My wee angel face

Was playing around with the settings on my new toy and took this pic of wee Fayfee - I thought it was quite cute, I like the slightly grainy finish on it.

Oops, I forgot to post this....

Birthday card for my bestest friend Pamela - she of the "MORE gay cards??" fame. I got the Oscar the Grouch embellies ages ago - when i saw them I just had to have them for Pamela's card. This is the first time I've been brave enough to doodle my own sentiment on a card too. 

Xmas day exploits of the Brockie Robertsons

Well Xmas day is just a distant memory now - I know this doesn't sound very festive and good will-ish, but thank goodness!

I was up 'til 4am building the infamous dollshouse and shoving parcels in santa sacks.

The kids got mum up (see, I do have them trained you know) and there were loads of ooh's and aah's at the mountains of stuff santa had brought. All 3 were thoroughly spoiled.

Isn't that second photo of Faith funny? that was her discovering that hitting herself on the head with a reflex hammer from her doctors kit WAS actually quite painful!

And I just love these b&w pics of wee Fayfee .......

So they were still opening pressies when I had to make start on lunch and bunged the turkey in the oven. My mum and dad arrived with more huge bags of pressies and gave me a hard time for still being in my jammies - I had managed to get the kids dressed before they arrived though.

Everyone really enjoyed their Xmas lunch, but none of us were fit for trifle - which mum had made (as well as a clootie dumpling) so the kids and I scoffed it for tea.

I even managed to pour myself a glass of Chilean Merlot (my special treat to myself for Xmas) in the evening, once the kids had passed out - anyone who knows me, knows that this is probably the first alcoholic drink I've had since last Hogmanay, I'm just not a big drinker (not a recovering alcoholic lol)

ooooo I nearly forgot - I got spoiled rotten too, mum and dad gave me money to go crafty shopping and Graham bought me loads of books (including the twilight box set), cd's, a diary, notebook, calendar, mobster money box (I have a bit of an addiction to mobwars on FB), a rotating photo frame, a hat and scarf and a fantabulous new camera to replace the one Fayfee threw down the lavvy.

Right, better get on - my brothers girlfriend and my nephew are coming this afternoon, Tesco will be arriving with my groceries in the next hour and a half, I have another load of washing to do (Fayfee decided to spill her hot chocolate all over her bed last night) and I also need to organise my two PIF's (Pass It forward) so watch this space.....

Merry Xmas to you all - have a wonderful day and hope Santa is good to you.

Debz

x

Kath's super blog candy giveaway #3

Kath has really outdone herself on her latest giveaway, pop on over to her blog here and have a nosey.

Kath - dunno if I'm more excited about xmas or meeting you in the New Year :)

Woohoooo

Well, thanks for all the lovely wishes I was sent after my night from hell - Willow is much better now and we're all completely gleckit (excited in NE Scots) about xmas now.

Tesco managed to deliver pretty much all my xmas groceries today - only a couple of substitutes, nothing silly or important, so its all good!

No doubt I'll have forgotten something but its just TOUGH!

Kath just got in touch to let me know that I won one of her super giveaways - some fantastic Fiskars tools. Kath is giving away loads in the next wee while so keep glued to her blog, am right proud of her; she's a local quine and she recently won Simply Cards and Papercraft magazine's Cardmaker of the year and will be on their DT for the next year - what a woman! And I love reading her blog and seeing all her gorgeous designs - if ever I'm having a no mojo moment, she's one of the blogs I turn to for inspiration. HUGE THANKS Kath xxx

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Becks and Julian on the Creativity Life hour on QVC at lunchtime - what great chemistry.

I have QVC live up on my laptop now so I can hear what's going on while I get on with everything else I have to do. Plus the kids have commandeered the telly in the living room.

Right its time to get the wee ones ready for bed and make their hot chocolate, so I'll say cheerio for noo.

OMG...

its after 4.30am and Istill haven't been to sleep... Willow's being sick and is all moany and shivery so it doesn't look like I'll be getting my bed anytime soon.

Have emailed the school to let them know that her and Scott won't be in tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get more than 3 and a bit hours in my bed. Wish me luck :(

Brand New Challenge Blog

The Sketch and Stash Challenge blog has just launched and they are giving away some blog candy to celebrate.

The first challenge will be launched on the 5th january 2009 and I'm dying to see it - am looking forward to using up some of my stash, I'm a bit of a hoarder and like to keep pretty things rather than using them, I know the point is to use it but I know I'm not alone :)

Linda's Luscious Blog Candy

You MUST nip over to Linda's blog - she has some amazing blog candy up for grabs

fingers crossed for everyone!

Quick makes

My bestest chum Pamela (she of the "you're not making MORE gay cards are you" fame) asked me to make a couple of xmas cards for auntie and uncles for her, and I was a bit limited on time - so here are the 2 cards I made in record time.

The stamped images are 2 that was part of the PIF Iwon from Lainy, the snowman one was coloured with watercolour pencils and blended with a waterbrush, and the other image was coloured with Promarkers (seeing as they arrived this morning from Silly Monkey Crafts).

The snowman card was made out of pearlescent grey card, a piece of purple pearlescent card that was embossed with the cuttlebug snowflakes folder, a silver glitter card punched snowflake (dovecraft 3" snowflake), 3 papermania silver snowflake brads, lilac ribbon from papermania sparkly trims.

The 2nd card was again made with pearlescent grey card, and Iused lilac glitter card (DCWV glitter stack)to mat the image and punched snowflake. Lilac trim from the papermania sparkly trims, a papermania snowflake brad and the sentiment on both cards was printed from the pc using a script font.

I also decided to make some pretty tags for Scott's teachers' presents - it wasn't until I had finished them that Irealised their gifts were in body shop gift bags and already had tags attached. Not to worry... I used plain cream tags and stuck on 4"x2.5" panels of core'dinations card that had been run through the cuttlebug in the snowflakes folder (I roughly sanded 2 of them). Then attached a darker brown core'dinations card snowflake (Dovecraft 3" punch) with a turquoise snowflake shape and brad from the papermania metal shapes caddy.

When Fayfee met Santa,,,

Wee Fayfee (Faith) had her 2's group party this afternoon, and i think it was probably the firsdt time any of the kids in the 2's group had seen santa. They had played all their party games, gorged themselves with party food and finally it was time for Santa to visit... they all sang Jingle Bells, We wish you a merry xmas, twinkle twinkle little star and Jingle Bells again... then (may I just say, it was santa who ate all the pies obviously!) Santa arrived 

and all the little faces crumpled and started crying or screaming!

It was hilarious.

Anyway, most of them calmed down a bit (a few continued to be in hysterics for the duration) and Santa dished out the gifts.

Fayfee was highly delighted, but wasn't brave enough to collect her gift by herself.

Morning has broken.....

It was my mum's birthday last Friday, so it was a bit of a novelty to be making a birthday card again after all those xmas cards. Thought I'd keep it simple..... embossed with one of the cuttlebug folders, and punched various sized daisies using my woodware punches and finished the flower off with a flower shaped button and some raffia. The fabric greeting was from papermania. and of course it wouldn't be complete without some gems.

I also made a birthday card for my bestest friend, but I can't blog it until after her birthday.

We had the most beautiful sunrise this morning, the spectacular colours didn't last very long after the sun was up above the horizon, but I managed to catch it at its best....

Kath's blog Candy

Get yourself over to Kath's blog for a chance to win some fantastical blog candy, and well done to her on winning card designer of the year and a DT post on Simply Cards and Papercrafts magazine.

I'm getting tooooooooooooo excited!!

....about xmas coming.

Thought I'd share a pic of the two squatters we have currently residing in the garden...

and also a pic of the xmas card I made for my mum and dad - I used 2 different patterned papers from the Papermania Rich Purple collection, purple core'dinations card, penny black stamp, and Papermania sparkly trims and adhesive stones. The greeting was printed on the pc, punched out using a woodware scallop circle punch and then run through the cuttlebug using bthe snowflake background embossing folder.

Blog Candies

Dawny P is giving away some Blog Candy for her birthday - pop on over and take a lookie at her fantabulous blog

Woodland Elves stamps up for grabs on the Pollycraft Blog

Claire has an incredibly generous Blog Candy to give away - just take a lookie here

Congratulations to Rica on her new DT job, and she's giving away some gorgeous candy here 

Finally.......some crafting

I rediscovered my mojo this evening and have spent the whole evening putting together some xmas cards - after spitting the dummy out the other day :)

I had already sorted out the images: Penny Black's Merry Kitty and Greetings from the wise and punched them out using the biggest woodware scallop circle punch and the next size down punch was used to punch out the greetings I had printed out onto white card. So tonight I spent punching big daisies to back the greetings, and cutting circles with the x-cut shape cutter, then assembling all the bits. Adding some of the shiny new trims from Papermania.

Earlier on, the girls were playing around with a couple discarded cardboard boxes - maybe I should get them boxes for their xmas instead of any contents lol

Here's Willow looking all sorry for herself, complete with her black eye....

And Faith sporting her sister's snowman hairslides..... complete with perennially mucky face.

Xmas trees, teachers gifts, and black eyes

Just a quick update, we put the xmas tree and inside decs up on Sunday - haven't had a chance to put up the outside lights and inflatable santa and snowman yet, but will post pics once they are up.

Those are the finished teachers gifts - I made the wee boxes from whole sheets of 12x12 paper in a previous post, and to finish them off I bought some cellophane and curling ribbon on eBay. I think they look quite good.

And finally, this is Willow's black eye! No she hasn't been boxing lol she came off worst when her wee sister Faith decided to smack her with the remote control. 

What does this remind you of

Have a lookie at this jumper and tell me what it reminds you of. 

BTW Matalan have started selling some of their ranges online

Getting back to the jumper - doesn't it look like it was inspired by BG's Ambrosia collection? or is it just me?

And just so you all know, I have spat the dummy oot and will be sending out bought xmas cards this year. Have totally lost my creative mojo when it comes to xmas card making, everything I did yesterday with them looked like something my 2 year old could have done better. So, I've decided it's not worth the stress. 

Bah Humbug!!! :(

wee update for Mar.... this is the BG Ambrosia collection