Happy Boxing Day

Evening,

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas.

I joined a carers group shortly after starting to look after Mum. We meet up once a month for a well earned break, coffee and a chat. There are always useful tips to be learned from one another, and a hug to be given, or received, if you are having a hard time.

As this was the last meeting before Christmas we were given homework......to do something completely selfish. Something just for yourself over the festive period. 

I stayed with my daughter, Sin-in-law and the youngest grandchildren. We had a fabulous Christmas morning with all the usual traditions, and then they went to Becki's fathers for Christmas Dinner. 

This gave me the perfect opportunity to do my homework, so I put on It's a Wonderful Life, a favourite Christmas film, painted my nails and then spent the rest of the evening watching what I wanted on the box and doing my cross stitch. All in all the perfect way to spend the day., and tick the homework box lol.

There comes a point with the Grandchildren, where much as I hate it, I resort to giving them money for Christmas, and this year was no exception. 

Despite it being what they have asked for, it always feels like you have put very little thought into your gift, so I created these wallets to put the money into. It at least showed that I had made an effort.

They were created using a Sizzix die, some Christmas papers and a handmade poinsettia. 

They were greeted with gaps of delight and WOW from the littlies at least so it was a job well done.

Thanks for stopping by.

Love and crafty hugs

Kimx

Countdown to Christmas - Day 5 (Edited to add pictures)

Evening,

Having finished writing all of my Christmas cards, I have set up another production line, this time for Teachers Prezzies.

I showed my daughter a bag of sweets that I made a while ago as a Halloween gift. I thought that it might make a nice, and relatively cheap, gift to give the teachers at the school and Nursery. Little did I know that it would involve ALL of the teachers in the entire school not just the ones that the kids have in their classes!!

Never mind, I'm only too happy to be able to help, so I set up a bit of a production line with piles of all the individual bits so that the bags are quicker to put together.

No photos tonight I'm afraid as it has got too late, so I will edit the post tomorrow and add some.

Thanks for stopping by

Hugs Kimx

Production line.

Items used to create the Sweetie Bags

This was the original design that the Christmas sweetie bag was based on.

Finished Sweetie bags

Welcome to 2015. I've been inspired by my Granddaughter

Evening Everyone,
Having had to make some last minute Christmas gifts for my Granddaughters friends, I found myself thinking what a fabbie idea the little gift bag was.

I have several regular customers who come in most days with their children, and so I decided that rather than give the family a Christmas card, I would make a small gift bag for their children.

I chose some Lili of the Valley toppers and cut them out with assorted Nesties.

They all seemed to go best with blue card stock, so I stuck with that. Sorry Megan not nearly as inspired as your choices :O)

I wrote the children's names on their bag with assorted stickers from my stash.

A bit of glitter glue, some brads, a pencil and rubber and a small bag of sweeties and you have a rather nice gift.

I can see me doing these again throughout the year for things like Easter, Halloween and even birthdays.

They are so quick and easy to do and can make a few sweeties or other small gift look really quite special.
I'm pleased to see that it has been much warmer today, I even managed to take my extra non uniform cardigan off. Long may it continue.
Have a good evening.
Happy Crafting and hugs
Kimx

Edited - This little blog of mine has started 2015 with 70,000 hits.
My sincere thanks to all of you that have visited.
I hope to see you throughout the coming year and thank you once again for all of the lovely messages that you have left me. xx

Countdown to Christmas - Day 18

Evening Everyone,
Nearly at the end of another week, I can't believe how quickly this one has flown by.
Now I know that I'm a last minute girly, which is obviously where the kids get it from, so I shouldn't have been surprised when Megan asked me if I could help her make some last minute gift bags full of chocolate to give to her school friends.

Fortunately I remembered a sweetie bag that I made for a Halloween challenge several years ago and followed that recipe.

I found some precoloured Christmas images amongst my stash from which she chose something to compliment each of her friends favourite colours.

Kids are so much more thoughtful aren't they, I would probably have gone traditional Christmas red and green, how predictable.

She wrote their names on their bags with stickers, also found in my stash.
A liberal amount of glitter glue and presents completed. She was happy with the finished articles and I hope that her friends will be too.
Hugs Kimx

Rollagraphs at the Woodware Bloghop.

Evening Everyone,
Well, I don't know what sort of day you have had today, but we had another lovely class at Davina's, and even though most people opted to apply the ink to their pieces of resist stamping using a brayer everyone seemed to end up with very inky fingers.
Just what crafting should be, nice and messy. Well, I like to get messy anyway and as none of the ladies asked for gloves I assume that they must have been OK with it as well lol.

This week Woodware have been having a Blog Hop with Clearsnap.
They have been making cards and gift using Rollagraphs which are wonderful stamps on a wheel.
I did a class on them a while ago and this is a card that I made from bits and pieces from my class folder.

The background behind the butterfly and the blue and green card has all been stamped using the rollagraph system. It is great way of filling a large area quite quickly, and there are some fantastic designs available.

I also made a couple of gift bags filled with sweeties using the rollagraph designs.

I hope that you have enjoyed the Woodware bloghop and that you will stop in again on Monday to see what  the new challenge is going to be.

Happy Crafting

hugs Kimx