How was your Christmas?

Hope you all had a good Christmas and are continuing to enjoy the holiday.  I was going to put my Christmas day photos on yesterday but fell asleep!

Mmmmn Choccie!

The homemade chocolate snowman (left) was popular.

Christmas for us was just our family of four at home (my inlaws have gone to the Phillippines) and of course, the concentration was on the boys...

...and their presents..

..the highlight of which was this Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle.

We also went out sledging.  This was the temperature as recorded in our hire car:

But great fun was had on the slopes:

..and yes, even I went down!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

We're off to visit my sister and her family in Milton Keynes tomorrow and will be stopping over, so there will be no post tomorrow.

Look forward to seeing all your seasonal pictures!

Thanks for stopping by,

qwiksave

Personalised Cards & Gift Tags

I love sending (and receiving, but no-one ever does! :-(   )  personalised presents and cards.  When I gave my cousin the mini photo album of her son taken over 20 years ago, she was absolutely delighted.  This is why I will be making the majority of my presents & cards in a personal way this Christmas.

I was delighted to find that the HP Creativity website have got LOADS of items to personalise (free) including these gift tags that I have made.   (Some of the options incidently, use Smilebox technology, which is a program that gets put on your computer. There are other options including Disney Xmas - these are on the theme of 'A Christmas Carol' but you don't have to use these).

I also used something else 'free' to make these pictures:

and

The background papers were 'free' as in they came with a cardmaking magazine this month, 'Papercrafting Essentials'.  You can, of course, get papers free on the internet if you hunt around.  Crafting can be an expensive hobby, so its good to keep the costs down when you can and 'free' and 'personalised' feel good! 

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Christmas Abstract Background

I revisited a craft I did on here in April today.  I haven't been doing repeated techniques much on here as I do like to try new ones.

But I remembered liking the abstract effect of this particular craft so decided to try doing it again using Christmas colours:

As you can possibly tell it is still wet as I've only just finished - I am such a 'do things at the last minute' person. 

This technique uses watercolour pens, Pearl-X powder and Spray starch (the type you use for ironing) which react with each other.  They carry on working for a while after you've mixed them and when they are dry they look different again.  

I personally love the abstract look, but I know its not everyone's cup of tea.  Looking forward to seeing how it dries and if it looks OK I will probably put it onto a Christmas card.

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Let it Snow!

..But not yet!  We can wait until nearer Christmas.  And speaking of Christmas, lots of my crafty friends on MSE (moneysavingexpert.com) have already started to make homemade decorations, gifts and cards for this year's festive season.  Making your own can be time consuming, so its best to make sure you allow yourself plenty of time.

For my craft tonight, I was going to be doing some more of my 50th Anniversary canvas but I encountered yet another technical problem, :-O  so I made this Christmas decoration instead:

It's a really difficult thing to photograph successfully, particularly at night, but its an irridescent clear Christmas Tree bauble that I have added things to.

Randomly around the outside I have stuck on some confetti snowflakes (sorry, you can't really tell by these photos) with Glossy Accents and inside there is a torn piece of paper with the words 'Let it Snow' on.  I stuck glitter around the words and then sprinkled some inside the bauble, together with lots of blue and white snowflake confetti.

It now resembles a snow globe (without the water) and there is a definite temptation to keep on shaking it. I might have to keep it away from my boys (& myself!) or I can see ourselves getting glitter, glass and snowflakes all over the carpet!

The idea for this came from Helen of 'It's All Fiddle Fart'.  She has some excellent ideas for both Halloween and Christmas on her blog now, so go and take a look here.

* * * * *

This was a decorative Christmas magnet that I made last year out of two buttons:

It has a craft foam hat, snowflake and nose and a drawn mouth. It is finished off with a sparkly blue gem and a tied ribbon was glued on for the scarf.  A long strip of magnet was added to the back to join the buttons together and also to stick it to the noticeboard.

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave