Christmas Wreaths

The more I craft the more I love making 3d items and at the moment I am totally in love with making wreaths. Not only do I think the finished product is adorable, but I find them quite theraputic to make as they are so repetitive (you can make them watching a film). These ones I have made using a polysterene ring (apporx 10 inches), curled DSP and a glue gun. I also bought a cheap berry wreath from poundland which I dismantled to make the holly sprigs and berries on the tree.

The wreaths take apporximately 5 sheets of double sided 12x12, which I cut and curl in advance, probably 10 mini glue sticks and 3-4 hours to make.  The tree was only 2 sheets of paper and the strips are shorter so that it curls less and took about 2 hours. I hope you like them I am really pleased with them.

Thanks for stopping by
Hx

Pillow Box Advent Tree

It's December, my favorite month of the year. For the 1st I put up my little sparly tree again and hung 24 little pillow boxes on it, each with chocolates inside. I had used the advent stamp set to stamp the little christmas number scenes and the door die to create my little boxes. The boys have also got a little set of advent books which I have also hung. It looks really cute and the boys love it. I must say thanks to Zoe who had the idea of using pillow boxes for advent and also Sarah and Sandy who lent me the stamp set and die.

Have a nice day and thanks for stopping by.

Hx

Cards from the Kids

I am finding that I just do not have the time to make everything I wanted to for Christmas and so I have been trying to keep things as simple as I can and one thing I have been doing is making small simple cards for the boy's to give to their friends and treachers. Determined I am not going to go out and buy any cards (like I had to last year) here are some of the designs I have come up with:

I hope you like them, thanks for stopping by
Hx

Gifts for The Girls

Today I would like to share with you some little gifts I have made for my work colleagues in the office to go with their christmas cards. We already do a secret santa, so these are just little gesture gifts really, an office girl can never have to many note pads I say!!

They all have their initial embossed on the front so we don't get muddled whilst desk sharing. I hope you like them thanks for stopping by.

Hx

Christmas Cooking

Click on my recipes tab for some Christmas goodies from the kitchen including Gluten Free Mincemeat, pickled onions and coming soon Gluten Free Christmas Cake. Yum,Yum!

Thanks for stopping by
Hx

My Crazy Crafters

Wednesday was our crazy crafters night and we had a full house, so I have finally taken a photo of the motley crew. Here we all are very industrious with all our Christmas craft projects:

From left to right: Sarah from Stampin Sarah (SU demo), Zoe, Sandy (SU Demo), Pat and Chris. What a mess I really need to get a bigger table.
And here is what I was busy making:

Thanks for stopping by

Hx

Warm Winter Wishes

Hi all hope you are having a nice weekend. With the weekend off work I have had the opportunity to do some serious crafting. I love my Bootiful Occasions stamp set and was desperate to incorporate the winter boot into a christmas card, after several attempts of embossing the boot and colouring it in I was going to give it up as I just couldn't get it to look right. Then I made a batch of cards in cherry cobbler and very vanilla destined to have the snow globe embossed on them, but I gave the boot one more try and loved the result. Here is how they turned out:

I am really chuffed with these and since I have discovered the art of ambossing I can't stop!!! Hopefully there will be crafting on the agenda today I still have soooo many Christmas cards and tags I need to make!

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your day

Hx

Perfectly Preserved Birthday

Firstly Happy Birthday to my Mother-in-law Jenny today, wishing you a lovely day.
The day I made Jen's card my new perfectly preserved stamp set arrived,

perfect timing. Here is what I made:

I decorated a little box in the matching DSP papers and bowed it up, I am so pleased with this little project, this stamp is perfect for me as I do make my own preserves so I know I am going to use it loads and yes that clear embossing powder has been out again, but lends it self perfectly to the shine of the glass!

Hope you like it Jen, thanks for all stopping by.


Hx

Traditional Christmas Card

Here is a traditional Christmas card made using some red and brown card stock, the new holiday ornament dies and berry bouquet papers. Quite quick and easy to make, but still effective.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hx

More Christmas Tags

Today I have been tag making again and being someone who gets bored easily and has little patience it was on to a different design. I really wanted to use the cute gingerbread man in the sensational season set, I found myself reaching for my old faithful chocolate chip ink pad, when I remembered I had some card stock which was very gingery in colour, I stamped the image in versa mark and then embossed it with clear powder. As always the card curled with the heat and went all shiny, it reminded me of the fairy tale and the gingerbread man running away, so I left him with a little curl to his arms and legs. He really has come out looking good enough to eat I think!

Hope you like him, thanks for stopping by today.

Hx

Elegant Butterfly Punch

I adore the new elegant butterfly punch and I have noticed everbody is using it at the moment. I have been having a little play and made this birthday card and some simple matching wrapping paper.

Thanks for stopping by

Hx

Autumnal Embossing

I thought I would share with you a autumnal birthday card I made this week. I am yet to perfect the art of embossing, it's something I haven't done a great deal of. Technically this was a bit of a boob, but I thought the messy smudged embossing actually added to the feel of the card and I ended up quite liking it.

I would have liked the Happy Birthday to have been a little clearer, but It just shows experimenting (messy up) can sometimes come up with an interesting effect. Oh and I still love this french foliage stamp set, it really does stamp lovely.

Thanks for stopping by today

Hx

Sensational Season Christmas Tags

I realised today I never did share with you all my Stampin Up Starter Kit, which I ordered with some of my birthday money. Heres what I chose:

There are just tonnes of sets that I would like, but I really needed an alphabet and the family titles where a must, so I had to resist temptation and order with my head and not my heart.I was so excited when it arrived, but tonight has been the first real opportunity to have a play and I will show you what I have been working on in a minute. So I am once again an official unofficial Stampin Up demonstartor in Sarah's Wight Stampers team. What I mean is on paper I am a demonstaror, but I am only in it for the perks I have no intention of doing it seriously!!! If you would like to join Wight Stampers either as a pro or as an ameature like me then why not pop over to Sarah's blog.

Talking of Sarah she came to mine last night to hold my annual Christmas Workshop, thanks Sarah for a lovely demo and a great evening. I also spent the rest of my birthday money and am now awaiting another stampin up box wohoooo!!

So tonight I have been using my new sensational season set and have come up with some cute oversized Christmas tags (I have large writing).

I think the clear embossing powder on the steam works quite well, I haven't spent too much time on them as I have about another 70 to make and I am going to be on a Christmas Marathon now for the next few weeks as I have loads of projects in my brain and fear I may run out of time. Hope you like them.

Thanks for stopping by

Hx

A Homemade Halloween

I can't believe I haven't had the chance to blog since my birthday! I have been so busy with halloween. It has been a week long celebration really with the decorations going up last Sunday, welcoming trick or treaters at the door wednesday and then a family party on Saturday and in amongst that carving pumpkins and making soup, it was all worth it though, here is our homemade halloween:

Just an ordinary day in the Hobbs household really!!! I would just like to add I can't take any credit for the cakes or the face painting, that was all down to my clever sister pictured making her mummy outfit. It really was a homemade halloween from growing our own pumpkins (we didn't win the competition by the way) to the decorations, cakes and soup and the kids were in their element (me too!). I hope you all had fun too, now on to Christmas!

Thanks for stopping by.
Hx

A Decade of Gary!

On Friday me and Gary celebrated our 10th Anniversary, a lot of people wonder how I have acheived this at times I wonder myself, but in fact I think we compliment each other brilliantly. Thank you to everyone who sent a card and good wishes, we had a lovely day. Here is the card I made for him

Fortunately Gary did not opt to make my card this year as he has previously done and went to clinton's, which is just as well I don't trust him with my kit!
Here's to many more happy decades!

Thanks for stopping by

Hx

Feminine Birthday Cards

Happy Birthday today to my sister-in-law Kerry, wishing you a lovely day. Here is the card I made for her:

A must have stamp set on my SU shopping list is the "for the family" set, I love making cards for my family, but don't like not having the right special sentiment on them, so I am looking forward to getting my hands on it. I hope you like your card all the Same Kerry!

And on Friday I was wishing my friend Sandy a happy birthday and here is the card I made for her:

I do believe it is my turn next lol! There is however the small matter of a 10th wedding anniversary before that, which I still need to produce a card for, luckily my stamp share has purchased the Memorable Moments set (my choice), which I have first lend of! so watch this space.

Thanks for stopping by

Hx