Another lovely Christmas card

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

We are walking in a 'Wet & Wild Wonderland' this Christmas,  it was awful when we popped into Witney yesterday afternoon,  the wind seemed to drive that rain straight through you.  We just popped in to get a couple more gifts and some Salmon for dinner on Sunday evening,  we aren't sure if Paul's brother is joining us for dinner, we have bought extra salmon just in case he does. 

We have an early start today as we are leaving early for Brixham, picking Paul's Mum, going out for lunch and then bring her back to ours for the night and if weather permits we will have a wander around Bourton or Burford maybe, then home for lunch and a lazy afternoon,  then wait for Darren, have dinner and see our guests off and get some wrapping done.  

I hope you have a less hectic weekend,  Lilian you will need to get your feet up and rest before your next lot of family arrives,  as I have got older I find hosting exhausting,  I think it’s because you are constantly wanting them to be comfortable,  it always feels like the kettle is never off!! 

Today's card is the card that Sonia sent me for Christmas,  I have that embossing folder and never thought of using it for Christmas but it definitely works.  Love the bauble stamp with sentiment and that darling little poinsettia to finish off.                       Such a lovely card Sonia, thank you so much XXX 

I hope that you all have a great Saturday, 

Love & Hugs to all,

Sandra xxx 

A beautiful Christmas card from Maria

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

How are you all ?  Have you all finished your Christmas shopping??  I got a lot more done yesterday,  thankfully.  We just have got a few little bits to get and food shopping of course.

We have another really busy weekend,  we are driving down to Brixham to collect Paul's Mum and bring her back here to stay overnight then Paul's brother will pick her up on Sunday evening and take up to Birmingham for 2 weeks,  she is spending Christmas at Paul's sisters,  it will be nice to spend some quality time with her, we are hoping to go for a walk around Bourton on Water if weather is good. 

Today I am sharing the beautiful Christmas card I received from Maria, It's so sparkly, I love the stencilled snowflake background and that gorgeous sheer ribbon, all finished off with sparkly die cut bell and stars 😍. 

Thank you so much my lovely for a beautiful Christmas card. XXX 

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

Bit Box Silhouette card

 Good Morning Ladies,

I hope that you are being battered by the awful wind and rain, once again!!   The poor people that live the other side of Bourton on the Water (about 3 miles from us) are still trapped in their houses by the 30 + huge fir trees that fell a couple of weeks ago, they must be si frustrated, especially this time of year, they don't have phone or Internet services either due to the cables being down.  They must panic every time the wind picks up!  

You will have to zoom in to see the devastation,  the trees are having to be sawn up one by one which is why its taking so long.  

The girls and I popped into Witney for one last Brunch together before Christmas,  it was really busy but really lovely to spend that quality time together.  

Today I used one of the inky backgrounds that I made a month or so ago,  I will share a photo of it below

Its hard to capture the sparkle (its the light bits)

I used Forest Moss & Bundled Sage Distress Sprays and Pumice Stone & Mowed Lawn Distress Oxide Sprays and a few spritzes of water to create the background. 

I used my Inkylicious Ornate Deer/Stag (that I had never used 🙄!  To stamp the stag , I was thankful that I used my stamp tool as the background was Watercolour paper that was really textured,  so I needed to restamp several times,  also, because I used Oxide sprays the ink seemed to be absorbed by the oxide and wouldn't stay a deep dark black, do as I stamped the stag one last time I quickly added clear embossing powder and heat set, this made the black a lot more intense and gave a lovely shine too.  I did the same with the sentiment,  and finished the card with some tiny sparkles on the baubles.  

I hope that you all have as good a day as possible,

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Bit Box Christmas Tags

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

Happy 'Hump Day' I feel that this week is going wsy too fast and I still have so much to do,  I was home alone yesterday so I got a good bit of shopping done,  thank heavens for the internet,  I was thinking about shopping yesterday and wondered about who did our Christmas shopping as children, I can honestly say that I never saw my Mum going shopping,  not once,  so my Dad must have done it all,  I used to go food shopping with my Dad on a Friday evening,  I have no idea why Mum never used to go, in her later years, after Dad died she started to really enjoy walking round the shops in town.  Funny the things that come into your mind when you are on your own. 

I created a Christmas tag for today's post, using these two pieces of Ink Spritzed background to create the tag. 

I used Embossing paste through a stencil that I added Gold Embossing powder to, after allowing it to dry I heat set the powder and used a die to cut into a tag,  to embellish the tag I used my Tim Holtz  die to cut the Poinsettia and Holly leaves out of the two pieces of spritzed card.  I used gold shimmer card for the top layer of the die cut.  I arranged the die cuts onto the tag and added the sentiment and some ribbon to finish.  

I hope that you all have a good day, 

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

2 Card-I O Wreath cards (throwback)

 

Good Morning Ladies,

Paul and I had a lovely day out yesterday,  we went first to Burford Garden centre to look for gift ideas, Paul's eye's almost popped out of his head at some of their prices,  I mean they are ridiculous!   We left there and drove through Burford that looks so pretty with the Christmas lights on. We made our way to the Fosseway garden centre which is a favourite of the Girls & I,  we got a couple of gifts there,  plus the clothe area had a sale and I managed to get a new top and we got some proper beef dripping from the amazing 'proper' butcher that is based in the food area.  You can tell that he's a proper butcher from the cuts that he sells,  he has things like Ox Cheek and Oxtail,  he prepares just about anything for you too, he even has the Crown Lamb Roast... 

I haven't seen these for years, it has an apricot & pork sausage meat stuffing.  Everything looked so fresh and well prepared, at first glance you would think its expensive compared to Supermarket but you are paying for a skill aren't you.  A different kind of craft in a way.

Matt still doesn't know what he wants for Christmas,  he was showing me something on Sunday, a battery power bank for when they use their caravan without electric hook up,  but then he scrolled down the price....£700,  the shock on his face was comical  🤣😂, I said well, I can contribute towards it but you may need a 'whip round' for the rest. !🤣😂  He said oh no don't worry.  So I'm waiting for another idea.  I have a couple bits for Becca,  we picked up a load of bulbs yesterday so that I can create her a couple of planters for Spring.  Something they can both enjoy too. Do any of you find Christmas shopping mentally draining??

After our lovely shopping day I didn't get to sit and finish a card for today so I am sharing a couple of Wreath style card that featured on the blog on this date in 2022.  

I actually totally forgot that I had these stamps 🙄,  which makes me think I need to store all of my stamps and dies in an area together,  I currently have all of my Cardio stamps in a box together, I think I need to take all the Christmas stamps out and have all brands Christmas in one place.  Is that what you all do?  

I hope that you all have a lovely day, 

Love & hugs,

Sandra xxx 

Bit Box Christmas card

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you all had a lovely weekend,  we have a bonus day off together today, which I think Paul will be glad of as he was up before 7am yesterday making sure the freezer was defrosted (as you can incur an extra charge if it isn't defrosted) luckily he had all sorted early as they rang at 8am and arrived 15 mins later.  It was a little chaotic getting it in, they had to take the back door off,  I am so glad that I stayed upstairs out of the chaos.  It looks very nice though and its very quiet!  

Here are some photos of my bit box,  well....... a fraction of the collection of bit boxes if I'm being honest!!  I picked the out the more interesting bits to photograph. 

I used a piece of the red and green Alcohol ink background with gold glitter accents.  I used my Tim Holtz Festive Overlay sentiment stamp for the sentiment and finished the snowflake with a red gem. 

I am looking forward to seeing what you create with your Bit Box contents.  

Have a great week,

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra xxx

Your last Christmas Challenge cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

Goodness me yesterday just flew by, I can't even begin to explain how exhausted I was by the of the day, they all left at about 9pm, I just needed my bed straight after.  But it was worth every ache and pain,  hearing the laughter and buzz of constant chatting just fills my Mummy heart with joy 😊 

Let's have a look at your makes this week...

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

This is my card for this week, I used an old embossing folder, die cut snow flakes out of silver card, and used the remainder as a stencil.

Lilian I love the effect you got with the partial embossing,  and the stencilling,  your colour choice is lovely too.  

Thank you so much for sharing your card XXX

Karen's Description:

Well I’ve turned one of the foiled ScanNCut sentiments into a card Matted on to silver Mirri and a Spellbinder snowflake

You have really inspired me to want get the S & C out and have a play.  I absolutely love how those foiled sentiments turned out,  such a perfect clean & simple card. 

Thank you so much for sharing your card XXX

Maria 

Maria has shared three amazing Christmas cards,  all completely different,  all beautiful and glittery and sure to bring a smile to their recipient.  Those mittens with the snowflakes on, so cute 😍 

Thank you so much my lovely for sharing your cards XXX 

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I hope you all have a lovely Sunday,   we are having Fridge Freezer delivered between 7am and 12pm😯

Love & hugs to all of you,  

Sandra xxx 

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

We have a lovely family day ahead, busy but its a nice kind of busy.   I don't know what I'd do without Paul on days like this,  I can't even remember the days when he didn't have the feintist idea how to cook a roast potato, now he is the 'Roastie King' in our family.  We did some prep last night but as Paul said it's just a regular Sunday dinner,  just a bit bigger.  

I finally had the energy to put the baubles on the tree,  it's one of those jobs that you have to be in the mood for. 

Here it is, no Star/Angel as we just haven't found a star that we like. We put our older one in the Dining room for the first time, the girls had fun choosing really gaudy colour baubles for it, it does look fun!  

Shopping was bloody exhausting,  why can't it just be simple?  I think we spent about an hour and a half looking at fridge freezers,  they all look the same, but the prices were ridiculous,  why do you need a fridge/freezer that links to your phone to tell you the expiry dates of your food,  or have a screen that you can write notes on?  Why !!  I think we have decided on one!  But then its 'from' £40 to deliver, £25 to take the old one away,  then extra to install,  although surely its only plugging it in!  So we are looking on line, we got our Dishwasher and washing machine from AO.com, so we will look there. 

These are all of the Christmas cards I made this year,  I'm sure there were more!  But thats plenty for what I need.  I enjoyed making every one of them.  

How many did you all manage to create?  

Well I must go and get organised for my guests, 

I hope that you all have a good Saturday,  

Love & hugs to all,

Sandra xxx 

Our Last Challenge of 2024

 

Good Friday Morning my lovely friends,  

Well thank goodness it's Friday, we have a busy weekend ahead, thankfully Paul has taken today and Monday off to help prepare for the weekend and recuperate after,  we also need to go shopping for a fridge/freezer,  it seemed as though Paul has fixed it but the very loud noise returned a couple of days later and anything in the salad drawer freezes!  Frustratingly its the time of year that you really need your fridge.  We like to get our shopping in a week before Christmas to avoid having to deal with supermarkets at busy times with a wheelchair trolley !!!  We did consider having someone out to look at it but its a few years old and the cheapest call out fee was £65,  before the hourly rate and parts, so we will look for an upgrade. 

Our Last Challenge 

As we are all clearing our desks and craft areas away as we wind down for the year,  I thought it might be a good time to use some of those backgrounds, off cuts of pretty papers and card stock rather than putting them in a box or even worse binning them,  I have quite a few backgrounds that I have made and only used one of a set that I made, as When I am messy crafting I tend to make the most of the messy time!                    If you don't have any bits you can just go 'freestyle' and make whatever you like.

I hope that you have a fabulous Friday,

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

Kraft Christmas

 

Good Morning Ladies,  

I hope today finds you as well as possible,  have you all got Festive plans this weekend??   We have my sister and her husband coming over for a 'pre-Christmas family dinner', it will be lovely for me as all of my brood at the same table, which doesn't happen often enough,  in fact to me that will be the best gift ever!  Only Emily can make it this time, which is a bit sad,  Claire and Dave are just too busy this weekend.  Although 10 of us is plenty, we are having Roast Beef & Chicken and all the trimmings,  we didn't want turkey a week or so before we have it for Christmas.  

I had my scans yesterday afternoon,  just the wait now for results,  I honestly don't think I have any dignity left, with My bladder clinic appointments, gynecology appointments,hysteroscopy,  coil fitting and this scan (inside & out), a bit like when we have babies,  nobody looks at your face in that situation 🤣😂

Today's card will probably be my last Christmas card for this year, I thought I would make this last one a simple one,  my goodness Ladies if you could see the state of my desk after this last weeks crafting,  its the surrounding areas too, on the floor beside my desk, the window sill etc, so I must have a big reorganise today,  get a lot of Christmas stuff put away, although I want to leave some out for making some tags.                                                             I used the 'Lovely as a Tree' stamp set,  simply stamped onto linen effect card in Versamark and embossed with Gold embossing powder, I added the sentiment in the same way, adding some twine and some Red gems to embellish, I mounted onto Kraft card for a change.  

So what shall we move onto for our next Challenge??  

I hope you all have a good day, 

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Pastel Christmas card

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies,  

Are you all opening Advent calendars?? The girls have one, Paul and I said that we'd just choose a chocolate from the tin each day, trouble is it rarely stops at one !!  But we aren't doing it every day, so I guess that balances it out.🤣😂 

After Christmas we will be on our 'Big Wedding Slim', If I don't I will be even more limited to dresses than I was for Emily's,  so we both decided that we well cut down on our calories and drop some of the bad habits we have fallen into,  like at 5pm we have a cup of tea when Paul finishes work and we'll have a cake of couple of biscuits with it,  which is silly just an hour or so before dinner,  but I like to have a snack with my pills.  

I quite liked the pastel shades of yesterday's card so I thought I create a similar look with Distress Oxide inks, I used Tumbled Glass, Spun Sugar and Shaded Lilac Distress Oxide, which I added to a Tim Holtz brushstroke stamp and then spritzed with water then  stamped onto a piece of watercolour card. I dried it and popped it onto a silver glitter mat and then onto a card base, I used the same glitter card to die cut the snowflake, which I embellished with a crystal. 

I hope that you have a good day, 

Love & hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

Alcohol ink Christmas card

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

We had a sunny start to the day yesterday,  it makes such a difference to your mood when you wake with the Sun streaming through the window,  Paul brings me a cup of tea in bed every morning and if it's a lovely sunny day he will open the curtains so that can see the sun,  he does it if it snows too, in fact this last time it was Soph that came bursting in and literally threw the curtains open in excitement,  it made me smile that they still get excited about snow, even at 24 !! 

I saw some lovely Alcohol ink backgrounds on Pinterest by a lady called Ciara Tayler on Pinterest, I loved the pastel shades so I used Juniper, Cosmopolitan,  Cool Peri and Cloudy Blue Alcohol ink to create one background that I cut up into smaller panels. I added white glitter mat behind the panel and used the same white glitter card to create the die cut snowflakes, I added them to side of the Alcohol ink panel and added a sentiment to the bottom of the card.  

Not traditional Christmas colours but nice for a change.  

I hope that you have a good day, 

Love & Hugs to all of you,  

Sandra xxx 

Sonia's Adorable Christmas card

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

Well that was a wild weekend,  people round here will be ok for logs for their fires for most of 2025!  There were loads of fallen trees, Matt tried a few different routes to get to ours to pick up some parcels,  the only 'open' road had a fallen tree being help up by power lines!   Thankfully he got here and home safely.  

We spent yesterday putting Christmas tree up and other bits,  listening to Christmas songs, the girls came home early too, which was lovely,  the park was closed again yesterday.  They were putting their trees up too, Soph goes all out in her room, she has all of our old foil decorations,  also some really old ones from my Mums, it looked very oriental circa 1980's.  She loves it ! 🤣😂

Sonia allowed me to share this adorable card that she made for family.  Everything about it is perfect,  from the soft pastel colours to the super cute characters.  Guaranteed to warm someone's heart this Christmas 😍

Thanks Sonia for allowing me to share XXX 

I hope that you all have a great start to the week,

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra xxx 

More Christmas Challenge cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

From a very Wet & Wild Gloucestershire,  I was awake most of Friday night as we were being battered by the wind, our bedroom is on a corner with dual aspect windows which made the wind sound a lot worse.  I didn't let up all night, the rain was hammering against the windows too, thankfully though we had no damage, which given the number of big trees in the garden is a miracle!  As Saturday progressed though the wind got worse, all roads to Bourton on Water were cut off by fallen trees, as I am writing this our electricity keeps dropping out as the wind is getting stronger!             I hope that you all stay safe and dry 😘

Let's look at what you have been making :

Karen

Karen's Description:

Here is the card I have just mentioned on blog

A Woodware stamp and a ScanNcut sentiment A few nail art gems to embellish a little Hope things go well today x

Simple & perfect, such a great design, perfect for batch card making.  That sentiment is so perfect for that stamp, the font is spot on. 

Thank you for sharing your card and for the inspiration XXX 

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Hi, here is my card for this week, 

Patterned paper, stencil and the tree stamp as usual.

Such a lovely card Lilian,  that patterned paper is so lovely,  the little tree stamped at the bottom is a addition.  I love that stencilled background too.         Thank you so much for another lovely Christmas card XXX

Maria

Maria's Description:

This is a card that I put together first this morning 🤭. My desk looks like a bomb has gone off 😂

Hope it's alright.......

Your card is more than 'alright' Maria, it's lovely,  the embossed frame is so pretty and leaves you a perfect place to put your sentiment,  I love your glittery embellishments too. 

Thank you so much for another lovely Christmas card XXX 

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Thank you so much Ladies for supporting the Blog Challenge 😘 

Have a lovely Sunday,

Love & hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

Mixed up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies,

Main thing I want to say today is that I hope & pray that you all stay safe from the storm this weekend,  they must be expecting it bad here as Reggie (the owner of the Wildlife Park ) has decided to close the park today, the acres of parkland has many huge trees so made the call after taking advice yesterday.   The upside we get a lovely, bonus family day!!  I think we are going to get the tree up and the girls want to decorate their rooms. 

Gina

Gina has put her recovery time to good use, look at this gorgeous Baby Shawl.  

She said that her fingers are too sore to knit but she could manage to crochet.  

Your Baby Shawl is beautiful Gina, such a lovely design too!  Thank you so much for sharing it with us XXX 

Lilian 

Lilian treated herself to some new craft things this week.  I absolutely love that Tim Holtz stamp, I can't wait to see what you create with it.   The tags will be perfect for your continued Tag journey.  The paints will be perfect for your Gelli plate, they are the same ones I use.  

Thank you so much for sharing your shopping with us XXX 

Maria

Maria bought herself some ink pad storage from Temu,  I have looked at it but wasn't sure what it would be like......

Maria's Description:

Here is something for Saturday, this is a new buy from Temu and I'm very happy with it.  Took some time to arrive but that was ok. It came with some little screws and a screwdriver to hold it together .  All I need now is to label them up 😊

It looks perfect Maria, do you remember how much it was?  I need another two, so seeing your review I might order them from Temu.

Thank you so much for sharing your shopping with us XXX 

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I hope that you all stay safe my lovelies,

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx