Creative Endeavours

I don't need much excuse to bake, so I decided this year to bake fresh gingerbread cookies for the children's teachers, as Christmas gifts. As a friend said to me - 'They're a couple of quid in the shop!' She was quite right, but I really really wanted the teachers to know what a wonderful domestic goddess I am :) Unfortunately, no batch of cookies tasted quite as delicious as the first, test batch, that I did. I guess I'll have to wait until next year to show off at school!

Here are that first yummy batch -

I completely forgot to take a pic of the finished jars of cookies, adorned with Christmasy ribbons and tags. It's a shame, because even if they ended up not tasting that great, that at least looked well :)

Also on the agenda were some pressies. I bought a pack of 2012 little calendary thingys (do they have a name??) and I didn't realise that there were loads of them! So, everyone's been getting calendars for Christmas. These two I did as cards, killing two birds with one stone :)

Christmas Projects

At Decembers workshop with TheScrapbookStore, very talented designer Michelle Le Grue (here's her excellent blog) did a demonstration on how to create a very pretty string of Christmas Lanterns. Here it is, showcased on the Making Memories blog (here).

Normally, as much as I like a crafty project like this, I never seemed to find the time to actually do them. But low and behold, I did this time and was stupidly proud of my effort!

I've posted a few pics of my lanterns here - the pics aren't great, but in the flesh, I was very happy with the result.

It's been a while!

I haven't been blogging in a while - life has been too hectic, but I have been crafting!

A few layouts - Xmas themed. Sadly nothing original from myself, just some excellent layouts from TheScrapbookStore.ie workshops :)

Three layouts were done on the night of the Christmas workshop and in one fell swoop I got all of Christmas 2010 done. There weren't many pictures taken last year as I'd just come out of hospital having had a baba, so it did make scrapping the season a lot easier!

Signature Accent Challenge

This was a special challenge for me. For two reasons. First off - my signature accent - American Craft Thickers. I just love them. And I love pretty much all scrapbooking products. But Thickers. Loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Thickers. I may hate a layout, but pop on a few Thickers, and then, for me, it's transformed! I could have uploaded about 98% of my layouts and they would have qualified for the signature accent challenge :)

The second reason that this was a special challenge for me? Well, I was away when Shimelle was running her weekend crop, so I had to play catch up when I returned. I didn't have time to do all the challenges, so I had to pick and choose. And I choose this one because of the prize. Sure, I would love to win the prize, but that's not the reason. It was more specifically because it is Lilly Bee who are sponsoring it. Because my daughter, the subject of this layout, is called Lily Bea! Though I have been scrapbooking for about four years now I hadn't come across this company before a month or so ago when I started following Shimelle's blog more closely. I was absolutely tickled to discover I'd accidentally named her after a scrapbooking range. And I took it as a sign of my scrapbooking devotion. I'm looking forward to when I get a chance to scrap my pretty Lily Bea with the pretty Lily Bee papers :)

I'll have to go back and rename the rest of the kids with scrapbooking names - I might get away with Cosmo or Prima, but doubt any of them would fancy being called Basic Grey! Lol :)

Challenge Link

Half Page Challenge

I think (or rather, I know) that I creep a little into the top half of this 'Half Page Challenge', but you know, all the important stuff is all in the bottom half!

The challenge link

Three Is a Magic Number Challenge

I was delighted to find a picture I wanted to scrap of my daughter on her third birthday for this layout. Three is the theme for her third birthday :) So, if you look closely, there are lots of threes throughout the page.

Challenge Link

Grid It Up Challenge

Surprised myself by loving this page. It's all dull colours. It uses a photo I was going to throw away. It's not very embellished or fancy. But, for some reason, I am really happy with it! Go figure...

Challenge Link