Happy Holidays!

Well Santa has been and gone and the week has passed so quickly! We hosted the Christmas celebrations this year for the first time ever and were a bit apprehensive about the cooking side of things, not because we can't cook but just because we hadn't ever experienced cooking Christmas dinner. However, everything went according to plan - we weren't stressed, cool calm and collected and everything seemed to go down a storm so good practise for next year! lol Lewis was delighted with what Santa had brought (he was in Toy Story heaven!) and we now have enough musical instruments to start a band - drum kit, guitar, keyboard, saxophone. We'd like to say a big thank you to all of the lovely relatives and friends who decided to purchase these wonderful gifts. NOT! We'll be needing a set of earplugs to hear ourselves think, all good fun! I wasn't as organised as I would have liked to have been this year in the week before and leading up to Christmas as having the flu really set me back and all of my plans went out of the window, including making Christmas cards. I didn't make anything like the number I would have liked and I would have liked to spend more time on the ones I did get around to making. But hey ho, maybe next year! I'll need to start now!



Santa was very good to me in the crafting department. I was lucky enough to get a cuttlebug machine and some dies (I so wanted one - thank you Santa) some round nesties to use with it, a 1" scallop round punch, the doily lace edge punch from martha stewart crafts, a threading water border punch and a ribbon slit border punch from fiskars and a scor-pal (which hasn't arrived yet). I did pretty well, didn't I? But, my best present of all was a hot air balloon ride with Steven which I need to do in the next 12 months. This gift was from Steven. I was so chuffed and excited with this as it is something which I have always wanted to do, so my dream has come true! I can't wait to get up in the air but think I'll restrain myself until the summer months, so forgive me if I mention it quite a few times before that big day arrives. I'm so excited!



Anyway, here are some of the Christmas cards I made. The light hasn't been that great when taking photos so they're not the best quality unfortunately.



The two cards above were made using the new Sugar Nellie stamps which I bought recently: Hug in a mug and Snowflake. I also bought Daisy and Rope Swing but haven't gotten around to using them yet! The paper is from DCWV Rose Tinted Christmas. I absolutely love it, there is such a great selection of papers. The sentiment is a Studio G stamp which I bought at the Papermill shop a while back.


I made this card with a Whiff of Joy image given to me by Linda when I did a recent image swap with her. She sent me an amazing selection of images so I need to get around to colouring more of them during the holidays. I think I will need to buy some of these stamps as they are gorgeous. The snowflake dies were kindly given to me by Mar also as part of an image swap and I just love them. Now I have my own cuttlebug, I'll need to get some tips from Mar on how to ge the same as hers as I loved the sparke of the card she has used.

I made this card for Steven using an image kindly given to me by Tab when I did an image swap with her recently. She makes the most amazing cards.


I made exactly the same card as this one for Lewis as I loved the paper and the image so much. The image is a download from Pollycraft called Wilbur and Albert and the paper was from a kit by Summer Driggs called Giving.

Well, this has been a long post for me for a change. I normally don't have as many cards to show! I do have more surprisingly but they can wait for another day, maybe tomorrow. I have lots of thank you cards to make next for the lovely presents Lewis received so I have started to have a think about what I might do and I also want to get started on making birthday cards so that I have a stash and I'm not running about like a heidless chicken as I normally do! We'll see! That's the plan anyway. Tomorrow Steven and I are going to Register House in Edinburgh to do some more research into our family trees, another one of my passions but again don't get enough time to do it! I have been researching for 3 years now and still have lots to do.

Anway, I'm off now to do a bit of blog hopping and catch up with everyones news and creations. I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and that Santa was good to you!

Lainy xx