"Only 2 more sleeps"

Only two more sleeps til Christmas, I have my niece Laura's daughter Xanthe and another niece Emma's daughter Lucy staying with me for a few days. They kindly wrapped some of my Christmas presents for me. The older one Xanthe loves wrapping presents and they did a great job. They are both very excited about Christmas, and are counting down the days until Christmas. I can remember being very excited about Christmas as a child, it was absolutely the best time of the year. My parents always made it so special, there were six children in my family and in the 1950's and 60's money was always in short supply. Yet as I said my parents really made it a special time for all of us. Santa's gifts always arrived unwrapped under the tree on Christmas morning regardless of how early we awoke. My mother has told me sometimes it was only a few hours after they had gone to bed that we were all awake and rearing to open our presents. In those days many of the toys that we received had to be assembled before being put under the tree, that's why my parents had only managed a few hours sleep before we were eager to wake them and get started with the serious business of opening our gifts. Pretty much every year we would ask how did they know which of the unwrapped presents belonged to each of us, we were always amazed how they could know when it was Santa that had brought them!   

Now days I know the real story of Christmas and how God allowed his son to come to earth, born of a virgin, to be our saviour and king. I am so thankful that He loved us enough to do this. Knowing this yet I still get excited about Santa coming and sharing this special time with the children.  I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and may your New Year be filled with happiness and joy.

Santa's helpers wrapping presents.

Christmas

Christmas is under a week away are you ready? I am not, I still have a few presents to buy and the wrapping of presents to be done. My tree is up and decorated, and the house is tidy. I have been really bad I haven't posted my Christmas cards yet. I love Christmas, especially seeing the excitement on the kids faces when the tree goes up and presents appear under the tree. Check out this site for some great gift packaging ideas http://blog.closetomyheart.com/2014/12/19/personalized-packaging/  Our family has our Christmas celebration on Boxing Day as it got too hard for everyone to get together on Christmas Day because both of my sisters have remarried and the kids wanted to see both mum and dad on Christmas day. This has worked really well and we have a great time together. We alternate each year between my sister's home and my niece's home.

 

Pretty Tags

I caught up with a few friends today for morning tea which extended to about 3pm. I wanted to make them a little gift and thought I would make a decorative tag for each of them. Two of them love sewing so I thought that would be the theme of their tags. The dresses and dress dummies are cut using the Artiste Cricut cartridge. The scissor charms are from the Base and Bling range. The birdcage is from the Hello Tweety Stamp Set and the bird charm is also from the Base and Bling range. The ribbon are inked using the pigment inks to match the tags. 

Congratulations

This is a rather simple card but there was something about it that really appealed to me. The flowers are heat embossed with white embossing powder and then placed on the white dry embossed card stock. A pretty little bow just finishes off the project. Now I have to wait for an occasion that calls for a congratulations card.

Secret Santa Gift

I attended a CTMH Christmas party on Monday night and had to bring a secret Santa gift. It had to be something made with CTMH products, we were allowed to add chocolates or wine if we wanted. I made 5 cards and a cute little bag to hold them, still I felt it need something extra so I added a small bottle of wine. It was a fun evening Santa arrived mid way through the evening and we had the opportunity to have a photo taken with him. If you see something you like I would appreciate a comment.

December Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to our Stamp of the Month Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop. If you have arrived here from Denise's Blog, Scrap Stamp Share http://scrapstampshare.blogspot.com/2014/11/cutie-pie-ctmh-december-stamp-of-month.html you are in the right place. If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post.

December's stamp of the Month is Cutie Pie S1412 if you spend $75.00 you can have this stamp for just $5.00 this month only.

Isn't this a fun stamp, this would be great for a variety of different themes not just birthdays or cake making. I love finding other uses for the stamps, when I saw the cake stand stamp it made me think of a birdbath. Here is how my idea looks made into a card. The flower stamps are Hostess Reward It's The Little Things B1451, the hello stamp is in A Garden Occasion A1119 and the oval around "hello"  is actually a circle from The Chantilly Workshop on the Go C1553 that I manipulated to make an oval. The grass stamp is in the Buggy Love Seasons and Nature B1441 and the birds are from Hello Tweety B1420.

 Here is another card  I made using the cupcake stamps. I saw a similar card on Pinterest, and liked the way it looks like a shelf of cupcakes. Don't these cupcakes look good enough to eat.

Please leave a comment and then continue the blog hop,  over to Patricia Manhire - Patricia Manhire's Creative Corner http://wp.me/p2MuRN-Bc