It's beginning to look a lot like... Christmas?

...and we're only just into March... still it's taken me this long to complete the five Christmas-themed layouts from the Total Papercrafts Christmas papers kit, using Jackie da Silva's layout suggestions, but I'm happy with them so that's all that counts.

The papers are Teresa Collins "Santa's List" and are scrummy - first saw them at the ATDML Autumn retreat and wasn't too sure about them... now I have used them I've changed my mind and I like them a lot! The kit had so much in it that I'm sure there's enough to do another one or two, mebbe some ATC's - or I could have a go at making some of my own Project Life cards (might stop me buying them lol....)

 My fella (face blurred by request, he wasn't looking his best!) and my ol' cat Sophie asleep by the tree - the smaller pic has Sophie trying to get under the tree bless her!

 

 

My Christmas tree lights and the crocheted angel made by my friend Ania from Poland

 

My brother and his partner with their Christmas mugs

 

 

Me and my Dad, sadly the last Christmas before he died.

 



 

The tree outside my kitchen window in the snow - shame it's not there now but it did have a lovely shape to it - unfortunately it got rather old and shaky after the autumn storms so the people opposite had it chopped down.

 

And just to change the mood, my final layout is made using Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante papers, the pic is of me at the lavender fields behind Heacham in Norfolk... printed in sepia tones as I thought it went better with the papers like this... Kit was another Total Papercrafts one but again the layout design is based on one that Jackie da Silva designed - I just went a little mad in cutting out flowers and butterflies!

 

 

And - I'm a winner again!

Don't know what I have done to deserve this, karma is obviously kicking in to treat me nicely this week after the downs I have had recently, but last nite I entered a giveaway on Craft At Home's Facebook page to be in with a chance of winning the new Cricut Mini electronic die-cutting machine - we had to answer a simple question "how big is the cutting mat?" and then say what our last craft purchase was and why we'd bought it. So I trotted out the answer as being 8.5" by 12", and that I'd bought (amongst other things) 2 pots of Claudine Hellmuth's acrylic paint...

The competition was being drawn at 9pm, and I was out at a crop in Gt Wakering, didn't get in until 10pm and leapt straight onto their Facebook page, but I didn't see any postings as to who had won, even tho I kept refreshing the page... it wasn't until just gone midnight that the message popped up on my screen (having been posted 3 HOURS EARLIER) and Oh. My. God. the winner was me...

Now I already have a Cricut machine, but the first model that came out, and it's a second-hand one at that (altho I knew the previous owner and she'd not abused it at all!) and of course the Cricut Mini was only released about a year ago, so is definitely the new kid on the block... I'm so looking forward to receiving it and playing with it.

It'll use the cartridges I already own, but you can design your cuts on your computer using Provocraft's online craft room software and then cut them out - the mat being bigger than my current one means I can cut from 1/4" up to 11.5". And designing your cuts via the computer means I can place things exactly where I want them to make the most use out of the space available.

Right, that's enough of an advert for Provocraft - but I must say a huge thank you to Craft At Home for running the competition and for randomly picking my name out of the cyber-hat - next weeks courier delivery cannot come quick enough!

Oh, and the crop I went to? it was run by Total Papercrafts, lovely kit and good easy to follow instructions altho I didn't finish it, however I'm hopefully out at another crop this Saturday (weather permitting) so will get it done then. Having not been to a crop since well before Christmas it was good to get the ol' grey cells working in a crafty fashion and not just for work purposes!