Stamping & Handmade Cards

I'm back to share a little of my recent creative pursuits - which come in the form of handmade cards.

This is a craft I really enjoy doing.  It isn't hard to do and you really don't need to have a lot of supplies (although I must admit that I do have a lot!), but it really all comes down to your creative imagination and what you can do to transform a plain card into something which is attractive yet still serves a practical purpose.   

 

One of the very best things about card making though is that you can finish up at the end of a craft session with several cards to show for all your efforts. 

We have added a few new stamps to our family collection - a number of us share stamps together to keep costs down.  We had lots of single words (like "Congratulations") or short sentiments (like "Happy Birthday") but nothing more, so these latest stamps have little verses or sayings on them.  I must say I totally love them!

 

I wanted the sayings to be the main feature of these cards, so they designing is very basic.  I've done this particular one before but really liked it, so happy to make another for someone else.

Here is a slightly different variation using a different colour palette.

I just love the perfume bottle stamp!

 

A simple patchwork style card

Another card made using a variety of Washi Tapes

Not bad for an afternoon of card making.  I know the styles are all similar, but I figured if what I was doing looked good and it worked, why not stick with it and make a few cards.

So that is my latest collection of cards, all from an afternoon of crafting.  I wish I could do fun things like this every day!

Welcome Back . . . it's been awhile

Wecome back to my little space in blog world.  It has been such a long time since I've posted anything and I have truly missed it.  What started out as a couple of weeks vacation time has ended up being a lengthly time away due to a problem which has been completely out of my control.

We had some very serious storms and cyclone strength winds where we live, back in January.  As a result, we did suffer a bit of damage to our home, but also major problems with our internet service provider.  We have had many weeks of not being able to access the internet.  Problems were caused in our area as a result of the severe weather and it has taken our Internet Service Provider weeks and weeks to get things fixed properly.  Finally we are hopeful that we are all back on track again - fingers crossed!  You don't realise how heavily reliant we are upon the internet in our daily lives until you have to do without it.

It has been impossible to try and run my online store and for those of you who may have wondered, this is the reason why it was closed for so long.

I keep reminding myself to look at the bigger picture though, we only suffered a minimal amount of damage and inconvenience compared to many others.  We have not suffered damaging flood waters and lost everything like so many others have done.  My heart aches for them all and I realise how very blessed we are.

 

Let me fill you in on where I have been since Christmas.  We had our first family vacation in 4 years and went away for a few weeks, it was the best time! 

We travelled to northern Queensland (in Australia).  I had never been to this area before and it was incredibly beautiful.  These photos aren't from a travel brochure, I took them myself!   

I was so amazed at the beautiful colours in the ocean, lots of different variations of blues, greens and aquas and there were palm trees everywhere.  Northern Queensland has a tropical climate and being summer time in Australia, it was quite hot.  Perfect swimming weather!

We travelled around the Whitsunday Islands and went on an Ocean Rafting adventure.  We spent the day travelling around the Islands in one of the boats you can see in the photo.  Because of the design of the boat they are able to surf the waves and therefore the ride is a lot of fun - a bit like white water rafting, but out in the ocean instead.  Don't let these calm, flat waters fool you - in the afternoon the winds had picked up and the waves were huge.  These boats are also able to come right in to the shore as you can see above.  We hiked up a mountain to get see the magnificent view of White Haven Beach.  The tour guide said that is looks different every day.  It certainly was spectacular.

 

One of the highlights was snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef.  This was a totally new experience for us all.  These photos were taken by our younger girls using their underwater cameras, so not the best quality, but they still give you an idea.  The variety and colours of both the coral and the fish on the Reef  were spectacular.  I am so thankful for the opportunity to experience this and see part of the Great Barrier Reef first-hand.  We did more snorkelling on the beaches later in the day, swimming amongst the prettiest looking fish, which swam right into the shallow waters along the shore.  We live close to the beach, but we had never experienced anything like this before.  Our kids loved it!!

The places we visited were all very picturesque but let me put in a bit of reality here to paint the full picture for you.  We have a large family, there are 6 of us, so it is expensive to stay in any of the resort style accommodations, especially at peak holiday season.  We camped instead, at a very nice park which catered so well for families - wonderful facilities and lots of fun activities to keep the kids entertained.  We all enjoyed our vacation!

 

Of course, there is nothing like every day reality to make a vacation seem like it never even happened, or at least like it was a long distant memory!  We arrived home to the chaos of getting things ready for the start of the school year - covering and labeling school books and supplies for 4 children, uniforms, shoes, lunch boxes . . . and so the list went on.  We had one week to get it all done in and then the kids were all back at school.  It's been a busy start to the year, new routines, more homework to juggle with after school activities, if you have children then you know what I mean.

 

And did I do any craft at all during all these weeks of absence from my last blog post - well of course I did.  Not a lot, admittedly, but definitely some!

 

Here is a new Ripple Blanket which I have started to crochet over the last few weeks.  I only pick it up to work on when the days are a little cooler, so it is still in the early stages (it is still technically summer here, athough it is raining heavily outside as I am typing right now).  I am loving the colour variations - blues, greens and aquas.   These colours remind me of the beautiful ocean colours around the Whitsunday Islands which we saw on our vacation.   Just picking this up and working on a row or two at a time is so relaxing and working with colour never fails to inspire me - it is like it brings a smile to my day.

 

 

Christmas Baking - Gift Ideas

The weather has been warming up in our part of the world and I must admit I look longingly at pictures of a lovely white Christmas and wonder what that would be like.  One day I would love to experience that!  For this year though, the weather here is predicted to be quite hot on Christmas Day, so it will be a day spent in the air-conditioning or swimming in the pool.

It has been a bit of a challenge to do Christmas baking this year with the temperatures being quite high, especially when working with chocolate!  Here is what I've been able to bake over the last couple of days.

Cherry & Almond Biscotti

These are so delicious, definitely my favourite!  I added lots more coloured glace cherries and whole blanched almonds this year - a huge improvement.  I have to keep them put away out of sight otherwise we won't have any left for Christmas. 

Christmas Scroll Cookies

These were honestly a disaster to make.  If I ever make them again I will use my own cookie dough recipe. The recipe I used here had cookie dough which would not hold together, it kept falling apart, not from being crumbly because it was moist enough, just the type of dough it was - it was a nightmare to try and roll up to try and achieve the scroll effect.  I was amazed when they came out like they did and actually resembled some sort of scroll, I had expected much worse.

Chocolate Checkerboard Shortbread

This is a recipe I have been making for years.  It is yummy, easy to make and creates a nice effect with the checkerboard pattern.  I did colour the plain dough to try and make it red, to look a bit Christmassy - as you can see it turned out more of a pink shade instead.  They still look good and taste great!

Chocolate Rum Balls

This is one of those traditional old recipes which most people love.  You can choose to add the rum or leave it out altogether - they taste fine either way.

Marble Rocky Road

This was super easy to make and lots of fun - it is just Cadbury Chocolate melts, imitation cherries, mini marshmallows and Natural Confectionary Snakes cut into small pieces.  At the request of my children I didn't add in any nuts, although I personally think it would taste great with nuts.

 

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Today we have been busy making Christmas chocolates - using Christmas themed chocolate molds and Cadbury White Chocolate Melts which we have added colours to.  The kids have had so much fun making these!!

We plan to gift wrap a selection of baked goodies as gifts for our neighbours and friends.  It is so nice to be able to share homemade treats with others. 

 

Of course we will also have some left for our own family celebrations for Christmas Day too! 

 

I hope you have enjoyed seeing some of our favourite Christmas treats.

 

Getting Ready For Christmas

The past few weeks since my last update have flown by so quickly!  Christmas is approaching fast and like most other people I know, we are still busy getting ready, but I am pleased to say that my list of things to do is slowly diminishing in size - what a great feeling when you cross something else off that list!

 

School holidays started awhile ago now for us - so that means it is no longer just one person (me) who is out and about during the day, shopping, running errands etc, it is now 5 of us!  Trust me, that can take some co-ordinating sometimes, especially with the busy stores full of Christmas Shoppers.

Here is a small glimpse at some of what we have been up to over the last couple of weeks . . .

Making Christmas Cards for family and friends

Shopping ~ this store has the most amazing Winter Wonderland display and it even snows!

Making Snow Cones (and Fairy Floss/Cotton Candy) at our Church's Christmas Carols

Going to see all the spectacular Christmas Light displays - a yearly tradition we always do together with close family friends.  This angel was huge, like a tall building!

I loved this little village with all the twinkling lights, it made me feel like I was looking into a Thomas Kinkade painting

Packing Christmas Hampers because Christmas is about the gift of giving.  This is a great activity to be part of to encourage our children to learn to be charitable to others.

 

Wrapping Gifts.  These were what we gave to all our lovely Playgroup ladies.

And of course decorating our own Christmas Tree - which we did back on 1st December

Today we are having a day at home.  Friends over to play with the kids - lots of games, swimming and fun on the trampoline and I know the girls want to make up some Christmas crafts. 

 

For me, today is going to be a day of Christmas Baking and first on the agenda are these cute Christmas Swirl Cookies which I have been wanting to try out.

courtesy of Pinterest

I also want to make some more cherry & almond bread which was a favourite last Christmas and some white chocolate rocky road which is a yummy Christmas treat.  The recipe for this is courtesy of retromummy.  All of today's baking will make some nice gifts for friends and neighbours as well as provide our family with some delicious Christmas snacks.

 

Do you have any favourite recipes you like to make up at Christmas time?  If you have any recipe ideas for gifts especially, please let me know, I am always on the look-out for new recipe ideas!

Christmas Party Decorations

It's been a busy few days and I have been folding what seemed like mountains of white tissue paper! 

Last weekend we had a special Christmas party especially for the ladies and teen girls at our church.  The reason for all my tissue paper folding was to make some of the decorations.  The room we used isn't really like the old traditional church halls, as we have quite a new building, but it is a large open space and it can be a challenge to create a bit of atmostphere in a space like that.  Being a huge fan of Pinterest, and having already tried out some of the decorating ideas I have found on there, we decided the giant pom-pom flower balls would look great around the room.  So I folded and folded and then folded some more and this is what it ended up looking like when you looked up.  It was a big success and received lots of admiring comments.  Best of all, being white (to help create a white Christmas), it also will look great for an upcoming wedding and more Christmas parties.

It was a lovely afternoon and enjoyed by everyone.  One of the fun things we had set up was a cookie buffet full of Christmas shaped cookies, coloured frostings and a large variety of chocolates and candies - all for a fun activity of decorating cookies - a big success!

 

 

These little pearl candy balls were my favourites!!

 

Everyone also made a Christmas Craft.  This was the craft - a Christmas Tree made from Ribbon and Beads. This idea is courtesy of Pinterest found here. 

Once all the activities were over, we had a secret santa and also a delicious afternoon tea.  Here is a picture of my contribution.  I loved how it turned out and it was so easy to make - marshmallows on skewer sticks, dipped partially in melted white chocolate and dipped in either grated chocolate or sprinkles.  It made up a pretty flower posy for the table!  The gorgeous white pot is from IKEA.

 

I must remember this when I am next doing a birthday party for one of my children!!

Christmas Gingerbread House

A Christmas Gingerbread House is a family tradition that I remember going right back to my own childhood years.  My mum used to make us a gingerbread house all decorated with lollies (candy) and she also used to make several extras to give away as gifts to family and friends.  They were something quite special and it wasn't like today where you see gingerbread houses in all the stores, back then you had to make your own.

This tradition is something that I have carried through for my own family and it is something my children look forward to each Christmas.  I've had some great years where I cut out the gingerbread pieces and assemble the house and decorate it and everything turns out perfectly, but I also remember one year when we had a particularly hot summer and my gingerbread house was a complete disaster - the walls kept sliding down and the roof caving in, nothing seemed to set hard like it was supposed to.  That year we had to be especially careful when eating it because the walls and roof were all held together with toothpicks and pins!!

 

So once again it is getting near to Christmas and time to make another Gingerbread House!

 

Last year I attempted something a little different and for the first time didn't bake my own Gingerbread, instead I went along to the school where my children attend and joined over 100 other ladies for an evening of decorating gingerbread houses made from kits.  I enjoyed it so much that this year I went along and took two of my daughters with me.

 

 

Imagine a large room full of women and young girls, gingerbread house kits and tables loaded full with colourful candy and you can picture what a fun evening this was!! 

 

Sorting the candy into colours, ready for decorating.  My daughter's eyes lit up, she has never seen such large quantities of candy to choose from and she especially loved that she could pick and choose whatever she wanted.

I think her method for decorating was to put on as much candy as possible!

 

And these are our finished Gingerbread Houses

 

 

I love that we go home with a completed gingerbread house, all wrapped up and ready for Christmas!

 

 

Lace Doily Stamps - More Handmade Cards

The countdown is on . . . for the final weeks in our school year that is!  I knew it would be a fast term, but I can't believe how quickly the weeks are racing by ~ and my lists of things that need to be done during these final weeks is growing by the day.  Why is it that this is always the most busy time of the year?  But there is also a lot of excitement that culminates around everything going on, especially with the lead up to Christmas.

 

Like many schools, ours has a presentation night at the end of the year, this one especially for high school students.  We are so proud of our oldest daughter, she has worked very hard this year and been very focused on her school assignments and it was beautiful to see her absolute joy when she received awards for two different subjects this year.  One of those very special moments when you just love being a parent!

 

Well with everything else that has been going on, I have actually managed to slip in a little bit of papercraft activity and finally tried out a new set of stamps which I purchased at the last craft show I went to.

The set I used is the one in the top right corner.  They look like little lace doilies in a variety of shapes and sizes.

I didn't have a lot of time and wanted to keep the design simple so I could get a couple of variations made.  I love laces and everything pretty and feminine, so these stamps really appeal to me.

I was even able to color co-ordinate everything, which is very much my style too.  The inks I used were some new ones I purchased earlier in the year from Close to My Heart.  They are so pretty!  The dots are all made using Liquid Pearls and the flowers were actually white flowers and I coloured them to match using my Copic Pens. 

I had to try out one using the Eiffel Tower stamp too!

So there you go, quick and easy, quite literally.  A few more nice cards for the collection of handmade cards.

I hope you have been enjoying your own crafty projects this week!!