Just about the last of my birthday cards.......

Good Sunday Morning ladies,

I was so excited to read that Jean, Michele and Myra had a lovely meet up yesterday, it was obvious you would all get on so well instantly but you still have nerves, now you have got that first meeting over I hope that you can maybe arrange regular catch ups or maybe craft sessions like Sue, Pat and I do,
I know it would be harder because of work and other commitments but it is so lovely crafting with like minded friends.  I am so very pleased that today was a success for all of you xxxx

Now talking of Special Friends, this gorgeous card was made for me by my dear friend Sue, to hold a card in your hand that you know somebody has made for you with love means more than any gift!
Sue used Creative Expressions Classic Pierced Rectangles from their 'Noble Die' range to create this lovely card, I love how the sentiment is stamped onto Vellum too, it looks so delicate, certainly less harsh than when stamped onto card, I think this is something I will try myself, I know Brenda (lello) also prints onto vellum which also looks amazing, I think that sometimes its remembering to use these things!  Sue finished my card with a beautiful coordinating bow and flower.
Thank you so much Sue, I love my card very much, like I do you xxxxx

Now I am so excited to hear about all of you getting your Christmas Trees up and decorated, it led me to an idea, could you all take a photograph of tree and send it in to me so that we can all share each others designs???  I would love to see everyone's tree, what do you think, just for fun?!!

I hope that you all have a lovely Sunday,
Love and hugs
Sandra
xxxxxxx

Mixed Craft Saturday

Karen's Hospital Bed Cake

Janet's Christmas Wreath

Myra's Peace on Earth Bauble

Myra's Noel Bauble

Good Saturday Morning Ladies,

Welcome once again to our Mixed Craft Saturday, we have another wonderful selection of crafts,

you ladies are just so amazingly talented!

First up today we have the most amazing cake, made by Karen, it is the perfect replica of a Hospital Bed with a patient, Karen has gone to such amazing detail, adding everything you could think of down to Bedside Cabinet, bowl of fruit and even a patch on the bed cover!!

Karen made this cake for a Hospital Fete back in the 80's, well I can say it hasn't dated at all.

Thank you very much for sharing this amazing cake with all of us today! xxxx

Next up we have a fabulous Christmas Wreath that has been designed and created by our Janet,

it looks like Janet has used Poinsettia's and Ivy to fill the wreath, the lovely Creative Expressions

Season's Greetings die cut in the centre and a lovely bow to finish off at the top!

I love it Janet, I love the colours you have chosen too, thank you so much for sharing it with all of us xxxx

Last but not least its Myra's beautiful baubles, and what a fine pair they make, beautifully decorated with Creative Expressions Peace on Earth and Noel die cuts some decorative pearl embellishments, both finished off with some beautiful ribbon, Mrya, your vast array of craft skills just blow me away, all of your makes are so beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing all that you make with us all xxxx

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend ladies,

Love and hugs

Sandra xxxxxx

Festive Friday

 Good Morning Ladies,

Today's card is another in my Navy, Silver and White themed Christmas card, I really do like this combination of colours.
First I took a white 8 x 8 card and matted it with navy card and then white card embossed with
Creative Expressions Frosty Swirls Embossing Folder.
I used Spellbinders Heirloom Reflections Dies, I cut the backgrounds in Navy and the decorative inside in Silver glitter card, I tied tiny bows out of silver ribbon to top the baubles.
I cut the Memory Box Woodland Branch Die, cut in silver glitter card (twice) and arranged them across the top of the card to hang the baubles from. I used some Pinflair flexi peel offs to hang the baubles with.  I finished the card by adding a piece of silver ribbon, topping it with a navy blue narrow ribbon and then topping that with a Die cut Navy Oval with 'Christmas Greetings' stamped and embossed with silver embossing powder, the sentiment is from the Inkyliscious Flourish Christmas Tree set.
I do hope you like my card.
Hazel I do hope you get to rest after your busy day.
Patricia, are you enjoying your machine?
Saba, I hope you are still sane, you must have the patience of a saint, did you ring the chickens neck? your day did make me laugh though.
Janet I am so pleased you had a lovely time entertaining Lily-Mae, it sounded like you have a wonderful time and that Lily-Mae was beautifully behaved, I bet you needed to put your feet up and the end of the day!
Brenda, I do hope that John is feeling well enough to go for his treatment today, Labyrinthitis is a horrible thing to suffer, give John a hug from me.
Michele I do hope your thumb is a little better, it must be so frustrating, particularly as its stopping you from crafting!
Lynda your trip to the dentist sounded hellish to me, you are so brave, but the thought of spending all of that money at the dentist is frightening, think of the dies you could buy, could you not die cut yourself some new pearly whites????
Diane, how did you get on at the chiropractor ?  I must thank you for your fabulous recipe for the Viennese Biscuits, I made a few biscuits and used the rest for mince pie tops, they were heavenly Diane, they just melted in our mouths, I am going to make a double batch tomorrow.
( I have made a batch for the cafe too, so help yourself)!
I will catch up with the rest of you later
Love and hugs
Sandra
xxxxxx

Cross Stitch Christmas

Good Morning Ladies,

Thank you all for your lovely comments regarding yesterdays tutorial, I actually really enjoyed
doing it, I will look around for some more ideas.

Today's stunning Trio of Christmas Treats have been designed and lovingly created by our lovely Margaret P.
I can't imagine how long each one of these has taken, I am sure you keep them for only the most special members of your family, I love all of them, I think that my favourite though is the Snowman, he just looks so happy!
Thank you so very much Margaret for allowing me to share your fantastic cards.

Well as said yesterday I get two fun days this week, Pat came over yesterday and we had a super fruitful day, I got two cards completed and so did Pat, all from scratch too, which is really unusual for us as we don't usually get 1 card completed let alone 2!!
The best bit is I get to do it all again with Sue !!! I am really looking forward to it too.

I hope that you all have an equally fun day,
Love and hugs
Sandra
xxxxxxx

Tutorial No.1 Little Gift Bags

 Little Gift Handbags

Perfect for Gift Cards of Sweet Treats!

Good Morning Ladies,

We have a blog first today....My first Blog Tutorial, I am going to walk you through making these 

darling little handags, made from just a 6 x 6 in piece of card, so here goes........

Handbag Tutorial

Firs of all you need a piece of 6 X 6 inch card or good quality paper

2 x 1 inch strips (to be scored down the centre)

2 x 1/4 inch strips at least 7 inch long

You will also need 4 tiny brads 

You will need to score your 6 x 6 card firstly at
1 1/4 inch on opposite sides and at
2 1/2 inch on the other two sides
(see diagram)

Fold in the two 1 1/4 inch folds.

You should end up with your card looking like this.

Make sure you have burnished all 

of your scored lines as this will make folding easier

Turn your card around so that the two folds you have just made are horizontal in front of you, You will see the little rectangle made by the two score lines, this is where we are 

going to make a fold

 To try and make this fold a little clearer I have tried to indicate the places you need to fold with an arrow and a circle.
We will be folding the arrow over to the circle, basically the corner of the little rectangle over to the edge of the card (see diagram)

Holding the fold in place score the 

crease on the inside as in diagram

Repeat for the other three corners.

                                                                                                                      You should end up with your card looking like this, make sure that all of your creases are well burnished as this makes folding easier.

Thicker card will be harder to fold.

                                                                            You can see the bag starting to take shape now.

We can now add glue to the top part of each side of the card, this is the part at the top of the bag, do not let the glue get on the part of the bag with the folds.

Now take the two 1 inch strips of card and score down the centre at
1/2 inch
Apply glue to either side of the score line.....

Now stick the strip along the top of your bag
on each side and press down firmly and trim to the edges of your bag.

So you should end up with something looking
like this, now time for the handles.

You will need to use your piercing tool to poke tiny holes where you want your bag handles to be attached to, you can measure if you like, I just went by eye!
You will need to cut the handles to the length you require and pierce holes in either end.

Now this is purely down to preference but I go for the 'belt and braces' approach so I applied glue around the hole I had pierced, on the inside of the bag, to make sure the thin strips of card stayed put.

Now  take your brads and push through the hole you have just pierced and thread on one end of one of your handle, open the legs of your brad and press firmly into place, repeat for the other 3 ends.

This picture shows the position of the brads and handles really well.

You will also notice that I have used a small oval die to create the 'clasp' of the bag.

You can use whatever shape you chose,

just add glue to one side and position in the centre of one side of your bag.

I then glued a Velcro dot to the other side of the oval (making sure that I placed both sides of the velcro together on the oval, then bend the oval clasp over and the other side of the velcro dot will be in the right place.

This is how your Velcro dots should look,

I would add glue as they do tend to lift, I will add that I did try magnetic sheet cut into little dots but it wasn't strong enough!

Et Voila !!!!!

Here we have the three bags I created, the back two were created from good quality paper from some of the many 6 x 6 pads I have bought.

The bottom one is card.

Phew!! I hope that you have made it to the bottom ok, it seems a little bit long winded but once you have got the technique you can whip one up in about ten minutes, I just wanted to make sure you could see every stage in detail, these things are easier to explain verbally than they are to write down.

I think these cute little bags would make great little table favours, you could add a tag with a name on, or use to give a gift voucher of mini chocolate, the choice is endless.

I look forward to seeing your bags, they are a perfect way to use up those 6 x 6 pads we get free with magazines etc.

Have a fantastic day,

Love and hugs

Sandra

xxxxxxx

Daily Blog Anniversary & Navy ans Silver Christmas card

Good Morning Ladies,

Today is the One Year Anniversary of my 'Daily Blog', I officially started my actual blog sometime before that but it was on the 1st December 2014 that I made the decision to start writing a daily blog.

It has been the best thing that has happened in my life since marrying Paul and having my children and that is no exaggeration.

I am and had been suffering for many years from a very deep depression and severe anxiety, this has occurred as a result of many years of constant chronic pain and in later years from loneliness.

This is the downside of a forces life I'm afraid, when we moved here about ten years ago I was at my very worst physically and we moved to a place where we knew nobody and to add to that Sophie and Lucy started primary school as we arrived here meaning no 'Mum and Toddler' groups and all of the associated things that help you to integrate slowly to a new place (as we had many times in the past).  My mobility was so bad that it was all bit impossible for me to leave the house without help so after everyone had left for the day the loneliness took hold, I deteriorated over a matter of weeks, to the point of seeing no purpose to my life as I felt like I was purely a burden.

I just wanted to lie in bed, pull the covers over my head and wish the day and my life away.

After some time I found Sue's blog, which was a lot smaller then, Sue had also started her blog after moving over here and feeling a little lonely.  As Sue's blog grew I started conversing briefly with a few of you and others, I got to the point that I wanted to talk to you further but felt uncomfortable doing so on Sue's blog, so I started blogging myself, just randomly to start with, until this time last year when I decided that I would love to be able to talk to you all every day,  so that's when and why I started, slowly one by one more of you came over and then the Cotswold Crafter Cafe was started.  I now felt like I had a purpose, the first thing I did in the morning was to reach for the I pad to see if anyone had been in, I then wanted for the first time in years to get up and make a card so that I had something to post the next day.  

The only thing that could have topped all of this was the dream of actually meeting all of you, this became a reality at the retreat in October, although most of the weekend I felt like I was in shock, I just couldn't believe it was actually happening, I was also battling major anxiety, this being the first time I had ever been anywhere without Paul, when he left on the friday I felt so sick but at the same time I felt the huge 'buzz' of meeting all of you that came along. There were a few tricky moments that I had to excuse myself for a few moments (nausea is one of my major side effects of anxiety)! But I felt honoured that you had all gone to such a huge effort to come along and make my dream a reality.  Those of you that helped make it possible will never know the depth of my gratitude, Hazel, you were amazing! Sue I wouldn't have made it through the weekend without your encouragement and calming nature, Pat too! 

So I would like to thank each and everyone of you for giving me a sense of purpose, giving me a reason to live, to get up each day, you make me smile, you all feel like extended family, that's how much you mean.  

So please forgive my moments of paranoia, when I think that you will all abandon me through boredom, recently I panicked after the blog comments dropped a lot since the retreat, my mind and anxiety went into overdrive and I thought that after meeting me you no longer wanted to be part of the blog, sadly that's all part of my anxious mind and I guess unless you have experienced it it would be hard to understand.  Sadly it is out of my control, I do to the most part keep it out of my blog but there are times my logical mind can't win through! Sorry ladies x

Now today's card has been stamped with Inkyliscious Large Christmas Tree Flourish, stamped with  Perfect Medium and embossed with Cosmic Shimmer silver shine, I mounted the tree onto an 8 x 8 inch white card blank, matted with navy card and white shimmer card embossed with (CE) Holly Swirl Embossing Folder, I added white silky crush ribbon across the card and mounted the Christmas tree focal element onto the card using silver photo corners to draw the eye in.  I tied a bow with the silky crush ribbon and topped with some silver beaded trim and a snowflake die cut from silver glitter card, I used the same glitter card to die cut the tag from (CE) Snowflake Corner Border Tag set, I mounted the sentiment onto this and placed at the top of the card.

I hope you like the card.

I will raise a glass of something sparkling to you all tonight, thank you all, I look forward to sharing many more anniversaries with you all.

My next dream is to have another retreat to meet all of you that didn't make it to this one, I am open to suggestions as to where and when. 

Love and huge hugs to each and everyone of you,

Sandra

xxxxxx

Man Card Monday

Good Morning Ladies,

Here we are at the start of another week, I can't believe that in a couple of weeks we will be in December!
Today's fantastic man card has been created by Michele, I think this image would be very popular with a lot of teen boys too!  I love the sentiment too, I think I could do with a reboot!
Thanks so much for sharing this man card with us Michele, I hope that Phil likes it and has a fab birthday today! xxx

I hope that all of you have a fabulous week ahead, have you all got your advent calendars ready?
We have handmade ones that we refill each year, it's a major task filling all 6 calendars, remembering who likes which chocolates etc.

Love and Hugs
Sandra
xxxxxx