Dear Santa.

The boys asked if I would take a photo of them in their festive hats. They are very excited because we had a leaflet put through the door that Santa is coming to our villiage in his sleigh and real reindeer. Our road is due to be visited on Dec 23rd. Enclosed was a colouring competition with all entries to be handed to Santa on the night of his visit. The boys thought they ought to make a wish list each as well . I was a bit puzzled why Norm would ask for ear muffs until I read Monkey's list!!!

You can just see behind Monkey's shoulder the christmas card that Norm received in the post from his pals Darrell, Monkey & Nigel.

Mini Christmas Wreath.

I recently entered a Homemade Christmas Decoration Swap where you had to make your partner 1 handmade decoration + 5 other christmassy gifts to be included. My partner said that she liked contemporary silver and pastel xmas themes, but also adored vintage, didn't mind paper or fabric and would leave the choice to me. This is one of the items that I made.


I was really just spud ling (well it came up on my spell checker) with some christmas material and a wooden curtain ring and wondered if I could turn it into a christmas wreath (as you do)!
So I tore a selection of christmas material off cuts into very thin 6" strips and tied them onto the ring until it was filled up. I then trimmed the strips back nearly to the knots to get the right perspective and added the little wooden birdie. A piece of the selvedge from one material and

1/2 hour later one little Mini Christmas Wreath( using vintage style materials) to hang on the tree!

Show casing on:

1st Unique Gifts: Handmade Mondays.

Made it Myself Mondays:

Entering into the following challenges:

My Mums Craft Shop: Traditional Christmas.

Charisma Cardz: No Cards.

Crafty Ribbons: Traditional Colours for Christmas.

2 Sisters Challenge: Christmas.

Dream Valley: Christmas.

Come & Get It Challenges: Red, green and your choice.

Before & After..

No WOYWW to show you as my desk hasn't changed from last week.

Cough medicine and pills is about all thats on there.

Thought I would show you instead the two advent calendars I made from the christmas squares swap that I did. We had to send 1 metre of modern christmas fabric cut into 56 5" charm squares and received back 28 different prints with 2 squares of each. I used 24 on each for the pockets so still have 8 squares left to make into something else.

This is the first one I did prior to breaking my wrist.

and the second one that I was determined to make come what may which I managed by stitching the pockets on in a continous row and using my elbow to feed material through my sewing machine!

The boys haven't done a post this week as they say they have been busy up and down the stairs all day long looking after 'The Doc' (who has just had an operation and is all 'Stitched Up') and me.

Why not pop on over to Julias blog to see what everyone else has been up too.

Button Annie.

I like making Raggedy Annies and my blogging friend Sherry likes making sculptured face dolls so when I found that Sherry was to be one of my partners (we had 3 each to make for) in the recent Button Floozies Christmas swap I just knew I had to make this for her.
The Criteria was to make a Christmas ornament to hang on a tree or to be a small shelf or table accent that is decorated with buttons. The buttons did not need to be the only decoration but should be a main or special element of the design.
I had seen a button doll on the Floozies blog and decided to adapt it to be one of my ornaments.




Her face is made from one large white button which has been sanded to give a rough finnish in order to draw her face. I incorporated the two button holes to make her eyes by cutting out small circles of felt, embroidering the pupils and then pushing through from the back to make her googly eyes. I have also given her red hair in plaits. Her legs are made from black cord and I added felt boots. Her dress is adorned with lace and trimmed with small red and green buttons to match the material. Last but not least her shrink plastic wand!! (Just had to get the plastic in somewhere).



Entering into the following.
1st Unique Gifts: Handmade Mondays.
The Crazy Challenge: Anything Goes.
Fab 'N' Funky: Anything Goes.
The Poodles Parlour: Christmas.
The Stamp Man Challenge: Create an ornament.
Craft your Days Away: Buttons or Bows.

Where there's a will there's a way!!

The Grande Finale over at the Craft Barn is to take a picture of your finished project i.e all 12
Calendar ages and post about it on your blog.
Well I tried making a mosaic up using flickr and my favourites folder but soon realised that it wouldn't work having your own pictures saved in there.
What to do?
Okay go to plan B. (always have a plan B. up your sleeve or in my case up my plaster cast).
I spent all yesterday evening copying and posting each calendar picture into word and re sizing onto the same page. Took absolutely ages as they kept jumping out of sequence on the page as I added each new month. Got there in the end though. Next print off sheet and re photograph,
upload to my pictures and post here. (Where there's a will there's a way).
I have'nt bound my pages into one claendar as each page is mounted on cardboard and has a cord attached for hanging. I want to be able to use the pages each month on my desk instead of having loads of post it notes and papers stuck on a clip board reminding me of challenges to enter and each swap (that I enter ) last posting dates.

So here are my twelve calendar pages for 2012.

Many thanks to Anne for suggesting Photoshop and Suze for Picasa. I will keep those in mind for next time.

And here's one I prepared earlier.

The final calendar challenge over at the Craft Barn is for the December page and they are asking for red/green plus pine trees and sparkle. I literately threw this one together single handed before I got plastered at the hospital this morning! (see previous post).
The tree stamps are both from Crafty Individuals and the glitter from my stash (Don't try this one at home yourself. Glue, glitter and one hand do not make for good team work).


Now if I can just work out how to do one of those nice little mosaic thingies to show all my 12 pages I will be laughing!!!!!

Normal services will be resumed asap. Good job all my Christmas makes have been finished and photographed..

Have a great weekend and don't break anything.

In The Pink!

Not been blogging this week due to unforseen circumstances. Iv'e got well and truly plastered!!

Slipped over in the wet weather on Tuesday afternoon and then spent yesterday at A &b E having x-rays taken , rings cut off and a splint put on to counteract the swelling.Went back this morning to have a temporary plaster cast put on (for 2 weeks) as the fracture/break they think I have does not show up properly on the x-ray till that time. If I'm lucky just the splint needs to go back on but if not it will be a hard plaster cast for 10-12 weeks. Eek!

Wanna see?

Well !!!!! What other colour could I possibly have had!
Thank goodness I'm left handed is all I have to say.