. It's lots of colour changes but in blocks. I hate doing them where you get the odd stitch here and there in millions of colours, and I hate doing them that are big massive blocks of colours... I'm hard to please, lol.
I got this kit, along with another Humphrey kit for subscribing to either Cross Stitch Crazy, or Cross Stitch Card Shop, I can't remember which one, but the other kits for subscribing to whichever magazine was a Winnie the Pooh kit, and an Eeyore kit... although not the Winnie that was advertised... oh well, it's still cute.

I'll keep you updating with my progress!

Me and Matthew are off to the library this afternoon. I think I'm going to look for some cross stitch books for some Christmas charts. I have all the DMC colour threads as I bought them in batches on Ebay - much cheaper than in the high street.

Silver Wedding Stitches...

I have been making two Silver Wedding Anniversary cross stitched pictures for Cheryl to give to friends. I still making the second one, but thought I'd post a picture of the first completed framed one... mainly coz Dad was moaning about the lack of updates on my blog this week, lol.
I have stitched the writing in silver thread, it's clearer in real life, but I hate stitching with the metallic threads as they don't run evenly together through the aida. Oh well, almost done now, and then I can carry on with my Humphrey elephant picture.




I haven't had any time to do anything else this week other than the stitching for the above and it's twin. Maybe next week...

I am waiting the arrival of a lap frame to work cross stitch on. I have had 4 floor stands altogether. One where the frame was part of the stand, a mahogany colour and it was a lovely looking stand as well. The next one was one that clamped hold of your frame for you, I can't think what happened to that one... and two of the Stitchmaster one that have two arms that hold your frame, and you can attach the halogen lamp and magnifier, and the chart holder. This is my favourite stand, but the last one just fell apart and the wood split! Hopefully I can at least attach the chart holder to this new lap one... we'll see.