Serene snowflake table setting

 This year Christmas dinner was eaten in our son's garage. Yeah, I know it's sounds like a strange thing to do it was  an unconventional thing  for us to do too. But actually it made perfect sense.
In general houses in the uk are small, too small  to have the whole family round for dinner at one time.
My son suggested having dinner in his garage. 










He would build a table big enough for 11 people and carpet the floor,  put in a ceiling and lighting in the apex roof.
 I have to say he did a really good job and when it was all finished it actually felt quite cosy in there.

I would make the oversized table cloth the placemats,  napkin rings and place cards and a tree skirt to hide the stack of wheels in the corner which had the Christmas tree stuck in the middle.

The table cloth was made from a white sheet which I stamped using black and grey stazon ink pads and the serene snowflake stamp set from SU.
The placemats were A3 black card stamped using the serene snowflake stamp set  and heat embossed with silver embossing powder. The napkin rings where made from a strip of black card and a strip of mirri card, which I had embossed with an embossing folder.  The tree skirt matched the table cloth.
The name cards I have already done a post on so I won't go into those again.
With all that done all that was left to do was cook my third of the meal on Christmas day but that's another story......
Everything turned out ok in the end and I think everyone forgot we were in a garage.

Sharon's Christmas card and gift

This card was sent to me by my lovely friend and guest artist Sharon.

Here Sharon has used the lovely as a tree stamp set to create this gorgeous card.   I love the circle accent  she has created by stamping a second image, punching it out, inking the edges and sticking it over the first image she stamped using sticky foam pads and carefully matching up the designs.

A very effective card yet very easy to do.

Thank you Sharon I will be having a go at this one in the near future.

The second gift I received from Sharon was this cute sweetie holder.  Here Sharon has topped off the bag with a cute punch art Santa.

 I have to say  when this arrived I had to text Sharon and ask where she got the narrow bags from.....I was very surprised when she text back and said they're in the stampin up catalogue.

I hadn't noticed them in there, so guess what's going on my next order.

Sharon sent me a third item but  when I photographed it I hadn't noticed a piece of sticky tape that had stuck to the bottom and was poking out a little making it look a bit odd so I will re photograph that and post later.

Stamp a ma jig Tutorial

This was  a fun video to make.  But my  battery died before I had the time to  say the imaging sheet  comes with a blue sticker in the centre.

 I  strongly recommend that you leave this sticker on the sheet. You very rarely need to use the centre of the sheet for positioning your stamp. So it doesn't affect your work.  What it does do however,  is helps you find it.

Being an opaque  plastic square it is hard to see, especially if your work space is as messy as mine. I have spent many hours trying to find this sheet during and after a crafting session. (I have a tendency to use the it and  put it down rather than put it back in it's box)   When looking for it now I  look for the blue sticker rather than a opaque plastic square.

 One last thing I am curious to know why I sound like I have a lisp on this video, I didn't have one before on the original  recording, Perhaps you get a free lisp with every video uploaded on blogspot. lol

Scalloped card for an lady

Below I have posted a couple of  the cards for kids, So I thought I had better do one for a lady and here it is. the spotted background paper was created by inking the inside of my embossing folder and then running it through the bigshot. It's a great effect. I love polka dots. The rose I bought  craft a local craft shop. it was white when I purchased it, I change the colour using the bashful blue stamp and write marker pen from S.U.